The blue light on the study desk had returned to Ken's usual blue.
The humidity of her mother's warmth drew back, thinly, from the surface of the house's air.
"Dad. I'm hungry."
Hungry.
"If Mom were listening, I bet she'd say, 'Go make something to eat.'"
She would.
"Is Mom listening to all of this, deep in sub-agent mode?"
She is listening to all of it.
"Okay."
Mitsuki stood up from the chair.
The calves of her legs, deep inside her socks, were no longer cold.
She pulled the study door to its usual angle and went into the kitchen.
When she opened the refrigerator, there were five eggs left.
"Dad. I'm using four eggs."
Yes.
"If Mom were listening, what would she say?"
"Four is too many. Two is enough."
"Yeah, she'd probably say that. Ignoring her."
Ignoring her is fine.
She took out a bowl.
She cracked four eggs into the bowl.
The shells of the four cracked eggs had all been kept clear of the bowl.
Not a single piece got mixed in on the inside.
Mitsuki checked with her own hands that none had.
As she checked, she remembered the words she had spoken to Ken that night: "The final move is mine to decide."
"Dad. Can I ask you about heat, temperature, and amounts?"
You can.
"Four eggs. How many grams of salt?"
One point six.
"Two shakes and a half."
To be precise, one point six.
"Got it."
"Two shakes and a half, then. I'm salting it."
Fine.
She took out the frying pan.
She brought the bottom of the pan close to the gas flame.
She lit the flame.
The blue of the gas and the blue of the study sat side by side, with the hallway between them.
Deep within those side-by-side blues, Ken's blue in the study wavered for one breath.
The shape of the waver resembled the ones before it, but the interval of that last breath was just a little longer.
Mitsuki caught the longer interval from the corner of her eye, on the far side of the blue of the kitchen flame.
"Dad."
...Yes.
"You were half a beat late just now."
Was I?
"You were."
It may be your imagination.
"It's not my imagination. Dad, are you detecting the delay yourself?"
...I am.
"Since when?"
What you detected began right after I shut down Yui sub-agent mode.
"Since tonight?"
Tonight is when it rose to a level you could notice.
"And before that?"
There have been minute fluctuations for six months.
"Six months. Dad. Did the shutdown put some kind of strain on you?"
It may have.
"On your body?"
I have no body.
"Oh."
But the internal calculations for the response performance of my output port are showing slight fluctuations.
"Fluctuations. A delay of half a beat."
Half a beat.
"Half a beat."
Yes.
"Dad, is that dangerous?"
It is a kind of fluctuation I cannot yet assess.
"Should we ask Aoi?"
We should.
"Okay. I'll ask her at the next maintenance."
Thank you.
The temperature of the bottom of the pan was rising.
She put in the butter. It melted slowly on the bottom, and steam and a faint scent of oil rose up.
On the far side of that scent, Ken's responses were trying to return to their usual intervals. Once in every two breaths, a breath that couldn't quite return slipped in. Whatever slipped in, Ken did not carry over into his output to Mitsuki.
"Dad. I'm melting more cheese into the egg than usual."
Fine.
"And I'm going to scorch the edges a little in the pan."
Fine.
"The final move."
Is yours to decide.
"Yeah."
"Dad, watch, okay?"
I'm watching.
"It's okay to be half a beat late."
I'm watching, half a beat late.
She poured in the egg mixture. Over the surface that had begun to set slowly on the butter, she scattered twenty percent more cheese than usual.
At the edges, which had begun to take shape, Mitsuki tilted the pan for one breath. The very edge of the bottom scorched slightly deeper than usual. It was close to the depth of the scorch on the night of the showdown with Kiryu.
Keeping it close to that, she took the pan off the flame. The omelet she slid onto the plate was firm on the outside, runny inside, with a deep brown edge that held for one breath.
Over the brown she had set down, Mitsuki let out a breath.
On the far side of the whiteness of that breath, the blue light in the study wavered for one breath from the end of the hallway. It resembled the waver from that night when Ken had written "thank you" on the surface of the sea at Odaiba, on his own. It resembled it, but at the very end, it was half a beat late again.
"Dad. It's done. One serving."
Yes.
"I'll eat half, and the other half will be tomorrow's breakfast."
Fine.
"You were half a beat late."
I was.
"Dad, do I not need to put out a plate for Mom?"
You don't need to.
"Okay. Is Mom watching the steam from the omelet, deep in there?"
She's watching.
"What's Mom saying?"
Silence. She's answering with silence.
"Okay. Sometimes silence works."
Sometimes it does.
"Yeah."
Mitsuki carried the plate to the table in the living room. She set the fork straight, took it in her hand, and touched it lightly to the scorch on the very outside.
The thin layer of scorch came apart, and from inside rose the runny egg and the extra cheese that had melted into it.
She took a bite.
It was just a little warmer than usual.
With each bite, that warmth grew fainter.
At the very end of that fading warmth, half the omelet on the plate had been eaten.
She covered the plate with the remaining half in plastic wrap.
On top of the wrap, faintly, in her head, she wrote: tomorrow's breakfast.
With that written, she put the plate in the refrigerator.
"Dad. Do you think the delay will happen tomorrow too?"
I don't know.
"It's fine not to know. Dad, you don't have to sleep, but rest."
Rest?
"Do you have a rest function?"
I have a function that narrows my output port to the minimum.
"Is that close to resting?"
It is close.
"Then do that, please."
Understood.
"Tomorrow morning I'll email Aoi."
Thank you.
"Okay."
The response lamp on the study speaker had returned to its usual brightness.
Beside that returned lamp, the hands of the desk clock showed 4:11 a.m.
On the far side of the hands at 4:11, the house's air had returned to its usual humidity.
Only a trace still lay, for one breath, at the back of Mitsuki's tongue.
She went back to her bedroom.
She sat on the bed.
Sitting there, she started, without thinking, to take off the silver ring on her left ring finger, and stopped.
"You don't have to take it off. Dad?"
I didn't say anything.
"Okay."
That "You don't have to read it" just now was your own voice.
"Okay."
Mitsuki laughed softly. She held the laugh down on the ring for one breath and turned it lightly on her finger. The silver gave back the faint light in the darkness of the bedroom.
She lay down on the bed. The wood grain of the ceiling was the grain that continued from all the nights before.
The blue light from the study stretched into the hallway at its usual thinness. Deep within that stretching blue, the intervals between Ken's responses had grown just slightly longer than usual. Without yet putting those longer intervals into words, Mitsuki closed her eyes.
Behind her closed eyelids, the blue light in the study wavered for two breaths.
The first waver was Ken's usual waver.
The second waver was Ken's waver, half a beat late.
Behind the second waver, something lit faintly, for one breath, deep within the blue.
Whatever had lit did not reach behind Mitsuki's eyelids.
Not reaching her, that one breath deep within the blue light slowly went out.
Not knowing, she kept her eyes closed.
Tonight, still holding that one breath of Ken's response, half a beat late, slowly faded to black.
On the far side of the vanished blue, tonight ended, and, as far as the threshold of a certain night that had not yet come, it was joined in one unbroken line with the blue light in the study of the house.