The night before, Riku's voice still lingered in her ears. "There's something I can't say today." Those words alone kept returning every time she tried to sleep. Something unsaid. Something unspoken. Reina had no idea what lay inside that "can't say." Trust and a small thorn. Both were real. Staring at the ceiling of Yanaka-sou, Reina sighed. (Today is the alley market. I can think about it later.) She told herself that, then closed her eyes. But she couldn't sleep completely. --- The autumn event held once a year by the Yanaka Merchants Association—"Alley Market"—where shops opened their storefronts in Yanaka's back alleys to draw locals and tourists—the morning of the event was hazy autumn sunshine. Reina woke an hour earlier than usual and set a table outside Tsukishirado. She draped it with white cloth and arranged nerikiri. Today's lineup was a pale purple nerikiri branded "Beginning of Frost Month," and five pieces of Tsukishiro-kan. The ones Sumie had been preparing since last night. Tsukishiro-kan—agar with white bean paste floating inside like moonlight—that transparent beauty had reached 32,000 likes overnight in a photo taken under the streetlights of Renka-zaka, that confection—Reina carefully arranged each piece in a glass case with wooden frame. "Is this position okay?" As she made fine adjustments while muttering to herself, footsteps came from the direction of Renka-zaka. "Good morning." Short hair in pale water-blue, bangs slightly covering his right eye. Sota Seo stood there with a memo pad in hand. Kissa Myosho—the self-roasted coffee shop Sota ran in an alley a little off from Yanaka Ginza Shopping Street—was apparently opening today too, as he still wore his apron. "You're early." "You were earlier, Hakugetsu-san." Sota's eyes caught on the edge of the tablecloth. "...Um, the corner of the cloth..." Looking, the fabric's edge was fluttering in the wind. Sota casually pressed it down. "Thanks." "No, it's just... today feels strange somehow." When Reina looked at him, Sota was gazing up at the sky. "Strange?" "The wind's coming from the west. On days like this, I can't read people's movements, somehow." For a moment, Reina thought Sota was reading the tense atmosphere of today. But those silver eyes were purely watching the sky. It really was just about the wind. (So innocent...) Laughter welled up, and Reina pressed her lips together. She'd been tense, but her body relaxed a little. Laughter and tension coexisted as she continued preparing the storefront. Just before opening, a young male employee came from the direction of Kano-gura—a pickled vegetable specialty shop founded 45 years ago, run by Yoshiharu Doumae, chairman of the Yanaka Merchants Association. Early twenties, looked taciturn. He didn't meet Reina's eyes. "For Hakugetsu-do..." He held out an envelope and said nothing more. He left without looking back. Reina took the envelope. It was thick. The address read "Tsukishirado," and the sender was "Yanaka Merchants Association Chairman Yoshiharu Doumae." The employee not meeting her eyes. The thickness of the envelope. Those two things silently conveyed the weight of its contents. --- When the flow of people at the "Alley Market" began to settle around midday, Reina went into the kitchen and opened the envelope. Sota had taken over handling customers for the nerikiri outside, so she had a little time. Three A4 pages. Text packed densely. She read. Three points were written. First—Tsukishirado's SNS-driven customer increase had created an unexpected flow of people to Yanaka, violating the Merchants Association's "Quiet Tourism Maintenance Policy." Second—when starting new initiatives, she had not made "storefront greetings" to the five neighboring shops. This violated an unwritten rule of the association. Third—submit a response plan in writing by the regular meeting in two weeks. If not submitted, measures including exclusion would be considered. There was no legal force. But it meant Tsukishirado would be isolated within the Yanaka community—a practical pressure. When she finished reading the final line, Sota appeared at the kitchen entrance. He'd come to report on the outside situation, but he stopped when he saw Reina's expression. "May I look?" Reina silently handed him the document. Sota read quietly. After a while, Sota took out his memo pad. He started writing numbers. Customer count, SNS follower growth rate—or so it seemed, but he stopped midway. "...That's not it." "What isn't?" "I was trying to analyze it with data. But this isn't a numbers problem." His voice was quiet. There was a pause as if he was recognizing it anew with his own words. "What do you think should have been done?" Sota thought for just a moment before answering. "I think there was no right answer from the start. But we got the order wrong." Reina couldn't argue. Because he was right. The greeting to Kano-gura had come too late. She'd moved without checking the association's policies—looking back, it was all clear. But Reina hadn't seen it at the time. In the silence, Sota began writing something in his memo pad. This time not numbers, but letters. "What are you writing?" "Who stopped for the nerikiri earlier and how. Older women stopped more for the pale purple, younger people for the Tsukishiro-kan. I'm writing it down because I'll forget if I just rely on feeling." It was like a modern version of that "customer ledger"—the record book passed down through generations at Tsukishirado, with customer names, weather, and a single comment in meticulous handwriting. "I thought if we posted a reel video now, people would come." When Reina looked up, Sota continued. "Too many would come, so I stopped." He'd solved it on his own. Cracking a joke to himself and resolving it himself. "...You should have told me." "I didn't want to get yelled at by you." He said it with a straight face. Reina burst out laughing. She shouldn't have felt like laughing in front of that heavy document, but the laughter came. Sota's change—starting field observation on his own from such an impure motive—drew out laughter while appearing as genuine growth. --- A little after three in the afternoon, Reina spotted a familiar silhouette in the crowd. Black hair with red mesh mixed in, wavy. 180 centimeters tall. A leather bracelet on his right wrist. It was Riku Hayama. Standing in a casual shirt at the edge of the crowd. Reina's feet stopped for a moment. That expression—she understood instinctively—was his work face. Not the sales face from the day they first met, but something more complex held inside. The memory of observation accumulated bit by bit from Episode 2 onward returned that reading to her now. (I'm watching this person more carefully.) That awareness and a faint unease ran through her simultaneously. Sota naturally stepped back. He said nothing, but there was a sense of him leaving. Riku approached Reina. He held an envelope in his right hand. "Zuiko Foods Corporation"—the fourth-largest confectionery manufacturer in the country, Riku's employer—its company name was printed on it. His hand offering the envelope hesitated for a beat. "...I came to deliver this." Reina took it. It was heavy. She opened it. Text lined the pages. Tsukishirado's trade name usage rights. Tsukishiro-kan recipe supervision contract. Annual salary of 4.8 million yen. Equipment investment of 5 million yen. Full-scale mass production with nationwide expansion as the premise. The moment numbers lined up before her, she understood what they meant. A price put on her grandmother's technique. A price put on the name Tsukishirado. When Reina looked up, Riku didn't avert his gaze. Those deep azure eyes with vertical slit pupils looked straight at her. "It's the company's proposal." There was a pause. "But I wanted you to decide. Even if it was an order." His voice was quiet. A voice walking a tightrope between organizational logic and personal sincerity. Something wavered inside Reina. This person is on the company's side. But this person is standing here without hiding that fact. Trustworthy. But she didn't know if she could trust completely. The words "There's something I can't say today" stuck like a thorn, the same as last night. Unable to fully receive those words, Reina unconsciously turned her gaze toward the kitchen. Sumie had her hand on the edge of the work table. Steadying her breathing. "Grandma." Reina ran into the kitchen without waiting for Riku's response. When she came near Sumie, Sumie raised one hand. "I just got a little dizzy. It's nothing serious." "Nothing serious—" "Go back outside. We have customers." Her voice was quiet. Not a command or a plea, just a calm statement of fact. Sumie began moving her hands. The same unhesitating fingers as always. Reina knew. Sumie's "it's nothing" meant "I don't want to worry you." It had always been that way since childhood. In that moment, three things overlapped in Reina's mind. The Yanaka Merchants Association's letter. Zuiko Foods' proposal. Sumie's hand on the edge of the work table. Something took shape for the first time in her chest. The words "protect this shop" had always been there. But until now they'd been somewhat abstract. In this moment, for the first time, it was carved into her body as fear. The concrete fear of possibly losing it. --- The Alley Market ended, and the flow of people receded. Sota said he'd organize the records and left. "I'll organize today's customer demographics," he said, closing his memo pad as his figure disappeared beyond the stone steps of Renka-zaka. Reina and Riku remained alone under the streetlight of Renka-zaka. Orange light fell on the stone pavement. The Renka-zaka streetlight—that place where Reina had once photographed the Tsukishiro-kan—its light. For a while, neither said anything. "I can't answer today." "I'm not rushing you." "I know. But—" Reina thought for a moment, then continued. "What do you yourself hope for, Hayama-san?" It wasn't an answer to the proposal. It was a question about Riku Hayama's true feelings as a person. Riku fell silent searching for an answer. In the streetlight's glow, that silence stretched long. Beyond the stone pavement, autumn insects chirped. Someone laughed in a distant alley, then it was quiet again. The weight of not being able to answer came through. There was something Riku wanted to convey but couldn't, held in his silence. Reina received that conflict in place of an answer. Riku finally began to open his mouth. In that moment. Reina's smartphone vibrated. "Sumie" appeared on the screen. "I'm going home." Riku nodded. "Tell me your answer when you've decided." Reina began climbing the stone steps. She turned back once. Riku was still standing there. Motionless in the streetlight's glow. Their eyes met. Neither said anything. She looked away. Reina climbed. --- Washing dishes in the night kitchen, Sumie came beside her. "The person who came today was from Zuiko." A statement. Not a question. Reina was slightly surprised. She didn't ask "You knew?" Sumie understood. She always had. "Your face gets worse every time he comes." "...He's not a bad person." "That's right. He had the face of someone suffering." Wiping a tea cup, Sumie continued. She wasn't viewing him as an enemy. She was viewing him as one suffering human being—that kind of gaze. "Should I accept it?" "That's not for me to decide." There was a pause. "But—" Sumie's hands stopped. "The name Tsukishirado was given by Kiyozou. He wanted to make confections that would quietly illuminate people's hearts like the white light of the moon." That was all. Not a command or an answer. Just words placed there. Reina turned off the water at the sink. That statement and the letters "trade name usage rights" in the proposal collided in he