It was August, the height of summer, and the air was laden with choruses of cicadas. So many people had gone home for the holidays that the student dormitory of the high school, converted from an old wooden hospital building, felt almost devoid of life. The dorm had an open-air courtyard into which the blazing sun shone, the plants in their beds brought alive by its rays. Sunflowers swayed with a soft rustle in the warm breeze that blew through. In the centre of it all stood a girl.
Marie Shinomiya leaned forward in an easy motion, swinging her arms. With closed eyes, and movements so natural it was almost as though she were being guided by something, she danced flowingly and without pause.
"..."
It was a kagura dance.
As the dance intensified, the courtyard began to fade from Marie's view, replaced by the fuzzy memory of a dancing shrine maiden. She could no longer feel the ground beneath her, or tell left from right, up from down.
"Huh? Where am I, again...?" she asked herself.
The next second, the scenery softly unravelled and gave way, and Marie found herself standing in the courtyard as if nothing had happened.
Marie sighed, wiping away sweat with the hem of her shirt, feeling an inexpressible sense of frustration. It wasn't the vestiges of that vision leaving her dazed. This was what happened when you exerted yourself outdoors with no air conditioning in the middle of summer.
"...Water..."
She hadn't got anything out of it today, either, despite her feeling that what she truly desired was right there in front of her.
Feeling an emptiness at her inability to attain what she wanted, no matter how many times she tried, Marie returned to the dorm.
~~~
The first floor of the dorm was a communal space that had recently had a vending machine installed in it. Marie plunked in a 100 yen coin, took out the tea, and pressed it to the nape of her neck.
"Ahh..."
She made her way up to the second floor, the stairs creaking underfoot. Rather than returning to her own room, Marie headed towards a different one.
The windows in the hall had been left ajar. A breeze blew through them, threatening to liberate a notice regarding summer term courses from the bulletin board it had been posted on. Marie paused for a moment to pin it back into place.
"Tomoeee? You theeeere?"
Arriving at her destination, she knocked lightly on the door and opened it. The room belonged to her old friend, Tomoe Nanamura.
That summer holiday, Tomoe was the only student besides herself whom Marie saw around the dorm. Because of that, and the fact that they were good friends, Marie took every chance she had to pay Tomoe a visit. And yet...
"Well, if she's not here..."
Then she must be there instead, thought Marie. The two knew each other well enough that she could guess. She retraced her steps back the way she had come, heading in the direction of the nurse's office.
Marie opened the door, poorly fitting in the frame due to its age, and the odour of chemicals blew through it, carried on the summer breeze.
A figure stood on the far side of two beds that sat next to each other. It was a slender, delicate-looking girl, staring out of the window absentmindedly as though she were miles away: Tomoe.
"Tomoe?"
"Hey, Tomoe. Listen to me for a sec."
"I tried doing that dance again. I feel like I'm this close to figuring something out."
"I don't know for sure whether it's right or not, maybe because of that time we got spirited away, but... I feel like one day, if I keep it up, I might be able to remember everything. I think I'm gonna keep trying. And anyway, I'm in dance club. I bet being able to manage different movements must help with that, too, right?"
"Oh, right - things have settled down at my job at the restaurant, so we can spend all our time together for a while. Ayano's gone home, too. Now we can really have the whole place all to ourselves."
"Okay," Tomoe answered simply.
Marie, who had expected her to be happy to hear the news, ignored her disappointment, feeling as if something was slightly off. Had she been too forceful in emphasising that it would just be the two of them? Why was she being so curt? Wasn't she happy? Didn't she care? Actually, wasn't this what Tomoe did when she was fed up with something? What if...
"Have we... had a conversation like this before?"
Tomoe jerked around to look at her. "You noticed?"
"...Huh?"
Tomoe continued to smile, but for some reason, there was something eerie about―
"How long do you think we've been doing this on repeat for?"
~~~
There had been times in the past, too, when Marie had repeatedly talked about the same memory over and over - but that was just something adorable, along the lines of telling the same story twice.
That wasn't what Marie was doing now. She repeated the exact same actions as the day before, arrived at the exact same time, and talked about the exact same things. Ever since the summer holidays had started, it had been clear that her Moonlight Syndrome was continuing to worsen. All she could do now was stay by her side and keep watch over her.
Tomoe never stopped smiling. She continued to stroke the warped, distorted cheek of Marie - no, of the mask of the Vessel - adoringly. Will our consciousnesses vanish entirely one day? Tomoe wondered vaguely.
"Marie... Don't break..."
~~~
Don't break. As she said the words, Tomoe's face looked for an instant as if it had fallen apart. As soon as she understood what it meant, her body temperature seemed to plummet. This was the worst reality of all, something she'd never even considered before.
Oh, huh. It was actually me.
She'd thought that Tomoe was in a worse state. That she had to save her. That she had to try for her sake. And all along, it had been her whose symptoms were more severe.
"Don't break. Not yet. If you do, your face will blossom."
Tomoe's words echoed amidst her overwhelmed, messy thoughts. Marie had faintly recalled a memory that had stitched itself together inside her head - a story from Rogetsu Isle.
As Moonlight Syndrome progresses, you no longer recognise others. Eventually, you can no longer even recognise yourself, and you "blossom". The face of a blossomed person looks as if it has fallen apart. That is proof that they have blossomed, and it is said that one must not look at the face of such a person.
Even as a child, she had wondered what not recognising yourself would look like from the perspective of another. Now, though, she thought she just about understood. She had understood by experiencing it for herself. In other words...
"Patients of Moonlight Syndrome must... affect each other. If you look at the face of someone who's blossomed, you probably blossom, too."
Tomoe nodded in understanding.
Marie cast her eyes down at the ground, standing there in silence for a while. Innumerable words surfaced and vanished inside her head as she simply clenched her fists. Then, she took Tomoe by the shoulders and took a step away from her.
"You can't be around me."
Tomoe couldn't be near her if she was sick enough that she wasn't even aware of her own symptoms. But...
"Let's stay as we are."
Tomoe was smiling.
"We can't! I mean... I mean...! I said I was gonna make you better, when really all I've done is make things worse, and...!"
"It's okay."
Tomoe's eyes were still unfocused, but Marie knew with certainty that she was looking straight at her as she replied.
"I know. It was over for all of us back then. Back when we were spirited away. We've all just been barely maintaining the balance ever since. One day, we'll fall apart."
One day, we'll fall apart. That time had finally come. That was all. Tomoe's expression was always gentle, as if she didn't have a care in the world; she was kind, as if she could accept anything.
"No. We can't. Even if... Even if I can only save you..."
"Don't talk like that. We've always been together, haven't we?"
"But..."
"'But' nothing. You're always the one leading the way."
"..."
"I have no confidence, I'm scared, and I can't do anything... But you always lead me along with you."
"That's not..."
"You have so many friends, you're so cheerful, everyone loves you..."
"No!"
"Marie."
Tomoe reached her hand out to Marie's cheek adoringly once more, checking her face, then pressed her own cheek against Marie's and whispered to her.
"Shall we blossom together?"
She had been about to say something, the words rising as far as her throat, but they vanished into thin air at Tomoe's comment, replaced instead by tears that blurred her vision.
No. Maybe nothing I've seen has been true at all. Maybe the things I'm seeing now, the place within which I exist, all of it is fake.
But the warmth Tomoe shared with her was real, that much she believed for certain.
Without speaking a word, Marie simply held Tomoe tight. All she wanted to feel in that moment was her warmth.
~~~
A single lily petal fell from the vase beside the bed. The curtain fluttered dramatically, enveloping the two of them like a veil. Tomoe stroked Marie's hair gently, the way a mother would. She could feel the painfully vast swell of emotion coming from Marie as she clung to her.
"I'll find a way... A way to make us both better... I promise..."
Perhaps it seemed normal from Marie's point of view, as she continued reliving the same day over and over, but at the end of each day she always said the same thing: Don't worry, Tomoe. I'll make you better, I swear. She knew that there was next to no hope of a cure, yet she said it anyway.
How many times had she heard those words? How many times had she held Marie in her arms after she'd realised that she was living the same day on repeat?
Each time it happened, Tomoe was struck by a mixture of emotions. Despair at the eternal loop. Regret as she asked herself how this had happened. And far surpassing it all, her affection for Marie.
No matter how many times she repeated the motions, Marie was still kind enough to care and look out for Tomoe. That kindness had begun to take root deep within Tomoe's heart. Over and over she had heard her say those words, and each time she had felt the same sensation. Marie must feel similarly.
There was no proof that she could get better, but the promise that Marie would make her better definitely changed something - or that was how it seemed to Tomoe, at least.
Tomoe closed her eyes peacefully, rubbing Marie's back as she continued to sob. Maybe, when tomorrow came, Marie would repeat the same day over again with her carefree smile - but that was okay. If she couldn't escape from the curse of Moonlight Syndrome, then for now, at least, she didn't want to be alone.
Isn't that right, Marie?
The sun had begun to set, casting shadows across the room. Tomoe could hear cicadas chirping from somewhere in the distance, her own thoughts growing clouded beneath a haze.
I'll probably forget that I've comforted Marie like this again.
As though soothing a baby, Tomoe drifted off into the depths of a deep sleep along with Marie.