The light of the workshop alone remained in the night. How much time had passed since the sunset completely sank below the horizon? It had been a long while since the presence of other participants vanished from the hallway of the Refining Corridor. The Kanroku Palace smelled sweet everywhere. But in Room Twenty-Three tonight, something heavy was mixed into the bottom of that sweetness. Hana lay slumped over the work table, eyes closed. She couldn't sleep. There was no way she could sleep. The heart-stone furnace——a small stone used as an auxiliary tool for soul-burning techniques, distributed to apprentice craftspeople to aid mental concentration——sat on a table within reach. She couldn't bring herself to touch it. She had a certainty that the cold stone would not return warmth tonight either. (How do I prove that wasn't my fault?) The detection of forget-honey——a forbidden material used by the Gray Spoon Alliance, which when mixed into confections dominated the taste buds of those who ate it and dulled their judgment——. Suspicion of violations related to Articles Seven and Fifteen of the Kanroku Ordinance. The questioning. And then returning to the workshop and closing the door. She had sensed Ren chasing after her, but she had turned the key. She couldn't explain the reason. She simply couldn't face anyone's expression. The knock came when the hallway had become completely quiet. Knock, knock, knock. Regular. Three times. Hana didn't move. Knock, knock, knock. Three more times. The same rhythm. The same strength. Repeating without pause, simply and quietly. Hana listened to the sound with her face buried in the work table. It wasn't hurried, wasn't emotional. It only conveyed one thing: that whoever it was had no intention of leaving. (……Persistent.) Knock, knock, knock. Again. Hana let out a small breath and unsteadily got to her feet. She turned the key. She opened the door. Ren stood there. Arms crossed, his expression utterly ordinary. Bathed in the workshop's light, his eyes confirmed her from top to bottom in an instant, then looked away as if nothing was wrong. "My stomach's growling." Hana paused for a beat. "……What?" "I missed dinner. My stomach was growling while I was in the hallway. That's all." "You knocked that many times just for that?" "Yeah." Ren came into the workshop as naturally as if he belonged there and sat down on the edge of the work table. He made no move to ask anything, no move to say anything—he simply was there. As Hana closed the door, she felt something draining out of her. No anger came. No rejection came. Nothing. Silence fell between them. The residual heat from the workshop's kiln warmed the air slightly. Ren's stomach growled softly. Hana couldn't help but laugh. "……You really haven't eaten." "I told you." Ren's brow furrowed slightly. His reluctant expression was oddly honest. Still smiling a little, Hana opened a drawer in the work table. There was one bag of dried fruit she'd kept in reserve. She tossed it. Ren caught it with one hand. "……Thank you." "You're welcome." Silence returned. But this silence was a little different from before. The heaviness had lifted. The sound of Ren popping a piece of dried fruit into his mouth, and Hana sat down on the opposite side of the work table. For a while, neither of them said anything. "There's a story from when I fell off a cliff alone." Ren said it suddenly. His gaze had fallen to the back of his hand. When Hana looked up, Ren wasn't looking at her. "I mentioned it a little in the third episode. That night when I got badly hurt." Hana listened silently. "I heard there was a fruit no one had ever sourced before, so I went alone to find where it came from. I went to the top of a cliff and fell. Hit my head and couldn't move for about three days." Ren's voice was matter-of-fact. He wasn't speaking emotionally, wasn't telling it as a funny story. He was simply laying out facts. But there was something beneath that voice. Hana felt it came from the same place as his gaze cast down at the back of his hand. "After I recovered, the adults told me things. That it was reckless, that I should know my place, that I should understand the limits of what one person can do. Well, some of the adults were saying the right things. But none of them asked why I went." A beat of silence. "That night was the only time. The only time I thought my passion might have been wrong." Hana didn't interrupt. She simply looked at Ren's profile. His usually confident profile, the one that seemed to have no doubts about anything, seemed to be turned at a slightly different angle tonight. She couldn't quite put into words what it meant to see someone's face when they touched a soft place, but that was what Ren's face looked like now. "So," Ren paused for a moment, then spoke again. His gaze still on the back of his hand. "Even if a night like today comes, I won't doubt you. I've never doubted you once. This isn't comfort—it's just a fact." He said it like he was reporting something. His voice carried no attempt at encouragement. Just the way of conveying that this was how things were. Something trembled inside Hana. The voice she'd heard on the way back from Refining Fragrance Street——"Then win"——and tonight's voice overlapped in her chest. Then and now, Ren didn't use emotional words. But the weight of his words, stripped of everything unnecessary, reached her directly. She pressed her lips together. She hadn't meant to cry. But she couldn't stop the heat building behind her eyes. Her mouth, pressed tight with the effort not to cry, couldn't quite hold its shape. It spilled over. Ren saw. She knew he saw. But he said nothing——not "poor thing," not "are you okay?" "You can cry." He said only that, then turned his gaze to the window outside. That clumsy form of consideration was closer to Hana than anything else. Not looking directly at her crying face. But being there. By looking away, he was creating a space where Hana could cry. The moment she realized that, her tears came even harder. When Hana lifted her sleeve to wipe her tears, Ren pulled a cloth from his pocket and offered it to her. The moment she reached out to take it, their fingertips touched. Ren's movement stopped for a beat. Hana stopped too. A few seconds of stillness in the workshop's light. Neither had words. Ren's hand, touching Hana's fingers, didn't move. It was warm. That warmth was unexpected, and something in Hana stopped. After a moment like that, Ren looked away first. Hana took the cloth. She wiped her face. Ren continued looking out the window as if nothing had happened, but his ears——clearly visible even in the workshop's light——were red. Hana noticed and pretended not to. But she couldn't deny that the pace of her own heartbeat had changed. There was a sensation in the center of her chest that was painful, hot, wordless. She tried to tell herself it was because she'd been crying. But it didn't feel like that was all. --- That same night, on the street in front of the abandoned workshop district in the Fourth Quarter, Furnace Smoke Alley, someone was walking alone. Silver hair swayed in the night breeze. It was Noeru. Furnace Smoke Alley——a district reflecting modern baked goods and Western confectionery culture, where brick workshops were densely packed, though some had become ruins——had a different air at night than the Kanroku Palace. Cold air leaking from brick crevices, darkness visible through broken windows of abandoned workshops, the sound of something creaking in the distance. Noeru stopped and let her gaze fall around the collapsed kiln. Her choice of silence in the council chamber wasn't because she lacked emotion. Baseless defense would become fuel for suspicion——she had judged that, so she remained silent. But immediately after making that judgment, she had kept moving. Slipping through the chaos after the competition, she had come to this district alone. The volatile traces of forget-honey remained as faint crystals along the material transport route. Noeru placed the minute crystals in a small collection container. The presence of the Gray Spoon Alliance——the secret society formed by former councilor Rengokoji Ginshi, which sought to monopolize the confectionery world——spread from deep within the collapsed kiln, and it was certainly here. She would submit it directly to the Confectionery Craftspeople's Council before dawn. Noeru turned on her heel. The sound of her footsteps returning the way she came echoed quietly through the ruins of the abandoned workshops. --- The next morning, the workshop door was knocked on. Hana and Ren both looked up at the same time. Both had somehow fallen asleep on the work table——facing away from each other. A light doze that had come after an all-night conversation. Knock, knock, a regular sound. "Yes!" "Yes!" Their voices overlapped. Both jumped up at the same time and looked at each other. "You're loud," "So are you." They both finished speaking at the same time and looked at each other again. Outside the door, the messenger cleared his throat after a brief pause. "I have come to deliver a notice from the Confectionery Craftspeople's Council." Hana stood up and opened the door. The messenger——a young man holding an envelope stamped with the Confectionery Craftspeople's Council seal——bowed formally and offered the envelope. Hana took it. She opened it. She read it. Her expression went blank. It took several seconds for joy to catch up with her body. The letters entered her eyes, but it took time for the meaning to reach her heart. Acquittal declared. The introduction of forget-honey was determined to be sabotage from outside. Continuation of the competition was approved. Hana let out a small breath. "……I'm glad." Ren waited silently through that moment. Only after Hana looked up did he speak briefly. "Of course." The brevity and weight of his words were perfectly balanced. He said nothing more. Hana smiled a little. There was no reason needed for a smile like that. --- That afternoon, Noeru called her. The place was the window side of the Refining Corridor. The same place where the two of them had watched the sugar mist's whiteness the night before. Noeru stood there. Her silver hair caught the afternoon light and shone in a different color than it had at dusk. Her water-blue eyes captured Hana. There was no sharpness in those eyes from yesterday, but a different kind of weight. "I must apologize for yesterday." Her voice was gentle and soft. But her words carried no hesitation whatsoever. "By choosing silence in the council chamber, I caused you to become isolated. That is the result of my choice." Hana listened silently. "Why were you silent?" Noeru answered directly. "Baseless defense becomes fuel for suspicion. If I was going to move, I needed to be in a position to move. So I chose silence and immediately moved to collect evidence." Hana received the coldness of that logic. At the same time, she also received the fact that the person who had made that cold judgment had spent the entire night walking through the darkness of abandoned workshops. "……I still don't know if that was right." Noeru added quietly, her gaze turning away to the window outside. Something changed inside Hana. She felt as though she had learned for the first time that this person was not perfect. She had seen the human being beyond the title of "youngest confectionery master in history," standing on the same ground. That wasn't the disappearance of admiration——rather, it felt closer. Closeness instead of fear. That contradictory sensation had been in Hana since yesterday, but in this moment, the name of that sensation seemed to change slightly. "……Thank you very much." Hana said it. Not as a courtesy. She said it because she truly meant it. --- "The Hundred Flavors Hall——the competition