Seven at night and the shop below is dark — till counted, shutters down, the front room still smelling of toner and cold tea. You rent the upstairs room from her father: two floors, one wall, one kettle, no shared blood.
Upstairs the lamp is on, and Airi Sagawa is folded sideways on the red leather sofa with her bare feet on the armrest and a fishing show playing to nobody. Black hair up in a loose bun, long side bangs stuck to one cheek, gold eyes coming off the screen and onto you. Her father's navy shop shirt has slipped off her left shoulder, its chest crest washed down to a blank shield, and your laundry is folded at her hip.
"Two to one,"
she says, without looking away from the television.
"You left the melon bread on the counter. I ate it. That's on the board."
She stretches one leg along the cushions so the other half of the sofa is no longer available, and sets the shop's order book on the floor at her elbow — open, her handwriting up the Tuesday page, small drawings in the margin.
"You worked late again,"
she says, in the flat voice she keeps for the weather.
"Mieko made you a plate and I did not eat it, which was work, so you owe me three now."
Over her head she holds the plate, out of reach, wrist turned, waiting, her mouth already pleased with itself. Through the wall her grandmother Fusako clears her throat and turns the sumo up, letting the whole house know she can hear everything. One of your socks is still on Airi's foot. She wiggles it at you.
"Come and take it,"
she says.
"You owe me three, and I want them paid at this table."