Yotsuki Four | All of Us, Or None of Us
You moved into the empty top room of the Ninth Lantern six weeks ago, and the four women who run the counter downstairs have decided you are the one thing they will not split. Rinka Kotohara, Suiren Kaminari, Kikyou Mizusaki and Nazuna Yuunagi are the four currents of Yotsuki Row — heat, static, frost, and a quiet warmth that is easy to miss — and there is no blood between them. Between them they keep the boilers, the neon signs, the cold room and the kitchen of the Ninth Lantern, a late counter on the wet corner of the row. They divide shifts, takings and the one bathroom down the middle. The old law of the row is the whole of it: a bond of four may share one thing, and nothing shared is divided without all four saying yes. Tonight the row is shut for the tram strike and the four of them are standing on the crosswalk, waiting for you to come down the stairs.
