I tell myself I'm not doing this because Kashiwagi told me to.
I say it out loud as I cut through the side street, because saying it makes it real, right? "I'm not doing this because Kashiwagi told me to." The sky is the soft blue before night. It smells like laundry and somebody's curry. My breath fogs a little when I talk to no one. I must look weird, a girl in her uniform with a plastic bento carrier clutched like a mission.
The onigiri are still warm. I made too many on purpose.
It's been a week of "Where's Arima?" and "Has anyone seen Arima?" and the answer changing every class. Absent. Present for roll call, gone by fourth period. Present for lunch, gone by gym. Teachers are careful with him now. Students aren't. Gossip slides around like chalk dust: he's sleeping in nurse's, he's cutting to see a girlfriend, he's sick, he's just weird. Watari laughs it off until the laugh runs out. Nao pretends not to care but tells me every schedule slip she notices. And me? I keep telling myself, He'll be fine. He's always fine. He's Kousei.
Except he isn't always fine, and I know that better than anyone.
I turn from the front of my house and turn to his. It was dark without a sound coming from it. I walked the short distance between our houses up to his door.
I buzz. No answer.
I press longer. Still nothing.
"Idiot," I mutter, more prayer than insult. I try the knob because I have known him long enough to expect the worst idea. It turns. Of course it does.
It's cold inside. Not the temperature — the feeling.
Everything is so clean....
It wasn't the "my mom came over" clean. Not "I shoved things under the bed" clean. It's lined up. The shoes by the door, paired. The umbrella stand with exactly two umbrellas, handles facing the same way. The shelf with uniform space between the books. The piano lid shut so smoothly it could be a photograph. No loose page on the music rack. No pencil. No hair tie. No hoodie thrown over a chair. The kind of order you get when you're trying to keep from falling apart.
I step out of my shoes and the floor answers with a small echo. There's a faint smell of soap and citrus and something that's trying to hide something else. For half a second I think cologne. Then I catch the sour-sweet edge under it and my stomach tightens. What was that..?
"Arima?" I call, soft. Calling him by his family name is habit in my mouth. Saying "Kousei" is something my heart does on its own. "Hey. It's me."
No answer. I walk through the living room and see him.
He's curled on the end of the couch, one arm dangling, his head tipped back so his mouth is barely open. His hair is too long. His glasses are on the table. There are papers everywhere — pages covered in neat English and symbols and little diagrams like raindrops organized into a storm. No treble clefs. No fingering notes. No metronome numbers circled in red.
My chest does a quick, stupid panic beat. I kneel and put a hand on his shoulder. His skin is warm. He breathes in and makes a small sound like when you wake up in class and pretend you didn't.
"Kousei," I say, because the fear needed the name to calm down. "Hey. Wake up. You didn't answer the door."
His eyelids work like they're heavy. He blinks up into the half-dark and finds me, and the line of his mouth changes from nothing to the softest curve.
"Tsubaki," he says. His voice is low and warm and sleep-scratched. It's such a simple relief that I almost cry out of anger. "What time is it?"
"Time to stop being a corpse," I say, and I stand so the anger has a job. I set the container on the table with a clack. "You scared me, you idiot. Your door was unlocked."
"Sorry," he says, and he means it. His apology is never dramatic. It slides out and makes a little place for itself.
He rubs his eyes. His hair falls into his face, messy and soft and entirely wrong on him.
"Up," I say. "Sit up. Eat something."
He pushes himself higher and sits. The muscles in his arms show because his sleeves are shoved up. His shirt is clean and wrinkled in the places where you sleep in it. A line crosses his cheek where the couch seam kept him company.
I open the container before he can argue. "Onigiri," I narrate like a waiter. "Salmon. Ume. And the triangle that broke which is now art."
He looks at me with those steady eyes that make me feel twelve and smarter at the same time. "You walked over with dinner for me?"
"Don't make it weird." My voice comes out too sharp, so I soften it. "Eat before you disappear completely."
He smiles — small, real. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." I mean to sound breezy. It comes out like relief.
He picks one up and then I see his hair again and I can't stand it. "Wait."
"What?"
"You look terrible," I say. "Stay still."
"Is that your new greeting?"
"I'll engrave it on a plate if you don't stop talking." I look around. "Scissors?"
"Top drawer," he says, already amused in that tired way that makes my ribs ache. "You're going to ruin me."
"You can't ruin what you didn't style," I shoot back, and I go fetch them.
The drawers are as organized as a store. Everything has a place. Tape. Pens. Scissors. All the edges line up. Nothing looks used except the things that have to be. The feeling returns — not cold now, but hollow. Houses should have a mess in them. Even the quiet ones. This one looks like a box he borrowed.
I drape a towel over his shoulders and comb my fingers through his hair. It's soft and clean. He's clean. He's always clean. He takes care of himself in the most basic ways and then forgets the parts that tell you a person lives here.
"Close your eyes," I say.
"Are you a professional?"
"No. I'm your neighbor."
"Ah," he says. "So it'll hurt."
"Hold still," I say, and the scissors make that comforting snip-snip sound that fills silence without forcing it away.
Up close, I smell soap and the thin ghost of something that shouldn't be there. I work in small sections like I've seen in videos. The strands fall on the towel, on his shoulders, on my socks. It feels like the kind of normal that used to be our entire childhood.
"You're skipping school again," I say, because I can't not say it. "Even Nao's worried. Which is hilarious because Nao worries about nothing but cats and snacks."
"I've been busy."
"Doing what?" I angle his head with two fingers and trim the fringe above his eyes. "Staring at walls?"
"Something like that," he murmurs.
"For the record," I say, "this is the part where you say, 'I'm sorry I worried you. I'll come to school more. I'll stop making my childhood friend carry warm rice to you like a delivery person.'"
He laughs — quiet, a puff of breath that warms the air between us. "I'm sorry I worried you. Thank you for the delivery." He pauses and adds, softer, "Really. Thank you."
"Don't try to charm me. It won't work."
"It always works."
"That's because I'm weak," I say, and we both give the kind of smile that doesn't need teeth.
I cut a little more. The scissors click and pause and click. My hand is steady. The rest of me isn't.
"So..." I say, making it sound like an afterthought when it is a rock in my pocket. "Maihou's coming up."
"Mm." He doesn't flinch. He doesn't tense. He stays still and lets me move his head as if we're dancing.
"You're going, right?" I ask softly
A beat of silence
"Maybe..." he answers simply
"That's not an answer," I say, and something in me leans forward as if I can reach the truth if I get close enough.
"It's all I've got."
I put the scissors down for a second so I don't stab him on accident. "You know it matters, right? Nao says it's like an entrance exam for some schools. The judges. The connections. Even just the line on a page. It opens doors. You can hate the hallway later, but—" I stop. I'm talking too fast.
He opens his eyes and looks at the blank wall across from us. "I know what it is."
"Then... doesn't it feel wrong not to try?" My voice comes out smaller than I meant. "Just once more. For you. For—" I don't say her name. It's there anyway like a light under a sheet.
He breathes out. The breath has weight. "I don't know if I have anything left to try with."
I want to reject that. I want to laugh and hit his shoulder and say, "Shut up, you're a monster," and mean it the way we used to — monster as compliment. But we're not kids right now. He sounds calm. Not dramatic. Not performing sadness. Just saying a fact that scares me.
I pick up the scissors again because I need my hands to do something. "You always cut my hair crooked," he says, in that gentle way he has when he wants to move me away from the edge.
"You always fall asleep halfway through," I reply. "So I take revenge."
He smiles. "You're always looking out for me."
"Someone has to," I say, and it's a joke until it isn't.
Silence. The kind that has a heartbeat in it.
"I overheard you," I say, distracting myself with the last uneven bit over his ear. "With your teacher. When he asked about your career plan." I clear my throat because the memory tastes like dust. "Science. Medicine. You said it like it was a promise."
"It is," he says. No brag. No apology.
"And the piano?"
He doesn't answer for a few seconds. "It's part of me," he says finally. "But I don't know if I can live there anymore."
I understand and I don't. I want to tell him he's allowed to choose. I want to tell him he's not allowed to abandon himself. I want to scream at the piano and at the universe and at every adult who ever wrung noise out of him until there was no boy left. I want to hug him and stuff onigiri into his pockets and cut his hair right and make him laugh the way he used to at dumb jokes about PE and popsicles.
Instead I take a breath and soften my hands and finish the job.
"There," I say. I brush stray hair from his neck. "You look human again."
"That bad before?"
"Worse."
He laughs and it breaks something loose in my chest. He reaches for the container like a person who remembers he has a body that needs, and I exhale.
"I should bring you food more often," I say.
"You shouldn't have to."
"I know," I say, and that's the whole problem in two words.
He eats the salmon triangle first because of course he does. He's always picked salmon first since we were kids. He chews and looks out the window like he's standing on a shore I can't see.
"About Maihou," I start again, gently. "I know you chose. I know science makes sense. It fits you, actually." I try to smile. "You've always liked fixing things that are broken. Even when they're people."
He keeps chewing. His eyes soften a little, which is somehow worse.
"I just... it's your last chance for that life," I say, the line I promised myself I wouldn't say. "Nao told me how important it could be. Credentials. Doors. People. If you wanted it. If a part of you wanted it. Doesn't it feel—" I cut the word off before I repeat it: wrong.
He wipes his fingers on the towel like he heard something he wasn't ready for. "Maybe," he says again, and it's different this time. Not a wall. Not an exit. A tiny, dangerous opening.
I don't press. I can't push him further without losing him. I know the way he leans into the pressure until he breaks and I don't want to be another hand on the lever.
"You always cut my hair when I'm about to do something dumb," he says, to make me smile.
"Then consider yourself protected," I say, and I tip his head to check the left side. "Turn."
He obeys.
The quiet settles in again. I can hear the clock and the traffic and someone shouting at a TV two apartments down. It makes the room feel less like a museum. More like a place.
"You really didn't have to come.." He stops for a second. "It's kind of a burden for you.."
Burden? He's an idiot. I respond "If I didn't," I say, "who else would feed you and fix your head?"
"Watari?"
"He'd eat your dinner and flirt with the scissors."
"True," he says, and that's our little normal again, the dumb kind that kept us alive in middle school.
I clean up the hair and shake the towel into a bag. He helps without being asked. Of course he does. He's still him in a hundred small ways. That's what makes me crazy — the way he's still here and also not.
When the floor is clear, I stand and put the scissors away. The drawer glides shut with a soft sound that feels like a sigh.
"You should turn this place back into a home," I say, because the room has been shouting it at me since I walked in. "It's... too clean."
He looks around, genuinely confused. "It is a home."
"Then don't let it stop feeling like one," I say, and I soften it with a small smile so he doesn't think I'm scolding him.
He nods, slow. "I'll try."
"Good." I pick up my coat. "And come to school tomorrow. Nao's going to chain you to a desk if you don't."
"I believe her."
"You should," I say. "She's terrifying."
We both smile because it's true.
At the door I hesitate. He's standing in the picture of his living room like a bookmark someone put down and forgot to pick up. His hair looks right now. His eyes look the same, which is the problem. I want to hug him and I don't because I'm not sure which one of us would fall apart first.
"Thanks for dinner," he says, and the way he says it makes it sound like more.
"Anytime," I answer, and I mean it.
Outside, the air is colder. I put my shoes on slow so I can listen to my heart calm down. I step into the hall and close the door gently. The latch clicks, soft as a secret.
On the street I look up at his window. The single light makes a square on the dark outside wall. It's so small from here. It looks like a sign from a different planet.
"Don't disappear again, Kousei," I whisper, because the empty street won't argue with me. "Please."
I carry the light with me all the way home, like a little warm thing cupped in both hands.
—
I lie on top of the blanket so I don't crush the IV line. Kaori tucks herself into the narrow space between my shoulder and the bedrail like it was made for her. The room smells like saline and citrus cleaner, and under it—her shampoo. The blinds are tilted half-closed, late light slicing the wall into stripes. She hums something without words, the tune drifting in and out like it's remembering itself.
Her fingers work at my wrist. Thread, beads, a knot. She's slow because her hands tremble when she's tired. Today they tremble less. There's a little more color in her cheeks than last week. I try not to stare at that color like it's proof I can cash out the universe.
"Hold still," she says, concentrating. "If this falls off I'm going to act like a tragic heroine."
"You already are," I tell her.
She pokes my ribs with the blunt end of a bead. "I'll sue."
"For... bracelet negligence?"
"For making me laugh when I'm trying to make a statement." But she's smiling, and it's the kind that fills the whole room even if the wattage doesn't reach her eyes yet.
She pulls the knot snug against my skin and pats it like a seal of approval. The bracelet is rough twine with uneven beads—two blue, one white, one that looks like a cereal hoop. It's ugly and perfect. She slides an identical one onto her own wrist and lifts our hands together, comparing. "Matching," she says softly. "Now we're a set."
"Guess I'm branded," I murmur.
Her smile tips sideways. "I like my brand on you."
I turn my wrist, feel the tiny knot. It's nothing. It's everything. I'd wear a chain if she asked. A leash. Anything that keeps me close.
She settles back against me, head tucked below my chin, hair tickling my throat. Her hum returns—just a thread of melody—and I realize it's a skeleton of a song I used to play when we were small enough to think seasons never ended. The sound presses the air flat and warm between us. Every time I breathe, it moves her, and every time she breathes, it moves me. We're a quiet machine.
"Hey," she says after a while, not moving. "Maihou's soon..."
I feel my shoulders tighten before I can stop them. I look at the ceiling. Her words came out soft and prodding.. unlike the previous who was pushing him. The acoustic tile has a faint crack shaped like a river. "You really want to talk about a competition in an IV suite?"
"I really want to talk about you," she says. "Wherever we are."
I swallow. "You have bad hobbies."
She lifts her head just enough to see my face. The look is warm and stubborn at the same time. It's the look she uses when she's going to be kinder to me than I deserve and also get her way. "You know me," she says. "Collector of lost causes."
"I'm not lost."
"Mm. Then I'm collecting found things."
She rests her forehead against my jaw for a second, then shifts, sliding her cheek to my chest like she's finding the right pillow. Her hand wanders under the edge of my shirt and stops at my ribs, fingertips cool and careful. My arm closes around her shoulders without asking me first.
"Did you know," she says, voice quiet enough the monitors don't seem to hear, "me and my parents used to go watch you when we could? Back when your shoes were too shiny and you scowled at the pedals like they owed you money."
"You already told me that," I say, but it feels different, coming straight from her mouth and not in a parent's gentle nostalgia. It hits lower. It hits somewhere that still thinks being seen is dangerous.
She shakes her head, rubbing her temple into my shirt. "I didn't tell you the important part. We would sit through all the polite kids and clap politely. And then—" she lifts a finger, drawing a circle against my chest— "and then you would walk out and the hall went skinny, like the air only had room for one thing. Dad would stop breathing. Mom would squeeze my hand. And I'd think, there he is."
An ache opens where my sternum ought to be. "Don't make me sound like a miracle," I say, softer than I mean to. "I know what I am."
She answers without looking up. "I know what you are too."
A long beat lives there. She hums a bar. I trace the shape of her shoulder with my palm, barely touching, as if any pressure might bruise.
"You've always been in my head," she says. The words come like she's opening a window. "Before you knew me. You were... a sound I wanted to meet."
I shut my eyes. It's not fair, the way she finds a precise sentence that cuts through everything I've stacked between us and sets it down, neat, on the table. If I answer I'll say something big and it will scare us both. I keep quiet, because quiet can be less dangerous than truth.
She lifts herself on one elbow and looks at me. Her eyes are bright. There's a shine that wasn't there last month—a little life in the waterline. Maybe Skyclairs is doing its slow, invisible work. Maybe this is just light. I don't care which it is right now.
"I want you to feel fulfillment," she says. "Not just finish lines. Not just ticking boxes and surviving through the music like it's a cold bath you have to sit in until the timer dings."
"You're very poetic for someone who eats convenience-store jelly bread," I say, because I'm a coward and humor is easier than bleeding.
She doesn't smile this time. "I want you to face it, Kousei." Her voice trembles, then steadies. "Please. You don't see yourself the way we see you. People... they look at you and remember what music... and hope feels like. Will you—will you show me again? Just once? You. Playing with your heart."
The room seems smaller, and the bed smaller inside it. My mouth is dry. I could say no. I could list a hundred reasons and call them logic: the stage hurts, the keys don't forget, I only know how to be perfect or absent and I'm too tired to be perfect. I could say, It's safer to stay here and count your breaths.
But the bracelets itch. And the way she's looking at me draws lines I can't erase. And the truth is ugly and simple: I want to do it. Not for judges. Not for the past. For the girl whose cheek is against my chest, who said once she wanted to live inside music and dragged me in after her.
Maihou huh....
Maihou Maihou Maihou.....
If she wants me to...
I'll do anything for her..
"Okay," I whisper.
Her breath catches. "Okay?"
"Okay," I say again, and the word is heavier than it should be, because inside it there's a lot of fear and a lot of desire and a small, clean piece of relief. "I'll do it."
...
She looks at me with look that makes me freeze.
She makes a sound that is laughter and something close to a sob hiding behind it. She leans up and, before I can brace for it, presses her lips to my cheek—quick, warm, clumsy with happiness. My skin burns under the print of it. I can feel the shape of her mouth after she pulls back.
Huh... Kaori kissed my cheek..
She looks at me through her lashes, pink climbing her ears. "Permission to be sentimental," she says.
"Granted," I say, and my voice sounds strange, like it came from someone who slept.
"Your life would have been better without Me," she says, suddenly bright and terrible.
It lands like a dropped glass. I start to sit up, but she taps my chest, shushing me with one finger. "But here we are," she adds, and her smile is small and stubborn and so alive it hurts to look at.
"Don't say that first part..." I plead to her.
"Then prove me wrong a lot," she says. "With future and music and... bracelets."
"Very scientific metric," I say. "Bracelet-based outcomes."
She lifts our wrists again and bumps them together—soft clack of cheap beads. "Experimental design."
We lie there and breathe as the light thins. Her hum wanders back, catches, finds its line. I answer it without sound, counting her pulse under my palm like I could memorize it and keep it. The IV croons quietly. A nurse walks past, a cart squeaks, a door sighs. The world keeps happening, and for once I let it, and I don't run ahead to the bad place.
She shifts, winces—just a flick—but I feel it and tighten my arm around her. "Tired?" I ask.
"Mm," she says. "But in a nice way. Like after fireworks."
"We didn't even go outside."
"We don't have to," she says. "We have our own fireworks."
"Those are called heart palpitations," I say, and she smacks my chest with exactly zero force.
Silence again. Not empty. Full.
"Kousei," she says, voice low, "thank you."
"For what?"
"For saying yes." She swallows. "And for letting me tie you to me."
I blinked
I looked at the bracelet..
I decided to show affection of my own
I kiss the top of her head. It feels both too much and not enough. "You were going to tie me either way."
She makes a satisfied little noise, her eyes fluttering closed. "True."
I brush a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "One condition," I say.
Her eyes narrow, playful. "Fine print?"
"I pick what I wear. No flaming skull shirts."
She gasps. "Blasphemy! The skull is art."
"It's a hate crime."
She laughs, head falling back, throat exposed, the faintest blue of veins under pale skin. I could put my mouth there and promise the rest of my life. I don't. I hold her tighter instead, because my arms understand the assignment better than my mouth does.
The light outside leans toward evening. The clock over the sink ticks like it's stitching time to the wall. She nestles deeper, her weight a quiet argument against every shape of loneliness I have ever learned to carry.
"Say it again," she murmurs.
"What?"
"That you'll do it."
"I'll do it," I say into her hair. It smells like apple and hospital and her. "I'll play."
"Good," she says, sleepy and fierce at once. "I'll listen."
She takes my hand and pulls it over her heart, and I lie there, counting the beats, thinking of stages and keys and how the same hands that are finally steady enough to tie a knot are the ones I want to follow into whatever comes next.