Chương 32: Chapter 31: A New Routine

I woke up early that day, the house was silent. No wind. No snow shifting against the walls. Just the sound of the refrigerator. The couch was stiff beneath me. My neck complained when I moved. I lay there for a moment, letting the previous night settle back into place. The drive. The queen in the passenger seat. The second heartbeat was still upstairs. I sat up slowly. The living room was grey with early light — the first sun not yet over the horizon, the second still somewhere behind it.

The cleaning golem was in its corner, dormant, dark-eyed. I needed a shower. The thought arrived before the problem that came with it. I stopped halfway to standing. The bathroom was upstairs. Not a separate room down the hall — the house wasn't built that way. The bedroom and bathroom shared the same open space, divided by nothing more than a half-wall and the geometry of the floor plan. The toilet was tucked behind a corner. The shower was visible from the bed. Where she was sleeping.

I stood there in the middle of the living room, barefoot on the cold floor, and tried to figure out how to solve a problem I'd never had before while still half councious. The bathhouse was an obvious solution, the building was cold when I stepped inside. The main street had been empty, the thermal road steaming faintly in the grey light. No one had seen me walk there in my sleeping clothes with a bar of soap and nothing else. The bathhouse had everything I needed except a towel. I'd forgotten one.

Besides, the towels were in the bathroom upstairs, and the bathroom upstairs was — right. I undressed anyway. The air bit hard. I stepped into the bath before the water was deep enough, because standing still in the cold was worse than kneeling in a half-filled pool of hot water. The water rose around me. The warmth found the sore spots — my shoulders, my lower back, the ache in my hands from pushing the car and walking over an absurd distance.

I sat there with my bar of soap, the one I had stolen from the kitchen sink. Without a towel. Just the heat, the quiet and the knowledge that I'd have to drip-dry on the walk home. This is my life now. The fish trap was just as usual. Three fish. Silver-sided, dark-backed, flipping against the plastic when I pulled it up. As usual, I killed them on the riverbank, gutted them clean, carried them home in the bucket with frozen hands and dripping hair. The kitchen was warm when I stepped inside.

I set the bucket on the counter. Turned on the stove. Filleting knife against the cutting board. The rhythm came back without thinking — trim, rinse, set aside. I heard her before I saw her. Footsteps on the stairs. Slow. Deliberate. Then a pause at the bottom, like she was orienting herself in a space she'd only seen in the dark. I didn't turn around.

"Morning." A beat. Then: "You left." I started to get why she was getting along so well with Yato.

"I went to get food." I turned. She was standing in the corridor doorway, wearing the dress from yesterday — the same one, I realized, because she didn't have anything else. It was loose at the shoulders, not yet fastened.

"The house was empty this morning," she said.

"I didn't know where you went." Something in her voice. Something in her voice. Not concern. Not accusation either. Uncertainty. The flat observation of someone who'd woken up alone in a stranger's house and had to decide whether that was normal.

"I went to the river," I said.

"Fish trap." She looked at the counter. The fillets. The bucket.

"You caught those?"

"Yes." A pause. Then, without transition: "I need help with the laces." She turned her back to me in the corridor. The laces ran up the spine of the dress, a row of crossed silk that ended at the base of her neck. She'd threaded them partway — enough to hold the dress in place, not enough to close it properly. You want me to tie you into your dress. The thought surfaced and I pushed it down. It was practical. She couldn't reach her own back. I was here. That was the entire equation. Stolen story; please report.

My fingers found the first cross. Pulled. The silk drew tight. I worked my way up, one rung at a time. The dress closed around her. I kept my attention on the laces.

"Too tight?"

"No." I finished at the top. The last loop. A small knot to hold it.

"Done." She turned. Her hand went to the knot at her shoulder, testing it. She nodded once. Then she walked past me into the kitchen. Breakfast was quiet. I set two plates on the table — fish, a portion of the beast meat from the freezer, nothing green. She sat down without comment. Watched me for a moment before picking up the fork. She ate slowly. Deliberately. Like she was tasting each bite, not for pleasure but for information. The texture. The temperature. The unfamiliar shape of the utensil.

Yato appeared at some point, padding down the stairs with the unhurried confidence of a cat who had already checked on his new favorite person and found her acceptable. He jumped onto the chair beside her. Then onto the table.

"Yato —" She didn't react. She reached out and scratched behind his ear with her free hand, still chewing, still studying the room. He stayed. I gave up. The silence stretched. Not uncomfortable, exactly. Just full. Two people who didn't know each other sharing a meal in a house that had been silent for months. She finished. Set the fork down. Looked at me.

"Where are the books?"

"The study," I said.

"The building at the end of the main street. The one with the large doors." She nodded. Stood. Walked toward the corridor.

"The light works the same as the bath," I called after her.

"Touch the core. Turn the ring." A pause. Then: "I know how they work." The door closed behind her. The bodies took most of the afternoon. I drove the car to the edge of the battlefield — the battery had recovered overnight. The snow was soft enough now that the tires left deep tracks and the car could move easily through. Seven bodies. Six that needed moving. The one I'd killed was properly bled. The throat cut while the heart was still pumping — that meat was good. The others... they'd died from wounds. Frozen.

Thawing now. They wouldn't stay preserved much longer. I dragged them one at a time. The car couldn't get close to all of them — the ground was too uneven, the snow too deep in places. I looped the tow strap around each carcass and pulled them far away from the village. It took four trips. The smell was already starting. I left them at the edge of the river downstream a few kilometers from the village. Far enough that the thaw wouldn't carry anything back toward the houses.

Far enough that whatever scavengers existed in this world would find them before I had to think about it again. I drove home in silence. The bedsheets came next. I stood in the doorway of my own bedroom — her bedroom now, apparently — and looked at the unmade bed. The sheets were tangled. The pillow still held the shape of her head. I stripped the bed without thinking about it. Bundled everything into my arms. The laundry basket was in the bathroom. The bathroom that opened off the bedroom.

The bathroom I hadn't been able to use all morning. I dropped the sheets in the basket and stood there for a moment, looking at the shower I couldn't take. Tomorrow. I'll figure it out tomorrow. Evening came faster than I expected. I was at the stove when the sound started. A clatter from the living room. Then a clatter in the opposite direction. Then the rapid click of claws on the wooden floor. I turned. Yato shot past the kitchen doorway, ears flat, tail puffed.

A moment later, the cleaning golem emerged from the living room at its patient, unhurried pace — broom extended, crystal eyes glowing, following the trail of shed fur Yato had left behind. They circled the kitchen island. Yato slid under the table. The golem adjusted its path and followed. I watched them complete a full lap of the kitchen before Yato launched himself onto the couch, out of reach, and the golem stopped at the base of the couch and began sweeping the fur he'd dropped in his escape.

"This is your life now" From the corridor: "The cat and the construct seem to have a disagreement." I looked up. She was standing in the doorway, a book tucked under her arm.

"They're figuring it out." She watched the scene for a moment — Yato on the couch, the golem sweeping below — and said nothing. Then she walked to the table and sat down. I went back to the stove. Dinner was monster meat and the last of the pasta. I'd been saving it. Not consciously — I just hadn't wanted to open the bag and see how little was left. Now I was opening it, and there was barely enough for two. I cooked it anyway. What else was I going to do. She sat at the table and watched me work.

The same quiet attention she'd given everything since arriving — cataloguing, filing, understanding. I tried not to think about being watched. The pasta went into the pot. The meat went into the pan. The rhythm of cooking filled the silence. Then:"Can I get some vegetables for dinner?" The question hit me like a wall. I didn't turn around. My hand stayed on the spatula. The meat sizzled.

"Arcene. I asked a question." Something broke. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a crack in something I'd been holding together for months — through the beast, through the dragon, through the circle carving, through the hundred-kilometer walk. A crack that widened in the space between one breath and the next. I set the spatula down.

"There aren't any left." My voice came out wrong. Flat. Too thin. I turned. She was watching me with an expression I couldn't read — not anger, not impatience. Just watching.

"The vegetables ran out weeks ago," I said.

"I've been eating meat and fish and whatever the pantry had left. There's no more pasta after tonight. There haven't been vegetables since before winter started." I wasn't crying. Not yet. But I could feel it waiting at the edges, the pressure building behind my eyes. I picked up the spatula again because I didn't know what else to do with my hands. She didn't apologize. She sat there in silence while I finished cooking. While I plated the food.

While I set a plate in front of her and sat down across the table with my own. We ate without speaking. Halfway through, she stopped. Looked at her plate. Then at me.

"I've seen your notes." I looked up.

"The study. The walls. You've been studying."

"Yes."

"A lot."

"There isn't much else to do during winter." She considered this. Her fork traced a pattern on the plate — idle, thinking.

"What do you usually do?" I almost laughed.

"I usually watch anime do chores around the house. I spend the leftover time studying as you noticed."

"Anime?"

"Moving pictures. Stories. From my world." She didn't respond. But something shifted in her posture — a subtle lean forward, the kind of attention she gave things that interested her. I looked at her across the table. At the queen in my shirt — no, she'd put the dress back on.

"I could show you one tonight," I said.

"If you want." A pause.

"Yes." The computer took a moment to wake up. She stood behind me while I navigated the files — close enough that I could feel her presence, far enough that she wasn't crowding. I found the folder. Scrolled past the anime, past the dramas, past the movies I'd downloaded over years. Your Name. I clicked it. The screen went dark. Then the music started.

The first image — a girl waking up in a bed that wasn't hers, a town seen from a mountain, the curve of a world that made no sense from the ground but looked perfect from above. I started translating. Not every line. The important ones. When the story needed context — body swapping, time gaps, the red string of fate — I leaned over and explained in Hadran, keeping my voice low so the dialogue could still be heard underneath. She didn't ask questions at first. She just watched.

Halfway through, I glanced at her face. Her eyes were fixed on the screen. Her expression had changed — not the calm, unreadable mask she'd worn since arriving. Something softer. More open. She was moved. I looked back at the screen and kept translating. When the credits rolled, the room was silent. The final notes faded. The screen settled on the main menu. I turned. She was still looking at the screen.

"More," she said. I blinked.

"What?"

"More. I want to see another." I looked at the clock. It was late. The couch was uncomfortable. I was tired in a way that went deeper than sleep. I opened the next file anyway. I don't remember falling asleep. I don't even remember which movie we were watching anymore. I only remember the glow of the monitor, the warmth of Yato asleep on my lap... And the sound of her voice.