She closed the door. Soft. No slam, no finality, just the quiet click of someone retreating to process an earthquake she'd caused by accident.
I stood in the living room for a full ten seconds, staring at the spot where Hikaru Tanaka had hugged me voluntarily, without binding, in a sleep shirt thin enough to qualify as evidence, and then smiled at me like I'd handed her something she'd been missing for years.
The graft hummed in my chest. Warm and full and annoyingly smug, like it knew something I wasn't ready to admit.
"Shut up," I said to the empty room.
The graft pulsed again. Warmer.
I walked to the kitchen, filled a glass from the tap, and drank it standing over the sink while my brain performed the emotional equivalent of clearing browser history. The water tasted like California pipes and copper. Hikaru's green tea was still steaming on the counter beside her manga, which she'd left face-down in the universal language of someone who'd been interrupted at a good part.
