He glanced up, squinting against the sun. It was her. Utahime’s friend. The one with the laugh that cut through party noise, the one he’d sometimes catch watching the game with genuine interest instead of just pretending. She was holding two sweating bottles of soda.

He locked his phone with a sharp click, the image disappearing. She dropped down next to him on the step, close enough that the heat from her arm brushed his. She offered a bottle.

She took a long pull from her soda, then stared at the bottle like it had answers. A leaf skittered across the porch between them. The idea came to him suddenly—stupid, reckless, a lifeline thrown to a drowning man.

His heart was hammering against his ribs now. He kept his eyes on the leaf, not on her.

She said it slowly, turning the words over. Something in her expression shifted, hardened into something like resolve.

She set her bottle down on the step with a definitive clink and held out her hand.

He shook her hand. Her grip was firm, her skin warm. He tried to ignore the way the contact made his pulse jump, writing it off as adrenaline.

As he typed his number into her phone, Choso wondered if this was the smartest or dumbest thing he’d ever done. The ghost of Yuki’s smile from the bonfire photo seemed to flicker in his peripheral vision.