Going to the Pool of Siloam (1)
The sky was cloudless and clear, yet washed in that peculiar palette winter keeps for itself, and it felt somehow inorganic. Thinking it a strangely dispiriting color, Ninomae Hitomi lowered her head once more.
What met her eyes was an apartment building that looked quite old. She took it in only in passing as she stepped inside.
There was no elevator. Partway up the stairs, as she trudged, Ninomae stopped again.
"……Chiyo?"
She had found a woman collapsed on the steps — not so much sitting as sprawled, limp enough that flat on her back would have been the better phrase.
"Ah… Hitomi-chan, you made it……."
Senjoji Chiyo. Ninomae's fellow VTuber.
The climb had evidently been far too cruel a trial for her stamina. Ninomae looked at her with a wry smile.
"…Are you all right?"
"Haa, yeah… I'm fine. Perfectly fine… haaah……."
This is… strangely erotic…!
The realization struck a beat late, and she turned her head. Even so, she couldn't help her gaze drifting back that way of its own accord.
A face flushed red. At the corners of eyes that had always carried a quiet, languid sensuality, the faintest sheen of tears had gathered. With every rough breath she let out, her chest rose and fell.
It was a fact easily forgotten, Ninomae herself sitting so far outside ordinary specifications — but by any normal measure, Chiyo's bust was considerable in its own right. At the sway of those curves, not even concealed by a thick knit sweater, Ninomae swallowed hard.
No, no! I have Shion! I mustn't let myself be tempted by something like this, Ninomae Hitomi…!
Having talked herself down with some effort, she steadied her breathing.
The other woman, of course, intended nothing of the sort. The moment one decided one was being seduced by a member of the same sex, one had, it could fairly be said, already lost.
Ninomae set her fingertips to Chiyo's forehead and spoke.
Heaven, Lake, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Water, Mountain, Earth. Turn back once more — Water, Wind, Thunder, Earth; Heaven, Lake, Mountain, Fire. Hexagram Li.
O blue flower, cradled in warmth until you bloomed; O broad wings. As thy contractor I beseech thee: burn sin away until not a handful of ash remains, and blaze.
From her back a heat-haze like the wings of a swan seemed to rise, and then that light slowly seeped into Chiyo.
"Oh. Ohhh?"
"It's a healing authority. Less efficient than reinforcing one's own body outright, but more than enough, I should think, to wash the fatigue clean and fill one back up with vigor."
At those words Chiyo shot to her feet and looked her own body over from every angle.
"Nice. With this, I can make it all the way."
"All the way, you say… though it's only one more floor."
"Huh? It is? Honestly, from the middle on I was climbing with my mind somewhere else… we're already on the seventh?"
Ninomae didn't open her mouth. She only answered by indicating, with a look, the floor number posted on the landing.
"Why is a building this tall missing so much as a single elevator……. How does Tenka-chan go up and down this every single day?"
"Ahaha… it is awfully high, I'll give you that."
Ninomae smiled wryly once more.
Right now, with magic to assist her, she could climb with a light heart — but her old self, she felt, would have ended up in much the same state as Chiyo. She hadn't exactly been one for exercise either.
"Anyway, seriously, thank you. If it weren't for you, Hitomi-chan, I'd have starved to death on the landing……."
"That's far too much of an exaggeration."
Chiyo trudged up the stairs ahead of her, and Ninomae followed.
"And you mustn't die there. You have a date with Shion tomorrow."
"……Ugh."
But at the words that followed, those feet stopped all over again. There was, she thought, a peculiar barb in them.
Chiyo's head turned with a creak.
"Um… Hitomi-chan. That is — are you maybe mad…?"
"Hm? Mad?"
Ninomae was still smiling. Looking at her, Chiyo found herself, for no reason she could name, recalling the old slander that a smile is at root an aggressive expression.
Well, she'd have every right…….
Of course Chiyo had nothing whatsoever to say in her own defense. She was the one who had stepped forward declaring she would somehow make it work and see them through — only to turn around and come back having set a date with Han Seoyeon herself.
"…Should I prostrate myself?"
Even now, ought she to plant her head on the floor? The thought flickered past, and Chiyo settled into an awkward half-crouch.
"No. Don't be ridiculous."
But Ninomae sighed and hauled her upright once more.
"I'm really not angry."
"…Really?"
"It isn't even something worth getting angry over. You weren't the one who suggested it first."
She went on, brushing past Chiyo where she had stalled.
"And it isn't as if Shion asked you out with any thought of confessing to you. For that matter, Shion never even used the word date in the first place……."
"Going out just the two of you is already quite enough of a date, mind you… well, I'll let that part go," Ninomae added.
"That's how it is. You didn't have any particular intention, and even if you hadn't, the result still isn't that you've taken Shion away from me… so there's no reason for me to be angry."
Depending on the person, it might be the sort of thing to flare up over for a moment — but pinning the blame on Chiyo in this situation would have been aiming at the wrong address entirely.
"You don't feel it at all? Jealousy, or… something like that?"
"Maybe a very little. But if you think about it, going out to have fun together is something even ordinary friends do, and just because I get greedy, I can't tell Shion not to be close with anyone at all."
If she said as much even in a sulk, Shion was the sort of person who would truly do it — which only made it worse. Ninomae offered yet another wry smile, having lost count of how many she had worn today.
"So long as I don't lose my place as Shion's first, I don't mind not being her only."
"Is that so……."
These really weren't people one could define by any ordinary relationship. Feeling anew a fact she sensed often enough even on ordinary days, Chiyo climbed the stairs once more.
Before long the two of them came to a stop before someone's front door.
"702, right?"
"Yes. That's right."
Ninomae nodded at Chiyo's question and pressed the doorbell. The old, rattling button sank deep.
"──Oh, the two of you came together?"
"Yes. We happened to run into each other on the stairs."
A screech — the scrape of a hinge as the door opened a crack. Ninomae greeted her with a smile.
"Have you been well, Tsunashi?"
Tsunashi Tenka, a second-generation talent of Anathema Production — the VTuber known as Charlotte Lupus — was there to welcome them.
"We bought the chocolate, and the other things you mentioned."
"Yeah, thanks. ──Anyway, glad you came. Come on in."
When Ninomae held out the bag she had been carrying, Tenka smiled back and took it.
Once the two of them had stepped into the entryway and the door had shut, Tenka cracked her neck with a series of pops and tipped her chin up.
"Nnngh…!"
She put a little force into it, and from around the crown of her head a pair of triangular ears sprang up with a soft pop.
"Ah. So that's how they come out. This is the first time I've seen it in person."
"Might be a first for me, too. I've seen them already out a few times, but still."
At Ninomae's marvel, Chiyo nodded as well.
Charlotte Lupus's species was werewolf. That was a setting built upon the person within.
That Tsunashi Tenka was a werewolf was, ordinarily, a fact to be hidden from others; but the two invited today already knew, and so she could let her ears out with an easy heart.
"Well. In front of you two I have them out from the start anyway. No point hiding them and being uncomfortable about it in front of people who already know, right?"
"Oh. Is it uncomfortable, keeping your ears hidden?"
Ninomae asked, puzzled. The thought had never once occurred to her.
"But you're the type of beastkin who has human ears as well, aren't you, Tsunashi? It doesn't seem as though it would be all that uncomfortable."
"It's not to the point of getting in the way of daily life, but… if I put it the way a normal person with two ears would get it, it's like wearing earmuffs all the time……."
"Aah, that might be a little uncomfortable, then……."
Hearing the explanation, she seemed to understand well enough, and nodded.
"Anyway, shall we get the stream ready? …Oh, so this is the chocolate you bought."
Meanwhile Tenka opened the bag, looked over the contents, and murmured.
"Mmm. You did say that, within reason, anything would do. I picked something from the Hyakurenno Group without thinking too hard. That's all right, isn't it?"
"It's fine. We're not doing anything grand anyway — melting it and letting it set is more than nine-tenths of the process."
Tenka set the bag down in the kitchen and turned her gaze back to her two guests.
Why had the three of them gathered here? Why had Tsunashi Tenka invited Ninomae Hitomi and Senjoji Chiyo to her home?
The reason was simple.
"All right, then — let's get ready for the Valentine's special stream!"
Today was February 13th. The eve of the feast of Saint Valentine.
In the more ordinary phrasing, it was simply the day before Valentine's.
While they had been discussing how to handle a Valentine's broadcast among themselves, someone had proposed the safe option of a chocolate-making stream, and since a studio was difficult to book, the collab location had naturally settled on Tenka's home.
She made desserts as a hobby now and then, and so, compared with an ordinary person, her place was reasonably equipped — that was the reason.
Well, as Tenka herself had just said, there was no process more complicated than melting the chocolate and setting it in a mold, so in truth anyone's home would have done…….
"Come to think of it, Tenka-chan and Hitomi-chan did a confectionery stream together last time, too, didn't you?"
"Yes. It was Halloween, so… if you count it as essentially November, it's been about three months."
"That was already three months ago. Time goes faster than you'd think──."
Ninomae answered Chiyo's question, and Tenka laughed in wonder.
"Would've been nice if the other two could have come."
"Well. Yuri-chan and Bansei-chan said they're busy."
"What's unavoidable is unavoidable! Let's do our best, just the three of us!"
Ninomae brought both hands together before her chest, as if to clear the air.
"Yeah. Let's give it our all today, too, Ninomae-chan."
"First, for the feast that is my eyes — aprons, both of you, now…!"
"Ah. But all we've got at my place are kappogi."
"That's good in its own way, so we're good!"
"Good in its own way, is it……."