Last night, 白月 玲奈 rewrote her apology three times. The first time, she tried to be honest. "I apologize for neglecting the customary greeting." Reading it back, it felt too stiff. The second attempt was more casual. "I wasn't thoughtful enough, and I'm sorry." This time it felt too light. The third try was a compromise. She crumpled the paper and tossed it onto her futon. (Maybe preparing words in advance is itself rude.) That thought kept her awake until morning. Climbing the stone steps of Renka-zaka, 玲奈 rolled words around in her mouth. "About yesterday..." "I'd like to greet you properly..." "On this occasion..." — everything sounded hollow. She swallowed the restless words with a wry smile. Kōnōgura — a pickled vegetable shop founded 45 years ago, owned by Dōmae Yoshiharu, who was also chairman of the Yanaka Shōwa Association — had its lattice door open before 8 a.m. The moment 玲奈 reached for the sliding door, a low voice came from inside. "The salt on the napa cabbage is a bit too mild today." It wasn't directed at anyone. Just a mutter while prepping. She stepped inside. The fermented smell of bran paste and the sharp scent of salt hit her nose. Dōmae stood before a large wooden tub. White chef's coat, thick eyebrows streaked with white, a solid back. No openings anywhere. "Um, Dōmae-san—" "Ah, the kid from the Tsukishita place." He didn't turn around. Just said that much while pressing the napa cabbage down with both hands. 玲奈 took a breath. She tried to pull out the words she'd rewritten last night — but in that moment, Dōmae started talking. "Sumie-san, back when your parents were still young, there was a festival around here." His hands stayed in the tub. "The shopping street suddenly got moving to add more attractions. Sumie-san promoted it instead of social media — it was flyers back then — really big. People came flooding in. We were only happy for the first thirty minutes." 玲奈 opened her mouth. "It took two hours to sell through everything we'd prepared. The people waiting in line started getting angry. The other shops didn't even have time to move their stock around. Nobody coordinated because she didn't tell anyone beforehand." His hands moved. The napa cabbage was pressed down quietly. "The next day, Sumie-san went around to every shop, bowing her head. That's the kind of person she was." Only then did Dōmae turn around. His eyes were calm. Not angry. Just looking at her as if confirming something. 玲奈 swallowed every word she'd thought about last night. "...I'll go around, shop by shop." "Do that." Dōmae turned back to the tub. That was it. The perfectly prepared apology never got a chance to be spoken. As she closed the lattice door, 玲奈 heard: "You're going to Rikuto's place next, right?" 玲奈 pushed the door half-open. "...How did you know that?" "This neighborhood's small." He answered without looking away from the tub. 玲奈 smiled wryly and closed the door. Yanaka really was small. --- The headquarters of Zuikō Foods was tucked one block off the Nihonbashi intersection. Twelve stories, glass facade, an antenna shop called "Zuikō Kashishō" on the first floor. 玲奈 stopped in front of the main entrance and looked up at the logo. Twenty-five minutes by train from Yanaka. Same Tokyo, completely different city. In the lobby, 陸斗 stood near a pillar. Black hair with red mesh streaks, wavy, deep blue eyes with vertical pupils, a leather bracelet on his right wrist. Today he wore a shirt instead of a jacket, with one button undone at the collar. He looked caught between work mode and something else. "Thank you for coming." "I promised I would." "Are you nervous?" "A little." "That's honest of you." 陸斗 smiled. Not a business smile. In the elevator heading up, 玲奈 watched the Nihonbashi landscape through the glass. Orderly rows of high-rises, wide roads, crowded sidewalks even in daytime. Nothing like the back alleys of Yanaka. There, there were the stone steps of Renka-zaka, the roof tiles of Jōshō-in, five cats, and eight customers. Here, there was glass and steel and suits. Suddenly, a light dizziness. (Which one is real?) Both, she thought immediately. Both were her reality. --- The manufacturing line viewing area required white coats and caps. The cap handed to her at the reception was too large — it slipped down to her eyes. 玲奈 held it up with both hands. "This is a large." She could see 陸斗 fighting back laughter from the corner of her eye. His mouth corners rose slightly, he bit his lower lip, and still the laugh threatened to escape. "Wasn't there a medium?" "...One moment, please." When 陸斗 returned, he had the same size cap in his hands. "The mediums are out of stock," he said quietly, then adjusted her cap. His fingertips brushed her bangs, pressing it into place. For that moment, the distance was close. "Thank you," 玲奈 said, but her voice came out slightly strained. (Why did it strain?) She didn't understand it herself. 陸斗 was already facing forward. --- The viewing area was vast. Machines in neat rows, white walls, uniform lighting. Confectionery blanks flowed across the line. At regular intervals, at constant speed, shaped into uniform forms. A world of precision with error reduced to the absolute minimum. The assigned employee explained. "This is the forming line. There was previously a development project to reproduce the hand techniques of craftsmen with machinery. The most difficult part was mimicking the sensation of bare hands—" 玲奈's feet stopped. At the edge of the line sat an older machine. More worn than the others. Not in operation. "What's that?" The employee paused. "A hand-touch former — a machine designed to reproduce the traditional technique of shaping nerikiri with bare hands alone. We spent four years developing it, but ultimately it wasn't adopted for the mass production line." 玲奈 looked at the machine. She remembered Sumie's hands. Slight stains on her fingertips, delicate finger movements during work, the human warmth transmitted to the bean paste. That sensation, pursued for four years, never reached. (Never reached.) That fact fell into her chest in a strange way. It wasn't that capital had been defeated — it was that there was a place they'd tried to reach but couldn't. The kitchen of Tsukishirado appeared from a different angle. --- After the tour, 陸斗 didn't take 玲奈 to the employee cafeteria but to a small sweet shop outside the building. First floor of a commercial building, six counter seats, two tables. Limited menu. Shiratama, anmitsu, tokuten. The Nihonbashi intersection visible through the window. "The cafeteria would have been fine." "The cafeteria means running into various people." 陸斗 said it with a slight smile. There was implication. 玲奈 didn't ask. She didn't need to — she understood enough. Taking the Tsukishirado representative through the company wasn't simple for him. They ordered anmitsu with shiratama and sat quietly for a while. 陸斗 spoke first around the time he'd eaten half the shiratama. "My grandfather had a confectionery shop in Tōhoku." 玲奈 set down her spoon. "A small wagashi shop. More than ten minutes' walk from the station, with a plain sign, only known to regulars. But my grandfather woke up at 4 a.m. every morning and never closed a single day." His voice was lower than usual. Not his business voice. "It closed when I was in fourth grade. My grandfather's health failed, and there was no one else." 玲奈 said nothing. "On the last day, I helped take down the sign. It was wooden, cracked. While taking it down, my grandfather was laughing. Not sadly — genuinely peaceful." A short silence. "I realized later that was probably because he had no regrets. He'd done things his own way, all the way to the end." "So you joined Zuikō Foods." "...I can't quite explain it." 陸斗 set down his spoon. "I think the initial motivation was not wanting it to disappear. But once I was in, I realized that making something bigger and protecting it aren't necessarily the same thing." As 玲奈 listened, she felt the outline of 陸斗 as a person gradually shift. The image she'd held until yesterday — "the representative of a major corporation" — faded. What emerged beneath was someone who still spoke of a grandfather who'd laughed while holding the sign from his closed shop. But at the same time, because of that, she thought. This person is inside an organization. Carrying contradictions, still moving by organizational logic. A person with separated emotion and work. One shiratama remained at the edge of the plate. "Hayama-san—" 玲奈 hesitated before asking. "Do you really like Tsukishirado? Truly?" 陸斗 didn't answer immediately. Outside the window, a car passed through Nihonbashi. A traffic light changed in the distance. "I do. Truly." His voice was quiet. 玲奈 received those words. Whether they were about Tsukishirado's evaluation or something else entirely. Words that could be taken either way hung in the air. 玲奈 looked away toward the window. The back of her cheeks grew warm. --- Leaving the sweet shop, they walked toward Nihonbashi Station. An autumn afternoon, the sunlight gentle but the wind slightly cold. 玲奈 pulled her jacket closed. The distance between her and 陸斗 walking beside her seemed narrower than in the shop. Maybe it was her imagination. Her smartphone rang. She looked at the screen. "Dōmae Yoshiharu." She'd just seen him this morning. What could it be? she wondered as she answered. "Hello?" "Tsukishita-san." His voice was lower than this morning. Formal. "The Shōwa Association would like to speak with you officially. Could you make time soon?" "Of course," 玲奈 answered. "Could you come to Kōnōgura next Monday evening?" "I'll be there." She hung up. In the Nihonbashi crowd, Yanaka returned. The sweetness of the shiratama, 陸斗's "I do. Truly," its lingering warmth still in her chest — and reality stood right beside it. 陸斗 was looking at her face. "The Shōwa Association?" "Can you tell?" "From your expression." 玲奈 was slightly surprised. 陸斗's eyes had changed. Not sympathy. Something like resolve. "If the Shōwa Association is going to say something to Tsukishirado, what do you think the reason would be?" 陸斗 paused. He opened his mouth. Then stopped. "...There are things I can't say today." 玲奈 received those words. Received them, and couldn't immediately process them. He knew something. But couldn't say it now. Not hiding — unable to say. She understood the difference. But what the "reason for being unable to say" was, she didn't know. They walked in silence. When the station entrance came into view, 玲奈 stopped. Lost in thought while walking, she'd ended up in the middle of the stairway down to the platform. "Tsukishita-san." "...Yes?" "People are coming. There." 玲奈 looked back. Two salarymen were coming down the stairs at a light jog. She hurried to the side. "Sorry, I was lost in thought." "Something difficult on your mind?" "...Various things." 陸斗 smiled slightly. A moment of levity inserted after serious tension, almost anticlimactic. But in 玲奈's head, "I do. Truly" and "There are things I can't say today" echoed simultaneously. Trust and small doubt. Both were real. --- By the time she returned to Yanaka, the street lamps on Renka-zaka were beginning to glow. Climbing the stone steps, 玲奈 tried to line up the day in her mind. Dōmae at Kōnōgura and the apology words that went unused. The high-rise in Nihonbashi. The forming machine that four years couldn't reach. The sign her grandfather had taken down. The anmitsu with shiratama. "I do. Truly." "There are things I can't say today." The call from the Shōwa Association. She tried to organize it, but couldn't. Everything was heavy, and when she tried to lift one thing, another rolled away. Opening the door to Tsukishirado, she sensed Sumie in the kitchen. "Grandma?" "Welcome home." Sumie was finishing the last nerikiri of the day. In a