Chapter 148: 148. I don’t Know What Petricia Said To Haruka, But I Think She Makes Her Notice

Haruka, who had been walking beside them and had turned sharply to face the opposite direction the moment Petricia had reached for Mike’s face, was now very focused on an advertisement poster across the street that was for something she was almost certainly not reading.

Mike looked at the back of Haruka’s head briefly.

’Oh, she didn’t watch, huh?’

Then his system’s interface popped out.

[HARUKA KANATA — DESIRE LEVEL: 52/100.]

[SHE LOOKED AWAY FOR THEM. THAT’S A SPECIFIC THING TO DO.]

[NOTE: SHE DID NOT LOOK BACK UNTIL THE MOMENT HAD PASSED.]

He noted it and followed Petricia toward the building.

...

The Schneider lobby was quiet when the three of them came in. The light by the notice board was still on.

From behind the management office door there was silence, which could have meant Gerald had gone to bed or was sitting in the dark feeling bad about himself, either of which was possible.

Petricia paused at the office door. She put her hand flat on it for a moment, not opening it yet, just touching it.

"Thank you," she said to both of them, without turning around. "Both of you."

"You don’t have to thank us," Haruka said.

"I know," Petricia said. "I’m doing it anyway."

She turned enough to look at them over her shoulder.

Her face had settled into something quieter than it had been at the railing. Not resolved, exactly, but no longer at the same pitch.

"Are you going to be alright in there," Haruka said. "Tonight, I mean..."

"If you need to knock on either of our doors for any reason."

"I’ll be fine," Petricia said. "Gerald will be asleep by now, or he’ll pretend to be, which amounts to the same thing."

"We won’t have the real conversation until we’re both ready for it." She exhaled. "Which won’t be tonight."

"When it is," Haruka said carefully, "you don’t have to do that part alone either."

Petricia looked at her with the particular expression that appears on people’s faces when they have been offered something genuine and have not quite readied themselves for it. "Aww... Haruka..."

"You’re a very direct person," she said.

"I know," Haruka said. "I’ve been told."

"It’s a good quality," Petricia said. "Don’t let anyone convince you it isn’t."

Haruka looked at her steadily. "I won’t."

Petricia looked at Mike, and her expression was different from the one she had given Haruka; it was not warmer exactly, but more layered, reflecting the specific look of someone who has more to say and has decided that the lobby at midnight is not the right place to say it.

"You should sleep," she said. "You’ve had a longer day than either of us know about."

"Probably," Mike said.

"The cut on your cheek," she said. "It was there when you came in..."

’How did you get it?"

"Ahh... this? It’s a long story," Mike said. "There’s probably not enough time to tell it today."

"Is it one you’ll tell me eventually?"

"Probably not," he said, and said it honestly enough that she understood it wasn’t evasion but simply an accurate prediction.

She looked at him for another moment. "You’re a very strange man, Mike Hawk."

"People keep telling me that today," he said. "But eh... I’m used to it already."

She turned toward the door and then stopped with her hand on the frame. She looked at Haruka with the particular attention of someone who wants to say something and is deciding how much of it to say.

Then she stepped close to Haruka and spoke in a low voice; it was not a whisper, but it was also not intended for Mike, reflecting the specific volume used in conversations between women.

Haruka went very still.

Petricia stepped back, looked at her for a moment, and then turned to the office door and opened it, and went inside, and the door clicked shut behind her.

Mike and Haruka stood in the lobby.

The notice board light emitted a faint buzz. The building settled around them in the familiar manner of old structures at this hour: small sounds from the pipes, a distant noise from Unit 4, and the palpable texture of a place that has absorbed lives for thirty years, learning to hold their memories quietly.

"What did she say?" Mike said.

Haruka stared at the office door. "Oh, uhm..."

"She apologized for what I saw earlier on the walkway." She paused. "And then she said."

Another pause. "She said that I might understand it someday, and that when I did, I would know what I was looking for."

’Why the fuck did Petricia say that to her...?’ Mike thought. ’Is it about the sudden kiss she just gave me, and Haruka saw that shit?’

’But eh... good.’

She turned toward the stairs without finishing the thought.

Mike followed her up, and they went along the second-floor hallway in the comfortable silence that had established itself between them over the past week, which was the silence of two people who did not need to fill every space with sound.

At the door of Unit 5, Haruka stopped and looked at him.

She didn’t say anything for a moment. She was holding her travel cup with both hands still, which he had noticed she did when she was thinking about something she hadn’t finished deciding on yet.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

"You usually just ask without waiting for my permission, by the way," Mike said.

"I know... but... this one I’m asking about first." She looked at him. "Do you know what you’re doing to people?"

"What?" Mike looked at her steadily. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," she started and then stopped and reorganized. "Petricia is going through something real..."

"Something difficult. And you’re." She gestured slightly, a small motion that was trying to contain several things at once. "You’re there... in the middle of it..."

"In a way that I don’t think she planned for and I don’t think you stumbled into by accident." She held his gaze. "I’m not accusing you of anything, but... I’m asking if you know what you’re doing."

Mike looked at her for a long moment.

"Yes," he said.

"And is it..."

"Is it what?"

She was quiet for a second. "Is it as simple as it looks?"

"Nothing I do is simple," Mike said. "However, the part where Petricia needed someone tonight was genuine, and I didn’t fabricate that."

Haruka looked at him carefully. She had the look she sometimes got when she was running an analysis that she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted the result of.

"No," she said. "I know you didn’t..."

"I was there." A pause. "I just notice things... about how you are with many people."

"You pay attention in a way that most people don’t, and people feel it, and they move toward it... And I think you know that."

"I do," Mike said.

"Did it ever occur to you that it’s a lot of responsibility to do so?"

"Every day," he said, and he meant it; he could tell she understood this because her expression shifted slightly when something resonated more deeply than she had anticipated.

She looked at him for another moment, and then she said, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay, meaning I believe you," she said. "For whatever that’s worth."

"It’s worth something," Mike said.

She almost said something else. He could see her hesitation in the way she held the door handle without opening it, a particular pause that indicated she was at the edge of a sentence.

Then she stepped back from it, and the sentence stayed where it was.

"She also said something else," she said.

"I know," Mike said.

"You know?" She looked at him. "You don’t even know what she said."

"I have an informed guess."

She looked at him for another moment, and her expression did the thing it did when she had encountered something she found equal parts irritating and accurate. She opened her mouth and then closed it again.

Then she said, "Goodnight, Mike," and went into her apartment, and the door closed.

Mike stood in the hallway.

[HARUKA KANATA — DESIRE LEVEL: 54/100.]

[A MARRIED WOMAN JUST TOLD HER TO LOOK AT YOU DIFFERENTLY. THAT’S NOT SOMETHING YOU COULD HAVE PLANNED.]

[AND YET HERE WE ARE.]

’Heh... good fucking shit indeed.’

’I love Erosyne’s women... they’re so fucking easy.’

He went into Unit 6, set his jacket over the chair, and sat on the edge of the bed with his phone in his hand.

He looked at the desire levels in order.

Petricia at 100. Ellie is at 70. Madison is at 60. Haruka is at 54 now. Marielle is at 50. Aveline is at 78. Maya is at 9. He scrolled through the notifications and then set the phone face-down and thought for a minute about the week.

Seven days ago, he had been a new tenant in a building he had arrived at because of a map on a system that had decided he was a compatible host.

Now he had a million and change in his accounts, a new position in Tyler Schmith’s life that came with its own structural advantages, a foothold in Jay’s household that extended further than Jay knew, and a set of people on this campus whose orbits he was beginning to understand well enough to predict.

Haruka Kanata, his neighbor, had just asked him if he knew what he was doing to people, believed his answer, and had received information tonight from a woman who knew him better than she did.

He thought about what Petricia had probably said. He did not know exactly. However, he knew Petricia well enough to understand the general idea, and that was sufficient. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Not bad for a week, he thought, and then immediately thought about tomorrow, because thinking about last week was not a productive use of the mental space.

He set the phone on the nightstand, lay back, and was asleep in under four minutes, which was a skill he had developed in places where sleep was a limited resource and wasting it was not an option.

Saturday held various tasks and obligations. There was no need to think about them just yet.