The chicken had been exactly as good as she promised.

They came out of the restaurant into the night air still full and warm from it.

Hana had her bag over one shoulder and was walking slightly slower than usual, the satisfied kind of slow.

Kaito walked beside her with his hands in his pockets.

"I told you," she said.

"You told me."

"The best chicken in the area."

"Yeah."

She looked at him sideways. "That’s all I get? Yeah?"

"It was very good chicken."

She laughed and bumped his shoulder with hers. "You’re terrible at compliments."

"I said it was very good."

"You said it the way someone gives ratings. Good, very good, very very good." She laughed

He opened his mouth. He closed it. She was not wrong.

The street was quieter than it had been when they arrived, the dinner crowd thinned out, the lights of the shops warm and low.

Their breath came out faintly in the cool air.

They walked without any particular hurry, past a convenience store with its white light spilling onto the pavement, past a vending machine humming to itself outside a closed laundry, past a bicycle left leaning against a wall with a bag still hanging from the handlebar.

"Do you always eat that fast?" she asked.

"I wasn’t eating fast."

"You finished before me."

"You were talking."

She thought about this.

"That’s fair," she said.

He smiled at the pavement.

"There’s a shortcut through here," she said, turning down a narrow side street.

"Or what I thought was a shortcut. First week I moved here I used it every day."

He followed her.

The street was tighter, older buildings on both sides, a cat sitting on a windowsill two floors up watching them pass.

"Saved time?"

"Added five minutes." She said it very simply. "Every single day for a week before I checked."

He looked at her. "A week."

"I thought I was just walking slowly."

He laughed.

Short and quiet. She grinned at the pavement.

"There’s a bakery down that way," she said, pointing at a corner as they passed it. "Only open weekdays. I found out on a Saturday." She paused. "That was a bad Saturday."

"How bad."

"I stood outside that morning waiting for it to open then read the sign thirty minutes later trying to find another explanation."

He said nothing. She glanced at him.

"Don’t."

"I didn’t say anything."

"You were about to."

He was. He kept walking.

She pointed out a small park at the next corner, iron gate, a few trees visible over the top of the wall.

"That one floods," she said. "Every time it rains. Every time. There are ducks now. I don’t know where they came from."

"Permanent ducks?"

"Permanent ducks." She nodded seriously, but looked cute. "I’ve named two of them."

He looked at her.

Smiled.

"Really?"

She nodded with flair.

He looked back at the street.

Somewhere in the next half minute, without either of them deciding to, her hand found his.

Her fingers settled between his, warm in the cool air.

He felt it happen and didn’t look down and didn’t say anything.

She didn’t say anything either.

"The other two ducks don’t have names yet," she said. "I’m waiting until I know them better."

"Responsible," he said.

She smiled.

He could hear it without looking.

Her apartment building was a six storey block set back slightly from the street, a small path leading up to the entrance, a row of postboxes along the near wall.

The light above the entrance was on, yellow and steady.

She slowed as they reached the path and they stopped at the bottom of it without quite deciding to.

She turned to face him.

The street was quiet.

Somewhere behind them a bicycle went past, its light sweeping briefly across the road. The trees moved in the slight wind.

"Thanks for tonight," she said.

"I should be the one to say it. You paid."

"I know." She smiled up at him. "I meant the company."

He looked at her face. Her light brown hair was slightly wind-caught, a few strands across her cheek.

Her eyes were bright in the entrance light, warm and direct on his.

"It was good," he said. "The chicken was good."

She laughed, surprised and real. "Is that all you’re going to say?"

"The company was good too."

"Much better." She shifted her bag on her shoulder.

The smile stayed but her chin dropped slightly, her eyes settling on his with something steadier in them. "I had a really good time, Kaito."

"Me too," he said.

He meant it in a way the words didn’t carry.

He thought about the first day she sat beside him in Psychology without being asked, when he had been sitting alone in a room full of people he didn’t know and she had just put her bag down and introduced herself like it was nothing.

The metro rides.

The karaoke bar and her laughing so hard she had to put her head down on the table.

Her hand in his on the walk here.

He had not had any of this before — someone who just showed up beside him and stayed.

He didn’t know what to do with how much that meant.

She looked at him for a moment.

The wind moved her hair again.

Then she stepped in.

She rose onto her toes slowly, her chin coming up, her eyes closing as she leaned toward him.

He had one second of watching it happen, the tilt of her face, her eyelashes still, the small space closing between them.

He closed it the rest of the way.

Her lips pressed against his, soft and warm, and for a second neither of them moved, just the contact of it, the stillness of it.

Then her hand came up and her fingers curled lightly into the front of his shirt and he kissed her back, slow and careful, her lips parting slightly against his.

She tasted faintly of garlic sauce.

He didn’t care even slightly.

His heart went completely stupid in his chest, loud and graceless, her knuckles pressed against his shirt and her breath warm against his mouth.

She pulled back slowly, still on her toes, her eyes opening.

Her face was very close to his.

A small colour in her cheeks.