At the Year-End Party He Thanked Me for Doing His Paperwork, So I Took the Microphone novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Sixteen Days Early

Kaname came back from Marunouchi at a quarter to eleven.

Chiaki heard the elevator from inside 4101.

She had let herself in with the spare key card he'd left on her hall table three weeks ago and never mentioned.

She was in his kitchen.

There was chocolate on the counter, on the cooker, on her sleeve and on one of his beautiful white plates.

There was chocolate, she found out later, in her hair.

He stopped in the kitchen doorway with his coat still on.

He had the glass trophy under one arm.

"You left that on the stage," she said.

"Someone from the magazine chased me to the car with it." He looked at the counter. "What is this?"

"Nama chocolate," she said. "It's an apology."

"It's the twenty-ninth of January."

"I know when Valentine's is."

"It's in sixteen days."

"I needed the practice," she said. "Obviously."

He set the trophy down on the end of the counter, in a small puddle of cream.

Then he looked at the tray.

It was meant to be smooth squares dusted with cocoa, the kind Hanamori sells in a black box in February for three thousand yen.

It looked like a road after an accident.

"I've watched them make it at the factory a hundred times," Chiaki said. "I know the ratio. I know the temperature. My hands just don't."

He picked up the knife she had been using, cut a square out of the least broken corner, and ate it.

He chewed for a long time.

"Well?" she said.

"It's terrible."

"I know."

"It's grainy. It's split. You've burnt the cream."

"I know."

He ate another one.

"Stop eating it."

"No," he said, and cut a third.

She started laughing, and then she wasn't laughing, and she put the back of her hand against her mouth.

"I'm sorry," she said. "About the door. About the cover. About saying you were the same as him."

"I'm not the same as him."

"I know. I knew on Monday. I was just too angry to stop."

He put the knife down.

He came around the counter and stopped in front of her, close, and took her chocolate-covered hand and held it.

"I should have stopped it in November," he said.

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