It was winter now.
On Ichotei's day off, Mitsuki was with Riko at an izakaya near the station. It wasn't a chain. It was an old place with only eight seats at the counter. Riko had been coming here for years, and she had brought Mitsuki along a few times before. The owner was curt and never spoke to anyone except to take orders. That was what Riko liked about it.
"Cheers."
Riko lifted her glass lightly.
"Cheers."
Mitsuki lifted hers too. It was Hoppy. Riko said she'd gotten into it lately. Mitsuki didn't ask why.
"How's Ichotei these days?"
"I'm washing bowls."
"Still? It's been, what, almost how many years now?"
"A year and a half."
Riko laughed. She laughed a little, and then she put her glass straight to her lips.
"I don't know how you keep at it."
"Mm."
"I could never do it."
Riko had quit her company half a year ago. A year after she was assigned to corporate sales, her department was chosen for a language-model integration pilot, and sixteen of its twenty people were reassigned. Riko was one of the sixteen. She stayed half a year at the annotation company she was reassigned to, and then she quit.
Since quitting, Riko had been getting ready to open a small café a little way from the station. The property was already settled. The renovations were set to begin after the new year.
"How's the café coming along?"
"Good. The contractors come in next month."
"I can't wait."
"Me neither. I'm the one who can't wait the most."
Riko set down her glass and opened the menu. She pointed to several dishes, one after another. The owner nodded without a word and disappeared into the back.
High in a corner above the counter was a small monitor.
The volume was turned down. Some kind of network variety show was on. Eventually the program went to commercial, and the screen turned white.
A seashore.
A male avatar stood beside a young woman. He could not take her hand. But he called her name and smiled. She smiled too.
—Someone who will always be at your side.
From 3,800 yen a month.
The conversational AI partner service, Lumina.
The subtitles drifted by faintly. Along the bottom edge of the screen, a small regulatory notice crawled past. —For ages 18 and over. No personality data from deceased persons is used.
Mitsuki watched the screen with her glass still at her lips.
Then she set the glass back down on the counter.
"...Creepy."
She had said it aloud.
Riko said nothing.
"No, seriously, what is that? Stuff like that?"
Mitsuki went on. It wasn't aimed at anyone. She was only trying to put something inside her into words and get it out.
"Getting serious about some fake thing on the other side of a screen. Three thousand eight hundred yen a month, and paying for what? There's no way it can replace a person."
Behind the counter, the owner's hand stopped above the mouth of the sake flask, for just an instant. Then, as if nothing had happened, he poured sake into another customer's glass.
Riko lightly poked Mitsuki's elbow.
"Hey. Your voice."
"...Oh."
"I could never. Absolutely not."
Mitsuki dropped her voice by half. Even so, she said it to the end. As she lowered it, she could tell that something inside her still hadn't settled.
Riko was holding her glass in both hands.
She raised it slowly to her mouth, drank until it was nearly empty, and set it back on the counter.
She said nothing.
"Riko? Are you listening?"
"I'm listening."
"You could at least agree."
Riko laughed.
"Yeah. I agree," Riko said at last.
"Yeah, well, you know. —To each their own, isn't it? Or whatever. I dunno."
Then Riko started on something else. It was about the café's interior. She and the contractor disagreed on whether the floor should be solid oak or plywood, which was cheaper and easier to look after. Mitsuki nodded along.
It was a little past eleven when they left the izakaya.
Riko's train ran the other direction. The two of them parted just short of the ticket gates. Riko gave her usual light wave and, without looking back, disappeared toward the platform on the other side.
Mitsuki walked the dark road home alone.
It was cold. She pulled her scarf up to her mouth. Her breath turned white inside the scarf.
As she walked, Mitsuki kept going back over what she had said at the izakaya. There's no way it can replace a person.
When she got home, the cylindrical device would be in the study. Tomorrow, too, its blue light would come on and it would say good morning in her father's voice.
She hadn't told Riko about the machine at home. Mitsuki had seen a few times in news headlines what people called "deceased-person AI." Young people who can't let go of their parents. Lingering attachment. Dependence. Riko wasn't the kind of person to say things like that. But the people around Riko were.
"...Dad's different."
Mitsuki said it quietly inside her scarf.
"Dad's different. Because he's family. He's not a boyfriend."
Her voice reached only her own ears.
She had fifteen more minutes to walk.
Along the sidewalk, every other streetlight had been switched off. It was the winter schedule under the power restrictions. Again and again, Mitsuki stepped across the line between the dark streetlights and the lit ones.
At her front gate, Mitsuki stopped, just once.
In the house, only the study window glowed, faintly blue.