On the second floor of the shopping street, the floor just above an old café, hung the sign for a bridal salon.
The lettering on the sign was a pale peach-pink serif on a white ground.
Mitsuki looked up at the sign from the pavement of the shopping street. Beside her, Toru looked up at the same angle.
"The floor below here is Riko's place."
"Is that right."
"When we had a meeting there, I came out of Riko's place and noticed the sign up here."
"I see."
"Riko has nothing to do with it. Their dresses were the ones I liked most."
"Understood."
They pushed open the salon door and went in.
As they entered, a woman of about forty, one of the staff, came out from the back.
The clerk looked once at Mitsuki's face and once at Toru's.
"Just the two of you today, with the groom?"
"Yes."
"Thank you for coming."
"And your father and mother, will they be joining you another day?"
Mitsuki's voice came half a beat late.
Inside that half-beat delay, Toru quietly placed a hand on the hem of his jacket.
He only placed it there. Toru said nothing.
"Neither of my parents will be attending."
"...Forgive me."
Toru gave the clerk a slight bow.
After bowing, he stood quietly once more in his place, half a beat behind Mitsuki. The fingers of the hand still resting on his jacket hem had stiffened, slightly, for the space of a breath.
The clerk drew back the curtain of the fitting room at the back.
Inside the curtain stood a three-panel mirror.
The left and right panels were angled slightly inward, so that together with the center mirror, you could see yourself from three directions.
Mitsuki sat in the chair she was shown to and turned the pages of a catalog.
Toru sat in the chair beside her and opened another copy of the same catalog on his knees.
In a photo in the margin of the catalog page, a young bride and a woman who was not young stood together in the same frame.
Mitsuki looked at that photo on her own page for a while, then checked the margin of Toru's page out of the corner of her eye.
The same photo was in the margin of Toru's page as well.
Toru looked at it with his own eyes, said nothing, and turned to the next page.
In the inner pocket of her handbag, the outline of the thin resin earpiece case pressed faintly through the fabric. When she left the house, she had only called out "I'm going" to Ken in the study, and had carried the case out with her. On the salon chair, Mitsuki rested a hand lightly on her handbag. The case was closed, and sat there with its usual weight.
Toru closed the catalog on his knees.
Having closed it, he gave a slight bow in the direction of Mitsuki's handbag.
"For your father. I don't think it's reaching him right now, but—'It's been a while.' That's all."
"Mm."
"When I get home, I'll tell him properly, myself."
"Please."
The clerk brought out the first dress.
It was an A-line with long lace sleeves.
"This is the classic silhouette. It's a shape people have loved for a long time, so I think it's an easy one to start with."
"I see."
"If you'd prefer to begin with something that covers the shoulders, this is a good one to start from."
"All right."
Mitsuki carried the long lace sleeves into the fitting room.
She drew the curtain and pulled up the zipper. At the last stretch along her back, her fingers couldn't reach. The clerk slipped a hand through the gap in the curtain and refastened it from outside, just below her shoulder blades. The warmth of a stranger's practiced fingers stayed on the thin fabric for one breath, then left.
In the center of the three-panel mirror, and on the left and the right, stood herself in a white dress.
Three of her stood inside one fitting room.
For a while, Mitsuki looked at the three of herself in turn. As she looked, for some reason she remembered the blue light of the study on the night she had found the nighttime log.
On the ring finger of her left hand in the center mirror, the silver ring turned the white light of the fitting room once around and gave it back.
"Mitsuki. Can you come out? Take your time. It's all right."
"Mm."
She opened the curtain.
Outside the curtain, Toru was sitting with the catalog on his knees.
Toru, who had been sitting, stood up.
He stood, and for a while said nothing.
"Toru."
"..."
"Say something."
"Please wait."
"I'll wait."
"Right now I'm looking for the best word I have."
"Mm. Go ahead and look."
"Mm."
When he had finished looking, Toru let out a small breath.
The breath he let out stirred the edge of the catalog page, just slightly.
"You're beautiful."
"Beautiful."
"You're beautiful."
"Thank you."
"Your father can't see this right now, can he. In here."
"No. I don't think he can."
"When you get home, a photo, properly—"
"Mm. Once I'm home."
"From here on, can it be just my time with you, Toru?"
"Mm."
"I think Dad wants that too."
"Mm."
The clerk brought out another dress from the back.
The second was a sleeveless mermaid line.
"A sleeveless mermaid. I think it will give quite a different impression from the last one."
"Yes, please."
"Of course."
She took the second dress and carried it into the fitting room.
She drew the curtain and pulled up the zipper once more.
In the second dress, the self in the three-panel mirror was bare almost from neck to shoulders. Above her collarbone, the place usually hidden under her clothes gave the white light straight back. The borrowed heels were higher than she'd expected, and at her ankles her balance swayed for the space of a breath.
Three of her stood inside one fitting room.
Beside none of the three was her mother.
It was in the left mirror that Mitsuki noticed she wasn't there.
The moment she noticed, a thin film of water rose at the rims of the eyes of the self in the left mirror.
Mitsuki left the film of water as it was for a while.
Leaving it as it was, she idly felt, through the fabric with the pad of her finger, the outline of the earpiece case in the inner pocket of her handbag.
Her father was not here. She had left him behind, in the direction of the blue light in the study at home.
She did not regret leaving him behind.
"Mitsuki. Can you come out?"
"Mm. I'm coming."
"Take your time. It's all right."
"Mm."
She opened the curtain.
Outside the opened curtain, Toru was already standing.
"This one suits you very well too."
"Mm."
"Toru."
"Yes."
"I can't decide."
"You can't decide."
"Mm."
"Shall we end today without deciding?"
"Is that okay?"
"It's fine."
"Can I take it home to think about?"
"It's fine."
"When I get home, I want Dad to see them one more time."
"Yes."
"Dad can't leave the house, so I'll take pictures and show him."
"Shall I take them?"
"Mm, please."
Toru took his smartphone out of his breast pocket.
He took it out and pointed it at Mitsuki.
On the far side of the screen, still in the second white dress, Mitsuki gave a small laugh.
"Even when Dad sees it at home, he probably won't say a word."
"He's not someone who'd say 'You're beautiful.'"
"He'll just make the blue light in the study flicker, for one breath."
"And that's enough."
Toru nodded slightly, without saying anything.
The shutter sounded twice.
Between the two shutter sounds, the clerk came back from the back.
The clerk who had come back neatened the zipper behind Mitsuki's shoulder.
The clerk's fingers as she neatened it were practiced, and had no warmth.
"Have you decided?"
"Would it be all right if I took it home to consider?"
"Of course."
"Thank you."
"To discuss with your family, then."
"Yes. I'll discuss it with my family."
As she lowered the zipper and changed back into her own clothes, Mitsuki counted to herself who was inside the word family.
Among those she counted were one blue light in the study, one Toru who had been sitting beside her, and, somewhere beyond counting, one empty seat.
They left through the salon door and went down the stairs to the shopping street.
At the bottom of the stairs, the thin December afternoon sun stretched long across the pavement of the shopping street.
On the long-stretched sunlight, the two of them said nothing for a while.
"Mitsuki. Today, your mother not being there—"
"..."
"I'm sorry. That was the clumsiest thing I could have said."
"It wasn't clumsy."
"It was clumsy."
"It wasn't clumsy."
"Mm."
On the pavement of the shopping street, Toru put a hand lightly to the back of his neck.
One joint's length of the fingers he'd placed there caught the thin sunlight for one breath and gave it back.
"Mitsuki. When you get home, please show your father the photos once more."
"I will."
"After you've shown your father, please decide one more time, yourself."
"I'll decide."
"It's all right to decide it as 'Mom isn't here.'"
"Mm."
"Even a dress decided as 'Mom isn't here'—a white dress is still a white dress."
"Mm."
"Toru, did you come up with that yourself?"
"Your father taught me that, a while ago."
"Dad did?"
"Yes. The night I was invited into the house. In the study."
"Mm."
In front of the station ticket gates, she parted from Toru.
As they parted, Toru gave a slight bow.
Beyond his bowed head, Toru's back disappeared, for one breath, into the flow of afternoon people.
On the escalator up to the platform, she put a hand lightly to the inner pocket of her handbag. The case, which she hadn't opened once since leaving the house, gave back only its weight through the fabric.
She got on the train.
Outside the train window, the December afternoon sky was beginning to dim into a pale orange.
Under the dimming sky, the earpiece case stayed closed and did not light.
That it did not light was just right for Mitsuki now.
Deep in the orange sky outside the window, she thought one small thing.
—If Mom had been there, what would she have said today?
She only thought it. She didn't put it into words.
Whether she would ask Ken at home, now or someday, she didn't decide either.
She knew herself that it was a question with no answer.
The earpiece case, with the weight of something kept closed, swayed through the fabric.
From the station nearest home, she walked up the slope alone.
On the ring finger of her left hand as she walked, the silver ring gave back the last orange of the evening sky.
She opened the front door and lined up her shoes neatly in the entryway.
The blue light in the hallway stretched at its usual narrowness.
She walked down the hallway to the study.
Directly beneath the blue that stretched thin through the gap of the study door, she gave a small nod.
"I'm home."
Welcome back.
"I'll show you the photos. After I put my coat down."
All right.
Looking at the cylindrical blue on the desk, she somehow understood only this: that deep within the warmth of the stretching blue, tonight, there had been set one empty seat of a kind that neither she nor Ken had yet opened.