Chapter 125 — "One Hour"

Breakfast on her birthday was exactly the same as breakfast on every other day.

Which was either comforting or suspicious.

She had not decided.

Mira was already there.

Obviously.

Seraphina sat across from her, poured tea, and looked at the food.

"Happy birthday," Mira said, without looking up from her notebook.

"Thank you."

"How does eighteen feel?"

"Identical to seventeen."

"Give it time."

"How long?"

"Unknown."

"That’s unhelpful."

"It’s accurate."

Seraphina started eating.

Mira wrote something.

Around them, the dining hall was doing its usual morning work. Students arrived in varying states of consciousness. Cold air came in each time the main doors opened. Kestral remained serious about Tuesday.

Which it was.

Which it always was.

"Eren’s late," Mira said.

"He’s always late."

"Not always."

"When is he not late?"

"When he has preliminary research."

"He doesn’t have research today."

"How do you know?"

"He told me yesterday."

"When?"

"After you went to the corridor floor."

Seraphina looked at her tea.

"You knew about the corridor."

"I know about most things."

"What did he say?"

"That tomorrow was your birthday and he hadn’t decided what to do about it yet."

"What did you tell him?"

"That doing nothing was also a decision."

"And?"

"That doing nothing wasn’t in his vocabulary."

Seraphina looked at her tea again.

At Mira’s notebook.

At the morning.

At Eren not being there yet, which was either lateness or preliminary research by another name.

"Mira."

"Hm."

"What do you write in that?"

"Notes."

"About what?"

"Observations."

"Of what?"

"The table."

"This table."

"Yes."

"You’ve been taking notes on our table for two years."

"Someone should."

"Why?"

"Historical record."

"Of us."

"Of the dynamic."

Seraphina looked at the notebook.

At two years of dynamic sitting inside it.

"Can I read it?"

"No."

"Why?"

"You’re in it."

"So?"

"It would be like reading your own file."

"I’d like to read my own file."

"No, you wouldn’t."

"How do you know?"

Mira finally looked up, wearing the expression she used when something was so obvious it barely deserved acknowledgment.

"Because some of it is about Eren."

Seraphina looked back at her tea.

"I’d still like to read it."

"No."

"Mira."

"No."

"It’s my birthday."

"Happy birthday."

Seraphina pointed at her.

Mira glanced at the notebook, then closed it and put it in her bag.

"It’s safe."

"I wasn’t worried about its safety."

"You were."

"I wasn’t."

"You were looking at it like you were calculating the distance."

"I wasn’t calculating anything."

"You were."

Seraphina tore off a piece of bread and looked toward the door.

Eren still was not there.

He was doing something.

"Obviously," Mira said.

"What?"

"Unknown."

"You just said you know about most things."

"I know about the things he tells me."

"He didn’t tell you about this."

"No."

"Which means?"

"He’s doing something he thinks will be better as a surprise."

Seraphina kept her eyes on the door.

On the surprise somewhere behind it.

"Last time he surprised me—"

"The music box."

"Before that."

"The carved figure."

"Before that."

"The embroidery thread."

Seraphina paused.

Mira thought for a moment.

"The thing with the corridor light temperature."

"That wasn’t a surprise."

"He surprised you by being right."

"That’s not—"

"You were surprised."

Seraphina looked at her tea.

At the corridor light temperature.

At two years of being caught off guard by things she had never expected to matter.

"He’s going to do something."

"Yes."

"That I won’t expect."

"Yes."

"Even though I expect him to do something unexpected."

"He accounts for that."

"He accounts for me expecting the unexpected."

"He has two years of data."

Seraphina stared at her.

"Two years of data."

"On your reactions."

"He has data on my reactions."

"We all have data on each other’s reactions."

"Do we."

"You know mine."

Seraphina stopped.

Thought about it.

"You do the notebook thing when you’re processing something significant."

"Yes."

"You eat faster when you’re planning something."

"Yes."

"You ask practical questions when you’re actually asking something personal."

"Yes."

"You told me the soup was uncertain on the first day we talked properly."

"Also yes."

Seraphina looked at her.

"That’s a lot of data."

"Two years."

"Of data."

"On each other."

"Yes."

She looked back at the door.

"What does Eren’s data say about today?"

"That you’ll pretend the birthday doesn’t matter."

"It doesn’t."

"And that the thing that matters won’t be the birthday."

Seraphina turned back to her.

"What thing?"

Mira rested a hand against her cup.

"The ink."

The ink in Seraphina’s pocket, where it had been since breakfast the day before, beside the note.

"The ink," Seraphina repeated.

"And what you do with it."

"I use ink for many things."

"Yes."

"Designs."

"Yes."

"Notes."

"Yes."

"Mira."

"Hm."

"Stop."

"I’m eating."

"You’re doing the thing."

"What thing."

"The one where you say accurate things and then look at your food."

Mira looked at her food.

Then at Seraphina.

"Happy birthday," she said again.

This time it carried something the first one had not.

Seraphina looked at her tea.

At the ink in her pocket.

At what she was going to do with it.

At the name she had already written on the paper the night before.

One word.

Then she had set the pen down and gone to sleep, leaving the name there alone.

Waiting for the rest.

The door opened.

Eren came in holding nothing.

Which was suspicious.

He sat beside Mira, across from Seraphina, and looked at the food.

"Morning."

"You’re late."

"I was doing things."

"What things?"

"Various."

"Eren."

"Morning things."

"That’s not specific."

"It’s accurate."

He poured tea, drank some, then looked at Seraphina.

"Happy birthday."

"Thank you."

"How does eighteen feel?"

"Everyone keeps asking that."

"Because it’s interesting."

"It feels identical to seventeen."

"Give it time."

"That’s what Mira said."

"Mira is correct."

"About most things."

Mira continued eating without reacting.

Which was, itself, a reaction.

Eren looked at Seraphina.

At her pocket.

Then at her face.

Then back to the food.

"You have the ink."

She looked at him.

"Yes."

"Since yesterday."

"Obviously."

"In your pocket."

"Yes."

"Specifically your pocket."

"That’s generally where pockets are."

"Not the bag."

She looked at her tea.

"Eren."

"Hm."

"Eat your food."

"I’m only observing."

"Eat."

"The pocket is interesting."

"Eren."

"Eat," Mira said, without looking up.

Eren obeyed.

Seraphina looked at Mira.

Mira looked at her breakfast with something faint at the edge of her expression.

The notebook version of satisfied.

"Thank you," Seraphina said.

"Obviously," Mira replied, using the word the way people did after two years of being around her.

Eren looked between them.

"What just happened?"

"Nothing," both of them said at once.

He looked down at his bowl.

"That is the most suspicious nothing I’ve heard."

"Eat your food," Seraphina said.

He looked at the porridge.

"The porridge is ambitious today."

"How ambitious?"

"Significantly."

"More than usual?"

"It knows it’s your birthday."

Seraphina looked at the porridge.

At the apparently informed porridge.

"Eren."

"Hm."

"The porridge doesn’t know things."

"It feels things."

"It’s porridge."

"Food has feelings."

"We’ve had this—"

She stopped herself.

At almost saying we’ve had this conversation.

Which they had.

Which was the point.

Which was two years sitting between them in a dining hall.

Eren looked at her.

At the stop.

At what she had almost said.

Something touched the corner of his mouth.

"Go ahead."

"No."

"Say it."

"I wasn’t going to say anything."

"You were going to say we’ve had this conversation."

"I was going to say something else."

"What?"

"Something completely different."

"About what?"

"The porridge."

"What about it?"

She looked down at the bowl.

At the ambitious porridge that apparently knew things.

"It’s trying," she said.

"Yes," Eren said. "Today it’s trying."

"What’s different about today?"

He studied his breakfast.

"It knows something significant is happening."

"At this table."

"Yes."

"What is happening at this table?"

He looked at her.

"You’re going to do something."

"I do things every day."

"Something specific."

"What?"

He lowered his eyes to the porridge again.

"Write something."

She looked at him.

At the porridge.

At the ink in her pocket.

At the name on the paper waiting for the rest.

"Eren."

"Hm."

"You’re very—"

She stopped herself.

He waited.

"Annoying."

"That’s not what you were going to say."

"It is now."

"Your arms."

"Don’t."

"They’re out."

"Eren."

"Very out."

"I will—"

"Put me in the porridge," he said before she could finish.

She stared at him.

At the theft of her line.

At the complete satisfaction on his face.

At two years of him learning her rhythms well enough to use them back on her at exactly the wrong moment.

Mira looked from one of them to the other.

"At this point," she said, "I’m writing to Daren about all of this."

"Write whatever you want," Seraphina said.

To the porridge.

To the ink in her pocket.

To the name waiting on the page.

To eighteen sitting at the table with her two best friends while Kestral remained serious about Tuesday.

"He’ll want to know," Mira said.

"Tell him everything."

Mira looked at her.

At the everything.

At what it held.

"Even the ink?"

"Especially the ink."

Eren looked down at his porridge and said nothing.

Which, from Eren on this particular morning, meant considerably more than nothing.

The dining hall continued around them. Students kept arriving. Cold slipped through the doors. Kestral remained Kestral. Tuesday remained Tuesday.

And eighteen sat at the table with all three of them.

The ink in her pocket.

The note beside it.

The name on the paper waiting for the rest.

Later.

After breakfast.

After training.

After the day had finished being eighteen in public.

She would write the rest.

Obviously.