Nana’s apartnt at six in the evening had the particular warmth of sowhere that had been ho long enough to an it.
Yoru sat on the sofa with both hands around a cup of tea she wasn’t drinking, in the posture of soone who had arrived with feelings and was still deciding which ones to lead with. Nana sat across from her with her own cup and the posture of soone prepared to wait as long as the tea lasted and longer if necessary.
Saki and Hana were at the low table doing howork with the focused energy of children who had assessed the room’s atmosphere and decided cooperative invisibility was the correct strategy.
The cartoon was off.
"Tell ," Nana said.
So Yoru told her.
The classroom. The hand on his sleeve — not hers, soone else’s. The na. Minami Tsukasa, said out loud in a room, attached to a face, attached to eyes that had looked at him the way Yoru recognised because she had felt the sa thing from the inside.
She told her about being sent ho. About the fine she had said and ant and was still processing. About the walk back, fast and furious and frightened underneath.
Nana listened with her cup in both hands and the expression she had when she was being very still on the outside because sothing was moving on the inside.
When Yoru finished the apartnt was quiet.
Saki turned a page of her textbook.
Hana erased sothing carefully.
"She grabbed his sleeve," Nana said.
"Yes."
"In front of you."
"Yes."
"And asked for him—" a pause "—privately."
"Yes," Yoru said, and the word ca out with a texture that hadn’t been in the previous ones.
Nana looked at her cup. Yoru looked at hers. The tea was getting cold. Neither of them was drinking it.
"She’s the one," Nana said. Not a question. The flat, precise delivery of a woman identifying a category. "The mory he ntioned. The warm one."
"I think so."
"She’s been in his class since Monday. Sitting beside him."
"Every day," Yoru confird.
Another silence. Longer. The kind that has sothing building in it.
Nana set her cup down slowly, with the deliberate care of soone choosing their movents. She looked at the middle distance with the expression she wore when she had arrived at a conclusion and was examining it from all sides before speaking.
Then she smiled.
Not the warm smile. Not the fond one or the knowing one or any of the smiles Yoru had catalogued in the past week of knowing her. The other one. The quiet one — the edge now visible, no longer half-hidden. The smile of a woman who had decided sothing and found the deciding clarifying.
Yoru looked at her.
Then, without fully aning to — the way you catch an expression from soone standing next to you — she felt her own face doing sothing similar.
The cup in her hands ca up slightly.
Nana’s cup ca up to match.
They looked at each other over the rims.
From the low table, Saki looked up from her howork. Looked at her mother. Looked at Yoru. Looked at the cups. Looked at Hana.
Hana looked back with the eyes of soone who had seen this energy in this room before and had opinions about it.
"Mama," Saki said carefully.
"Howork," Nana said, in a voice of absolute velvet calm.
"You’re doing the face."
"What face."
"The one that ans soone is in trouble."
"Nobody is in trouble," Nana said warmly. "Study."
Saki studied. With the posture of soone studying while maintaining full peripheral attention on the room.
Nana looked at Yoru.
Yoru looked at Nana.
The cups were still raised.
"So," Nana said, very quietly, in the voice of soone opening a board eting. "A girl has made a move."
"On our—" Yoru started. Stopped. The word she’d almost said sat in the air between them, slightly embarrassing, entirely accurate.
"Yes," Nana said, without requiring the word to be completed. "On our."
A beat.
"How dare she," Yoru said. Quiet. Precise. The temperature of sothing very cold.
"How dare she," Nana agreed, in the sa register.
The smile widened by a millitre on both faces simultaneously.
From the low table, Hana leaned toward Saki and whispered: "She found a partner."
Saki whispered back: "Scary."
"Very scary," Hana confird.
They returned to their howork with renewed focus.
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