Tsukasa's parents lived in the same apartment they had always lived in.
East side of the city. Fourth floor. The building she had grown up in — the one with the balcony where she had watched the street below as a child, cataloguing the neighbourhood's rhythms because she had been alone enough to learn them.
She had not brought anyone home before.
She had told her mother this on the phone — simply, directly, the way Tsukasa did most things. "I want to bring someone for dinner."
Her mother had been quiet for a moment.
Then: "When."
"Saturday."
"I'll make the good rice," her mother had said. Which meant she understood the occasion even without being told what the occasion was, because she was Tsukasa's mother and had been paying attention for nineteen years.
He came to the apartment on Saturday evening.
Plain jacket. The paperback in his bag. The expression he always had.
