Mujin was looking at a folded napkin instead of a drawing.
Late on R+122, Darae found him at the promised dining place. Their table was away from the window, with one side against a wall. He took his hand off the napkin and turned towards her.
“I was looking for someone smiling at a plate. No plate yet.”
“You'll have to use my face.”
He laughed. She put her bag at the designated inner side and sat. Their drawings were in separate homes. Tonight no paper needed the first decision about where to go.
The ordinary inner room belonged to the rotating ring. No view outside, but a backrest. Mujin asked whether it was more comfortable than the common drawing table. Darae thought so; she need not draw its chair legs either.
“They'll be relieved.”
“You laughed. Perhaps we can recognise each other without drawings.”
Warm water arrived. She loosened her grip on the real cup. They chose their food separately: Mujin wanted less strong seasoning; Darae wanted to try another taste. Conversation did not depend on ordering the same meal.
While they waited, he explained that his next shift had moved earlier. It did not require cancelling supper, but a long walk afterwards would be difficult.
“All right,” she said, more quickly than she felt it.
Some part of her had apparently drawn a longer path already. She turned the cup handle without meaning to. Mujin asked whether something had changed in her expression.
“I'm a little disappointed. I'm also glad we're eating together.”
Both were true. An apology alone might have sent her hurrying to assure him that nothing mattered. He thanked her for telling him. He had wanted to explain before becoming too tired and ending the evening suddenly.
“Then we can shorten the walk here at the table,” she said.
He asked what that meant. Instead of walking far, could they spend some of the interval saying what they wanted here? He would like that. A shorter route had not removed the person at its end.
She did not recount the whole day's work. A small tool had reached its proper place and she had received the actual handover. She could offer a feeling without offering a customer's private clothes or name. Mujin asked how the ending had felt.
“Good that someone's hurry didn't become their fault.”
Sometimes he hesitated over saying he had little time too, he said, lest it sound like an excuse. That was why he had wanted to tell her at the start. Darae looked up. He had chosen the time he could actually give; he had not come merely to leave her quickly. She thanked him for making the difference possible to hear.
Her meal arrived as small bean bread and warm vegetables. Mujin had cooked grain and another side dish. Darae remarked that her plate was rounder than the one she had drawn. He pointed to a misshapen edge. It belonged to the bread.
“Eating will repair that,” she said.
“Excellent method.”
“It won't go in the tool-lending guidance.”
They laughed. The bread was softer than expected. She asked whether he wanted to exchange a little; he said how much suited him, and she shared that amount. Her plate did not become a claim to know his appetite better than he did.
The table shivered when someone rose nearby. Darae steadied her cup. Mujin moved his own plate inward. Nothing spilled, and neither corrected the other's hands. She admitted that sometimes she found herself watching an object all the way to the end of setting it down.
“Work?” he asked.
“Some of it. Some things I've let go of before keep coming to mind.”
She supplied no full inventory of old losses. Did she sometimes keep watching things already properly placed? Yes. Today she had almost returned to the rack after work. She had gone home because another person had actually received it.
“Comfortable afterwards?”
“A little anxious. I still ate supper.”
“Perhaps it starts there.”
No promise to remove every anxiety followed. That made his answer easier to keep listening to. Asked whether he had something similar, Mujin described days when completed checks were followed by one more imagined condition. Return fuel and people could send numbers into his resting time too.
“How many numbers now?”
He smiled. Tomorrow's start time and the food remaining.
“My plate in there?”
“That's something to look at together. Not something to count.”
Her face warmed. She had not known he could answer so easily. He said he had chosen his words several times in front of the napkin. There were two folds in it. He joked that he would not submit them as evidence.
“Then I can see them without recording them.”
Darae ate another mouthful. The vegetables' unfamiliar scent went well with the warm bread. She nearly promised to choose them next time, then said they tasted good today. Tomorrow's appetite needed no advance contract. Mujin thought that her present smile fulfilled his plate-recognition plan.
The meal continued without scores for well-chosen sentences. A quiet interval announced no failure. Other diners' sounds kept their own pace. Darae could look at him longer than when they had both been drawing, without trying to turn that look into a picture to bring home.
He set his cup with the handle turned slightly towards himself. Asked why, he said it made the next lift convenient. She tried it; another angle suited her arm.
“Each of us can turn our own cup,” he said.
She liked the two handles facing different ways. Liking the same activity need not place everything in the same direction. She let the arrangement stay unrecorded on the table.
Near the meal's end his private device sounded. He checked the kind of alert and said it needed no answer now. She was curious and did not lean to see. He covered the screen and looked at her again. Her own current work guidance had already reached the assigned staff through the ordinary handover. Having checked that it belonged to her next scheduled review rather than an urgent call, she put her device back too.
“Anything else you wanted to say?” he asked.
“Whether we could meet without pictures or work.” She smiled at the oddness of asking while actually doing so. “I wondered whether coming empty-handed would make me dull.”
He remembered her eating the misshapen edge of the bread first. That was a story he could hear without a tool.
“You'll make me too easily pleased.”
“Do you dislike that?”
She thought, then shook her head. “I think I like it with you.”
He said he liked this meal too. She did not hurry towards a larger name for their meetings. The present feeling required no new formal arrangement before it could be real.
They divided payment by what they had chosen. Mujin had eaten more, he observed. Darae thought the plates knew that too. Speaking plates would be troublesome, he said; they might begin repeating customer stories. Better leave them quiet. She laughed while putting her own things into her bag.
Outside, they paused on a broad nearby way that would not lengthen his return much. Darae asked whether he wanted to hold hands. He would like it, and standing briefly would suit him tonight. They considered which hands held their bags and chose the comfortable sides.
There was no need for the grip of a cargo restraint. She felt the warmth of his hand and smiled. Asked what pleased her, she said they recognised each other without drawings.
“We managed that inside.”
“May I know it once more?”
“That's possible.”
For a short time they looked towards the same lights. Then he said he wanted to go back and rest. She felt the wish for longer and answered yes. She did not hide it by snatching her hand away first. They let go together and took their bags properly.
At the junction he asked whether another short meal like this would be welcome. It would. If she wanted longer another time, she would ask then. He would do the same. There was no next date yet, only a useful way to speak before their possible times diverged.
They exchanged actual arrival messages from their separate homes. He would rest before the early start. She wished him good rest and put down the device. The evening's warmth needed no continuous reply to remain.
On her desk the unequal chair legs stayed unequal. She reached towards the sheet, then left it. There was no new drawing today. It had still been a different day.
The next shift's ordinary handover contained Eunjung's completed management receipt and a common transport-box return inquiry. The box had reached its designated place, but its recorded empty mass differed from the current measurement. Darae answered that she would begin with the actual object and comparable conditions. Surplus mass was familiar language. It could not put yesterday's answer inside today's box before anyone looked.