Episode 31 — BELIEVE

Shion’s voice — translucent, delicate — weaves an old, familiar melody. A song we sang in choir in primary school. I think I used to look down on the lyrics as trite — but now, strangely, they settled in my chest. Whether that was the nostalgia, or whether it was because Shion was singing, I couldn’t say.

Unaccustomed to singing in front of others, Shion wore an expression full of visible nerves. She gripped the mic with both hands, her voice trembling slightly. Even so she sang with everything she had, staring intently at the screen, tracing the words with her lips. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her profile. Even in the dim karaoke lighting, I could tell that Shion’s cheeks were flushed crimson.

“Do your best.”

The feeling spilled into words before I could stop it. Whether it reached Shion, I don’t know. Only that she kept gripping the mic, unsteady but holding on.

And then, after several repeated verses, the last note from Shion’s lips dissolved slowly into the music and faded. Its resonance hung in the room for a little while — and then.

Shion looked over at me with crimson-stained cheeks.

“How was it?”

Those eyes — the violet-indigo glitter of them — trembling with anxiety. I wanted to take that anxiety away as fast as I could, and found myself standing up without thinking and saying:

“It — it was wonderful! You were really, really good!”

Too desperate, louder than I meant — but perhaps that was what worked.

Shion smiled with relief.

“Singing in front of someone was a first, so I was nervous.”

Saying that, she let herself fall against me, as if dropping. There was nothing to do but catch her, which left me naturally in something like an embrace. My heartbeat leapt — loud enough, I thought, to rival her singing.

And the skin I touched then was, unusually, a little damp with sweat. Proof of how hard she’d tried. I stroked her back — the way you might comfort a child. As always, Shion’s body was slight, and thinking of this small frame singing with everything it had — something in my chest tightened with tenderness.

With so many layered reasons for tenderness pressing down on my heartbeat, I dug out the question sitting at the surface of my mind, to disguise the sound of it.

“Even so — why did you choose that song?”

Shion answered my question in scattered drops, as if retrieving the reason from memory.

“I don’t know any songs except piano pieces. So I thought I’d choose a song we learned at school. And this song — in primary school, I wanted to sing it together with everyone, but I was on accompaniment so I couldn’t sing. So I’m glad I got to sing it today.”

Saying that, Shion pressed her face into my chest in a gesture of sweet dependence. Then, in a murmur — as if speaking directly into my heart:

“I got to sing because of you, Uta.”
“I didn’t do anything…”

Even trying to deflect with those words — Shion’s entire beauty was pressed against me directly. My heartbeat refused to settle. I prayed it wasn’t reaching her ears.

In the space between those prayers, Shion went on:

“And I thought something, while I was singing. That the lyrics of this song feel like something I received from Uta. That what I feel toward Uta’s words feels like it has become words itself. That’s what I thought.”
“Wh — what do you mean?”

Again — Shion’s characteristic riddle-like way of speaking has me at a loss. I can never find the answer on my own, and reach for the answer key.

Shion shifted her gaze up from my chest, looking up through her lashes, and murmured:

“Secret.”

◇◇◇

After that, we took turns singing. I sang songs I wanted Shion to hear. Shion sang everything from songs learned in music class to nursery rhymes. However she sang them, in her careful, earnest voice — I couldn’t help finding it impossibly endearing.

Like that day we played the duet — we sang Twinkle Twinkle together too. Our voices overlapping was enough to make me happy, and we ended up looking at each other and smiling.

The kind of time you can’t help wishing would go on forever. But an end came to that too.

At just the moment the music stopped, Shion’s phone vibrated. The matching strap swayed with it.

Shion gazed at the screen with something reluctant in her expression, then slowly brought the phone to her ear.

“Hello… yes… yes… I’m heading home now.”

Probably her mother. I checked the time on my own phone — sure enough, it was somewhere between evening and night.

I reproached myself for letting us get a little carried away, and worried about whether Shion would be scolded.

And then, from outside the edge of my awareness, unexpected words arrived.

“You don’t need to pick me up. Uta will walk me home.”

After those words, a few more exchanges and the call ended. Shion turned to face me.

“Saying goodbye here would be lonely, so will you walk me home?”

At that sweet sound, I was nodding before I’d even thought about it.