I'll translate this Japanese light novel text to English, maintaining the dialogue-driven style and all special formatting. --- I'd decided to greet Kanozou the next morning without fail. That's what I'd promised myself before falling asleep, but the moment morning light filtered through the window of Yanaka-sou and woke me, the first thing that came to Reina's mind was Sota. 10 AM today. Kaffee Myoushou——a small-batch coffee shop run by Sota, tucked into an alley just off Yanaka Ginza shopping street——I had a promise to consult with him about Tsukishirado's SNS strategy. （The greeting can wait... until afternoon. I'll definitely go in the afternoon.） Reina carefully crushed the small voice of conscience in her palm. She threw on her apron and rushed down the stairs. Morning dew glistened on the stone-paved approach. From the direction of Renka-zaka, the bell of Joushoin temple sounded. Distant, low, just once. Slipping under the noren curtain of Tsukishirado, she could already hear the sound of bean paste being kneaded from the kitchen. Sumie was an early riser. Just as Reina reached for a broom to start sweeping the shop, her gaze drifted toward Renka-zaka. There was a figure. Renka-zaka——the 32-step stone staircase leading to the alley where Tsukishirado stood——near the bottom, a slender person was standing. Or rather, crouching. No——holding a smartphone toward the stone pavement. （...Who is that?） Reina slipped under the noren and stepped outside. As she drew closer, she saw pale water-blue short hair catching the spring morning light in an oddly striking way. The figure with bangs covering half the right eye, silver-clear pupils——it was Sota Seio. But Sota hadn't noticed Reina's presence. He kept the smartphone camera trained on the moss between the stones, adjusting the angle, adjusting again, shooting continuously. "...Sota." No response. "Sota." "Ah." Finally, his face lifted. Sota smiled softly, a little embarrassed. The small silver piercing in his left ear caught the morning light and glimmered. "Sorry, you were already here?" "I've been waiting over five minutes." "This moss is really something." Sota said it as though it were obvious. He turned the smartphone screen toward her. Deep green moss crawling through the joints of the stone pavement, glistening with morning dew——over ten photos lined up on the screen. Each one was just moss, with only subtle angle differences. "...You look like it was worth coming." "It absolutely was." Reina looked down at the stone pavement. It wasn't bad, certainly. But she wondered how many people in the world could feel that coming here was worthwhile because of moss on a stone pavement. "Tsukishirado is this way." "Oh, yes." Sota followed obediently. His gaze kept drifting back to the pavement as they walked, but when Reina quickened her pace slightly, he dutifully looked ahead. --- The moment Sota stepped through the small sliding door of Tsukishirado, his feet stopped. Beyond the kitchen entrance was Sumie. Navy apron, silver-white hair gathered at the back of her head, small frame. In front of the work table, she was carefully, carefully shaping something. With bare hands alone. No tools, no molds——just fingertips and palms, the white bean paste of nerikiri being pressed flat one sheet at a time——the "hand-touch finish" passed down through generations at Tsukishirado. Sota said nothing. He didn't take out his smartphone. He just watched. Intently, holding his breath. Sumie didn't turn around. But her voice came. "Sit there for now." "...Yes." Reina felt like she was hearing Sota respond this quickly for the first time. --- Sota spread his laptop on the cushion of the raised platform, and Reina sat across from him. Numbers filled the screen. "I saw the post about Tsukishirado Kanten." Sota spoke in an unhurried tone. "32,000 likes. Six hours after posting." "I know. I nearly got blown away by the notifications this morning." "I did some analysis on why it spread so much." Sota turned the laptop screen toward her. A spreadsheet with several items organized. "It's the angle of the lighting. The street lamp light from Renka-zaka hits the kanten at an angle, creating refraction between the white bean paste inside. That's why it looked moon-like, I think." Reina nodded. Sota was explaining with numbers the reason she'd instinctively pressed the shutter that night. "The posting time was good too. 9:45 PM, right at the peak of pre-sleep SNS browsing. Plus the composition of the negative space——just the stone pavement and light, no text, no product name. That ended up creating an 'unexplained beauty' that invited comments." "If you keep posting three times a week for three months, I think 8,000 followers is within reach." Something clicked into place for Reina. Sota was organizing what she'd been doing by instinct. His experience as an SNS planner naturally overlapped with his analysis. "If we hit 8,000 followers, that's roughly double the daily customer count." "In theory." "In theory, right." A pause that was almost a wry smile passed between them. Tsukishirado could make a maximum of 30 nerikiri per day, 8 kanten. Even if followers hit 8,000, supply wouldn't change. Sumie's voice came from the kitchen entrance. "Assuming you secure time for photography..." Both turned. Sumie kept her hands moving, not facing them. "After finishing thirty nerikiri, did you think about the condition of her fingers?" It was a quiet statement. Sota started to speak. Reina tried to say something too. But words wouldn't come. Reina tried to imagine what a 68-year-old's fingers looked like after hand-finishing thirty nerikiri. She couldn't. Or rather, she could imagine it, but didn't want to look directly at it. --- A little later, Sota asked, "Could I photograph one nerikiri?" Sumie nodded. Sota set his laptop aside and took out his smartphone. He placed the nerikiri plate on the low table of the raised platform. He stacked one cushion. The height wasn't enough, so he stacked another. Sota crouched down and checked the angle. He stood again and shifted the cushion position. He crouched again. Reina watched silently. Sota switched to macro mode. He held his left hand up to check light levels. He tilted his head. He tilted the smartphone slightly right. Then slightly left. Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty minutes passed. Sota pressed the shutter. He checked. He tilted his head. "...The light changed." "Huh?" "A cloud came in and the light from the window changed. I'll shoot again." He said it naturally. Reina hadn't realized Sota's airheadedness went this deep. "Food should be eaten while it's warm." Sumie's voice came from the kitchen. A quiet statement. Not angry. Not rushing. Just stating a fact. Sota froze. He looked at the nerikiri. The pale pink flower on the low table was starting to dry slightly. "...I'll eat it." "Obviously." A laugh burst out. Sota laughed too, looking troubled. From deep in the kitchen, something small seemed to shift. Whether it was a laugh, Reina couldn't tell. Sota picked up his chopsticks. One bite. His eyes widened slightly. "...I should have eaten this before analyzing it." --- After the laughter settled, Sota's eyes turned toward the shelf. The bottom shelf of the sales space. The other shelves held wooden molds and old tools for making wagashi, but only the bottom shelf was stacked with worn notebooks. Years were written on the spines. The oldest one read "Showa 32." "What is this...?" "May I touch it?" Sota's eyes asked Reina for confirmation. Reina looked toward Sumie. Sumie gave a small nod without stopping her hands. Sota carefully took out one notebook and opened it. Meticulous handwriting filled the pages. Names, visit dates, weather, names of purchased sweets, and a single short line. A brief note was added to each entry. "Tanaka. Rain. Hikari Hajime——a creative sweet Sumie makes at the start of spring——three pieces. She was talking about her child's entrance exam." "Kimura. Clear. Tsukishirado Kanten. Her shoulder seemed to be bothering her, so I made it less sweet than usual." Reina turned pages beside Sota. The handwriting changed midway. Her grandfather Hiromichi's. Slightly rounder than Sumie's. "Sasaki. Cloudy. Nerikiri (Autumn Grasses). After stomach surgery. I served the softest one." "...CRM." Sota said quietly. "CRM?" "Customer Relationship Management——a system for recording information about each customer and using it for the next interaction. The hand-written version of what big companies manage with systems." Reina looked at the notebook. Names and dates and weather and sweet names and short lines. That was all. But decades of it had accumulated. "Grandma." She called toward the kitchen. "Did you write this the whole time?" "Your grandfather and I, together." Her hands didn't stop. "It's not just remembering faces. It's remembering the face someone has that day. That's all." Reina couldn't immediately grasp the meaning of "remembering the face someone has that day." She slowly turned back to the notebook. Tanaka came on a rainy day. Kimura's shoulder was bad. Sasaki was post-surgery. The same person came with a different face each time. Remembering that difference——that's what it meant. The number 32,000 flickered through Reina's mind. "So how do we continue this in modern times...?" Sota closed the notebook and spoke quietly. Not asking for an answer, but confirming that there wasn't one. That kind of murmur. Reina had no answer. As she returned the notebook to the shelf, only the question remained in her palm. --- Afternoon came. Reina was standing up to confirm next week's sweet names with Sumie while Sota worked on the posting schedule framework on his laptop, when she saw a figure through the latticed window. A tall silhouette climbing Renka-zaka. Black hair with red streaks mixed through wavy strands, swaying in the spring afternoon light. A leather bracelet on the right wrist. Deep azure eyes with vertical-slit pupils, trying to confirm the shop's interior through the noren. （...Hayama.） Something in Reina shifted, just slightly. A movement she couldn't decide was caution or something else. Riku slipped under the noren. "You said to come when there's Tsukishirado Kanten, right?" "Oh." Reina's voice came out. Riku had kept exactly what she'd said at parting the day before. Just that, and yet something small trembled deep in her chest. Had he timed it for sales strategy, or had he really just kept that one promise——she couldn't judge. And that inability to judge was a little troublesome. "...We have Kanten today. Just now, actually." She answered a bit too quickly, trying to hide embarrassment, and Reina felt a little exasperated with herself. "And you are?" Riku's gaze turned to Sota. Sota looked up. Silver pupils and azure pupils met for a moment, as if measuring each other. "Sota Seio. I run Kaffee Myoushou——a coffee shop near here——and I'm helping a bit with the SNS side." "Riku Hayama. I work for Zuikou Foods——" "I know of it." Sota answered smoothly, pleasantly, without hesitation. Riku smiled wryly. "I see." A salesman for a major confectionery company and a 17-year-old coffee shop apprentice. The difference in position was clear, and a small tension lingered. But the moment Sumie came out with a tray, that tense air shifted. Three Tsukishirado Kanten sat on the plate. Transparent kanten with white bean paste floating inside like moonlight——Tsukishirado Kanten——. The three sat on the raised platform. Sumie started to leave without a word, then stopped midway. "Talk after you eat." That said, she disappeared into the kitchen. --- For a while, no one said anything. Sota picked up his chopsticks first. One bite, and he closed his eyes. Riku followed. A different taste from the nerikiri he'd eaten before. Sw