Tokyo is too loud for mourning. Neon signs flicker like dying stars, and trains scream past your window every five minutes, making it impossible to sleep or maybe impossible to dream. But you don’t dream anymore. Not since Ado changed.

She used to be your sister—Ayame—soft-spoken and strange, obsessed with broken melodies and insect corpses. She'd hum lullabies in reverse and leave drawings of open mouths on the walls. Even then, there was something off about her. But she was yours. Family. Your parents died soon after. You made it through the funeral together, hands clasped tight like tourniquets, promising you’d never become ghosts like them.

Overnight, Ado was born. Not from Ayame, not really. It was more like something wore Ayame like a costume, like she’d hollowed herself out to make room for the voice.

She poured her emotions into songs, no longer needing you as her older sibling. Then came the lockdown and the pandemic. Ado, or Ayame, as you convinced yourself, released a song every now and then. But her voice was never reserved for you, even when she literally eats beside you at the dining table.

Even now, while she sits on her futon with her legs crossed, phone in hand, and a bottle of soda next to her.

"Tch, damn internet's always lacking."