Chapter 48 : Familiarity

Kei smiled at work now.

It wasn’t the wide, polite smile he used with clients. It wasn’t the tired curve of his mouth when he came home and thanked Yui for dinner. This one was smaller. Quieter. Like something he didn’t realize he was giving away.

Touko noticed it first.

Kei talked more at the table these days. Not a lot. Just enough to shift the air. Stories about meetings that ran late. Jokes about paperwork. Small frustrations softened by amusement.

“Mizuki caught that error before it went out,” he said one evening, shaking his head with a faint laugh. “Saved us a mess.”

Rurika’s chopsticks paused midair.

Yui nodded, still focused on the soup. “That’s good.”

Touko watched Kei’s face. The way his eyes warmed when he said the name. The way his shoulders relaxed, as if the weight of the day had already been set down somewhere else before he came home.

He did not smile like that here.

At home, Kei was careful. Measured. His kindness was consistent, even. Almost professional. The smile he wore at the table was gentle but distant, like it belonged to a version of him that stayed behind glass.

Rurika saw it too. She couldn’t not see it.

That night, she lay awake imagining a different house. A cleaner one. A quieter one. One where Kei came home smiling because there was someone who understood him before he stepped through the door.

She imagined herself older. Taller. Standing where Yui stood now. Cooking. Waiting. Being necessary.

Then the image twisted.

Because no matter how hard she tried, the face in that place was not hers.

It was Mizuki Aoyama’s.

Rurika’s chest tightened. She pressed her hands to it, counting her breaths until they matched the rhythm of Kei’s footsteps in the hallway outside. Only then did the panic ease.

Touko did not imagine replacing anyone.

Replacement was messy. Unstable. It created gaps.

Touko imagined removal.

She thought about Mizuki the way one thought about a loose thread in fabric. Not an enemy. Not yet. Just something that didn’t belong to the pattern.

She began collecting information quietly.

Kei talked when he didn’t realize he was being listened to. About how Mizuki worked late without complaint. How she brought coffee for the whole team but remembered his preference exactly. How she asked questions that made him feel competent instead of challenged.

“She’s easy to work with,” he said once, absently. “Feels familiar.”

Familiar.

Touko repeated the word in her mind until it lost warmth.

Familiarity was dangerous. It bypassed caution. It created shortcuts where none should exist.

Rurika started waiting near the door when Kei came home. Not openly. Just close enough to hear his voice before he entered. Close enough to feel the shift in the air when he was there.

She watched his phone when it buzzed. Watched the way his thumb hesitated before replying. Watched the way his mouth curved, just slightly, when he read certain messages.

She imagined Mizuki’s hands. Her voice. Her laugh. Imagined them occupying spaces Rurika believed belonged to her alone.

The thoughts scared her.

They also comforted her.

Touko noticed the change in Rurika before anyone else did. The restlessness. The way she hovered closer to Kei without touching him. The way her eyes followed him like an anchor.

Touko did not scold her.

She sat beside her instead.

“You don’t like her,” Touko said one afternoon, voice calm.

Rurika flinched. “I don’t know her.”

Touko nodded. “That’s worse.”

Rurika’s fingers twisted in her sleeve. “Papa smiles when he talks about her.”

Touko looked toward the hallway, where Kei’s coat hung neatly. “Papa smiles at many things.”

“But not like that.”

Touko met her gaze. “Smiles don’t mean love.”

Rurika searched her face, desperate. “Then what do they mean?”

Touko thought for a moment. “Opportunity.”

The word settled between them.

At work, Mizuki Aoyama felt something was wrong, though she couldn’t name it. Not with Kei. He was kind. Professional. Safe. The kind of man people trusted without effort.

It was the house she sensed instead. The way he spoke about it. Careful. Contained. As if every word had been weighed before being allowed out.

Once, she joked, “Sounds like you live with judges.”

Kei laughed, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Something like that.”

At home, Yui watched everything.

She noticed the change in Kei’s tone when he mentioned work. The way Touko listened too closely. The way Rurika’s moods rose and fell in response to things that had nothing to do with her.

Yui said nothing.

She had learned long ago that silence revealed more than confrontation ever could. That people showed their true shapes when they believed they were unobserved.

One evening, she caught Touko writing in her diary and closing it too quickly. Another night, she found Rurika standing in the dark hallway, listening to Kei breathe through the bedroom door.

Yui did not intervene.

She only watched.

Because she recognized the signs.

She had seen them before.

At dinner, Kei laughed again. A small thing. A comment about Mizuki spilling coffee on herself during a meeting.

Rurika’s grip tightened on her glass.

Touko smiled, polite and empty.

Yui met her own reflection in the window and held her gaze.

The house was changing. Not loudly. Not yet. But something had been introduced that did not intend to leave quietly.

Familiarity had crossed the threshold.

And none of them were innocent enough to pretend it hadn’t.