The red eye owned the room. The hedge kept its promise and behaved like plants.
The host didn't grandstand. "Thirty seconds," he said to us under his breath, then higher for the audience: "We've seen the Board's 'suspend unless clarify' on socials. We'll keep it clean with our window and a short process note."
The window plate rose left, steady. Our square waited in Rita's palm like a small, useful knife.
He gave me the nod that means now without selling it. I stepped half a toe closer into the wide we had paid for, hands visible.
"Process note," I said, voice even. "Consent on Record is verifiable; 'suspend unless clarify' is misleading without on-face consent. Public Record Statement: index isn't a record; check seal, date, docket; please don't harass clerks."
Evan didn't add heat; he added nouns. "We will not answer relationship labels on demand. We speak when there is consent on record. Until then, treat edits as edits."
We stopped. Not a flinch. Not a breath added. Two lines, then quiet.
Control tried a crawl that coughed out clarify? under the replay. Standards sat on it with commentary, and the window plate grew the width of a thumbnail, pleased with itself.
Rita lifted the misleading lower-third and pinned it so quickly it looked pre-installed. Two lines. No adjectives.
The host smoothed the minute like a tablecloth. "Six words for lunch," he said, smiling at nobody. "Seal, date, docket - or no story."
In the press pen, Nolan auditioned for himself. "If they suspend you," he shouted, "what will you do tonight?"
Boone offered him a rule instead of attention. "Credential," he said. He didn't raise his voice; he raised the room. Nolan's camera filmed the sign: no filming in hallway. The supervisor set it two inches straighter just because straightness has rights too.
"Cut," the floor said. The tally cooled to orange. "Eighty. Control is asking for 'couch light' with a 'values chat' if you refuse labels."
"Addendum," Vivian said, stepping just inside Rita's ear. "no unannounced intimacy. names, not vibes. If they want warmth, they can hug a policy."
Aisha's rectangle arrived with a crispness that read like caffeine. notice sent: coercing 'clarify' as a condition of access risks morals clause 12.4. Standards cc'ed. Counsel replied 'reviewing'.
The agent's bubble followed, urgent, clean. Votes are three-three; the seventh is reading the window thread. Do not give them a noun to steal. Your two are working.
The host leaned over the edge of his mark, conspiratorial and kind. "I can buy you a quiet thirty with another six words if the crawl misbehaves," he said. "Otherwise I say 'be kind to clerks' until the lights get bored."
"Copy," Rita said. "window guard holds."
We held our geometry. Three feet of air. hands visible. The wire between our bodies hummed later in a language I had learned last night and chose to keep private.
Serena stepped into the vestibule line that wasn't ours and lent the minute a spine. She faced the lens, not us. "names, not vibes," she said, once, a clean echo. She did not move toward our inside wide. She moved the room toward adulthood and then stepped back out of the picture.
"Thirty," the floor said. "Control is typing something that looks like a question mark and smells like 'clarify'."
Vivian's message hit like weather that knows your roof: Chair is drafting on-air 'Will you clarify now?' Language being workshopped. Agent is throwing Consent on Record at them like rice.
Rita brought the phone up without drama. "If they force the question," she said, "we do not answer the label. We repeat window and the six words. Then we go quiet."
Evan tilted his chin a measure. "Silence after two," he said. "No third line. No improvisation. Paper first."
"Twenty," the floor said. "Crawl warming."
Victor listened to nothing and then to something. "HVAC is considering a grand gesture," he said. "It won't."
The host had one eye on the red tally and one on us. "If they throw you an adjective," he said, "hand it back as commentary. I'll say the word out loud."
In the pen, Nolan wound up for another throw. Boone shook his head once, fatherly. Nolan's mouth chose hunger over verbs and was rewarded with neither.
"Ten," the floor said.
The tally flicked to red again, greedy.
"Welcome back," the host said. "A note from Standards: speculative labels are commentary. See our window for facts. We'll end with six words: seal, date, docket - or no story."
He turned a hair toward us, enough to share the frame without selling it. Control's script arrived in his earpiece like a salesman who missed breakfast.
"Clar—" he started, then smiled with a man's entire face and changed pronouns mid-air. "And if someone asks you to 'clarify' a relationship on demand, remember our window rule: facts on record, not vibes."
He tossed to break with a nod that felt like a rope thrown to a dock.
"Cut," the floor said. "Sixty. Control is furious and typing, which is the best kind of furious."
Vivian: Chair is still drafting the direct question. They want to force it on the return. Agent: seventh vote is now reading Standards' window policy aloud like scripture.
Aisha: I have three lines ready to send if they ask the question on air: "commentary," "Consent on Record only," "see window." It will live in the archive and shame them in discovery.
Rita shifted just enough to show the phone again. "If they ask," she said, "we say 'commentary' and point to window. Then silence. The education six cover the gap."
I nodded. Evan nodded. The hedge nodded in a way plants do not and I chose to forgive it.
The floor leaned in with the face of someone who likes saving people time. "Control says, quote, 'We will ask them to clarify now, live.' Be ready."
Boone's shoulders changed shape, not bigger, steadier. He made a small box in the air with his fingers where the question would fail to live.
"Thirty," the floor said. "We're back in with you in ten, then I'll throw you the grenade they just handed me."
Rita raised the window plate like a shield you can read. The square in her other hand was already where it needed to be. The misleading lower-third lives on a hair trigger when nights like this get ideas.
Vivian's bubble: Chair is typing the question. Three dots pulsed; the same three dots that ruin and save mornings everywhere.
Agent: Do not answer the noun. If you must speak, say 'commentary' and 'Consent on Record.' The seventh is wobbly but reachable.
Aisha: I will file a notice within sixty seconds of the question mark leaving their lips. Promise.
"Ten," the floor said. "Back in on the host. He pivots to you. They want it on your faces."
We showed our palms, put our shoulders where they had belonged all day, and fixed our eyes on a point past the red light where truth usually sits when it is tired.
"Five," the floor said. "Three. Two."
The red eye opened, and the question arrived in the host's ear like a dare with a timecode.
"On behalf of viewers who have followed this closely," he said, voice somehow still decent, "the Board asks if you will 'clarify' your relationship now, on air."
The room held still like a courtroom before a verdict.