Chapter 19: The Laundry Deck

The laundry deck on the roof of Tsukimi-so was cold enough to hurt.

It was a wide concrete platform with a rail and six lines of rope.

Beyond the rail lay the whole Koenji skyline, all low roofs and lit windows.

White sheets hung from the lines and moved in the wind.

Ria had said she needed to pin out the bedding before it froze.

She had pinned out one pillowcase in twenty minutes, and then stood holding the wooden peg with her back to the stairs.

Nanami waited beside the folding chair in her coat, with her breath puffing white.

"Say it," she said at last.

Ria turned.

Her red hair whipped across her face and she pushed it back with a cold hand.

"What I am most afraid of," she said, "is that you are here because of your grandmother."

"Ria..."

"She told me to look after you. She paid for it. I took her money and her promise."

"Now you are in her room and wearing her slippers."

Her voice cracked.

"I am afraid I am a thing she left you in a will."

Nanami put down her tea.

She crossed the concrete and took Ria's frozen hands in both of hers.

"Listen to me. I did not know you existed until you sat on my kotatsu."

"My grandmother left me a box of brushes and a letter that told me to be kind to you."

"Yes."

"I wasn't kind. I got you off on a rug in my work skirt in a week. That wasn't her will. That was me."

Ria's laugh was thin and wet.

"I'd have wanted you if you'd been a stranger at a bus stop," Nanami said.

"I'd have wanted you with a bad ledger and terrible cake and no contract at all. You, not her gift."

She pulled Ria's hands inside her coat, against her warm ribs.

"Is that the thing?"

"That is the thing."

"Then it's gone."

Ria stood very still, and then she rose onto her toes and kissed her.

It was a cold, wet, frantic kiss that tasted of tea and tears.

Nanami folded down into the plastic chair by the rail, pulling her along.

Ria landed astride her lap with her skirt around her thighs, facing her, and the white sheets billowed on both sides.

"Nobody can see us," Ria whispered.

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