By the next morning, Tooshiro Senda had made three discoveries.
The first was that writing after emotional damage was easier than writing before emotional damage. He had stayed up later than planned, not because he was being responsible with his artistic momentum, but because Chapter Ten had finally stopped glaring at him and started cooperating. Quintin had moved. Selena had spoken. A scene that had sat there for days like a dead fish on a cutting board suddenly had blood in it again, which was a terrible way to describe progress and probably why he should never run an author blog.
The second discovery was that salad did not become more appealing after resting overnight in the fridge.
The third was that the pudding Fumiko told him to save for next time had somehow become the most threatening object in his apartment.
It sat on the top shelf of the fridge, behind the barley tea, still sealed, still safe, still waiting with its little plastic lid and caramel bottom. Every time Tooshiro opened the fridge, the pudding was there. A tiny refrigerated promise.
It’s pudding. Calm down. People save pudding every day. A special snack for later was normal in most homes.
His household, unfortunately, had never looked normal enough to support that argument. His apartment was cleaner than usual because he had panic-cleaned at midnight after realizing Nana might come by on Sunday, and Nana had a talent for seeing clutter not as clutter, but as a cry for help. She would step inside, glance once at the floor, and say something like, “You’re avoiding a feeling,” while holding a bag of side dishes from their mother. She was twenty-two and somehow had the authority of a retired detective.
Work tried to grind the thought out of him. Route 17 was heavy but not catastrophic. A rainy morning left the streets damp enough for bicycle tires to hiss against the pavement, and the air smelled like exhaust, wet leaves, and convenience store fried chicken. He delivered a rice cooker to a newlywed couple who bowed together with the nervous coordination of people still learning shared appliances. He delivered two boxes of diapers to a man who accepted them with haunted gratitude. He delivered a small package to an elderly woman who asked if he had eaten breakfast and then looked disappointed when he said yes, as if he had rejected her life’s work.
At lunch, he sat in the van outside a coin parking lot near Higashi-Nakano and ate a salmon rice ball while looking at his phone. There was no message from Fumiko, which was fine. They had texted last night. There was no need to turn every day into a message festival, especially when both of them had jobs and separate lives and whatever fragile thing they were doing needed space to breathe. He checked the thread anyway.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: No. You’re not only that. :)
The smiley face was the problem. Fumiko did not seem like a smiley face person. Her texts usually sounded like they had passed through a small internal review department. Polite. Thoughtful. Sometimes even dry. The smiley made it worse because it felt intentional. Like she had placed it there, noticed it, considered deleting it, then let it stay. That was more intimate than the pudding.
Maybe. No… The pudding is still winning right now.
Daiki opened the passenger-side door without warning and leaned in.
Tooshiro nearly threw the rice ball, “Why are you here?”
Daiki looked at the rice ball in his hand, then at his face, “If I had known you were armed, I would’ve knocked.”
“You have your own route.”
“I am on my break. Also, I saw your van and sensed stupidity in the air.”
“That’s not a sense.”
“For you, it is.”
Daiki climbed into the passenger seat without asking, holding a canned coffee and a convenience store sandwich. He had the calm, shameless posture of a man who had entered enough vans to know no one would stop him after he had already sat down, “So. The supermarket, eh?”
Tooshiro stared, “How do you know that?”
“You told me you had to go to the depot from near your apartment last night. You were with Door 305. You hung up when I guessed it. Then you sent me proof of the route pouch ten minutes later with the energy of a man pretending he wasn’t glowing.”
“I was not… glowing.”
“You were electronically glowing.”
“You can’t have seen that.”
“I felt it through the message.”
“You’re getting unbearable.”
Daiki opened his sandwich, “My wife says the same thing, but usually with love.”
“Does she?”
“With resignation, which is a mature form of love.”
Tooshiro looked out through the windshield. A cyclist passed wearing a rain poncho shaped like a small moving tent, “Nothing really happened.”
“Ah, my favorite kind of something.”
“We split dinner.”
“In public?”
“At a park.”
Daiki slowly lowered the sandwich, “You took a woman to a park at night to split dinner?”
“It was a supermarket bento.”
“So cheaper, but somehow more creepy.”
“It wasn’t planned!”
“That will help in court.”
“Oh come on. There is no court.”
“Not yet.”
Tooshiro rubbed his forehead, “We ran into each other. There was one discounted karaage bento. We both reached for it. We split it.”
Daiki stared at him.
“What?”
“That is so… disgustingly cute I want to file a complaint.”
“It wasn’t cute.”
“Was there a bench?”
“Yes.”
“Streetlamp?”
“Were you actually there?”
“Did you fail to eat dessert because of a small practical problem?”
Tooshiro went silent. What the hell?
Daiki’s eyes widened, “You did.”
“We didn’t have spoons.”
Daiki put one hand over his face, “I hate romance.”
“It’s not romance.”
“Its like a story straight from a romance manga.”
“It is not.”
“Hey. Did you save the pudding?”
Tooshiro looked away.
Daiki pointed at him with the sandwich, “You did. You saved the pudding!”
“You’re being loud.”
“I’m being correct. About everything!”
“Well, whatever you're being, do it outside my van. I have deliveries.”
“You have feelings!”
“Right now I have a route.”
“You have both. That’s why you look so damn tired.”
Tooshiro glanced at Daiki, ready to throw something back, but Daiki’s expression had shifted. Still amused. Still annoying. But there was a little less performance in it.
Daiki took a bite of his sandwich and spoke around it, which should have invalidated his wisdom, “Listen. I’m not saying you need to confess your whole life to her tomorrow.”
Tooshiro stiffened, “Con-confess?!”
“The book thing.”
“Oh…”
“Also maybe the other thing, but one disaster at a time.”
“There is no other thing.”
Daiki swallowed, then looked at him with patient disappointment, “Senda, man. You saved pudding.”
Tooshiro had no defense.
Daiki leaned back in the seat, “Just don’t build something with her where the best part of you has to stand outside wearing a fake name. That’s all.”
The van went quiet except for the soft patter of rain beginning again on the windshield. Tooshiro looked down at the half-eaten rice ball in his hand. It had started to come apart at the edge, the seaweed softening where his fingers had warmed it, “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Daiki opened his canned coffee, “Then I have done my emotional labor. I’m charging overtime.”
“You climbed into my van.”
“And improved it.”
“I didn't ask you to be here!” Tooshiro pointed, “You left crumbs.”
“More marriage training.”
“That does not mean anything!”
“It means everything.”
Daiki left two minutes later, taking his crumbs and terrible wisdom with him. The rest of the route went normally enough, but Tooshiro kept hearing that sentence in the back of his mind.
Don’t build something with her where the best part of you has to stand outside wearing a fake name. He hated that Daiki had said it so well. He also hated that it was true.
By Sunday afternoon, Tooshiro’s apartment had reached what he considered guest-ready condition. This meant the laundry had been moved into the closet, the dishes had been washed, the trash had been taken out, and the stacks of books had been rearranged into slightly safer towers. The floor was visible. The low table was clear except for his laptop, one notebook, and a clean spoon he had placed there after washing it.
The spoon was not for the pudding. Technically. He had not eaten the pudding. That mattered.
At 2:07, the intercom buzzed.
Tooshiro looked at the screen and saw Nana’s face tilted too close to the camera, one eye slightly enlarged by the angle.
“Open up nerd,” she demanded through the speaker, “I bring food and maternal surveillance.”
He pressed the unlock button, “Don't call it that in the hallway.”
A few minutes later, she knocked once and opened the door before he answered because family treated privacy as a fictional concept. Nana Senda stepped inside carrying a cream tote bag, a plastic container wrapped in a cloth, and a convenience store pudding cup balanced on top. She was dressed in a pale hoodie, jeans, and sneakers, her chestnut hair pulled back messily with loose strands framing her face. She looked like a casual college student until she opened her mouth, and then she became a prosecutor.
She stopped in the entryway and looked around asTooshiro braced himself, “You just cleaned.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you were coming.”
“Objection! Liar.”
“I did clean because you were coming.”
“You cleaned this much because someone else might come someday and you panicked retroactively.”
Tooshiro stared at her, “Please remove your shoes.”
Nana smiled and slipped out of her sneakers, “I’ll take that as a hit on the mark.”
She stepped inside and placed the tote on the low table, “Mom made tamagoyaki, simmered vegetables, and chicken with lotus root. She said you should eat vegetables that did not come with a discount sticker.”
“That’s so unfair. Discount vegetables are still vegetables.”
“She said you would say that.”
“She knows me… I guess.”
“She worries about you.”
“She also insults my fridge through you.”
“That's what family does.”
Nana opened the fridge before he could stop her.
Tooshiro moved too late, “Don’t inspect my fridge.”
“I’m not inspecting. I’m just greeting it.”
“You don’t greet refrigerators.”
“You do if they’re this lonely.”
She bent slightly and looked inside. Her eyes moved over the barley tea, the egg, the salad, the containers from their mother, and then stopped right on the pudding.
Tooshiro stood behind her with the posture of a man awaiting sentencing.
Nana slowly turned her head, “Brother.”
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You said brother.”
“Because there is pudding in your fridge.”
“Many people own pudding.”
“You own pudding and have not eaten it.”
“I have self-control.”
“Not when it comes to you and pudding. This must have narrative significance.”
“That’s not a real thing.”
“It is when you save and store a convenience store pudding like it’s a temple relic.”
He closed the fridge, “Do you want tea?”
“I want answers.”
“You can have barley tea. Take it or leave it.”
“Fine... I’ll drink tea while you confess,” she smirked with a grimace.
“I’m not confessing anything. There's nothing to confess to.”
Nana sat on the floor cushion at the low table and began unpacking the containers. She did it with the practical ease of someone who had watched their mother do the same for years. Tamagoyaki first, bright yellow and neatly rolled. Simmered vegetables. Chicken and lotus root in a glossy sauce. A small container of pickles. The apartment immediately smelled like home to Tooshiro.
For a moment, Nana softened. She glanced at him while he poured tea into two mismatched cups, “You look tired.”
“I'm a working adult.”
“You always work, yes. But this is different tired.”
“Wow. Thank you.”
“I didn’t say ugly tired.”
“That was an option?”
“It’s in the next tier.”
He placed the tea down, “I’m fine.”
She accepted the cup and looked at him over it, “You keep using that word. You know, womem use that word a lot in fights and it's never true.”
He sat across from her, “Why are you here again?”
“To make sure you eat. To return your mother’s containers from last time, because you have held them hostage for a month. And to examine this hole you’ve been decorating.”
“I hate that you remember your own insults and keep them as a running joke… with yourself.”
“They’re good insults.”
“They’re annoying mostly.”
“Both can be true.”
They ate for a few minutes. Tooshiro had not realized how hungry he was until real food touched his mouth. The chicken was sweet and savory, the lotus root still crisp. The tamagoyaki tasted exactly like childhood dinners, packed lunches, and their mother saying she had not made anything special while making six side dishes.
Nana watched him eat and smiled to herself.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“That’s my line when I’m lying.”
“I know. You taught me.”
He sighed, but kept eating.
When the edge of hunger had passed, Nana set her chopsticks down and folded her hands in front of her, “Now. Door 305.”
Tooshiro choked on tea. Nana waited like someone who had planned the exact timing.
He coughed once, covered his mouth, and glared, “You can’t use apartment numbers like character names.”
“Isn't that what you do?”
“In my head.”
“Sounds worse.”
“She has a name.”
Nana’s eyes sharpened with immediate victory, “Oh?”
He realized the mistake at once.
Nana leaned forward, “You know her name?”
“She signs for deliveries, so obviously.”
“Full name?”
Tooshiro sighed, “Yamaguchi Fumiko.”
Nana repeated it quietly, testing the rhythm, “Yamaguchi Fumiko. Pretty name.”
“It’s just a name.”
“You are being pretty defensive.”
“I am just eating.”
“You can be doing both. You multitask badly, but emotionally, you manage. Sometimes.”
He picked up another piece of lotus root to avoid answering.
Nana rested her chin on one hand, “And she did read the book?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“All of it.”
That stopped her. For the first time since arriving, Nana looked genuinely surprised. No teasing. No little smirk. Her eyes widened, then narrowed a little as if she were recalculating the size of the problem.
“All of it?” she asked.
“The first arc in my hopeful epic, yes.”
“And?”
“She… liked it.”
Nana looked down at the food. For a second, her expression changed in a way that made Tooshiro uncomfortable. Proud for some reason, maybe? It was harder to deal with than teasing.
“She liked it,” Nana repeated.
“Yeah.”
“Did she say why?”
He looked away, “She gave a lot of reasons actually.”
“How much is a lot?”
“She uh, brought notes.”
Nana’s face lit up, “Oh, now that’s interesting.”
“It was just feedback.”
“Intimacy with stationery brother dear.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“It absolutely was! A woman brings notes to talk about your fantasy novel and you think that’s casual?”
“Ah… my novel. Uh, she thinks my friend wrote it.”
“And there’s the catch,” Nana said, holding her hand to her head in shame.
He leaned back, “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Daiki already gave me this speech.”
“Daiki-san had that much sense?”
“Unfortunately.”
“That must have been hard for both of you.”
Tooshiro rubbed his face with both hands, “I know I need to tell her… I will eventually.”
“Eventually. Jeez. Now! The sooner the better.”
“I can’t just say it now.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s weird.”
“It was weird when you gave her the book.”
“Exactly.”
“Then this whole relationship already has that theme.”
He gave her a look as Nana continued anyway, “What are you so afraid of?”
Tooshiro looked at the table, at the containers their mother had packed, at the chopsticks resting on the lid of the simmered vegetables. He could have joked. Nana would let him, maybe once. But he was tired. And Daiki’s sentence from the van still nagged at him like a pebble in a shoe.
He breathed out slowly, “That she’ll think everything was a trick.”
Nana did not interrupt.
“The book. The messages. The café. The supermarket. Every time I met her. All of it. From the outside it sounds like I'm a stalker… If I tell her I’m Shin Kaidou now, then it looks like I sat there listening to her talk about the author while pretending to be someone else because I wanted praise.”
“Did you?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it while Nana waited.
“No….not at first. Well, maybe, partly,” he confessed.
Her expression did not change. Nana did not look disappointed. She looked like she hadn't expected the honesty at all.
“I wanted someone to read it,” he explained, “I wanted to hear what they thought without them knowing it was me. Because if I told someone I wrote it, then everything would become polite. People say it’s good because they know you. Or they say nothing because they don’t want to lie. I wanted one real reaction.”
“And so you got one,” she finally said.
“Yeah...”
“And so now what?”
He looked at the fridge.
Nana followed his gaze and smiled faintly. Not teasing this time. Softer.
“Now, there’s pudding,” she nodded knowingly.
He laughed once, low and embarrassed, “There is pudding.”
Nana picked up her tea and directly asked, “Do you like her?”
The room went quiet. Outside, a bicycle bell rang faintly from the street below. Somewhere upstairs, the chair dragged across the floor again.
Tooshiro stared at his chopsticks. I could say no. I could say it’s too early. I could say she’s just a reader. I could say any number of things that sound reasonable.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Nana tilted her head, “That’s closer than a simple no.”
“It’s only been like a week.”
“Feelings don’t submit paperwork and follow a time line like an order of operations.”
“Well they should.”
“You would miss the deadline.”
Tooshiro laughed, shaking his head back and forth.
Nana smiled, then turned serious again, “What do you like about her?”
“I just said I don’t know if I do like her like that.”
“Fine. What do you notice about her, then?”
“Notice? That wouldn't be the same thing as knowing if I like those things.”
“Still, what do you notice?”
He tried to answer quickly and found he couldn’t. Not because there was nothing. Because there was too much, and most of it sounded stupid once removed from the moment.
“She’s careful,” he began slowly and then picked up the pace, “But not cold. She acts like every sentence can be so significant, but then says something witty and completely honest. She gets embarrassed when she cares too much about something, but she still keeps going on about it. She has this way of talking about stories like they’re not escape, but somewhere to put things you can’t say or feel in normal life.”
Nana’s teasing expression had fully vanished now.
Tooshiro kept going before he lost the nerve, “And she remembers details. Not just names or plot. The emotional stuff. My characters. She understood Quintin. She understood why Johanus trying to live quietly mattered. She understood Selena before I even…” he stopped, but Nana jumped in.
“You mean before ‘Shin Kaidou’ even revealed everything,” she said, finishing Tooshiro’s own thought for him.
“Right…” He gave her a tired smile.
Nana looked down at the notebook near his laptop, “And… what does she notice about you?”
“Well, not that I’m bad at lying?”
“That is not a romantic foundation.”
“She said my name suits me.”
Nana’s eyes flicked up. He regretted saying it, but not enough to take it back.
“She asked how Tooshiro is written,” he explained, “I told her. She said it suits me. Then she got embarrassed and said it was memorable.”
Nana was quiet for a moment. Then she smiled in the most annoying way possible.
“What?” Tooshiro asked.
“That’s pretty cute.”
“It’s not that cute.”
“It is. Painfully. I may need water.”
“Stop.”
“Did you blush?”
“No.”
“You’re blushing now.”
“I’m warm from tea.”
“Your ears drink tea?”
He covered one ear on instinct, which was a rookie mistake and they both knew it.
Nana laughed, open and bright, the way she had laughed when they were kids and Tooshiro tripped over his own school bag trying to look cool in front of a neighbor girl. The memory hit him before he could stop it, and for a second, he saw his sister younger again. Missing front tooth. Pigtails crooked. Running after him with a cicada shell because she knew he hated them.
She had always been like this. Cruel in the small ways, but loyal in the big ones.
Nana wiped at one eye, still smiling, “I’m happy.”
He looked at her, “Why?”
“Because you’re talking like a person again. You’ve been inside that book for years. I know you had work. I know you talked to people. But part of you stayed in there caught up with the nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense.”
“Yes. I know.”
The quick answer of validation surprised him.
She looked at the copy of The Kingslayer King sitting on his shelf, “I know it’s not. That’s the problem. I knew you weren’t wasting time. Even when Mom worried. Even when Dad pretended he didn’t. Even when you acted like working delivery was part of some grand plan and not also something you chose because it let you avoid choosing other things.”
He looked down.
Nana did not soften the next part, but her voice stayed gentle, “I think you needed someone outside us, family, to say it mattered.”
The apartment felt still as Tooshiro considered that she was right. He hadn't really thought that before. He hated that he wanted to argue and couldn’t.
“She said it was good,” he gave a small smile as the words came out smaller than he meant them to.
Nana nodded, “Then believe her.”
“I’m trying.”
“No, you’re trying to dismiss it all before it becomes something you want.”
Tooshiro picked at the edge of the chopstick wrapper in front of him, “What if she likes Shin Kaidou more than me?”
Nana’s expression changed again and there it was. The thing he had not wanted to say. The thing sitting under every message, every book discussion, every moment Fumiko’s eyes brightened over the author instead of the delivery worker passing along his words.
Nana did not laugh. Instead, she leaned forward, elbows on the table, “Then you created a love triangle with yourself. Which is impressive, stupid, and very on brand at this point.”
He groaned, “I’m serious.”
“I am too,” Nana quickly said as she slapped the table once, “Listen. She likes the book. She likes the author because she thinks the author made her feel seen. That’s real, even if she doesn’t know the face behind it. But she has also been messaging you and seeing you, right?”
He nodded.
“And I'm sure it somehow came to a point where you both realized that you’re not only her delivery guy?”
He looked up, “How do you know that?”
“You just told me with your face.”
“Nana.”
“Am I right?”
He said nothing as she pointed at him, “See!?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
“Then stop acting like Tooshiro is only the delivery guy in this situation. You’re the one who keeps shrinking yourself. The proof is in the pudding!”
Tooshiro looked away.
Nana continued, quieter now, “You dropped out because college made you miserable. You took a job that gave you room to write. You finished a book. You printed it yourself. None of that is a small feat.”
He swallowed, “It doesn’t feel big.”
“Because you live in the middle of it. Your apartment smells like laundry and ink. Big things look stupid up close. But it was brave.”
“That might be the smartest thing you’ve ever said.”
“I know. I’m upset you witnessed it.”
He laughed, and the room loosened around them.
Nana picked up the pudding she had brought and placed it beside the empty tea cups, “I got this for myself, but now it feels symbolic, so I’m uncomfortable.”
“Keep it away from mine.”
“I knew it. Yours is sacred!”
“It’s not sacred.”
“You didn’t eat it.”
“I didn’t have a spoon.”
“You own spoons.”
“I didn’t at the time of getting it.”
“So you acquired a spoon for future pudding?”
He glanced at the clean spoon on the table. Nana slowly turned her head toward it. The silence was devastating.
Tooshiro grabbed the spoon and stood, “I’m washing this.”
“It’s already clean!”
“It needs washed of your energy.”
“You bought a spoon because of her.”
He pointed toward the door, “You can leave.”
“I brought chicken. You can’t remove me.”
A buzz from his phone saved him and doomed him at the same time. It was Fumiko. Tooshiro saw her name and tried to move casually, which meant he moved like a malfunctioning crane.
Nana saw it immediately. Her eyes went bright with predatory sibling joy, “Is that her?”
“No.”
He checked the message.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: I made curry after all. The mushrooms survived!
He smiled before he could stop himself.
Nana leaned over the table, but he turned the phone away.
“Rude,” she said.
“Private.”
“Oh, so it is her.”
He typed under Nana’s gaze.
Senda Tooshiro: Congratulations to the mushrooms.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Thank you. They faced uncertainty.
Senda Tooshiro: Very brave.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Did you eat the salad?
Tooshiro looked toward the fridge. Nana looked toward the fridge. The salad waited inside, condemned.
Senda Tooshiro: Define eat.
Fumiko’s reply came quickly.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Senda-san.
Nana clasped both hands in front of her mouth, “She scolds you by name?”
“Stop watching.”
“She’s worried about the salad in the fridge?”
“She was there when I bought it.”
“Oh! You just bought salad in front of her to look responsible.”
“I bought salad because she bullied me.”
Nana’s grin widened, “I like her already.”
His phone buzzed again.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Please don’t let cabbage die for nothing.
Nana lost it. She leaned sideways, laughing into her sleeve while Tooshiro tried to maintain dignity and failed because he was also smiling.
Senda Tooshiro: I’ll eat it with dinner.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Will you?
He looked at Nana.
Nana looked at him, “Well, don’t lie some more.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were considering it.”
He typed.
Senda Tooshiro: My sister is here with food from my mother, so the cabbage may live until tomorrow.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Your sister?
Nana froze mid-laugh. Then slowly turned to him, “Oh?!”
“No!”
“Give me the phone.”
“No.”
“I need to introduce myself.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You mentioned me first!”
“That was an accident.”
“Then take responsibility.”
He held the phone away as Nana reached across the table, which turned into a ridiculous half-wrestling match over a device neither of them actually wanted to drop. She grabbed his wrist. He twisted away. She leaned over the food containers. He lifted the phone higher. One of the chopstick wrappers fell to the floor.
“Stop,” he demanded.
“Let me be polite, you turd!”
“You are never polite.”
“I can pretend.”
“No, you can’t!”
The phone buzzed again while held above his head.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Is this the sister who sends food surveillance?
Nana gasped, “She knows details about me!”
“She knows more than enough.”
“Give it!”
“No.”
Nana stood, walked around the table, and reached for the phone with both hands. Tooshiro tried to stand too, but his foot caught the floor cushion. He stumbled back, bumped the low shelf, and one of the extra copies of The Kingslayer King slid out and thudded onto the floor.
Both siblings froze. The book lay there between them as the cover caught the afternoon light, crown and blood and gold letters glaring up like it had entered the conversation on purpose.
Nana looked at it and then at him, “You need to tell her.”
“I know.”
“No. Not this eventually again. You need a real plan.”
He picked up the book slowly, “I know.”
“Say other words, mister author.”
He sat back down, phone in one hand, book in the other. The playful mood had not vanished, but it had changed shape. Nana returned to her cushion and folded her legs under her.
Tooshiro looked at the cover, “I don’t want the reveal to happen because I get cornered.”
“Then don’t wait until the cornering comes.”
“I also don’t want to do it before she trusts me enough to believe I didn’t mean to use her...”
Nana nodded once, “At least that part makes sense.”
“It does?”
“Yes. Shockingly.”
He gave her a dumbfounded look, but she ignored it as she continued, “Still, trust built on a lie has a timer. You don’t need to throw a grenade into your life tomorrow, but you do need to stop making the lie bigger.”
He looked at his phone where the unsent reply waited, “What counts as bigger?” he wondered.
“Uh, maybe pretending to consult Shin Kaidou when you’re really answering as Shin Kaidou.”
His hand tightened around the phone as Nana continued.
“Letting her say personal things to the author without knowing it’s you. Letting her feel safe with two people when one of them isn’t real.”
He set the book down carefully, in acceptance, “I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Then keep being the kind of person who worries about hurting her. But also stop hiding behind worrying.”
“You make that sound so easy.”
“It isn’t. That’s why you keep avoiding it.”
He laughed weakly, “Oof. Brutal.”
“Brutally honest. It’s in my character description,” Nana joked.
The phone buzzed again.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: I hope I didn’t interrupt family time.
Tooshiro looked at Nana as she raised both hands, surrendering this time, “That's your answer. Not mine.”
He typed slowly.
Senda Tooshiro: You didn’t. She brought enough food to insult my lifestyle and support my survival.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: That sounds like familial love alright.
Senda Tooshiro: It is, unfortunately.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Then please tell her thank you for keeping the author liaison alive.
Nana read that one over his shoulder because he forgot to hide it, “Author liaison?”
“It’s a joke.”
“You are now professionally lying.”
“I know.”
“And she’s funny.”
“I know.”
Nana groaned and leaned back on her hands, “This is a disaster.”
“You said you liked her.”
“I do. That’s why it’s a disaster. If she were boring, I could tell you to run and eat your pudding alone.”
He looked at the fridge again.
Nana followed his gaze, “Do not use pudding for emotional decision-making.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You totally were!”
“Maybe.”
Nana stood and began packing the empty containers and leftovers with brisk efficiency, “I want to meet her.”
“No.”
“I didn’t ask. You know that I can behave when I want to, right?”
“You really can't.”
“I behave at work.”
“You sell clothes to strangers. That’s a performance environment.”
“And I perform beautifully.”
Nana tied the cloth around one empty container, “Fine. Not now. But eventually.”
“There's that word again.”
“It works when I use it.”
“That's so convenient.”
“I’m younger. Time favors me more.”
Tooshiro watched her pack. The afternoon light had shifted, turning softer against the wall. His apartment looked less lonely with another person moving around in it. He had lived alone long enough to mistake silence for neutrality. Nana broke that. She made the room warmer, noisier, more annoying, and harder to lie inside.
She paused by the door after putting on her shoes, tote bag over her shoulder, “Brother.”
He looked up.
Her expression was teasing again, but not only teasing, “You deserve to be liked as yourself.”
Nana opened the door before he could answer, then pointed at the fridge. “Eat the cabbage tomorrow. Text proof. If you fake it, I’ll know.”
“How would you know?”
“I always do.”
She left with a small wave, and the door closed behind her.
The apartment went quiet again.
Tooshiro stood there for a while, one hand still resting on the back of his neck. The food from his mother was in the fridge. The pudding was still there. The salad, unfortunately, was also still there. The copy of The Kingslayer King sat on the table beside his phone.
He looked at the text message thread and then he looked at the book. For the first time, the pen name felt like a door he had locked from the wrong side.
He opened his laptop and pulled up the draft website for Shin Kaidou.
The page was ugly. Black background. Red text. Fumiko had been right to threaten it. He changed the background to white and then stared at the author profile box.
Name: Shin Kaidou.
Bio: …
He typed, deleted, typed again.
Shin Kaidou is an independent fantasy author based in Tokyo.
That was safe. Too safe? He added another line.
He writes stories about people trying to live honestly after surviving the lives they were given.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard. That line felt closer. His phone buzzed.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Please also tell your sister that cabbage is not only a lifestyle insult. It can be redeemed with sesame dressing.
Tooshiro laughed.
Senda Tooshiro: She says she already knows.
He did not send it. Instead, he stared for a second, then deleted the lie.
Senda Tooshiro: I’ll tell her.
There, a smaller lie… still a lie. But at least he had acknowledged it.
Across town, Nana walked toward Nakano Station with her tote bag lighter and her phone in hand.
She opened her chat with Tooshiro.
Nana: I forgot to say one thing.
Tooshiro: If this is about cabbage, I’m blocking you.
Nana: It’s not.
Nana: She might forgive you for lying about the book.
Nana: She won’t forgive you if you make her feel stupid for trusting you.
Nana slipped her phone into her bag and looked up at the station entrance, where people moved in and out under the evening signs. Her brother was an idiot. A talented idiot. A lonely idiot. The kind who could write a whole world but still needed help crossing the street inside his own heart.
Back in his apartment, Tooshiro looked at the website draft again, where the author profile stared back. He still did not know how to tell Fumiko, and he still did not know when. But for the first time, the question had changed from ‘if’ to ‘how’, and that was something Tooshiro felt he rarely made, progress.
26Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgywympsiuI
and then Add to home screen.