The hearing aid was contaminated, and Taki had no idea how to clean it.
She rinsed it under running water, but no matter how she washed it, the hearing aid still felt filthy beyond measure.
She scrubbed it with wet wipes, wrapped it in a bath towel, soaked it in hot water, rinsed it in cold.
But the hearing aid was still filthy.
Maybe it wasn't dirty at all... but Taki Shiina just wanted to wash it.
She realized her efforts were futile — no matter how much she cleaned it, this thing could never go back into Chiose Noshiro's ear again.
There would be germs on it, surely.
she thought.
There would be impurities, surely.
she thought.
There would be—
"What's wrong with me... how did I end up like this? I promised I'd protect Chiose, but now I can't even stand up for her when it matters... instead I've become—"
[An accomplice to Sakiko Togawa.]
Taki Shiina pounded her chest and stamped her foot, hands braced on the sink, and as she looked at the hearing aid she'd reduced to a wreck in her own grip, her mind only grew more tangled.
Had she messed up again?
Had she botched things again...
Ever since she was little, she'd messed up everything — relationships, family, personal achievements, group achievements, everything...
"Taki?"
Chiose Noshiro, wearing her spare hearing aid, was patting her wet, long hair dry with a bath towel. That faint silvery sheen caught the bathroom light and gave off a gentle glow.
"I... Little Chiose, don't look at me like this, so pathetic, I..."
"Hug... I'm sorry, Taki, I've caused you trouble... am I really such a burden?"
Taki Shiina had always known — this girl, Chiose Noshiro, could never hide what was on her mind.
Whenever something happened, she'd always blame herself first... she'd shoulder all the guilt and pressure alone.
Chiose Noshiro wore her dejection and confusion plainly across that wonderful face.
"No, Chiose, you did everything you could. It's that girl's fault. She's the one who ruined the band, she's the one who—"
"But... I..."
"Hug you — you didn't do anything wrong. Things just happened. Promise me you won't blame yourself anymore, okay?"
Taki had meant to wash up; the bathroom faucet kept running hot water, and steam curled thick around the two girls.
Taki Shiina held the girl in her arms. Chiose was still the same Chiose, but Taki felt she was no longer the same Taki as before.
Sakiko had been right.
It wasn't until Sakiko Togawa blurted out and exposed the nature of her and Chiose's relationship that Taki Shiina truly realized just how strange it was.
They were friends, best friends — but this feeling was strange.
Chiose depended on her, and she greedily savored being depended on.
Their bond wasn't so much friendship as two vampires feeding on each other's blood.
"Little Taki... I won't blame myself anymore... but aren't you blaming yourself too? More than me... I'm more worried about you."
Her soft, syrupy voice spread through the steam. Taki tried to answer, but found her throat too hoarse to speak.
"Chiose? You..."
Chiose Noshiro took the words right out of Taki Shiina's mouth. She pushed Taki toward the bathtub, step by step, until Taki was forced completely into the water.
"Chiose, what are you—"
"Taki, I think... we really are two defective things... I... I need you, I can't live without you. What about you? Can you promise not to leave me? That 'forever' you talk about — is it the same kind of 'forever' Sakiko Togawa was talking about?"
Taki Shiina's heart pounded hard. Half her body was already forced beneath the hot water.
The bathwater was scalding, but Chiose Noshiro's body heat was even hotter.
"Absolutely not! I mean a real forever, I swear it! Tell me however you want me to prove it, and I will! I'll give you forever, I'll always give it to you..."
A lifetime of friendship was no small thing to promise.
Pressed down, coerced, Taki Shiina had only her head left above the water of the tub.
It felt like she'd been pulled back to that lake from her childhood, the one where she nearly drowned.
The lake that had tangled Chiose Noshiro's and Taki Shiina's fates together for good.
"Really?"
Chiose's hands seemed to be trying to peel off Taki's clothes, soaked through with rain, tears, and bathwater, but she failed.
She failed... and then simply gave up trying.
So the two of them ended up huddled together in the tub, still in their school uniforms, wrapped in a bath towel.
Heart pressed against heart in a beautiful arc that fate itself seemed to trace, but Taki Shiina had no attention left to spare for such beauty.
Gold, red — those brilliant colors kept striking against her violet eyes, the steam still spreading, but nothing could stop her and Chiose's faces from drawing closer.
"Chiose."
Taki Shiina knew this was the moment to say something to prove her sincerity, but she didn't.
"Your eyes are so beautiful. Will you keep looking at me forever?"
Dirt still under her fingernails, Taki's fingers traced through the ends of Chiose's hair and finally came to rest on her hearing aid.
"Okay, Taki. Then will you... love me forever? Be my best friend for a lifetime?"
In the end, Taki Shiina chose to switch Chiose Noshiro's hearing aid to mute mode.
"Okay, Chiose. Okay."
"I'll love you forever. Stay with you forever. Comfort you forever. Keep my promise to you forever."
It's not out of duty.
It's simply because I love you.
Facing a defective thing like Taki Shiina — lacking confidence, lacking friendship, lacking every other feeling — how had another defective thing, Chiose Noshiro, equally lacking in confidence, in companions, in hearing... how had she not chosen to run, and instead melted into one whole with her?
"Taki..."
Chiose Noshiro yanked off her hearing aid and tossed it aside, then pulled Taki down into the water with her.
The tub wasn't large, just enough space for the two girls to lean into each other. In Taki Shiina's eyes, Chiose Noshiro kept drawing closer.
Only at the very end did Taki Shiina understand what Chiose Noshiro meant to do.
The hot water wrapped around them both. Chiose gently kissed Taki's forehead — the kiss lighter than a dragonfly skimming water, but it shook Taki's soul to its core, and lastingly so.
"I..."
"Haah..."
The girls broke the surface for air, and Taki suddenly felt full of energy.
[Chiose, you just...]
"Don't talk, Taki. Don't say anything."
Chiose's small face had gone red enough to drip, and the bashful look made Taki straighten her back.
"K... kih... kiss..." Nerves made Chiose stumble over the word, but in the end those two syllables finally made it out.
"Kiss me..."
In a moment like this, how could I not have you completely in my grasp — Taki Shiina.
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