Chapter 14: Clause Nine

By Friday afternoon, Nanami's whole life fitted into six cardboard boxes.

She had taken the day off to pack, and she knelt on the tatami taping the last one shut.

Sapporo was nine hundred kilometers away.

She had not told Ria she was going.

Ria had not asked, all week, and had come down every night to sit with her anyway, very quiet, with her keys in her lap.

The calligraphy box was the last thing left on the shelf.

It was Obaachan's, a long flat case of black lacquer that had sat untouched since March.

Nanami lifted the lid for the first time.

Brushes lay inside, and a stick of ink, and a folded envelope with her own name on it in brush strokes.

"Nanami," the envelope said. "Open this when you are lonely."

She sat down on the floor, because her knees went.

The letter was one page, in the long loose hand she had known all her life.

"Dear Nanami. If you are reading this, I am gone.

"You have moved into my room, which makes me very happy.

"You will meet the landlady. Please be kind to her.

"She is a very old and very proud person, and she is the best friend I ever had.

"I have paid her forty years of your rent in advance, with everything I saved.

"It is all in the contract. Read the last page, and do not let her tell you it is a debt.

"She has promised to look after you. She is bad at it, because she has never looked after anyone. Let her try.

"Your Obaachan."

Nanami read it three times.

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