The faded noren curtain was thinner than memory. That alone made 白月 玲奈 stop. Her right hand gripping the suitcase handle tightened without her noticing. An alley in Yanaka, 3-chome. Moss crawled across the stone pavement. The latticed windows—open or closed, impossible to tell. The characters "月白堂" hanging from the eaves, written by her great-great-grandfather Seizo himself, were already peeling away at the edges. (Not aged. Forgotten.) For eight months at Crossnode, a web planning company in Shibuya, 白月 had managed SNS for restaurants and retail shops. Her eyes analyzed the storefront with the occupational habit of a professional. The fading of the noren. The density of the moss. The visibility of the sign—everything spoke not of "this shop is still open" but "this shop is already finished." The problem wasn't deterioration. It was information collapse. Existing, but reaching no one. Still, she couldn't bring herself to say it aloud just yet. 玲奈 dragged the suitcase across the stone approach. The texture of the uneven stones beneath her feet matched the sensation from childhood walks, and something stirred faintly in her chest. She passed through the noren. "You're late." The voice came from the back. From the kitchen direction. The moment 玲奈 opened her mouth, a small figure with silver-white hair tied at the nape of her neck had already disappeared deeper inside. Not "welcome." Not "welcome home." 玲奈 smiled wryly and leaned the suitcase against the corner of the sales space. A room about six tatami mats. A glass case with wooden frame. A wall clock from the 1950s. A zelkova work table. Everything in the same place as in memory. Only the light seemed insufficient. Whether the window was dirty or 玲奈's eyes had simply grown too accustomed to Shibuya's brightness. At the kitchen entrance, 玲奈 stopped. 澄江 was there. About 155 centimeters tall, thin shoulders. Wearing an indigo apron, standing before the work table. Her silver-white hair was bound without a single strand out of place. Her eyes—a clear, pale blue—gazed only at her hands. That gaze did not acknowledge 玲奈. Or perhaps it did, but there was something in those hands now that wasn't worth turning toward. A white mass became petals. With bare hands alone. No tools. No molds. Just fingertips and palms, pressing the white nerikiri bean paste thin and soft, one petal at a time. The "hand-touch method" passed down through generations at 月白堂—shaping with nothing but the bare sensation of the hands, no tools or molds—玲奈 had seen it countless times since childhood. Yet now it appeared as something she was seeing for the first time. (Why is it so beautiful?) Cutting it into Instagram Reels. Designing hashtags. Calculating optimal posting times—that was the only context in which recent 玲奈 had thought about what "photographs well." But before 澄江's hands now, such calculations felt terribly shallow. The warmth of fingertips giving life to the bean paste. Before that fact, the frame of a smartphone didn't matter. 澄江 looked up. "You're in the way standing there." "…Oh, sorry." 玲奈 hastily stepped back. 澄江 didn't change expression, returning her gaze to her hands. Another white petal was born. "The ledger's on the desk." "…Yes." The ledger was on a small desk in the corner of the sales space. Handwritten. Meticulous characters filling every line. 玲奈 turned pages, following the numbers. Monthly sales: 360,000 yen. Monthly deficit: 150,000 yen. Savings balance—澄江's and 玲奈's severance combined in a single line. Approximately 900,000 yen remaining. And in the margin, written in red ballpoint pen: "Drainage work: by April next year, 1,800,000 yen" 玲奈 stared at that line for a while. "…Grandma." "What." "The handwriting is too easy to read…" "If you can't see it, it's pointless." The answer came instantly from the kitchen. 玲奈 held the ledger, spending several seconds deciding whether to laugh or cry. A bomb with a polite label reading "This is a bomb." The confectionery manufacturing license renewal was seven months away—if equipment standards weren't met, operations would be suspended. 1,800,000 yen in renovation costs against 900,000 yen on hand. Bad. Genuinely bad. 玲奈 set the ledger on the desk and exhaled slowly. Beyond the window, the stone pavement visible through the lattice. Tourists flowed toward Yanaka Ginza shopping street. 月白堂 was one street removed from there. The structural problem of being off the main flow wasn't new. Yet before, 120 people came daily. Now it was eight. (That's why I came. That's what I came for.) As she told herself this, 澄江 emerged from the kitchen. A small tray with nerikiri and roasted tea. She set two cups in the four-person raised seating area and gestured with her chin for 玲奈 to sit across from her. 玲奈 sat obediently. The nerikiri was shaped like a white flower. The one she'd watched being born in the kitchen moments ago. When it entered her mouth, sweetness spread quietly. Not flashy sweetness. But it didn't fade. "You're doing SNS?" 澄江's voice had no warmth. But no sting either. Just asking. "…It's what I'm good at. I thought we'd start there." 澄江 drank her roasted tea for a while. She set the cup down. "You can't knead bean paste with SNS follower counts." It was a quiet voice. Not criticism. Not irony. Just fact. Which was why it struck 玲奈 straight in the chest. "…I understand that, but without getting customers to come, we can't survive." "Customers aren't called." "Huh?" "They're remembered." 玲奈 was about to ask what "remembered" meant. Her mouth half-open, 澄江 stood. She headed toward the kitchen without hesitation, glancing back. "Well, try it." There was a pause. "Oh." 澄江 stopped. She turned back. "How many followers do you have now?" "…Twenty-three." "My." A small pause. "That's more than me." With that, 澄江 disappeared into the kitchen. 玲奈 burst out laughing before immediately not knowing if she should be laughing. But the words "they're remembered" didn't fade even in the laughter. They floated in the air, landing nowhere, just remaining. The difference between calling and remembering—玲奈 still couldn't quite put it into words. --- Evening came. In the kitchen, 澄江 was finishing the last piece. 玲奈 leaned against the entrance, watching her hands. On the work table, a long, narrow vessel. White bean paste floating in transparent agar. Like a moon sinking into water. 月白羹—the secret specialty of 月白堂. A kanten confection only 澄江 could make, or so it was said. That figure with moonlight-like white floating in transparency—the recipe existed only in oral tradition, never written down. "The maker's state of mind comes through in the taste," 澄江 said. 玲奈 didn't yet understand what that meant, but she could tell that what lay before her was extraordinarily beautiful. Before she knew it, she'd raised her smartphone. Her hand moved before she asked. The instinct of a former SNS planner remembered the angle of the streetlight on Renka-zaka as she'd descended it on the way here. Three streetlights on the slope, their light falling in a strangely good way. Walking down the 40-meter, 32-step stone staircase, she'd thought: "Something interesting could be captured here." "Can I take a picture of this?" She was already framing it as she spoke. 澄江 glanced at the smartphone briefly. "Go ahead." Then she added quietly: "Food should be eaten while thinking of the person who made it." 玲奈 pressed the shutter while trying to receive those words, but couldn't quite manage it. The person who made it. 澄江. These hands. These ninety years—. The photo came out better than expected. The 月白羹 placed on the stone pavement beneath the Renka-zaka streetlight, light streaming in. The transparent agar scattered the light, and the white bean paste inside truly looked like the moon. 玲奈 posted it to her personal account. She kept the caption short. "Yanaka 月白堂. 月白羹. Made by my grandmother." That was all. She hadn't posted it as a business strategy. There was simply the emotion of "beautiful." Just the impulse to let someone know. --- The next morning, a notification woke her. In the corner room on the second floor of Yanaka-so—thirty seconds on foot from the back of 月白堂, a 1K apartment—staring at the ceiling, 玲奈 couldn't reach for her smartphone for a while. In the haze between sleep and waking, she felt only "something came," and for some reason, confirming what it was felt frightening. She looked at the screen. 32,000. The "likes" had exceeded 32,000. The comment section was flowing. "Where can I buy this?" "Is this Yanaka?" "Too beautiful." "I'm coming." "Can I make a reservation?"—text flooding like a deluge, continuing to multiply. Even as she watched, the numbers moved. 32,100. 32,200. 玲奈's hands trembled. And trembling, she thought with strange clarity. Only eight 月白羹 could be made in a day. Maximum thirty nerikiri. The amount 澄江 alone could make with her hands—that was the limit. Technically. Physically. Against 32,000 people saying "I'm coming," what could be prepared was eight 月白羹 and thirty nerikiri—and 澄江 had surely already started making today's batch. A crow called from outside the window. 玲奈 sat up in bed and opened the window slightly. Cold morning air entered. The tile roof of Jousho-in came into view. A Jodo sect temple founded in 1683—its roof tiles visible from above Renka-zaka, wet from rain, gleaming slightly black. Beyond that, in the distant sky, Tokyo Skytree stood. Old and new, with no explanation, under the same morning sky. "Calling" and "remembering." The words 澄江 had spoken yesterday surfaced again. 玲奈 might have "called" 30,000 people with SNS. But could 月白堂 "remember" those 30,000 people? How many faces could be remembered with eight 月白羹? Between calling and remembering, there was a place where she still hadn't stood—its outline became faintly visible in the weight of the numbers and the morning air. Hope and fear wore such identical shapes, 玲奈 thought. She closed the smartphone screen. In the kitchen, 澄江 was already moving. In the morning silence, faint sounds of water and something being kneaded mixed together. Today too, thirty nerikiri would be born from those hands. 玲奈 remained still, looking out the window. The tip of Skytree caught the edge of the morning clouds. The tile roof silently received the rain. Something was beginning from here. That much was certain. Where it would lead, she still didn't know.