The last time I stayed at Sorahashi-san’s place I felt bad about borrowing a room, so I had slept on the floor. Since Mizuki was here this time, though, I decided to make use of one of those rooms.

     In the end, Mizuki had gotten angry at me, telling me how “there’s no way you could have just disappeared like that”. I couldn’t say anything to defend myself. All I could do was apologize profusely, but she hadn’t seemed to have forgiven me and wouldn’t look me in the eye.

     「I’m turning off the lights.」

     I turned the lights off and then went to lay down on the futon on the floor, but before I could, I could feel Mizuki reach out and take my hand.

     「….It’s cold.」

     「Want to turn on the heat?」

     It seemed that temperature controls were installed even in rooms that weren’t used very often — what’s more, they seemed to be quite new models. I was already aware that this was a vacation home in the middle of Tokyo, but it seemed that her family was wealthier than I could even imagine.

     「It’s fine. You’re sensitive to the heat, right? …Besides, it’s not healthy to sleep with the heater on.」

     「Um… Then, do you want to sleep with me?」

     「…Mhm.」

     She let go of my hand and waited for me to get into the futon.

     Perhaps out of consideration for us, Sorahashi-san had suggested that we sleep in the same room. That made me happy, since I hadn’t had the chance to sleep with Mizuki for an entire year. It was also a little awkward, though, since so much distance had grown between us in just that one year.

     She stared intently at me as I got under the sheets.

     I stared back at her. She had brought the pajamas she usually wore at home, along with a change of clothes for me so that I didn’t have to borrow anything from Sorahashi-san. Somehow, it felt like she had drifted so far away. I should have been glad that she was becoming so responsible.

     「…Sorahashi-san’s pretty nice, huh?」

     Mizuki spoke.

     I smiled.

     「Yeah, she is.」

     「But… she’s not your friend.」

     「…Yeah.」

     She was right. We weren’t friends. Our relationship was something more hopeless, something that I couldn’t ever explain to anyone else.

     「You’ve changed, Kurumi. Before, you wouldn’t have slept over with someone you weren’t friends with.」

     Mizuki said I had changed, but… The one that had changed wasn’t me. It was her.

     She’d always been willing to let me spoil her, but before I knew it, she had grown so big and become able to go anywhere on her own two feet. She was so different from the Mizuki I knew. Since when had she grown up this much?

     Thinking back to the first year of middle school, I felt like I was more childish back then than Mizuki was now. It wasn’t like I recalled all that much about myself, though.

     「Kurumi, why are you spending so much time with her?」

     「Just by chance, I guess?」

     「Chance….」

     I felt Mizuki’s fingers slide smoothly across my neck. My skin felt sensitive, perhaps because of the collar I had been wearing earlier. I nearly jumped, but somehow managed to keep it in. Mizuki watched me through the darkness.

     「Then is it also just by chance that you’re doing weird things with her?」

     Her voice had dropped to a low whisper.

     I felt my heartbeat slowly begin to speed up.

     「What weird things?」

     「…Like, perverted things.」

     Mizuki said, sounding embarrassed. My eyes widened.

     「I haven’t… I haven’t done anything like that with Sorahashi-san.」

     「Liar. That’s what you were doing just earlier, weren’t you?」

     My heart continued racing, faster and faster.

     I’d managed to avoid being found out earlier thanks to Sorahashi-san, but it seemed I wasn’t out of the woods just yet. As I was thinking about how to respond, Mizuki reached her hand inside my clothes.

     Come to think of it, we used to do that sort of thing to stay warm when it was cold. I had assumed she was just being clingy at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt that we had been closer than sisters should have been.

     And right now, the way Mizuki was touching me felt more like she was trying to find something rather than trying to warm herself up.

     She continued searching until her hand touched my chest.

     We’d normally been pretty physically close up until now, so it felt strange to try to run away. But once she reached there, I could no longer hide away my beating heart. As her hand pressed down against my chest, I felt like my breath was going to stop.

     「Your neck’s red. …And your heart is beating so much. Kurumi. What were you doing with Sorahashi-san in that room just before?」

     「Well, even if you mention the room, I was outside, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.」

     「Another lie.」

     Mizuki’s touch disappeared from my chest. She got up and began rummaging through her bag on the floor. Then, she pulled out a small bottle — a perfume bottle, one that I felt like I’d seen before.

     She came back to bed, taking my wrist and spraying some of the perfume on it.

     My eyes shot open.

     It smelled like lemon tea.

     The same scent that I had been noticing on my scarf and coat. So it really hadn’t been detergent or fabric softener — it was perfume. No, wait, why?

     「I smelled my perfume coming from Sorahashi-san’s room. Her own perfume smells totally different. This one only comes from you and me.」

     「That’s because you were smelling what was on you…」

     「Wrong. Even the same perfume can smell different depending on who wears it. What I smelled in her room earlier was — it was your scent, Kurumi.」

     I never thought something like that would be what got me found out. But in the first place, why was Mizuki putting her perfume on my clothes? She had nothing to gain from doing that.

     「…I just stopped by her room for a moment. I was kinda curious.」

     「You’re still going to…」

     I could feel the scent of lemon tea spreading all throughout the room. It felt as if the boundary between Mizuki and I was beginning to blur.

     「…So your relationship with Sorahashi-san is more important than me.」

     「That’s just….」

     「…I hate you.」

     Accompanying her darkened voice was a sharp pain in my neck.

     A few seconds passed before I realized I had been bitten. My neck throbbed in pain. I tried to separate her from me, but before I could, she wrapped her arms around my waist so I couldn’t move.

     「You’re important to me. That’s not a lie.」

     「But not the most important.」

     「That’s…!」

     「Whatever. I can tell you don’t want to talk. I’m tired, so I’m sleeping.」

     「Mizuki…」

     With that, she turned away. I couldn’t say anything else, so I just blankly stared at her back.

     I might have been able to talk to Mizuki about this if it had been closer to when Sorahashi-san had initially asked me to be her master. If she had asked me if something had happened around then, I might have been able to casually answer that something weird had happened with a classmate, or something like that.

     But I couldn’t say that anymore. It was my own fault that I was now addicted to doing these things with Sorahashi-san. I was treating her like a dog to indulge in my own desires. It felt so good that it let me forget all my pain and suffering, forget who I used to be. I could never go back to who I was before. In the end, that person had just been a lie.

     「…Goodnight.」

     Saying that, I got out of bed. Mizuki didn’t stop me, perhaps because she didn’t want to be next to me anymore, or perhaps because she had already fallen asleep.

     I shivered as I decided to use the restroom before going to sleep.

     I was bitten by a stronger coldness as I left the room. Walking through the darkness, I made my way to the restroom.

     As I was washing my hands in the unlit room, I suddenly noticed someone’s presence.

     I closed my eyes. I didn’t know what sort of conversation I should be having with Mizuki. But if she wanted me to be with her, I needed to talk to her about it. We were family, after all, and she was the only person I could have a heart-to-heart with.

     「Hey, Mizuki. It’s true that I’ve been lying and hiding some things from you, but… You’ve always been important to me. That hasn’t changed. Not now, not—」

     I heard a giggle ring out.

     I felt a weight drop in my stomach.

     That wasn’t Mizuki.

     Why did that simple fact weigh so heavily on my heart?

---

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