The chair was still on the floor.
Nobody had picked it up.
Nana's hands were at his collar — fingers paused at the second button — and the kitchen was warm and the dinner was cold and neither of them had noticed either of these facts.
She kissed him again.
He kissed her back.
The front door opened.
"I'm home — I got the things you mentioned and also there was a sale on the—"
Yoru stopped.
Grocery bags in both hands. The specific brightness of someone who had been in a good mood all evening and had come home to continue it.
She stood in the doorway.
Looked at the kitchen.
At the fallen chair.
At Nana on Kaito's lap.
At his shirt — two buttons open, collar loose.
At Nana's hand.
At where Nana's hand was resting.
Two full seconds of complete silence.
"WHAT," Yoru said.
Not quietly.
"WHAT IS—" Her voice cracked straight down the middle. The grocery bags hit the floor. "YOU — SHE — HE—"
Her eyes were already bright. The brightness was not the good kind.
"Yoru—" Kaito already moving, already standing—
"DON'T," she said. The word came out jagged. Looking at him with the expression of someone who had said I love you twenty-four hours ago and had come home to find — this. Anger and hurt running together, neither one winning. "Don't say my name like that right now."
"It's not—"
"I CAN SEE WHAT IT IS."
Her voice broke on the last word.
She turned. Went down the hall. The front door slammed. Then above them — Kaito's apartment door. Another slam. More distant. No less felt.
The kitchen went very quiet.
The fallen chair sat where it was.
He was already moving toward the door.
"Kaito."
Her hand closed around his wrist.
Both hands actually — she had moved around the table faster than he'd tracked and now both her hands were around his wrist and she was not letting go.
He stopped.
Looked at her hands. At her face.
She was not composed.
For the first time since he'd known her — eight months of warm smiles and careful timing and envelopes and pot plants and the strand of hair that always escaped — Nana was not composed.
Her eyes were bright. Her grip was tight. The expression of a woman who had made a decision and was executing it regardless of cost.
"I love you," she said.
Fast. Real. The version that had been building since month one and had never quite made it out until now.
"I love you," she said again, grip tightening. "Since the tap. Since the concrete step. Since Hana brought you terrible tea and you drank all of it and told her it was good." Her voice was not steady. She wasn't managing it. "Since every envelope. Every morning I timed the recycling. Every night I listened to your footsteps upstairs and knew whether you'd had a good day."
He looked at her.
"I love you for myself," she said. "And I love you for my daughters. And I am standing here holding your wrist because if I let go you'll go upstairs and I'll go back to being the woman downstairs and I—"
Her voice caught.
She held on.
"I can't do that anymore," she said. "I've been doing it for eight months and I can't — I just need you to know. That this is real. That I'm not going anywhere. That I would—"
"Nana," he said.
"I'm not done," she said.
He waited.
She looked at him — the full unguarded look, nothing managed, nothing composed, just a woman holding a man's wrist in her kitchen at ten PM with cold dinner on the table and a chair still on the floor.
"I would be so good to you," she said. "If you let me."
The kitchen held them both.
He looked at her hands around his wrist.
At her face.
At the door.
"Nana," he said again. Gently. "I need to think."
She looked at him.
Slowly, one finger at a time, she let go.
He looked at her for one more moment.
Then he went.
She stood in the kitchen alone.
The chair was still on the floor.
She picked it up.
Set it back at the table.
Sat down.
Looked at the cold dinner.
Outside, in the corridor, his footsteps went toward the building entrance and then faded.
She sat with her hands flat on the table and listened to the silence and breathed.
He walked.
Eleven minutes to the park. He did it in eight.
Small park. Two benches. A row of trees. A climbing frame empty at this hour.
He sat on the nearest bench.
Elbows on knees. Looked at the ground.
"Two people," he said, to the park. "Two very real people. Who both—"
He stopped.
Ran a hand through his hair.
"I wanted a normal life," he told the bench. "This is not what I had in mind."
The park did not respond.
He pulled out his phone.
Searched: hotels near Nishioka district.
Found one. Reasonable price. Available.
Booked it.
Sat with the phone in his hand thinking about two slammed doors and a wrist held with both hands and I would be so good to you said with a voice that didn't stay steady.
He was still thinking when he heard footsteps.
She was carrying two canned drinks from the convenience store.
He recognised her before she recognised him — the height, the neat blonde-brown hair, the composed posture even at ten PM.
Tachibana Haruka.
She looked up.
Saw him.
Started to raise a hand in greeting.
Then she saw his face.
The hand dropped.
She stood at the park entrance for a moment. Then walked to the other bench. Sat down. Said nothing.
He looked at her.
"You don't have to stay," he said.
"I know," she said. Opened one can. Set the other on the bench between them.
He looked at it.
Picked it up.
They sat in silence.
He looked at the climbing frame. "One of them said I love you last night," he said. To no one specifically. "And tonight another one said the same thing. Differently."
Haruka said nothing.
"I didn't handle either one well."
"How many," she said carefully.
He thought about it.
"Several," he said.
She looked at the trees. "And you. How do you feel."
"Confused," he said. "And responsible. I didn't try to — I just wanted a normal life. I wasn't trying to—"
"I know," she said.
He looked at her.
She was looking at the trees with the composed expression she wore for everything. Something underneath doing something she wasn't showing.
"You're not the type," she said. "To do it on purpose."
"No."
"That doesn't make it simpler."
"No," he agreed.
They sat.
After a while she stood. Picked up her bag.
Looked at his phone screen — still showing the booking confirmation. "Hotel?"
"Just for tonight," he said. "I need to think."
She looked at him — the full direct look she rarely showed anyone.
"Get some sleep," she said. "Things look different in the morning."
She walked out of the park.
He watched her go.
Sat for a while longer.
Then picked up his bag and went to find his hotel.
She was almost home before she realised her hands were slightly cold and she'd given away both drinks.
She looked at her empty hands.
Walked through her front door.
Her mother looked up from the sofa. "Did you get the—" She saw her daughter's face. "Haruka? What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Haruka said. "Tired."
Her father looked up from his newspaper. Looked at his wife. Looked at Haruka.
"Haruka—"
"Goodnight," she said.
She went to her room. Closed the door. Got into bed. Pulled the blanket up to her chin.
Her phone buzzed.
Tsukasa.
You looked different at the café today. Something happened. Tell me.
Haruka looked at the message.
Looked at the ceiling.
Pulled the blanket higher.
Typed back: Are you free to talk.
Three dots. Immediately. Always.
She typed everything.
The park. The bench. His face. Several.I just wanted a normal life. The hotel booking. The way he'd said confused like it was the most honest word he had and had used it anyway.
Sent it.
Waited.
Tsukasa's response came in pieces.
I knew something happened.
I knew it at the café.
He ran to the bathroom when I asked.
Then a longer pause.
Haruka.
How many do you think.
Haruka looked at the ceiling.
Typed: More than either of us probably want to know.
A long pause.
Then:
...I waited eight years.
I can wait a little longer.
Haruka read it.
Read it again.
Set the phone on the blanket.
Looked at the ceiling.
"Hm," she said quietly.
The ceiling offered nothing.
She pulled the blanket over her head.
Her hands were still cold from giving away both drinks.
She hadn't noticed until now.
She noticed now.