"Little Chiose, what are you doing?"
After school was the girls' afternoon tea time.
In this country, school let out quite early, and if you had no club activities, you could run around playing everywhere until your mom called you home for dinner.
Chiose blinked her red eyes—each ringed with five slender golden circles—and at last her gaze came to rest on a crossroads not far away.
"Mm, I keep feeling like there's something incredible waiting for me at that crossroads, but both my intuition and my reason keep warning me never to go there."
[Otherwise, some trouble will definitely, definitely come knocking.]
"? Is Little Chiose's intuition accurate?! Then let's never go near that crossroads again from now on, okay?!"
Takamatsu Tomori let out an adorable, penguin-like pleading sound. She really was cute—always putting on that aggrieved, pitiful look to wheedle and cuddle up to Chiose.
Mm, it was wheedling all right—and the unconscious kind at that.
As though the two of them had already known each other for over a decade.
And it wasn't just Tomori—Taki's reaction was much the same:
"Yeah, let's take a detour from now on. I just heard a rumor on the way here too—that a suspicious person's been lurking around that area all day today. No idea if it's true or not."
"Ah, fine, I guess?" Chiose said grumpily.
These two idiots! Why were they begging her about such a weird thing? They made it sound like she was some fragile thing who couldn't fend for herself.
She was, after all, a super high school girl whose endurance and finger strength had been massively enhanced.
Right now Chiose felt a sense of powerlessness—because she knew she was strong, yet had no way to prove her true strength.
"You two! This is going too far! Hmph, once the moment is right, I'll—I'll—!"
"What is it Little Chiose is going to do?"
"I don't know! Hmph."
Even though she had no idea what she'd actually do, she couldn't lose her momentum, so Chiose planted her hands on her hips, feeling like she was positively oozing dominating presence.
"Aw, how nice—Chiose is so full of energy."
For Shiina Taki, whose head was still foggy and reeling from the nightmares that kept spreading these past few days, the ever-positive, energy-brimming Nashiro Chiose was her painkiller.
Just chatting together with her was enough to warm her heart.
"Heh heh, am I really full of energy?"
Chiose's hand, stirring her coffee, went still. Her lips parted as though she wanted to say something, but the words that reached the tip of her tongue simply refused to come out.
Was she supposed to say she was so full of energy because she'd just plucked seven years of lifespan from Nagasaki Soyo?
And the means by which she'd obtained that lifespan hadn't exactly been aboveboard, either—brimming with all sorts of unspeakable little wickednesses.
"Y-yeah, Little Chiose has always been the most energetic of us all."
In front of Tomori was her notebook; whenever she had a spare moment, Tomori would scribble and doodle on it. Sometimes poetry, sometimes little drawings.
Ah... time really did fly by; she'd almost forgotten these habits of Tomori's.
"Heh heh, energy, huh... Well, since I'm going to be your best friend for a lifetime, of course I have to keep up my own energy every single moment to keep you two idiots going."
[Someone... please take me away.]
Soyo had been lingering at the crossroads for an entire day now.
About five or six hours, maybe?
She hadn't eaten or rested, just wandered and drifted around the crossroads all alone.
During this time her mind had found a slight measure of comfort.
[By the time I came to my senses, I'd already been wandering here for three hours.]
It was a very large crossroads. Soyo stood beneath the red light.
Vehicles drove past in front of her, yet none stopped for her.
The signal changed color, the crowd began to move, and the crowd wouldn't linger for her either.
The din, the light, the passing time—none of it ever paused for even a moment on Soyo's account.
As if the whole world had never noticed she existed.
No... it would be more accurate to say, as if the whole world would never bother to notice she existed.
In this world the people who loved her were only a minority—the people who had hurt her far, far outnumbered the ones who had ever loved her.
Nagasaki Soyo was practically like a ghost of the crossroads.
The long wait left her head dizzy; the distant sun in the sky was as vicious as the setting sun over the beach in her dreams.
Once again, Soyo found herself recalling Little Chiose.
[And yet—even though I'm all alone and in terrible shape, strangely enough I don't feel uneasy.]
She wasn't afraid, nor lonely... or so Soyo felt.
She could sense Chiose-mama waiting for her not far away, and her daughter was there too.
Nagasaki Soyo was waiting for someone.
At the crossroads, waiting all the while...
....
"Little Tomori! Get some rest early, okay? Tomorrow's already Friday—don't forget, after school on Friday we're all coming over to hang out at my place!"
Chiose and Taki stood on Chiose Bridge; Shiina Taki had already walked a few steps ahead, while Nashiro Chiose was still reluctantly waving up at Tomori on the floor above.
"Okay! Little Chiose, hurry on home—the sun's about to set, so don't run into anything dangerous!"
"I know, I know—I'm not some little kid, is there really any need to worry about me this much?"
At first she'd found this kind of concern rather strange, but once she thought about how these love-starved problem children all liked to fuss desperately over the people they cared about, Chiose stopped dwelling on it.
She shrugged, caught up to Taki, and kept walking home hand in hand with the black-haired girl with the teardrop mole.
"Little Taki, your route home clearly isn't the same as mine—so why do you insist on walking me home?"
"Because..."
This was probably the moment to say something touching—ideally something that would boost Chiose's affection for her.
But Taki didn't want to do that.
Behind them was the setting sun; before them lay an orange world.
She didn't want to resort to all sorts of schemes—she only wanted to meet Chiose's true heart with her own true heart.
With anyone else Taki wouldn't dare do this, but with Chiose she could.
Chiose had always been someone she could trust without the slightest reservation.
And so, a ripple of light flickered for a moment in the eyes of the head-bowed Taki.
"Because I really want to stay by your side forever. You're my best friend... and also the person who's been the kindest to me... Sorry for suddenly saying something so strange, but I really did want to tell you all this... Little Chiose..."
Shiina Taki turned to the side, and her other hand—the one that wasn't being held—reached out to grasp Chiose's wrist.
Their gazes collided in a moment that was brief yet eternal, purple and red weaving together the ripples of their fate.
[This time, I absolutely cannot let it slip away.]
"Eh?"
"Little Chiose! Please, become my companion for life—I'm begging you!"
"Pfft, mmgh!" Chiose didn't pull free from Taki's grip; she tilted her head, gathering her words, trembling with laughter at the tease. "Do you even need to say something like that? Honestly, aren't we already friends for life?"
Even though they'd only known each other a few days, they seemed to be getting along incredibly well.
"I—! Cough, cough..."
Whether it was from the tint of the setting sun or because she was truly embarrassed, a blush spread across Taki's pretty face.
[So cute, Taki.]
Chiose stared at Taki without blinking, making the other girl's cheeks flush even redder.
[A single bite of her would surely taste delicious too, wouldn't it?]
____
________________________________________
💖 Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 50 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter to warm your hearts.
🚀 Community Reward: If we reach 20 supporting members, we'll have a +5 chapter marathon across all stories! The romance won't stop.
👻 Come to our secret corner: Search for GirlsLove on (P). You know that's where the magic happens... 😉