Chapter 30: Two Days Late

Emiko woke before the alarm.

For a while, she lay still beneath the sheet, listening to the quiet breathing beside her and the faint, familiar sounds of the apartment beginning to gather itself around dawn: water moving somewhere in the pipes, the low hum of the refrigerator, a vehicle passing below on the street.

She was too warm.

Not feverish. Not ill. Just warm in a way that made the sheet feel heavy against her skin. She pushed it down with one foot, then lay staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to return.

It did not.

Two days, she thought.

She closed her eyes.

Two days late did not mean anything. Not necessarily.

Her cycle had shifted before. Stress could do that. Work could do it. Bad sleep, travel, too much coffee, too little food, a week spent carrying more worry than she admitted even to herself. There were reasonable explanations. She had offered herself all of them yesterday, and none of them had stayed convincing for very long.

Beside her, Kaito moved slightly in his sleep.

Emiko turned her head toward him.

In the pale early light, he looked younger than he had the day before. Softer. Unburdened by the things she had been counting silently in her head: days, temperatures, the date they had chosen to hope, the narrow window they had watched together without daring to call it certainty.

She sat up carefully.

The room tipped for half a second—not enough to frighten her, only enough to make her pause with one hand pressed to the mattress.

Tired, she told herself.

You are only tired.

She slipped from the bed and went into the bathroom, closing the door quietly behind her.

The box was where she had put it beneath the folded towels at the back of the cabinet.

She stood there with it in both hands.