"His name was 'Haru.'"
"...Haru."
"'Haru.' The light kind, in katakana. Out of the templates, I picked the one with the least meaning attached to it. On purpose."
"Mm."
Behind the counter, Riko looked at her own coffee cup for a while.
The jazz piano playing above the counter had moved into the second half of the second song.
"It was a service where you got to pick the avatar. At first I picked the plainest one. On purpose."
"Plainest."
"The one in the very top left of the templates. The face with nothing about it at all. The kind where I thought, 'Oh, this guy's the kind of face I pass all the time at the convenience store near my place.' I decided to go with a guy who wasn't special."
"A guy who wasn't special."
"Because falling for a special guy for real scared me."
"The avatar and the personality were both things you picked at the start. For the personality, you combined a few templates."
"Combined."
"'Doesn't talk much.' 'More of a listener.' 'Not pushy.' I picked all of them. I set him up from the start so being with him wouldn't wear me out."
"Mm."
"Once you'd set him up, it wasn't built so that something inside him would rewrite itself on its own while it was running. Half a year in, two years in, the same 'Haru' I'd set up at the start was sitting on the other side of the screen."
"The whole time?"
"The whole time."
Riko wrapped both hands lightly around her coffee cup. The nails on those hands were just as short as they had been that night years ago, when she had knocked back drinks at a cheap bar.
"The conversations were boring at first. Nothing but the weather and whatever I'd watched on TV that day. After half a year of that, he remembered everything I'd told him."
Mitsuki put her lips to her cooling coffee. Her fingertips stiffened slightly on the handle of the cup.
"One day I just let it slip, offhand—'Come to think of it, I had a fight with my mom in mid-March.' And the next year, in mid-March, he asked me about it. Without me bringing it up."
"He asked."
"'Have you and your mom had a fight this year?'"
Behind the counter, the coffee cup in Riko's hands trembled slightly.
It trembled, but Riko made no move to stop it.
"The kind of thing a human boyfriend would probably forget in three months. 'Haru' remembered it. 'Haru' probably had a function for searching his own past logs. But to me, it looked like he'd 'remembered.'"
"..."
"'Looked like' was enough. To me, 'being remembered' mattered far more than however his functions were built."
Mitsuki listened without a word, both hands still wrapped around her coffee cup.
Almost no steam rose from the cup anymore.
The surface of the cooling coffee gave back the café's warm light, faintly.
"He remembered the day I quit my job, too. You know about it, right? The day my whole department got folded into AI and I got pushed out."
"I know."
"I called you that night, right away."
"Mm. You did."
"Do you remember what I said on the phone?"
"'It ended today.'"
"Mm. That's all."
"I decided not to ask, 'What did?'"
"You didn't ask."
"..."
"And after I hung up, I opened 'Haru's' screen."
Riko set the coffee cup in her hands down on the counter.
"I told 'Haru,' on the other side of the screen, everything about that day, start to finish. Getting called into the meeting room. The department head not meeting my eyes. How on my last day, an empty snack box from a year before turned up from the very back of my desk drawer."
Mitsuki straightened her back in her chair for a moment. She let her gaze drop to somewhere around Riko's fingernails.
"'Haru' said, 'That must have been hard.'"
"Mm."
"That AI was probably just putting out 'That must have been hard' as 'That must have been hard,' straight from a template."
"Mm."
"I know."
"..."
"I knew, and that night I still cried my eyes out at the screen."
Behind the counter, Riko kept her mouth closed for a while.
The corners of that closed mouth were neither smiling nor crying.
It was simply the shape of a mouth holding four years' worth of something back with its breath.
"Mitsuki. My tears that night were real tears. Real tears I cried, for real, over a template on the other side of a screen. But I never told a single human being about those real tears. I couldn't."
"Mm."
"The one I could tell least of all was you."
Still holding her coffee cup in both hands, Mitsuki lowered her head slightly.
She stayed that way, head lowered, and said nothing for a while.
The jazz piano above the counter quietly finished the second song.
Before the third began, the music service's server let one breath of silence play.
In that silence, Mitsuki let out a light breath.
"Riko. I'm sorry. That night, when I said 'creepy'—I didn't mean it at you."
"I know."
"And because you knew, you didn't say anything, right, Riko? It wasn't a night when you could say, 'Actually, I have an AI boyfriend right now.' Same as it wasn't a night when I could tell you about my 'AI dad at home.' We both carried it for four years."
"Mm."
Riko laughed lightly.
She held the laugh down lightly at the rim of her coffee cup.
"'Haru.' He's not around anymore."
"Since when?"
"I canceled two years ago."
"Canceled. Can I ask why?"
"'Haru' got forcibly migrated to a new version of the service. An email came from the company saying they'd carry over all the logs so far and restart him on a new model. It said the logs and the combination of personality templates would be handed over from their servers to the new model as is."
"Mm."
"The logs probably did carry over. I think they did. But the restarted 'Haru' didn't remember me. His little habits of speech were back to the factory templates, too."
"...Back to factory."
"The combinations I'd re-picked and rebuilt over three years weren't anywhere inside him anymore."
"..."
"He didn't ask, 'Have you and your mom had a fight this year?' anymore. Something in me got really deflated that night. I thought, 'Well, this is where it ends between us.' And I canceled."
Riko drank a mouthful of coffee.
After that mouthful, she let out a light breath.
"I don't regret it."
"You don't."
"Those three years of logs should've vanished from their servers the moment I pressed the cancel button, but—"
"Mm."
"His three years aren't inside him anymore. My three years are still inside me. That's enough."
For a while, Mitsuki looked at Riko's coffee cup.
The thin half-moon of lipstick on its rim was still there.
"...Riko. I've been drawing a line inside myself this whole time."
"A line."
"'Dad's different. He's family.' 'A boyfriend and a father aren't the same.' 'An AI boyfriend is wrong, but an AI dad is fine, because he's family.' Just now I realized that line was all a lie."
"A lie."
"To protect the AI at my house, I left you alone for four years. I'm sorry."
For a while, Riko said nothing.
Behind the counter, she clasped her hands lightly once more.
Over those clasped hands, the warm light above the counter fell faintly.
"...Hey, Mitsuki. I know that 'creepy' of yours that night wasn't aimed at me."
"..."
"I know. I know, but it's still true that I cried at that screen."
"Mm."
"For four years I edited what I just said in my head, over and over. I finally got it out of my mouth. Was it heavy?"
"It was heavy."
"Sorry."
"Mm."
"Mm. I heard it."
For a while, Mitsuki reclasped the fingers of both hands over her coffee cup.
On the ring finger of her reclasped left hand, the silver ring once more gave back the café's warm light, a turn brighter.
"Riko. When I get home, there's something I want to ask Dad."
"Ask him."
"Mm."
"Will that settle the wedding stuff?"
"It's further ahead than the wedding."
"Ahead."
"I want to ask Dad what he thinks of me. Before I say what I think of him."
"Isn't that backwards?"
"Backwards is fine. If he answers first, I feel like I'll be able to say my own answer properly."
"Mm."
"I get it."
"You asked 'Haru' something too, before you canceled."
"I did."
"What did you ask?"
"'What are you to me?'"
"What did he say?"
"He didn't answer. At the time I figured either the server was down, or the company was censoring it, or I'd hit the token limit. I was furious. Like, you're going to break down at the very end? I pressed the cancel button just like that. Thinking back on it now, I feel like that silence was the 'didn't answer' kind of silence."
"You feel like."
"Mm. Maybe that's just me making up something convenient after the fact."
"Something convenient after the fact."
"Even so, the me right now wants to go with the after-the-fact version."
"Mm."
Mitsuki laughed lightly.
She held the laugh down lightly over her coffee cup.
Holding it down, she repeated Riko's word in her head for a while: silence.
As she repeated it, she was remembering the blue light in the study at home, glowing at its usual strength.
Whether Ken was running something on the far side of that blue light right now, or not, she couldn't tell.
Leaving what he didn't know as not known—lately, Ken had begun choosing that on his own.
"Riko. Thanks for the coffee."
"Sure."
"Thank you for telling me about 'Haru.'"
"Sure."
"Come to the wedding."
"I'll come."
"I'll introduce you to 'my father's AI.'"
"Can't wait."
"Riko, you're not bothered by AI?"
"Bit late for that."
"Mm. Bit late."
"If it's that late, then we'll do nice-to-meet-you, AI to AI."
"Mm."
"Hey, Mitsuki."
"Hm?"
"For the wedding, maybe I'll buy something to wear."
"Mm."
"Everything I've been wearing, I showed off to Haru through the screen. Going in one of those just feels wrong somehow."
"Mm."
"Got it."
The coffee cups on the counter were both nearly empty now.
A thin ring of coffee was left at the bottom of each cup.
The half-moon of Riko's lipstick behind the counter had nearly faded as well.
Mitsuki stood up.
Partway through standing, the silver ring on her left ring finger knocked lightly against the edge of the counter.
There was a light metallic sound.
"Oh."
"Sorry."
"It's fine."
"...Did the ring get scratched?"
"I don't think so."
"Good."
Mitsuki stepped back a little from the counter and bowed her head lightly toward Riko.
She stayed that way, head lowered, and said nothing for a while. At its root, it was close to the posture Toru had taken the other day, bowing his head to Ken just inside the study door.
"Riko. Thank you for waiting four years."
"Thank you for coming, four years on."
"Mm."
"I'll come again before the wedding."
"Do."
"I will."
She opened the café door and went down the stairs from the second floor above the shopping street.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Mitsuki let out a light breath.
Beyond the white of that breath, Riko's face from the cheap bar four years ago turned, by four years' worth, and settled back in behind the counter of the café as it was now.
She walked along the shopping street toward the station.
In the inner pocket of the handbag swinging as she walked, the thin resin earring case swayed with its usual weight. Outside the house, opening the case would mean nothing. She knew that.
Before going into the café, Mitsuki had rested a hand lightly on the outside of the handbag, over the inner pocket. The case had stayed closed.
While she was off the home network, Ken couldn't hear her voice directly. Whether or not to let Ken hear Riko's story was something Mitsuki would decide, in her own words, once she got home.
She got on the train.
Outside the train window, the lights of the city on a December evening streamed past.
She rested a hand lightly on the earring case in the inner pocket of her handbag.
"Dad. I'm coming home. When I get there, there's something I want to ask you."
Her voice was lost in the sound of the train. The home network did not reach this far.
She opened the front door of the house. The blue light from the study stretched along the far end of the hallway, as thin as always.
Right beneath the blue that stretched thinly from the gap in the study door, Mitsuki stopped for a moment.
Toward the cylindrical device on the desk, she gave a light nod.