I doubted the volume of my voice would have any effect on Chika’s world, but still I brought my mouth close to her ear, singing softly as I had before. I don’t even know why.
If my nose was to collide with her ear on that night, I would hardly be flustered about it. We had already confirmed one another’s existences and then some.
I was both ashamed and happy to be nervous thinking about such things. Inside my heart, I would not let myself be swayed by anything but my feelings for Chika.
How truly happy this made me.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me know if I’m too close, or my voice is too loud.”
I brought my hand to her ear and drew my face closer.
“Okay.”
Once at an appropriate distance, not so close that my nose would hit her, I positioned my lips and softly inhaled. Truthfully, the oxygen from that breath should have been used to sing Chika her song, but before I did so, I suddenly thought of all the things that had been lingering in my mind until now which I was finally able to put into words.
“Thank you, Chika. I’m so glad that I met you.”
That low whisper used up all my breath, and I frantically took another. I could tell by my fingers cupped beside her ear that she was nodding, even with her eyes closed.
“Me too.”
There was a pause. I waited to hear her voice, floating out of the darkness as ever, say more.
“I’m glad I met you first.”
I probably should have just let that slide, should have thought nothing of it.
I pulled my fingers away from her ear and moved my face back from hers, sitting up straight once again.
“…Kaya?”
I feel like I would have been able to process this more readily if it were a normal conversation, but for some reason, there was a lump in my throat.
“Kaya, what’s the matter?”
“Chika.”
As I spoke her name, whatever was lodged in my throat forced its way up onto my tongue. I chewed it, tasted it, and rolled it around, trying to determine what it was. Several seconds later I finally identified it, but I was lost for several seconds more, wondering whether it would be right to confirm this with Chika—or no, perhaps that’s too rational a way to put it, whether I should finish chewing this thing and spit it out.
Eventually, the unpleasant sensation in my mouth won out.
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean about what?”
She looked at me, her head tilted.
I grew afraid.
“About meeting me.” It was obviously a groundless fear, but a fear, nonetheless. “You said ‘first.’”
No.
I had so, so much time to think about things. Truly. I honestly had more than enough time while I awaited her reply to put my feelings in order, collect my thoughts, and prepare myself to accept what might come.
It was Chika and I who rendered that time unusable.
We had gotten too close. Here, in this shelter. In the months since we had met.
Chika’s eyes quivered, and being who I was, I spotted agitation among all the emotions conveyed by just those two lights. Or perhaps it was something that even others could have seen.
“Are there others besides me?”
“What…do you mean?”
“Who you meet here.”
If we had never touched, we could have both stayed in our own delusions.
“You’re the only one here.”
Here.
“Are there other places? That connect to this world?”
“…I still haven’t been able to determine if it’s the same world as yours.”
Which meant…
“But based on a number of ××××, I think it’s possible it might be the same world.”
“Where?”
“As I mentioned before, there are a number of safe houses. This is just one of many.”
“Wait, so you…”
“Kaya, what’s wrong?”
What did she mean, “What’s wrong?”
I felt my fingertips going numb. I opened my mouth, realizing I needed to raise my body temperature.
“How could you hide this from me, Chika…?”
“I didn’t mean to hide it from you.”
“Then why were you so disturbed when I asked you about it?”
“I don’t even really know, but I mean, if I was disturbed—”
“You were.”
“If I was, it was because you were making such a scary face at me.”
The shape of her eyes changed. It was obvious she was troubled. Though I knew this, the things I wanted to say had their own mass, and they spilled out from my mouth.
“Through all of the conversations we had, why would you never once mention that?”
I should have immediately checked myself at the mention of my frightening expression. You could even say that would have been the best course of action, but I only understood that in hindsight.
Chika thought long and hard, then started in a tone that anyone would peg as making an excuse, “Well…in part because it just didn’t come up. Also, she told me early on that she didn’t want me to tell people that she was in that place. As we talked it over, we confirmed that there was no way for me to tell anyone exactly where she was, and I didn’t think there was any reason to tell you anyway, so I didn’t bring it up.”
Learning that it was a woman did not bring me any measure of relief. Chika was talking to a human other than me. There was another human looking at those eyes and nails. Another person who had proof that Chika’s world existed.
“Of course there was a reason to tell me. What about all the connections between this world and yours?”
“But didn’t you say you wanted to talk about us, instead of about our worlds?”
“That’s not the same thing!” I said, raising my voice. Never had I imagined Chika would argue something so pedantic.
“Kaya, what’s going on? You’re acting strange.”
“I…”
Something occurred to me. Chika had shown me a glimpse of this new truth before, perhaps.
Body temperature.
Uniforms.
Of course. Come to think of it, I had never given her any details about what a dog was, and yet she had known that it was an animal that lived with humans.
Once, she had talked about an accessory that I had no recollection of. Could she have been telling me to keep my voice down because this other person spoke loudly?
This whole time…
Chika said that my expression scared her, but I knew that what was inside me right now was not anger or hatred but sadness and loss. There were doubtless other emotions wrapped up in there as well—anger, and hatred, and love, and jealousy—and perhaps she could see all of them, but it was no trifling thing.
I was sad.
“You really are special to me, my one and only,” I croaked.
“And I think of you as my one and only, as well.”
“And what about that other person, whoever she is?”
“You don’t stop being special just because there’s someone else.”
I knew that what she was saying was right, but that was only the meaning of her words, seen through a framework of ethics and morals. The senseless thoughts, feelings, emotions of the human mind did not fit into that framework. There was no way she could possibly understand.
Perhaps romance was not the only thing that was beyond her comprehension. Maybe she could not understand attachment to others at all.
“That’s not something people can accept that easily.”
Her eyes quivered again. Putting my own disturbed feelings aside in favor of hers didn’t feel the least bit justifiable.
“Would you really stop being special just because I met someone else?”
I could not immediately deny this.
“You’re the only one I’ve tried out rohmanse with, though.”
As I tried to put the feelings squirming deep inside me into words, waiting for them to come together properly, the two lights narrowed.
“I see. Kaya, you…”
I looked at her and could not breathe.
“…were just pretending.”
Her smile was not one of happiness, of joy. I felt that so starkly that my heart and body ached.
I wasn’t.
I absolutely wasn’t.
That wasn’t true.
I was glad that this was something that I could immediately, distinctly deny, but the sound I should have been making didn’t reach my ears. My lips quivered, and my teeth didn’t seem to fit together right. I couldn’t breathe or speak. I should have at least just shaken my head in response, but somewhere between the light that blinded my eyes and the voice that deafened my ears, I had forgotten even how to render a denial.
Chika spoke in my stead.
However.
“You met ××, and just lov ×××××× yourself, ××××n’t you?”
I couldn’t hear her.
“×××××× sad××××, even if ×××××××× kis×× and the song ×××××× still special but you ××××××××××.”
I couldn’t hear her at all.
“How could ×××××××××××××× belie×××××× liked ××××××××××××××××.”
“I can’t hear you.”
Why? I thought that the only things I couldn’t hear were words I didn’t know, concepts that didn’t exist in my world, but I couldn’t make her out at all. I had no idea what she was trying to say, not in the slightest.
As I sat there, dumbfounded, her eyes pulled away from mine. They moved up high and then looked at me.
There was a deep sadness in them.
“I need to ××××.”
Of course I couldn’t hear her, but in all the months I’d known her, with the connection that we had forged, I knew that her standing up meant that it was time for her to leave. So, I wrung out the last little bit of air left in my lungs to at least tell her, “Try…not to get caught.”
Though she was still troubled, she seemed to respond to my words, but it was caught up in the noise and I had no idea what she actually said.
Soon it was dark, and as usual, I was alone. Unlike usual, however, I could not bring myself to stand from the bench. Instead, now that I sat there alone, I was able to unpack my feelings, one my one.
Then I realized the true impact of what I had done.
I wanted to explain myself, to apologize immediately, but Chika was already gone.
All I had to do was wait a few more days.
I should have done so at any point before then, but I had been at the mercy of a passion so strong I thought my whole body might burn to ash.
Naturally, feelings of regret or remorse aren’t enough to actually kill you, but from then on I was plagued by the feeling that I truly might die.
No one can die from just an emotion. It would not be until much later that I realized this.
Realizing it did not settle my feelings, though.
That time never came.
I never saw Chika again.
The person who had cherished me as her one and only vanished into the darkness, and the color never returned to my world.