Chapter 1 - taste

It was a Friday evening.
The autumn sun cut through the clouds. Bathing the city in an otherworldly glow.
I went straight home from school.
We weren’t practicing this week.
Soyo was sick. She had a cold. Ano-chan said she was going to see her.
Since we didn’t practice, Taki-chan wasn’t walking home with me.
When I reached the bridge we normally part ways at, I pulled out my phone and sent her a sticker. A Gentoo penguin. Waving.
She replied before I even managed to put my phone away, with a panda, waving back.
I smiled.

Then, I reached our apartment.
I tried my key, but the door was unlocked. Actually, it was open.
…That wasn’t right. Mom and Dad were both out late today.
I panicked a little. But I opened the door, and let out a weak “I’m home” as I walked in.
Then I heard it.
The quiet, gentle strumming of an unplugged electric guitar, coming from my bedroom.
I saw a pair of black boots on the rack as I took my shoes off.
Then I closed the door behind me. I slowly followed the sound to its source. I turned the corner into my bedroom and walked past its open door.
Raana was there.
Sitting on my bed, playing her guitar.

“R…Raana-…chan?”
She glanced over at me with her blue eye, then looked away again. She didn’t say a word, and kept on playing.
I walked over to her, cautiously. I put my bag down next to her.
“How did… you get in here?”
She kept quiet for a bit. She walked up the frets on her guitar. In a melody. Quickly, deftly. But still, delicately. Then she strummed a tonic chord. And looked at me. Her gaze made me recoil.
“Unlocked it.”
…Huh?
“…H-huh?”
“Hairpin.”
She pulled one out of her pocket. A hairpin. I stared at her, in astonishment.

“…I don’t… think you should be doing that? You’ll get in trouble…”
“Trouble?”
“Like, with the police, or something…”
“Wanted to be here.”
She wanted to be here.
“…Here? W-Why?”
It wasn’t her first time in my room. But it was her first time here on her own. We’d had a songwriting session here once, as MyGO, but… having everyone in my room felt strange. I preferred Soyo or Ano-chan’s.
Taki-chan never offered to have us over. I don’t know why.

Raana looked me over. The way her eyes climbed around me made me shiver a little. Each of them a different color. It made her stare pierce twice as sharp. And I already didn’t like being stared at…
She raised her plucking hand and pointed her index finger at me.
“Interesting girl.”
She called me that a lot… It still felt strange, like a knot in my stomach, every time she did.
I had no idea what she meant.
I sighed and sat down on the floor. Or I dropped onto it. I don’t know why I expected a different answer from her.
Maybe being away from everyone all week had gotten to me. I blurted something out, something I would normally keep to myself.
“What’s… so interesting about me, anyways…”
I muttered, holding back my voice, regretting every word, as they left my mouth anyways. Not expecting an answer.

“Lots.”
I got one anyways. It made me jump.
Raana stood up. She rested her guitar against a wall and reached inside the box I kept my notebooks in. She pulled one out. Horned beetle. And she opened it and pointed at it.
“Interesting words.”
I gasped a little. I reached my hand out and tried to say something. But nothing came out.
It always made me feel uneasy when people opened my notebooks. They always did it so casually. But it felt like something was being ripped from my insides.
I just looked at her. She tossed the notebook aside. She didn’t put it back where it was.
Then she walked over to me. She crouched down, eyes level with mine. And pointed at me again.
“From an interesting voice.”
“Huh? Voice? …No, my voice is… It’s nothing… special…”
“I like it.”
She was smiling at me.
I felt… lightheaded.
“It’s pretty. I feel calm. When I hear it.” She said.
“…”
“I wanted to hear it.”
…She hadn’t heard it in a while. That’s right.
I had a thought. It snapped me back into place.
“…I’ve been… writing lyrics for a new song. Since last week.”
I noticed Raana perking up. She tilted her head.
“…Do you want to hear them?”
I hesitated. “Um, it’s okay if you don’t…”
Her eyes narrowed. She smiled again.
“I wanna hear it.”

–

I grabbed a notebook from my desk. I brought it over and sat down in front of Raana, and turned the pages over.
She’d grabbed her guitar again.
I looked at her. Then back at my notebook.
This was… uncomfortable. Having her there. Sitting and staring.
Still, I started to read. In fits and starts and in whispers. Like dragging my legs through mud.
And then she started playing.

She found a rhythm to my stuttered words.
One I didn’t even know was there. And she filled it with melody. That my voice couldn’t help but follow.
…Just like that day. She did the same thing.
I felt like I was on that stage again. Before I knew it, I started singing.
Forcing the words out into notes. Chasing after hers. And it felt like… like she always led me where I wanted to go.
Like… she knew.

…Eventually, though, the words on the page dried up. I got as far as I’d written.
I glanced up at Raana. She seemed confused. Expectant. She finished a phrase, then let her strings ring out.
“S-sorry. That’s… all I have for now…”
I turned my eyes away.
“I’ve been… a little stuck, to be honest…” I mumbled.
She kept quiet. For a second, then another.
And another.
Then… she said something. No, she sang something.
“You…-alone…-me.”

I jolted up and looked at her.
What… did she say?
…Why can’t I… remember what she said?
Her words pierced through my heart. But they left me as soon as they came.
Like a sudden breeze. Gone before I could notice.
I wanted to write them down.
It took me over. My body moved on its own.
I reached out and grabbed Raana’s wrist. With all the strength I could muster.
She didn’t react. She was still, just, looking at me.
I looked back at her.
“…Say that again. Please.”
I was trembling.

–

Raana looked down at my hand. Gripped around her arm.
…My nails were digging into her skin.
I hadn’t realized.
She was… bleeding.
Her blood pooled up around my thumbnail. Danced around it. A drop of it swirled around and down her arm. Then it fell. It stained my bedsheets. Fading from crimson to pink.

I caught myself staring at it. Then I recoiled and whimpered, jerking my arm away from her.
“Raana-chan! I-I’m sorry! I…”
She didn’t look like she was in pain. Or surprised. She glanced over at me. Then back at the bleeding imprint of my nail on her forearm.
“I-I’ll get something! From the bathroom. Wait here.”

I ran off and into the bathroom. I was in a haze. I looked at my thumb. Some of her blood was flitting along its ridges. In a spiral. Like a snail shell.
I don’t know why I did that. I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t thinking.
I found the cabinet and opened it. Peroxide. Cotton ball.
I rushed back to Raana.

…She was sitting on the edge of my bed. Licking the wound. …Like a cat.
“Raana-chan!”
I called out to her weakly.
“You can’t… You shouldn’t… do that.” I walked over to her, holding out the bottle of peroxide.
She looked up at me. She said: “Why not?”
I hesitated.
“It’ll… get infected.” Mom taught me. In kindergarten, when I got a scrape on my knee.
“You’ll get… really sick.”
She ignored me.
“Tastes like matcha.”
Like… matcha?!
“H-huh?” I stared at the wound as her tongue lifted off it.
She does eat a lot of matcha… Is that… how that works?
I snapped myself out of the thought and inched closer to her.
“Here, just… let me clean it up… I’ll get you a band-aid, so…”
She ignored me again.
“Wanna try?”

T…try?
She was holding her arm up to my mouth.
I could smell the blood. It smelled like… some kind of metal. Like the metal parts of my desk in class.
I don’t know why, but my face started feeling hot. Really hot. Like a fever. Like my brain was drowned in a cloud of steam.
I stood there in a stupor. She nudged her arm forwards. “Try it,” she said. Casually, like she was offering me a piece of candy.
Something… came over me. I must have gotten dizzy from the heat and stopped thinking. I dropped the bottle and the cotton on the floor. And took her arm in my hand and then I put my tongue on the cut and let her blood leak onto it and I tasted it.

“…”
“How is it?”
It took me a few seconds to realize what I was doing.
“…This… doesn’t taste like matcha at all, Raana-chan…”
“Really?” She pulled her arm back and licked herself again.
“…Matcha.”
She really seemed convinced.
“It’s not… a bad taste, though…” I blurted something out in stuttered murmurs. My head still felt funny.
When I was younger, Mom would give me 500-yen coins so I could buy candy. I caught myself licking them sometimes. It was comforting. She noticed it and made me stop, eventually.
The taste reminded me of that. Except it was… warmer. Brighter. Like it was alive.
“I think it tastes like… you, Raana-chan.”
“…Me?”
I felt my awareness snap back into place. Like a splash of cold water from the sink in the morning.
“S-sorry! Sorry… Ignore that, I… Let me…”
I crouched down and fumbled trying to grab the bottle I’d dropped.
“What about you?”
“…M-me?”
“Your taste.”
I froze up.

“Let me try.” I heard her slide off the bed. She was suddenly crouched beside me.
She was staring at me. Her blue eye, her amber eye. Each of them fixed on me.
Jiiii.
I felt my face flush again. I couldn’t get a word out. Like something was stuck in my throat. Then I felt her arm pushing on my chest.
I gave way. Like a flimsy… house of cards. I crumpled apart and fell onto the carpet.
She was kneeling on top of me. Still staring. I couldn’t help but look away. At the window. Then over at my desk and my pegboards.
I whimpered her name. “Raana-chan… I don’t…”
Before I could finish speaking, she dove down at me.
I felt her hand on my shoulder. She grabbed the shoulder of my hoodie and pulled it aside. I felt its cloth and her fingers dragging along my skin.
And then she bit me.
It hurt. It hurt so much. My shoulder felt like it was on fire.
I saw tears welling up at the corners of my eyes. I must have let out so many pathetic whines. I don’t remember.
I tried to push her away, instinctively, but my arms felt like jelly.
She stopped. When she did, I felt the skin she’d bitten pulsing. It sent a wave through my whole body. I’d never felt this before.

Then I felt her tongue tickling the bite. Wet and soft. And hot. It burned.
I whimpered. I heard Raana licking her lips. She was… really close to my ear.
“…I like it.”
“…What…does it taste like?” I pushed myself to ask.
“Matcha.”
“…” I felt a pang of disappointment. I don’t know why.
“Matcha. Strawberry. …Chocolate.”
“…T-That many flavors?!”
“Like a parfait. I like it.”
She went in for another taste. More weird high-pitched noises escaped my lungs.
“Good voice.” She noticed them.
“…Wha-ah!” She brushed her finger along my shoulder, then presented it to me. It was covered in… my blood. The sight made me a little faint.
“Try it.”
“Raana-chan, I don’t-”
The second I opened my mouth, she put her finger in.
It was squirming around in there. Like… a bug. A caterpillar. My tongue couldn’t help but find it.
…It did taste a little like chocolate.
“How is it?”, she asked, with her finger still inside my mouth.
I don’t think I could have said anything, even if I could speak.

Raana tilted her head. She pulled her finger out of my mouth. She stared at the spit trailing towards its tip.
She gazed at it, while I coughed from the mess of liquids dancing around inside my mouth.
She looked at me. Her face drew closer and closer to mine.
Her lips parted. My vision grew dimmer. I felt her breath leave her, and graze my mouth and my nose.
And her lips touched mine. And… I think, her tongue did too.
Was it a kiss? I’m not sure.
It didn’t really feel like what you see in movies and TV shows. It was. Messy. Crude. Like she was just feeling out the inside of my mouth with hers.
Either way, I was in no state to resist.
My mind had gone completely blank.
…As she drew back, I felt her teeth dragging on my lower lip.
All I could do was look at her. I was adrift in a fog of unfamiliar sensations. Overwhelmed. Completely overwhelmed. Confused, and adrift.

I think you’re not supposed to like this. Being touched, pushed around, chewed on, treated like a toy.
I don’t know if I did like it. But I didn’t… want to run.
It felt like Raana was showing me what she really wanted.
As the haze cleared, I could hear my own labored breaths fade in. I took the room in, trying to find a sense of place.
I looked up at my bed, a thin, wispy red line running down its side.
My heart was racing.

Raana rested her head on my chest and closed her eyes.
“Tomori, you taste nice.”
“A-ah…”
“Can I have more later?”
I wasn’t sure what to say.
“M-maybe…”
She nuzzled into me. She was warm.

We laid still for a minute. Then, I finally worked up the courage to say something.
“…Raana-chan… Will you… tell me what you sang, earlier?”
“Hm?” She looked up, her eyes opened slightly.
“Y-you know, before I…”
“…Forgot.”
She forgot…
“Sleepy. Goodnight.”

She drifted off on top of me. Her snores were quiet and gentle.
I looked out the window, trying to collect my thoughts.
I saw the last trickles of sunlight whisking away behind an apartment building.
With every beat of my heart, I felt my shoulder itch.