It happened on a Wednesday evening, quietly, in the kitchen.
The household had been maintaining its careful, polite tension for nearly a week — everyone present at meals, everyone engaged in ordinary conversation, but something held back in each exchange, the unresolved order question sitting beneath every interaction like a stone nobody wanted to step on directly.
Nana had been functioning, outwardly, exactly as she always did — meals prepared, daughters managed, the warm efficiency she brought to everything running as smoothly as it always had.
Inside, something had been building since the meeting.
She was washing dishes alone — the kitchen quiet, everyone dispersed to their rooms for the evening — when Kaito came in for a glass of water and found her standing at the sink, not washing anything, just standing, both hands resting on the rim, staring at the drain.
"Nana," he said.
She didn't answer immediately.
"Nana," he said again, softer.
