He woke up with a crick in his neck and Yuki entirely on top of him.
Not partially. Not leaning. Fully. She had migrated at some point in the night from sitting beside him to using his chest as a mattress, both her hands tucked under her chin, legs draped over his, white hair everywhere. His arm had apparently gone along with this because it was around her back.
He looked at the ceiling.
The lamp was still on. The laptop had gone to sleep. Outside the window it was early — that specific grey that came before the city decided to be loud.
He looked down at her.
She was completely asleep. The kind of asleep that had no awareness of being watched, mouth slightly open, one sleeve-covered hand pressed against his shirt. She looked — he didn't finish the thought. He just looked.
He had nowhere to be.
He stayed where he was.
She woke up forty minutes later, made a sound like a small animal, and pressed her face harder into his chest before she was even fully conscious.
"Don't move," she said. Muffled. Eyes still closed.
"I haven't moved."
"Good." She shifted slightly, resettling. "Stay there."
"I'm underneath you."
"I know." She pulled his shirt slightly with her fist. "Stay there."
He stayed there.
A minute passed. Outside someone's delivery drone hummed past the window. She cracked one eye open, looked at the window, closed it again.
"What time is it," she said.
"Early."
"How early."
"Before six."
She groaned into his chest. A genuine, full sound, completely undignified. He felt it more than heard it.
"Why are we awake before six," she said.
"You woke up."
"I didn't decide to."
"Your body did."
"My body is making decisions without me again." She finally opened both eyes and looked up at him from his chest. Her hair was doing four different things. "Bodies are so rude."
He looked at her.
"What," she said.
"Nothing," he said.
She narrowed her eyes at him with the focused suspicion of someone who knew exactly what nothing meant coming from him. Then she gave up and put her chin on his chest instead, looking at him properly now.
"You let me sleep on you," she said.
"You were already there."
"You could have moved me."
"Yes," he said.
She looked at him for a second. The morning was grey and quiet and her eyes were red and very awake and she was eleven centimetres from his face.
"Kairo," she said.
"Mm."
"You're doing the thing again."
"What thing."
"The looking at me like the results are interesting thing."
"I look at everything like—"
"You don't look at the lamp like that," she said.
He didn't have an answer for that. She seemed satisfied by not getting one. She put her cheek back down on his chest and looked at the window.
"More dots on the map yesterday," she said.
"Yes."
"Are we going to go?"
"Eventually."
"Which ones."
"The ones that are annoying."
She made a small sound that meant she'd accepted this. Her hand moved from his shirt to his arm, just resting there, warm even through the hoodie. He didn't move his arm from her back.
They stayed like that while the city outside slowly decided to wake up.
His phone buzzed on the table beside them.
Yuki reached up without moving the rest of herself and grabbed it with her sleeve-covered hand before he could and looked at the screen.
"Rina," she said.
"Give me—"
"She says—" Yuki squinted at the screen, "—'I'm leaving today. Just wanted to say bye. Also I saw you on the news AGAIN, what is going on, please tell me you're not doing what I think you're doing.'"
"Give me the phone."
"There's more." She scrolled. Her expression changed slightly. "Oh. She says she's going with her party. Something about — she says she's cleared up to Floor 31."
Kairo was quiet for a second.
He sat up slightly. Yuki adjusted without complaint, ending up beside him, still leaning.
"Rina," he said.
"She lives next door."
"She's always been quiet about her stats." He thought about it. "She brought you bento when you were on the app. Acted like she was just a neighbour."
"She was being modest," Yuki said.
"She was being careful," he said. "Someone who's cleared 31 floors in a party context doesn't broadcast it."
Yuki looked at the message again. "It says her party climbed higher than anyone else before the server crashed. And now they're—" she scrolled — "going to Osaka. There's a Floor 12 gate there."
"She should be fine with her party," he said.
"We should say bye."
He took the phone back and texted: Fine. Be careful with the Osaka gate.
He looked at it. Added: Don't get pulled in from more than ten metres.
Yuki read over his arm. "That's the most you've ever said to her."
"It's two sentences."
"It's very warm for you." She looked up at him. "I'm proud of you."
"Don't be."
"Too late." She patted his arm with her sleeve.
A minute later Rina replied: So you ARE doing it. I knew it. Take care of yourselves. Both of you. Then after a second: Also I'm sorry I kept saying sister thing. She's very obviously not your sister. Then immediately: Anyway bye!!!!
Yuki read it and something about her expression went soft. "I like her," she said.
"I know."
"Do you like her?"
"She's fine."
"Kairo."
"She's a good neighbour," he said.
Yuki looked at him with the patient expression of someone who had accepted what they were working with. "You're going to miss her a little bit."
"I'm not—"
"Tiny bit."
"Yuki."
"Microscopic—"
"Do you want breakfast," he said.
She lit up immediately. "Yes."
He made rice. She sat on the counter watching him with her legs dangling, sleeve-hands in her lap, extremely invested in the entire process.
"What are you doing," he said.
"Watching."
"Why."
"I want to learn." She tilted her head. "Also it's nice to watch you do things."
He looked at her. She looked back at him completely unbothered, the way she always was when she said things like that — no deflection, no walking it back.
"You're just going to watch," he said.
"I'm going to watch and then I'm going to help."
"You're going to help by watching."
"Moral support," she said seriously.
He turned back to the rice.
She kept watching. At some point she stopped watching the rice and just watched him. He could tell by the change in the quality of the silence.
"Yuki."
"Mm."
"Stop."
"I'm not doing anything."
He turned and looked at her. She was sitting on his counter in his hoodie with her legs swinging slightly, and she was looking at him the way she'd looked at him since the hundredth floor — like he was the most interesting thing in any room — and her nose was still a little pink from last night and her hair was still doing four things.
He walked over.
She went still in the way she did when something was about to happen.
He stood in front of her — she was nearly at his eye level on the counter, which was a new experience — and looked at her.
"Hi," she said, very quietly.
He put one hand against her cheek. She leaned into it immediately, eyes closing for just a second, and then looking back up at him.
He kissed her.
Properly this time. Not her forehead, not her cheek. Her mouth, slow and deliberate, his hand still against her face. She made a small sound and kissed him back and her hands came up and grabbed the front of his shirt with both fists like she needed something to hold.
He pulled back after a moment.
She sat there with her hands still in his shirt and her eyes still slightly closed and her ears completely pink.
"Okay," she said, after a second. Her voice came out smaller than usual.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay," she said again, not really to anyone.
He turned back to the rice.
She sat on the counter for a long moment, hands in her lap, looking at the side of his face.
"Kairo," she said.
"Mm."
"You can't just do that and then make rice."
"The rice needs—"
"The rice can wait—"
"It can't, actually."
She stared at the back of his head with tremendous feeling. "You are so—" she stopped. "I don't have the word."
"Frustrating," he suggested.
"I was going to say something nice," she said.
"Were you."
"I was in the process of—" she gave up. She slid off the counter and pressed her face between his shoulder blades and wrapped her arms around him from behind and just stood there. He could feel her forehead against his back.
"Stay there," she said.
"I'm making rice."
"You can make rice like that."
He made rice like that.
They ate on the floor again, their portions next to each other, her shoulder against his. She ate with more confidence than yesterday now that she wasn't trying to use chopsticks correctly and had accepted she was going to hold them wrong forever.
"I've been thinking," she said.
"About what."
"The ability." She poked at her rice. "The not-noticing thing. I want to try it further. See what range I have."
"Not on a floor."
"Obviously not on a floor." She looked at him. "I meant here. Or outside." She paused. "I want to understand what I am."
He looked at her properly. She was looking at her bowl, and there was something in the way she'd said it — not sad exactly. Just honest. The kind of question that had been sitting quietly for two days waiting for the right moment.
"We'll figure it out," he said.
"You don't know that."
"No," he said. "But we'll figure it out."
She looked at him. He looked back at her. He meant it and she knew he meant it and that was the thing about him — he didn't say things he didn't mean, which meant when he said something it landed differently than it would from anyone else.
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. Quiet, warm, quick.
"Okay," she said.
He didn't go still this time. He just reached over and moved a piece of hair out of her face and went back to eating.
She watched the side of his face.
"You didn't go still," she said.
"No."
"You went still the first time."
"I know."
"What's different."
He considered it. "The first time I didn't know what to do with it," he said. "Now I do."
She looked at him for a long moment, something bright in her expression, something that was two days old and had no name yet and was getting less nameless by the hour.
She leaned her head on his shoulder.
He let her.
Outside, the map had more dots. The city was figuring itself out, gate by gate, floor by floor. Somewhere on a train to Osaka, Rina was going to go do something genuinely dangerous with people she trusted.
Inside the apartment was warm.
Her head on his shoulder. His shoulder not moving.
Some things were very simple.