Chapter 29: Five Terms, Rewritten

By four o'clock the Wick had a closed sign, five men and a hand-lettered agreement spread across the biggest table.

The old tabby sat on page one and could not be moved.

Chan's phone lay face down by the sugar.

The manager's summons had sat on it since morning: Come to the cabin tonight. Alone.

They had answered with Not alone, and the manager had said nothing back.

"He can wait," Missy said. "We fix this first, so whatever he says, we hear it as one table."

Missy took the salt jar off the Wick Agreement, the blue-ink menu backs they had all signed after the manager's first visit.

"Right," she said. "Term three failed. Let's fix it."

Chan sat very straight with his hands flat on the table.

"It didn't fail," he said. "I broke it."

"Same difference. Why did it break?"

"Because it only said nobody decides for anyone else."

"And?"

"And I decided I was deciding for myself." He frowned. "Which was also deciding for you."

"There it is," said Jisung, delighted. "He's got it. Give him a cat."

Felix pulled the page toward him and uncapped the pen.

"New wording. Nobody decides alone about anything that touches another of us."

"Anyone can call a table," Hyunjin said, from the floor, where he was drawing the tabby. "And at a table the quietest person talks first."

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