Still, I like the reference to the end of Chapter 51, "Hana to Yari," as well as the minor explanation of what makes Yousuke - and Chie, to a lesser extent - feel uncomfortable at the end of that last scene. But the progression of events that would have followed this scene (Yousuke, Chie, and Kuma going into the TV and finding Souji) created too many instances of TV-jumping, which I thought would slow down the pace of the story unnecessarily, especially at this stage of the plot. So, I dropped it...but that doesn't mean I didn't like it.
The blonde girl's nostrils flared, briefly, as she sucked a long breath staring into Yousuke's eyes. Then she furrowed her brow and pouted her lips, still peevish but no longer so frustrated. “I saw something on my TV, kuma,” she said, and then she darted her eyes toward the large television, almost accusingly. “I wanted to see it out here, because this screen is bigger, kuma.” She paused, her little pink lips – puckered together tightly – moving back and forth over her teeth, as if she were hedging. Then she leaned in toward Yousuke, with something like desperation. “But it went away, kuma! It went away before I could see what it was! Before I could see, kuma!” she cried, and then she fell into his arms, clutching at him with such sudden force that he staggered.
“Ku-Kumada...!” he muttered. He sent Chie a worried look, and then he gave a low sigh, his shoulders falling as he put his arms around Kuma.
Chie reached out with one hand, rubbing the girl gently on her back, beneath her fall of flaxen hair. “It's all right,” she murmured, stepping closer so that she could stroke at the crown of Kuma's head.
But the girl raised her head at Chie's touch, turning halfway around in Yousuke's loose embrace to shake her head with insistent vehemence. “No, kuma!” she said. “Something's wrong! Something's wrong with the TV, kuma!”
“There's nothing wrong with the TV,” Chie assured her. She reached down for the remote again, and again clicked the television on and scrolled rapidly through the channels. “See?”
Kuma shook her head, shutting her eyes now, too, as a low, groaning whine unraveled from her throat. Then she looked up, beating her fists against Yousuke's chest. “Yousuke-e-e-e...!” she said, as if pleading.
He stared for a long moment into the girl's imploring gaze, and then turned to Chie. “She doesn't mean the TV,” he muttered gravely. “She means the other world.”
Chie took a step back from him, feeling a bubble of bile climb to the top of her throat. But she shook her head and swallowed it back. “No,” she croaked. “No, that can't-”
“She saw something on the TV,” he said, his words slow and measured. “Something she couldn't make out. And then it was gone. Just like-”
“Don't.” Chie told him flatly. “Don't say it.”
“Chie-”
“Yousuke, that's crazy!” she said, shaking her head again. “The Midnight Channel doesn't exist, anymore! We stopped it. Izanami was controlling it, and we defeated her! Just because Kumada-chan thinks she saw something-”
“I saw it, too.”
Chie blinked, feeling that bubble come to the top of her throat again, only this time it didn't go back down. She pressed her fist to her mouth, giving a sick little half-burp that tasted like regurgitated sour meat and made her grimace. “...When?” she said from behind her fist.
“The night of the Culture Festival,” he answered, too readily, which made her drop her fist to her side.
“Why didn't you tell me before now?” she demanded.
He opened his mouth, but no words came. He glanced at Kuma, who was looking up at him, too, as if for help. Finally, he turned back to Chie again, shaking his head. “I-I don't know,” he muttered.
“You don't know-?!”
“I wasn't sure I'd seen anything at all!” he said, taking one arm from around Kuma to gesture toward the television. “I mean, it was...late, and we were...drunk, and I...I didn't....” He looked away, shamefaced. “I didn't want to think I'd seen anything,” he said in a quiet voice.
And she remembered that night, remembered sitting with him on the floor, flushed and fervid in their intoxicated ardor. She remembered that she had been the one staring into the television that night, when it had flickered to life seemingly on its own, a haze of static that should have been a commercial, or a weather report, or a news story at that hour: not static, not blankness. And she remembered, too, that she had forced the evidence from her mind – half-drunk on shochu liquor and lust for him – because she hadn't wanted to face the truth, however impossible, that the past was not so far away as she had thought.
“We stopped it,” Chie said again, hearing her voice tremble. She ran her hands up along her arms, wishing that Yousuke had his arms around her, too, but forcing herself not to run to him.
“There's one way to find out,” he muttered, his gaze falling away again. Then he looked up again, but not at her.
She looked at the television, too, its blank, black surface projecting an eerie and unsettling calm...because beneath that surface she knew what horrors laid in wait, beyond the black.
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