Episode 75: The Speed of the Heart

Just past the entrance, the row of red vending machines. This time, unlike before, I’m not flustered — I get through check-in without any trouble. Shion too doesn’t react to each small thing; she looks without expression at the slip of paper the machine produces. I take it from her and head to the drink bar set beside the counter. Cola fills the glass. Shion, unlike last time, doesn’t mix drinks at random — she pours plain water into her glass. We carry our full glasses along with the paper, and the liquid seeps into the paper, and through all of that I manage to free a hand to take Shion’s, and we walk the corridor. Following the blurred number on the damp paper.

Two turns down a corridor where popular music echoes, and we reach the room. Both hands full, I can’t open the door — so I let go of Shion’s hand and take hold of the handle, usher her into the dark room, follow her in. Turn on the light, set the drinks on the table — and before I’ve even finished, as though she’d been impatiently waiting for my hands to be free, Shion throws herself against me. As if to reproach me for even that brief separation.

“Uta…”

She calls my name like a plea. Our hands clasped tight, her warmth deepening, her sweet scent. In the corner of my vision, silver hair catches the glare of the bright lights and shimmers.

I’m about to be pulled under by that shimmer —

“To everyone watching Da○ Channel—”

The room’s built-in television asserted itself, as if reproaching us both, reminding us this is a karaoke booth. Fair point — if we spent the whole time here in embraces and kisses, we’d rather be defeating the purpose.

“Let’s sing for now.”
“…Okay.”

I say it and pull a microphone from the stand in front of the television, and sit. Shion, looking vaguely put out, sits beside me. Our hands stay clasped.

The tablet on the table — different from the ancient model last time, a new one — its high-resolution screen glows as I scroll through songs. I avoid, somehow, the songs we sang before, and type in something I’ve started listening to recently.

“You might not know this one, Shion. Sorry.”

“…It’s fine.”

While we’re exchanging that, the television goes dark and the room dims. A familiar intro fills the room. The sound of a guitar, walking slow, grazes my eardrums. I sit still, Shion’s cold palm in mine, raise the microphone in my other hand.

And I release the first words of the song.

“Words that hold my sound, sound that holds your words—”

Words and sound. Scrolling through music on wired earphones, this phrase had leapt into my ears by chance. Something made me feel it was about us — that it was singing what I feel for Shion — and before I’d even noticed I’d added it to my playlist.

And I’d kept listening to it, again and again, as though testing my own feelings.

“That my name had meaning. That the world I lived in had meaning.”

I sing those lines remembering when I met Shion, remembering the moment we exchanged names. My own curse has been filled — world and all — by the existence of Shion. But does Shion still think of her own name as a curse? Is she still tormented by music? I try to feel for an answer through our joined hands, but all that the warmth of her sweating palm reveals is Shion’s cool temperature.

The music keeps flowing, and my thoughts get left behind by the lyrics. Still, my mouth keeps shaping the words the song offers, and when the guitar solo rings through the room, Shion — who doesn’t like loud sounds — gives a small startled shudder. I draw her slight body gently against me to settle her, and sing again the words that so resemble us.

“The powerlessness of words too, and the way they’re irreplaceable — it only becomes a scar first, and then the heart overtakes it. In the infinite expanse of now, something unchanging remains. I want to see you again tomorrow. I want to.”

Unchanging, I had thought. Just like us, I had insisted to myself. And yet the guitar and piano, the beautiful sound, reflects back our past selves — and our present selves, we are, we are —

I cry out.

“Words that hold — my sound—”

Because my sound — after school, the piano doesn’t ring. My voice can’t replace it. I want Shion’s sound. I want to put Shion’s sound into words.

My cry is absorbed into the air and the music stops. I set the microphone gently on the table and, catching my breath, tell Shion:

“Sorry — I ended up screaming there.”
“No, it’s fine — it’s your voice. It was a beautiful song.”
“Thank you. Shion — sing something too.”
“…Okay.”

I push the tablet toward her like a prompt. Shion nods, then stares at the screen for a moment, and as if steeling herself for something she lets out a quiet breath, and with white fingertips types in a song title I recognise.

And then Shion stood up. As she rose, our joined hands came apart. It was the first time Shion had let go of my hand.

Shion walked toward the television with the same unhurried, composed bearing she carries to the piano.

On the screen: Solanine.