Nijika set down the bulging shopping bags in her hands, then took the items out one by one, stuffing the ingredients into the already empty refrigerator, replacing the worn-out rag with a new one, and filling the nearly empty detergent bottle with a newly purchased bulk-sized refill...
Although none of these counted as major events, these trivial daily chores, when added up one by one, became quite a hassle and occupied a significant amount of time. In fact, besides studying and practicing the drums, most of the girl's time was either spent on Kessoku Band related matters or consumed by these daily household tasks.
However, the girl had no resistance to this. After putting the house back in perfect order, she wiped her sweat, surveyed the room, and nodded with her hands on her hips, full of a sense of accomplishment.
"Great, everything is fine now."
The girl's parents had passed away very early, and she relied on her older sister for survival. However, because her sister Ichiji Seika was hopelessly unsuited for housework—especially cooking—Nijika had already taken on the burden of the household chores when she was very young.
By now, she had long since grown accustomed to it.
"For today... hmm, I don't really want to make a dish that is too extravagant. Didn't Big Sister say a couple of days ago that she wanted to eat Paella? I just restocked the shrimp and clams, ok. As for spices, there should still be some saffron at home, right?"
There is quite a big difference between Paella and a so-called Donburi; it isn't finished just by directly covering rice with seafood. In fact, compared to "fried rice" or "rice bowls..." the final product of Spanish Paella is somewhat harder to describe. People who like it will like it very much, while those who hate it will probably feel that the rice inside isn't even cooked through, just like undercooked rice.
However, the Paella of the Ijichi household had been improved by Nijika; at least it could be considered a version that matched Ichiji Seika's tastes. It was just a bit troublesome to make.
But in order to reward her sister who had been busy lately, Nijika still put all her heart and soul into making a pot of Paella.
"It seems like there are no live shows to watch at STARRY today? I wonder when Big Sister will be back..."
After finishing the things she needed to do, the girl curled up lazily on the sofa, propping up her cheek and listlessly watching the sky outside gradually darken, talking to herself with a bit of worry.
After all, rumors about a roaming murderer have been quite popular lately. Although the last sighted location was in the Chiba area, to be honest, in this era, any place that can be reached within an hour or two by train can be considered within the "nearby" category.
As expected, it would be better for her to head to STARRY in a bit and come back with her sister. After all, even if they encounter danger, two people will always find a way...
Nijika looked at her own arms.
She didn't know if it was because she had been constantly carrying Hitori lately—that child always collapsed on the ground twitching for some mysterious reasons, and to avoid causing trouble for others, she, as the leader of Kessoku Band, naturally had to be responsible for recovering her—Nijika felt that her arm strength seemed to have increased quite a bit. Some songs that were originally very strenuous to play had recently started to become easy...
"Mm, but compared to a boy like Asakura-kun, they should still be considered quite thin, right?"
Although her arm strength had been trained, which made the girl happy since it was helpful for the band, it would be a bit upsetting if her arms became thick as a result.
"As expected, it's still better for girls to be slender, although there really aren't any particularly slender ones in Kessoku Band..."
Thinking of this, Nijika couldn't help but recall the girl she met on the way back from the supermarket.
The other party looked to be about the same age as Hitori, but her expression was rather... ethereal? Hollow? Or maybe natural? In short, she was very distinctive, so much so that when Nijika ran into her, she thought she had met some strange character and was startled...
However, unlike Bocchi-chan, although the other party also seemed to have a bit of social anxiety, she still took the initiative to stop her, saying something like "This child wants to go to your side" and forced a stone into her hand.
After saying something like that, shouldn't she have handed over a card instead? What's the deal with a stone...
That being said, even if Nijika had the thought "I'll find a chance to throw the stone away on the road..." in the end, she unknowingly brought it home anyway.
Thinking of this, the girl pulled that small pebble out of her pocket.
It was a crystal-clear little pebble, slightly larger than a fingernail, black, with strange patterns on it that she didn't know were naturally formed or manually drawn. Holding it in her hand felt icy and cool, giving a strange sense of comfort.
"If I look closely, it's actually quite pretty... It's a pity the goldfish caught at the festival was already kept until it died by Big Sister, otherwise it could have been put in the fish tank as a decoration..."
The girl muttered as she curled into a ball on the sofa, but her gaze involuntarily became more and more focused on that little stone.
With it, various thoughts came flooding in, making the girl's head feel a bit dizzy.
"Mama... Papa..."
She clearly should have let go of it long ago, but at this moment, the faces of the relatives she had lost resurfaced in her mind. However, whether it was her father or her mother, their images were no longer as clear as when she was a child.
Time erases everything coldly and cruelly, even the memories she values most and regards as treasures.
Will there come a time a bit later when she even forgets what her parents originally looked like? Nijika suddenly had such a worry in her heart.
Right at this moment, a certain voice suddenly sounded in the girl's ear, as if seeping in from a void abyss.
That voice was viscous and eerie, carrying the stench of rotting stagnant water and a distorted low murmur, like countless indescribable things slowly wriggling in the depths of her consciousness.
「Do you want to see them one more time?」
"Eh?" Nijika's body stiffened.
She hurriedly looked around in all directions, but couldn't even see a single figure.
The night deepened outside the window.
"An hallucination?" The girl muttered in confusion.
However, in the next instant, Nijika only felt the strange stone in her hand begin to heat up. Before it could become hot enough to burn her hand, just like an effervescent tablet dropped into a water glass, after hissing out a burst of white mist, it simply dissolved into thin air. The entire process lasted only a few seconds, so much so that the girl didn't even have time to react and throw it away.
Taking its place was a figure emerging from that white mist, one that Nijika felt was inexplicably familiar.