By the time she was wheeled into her bedroom, Kate was still treading carefully.
She knew she'd said the wrong thing — poking at someone's painful subject for a scrap of gossip. Only because Cho Chang had such an even temper had it passed; anyone else might have turned on her right then and there.
"Tomorrow's Christmas Eve, so you should rest up today." Cho Chang wheeled her into the bedroom, gave her usual reminder, and made to leave.
"Wait!" Kate hurriedly spun the wheelchair around, struggling for ages before she finally managed to catch hold of Cho Chang's arm.
But having gotten this far, she had no idea what to say.
Cho Chang turned back of her own accord, crouching down calmly and looking up at her. "What is it? Did you forget something?"
Kate's lips parted without a sound. She wavered for a long moment before gathering the courage to speak. "Actually... I once had someone I liked too."
If she really had to talk about matters of the heart, then going all the way back to her past life, she had once had someone she secretly loved.
A flicker of surprise showed in Cho Chang's eyes. "Are you... trading secrets with me?"
"If that's how you want to see it, then sure." Kate sighed, studying her face, straining to recall the girl she'd pined for in her past life.
"Honestly, I can't even picture her face clearly anymore. But just thinking about that quiet peace and contentment I got from watching her in secret — that's enough to comfort me."
She spoke in a low voice, her fingertips reaching out of their own accord to brush Cho Chang's cheek. The instant she touched that soft, smooth skin, some instinct made Kate want to draw nearer.
"So I really do understand you. Even if the person you like doesn't like you back, it's all right. As long as you have that beautiful memory to hold onto, that's enough."
Her voice grew softer and softer, and she leaned down further and further, until in no time she was less than a fist's width from the girl gazing up at her.
Cho Chang said nothing, watching her with faintly trembling eyes.
Kate lowered her gaze with a self-mocking little smile. "Even though I say I understand you, these are just useless musings about something I could never have."
"If it were possible, I'd still want you to be with the person you like. A wonderful girl like you — there's no reason the other person wouldn't fall for you."
As she said it, she finally lifted her eyes a fraction, and in the instant her gaze met and wove together with those gentle ones, her relaxed expression froze solid.
From their very first meeting, Kate had known Cho Chang was beautiful — those eyes most of all, so tender they seemed to shimmer with water, unforgettable at a single glance.
But only now, meeting such eyes at such a close distance for the very first time, it felt as if... as if the person Cho Chang liked were her.
The hand that had touched that face to comfort her now pressed with a little more force than she'd intended, until the soft skin beneath her fingertips flushed red.
But Cho Chang didn't stop her. If anything, she leaned in closer.
Almost without realizing it, Kate was on the verge of closing her eyes, wanting to kiss this girl who always watched her so tenderly.
It wasn't until a gust of cold wind swept in from the corridor at just the right moment that Kate, lost in that gentle gaze, was jolted back to her senses.
She sat bolt upright, her eyes darting away in disarray, and kept the joke going. "Ahem! You weren't just mistaking me for the person you like, were you?"
Cho Chang looked at her, silent for a moment, then rose slowly to her feet and nodded softly. "Mm. And weren't you just now seeing me as the person you like? So we're even."
Kate went blank for a second.
The truth was, she'd already forgotten what that girl looked like.
But faced with the graceful exit Cho Chang offered, she still managed to tug up the corners of her mouth. "Mm, seems we're both the same."
"That's right." Cho Chang curved her lips and raised a hand to tuck the hair back behind her ear. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone."
This was a secret that belonged to her and Kate alone.
Only after she'd feigned composure long enough to see her off did the polite smile on Kate's face collapse for good.
In silence she wheeled herself over to the bed and lay down, the star-filled ceiling still twinkling above her head.
The artificial starlight spilled down over the bedding, but as Kate stared up at that ceiling, her mind kept returning to the sight of Cho Chang reaching out to touch those little points of light, her whole face lit with joy.
It had been... utterly, breathtakingly beautiful.
She had no words for how she'd felt, seeing Cho Chang like that.
But she knew that just now, at least, the sudden racing of her heart when her eyes met Cho Chang's had not been for some girl she could no longer even remember.
It had been because of Cho Chang — the girl right there before her eyes.
She'd fallen for Cho Chang too, after Hermione.
Even if it had lasted only an instant, thinking back on it afterward left a tangle in her chest too knotted to speak of.
Kate let out a soft sigh and slowly closed her eyes, well and truly at a loss.
Cho Chang already had someone she liked, and yet here Kate had shamelessly leaned right in and nearly kissed her!
If what she felt for Hermione was genuine feeling, then what was this thing for Cho Chang? Just being swept up by a pretty face?
And if what she felt for Cho Chang was genuine feeling, then what was this thing for Hermione? Just a fit of infatuation?
A long sigh escaped her, and she started rolling around on the bed in a chaotic tangle.
How could she be falling for two people at the same time!?
How could she be such a scumbag!?
Or was it that what she felt for both of them wasn't real feeling at all — just some illusion that resembled it?
The thought stopped her cold on the bed, and she reached up with a perfectly blank face to press a hand over her own chest.
If that were really it, then she ought to get her heart checked. Fluttering like this all the time, she'd manage to offend every last friend she had.
But compared to falling for two people at once, she'd honestly rather have some genuine heart condition!
Yes, that was it — it had to be a problem with her heart!
Hermione and Cho Chang were the two finest friends she'd made in this world. She would absolutely never be some old cow grazing on tender grass, some rabbit forever nibbling the shoots right by its own burrow, some fool sitting by a tree stump waiting for a rabbit—
Ahem! In any case, it had to be that her body had been in poor shape lately, and that was why her heart kept fluttering. It was a physiological phenomenon, completely unrelated to her feelings!
After this bout of self-deceiving comfort, Kate finally managed to drift off to sleep. When the sun rose the next morning, it would all be as if nothing had happened at all.
What Kate, having fallen asleep so early, never knew was that outside her bedroom Cho Chang hadn't left at all, but stood there in the cold, wind-swept corridor until the dead of night.
Perhaps not even Kate knew that her master bedroom was the finest stargazing spot in the entire castle, second only to the Astronomy Tower.
And so Cho Chang stood outside her bedroom, gazing from afar at the river of stars strung across the sky.
She reached out, caught the brightest one in her palm, then just as quickly let it go.
The stars still hung in the heavens, untouched, unmoved.
She turned to look at the tightly shut bedroom door, an unspeakable tangle of feeling on her face.
The stars are forever in the sky, forever out of reach.
And the person she loved was on the other side, forever beyond her touch — near, and yet so far.
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