Two envelopes lay side by side on the writing desk. The Showa-kai's proposal letter and Zuiko Foods' business plan. She'd received them during the day, read them at night, and lost count of how many times she'd looked them over since. But each time she reread them, the meaning of the words stayed the same. (I can't sleep.) In the corner room of Yanaka-sou, she stared up at the ceiling. Outside the window, Joushou-in—the Pure Land Buddhist temple built atop Renka-zaka—had its tile roof sinking into the depths of night, and far beyond, the light of Tokyo Skytree glowed through the haze. It was past midnight. The image of Rikuto standing beneath the streetlight on Renka-zaka surfaced again. That silence—searching for an answer and finding none. Something he wanted to convey but couldn't, hidden within that silence. Reina had accepted that conflict in place of an answer. Or so she'd thought. But had she really accepted it? Lying on the futon, Reina raised her arm over her eyes. Darkness. Silence. Then she looked at her fingertips. Sumie's hands were always moving in the kitchen. Kneading white bean paste, pouring agar, shaping without molds—only with bare hands. Those fingertips always bore faint stains. The kind of marks that had soaked in over decades, like the memory of wagashi itself. (I want to confirm it with my hands.) There was a moment when impatience transformed into that kind of impulse, Reina thought. When your head can't find an answer, your body wants to move. Not logic—something you need to touch. Reina got up. Her smartphone showed 12:17 AM. --- The back door of Tsukishirado opened with the spare key Reina kept. She turned on the kitchen light. The zelkova work table, shelves lined with tools, the copper bowl Sumie used. The night kitchen was far quieter than during the day. (Let me try.) She pulled the ingredients for Tsukishiro-kan from the shelf—the agar confection Sumie made, with white bean paste floating like moonlight inside transparent agar, the secret specialty of Tsukishirado. Agar, white bean paste, molds. She'd seen it countless times. She'd watched the process from beside Sumie. But she'd never done it herself. She tried to arrange the steps in her head and stopped. (The numbers won't come.) The amount of agar. The water ratio. The temperature. Not those kinds of numbers—she needed the angle of Sumie's fingertips. That timing when stirring slowly. That stillness at the moment of adding the white bean paste. Because it didn't take the form of numbers, she couldn't retrieve it. But Reina began anyway. First attempt. She dissolved the agar and poured it in. When it set, the whole thing had turned white and cloudy. Not transparent. Not like moonlight—just a white lump. "…Why…" The words fell into the empty kitchen. She checked the shelf, changed the proportions, tried again. Second attempt. This time the agar's transparency came through. But the white bean paste sank to the bottom. It didn't float. That appearance—like the moon reflected on water—didn't happen. Reina stood frozen in front of the mold. Third attempt. She changed everything—proportions, angles—and worked carefully. The moment she removed it from the mold, it crumbled with a wet sound. Three pieces lined the work table. The cloudy one, the sunken one, the collapsed one. Reina stopped and stared at them for a while. A feeling mixed between wanting to laugh and not being able to. And then—she suddenly noticed. She was wearing an apron, but something felt restrictive in her movements. She checked and found the strings were twisted wrong. She'd put on Sumie's apron inside-out and failed three times without noticing. Too ridiculous for words. Then light appeared in the hallway. --- Footsteps came from the living quarters. Sumie stood in the kitchen doorway. Her white hair tied back, a thin sleeping robe layered with a cardigan. The silver hair caught the kitchen light and swayed quietly. Reina straightened her spine instinctively. "…I'm sorry, I woke you." Sumie didn't answer. She didn't scold. She didn't look surprised. She simply gazed at the three pieces on the work table in silence. The cloudy one, the sunken one, the collapsed one. Each one, in order, slowly. A long silence. Then Sumie moved. She began taking ingredients from the shelf—the same ones Reina had used and failed with. "Reina." She called out briefly, and Sumie stood beside her. Then—she quietly took Reina's wrist. Hand over hand, they stood before the work table. Not a command. Not an explanation. Sumie's hand rested on top of Reina's, and they began preparing the ingredients again. The pressure when drawing the copper bowl closer. The angle of holding the pot when dissolving agar in water. The way her fingertips touched to check the heat. All of it—temperature, pressure, timing—transmitted into Reina's palm. (This is it.) Not numbers. Angles. Timing. As the work continued, Sumie spoke. Her eyes stayed on her hands, her voice quiet. "Right after the war ended, there was no sugar." Reina listened while moving her hands. "What came in rations was rice, and sometimes sweet potato. That's what we made confections with. Combining rice syrup and sweet potato to create sweetness. Not sugar, so the flavor was completely different—but we made it." She placed the agar over heat. Stirred slowly. Sumie's hand transmitted that timing through Reina's. "Why? Because I wanted the people in front of me to taste something sweet. That's all. It wasn't about technique. That single-minded purpose—that's what created the flavor." Reina said nothing. Couldn't say anything. "It was the same after Hiromichi collapsed." Hiromichi—Reina's grandfather, who inherited Tsukishirado as its second generation. After his stroke, Sumie had protected the shop alone as its third generation. Since Reina was small, Sumie had always been that way. "Standing alone, the customer ledger—the record book passed down through generations at Tsukishirado, with customers' names, the weather, and a single line written for each day—the names of the deceased kept increasing." Her voice was matter-of-fact. Not sentimental. Simply factual. "Each time I marked a name, I remembered the last confection that person ate. Some loved Tsukushiro-kan. Some came every month for nerikiri. Tsukushiro-kan has been made for as many people as we've remembered. It was never about technique, from the beginning." The moment Sumie added the white bean paste, her hand paused. That single instant of stillness transmitted through Reina's hand—and heat bloomed behind Reina's eyes. She tried to hold it back. It didn't work. A drop fell onto the work table. "…It's fine to knead while crying." A low, quiet voice. Her hand didn't stop. Still resting on Reina's, she continued the work. Reina wiped her eyes with her sleeve. That's when—she suddenly realized. The apron strings weren't crossed in front of her body. She checked. Still inside-out. Making Tsukushiro-kan while crying in a backwards apron was so absurd that— "…Your apron's reversed." Sumie's eyes glanced sideways at her. Sharp eyes. Even while watching her cry, she was taking in everything with a wide field of vision. Reina cried and laughed a little. An awkward space opened in the kitchen. --- The fourth batch of agar was poured into the mold. The white bean paste—Sumie's hand guiding Reina's—entered quietly. Not sinking. Not crumbling. Floating. While it cooled, they stood side by side. No words. Only the kitchen clock ticking softly. She removed the mold. The white bean paste floated inside the transparent agar. Quiet, like moonlight. Reina stared at it for a while. She didn't feel like she'd "made it herself." Borrowing Sumie's hands, resting on the memory Sumie had carried, one piece was finally born. That was the sensation. An asymmetrical feeling. But that very asymmetry—gave her a sense of the outline of an answer to the question of what tradition was, seeping quietly into her. "You'll be able to make it yourself much further down the road." Sumie's voice was quiet. Not a denial. A word placed as a signpost. Reina nodded. Sumie said something casually, as if it were nothing. "There's someone who comes here with a face that looks like they like it—but at the same time, a face that looks pained." Reina looked up. "…Hayama-san?" "That's right." Sumie kept her eyes on her work. She said nothing more. Reina accepted that single word in silence. When had she started watching Rikuto's face so carefully? A person with both a face that looked like they liked it and a face that looked pained—she'd only just realized she already knew both. (When did it start?) She'd begun watching without knowing. Something spread warmly inside her chest. When she tried to grasp its identity with a name, it slipped away. But it was there—a warm weight. Reina took out her smartphone. Not a reply. Not a rejection. Just words to tell him where she was now. She typed briefly. "I made one Tsukushiro-kan tonight. With Grandma's hands, but still." Send. A few minutes later, it showed as read. No reply came. That silence—conveyed both the waiting through the night and the sincerity of not rushing. A quiet warmth lit inside Reina's chest. --- Yanaka before dawn was silent. Renka-zaka—the stone steps leading to the alley where Tsukishirado stood—echoed only with her own footsteps. The sky was still dark. But the eastern edge had begun to pale just slightly. Reina stood before the lattice door of Kano-kura—a pickle specialty shop founded 45 years ago, run by Yoshiharu Doumae, the chairman of the Showa-kai. She'd prepared nothing. That was today's intentional change. Until last night, Reina had practiced apology words over and over. But this morning she'd prepared nothing. Because experience had accumulated of prepared words not reaching. She'd chosen the time before preparation began because it was when Doumae would be alone. Before the lattice door, she bowed deeply. She bowed before even opening the sliding door. The reason wasn't words—it was this posture itself. The sliding door opened from inside. Doumae stood there. White chef's coat, white mixed into thick eyebrows, sturdy build. The 67-year-old's eyes looked down at Reina's bowed head. Doumae said nothing. He waited in silence until Reina raised her face. Reina slowly lifted her head. Their eyes met. "I neglected the courtesy of greeting at the threshold. I took lightly the accumulation of this place—I'm sorry." Not an explanation. Not a strategy against the Showa-kai. Just straightforward words, nothing more. Doumae looked at Reina for a while. Then he said briefly. "The day Sumie-san first inherited this shop alone, she came with nothing prepared either." "…What?" "No confection, no gift. Just came, bowed, and left." That single statement functioned as accepting the apology. "Well, come in." Reina passed through the lattice door. The smell of fermented rice bran and the sharp scent of salt struck her nose. Doumae brought out a small plate from the back. Pickled Chinese cabbage. This morning's preparation, probably. "Eat." Reina, still tense, picked up chopsticks. She took a bite. Delicious. Unexpectedly delicious, her face showed it. The salt balance was exquisite, the sweetness of the cabbage came after. Even though she'd been tense, her body relaxed slightly. Doumae saw that expression and his eyes narrowed slightly. "A person who makes that kind of face—I can trust them." "…You judge by pickles?" "I've always done it that way." An assertion. Reina laughed a little. The release of tension left a touch like a door opening slightly. --- Back at Tsukishirado, Sumie was finishing the morning nerikiri. Her bare fingers shaped the white bean paste without hesitation. The fingertips of hand-touch molding—the technique passed down at Tsukishirado, forming wagashi using on