Chapter 7: Three in the Morning

Emi found Kokone on the roof, eating a cup of instant noodles.

She was sitting on the edge of the water tank with her legs swinging, in a cap and a face mask, watching the trains.

"You scared me," Emi said from the stairwell door. Her voice was not steady.

"I'm sorry." Kokone pulled the mask under her chin. "I only wanted to see the sky. I haven't seen it in nine days."

"Next time say so."

"If I say so, Misaki says no."

"Then say so to me."

Kokone looked at her over the rim of the cup.

"Okay," she said, and her ears went pink.

That night Emi went to work at eleven.

At three in the morning the automatic door chimed, and a figure walked in wearing a gray hoodie, glasses and a surgical mask.

She went straight to the instant noodle aisle and stood there with her back to the counter.

Emi did not look up from the register.

Haruka looked up from the magazine rack. "Customer," she whispered. "Weird. Tiny."

"She's my stepsister," Emi said.

"You have a stepsister?"

"Since last month."

"You never said."

"She's shy."

Haruka was twenty-three, loud, and sure of everything.

She leaned over the counter and stared at the figure in the aisle for a long time.

"She's got the posture of a dancer," she said. "Hey. Are you hiding someone?"

"Pick up the delivery, Haruka."

"Fine. But you owe me the story."

Haruka hauled a tray of boxed lunches into the back, and the door swung shut behind her.

Emi walked down the aisle.

"I told you to wait for me to ask," she said quietly.

"I know." Kokone's eyes crinkled over the mask. "I wanted to see where you work."

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