Three days had passed since the party. Those five seconds still hadn't vanished from Nagisa's mind. The weight of an arm around her waist. The low, quiet temperature of Tōma's murmured words in the back of the hired car—"it wasn't bad." Each time those sensations surfaced unbidden, Nagisa felt her cheeks flush, and she immediately scolded herself internally: *Stop it.* (It was just a role. I'm playing the part of a wife. That's all.) She understood that. And yet—even now, in the employee cafeteria on the eighth floor of the Suzaku Building, the headquarters of Suzaku Food Service, holding a tray with a 680-yen daily set meal, Nagisa found herself thinking about it again. The cafeteria was at its peak lunch-hour chaos. Office workers, salespeople, warehouse staff—people from every department mingled together, filling the seats. The sound of voices mixed with the clink of dishes and the savory aroma of ginger pork sauce rising from today's special. Nagisa always sat in the corner by the window—a spot she'd known since her early days at the company, a place where sitting alone looked natural. Today, as she headed there—someone called out to her. "You're Akitsuki-san, aren't you?" She turned. A man with short, silvery-gray hair stood before her. Refined features. A dark navy jacket over a white shirt. Calm golden eyes that looked at Nagisa and narrowed slightly with a gentle smile. There was no sense of intimidation. But—Nagisa recognized him immediately. The man who had been present at the lawyer Tsurumi's office as a witness to the contract. The director of the Strategic Planning Division, introduced as Tōma's trusted aide. (Mikage-san... This person is one of the few who knows my true identity.) Nagisa felt her guard rise instinctively. She arranged her posture inwardly while maintaining her smile. "...Yes, that's right." "Good. Would you mind sitting with me for a moment? I thought, as someone from the company, I should at least offer a proper greeting." His tone was gentle. There was no pushiness to it. Yet it wasn't an atmosphere where refusal was possible—or rather, there was no reason to refuse. Nagisa nodded slightly while holding her tray. They sat across from each other at a two-person table by the window. Mikage set down his tray and raised an eyebrow slightly as he spoke. "You don't need to be nervous. I'm not here to discuss anything troublesome." "...I see." "The ginger pork here is delicious, isn't it? The balance between the soy sauce and ginger is exquisite." Nagisa's chopsticks paused. She hadn't expected a financial insider to start discussing the employee cafeteria's ginger pork. Some of her tension eased. (This person... he's doing this on purpose.) He was trying to lower her guard. She understood that. But even knowing his technique was transparent—she also knew it was working. As they continued eating, the conversation started with trivial matters. The system update at Suzaku Food Service. The renovation plans for the eighth-floor cafeteria. Mikage reacted to each of Nagisa's words by leaning forward slightly. Each time his eyes narrowed, Nagisa felt a strange sense that *this person isn't just making polite conversation.* But she filed it away as her imagination. She had to. Then, around the time their meals were half-finished, Mikage subtly changed the subject. "Tōma, despite how he appears now—he was quite different back then." Nagisa's hand paused slightly. "How... different?" "He used to laugh. Out loud, like an idiot." Mikage's golden eyes narrowed as if looking into the distance. The eyes of someone drawing forth a memory, Nagisa thought. "It was middle school. We'd often skip school and go out to the Tamagawa embankment. The two of us. The grass on the embankment was long, and I accidentally slipped and fell. I scraped my knee pretty badly on a stone, and it bled—" Mikage smiled slightly. A nostalgic smile. "Tōma didn't say anything. He just pulled at the hem of his own shirt—and used it to wipe my wound. Without even a handkerchief, not caring that his uniform would get dirty, just... silently." Nagisa stared at the ginger pork on her tray. Something trembled in her chest. (That person... doing something like that?) Words Tōma had spoken on the day they first met suddenly surfaced in her mind. "An inconspicuous person is convenient." Those words. The cold, blue-gray eyes that had appraised her in the reception room. And the image Mikage was now describing—a boy wiping a wound with his shirt hem—she couldn't reconcile them as belonging to the same person. (They don't connect. But—if they did...) "He's someone who can't overlook another person's pain." Mikage's voice was quiet. Not boastful, not accusatory—just placing a fact before her. Yet Nagisa sensed something seeping into that voice. Something that couldn't be contained by the word "friendship." She tried to consider what it might be—then stopped. It felt rude to arbitrarily name someone else's emotions. As the meal drew to a close, Nagisa realized her chopsticks had stopped moving. She wanted to know more about Tōma. That desire took a complicated shape in her chest—neither quite joy nor frustration, neither quite longing nor pain. The joy came from knowing that beneath that icy exterior was a real human being. The frustration came from—learning it from someone else's words. Mikage's gaze suddenly shifted to the sleeve of Nagisa's coat. Silently, he gently removed a thin thread with his fingertip. It was a motion lasting less than a second. Yet in that instant, the cafeteria's noise seemed to recede into the distance. Mikage's finger withdrew from her sleeve. Both of them looked into each other's eyes at the same moment. Something stirred in the depths of Nagisa's chest. (No. This disturbance isn't toward Mikage-san—it's not.) That was true. Nagisa understood. The source of this agitation wasn't Mikage—it was the irrational pain of learning an unknown side of Tōma through someone else's words. She had wanted to discover it herself. She had wanted to see it with her own eyes. She couldn't quite process the fact that she felt this way. "Again," Mikage said gently as he stood. "Please watch over him carefully." Nagisa spent some time in the cafeteria's afternoon light, considering what those words meant. 　　　　―――― By evening, the thirty-eighth floor of Suzaku Tower had grown quiet. The Strategic Planning Division—functioning as a think tank directly under the chairman and president—normally kept its fifteen staff members occupied with documents and figures during the day. But as overtime stretched into these hours, people left one by one. Mikage sat at his desk, facing documents. The door opened around the time the sky outside the window began shifting from orange to indigo. Mikage looked up. The figure entering from the hallway caused the few remaining staff members to straighten their spines in unison. It was Suzaku Tōma. He had come down from the executive director's office on the forty-first floor—an unusual occurrence. Jet-black short hair, faint shadows of fatigue beneath his eyes. Yet his posture remained perfectly composed. His blue-gray eyes swept the room, and he cast a silent gaze toward the remaining staff. The meaning was instantly understood. Within three minutes, only two remained. Tōma stood before the window without pulling out the chair across from Mikage. Arms crossed, his back to Mikage, he gazed out at Tokyo's night skyline. A long silence stretched between them. Finally, Tōma spoke. "You talked to Nagisa, I hear." Mikage's hand stilled on the documents. *Nagisa.* Not "Akitsuki-san," not "my wife"—her name, spoken without honorific. Tōma probably hadn't noticed. Or perhaps—he had, just slightly. Hence the gaze directed outward, away from Mikage. Mikage quietly closed the documents. "We had lunch together." "...What did you talk about?" "The Tamagawa embankment." Tōma's shoulders trembled—or rather, stilled would be more accurate. Not a tremor, but a sudden arrest, as if catching on something. "Why?" "Because she knows nothing about you." "Was there a need to tell her?" "I thought there was." Tōma finally turned around. His blue-gray eyes met Mikage's. Eyes that revealed no emotion. Mikage, who had been watching those eyes for twelve years, could see—something wavering faintly within them. The person himself refused to acknowledge it, but it was certainly there. "Is this really just a contract?" Mikage asked directly. He had no intention of being indirect. Tōma paused for a beat. "What else would it be?" The answer came immediately. But—that very speed spoke volumes. An answer that came without time to think was the reflex of words repeated to oneself over a long period. A truly unsuspecting person would answer more slowly, more leisurely, Mikage thought. Mikage rose from his chair. He circled the desk and stood directly before Tōma. The night light streaming through the window fell between them. "Then," Mikage spoke quietly, his eyes never leaving Tōma's. "It wouldn't matter to you if I fell in love with Nagisa-san." The words fell into the room. Tōma didn't move. His expression didn't change—didn't change, and yet. Mikage could tell. Behind the mask, something contracted rapidly. A spasm of control in that instant before emotion could surface. A kind of stillness Tōma had never shown anyone before. He said nothing. Couldn't say anything—Mikage felt the weight of that silence with his entire body. What had he just cast upon twelve years of friendship? He hadn't meant to break it. But—he had needed to confirm something. At that moment, a stack of documents slid from the desk behind Tōma with a soft rustle. Both men started to crouch simultaneously. Their heads nearly collided before they stopped. Their faces came within thirty centimeters of each other. For just an instant, the tension in the air eased. Mikage gave a wry smile. Tōma—deepened the furrow between his brows. When they straightened, both their expressions had returned to normal. And the heavy silence filled the room once more. Tōma picked up the fallen documents without looking at them, then moved past Mikage toward the door. He stopped with his hand on the frame. His back still turned, he seemed about to say something—then didn't. Only the sound of the closing door remained. 　　　　―――― The sweet aroma of sautéed onions spread through the kitchen of Prescia Minami-Aoyama. Nagisa had finished clearing after dinner and, after a moment's hesitation, had begun making nikujaga. There was no particular reason. Her hands simply couldn't settle without something to do. Slicing carrots. Slicing potatoes. Sautéing pork. The same order as always, the same quantities as always. Every time her younger brother Riku said, "Sis's nikujaga is the best," Nagisa would laugh and say, "Don't exaggerate." But tonight, she wasn't making it for Riku. (Why is my head so noisy?) The memory Mikage had shared kept circling. The story of a boy silently wiping a wound with his shirt hem. The words about someone who couldn't overlook another's pain. And the wavering in Mikage's face as he spoke—something she couldn't quite define as friendship or something else. Nagisa held the wooden spatula and lowered the heat slightly. Mikage Tsukasa was a kind person, she thought. Gentle, intelligent, he had naturally dissolved her wariness. That gesture of removing the thread from her sleeve—it had the shape of "kindness." But it existed on the boundary line of something more, and Nagisa felt it. (But what I'm thinking about right now isn't Mikage-san.) Realizing this, Nagisa felt a little troubled. What Mikage had told her had only deepened her thirst for knowledge about Tōma. There was a restless, impatient yearning in learning about his inner self through someone else's words. She wanted to discover it herself. She wa