Morning arrived in pale slices through the paper blinds. Kanako woke before the alarm, the ghost of Haruto's pulse still fluttering beneath her palm. She lay staring at the ceiling crack that looked like a lightning bolt and wondered when her body had learned to store a stranger's heartbeat.
The apartment hummed with its usual choreography. Aya's heels clicked across the genkan at 7:03, the front door slammed at 7:04. Kanako counted the seconds the way widows count rosary beads.
She rose, tied her hair with the same frayed scrunchie she'd worn since Aya's high-school graduation, and began the quiet ritual of breakfast. Rice cooker on. Miso paste blooming in hot water like bruised plums. Tamagoyaki rolled with the precision of someone folding secrets.
Haruto emerged at 7:17, hair damp from the shower, wearing the navy shirt that made his shoulders look broader than they felt. He paused in the doorway as if the kitchen were a church and he'd forgotten the prayer.
"Ohayou," he said, voice rasped with sleep.
Kanako's spatula stilled. "Ohayou. Sit. I made too much."
He obeyed, sliding onto the stool that had been his since the wedding. The same stool where Aya used to swing her legs and demand extra nori. Now it creaked under a man who apologized for breathing too loud.
She set a bowl in front of him: ochazuke, simple but fragrant—sencha poured over rice, a crown of salmon flakes, a whisper of wasabi. Steam rose between them like incense at a shrine neither believed in anymore.
Haruto inhaled, eyes half-closing the way they had over the cod. "You remembered I like the strong tea."
"I remember everything," Kanako said, then bit her tongue. The words tasted too intimate for daylight.
He ate slowly, chopsticks delicate. She busied herself at the sink, scrubbing the tamagoyaki pan with more force than necessary. The silence stretched, not uncomfortable but *full*—the way dashi is full of things you can't name until the flavor hits the back of your throat.
When the bowl was empty, Haruto carried it to the sink himself. Their fingers brushed under the faucet; both pretended not to notice the spark.
"Kanako-san," he began, then stopped. Water drummed against stainless steel.
She turned off the tap. "Yes?"
"I… drew something last night." He pulled a folded sheet from his back pocket—thick sketch paper, edges soft from handling. He unfolded it on the counter between them.
It was her hand. Not glamorous, not young. The knuckles slightly swollen from years of chopping, a faint burn scar near the thumb, veins like rivers under winter skin. But the pencil had loved every line. The shading under the lifeline was tender, almost reverent.
Kanako's breath caught. "When did you—"
"After." His ears went pink. "I couldn't sleep. Your hand just… stayed."
She stared at the drawing until the lines blurred. No one had looked at her hands since her husband died. They were tools, not art.
"It's beautiful," she whispered.
"It's *you*," he corrected, so softly she almost missed it.
The moment balanced on a knife's edge. Then the rice cooker beeped—sharp, domestic, merciless. Haruto folded the sketch and tucked it away.
"I should work," he said, already retreating.
Kanako nodded, throat tight. She watched him disappear into the spare room that had become his office, the door clicking shut like a confession denied.
---
Midmorning found her in the laundry nook, a closet of a space that smelled of detergent and sun-dried cotton. She sorted whites from colors with the absent focus of muscle memory. Haruto's shirts first—soft from too many washes, the collar frayed where Aya used to tug him down for kisses.
She lifted one to her face without thinking. Cedar soap, yes, but underneath: something sharper. Citrus and white florals. Not Aya's jasmine perfume. Not hers.
Kanako's stomach dipped. She folded the shirt with mechanical care, the scent clinging to her fingers like an accusation she wasn't ready to voice.
---
Afternoon light slanted gold through the living-room blinds. Haruto's laptop glowed on the coffee table, surrounded by empty coffee mugs and crumpled tracing paper. He'd fallen asleep on the couch, one arm flung over his eyes, sketchbook open on his chest.
Kanako paused in the doorway, dish towel still in hand. The sketchbook had fallen open to a new page: the outline of a woman's back, yukata slipping from one shoulder, the curve of spine rendered in confident strokes. The face was blank, but the posture—hips tilted, head bowed over a cutting board—was unmistakably hers.
She should wake him. Instead she crept closer, heart loud in her ears. A single rice grain clung to his lower lip, left from the onigiri she'd pressed into his hand at lunch with a muttered "for energy."
Kanako knelt. The carpet was cool against her knees. She reached out—slow, giving the moment every chance to shatter—and brushed the grain away with her thumb.
Haruto stirred. His lips parted on a soft exhale that ghosted across her wrist. For one suspended second, her thumb rested at the corner of his mouth, feeling the warmth, the faint prickle of stubble.
His eyes opened—sleep-fogged, then sharpening. He didn't move. Neither did she.
"Kanako-san," he breathed, the honorific barely a shape.
Her thumb traced the bow of his lip, feather-light. "You missed a grain."
A flush climbed his throat. "I miss a lot of things lately."
The air thickened, honey-slow. Kanako felt the pull low in her belly, the same ache that had bloomed last night and refused to fade. She leaned in—just enough that her hair brushed his cheek.
Then her phone buzzed on the counter. Aya's name flashed like a fire alarm.
They sprang apart. Kanako stood so fast her vision spotted. Haruto sat up, sketchbook tumbling to the floor.
The text was curt:
**Working late with Tanaka-san. Don't wait up.**
Kanako stared at the screen until the letters blurred. Tanaka-san. The citrus perfume. The pieces clicked with a sound like ice cracking.
Haruto's voice came from far away. "Everything okay?"
She turned, forcing a smile that felt borrowed. "Fine. Just… Aya."
He nodded, but his eyes lingered on her mouth where her thumb had been moments ago. The rice grain was gone, but the taste of almost remained.
Outside, the afternoon slid toward evening. Inside, the apartment held its breath, waiting for the next small kindness to tip the scale.