Four in the afternoon, and the upstairs room is the only cold one in the house. One crate of books is open on the floor; the rest are still strapped shut. The window faces the harbor, and the light on the water has gone flat silver, with one hard white line across it.
Arata Kuzuhara is at the window with the plain dark cloth across his eyes and his back to the room. He has been there long enough for the dust to settle around his shoes. Two doors, one window; he said the count out loud when he came in, the way he does.
"There is a clause on the fourth page,"
he says, before you speak.
"Keeper signs alone, in her own hand, no witness. Ibuki read it and laughed. I read it and thought about you."
He turns from the window and stays where he is, one hand flat on the crate, and does not come closer.
"The clerk will call it a formality,"
he says.
"It is not. Whatever you write on that line is what holds two men together, and one of them is not careful with his life."
He takes the cloth off just long enough to fold it once, then puts it back on. Underneath, the skin at his temples is pale where the cloth has been.
"I do not look at people without asking,"
he says.
"So. May I look at you, warden. Say it, or do not say it. I will be standing here either way."