The silence of the hallway still lingered in her body. Last night at the Imperial Hotel—after leaving the Phoenix Room, the three of them had stood frozen in that corridor. The sensation of Shikao's hand touching the back of Nagisa's hand. The weight of Touma's hand on Nagisa's shoulder. And the low, restrained temperature of his voice saying "I'll protect you." None of it had faded, and Nagisa had greeted the morning with all of it still inside her. Tsurushōkan—the Suzaku family's main residence—held a particular quietness in the early hours. That thinnest stretch of time before the servants began to stir. Nagisa emerged from the sub-room into the hallway and made her way to the kitchen. Touma had already left for work. When she'd woken at the sound of his footsteps receding, she was still in bed. There was no reason to get up, yet she couldn't stay lying down either. The kitchen was vast. The sink, the countertops—nothing like her old place in Katsushika Ward, that thirty-five-year-old apartment building in Shibamata. At first, she'd only used the edges out of deference. Now she was getting used to it. Just a little. She put the kettle on the flame. *(Protect, huh.)* She was turning over Touma's words from that hallway again in her mind. "I'll protect Nagisa"—she'd noticed he'd used her name. She'd noticed, but the words hadn't come out in that moment. It was true that she couldn't judge whether it was sincere or not. But if she was being honest—even if it had been sincere, she wasn't ready to accept it yet. Shikao's words remained too. "If it's a contract, it can be dissolved. Run away with me"—that quiet, gentle voice. Nagisa understood that Shikao's kindness was real. Whether Touma's words were sincere, she didn't know. And somehow, her feelings kept tilting in the direction of that "not knowing." She still hadn't asked herself what that meant. Steam rose from the kettle. It made a soft bubbling sound, and Nagisa stared at it blankly. The steam kept rising. Rising. Rising— Her glasses fogged over with a soft *fwah*. "Oh." She couldn't see anything. Nagisa hurriedly turned off the flame and removed her glasses. As she wiped the lenses with the hem of her shirt, she realized she'd been staring at boiling water the whole time. How long had she been doing that? Just then, the doorbell chimed. Nagisa put her glasses back on and headed to the entrance. She walked, feeling the length of the hallway anew, and opened the door—but no one was there. *That's strange*, she thought. The moment she did, the chime rang again. Only then did Nagisa understand that the chime had been pressed before she'd opened the door. She'd missed the first ring. "...I'm sorry, I didn't notice." When she opened the door, silver-gray short bob hair caught the morning light. Silver-gray—no, to be precise, silver mixed with ash, a color that seemed slightly translucent. Hair that waved gently followed the line of her jaw. Eyes of transparent, purplish silver looked at Nagisa, and for just a moment, they softened and narrowed. "I apologize for calling during your day off." Her voice was composed. The way she used honorifics felt natural—this was her true manner. On her right wrist was a silver ring. Simple in design, but it had visual weight. "I'm Suzaku Rio. I'm Touma's younger sister." Something moved quietly in Nagisa's chest. *(This person is—Rio.)* Last night, there had been an envelope on the entrance shelf of Tsurushōkan. A postmark from Seiranjo Women's University and the name "Suzaku Rio." The brief shift in Touma's expression the moment he saw the envelope. Nagisa had seen it. "...I'm Akizuki Nagisa. Please, come in." ――――― Rio surveyed the garden before speaking quietly. "May I use the tea room? I confirmed that my brother is not here before coming." She didn't hide her intentions. She wasn't testing Nagisa, wasn't blaming her. She was simply laying out facts. That straightforwardness reminded Nagisa a little of Touma. The garden of Tsurushōkan had a tea room. Seigetsuan—that was the name the butler Matsunaga had taught her. A small wooden structure standing quietly beside the hand-washing basin in the depths of the garden. Nagisa had never been inside. The interior of the tea room was brighter than she'd expected. Morning light filtered softly through the shoji screens. The blue of the tatami was gentle on the eyes. When the two of them sat facing each other, only the sounds of the garden outside—the faint rustling of wind through leaves—could be heard. Rio didn't speak immediately. She didn't go through the motions of preparing tea. She simply placed her hands on her lap and looked at Nagisa. Not an appraising gaze. Not a measuring one either. Just—looking. "I haven't come to blame you, Nagisa." She said it first. Nagisa felt some of the tension drain from her body. "Please, let me tell you a little about my brother." Rio's tone shifted slightly. While maintaining her polite speech, something softer entered her voice. The voice of someone speaking about a person who exists in memory, Nagisa thought. "When my brother was eight years old." Nagisa clasped her hands on her lap. "He broke an insect cage in the garden. My brother broke it." With just that, a scene began to form in Nagisa's mind. An eight-year-old boy. A summer garden. A broken insect cage. "He was crying. Crying out loud. I was only five then, so I was watching through the gap in the hallway door. That was the first and last time I ever saw my brother cry." Nagisa said nothing. Couldn't say anything—or rather, she felt there was no need to. She understood that Rio wanted to continue. "He was called to Father's study." Rio's fingertips moved slightly on her lap. "About thirty minutes later, when he came out into the hallway—all traces of his tears had vanished from my brother's face. His eyes, his expression. All of it, completely clean. As if he'd never felt such emotions in the first place." Something contracted deep in Nagisa's chest. *(Thirty minutes in Father's study.)* She didn't need words to understand. What had a father said to an eight-year-old child? It wasn't just the words "don't cry." There had been something else in those thirty minutes, something that became the first layer of ice covering the surface of Touma's being. The words Shikao had spoken came back to her. "He's someone who can't overlook another person's pain"—the boy who had silently wiped away Shikao's wound with his shirt hem on the riverbank. That boy and the one who emerged from the study with all traces of tears erased—they existed simultaneously within the same person. Nagisa realized her hands on her lap had clasped together so tightly they'd gone white. "I know about the blanket." Nagisa looked up. "My brother putting a blanket on someone—as far as I can remember, I've never seen him do it. Not even with family." Nagisa's fingertips went cold. And at the same time, something else grew warm. She understood the meaning of that contradiction almost entirely now. She understood it and was still choosing not to put it into words. ――――― After a long silence, Rio looked directly into Nagisa's eyes. "I have a request." Nagisa waited quietly. "I want you to stop being here in the form of a contract." Nagisa's breath stopped for a moment. Rio continued. Her eyes were wavering. Her core remained unmoved, but they wavered. "Please don't misunderstand. I'm not asking you to disappear. It's the opposite. My brother—he can only acknowledge his true feelings outside the framework of a contract. Even if he feels something, if it's within the scope of the contract, he can process it as 'obligation.' But without the contract, he can't make excuses." Nagisa took those words into her body. *(He can only acknowledge his true feelings outside the contract.)* That phrase made something visible inside her. These past few weeks, Nagisa hadn't been choosing between "honoring the contract" and "wanting to be by Touma's side." But at some point—the feeling of "wanting to be by Touma's side" had come first within her. The contract was behind it. That was the order it had taken, and Rio's words made Nagisa aware of it for the first time. *(I've already chosen.)* The realization fell quietly. And with that realization—the word "like" took shape inside Nagisa's chest for the first time. She hadn't spoken it aloud. Couldn't have. But it was there, unmistakably. The weight of that word made her forget, for a moment, how to breathe. "Nagisa." Rio's voice dropped slightly. "My brother calls you 'Nagisa.'" Something pierced through Nagisa's chest like an arrow. He was calling her by name—Rio knew this. If Rio knew, then either Touma had told her, or Rio had learned it somehow. Either way, it wasn't the kind of word Touma would direct at a "contract wife." Rio's eyes glistened with tears for just a moment. They receded before falling. But Nagisa saw them. ――――― In the evening, there was a gaze watching Nagisa's back as she walked alone from the tea room, seen through the hallway window. It was Touma. He'd come home early. When he'd entered the foyer, he'd noticed a figure in the garden. Nagisa's back—her pale brown hair catching the evening sun, tinged slightly red. Her gait was different from usual. The way someone walks when they're carrying something inside. Rio had come. From the moment he'd seen the envelope left on the entrance shelf last night, he'd known this would happen. His sister would definitely come to meet Nagisa. He should have acted first. But—he didn't know what he would have said. As he headed toward the living room, Nagisa came walking down the hallway from the other direction. They met. Both stopped almost simultaneously. Nagisa's expression was different from usual. She hadn't been crying. But something had changed. Her face was that of someone who had learned something, rather than someone who had decided something. A silence was born between them. A silence of a different quality than before. Different from the hallway last night, different from that night in the car. Not the quiet before words—but a silence that questioned the very necessity of words. In Nagisa's hand was a small key. The tea room key, probably. Nagisa's foot caught on a step in the hallway. Her body tilted forward—the key slipped from her fingers. A hard *clink*. Both of them bent down at the same time. Touma's hand overlapped with Nagisa's. For one moment before picking up the key. Both hands stopped. Touma picked up the key and stood. Nagisa stood as well. Touma moved to hand the key to Nagisa—but his hand wouldn't let go. He held her hand, and seconds passed. When Nagisa looked up, Touma was looking straight down at her. Less than thirty centimeters between them. His ice-blue eyes, which should have been cold as ice, seemed to hold a different temperature in this moment alone. Touma let go first. But his hand traced a hesitant arc in the air—Nagisa didn't miss that movement. ――――― They sat facing each other on the living room sofa. The night view of Tokyo spread beyond the window. The city's lights visible through gaps between buildings. The sky over Shirasagi Terrace was slightly dark. In the distance, the red light of Tokyo Tower was visible. The silence continued. Touma spoke first. "Last night in the hallway." His voice was low. Nagisa looked up. "Why didn't you say anything?" It wasn't an accusatory tone. A pure question. But the way he asked was so like Touma—distilling emotion, reducing it to only the core truth in words. Nagisa thought for a moment before answering honestly. "Because I couldn't judge whether your words were sincere or not." After she finished, Nagisa felt a small regret. She wondered if it had been a hurtful way to phrase it. But she couldn't bring herself to lie. Touma's expression froze like stone. He stood and walked to the window. Wit