For instance, the mating rituals of the higurashi

Twin telepathy, Megu thinks, is very much a thing. There's no other explanation.

There's no other way to explain how Aya was able to figure out, with all the two braincells she seems to have when it comes to relationships, who is it that Megu likes.

"Well, what 'ya gonna do, then?"

"Nothing."

(Megumi Kikuchi observes. She grew up observing the world from a window she couldn't open. She grew up observing before acting, because Ayame acted before observing.

She observes, and observes, and observes.)

(An epilogue epilogue.)

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She holds back on acting so she can observe.

She does nothing when her childhood friend's painfully obvious crush comes up to her and asks 'what kind of chocolate does Lea like' because she knows he comes straight from some bad harem and has no clue of what he's implying.

(She knows that he also asked said childhood friend the same question. She just does, from the way he closed his eyes as he smirked 'wouldn't you like to know' - Shun always opens his eyes wide when he's trying to fake a smile, as if that'll fight off the natural reaction his face muscles want to make.

And because Nagisa also has two braincells when it comes to relationships, he doesn't notice that.)

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After thinking about it a little more, she still couldn't see where was it that she went wrong.

Where was it that she let her hand linger a bit too long to the point that... well, maybe Lea said something when it was Aya's turn like ‘you touching my shoulder yesterday was a bit weird’ and Aya somehow connected the dots. Or the joke-flirting made her uncomfortable. But she reciprocated it every single time, so that can't be it.

(Joke-flirting, she remembers, is also how she used to communicate with Madoka Kuroda from the house next door. Granted, it ended with a teary farewell and Megu's first heartbreak as she found out that the cookies she got from Kuroda were leftovers she didn't know what to do with and not actually the heatfelt confession Megu had imagined, but still. Joke-flirting works, okay?)

There was the possibility of Aya saying it as a joke. It wouldn't be the first time she joked ‘hey Natsu, you sure look like a momma's boy with that new haircut’ and made him break into tears. Wouldn't be the first time she missed the quiver on Chika-sensei's voice as he warned them to walk home in groups until the rainy season's over, either.

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Mikoto faints in her arms, and everything is blurry from then on.

She knows that Shio was the one who screamed, and Sensei carried her to the infirmary (an excuse of one; a creaky bed with some old first aid kit thrown in a corner and, if they're lucky, maybe the sink's water will be working long enough). The entire class huddled around the miniscule room until Mikoto woke up with a sheepish grin.

'Sorry, Aya', she says out loud, but when they're left alone it's a 'my bad, Megu'.

Lea comes into the room with some ice from the teacher's room's fridge, and it's quiet between the three of them for a good ten minutes before she speaks.

"Aya-chan, are you feeling unwell too?"

"Hm? I'm fine. Why?"

Megu swears she could hear Mikoto snickering from the bed like she knew what Lea was about to say.

"It's just, you kind of look languid. Like..."

Megu's heart stops.

Last week, Aya had made a show of carrying Mikoto on her shoulders, look at how strong I am, bet you can't do it with one leg, Nagisa-kun ---

-- But she could barely hold up Mikoto's head when she fainted.

"...You didn't ask for a bite of everyone's lunches either, so I thought--"

--- But she could not stomach eating as much as her twin somehow managed to on a daily basis.

"Aya-chan?"

She opens her mouth to laugh it off, but the cold sweat running down her back feels as if it's taking her rehearsed, trained excuses away too.

What it doesn't take away is the euphoria from the assumption her brain made once the words reached her ears.

You were watching me that closely?

◇◇◇◇◇◇

Then, it happens.

◇◇◇◇◇◇

Of course 'Akimoto' was watching her closely.

She feels silly for worrying about lying to her when she's claiming to have done much worse.

◇◇◇◇◇◇

She rambles things she wish she believed in an attempt to fix things. Fix her. Fix whoever the girl in tears in front of her is.

Perhaps if she said it loud enough, they could back to a warm corridor early in the morning with a pair of earphones and a not subtle glance to chapped pink lips.

◇◇◇◇◇◇

She's not able to do anything.

◇◇◇◇◇◇

Consider, for instance, the sound of rolling bicycle wheels on the way to school.

The bike that's probably too small for two guys to ride on every single day for the next 10 or so months slowing down to wave to her, and a frown that both she and the owner of the multiplied relationship braincells notice instantly.

It translates to 'are you okay?', though a less literal translator might add an 'let's talk after class'.

◇◇◇◇◇◇

Autumn begins to shows itself around the end of the first week of September. By then, there's no more higurashi. Shorts and short sleeves shirts are left in the upper drawer instead of the one closest to the bed.

Red and green foliage shyly show themselves up in the trees once home for those damned crickets. Megu loses on rock paper scissors three times in a row. The sky is blue. Grass is green.

"Heck yeah! Hikaru, let's go before she asks for a rematch!" Natsu beams, dragging Hikaru away from the school's backyard.

Aya looks at Megu with an attempt at pity, but her shit eating grin wins over. "Joke 'bout him not keepin' his hands to himself. Should work like magic."

She leaves, and Megu now is the one who has to go remind Nagisa and Shun that they have club activities to do and can't spend the rest of the afternoon by the tree holding hands or whatever it is that they're doing.

It was cute and prime teasing material until they stopped hanging out with their friends on breaktime in favor of getting some shade by said tree every single day. According to Game Club rules, that's an unforgivable infraction.

Approaching the forbidden tree, Megu coughed. Once, twice. The conversation they were having, however, was clearly too engaging to be stopped by this tactic.

"Hinata would NEVER."

"For the love of fuck, I'm talking post timeskip. Not when they're 15."

"They'll never be canon."

"Please stop arguing about anime and get inside already, you two..."

(In the end, the talk after school doesn’t happen. She’s not upset, she isn’t. Shun has other priorities now. It’s fine.)

◇◇◇◇◇◇

The dreaded exam week - or exam weekend, as is customary for the high schoolers in Shimazawa - arrives with a punch to the gut.

The teacher applying the tests goes through roll call with a hum to each response (even to Nagisa's hurried scream that he's here, not late, absolutely did not sleep in this time, really), and everything's okay until ---

"Akagi."

He doesn't catch himself saying it until it's too late.

(Ayame breaks into tears right then and there, sprawled over her exam sheet. There's a moment of panic as her sobs echo through the mostly empty classroom; Shun is the one who covers her trembling frame with his coat and mumbles ‘we need a minute’ to that horrifically apologetic, clueless adult.)

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---- [ "From the bottom of my heart, I wanted to give up; I wanted to give up on living. There was no denying that tomorrow would come, and the day after tomorrow, and so next week, too. I never thought it would be this hard, but I would go on living in the midst of a glomy depression, and that made me feel sick to the depths of my soul." ]

Consider, for instance, the weather predicting heavy rain on a day with a lone cloud on the sky; an incorrect assumption from pre-determined data, not unlike the preparations for the sports festival bringing Kasumi Ooshima to the village.

Kasumi Ooshima is tall and promises lunch boxes to the elementary schoolers if they help with the posters and her hair is shorter than Aya's now. She's all smiles and laughter and offering prayers to white and green flowers put on the desk of someone she didn't even know.

But when Kasumi Ooshima is left alone with her, she stares at the other desk (the one with white flowers and no green ones, just white and blank sprouts).

"What happened?"

Megu doesn't answer.

"Why was no one arrested?"

Megu does nothing.

Instead, she wishes Kasumi Ooshima would stop staring at her like she was the one who personally put a bullet to Sentou's chest.

◇◇◇◇◇◇

[ "… I was thinking, listlessly, is this what it means to be happy? But now I feel it in my gut. Why is it we have so little choice? We live like the lowliest worms. Always defeated – defeated we make dinner, we eat, we sleep. Everyone we love is dying." ]

They're all dead, actually. Shun, Aya, Nagisa, even Natsu. They all died long ago and had their souls brought back by a nine year old with a storybook and some kind of ancient prayer. They're the ones in the wrong place.

(He never stops wearing a scarf even after the weather warms up.

They cancel the noisy and clacking and shooting beloved annual fireworks show with nary a word of complaint from, honestly, anyone.

Not even the raging, disgusting multicelular being in the form of a man whose name is as ironic as his usual behavior dares to say anything. If he has any complaints, they don't give him a space to voice them.)

◇◇◇◇◇

By the end of summer, Megumi Kikuchi gets the memory of Kasumi's 'you were not really her friends, were you' burned forever on the back of her mind.

Kasumi Ooshima returns home with a slap across her face as a souvenir, though the effectiveness of the present is dulled by the news that a certain multicelular being also got slapped - to death, Megu finds herself wishing - in the middle of the plaza, in plain daylight.

In both occasions, screams were heard. Help was called. Apologies were not muttered.

When was it that she became the one who acts before she thinks?

(She later asks for the sordid details: his was not a slap, nor was it a single punch. Not one, not two, not only three.

Ayame is all smiles as she gives him a high five. The story later becomes 'Nagisa punched a homophobe in the face and it was awesome’ among the club members, but Megu can't find any joy in it.

Her own slap still stings inside her chest.)

◇◇◇◇◇◇

--- 'We shouldn't be here.'

Nagisa whispers that on a stormy day with no clouds in the sky.

But she already knew.

Sentou and Midoriko are where they should be.

(It's not hard to tell the twins apart anymore; not because of the hair color, but because while Aya is hopeful smiles and assorted fruit candies, Megu is more of a distubing existential realizations and month old spoiled milk kind of girl.)

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Consider, for instance, the snow falling in autumn.

It's an instance.

An illusion.

(Consider, for instance, the fact that Megumi Kikuchi fell hard for someone who never existed in the first place. That's one concept she hasn't had the displeasure of reading about in dad's books yet.)

Lea Akimoto.

Miria Sentou.

The mating rituals of the higurashi.

It all becomes white noise the moment you stop paying attention to it.

It is, after all, an instance in time. Once the season's over, they go back into hiding.

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But.....

But, even then.

Megu looks back, and Aya is there.

To their left, Hikaru and Shun are watching Nagisa and Natsu run around the classroom like they always do on Monday mornings.

To the right, the sliding door opens to reveal Chika-sensei one step away from entering the room.

"Yer always been the smart one, Megu. Can't ya figure it out already?"

Something warm prickles down her right cheek.

Twin telepathy, Megu thinks, is very much a thing.

"Even if ya leave, yer not gettin' rid of us anytime soon - wherever it is that yer thinkin' of going."

There's no other explanation as to why she said such an uncharacteristically perceptive thing so suddenly, her hands behind her head with that tomboyish charm that Megu has struggled to replicate lately.

There's no other way.

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[ No matter what, I want to continue living with the awareness that I will die. Without that, I am not alive. That is what makes the life I have now possible.

Inching one's way along a steep cliff in the dark: on reaching the highway, one breathes a sigh of relief. Just when one can't take any more, one sees the moonlight. Beauty that seems to infuse itself into the heart: I know about that. ]

--- Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen