I had somehow expected her to pick some nursery rhyme or an old standard, but apparently it was nothing more than a song she had happened to hear. Still, if I thought really hard about it, it wasn’t all that strange that Chika, who had little interest in the place she was born or even in her own life, would not have chosen something simply because she knew it from childhood.
“Could I hear a song from your world too?”
“Yeah, sure.”
I accepted this request readily, having already suspected it might come. There was no reason for me not to honor our equal exchange.
“Guess I should do something in the same vein?”
“Sure, just as long as you don’t sing too loud. Though I guess you’ll probably be fine.”
True enough, I rarely spoke very loudly in the first place.
“Okay. Could you point to your ear, though?”
“Right here.”
The light of her eyes disappeared, replaced with a single light that was probably her index finger hovering at a place just below my seated eyeline. She had likely closed her eyes so that I could see the placement of her nails more distinctly.
I realized that hesitating would do me no favors, so I decided to get it over with before my heart could consume my whole body and halt me in my tracks. Previously, I had been startled by how close she was to me, but I would have to get just as close to her if she was going to hear me at the same volume. I brought my face closer to where her ear was.
I turned toward my only landmark in the darkness and cautiously drew nearer. I kept my breaths shallow so that she wouldn’t sense my discomfort.
This should be the right place, I thought, just a moment too late, as the tip of my nose collided with something soft.
“Oops.”
I quickly drew back, only to see her looking at me, slightly wide-eyed.
“What’s up?”
“Er, I’m really sorry. I couldn’t tell how close I was, so I guess I ran into your ear or something.”
“Is it that rude to touch someone’s ear in your world?”
“It is—or at least, I figured you wouldn’t like it?”
“I was a little surprised at you touching me, but I knew you were getting closer so I wasn’t surprised it happened. Plus, it’s not like you’re a stranger, or someone I hate.”
With that, she got back into position.
“If it’s hard for you to judge the distance, then maybe we should just have you confirm where my ear is with your finger.”
I hesitated for two full seconds at the suggestion, then timidly reached my hand out to the place she indicated. Careful not to poke her with my fingernail, I moved cautiously forward until I felt something come into contact with my fingertip. I wasn’t certain which part was her ear, so, despite it feeling a bit inappropriate, I traced my finger along the spot. As I moved it down, I felt something cold and soft—her earlobe, probably. That meant that what I felt before was probably the cartilage of her upper ear. Her ears were the same shape as a human’s.
I gripped her ear with as little force as I possibly could, in the spot where I figured it would be most difficult to cause her any pain. Though I couldn’t see it, her body was very evidently there. The fact that I couldn’t feel her hair meant that it was probably cropped short or perhaps tied back in a ponytail. It was even possible that she didn’t have any hair at all. Given that suddenly groping her head to confirm this would be a huge faux pas—at least in my world—I decided to just wait until there was an appropriate time to ask her.
Chika lowered her hand from her ear. Using my own hand as a guide, I brought my mouth close to her ear, careful not to collide with it this time.
“Okay, I’m gonna sing now.”
It was obvious that I should whisper, but my own bashfulness plugged up my throat. I turned away and coughed once, then released her earlobe.
I had only ever sung in front of others in music class, or when I was dragged along to karaoke back in junior high while I was actively trying to make new friends. I never thought the day would come when I would be singing for just one person.
Ideally, I should have sung Chika a similar current popular song, but music for me was nothing more than background noise that came through the radio. Still, it would feel wrong in this exchange for me to offer up a nursery rhyme or similar, so instead I chose something I recalled from back when I was pretending to actually enjoy music. She would get bored if I went too long though, so just the chorus.
Once I was finished, I pulled immediately away from her ear. She slowly opened her eyes. Asking her for her impressions would be like requesting an evaluation of my singing voice, so I simply waited to hear what she would say. Deep down, I did wonder how my voice felt to her.
“Your voice is clear and quite powerful,” she said finally. “I can really feel your heart in it.”
I highly doubted that my heart had actually closed the gap between our bodies and spoken to Chika, but I was still stunned.
“As for how it sounded, it’s like you said before. I could understand all the words perfectly, but this music itself sounded pretty strange to me. I’m glad that I could understand it pretty well from the tone of your voice.”
“Ah, yeah, me too.”
I was a coward. Earlier, I had not conveyed exactly what I’d felt in her voice. It felt like, if I spoke about the same things that Chika had, it would only make the fact that I saw her as herself that much more intense. In a fit of cowardice, I had kept it to myself. How could I possibly tell her that in the wake of what she had said to me? I had no idea what my voice actually sounded like, but it certainly wasn’t clear or powerful.
“The way people in your world arrange the words in your songs is really pretty, but it’s like nothing that exists in my world. I guess what’s significant is the music,” she continued. “Like you said though, it’s a weird sensation, but if I tried to sing it back right now, I don’t think I’d be able to vocalize it easily.”
“I see. So I guess that means there’s not much point in songs, either.”
“Guess not. It was fun though, so it meant something to me at least.”
If I had been able to tell her “Me too,” then perhaps I could have smiled along with her, but that was the one sentiment I couldn’t voice.
“Well, guess there’s no sense in us trying it over and over.”
It was true. Just as there was no point to music that we had tried to hear but knew we couldn’t comprehend. If there were songs with lyrics incredibly important to our worlds, we could simply tell each other those lyrics. There was no need to hear each other sing anymore. Still, it felt unfortunate to me that this might be the last time I got to hear Chika sing.
“Do you ever wish that things around you were different?”
The question came suddenly from right beside me, still at singing distance. I swiftly banished the thought that we might never sit this close again either.
“I don’t really think much about what’s around me. People should do whatever they want.” It was a bit dull of me, but honestly, as long as they didn’t interfere with me, I didn’t care how other people wanted to live their lives. As long as they didn’t bother me, it was none of my business if they lived or died. “Why do you ask?”
“Because like I said before, it seems like you have some sort of objective. I have no idea what effect we can have on each other’s worlds, but I was thinking that I wish there was something I could do in this world for you.”
“…Wh—uh, thanks.”
Chika was kind, though I knew that kindness didn’t make someone less boring.
“Do you have something like that? Something around you that you wish was different?”
“Hmm…”
From this distance, I could feel the air of her hesitation down to my core.
“Like you, I just want everyone to live their own lives. As long as we don’t bother each other too much. So, if there’s anything at all, I guess it’s the ××××?”
I’d noticed that lately there were fewer words from Chika that I couldn’t hear. Perhaps she had purposely been avoiding words that might be hard to comprehend.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that last word there.”
“It’s an animal, the kind that bit my leg. There’s a pack of them in the neighborhood, and sometimes they howl at me or chase me. I sort of wish they would just go away.”
It was the fault of my slow imagination that I thought for even an instant that it seemed like a rather precious worry. The size or ferocity of these animals was not something I could possibly surmise. Chika didn’t sound particularly emotional about it, but there was a chance that was merely out of fear.
I wished that there was something I could do for sweet, gentle Chika. That was a completely normal human emotion to feel.
“But that’s all. Beyond that, I have my room, and the time I spend with you and my other friends, and I would never want that to change.”
Of course, this was Chika, who lived with ever-present war. I was sure that she would have hoped for the wars to end, but of course there was nothing that I could personally do about something as large-scale as that, so I guess I was a little relieved that she hadn’t said it. I didn’t like to be reminded of how powerless I truly was. I was a coward. I had been this entire time.
“I’ll try to think whether there’s anything I can do about that animal. I want to make things around you better,” I said, though I had absolutely no idea what to do.
“Thank you. Still, even if you don’t do anything, the fact that you’re there for me means something. I want you to know that.”
When she said that to me, I knew for certain: I had no idea how much longer I could hide my feelings.