Haruka let the question hang in the air for a moment, her gaze drifting toward the flickering candlelight as she searched for the right words.
"Noticing when things are wrong before they actually become a problem," she said finally, her voice soft but certain. "Though, in practice, it mostly just means I tend to worry much earlier than everyone else."
"I call that calibrated anxiety," Ellie countered with a grin, raising her wine glass in a mock toast. "It's a survival mechanism."
"My best one? It's seeing what something could be, rather than just accepting what it is."
Haruka offered a small, skeptical smile. "That sounds much more poetic than it actually is in practice."
