That night, Mio did something unusual.
"I'm going to test one thing."
Mio said it as if to herself, tipping her canned coffee. Mikoshiba was at a seat a little way off, tidying up documents. Mio's gaze was turned, only halfway, toward Mikoshiba's back.
Given data, she could rewrite her thinking endlessly. When evidence came, she rewrote it, flatly. That was Mio at her root. And yet she had one parameter she had always left untouched.
The interpretation of the behavior of the man called Ritsu Mikoshiba.
For the first time, Mio put it on the chopping block.
Hypothesis: Mikoshiba's behavior is rational consideration as a co-owner of the business. Could the evidence overturn this? Mio laid out the likelihoods, flatly.
The snacks after all-nighters. The rides to and from work. The limits on overtime. Quietly taking care of every unreasonable client behind the scenes. When Kiryu wanted Kotoba to have her, when he tried to poach Mio personally, Mikoshiba deciding, with an anger that had no temperature, to "wipe him out through business." In the funding crisis, when nearly all the employees had left, choosing to keep Mio beside him to the very end. And tonight, "I'd been watching you since our days at the previous company"—going out of his way to open up and show her something he had kept tucked away for a long time.
The evidence was plentiful.
"...There's room to rewrite this one."
Mio murmured. Mikoshiba's hands stopped over the documents. He had caught Mio's words from her presence alone. Mikoshiba didn't turn around. It was closer to say he couldn't.
Mio bundled the evidence she had laid out together once more in her head. Multiplied it. The posterior was coming into focus. The man called Mikoshiba had, this consistently, been pouring resources into a single point called Mio. The reason why. The one and only explanation.
The heat of her usual clairvoyance passed through Mio's eyes.
"...I see it."
Mikoshiba's back stiffened. Mio was reaching the answer. At the end of a long, long night, at last—.
"I'm updating the prior."
Mio set down her canned coffee. Flatly, but with certainty, Mio declared the posterior she had arrived at, clipped short.
"Ritsu—has fallen for my 'technology.'"
On Mikoshiba's back, something crumbled without a sound.
"Pouring this much in resources into a single person. That's the only explanation. You must really love my technology. As a business owner, you love my code from the bottom of your heart. Having your eye on me since the previous company—that's what that meant, too. It all makes sense now."
Mio nodded, satisfied with her own argument. For the first time in her life, she had exercised her highest-order update on a human emotion. The answer she had derived, having piled up evidence thoroughly, carefully calculated the likelihoods, and arrived at it with certainty—had splendidly missed the mark.
Mikoshiba slowly turned around.
"...There it is. Mio's 'update.'"
That was all. Even his teasing words had less than half their usual force. The heat he had poured into every one of his actions for three years had finally been tested head-on, and then, its address rewritten as "technology," it melted away soundlessly into the night office.
Mikoshiba didn't deny it. To deny it would mean speaking of love. So, to the very end, he would not say it.
In the shadows of the kitchenette.
Aya Shinkai, clutching her phone, both hands pressed over her mouth, an expression stretched to its limit, had watched the whole thing.
What escaped as sound was a single syllable.
"...Pfft."
Aya hurriedly covered her mouth. Mio hadn't heard. Mio, thoroughly satisfied with the conclusion she had drawn, was already reaching for her next canned coffee. Within her heart, Aya bowed deeply.
—Master Mikoshiba. As of today, the final accounts of a lifetime are closed.
—Three years. Every resource you had, poured into a single point, and the conclusion the lady finally delivered, after all that preparation, was—"has fallen for my technology." A more complete defeat than this, I daresay I shall never behold in all my life.
—And yet, pray, rest assured. Your three years mistook their address and melted into the air, but in my eyes, every last letter of them is engraved. This seat in the front row, I shall not quit until the earth itself is destroyed. In your next life, too, I pray you will suffer defeat in perfect order and good health.
Aya, stifling her voice all the while, bowed once more.
Mikoshiba gave a wry smile toward the shadows. As ever, Mio had no idea at all what Aya was revering so much. Nor did she think of trying to understand.
Mio turned back to the monitor.
The lines extending beyond the border, the ones she hadn't been able to trace all the way, were still there. The main stronghold was across the sea. Someday, it would change its shape and reach toward them again. There was no total victory. There was only the next problem, and the problem after that.
Mio thought that wasn't bad.
The world was full of problems waiting to be solved. At the bottom of data, someone's profile always showed through. Mio would take aim at all of them, peer into the sea of probability, and bring them into focus. Her clairvoyance could see through as far and as wide as it needed to.
Except for one thing—the signal of a certain man, right beside her.
Mio tipped her canned coffee.
That inscrutable signal the man called Ritsu Mikoshiba kept sending out. For three years it had been emitted right beside Mio, strongly, ceaselessly, the whole time, and her interest value never once rose for it. It was right beside her, and yet there, and only there, her sensitivity stayed at Mio forever. So, all her life, she would never take aim at that signal. The clairvoyance that could reach any distant mystery in the world had, from the start, never had a direction pointing toward the heartbeat of the man beside her.
And that was fine.
Mio opened a new window. Beyond where the lines broke off. An unseen board across the sea. The presence of an unsolved problem breathed quietly in the depths of the screen.
"...I wonder what the next problem will be."
Mio's murmur reached no one.
And only Mikoshiba's one-sided love, as ever, without a single line of it detected, went on glowing quietly in the night office.