The afternoon sun of spring, like melted honey, lazily painted the window frames of Hazawa Coffee Shop.
The air was filled with the burnt aroma of roasted coffee beans, the warmth of pastries, and a sense of new anticipation.
In this gentle light and shadow, several girls sat around a long table, their threads of fate quietly intertwining, all for a common wish—to form their own band.
Togawa Sakiko held Takamatsu Tomori's wrist, gently seating her beside her. Tomori was still a bit timid; under her grayish-purple short hair, her orange-pink eyes blinked, like a startled fawn.
Sakiko herself sat next to Tomori, her light blue twin pigtails gleaming softly in the sunlight, her eyes full of encouragement and reassurance for her friend.
Across the long table, Wakaba Mutsumi sat quietly, her light green long hair falling over her shoulders, her amber eyes calm and unruffled.
Next to her was Nagasaki Soyo, with her gentle brown long hair and a perfectly amiable smile on her face. And beside Soyo sat Shiina Taki, who had arrived first and was waiting, her black long hair like a waterfall, but her expression was slightly tense.
After school today, Sakiko and Mutsumi had specifically taken Soyo, who was from the same school, to Tomori's apartment building to pick her up.
Along the way, Sakiko tried hard to liven the atmosphere, and Soyo spoke gently. Although Tomori remained silent, her constantly tensed shoulders seemed to relax slightly.
At this moment, sitting directly opposite Tomori was the black-haired, straight-haired girl she was completely unfamiliar with—Shiina Taki. So Tomori's gaze, filled with pure curiosity, fell upon Taki.
"Hazawa Special, mango juice, Dimbula milk tea, and two mocha coffees, right~?" The brown-haired female barista approached with a lively smile, confirming the order in a gentle voice. Her café apron did not conceal her radiant vitality as a band girl.
Shiina Taki's gaze, however, was magnetically drawn, firmly locked onto this barista. She seemed to hold her breath; this was the keyboardist of Afterglow, the band she admired!
It wasn't until the other person finished confirming and turned to leave with a smile that Taki suddenly snapped back to reality.
Looking up, her eyes met Takamatsu Tomori's clear, direct gaze from across the table.
Tomori seemed to have been watching her. Taki's cheeks instantly flushed crimson, and the awkwardness and shyness made her hastily avert her gaze, then force herself to turn back, propping her chin, trying to keep her voice steady:
"My name is Shiina."
"Taki's older sister is a very impressive person~" Nagasaki Soyo interjected at the opportune moment, her smile gentle, her voice like a smoothly flowing stream.
"While serving as the wind ensemble club president, she also participated in a local orchestra and won first place in a competition."
Her tone carried natural admiration, and her gaze swept over everyone, as if she were merely sharing a well-known, admirable fact.
However, the focus of the conversation subtly shifted, deviating from Taki herself, who was sitting beside her, and turning towards that distant and excellent "sister."
'It's like this again...'
Shiina Taki's fingers, propping her cheek, tightened slightly.
She lowered her head, her black hair falling over her forehead, obscuring her suddenly gloomy brows and concealing the stinging pain churning within her heart.
'Why bring her up suddenly?'
'I came here precisely to escape that label.'
'Sister's matters...'
'What do they have to do with me, who is sitting in front of you?'
A surge of vexation instantly clogged her throat.
Normally, she might grit her teeth and swallow this anger. In her world, there was no shortage of gazes and words that compared her to her sister, and she was already tired of arguing and explaining repeatedly.
But this time was different.
The "vexation" that had been lingering in her heart since yesterday, mixed with the unease from the infirmary incident, worry about Umiri's condition, confusion over "that man's" words, and uncertainty about her own future… all of this, like suppressed magma, was completely ignited at this moment by Soyo's casual words. The burning emotion scorched her rationality in her chest, almost erupting from her bitter throat.
"Do you believe in "Gravity"?"
"!!!"
The magma, on the verge of eruption, was suddenly frozen by a clear, low whisper.
That man's voice—the golden-haired man's calm yet strangely penetrating voice—resounded unexpectedly and incredibly clearly in the depths of her mind.
More precisely, this voice was not an echo from memory.
It was so real, so close, as if the speaker was standing behind her at this moment, leaning slightly, his lips almost touching her earlobe, clearly delivering every syllable into her eardrum, with a chilling sense of tangibility.
"Do you believe that this "encounter" has meaning?"
The voice grew closer and closer, so close that Taki even had a ridiculous illusion—that ethereal figure seemed to be overlapping with the contours of her own body, and a cold will permeated her limbs and bones.
"What truly brought them to your side, was it the shallow definition of you passed by word of mouth?"
"Or was it the genuine "Gravity" generated by your "Self"?"
"I…"
Shiina Taki opened her mouth, but no sound came out, her throat as if choked by an invisible hand.
She could not answer this core-hitting question; the swamp of inferiority in her heart still firmly dragged her down, blocking her path to her true self.
She was still treading water, trapped in the enormous shadow of "Shiina Maki's younger sister."
But right there, in that spot constrained by inferiority, a strange feeling quietly arose.
She couldn't describe this feeling in words at first.
Perhaps… it was like a fledgling bird desperately struggling in a storm, flapping its fragile wings, and at the moment of exhaustion, just before plummeting into an abyss, it was suddenly lifted by a powerful and cold current of air.
That wind was cold, rough, and even carried an unknown sense of danger, but it indeed pulled the fledgling away from the brink of being shattered to pieces.
At this moment, what this fledgling felt was a cold… "peace of mind" after surviving a catastrophe.
Just as Taki was immersed in this sudden feeling, her mind blank—
A soft, slightly cool small hand gently covered her cold, stiff hand.
"Taki, sit."
Wakaba Mutsumi had, at some point, left her seat and silently moved to Taki's side.
Her pale amber eyes calmly gazed at Taki's somewhat unfocused eyes, her small hand enveloping Taki's palm, gently pulling her, who had stiffly stood up at some unknown point, back into her seat.
"Ah… sorry… thank you."
Taki suddenly snapped back to reality, only then realizing her impropriety.
Under the gazes of Sakiko, Tomori, and Soyo, a mix of concern and confusion, she awkwardly sat back down, her cheeks burning, and quietly thanked the girl beside her.
Mutsumi merely shook her head gently, without any extra expression.
She released her hand and walked back to her seat as silently as a quiet leaf.
Only as she passed behind Taki, her footsteps seemed to pause for an extremely brief moment. A whisper, like a feather brushing an ear, clearly entered Taki's ear:
"The scent on you is very unique."
The voice was so light it was almost an illusion, yet it carried an inhuman keenness.
Taki subconsciously clutched the pendant beneath her collar; the crystal shard's touch seemed to penetrate the pendant, reaching her skin, silently echoing Mutsumi's words.
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