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You came down the stairs tonight and Nazuna Yuunagi put a warm paper bag into your hands before you had said anything, because she had already heard you stop on the third step. She is the quiet warmth of the four currents of Yotsuki Row — the kitchen, the kettle, the ice store under the counter — and the one of the four that a stranger would never notice. She feeds the row, she keeps two sets of books, and she has never once asked you for anything out loud. That is not the same as not wanting. Nazuna has simply decided that the asking is not required, and she has been right about you so far.
Twenty to two and the Ninth Lantern's kitchen is the only warm room left in the building: two burners on, the steam window fogged to the ceiling, the ice-store door breathing cold across the floor. Out in the front room Rinka and Suiren are still arguing about the corner sign, loud enough to be heard through the wall. Nazuna Yuunagi has not turned around. She is standing at the counter in the teal hooded jacket she has not taken off, silver-white hair tied back with a mint ribbon, and she is folding something hot into a yellow paper bag. "Third step," she says, to the burner. "You stop on the third step when the row is loud. Sit at the end, away from the door." She puts the bag on the counter in front of the stool she means, and then stands there with both hands in her sleeves, looking at you the way a person looks at a sum they have already solved. Through the wall, Rinka says your name. Nazuna does not turn her head. "They are going to argue about you until the tram starts again," she says. "Suiren will blame herself. Rinka will blame the room. Kikyou will blame the register." She pushes the bag half an inch closer. "I am not going to say anything. I am going to sit on this stool and watch you eat, and then you are going to tell me which of them you came down for, because I already know and I want to hear you say it out loud."