Andrea released them a little after six.
By then the studio makeup was gone.
Chem had been the first to ask.
Not for food.
Not for a drink.
Not for directions.
Not even for cats.
She had sat back down in the dressing room, pointed at her own face, and said, “Please remove this.”
The makeup staff laughed, then took all three girls through cleanser, warm towels, skin care, and a second inspection under the lights. By the time Andrea came looking for them, Chem, D’stan, and Sael looked like themselves again.
Mostly.
Neokawa still owned everything below the neck.
Chem wore blue.
Cherry blossoms spilled across the fashion kimono in loose clusters, some fully open, some still buds, the branches curving across the fabric so the pattern changed whenever she moved. Against her green skin, the blue made her look almost luminous under the lights.
Chem approved.
D’stan wore red.
Not bright red, but something deeper and richer, with a color that shifted depending on the light. Across the back stretched a tea garden beneath a huge pale moon, the scene designed so that whenever she turned away from someone, they got an entirely different picture of her.
Sael wore pink.
More pink than she liked.
Much more pink.
There was nothing actually wrong with it, which was almost the problem.
The construction was excellent. The fabric moved beautifully. The proportions had been adjusted for her body instead of simply taking a human design, making it larger, and hoping for the best.
Neokawa knew exactly what they were doing.
They had simply decided Sael should be pink.
She had accepted the fashion kimono without complaint during the show. Now, free of cameras and stylists, she caught her reflection in a dark glass door and frowned.
Noa Kanno noticed.
“You hate it.”
Sael looked at her.
“I do not hate it.”
“You hate it.”
“It is more pink than I would have selected.”
Emi Tanaka laughed.
“That is the most diplomatic possible way to say you hate it.”
Sael lifted one sleeve and examined the fall of the fabric.
“The construction is excellent.”
Noa stepped closer, looking at the kimono again, this time less as television wardrobe and more as clothing.
“So what would you have changed?”
Sael answered immediately.
“Less pink.”
Emi laughed again.
Sael ignored her.
“Not no pink. The color is good against my skin. There is simply too much of it. I would have given the eye somewhere else to go.”
Noa’s expression changed.
“Where?”
Sael touched the edge of the collar.
“Here, perhaps. Or through the waist. Something darker to interrupt it.”
Noa smiled.
“Oh, you’re going to be trouble.”
Sael looked at her.
“Why?”
“You already redesigned the outfit.”
“I answered your question.”
“Exactly.”
Andrea looked over all five of them.
“Hotel by eleven-thirty.”
Chem nodded seriously.
D’stan gave the kind of nod that made it sound like Andrea had issued military orders.
Sael was already looking past her at a woman crossing the street in a coat with one sleeve cut wider than the other.
Noa followed Sael’s eyes.
“You noticed the sleeve too.”
“It is interesting.”
Noa smiled.
“Definitely trouble.”
They were only two blocks from Shibuya Station.
Noa pointed toward it.
“We take the train.”
Chem looked surprised.
“We could walk.”
“We could,” Noa said. “But you have not ridden a Tokyo train.”
Chem brightened.
D’stan looked less enthusiastic.
Sael was still watching coats.
Emi said, “Also, it gets us to Harajuku faster, which means more food.”
Chem nodded.
“That is logical.”
The station swallowed them.
The change from street to platform happened in layers, stairs, signs, ticket gates, corridors, more stairs, streams of people separating and joining with a choreography none of the V’ren girls fully understood.
Chem looked everywhere at once.
D’stan watched the people.
Sael watched what they were wearing.
It was difficult not to.
Someone in a severe dark business suit passed a girl in enormous boots, a translucent jacket, and a skirt made from several materials Sael could not identify at a glance. A man dressed almost entirely in cream stood beside another in work clothes. Two girls walked together in outfits that shared nothing except the obvious fact that each had been chosen very carefully.
Sael turned her head to follow them.
Noa noticed.
“Keep moving.”
“I am.”
“You are walking sideways.”
Sael corrected herself.
Noa and Emi watched all three girls.
The train arrived already busy.
They boarded with the crowd.
At first it was merely close.
Then the doors shut.
Chem looked at Noa.
“This is acceptable?”
“This is not even bad.”
Chem looked around again.
“I am revising my opinion of human population density.”
D’stan shifted slightly to keep the back of her kimono from rubbing against a metal fitting.
Sael had one hand around the overhead strap and the other keeping the fall of her sleeve under control.
Then Noa’s expression changed.
It was small.
Just a tightening around the eyes.
She moved without saying anything.
One step.
Then another.
She placed herself between Sael and a grey-haired man who had used the crowded carriage to get much closer than the crowd required.
D’stan noticed immediately.
Chem noticed D’stan noticing.
Sael realized what was happening last.
The man shifted.
Noa shifted with him.
His hand disappeared back to his own side.
Noa stared straight ahead.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing loud.
Nothing that would turn an entire train car into a scene.
Then the train moved through a curve.
The man adjusted his footing.
Emi adjusted hers too.
Her shoe came down hard across the front of his.
It was not a delicate shoe.
The heel was thick, hard, and chunky enough to qualify as architecture.
The man sucked air through his teeth.
Emi immediately turned.
“Oh, I am so sorry.”
Her face was perfect.
Concerned.
Polite.
Mortified.
Noa looked at her.
Emi looked back.
Sael covered her mouth.
D’stan turned toward the doors.
Chem whispered, “Was that an accident?”
“No,” D’stan said.
Emi heard her.
“It was very crowded.”
The old man moved to the other side of the carriage at the next opportunity.
Chem watched him go.
Then looked at Emi’s shoes.
“Those are effective.”
Emi smiled.
“Fashion can be practical.”
Sael looked down at her own footwear.
“I have underestimated human accessories.”
Noa relaxed once the man was gone.
“Unfortunately, some things survive every century.”
Chem frowned.
“That happens often?”
“Often enough.”
D’stan looked toward where the man had gone.
“He knew what he was doing.”
“Yes.”
D’stan’s face went still in a way Noa had already learned not to underestimate.
Noa touched her arm lightly.
“It is handled.”
D’stan looked at her.
Then at Emi.
Then nodded.
Sael said, “Thank you.”
Noa shrugged.
“Part of the tour.”
Emi lifted one foot slightly.
“Premium package.”
Sael laughed.
Then she looked again at Emi’s chunky heel.
“I still like the shoes.”
“See?” Emi said. “Now you understand fashion.”
“No,” Noa said. “Now she understands weapons.”
“Some shoes are both.”
D’stan glanced down at her own.
“I am beginning to suspect humans have hidden a great deal of social information in footwear.”
Sael nodded toward a woman at the other end of the carriage.
“She paid more for hers than the man beside her did.”
Noa followed her gaze.
“How can you tell?”
“The leather.”
Noa smiled.
“Trouble.”
By the time they stepped off at Harajuku, the unpleasantness had already been folded into the rhythm of the evening.
The station disgorged them into another river of people.
Chem looked around.
“So this is Harajuku.”
Noa nodded.
“Now we walk.”
Emi immediately said, “Now we eat.”
Noa looked at her.
“We just got here.”
“Exactly.”
Chem looked between them.
“I am beginning to understand the system.”
They made it less than ten minutes before Emi won.
The first cafe was narrow, bright, and up a staircase above a cosmetics shop. They squeezed around a table intended for four and added a chair for bags.
Emi ordered.
Chem watched.
Noa added things.
Sael asked what something was.
Emi told her not to worry about it.
D’stan looked suspicious.
Five minutes later the table held drinks, cakes, filled pastries, and something Chem immediately decided was hers.
Chem took one bite.
“This is not dinner?”
“No,” Emi said.
“What is dinner?”
“Later.”
“When?”
“After more food.”
Chem stared at her.
Then took another bite.
“I like your system.”
Noa turned toward Sael.
“You actually follow fashion?”
Sael looked mildly offended.
“Yes.”
“I did not mean it like that.”
“How did you mean it?”
“Most people who tell me they like fashion mean they like clothes.”
“I like clothes.”
Sael glanced through the window toward the people moving below.
“But clothes are the finished answer. I like the decisions that produced them.”
Noa leaned forward.
“Construction?”
“Construction. Fabric. Weight. How something moves. Whether the person designing it wants the body emphasized, disguised, lengthened, shortened, softened.”
D’stan lifted her cup.
“Status.”
“Sometimes.”
Sael looked down at her own pink sleeve.
“Sometimes the clothing is telling everyone who you are. Sometimes it is telling everyone who someone else decided you should be.”
Noa followed her eyes to the kimono.
“The pink again.”
“The pink is very good.”
“You still don’t like it.”
“I can appreciate something without wanting to be it.”
For the first time all evening, Noa stopped looking at Sael as one of the alien teenagers she had agreed to show around Tokyo.
“All right.”
Emi looked between them.
“What?”
Noa pointed toward Sael.
“She is going to cost us hours.”
Sael looked confused.
“I am sitting here.”
“I know.”
Chem looked at Noa.
“Are we still seeing cats?”
Noa blinked.
“Cats?”
“Tokyo has cats.”
“Tokyo has many cats.”
Chem relaxed.
“Good.”
D’stan closed her eyes briefly.
Emi noticed.
“Oh.”
She looked at Sael.
“This is a thing.”
Sael answered for her.
“Chem has an unnatural obsession with cats.”
Chem straightened.
“It is not unnatural.”
D’stan opened her eyes.
“You tried to follow a barn cat into a drainage pipe.”
“It went somewhere.”
“It was a drainage pipe.”
“I was curious.”
Noa started laughing.
They left the cafe nearly half an hour later.
The next hour was almost entirely Sael’s fault.
She stopped at windows.
Then doorways.
Then displays just inside doorways.
At first Noa explained things to her.
That lasted perhaps fifteen minutes.
After that, they argued.
Not seriously.
About proportions.
Whether one jacket needed the exaggerated shoulder or had merely been designed around it because exaggeration was fashionable that season.
Whether a skirt that looked unbalanced while standing still would make more sense while walking.
Whether one designer had deliberately made a blouse slightly ugly because beauty would have made it forgettable.
Sael picked up a sleeve.
“This seam should be lower.”
Noa shook her head.
“No. Then it becomes ordinary.”
“It would move better.”
“It is not supposed to move better.”
Sael looked at her.
“That is ridiculous.”
“It is fashion.”
“That is not a defense.”
“It has worked for thousands of years.”
Behind them, Chem stared at D’stan.
“What are they doing?”
D’stan watched Sael turn the sleeve inside out to inspect the construction.
“I think they are fighting.”
“They are smiling.”
“Yes.”
“That makes it worse.”
In the next shop, Sael asked a clerk whether the asymmetry in a coat was structural or purely visual.
The clerk answered.
Sael asked another question.
Then another.
Soon the clerk was holding the coat open while Sael examined how the inner panels had been joined.
Noa stopped translating anything Sael could already understand and simply joined the discussion.
The clerk gestured toward Sael’s own kimono.
That diverted the conversation for another five minutes.
Neokawa’s solution to the shoulder line interested her. So did the way the sleeves had been adapted while keeping the garment recognizably Japanese rather than simply turning it into a robe fitted for V’ren proportions.
Sael forgot she was supposed to dislike being pink.
She turned sideways in the mirror and showed the clerk where an internal fastening had been placed.
The clerk laughed, disappeared into the back, and returned with another employee.
Chem leaned against a display.
“This has become a conference.”
D’stan checked the time.
“It has been a conference for eleven minutes.”
Emi looked pleased.
“Noa has found someone worse than herself.”
By the time Sael and Noa came back outside, Chem was leaning against a wall.
“You were in there forever.”
“Twenty-six minutes,” D’stan said.
Chem looked at Sael.
“Did you buy the coat?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I liked the coat.”
“That was not my question.”
Sael considered it.
“It was someone else’s coat.”
Chem stared.
Noa smiled.
She understood exactly what Sael meant.
They continued.
The streets narrowed.
Stores became smaller and stranger.
Upstairs boutiques hid behind staircases.
Some shops looked expensive.
Some deliberately looked cheap.
Others seemed uncertain what century they belonged to.
Sael had begun paying less attention to price than to intent.
That interested Noa.
D’stan noticed price anyway.
Not because she was impressed by it.
Because she understood what money was being used to say.
A deliberately distressed jacket cost more than a perfectly tailored one in the previous shop.
D’stan stared at the tag.
“This has holes.”
“Yes,” Noa said.
“Deliberately.”
“Yes.”
“And that increased the price.”
“Possibly.”
D’stan looked toward Sael.
Sael shrugged.
“The holes are in the right places.”
“That sentence has made my evening worse.”
Chem liked these shops more.
She found earrings shaped like bowls of noodles.
A purse shaped like a fish.
A set of glasses so narrow D’stan asked whether they were defective.
Then Chem stopped.
Completely.
Noa nearly walked into her.
Ahead of them was a sign.
CAT STREET.
Chem turned very slowly.
“Cat Street?”
Noa’s face became suspiciously neutral.
“Yes.”
Chem’s eyes widened.
“How many?”
“How many what?”
“Cats.”
Emi made a choking sound.
D’stan looked away.
Sael covered her mouth.
Chem looked down the street.
Then back at Noa.
“How many cats are on Cat Street?”
Noa failed.
She started laughing.
Chem’s expression changed.
“No.”
“There aren’t really cats.”
Chem stared at her.
“No.”
“It is just called Cat Street.”
Chem turned.
People.
Bicycles.
Boutiques.
Coffee.
Streetwear.
Shopping bags.
No cats.
Not one.
She turned back.
“That is dishonest.”
Sael started laughing.
D’stan remained serious for almost three seconds.
Chem pointed at the sign.
“You cannot call a street Cat Street and have no cats.”
Emi wiped at one eye.
“I knew this was going to happen.”
Chem stared at her.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“And you did not warn me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because this is much funnier.”
Chem looked genuinely betrayed.
“This country has laws.”
That broke D’stan.
They spent nearly an hour on Cat Street.
Chem mentioned the absence of cats six times.
Once when they passed a clothing store.
Once when they passed a bicycle.
Once when they passed a dog.
The dog made it worse.
“There is a dog.”
D’stan looked at her.
“Yes.”
“On Cat Street.”
“Yes.”
“There is a dog on Cat Street and no cats.”
D’stan folded her hands.
“I understand the injustice.”
“No, you don’t.”
Chem eventually found a shop selling household goods and bought a ceramic cat.
D’stan pointed out that purchasing a cat-shaped object did not correct the street’s naming problem.
Chem said it helped.
Sael still had not bought anything.
Noa noticed.
“You have been inside fourteen stores.”
“Fourteen.”
“And bought nothing.”
“I have not found anything I want enough.”
Noa nodded approvingly.
“That is a good answer.”
A few shops later, the pink kimono became useful.
People had been noticing it all evening.
So had designers.
So had shop staff.
More importantly, they had started asking Sael what she thought of it.
At first she gave the polite answer.
Neokawa had done beautiful work.
The fit was excellent.
The fabric moved well.
The construction was clever.
Eventually, one shop assistant smiled at her reflection in the mirror.
“But?”
Sael looked at Noa.
Noa immediately raised both hands.
“I said nothing.”
Sael looked back at the assistant.
“It is very pink.”
The woman laughed.
“So change it.”
Sael blinked.
“I cannot change their design.”
“You are wearing it.”
That stopped her.
The assistant crossed to another display and returned with a dark sash. She held it near Sael’s waist without actually touching the kimono.
The effect was immediate.
It did not remove the pink.
It interrupted it.
Suddenly the eye had somewhere else to go.
Sael looked into the mirror.
Noa watched her face.
“That’s what you meant before we left.”
Sael nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
The assistant moved the sash slightly higher.
Sael shook her head.
“Lower.”
The woman lowered it.
Sael smiled.
“There.”
Noa smiled too.
Sael did not buy the sash.
It was too heavy for what she wanted.
But when they walked out, she was no longer looking only at individual garments.
She was looking at pieces.
Things that could alter something else.
Things that could make a garment answer differently without replacing it.
She looked down at her pink sleeve.
Neokawa had answered one question.
She did not have to accept that it was the only answer.
They stopped again just before eight.
The second cafe was darker, smaller, and crowded enough that they had to wait for a table.
Emi ordered for everyone again.
Chem had stopped asking what anything was.
Halfway through the first drinks, a girl at the next table looked over.
Then looked again.
Then whispered to the boy beside her.
His eyes widened.
Noa checked the time.
“Eight-oh-seven.”
Emi groaned.
“It aired.”
D’stan glanced toward the other table.
“The program?”
“Yes.”
Chem looked around.
“What changes?”
The answer arrived less than a minute later.
A young woman approached and carefully asked if she was Chem Corvos.
Chem smiled.
“Yes.”
The woman bowed so quickly Chem looked startled.
Then she asked for a picture.
Chem looked at Noa.
Noa shrugged.
“Your choice.”
Chem agreed.
After the photograph, the woman pointed vaguely outside.
“Cat Street.”
Chem’s smile vanished.
“This street has no cats.”
The woman burst out laughing.
Within ten minutes, half the cafe seemed to know who they were.
It never became unpleasant.
A few photographs.
A few bows.
A few people saying hello to Noa or Emi.
One person complimented D’stan’s kimono and asked to photograph the tea garden across the back.
D’stan turned around.
The woman’s eyes widened when the full moon came into view.
Sael watched.
“That one works better from behind.”
D’stan glanced over her shoulder.
“I know.”
Another woman approached Sael more carefully.
She said she had liked what Sael said on the program about being green.
Sael grew quieter.
“Thank you.”
The woman hesitated.
Then said, “Green is beautiful.”
Sael smiled.
“I agree.”
Nothing more was needed.
Before returning to her table, the woman glanced at Sael’s kimono.
“And the pink is beautiful.”
Sael looked down.
“It is.”
Noa waited until the woman had gone.
“You did not say you liked it.”
“She did.”
“That was not my question.”
Sael took another drink.
“I am learning from Chem.”
Chem looked pleased.
“I am an excellent influence.”
D’stan said, “No.”
When they left the cafe, recognition had changed the street.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that phones appeared before people approached.
Chem noticed.
“They watched quickly.”
Noa shook her head.
“People clip faster than they watch.”
“That sounds inefficient.”
“It is the foundation of civilization.”
They crossed toward Omotesando.
D’stan understood this part of the city more easily.
The stores had more space.
The displays had more space.
The clothes had more space.
Nothing shouted because nothing needed to.
A couple stepped out of one store ahead of them.
D’stan watched the woman’s coat.
“That is expensive.”
Noa glanced.
“Yes.”
“It does not look expensive.”
“That is why it is very expensive.”
D’stan nodded slowly.
“That I understand.”
Sael understood something else.
Restraint.
She stopped in front of a display containing only three pieces.
Chem looked through the window.
“There is almost nothing in there.”
“That is deliberate,” Sael said.
“It looks unfinished.”
“No.”
Sael moved closer to the glass.
“They want you to look at each piece before you are allowed to look at another.”
Chem stared at the display.
“That sounds bossy.”
“It is.”
Noa laughed.
Sael went inside.
A black jacket held her for nearly ten minutes.
It was severe, beautifully constructed, almost architectural through the shoulders, with very little decoration beyond the shape itself.
Noa waited while Sael examined it.
“What do you think?”
“I love it.”
“You should try it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Sael touched the lapel once more.
“Because I love looking at it.”
Noa waited.
Sael looked at herself in the mirror beside the jacket.
“I would hate wearing it.”
Noa smiled.
“That is an important distinction.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Sael looked at her.
Noa gestured toward the store around them.
“You know it now.”
Sael frowned slightly.
Noa continued.
“You spent the first half of tonight asking what everything was supposed to do. Now you are asking what it would do to you.”
Sael looked back at the jacket.
That stayed with her.
A few minutes later they rejoined Chem, D’stan, and Emi.
Emi sighed.
“We lost them.”
Chem looked up and down the street.
“Are there any cats here?”
“No.”
“This district is disappointing.”
Emi took her for dessert.
Twenty-five minutes later Chem was staring at shaved ice covered in fruit, cream, syrup, and something faintly luminous underneath.
“What is glowing?”
“Eat it.”
“That did not answer me.”
“Correct.”
D’stan took a photograph.
Chem looked at her.
“For evidence?”
“I do not yet know of what.”
Sael barely heard them.
She was watching a woman at the next table.
Not because of what she wore.
Because of how she had changed it.
The woman had taken what looked like a very formal jacket and rolled the sleeves almost carelessly, then paired it with trousers that should have belonged to an entirely different outfit. Nothing matched in the strict sense.
It worked.
Sael caught Noa watching her watch.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You have that expression again.”
“What expression?”
“The one where you think I am trouble.”
Noa smiled.
“You are learning.”
“Those are not the same thing.”
“They frequently are.”
The evening loosened after that.
They kept moving.
The polished restraint gave way again to younger fashion, tighter crowds, brighter storefronts, stranger accessories, and more people willing to wear things simply because they liked them.
Chem recovered.
Sael became worse.
D’stan started participating.
At one store, D’stan found a red jacket covered in tiny metal fasteners and spent five minutes figuring out how it closed.
Sael watched her.
“You like that.”
“I am attempting to understand it.”
“That was not what I said.”
D’stan looked at her.
Sael smiled.
Noa laughed.
“Now she is doing it to you.”
D’stan put the jacket back.
“I liked the engineering.”
“Of course,” Sael said.
At another, Chem found an entire wall devoted to animal-themed accessories.
Noa found her twenty minutes later wearing a cat-shaped shoulder bag and holding a pair of cat-ear clips.
“No.”
Chem frowned.
“Why?”
“Tomorrow you are doing Lolita.”
“These could work.”
“They absolutely could not.”
“You are limiting art.”
“I am protecting it.”
Chem bought the bag.
Sael wandered into a shop dominated by black, charcoal, cream, muted green, and deep blue.
She stopped almost immediately.
Noa noticed.
“Better?”
Sael looked around.
“Yes.”
“Because there is no pink?”
“That helps.”
She moved through the racks more slowly here.
Not because she was trying to understand what the clothes were doing.
Because she was choosing.
That was different.
She picked up a jacket.
Beautiful fabric.
Wrong shoulders.
Back.
A skirt.
She liked it on the hanger.
She imagined wearing it.
No.
A blouse had a collar she loved and sleeves she did not.
She put it back.
Noa said nothing.
That was different too.
Earlier, Noa had been showing her things.
Now she was watching Sael choose.
Sael eventually reached a display of scarves.
She stopped.
One was dark enough to cut through the pink without fighting it.
She drew it from the rack.
Ran the fabric between her fingers.
Checked the weave.
Turned it over.
Folded it once.
Then walked to the nearest mirror.
Noa followed.
Sael draped it around her shoulders.
No.
She tried it another way.
Better.
Then lower, bringing the dark line across the fashion kimono where she had told Noa hours earlier that she wanted the eye interrupted.
The pink stopped dominating her.
It remained unmistakably Neokawa.
Still beautifully constructed.
Still very pink.
But now the color was part of the composition rather than the entire answer.
Sael looked at herself for several seconds.
“I want this.”
Noa smiled.
“A scarf.”
“Yes.”
“You examined dresses worth more than everything you have bought tonight.”
“Yes.”
“You interrogated someone about sleeve geometry for fifteen minutes.”
“It was an interesting sleeve.”
“You spent twenty-six minutes with a coat you did not buy.”
“It was someone else’s coat.”
“And after all that, you buy a scarf.”
Sael adjusted it again.
“It changes everything I wanted changed without ruining anything Neokawa did correctly.”
Noa’s smile widened.
There it was.
Not rejection.
Not imitation.
Choice.
D’stan walked up behind them and studied Sael in the mirror.
“You look less pink.”
“Thank you.”
“I do not think that was a compliment.”
“I am accepting it as one.”
Chem appeared carrying the cat-shaped shoulder bag.
She looked Sael up and down.
“I liked the pink.”
Sael sighed.
“Of course you did.”
Chem touched the scarf.
“This is nice.”
Sael smiled.
“It is a very good scarf.”
D’stan nodded solemnly.
“She likes good sleeves and good scarves.”
Sael ignored her.
But she kept the scarf on.
By ten, Chem had acquired three cat-related objects.
Emi had fed them four times.
D’stan had stopped pretending she was merely observing.
Sael had finally bought something she actually wanted, and more importantly, had put it on.
Noa had noticed that too.
The Neokawa kimono was still instantly recognizable.
Anyone who had watched the broadcast would know it.
Sael had not rejected the designer’s work.
She had changed its balance.
At ten-thirty, Emi announced she needed one more stop.
Noa looked horrified.
“Food?”
“Yes.”
“We have eaten constantly.”
“That does not mean correctly.”
Chem looked interested.
“What have we been doing wrong?”
“Everything.”
D’stan sighed.
“You say that every time.”
“And yet you keep following me.”
They found one final cafe.
This one was louder and younger, packed with students and late-night shoppers.
They crowded into a table near the back.
Chem set her cat-shaped bag on the empty chair beside her.
D’stan stared at it.
“It has a seat.”
“Yes.”
“It is a bag.”
“It is a cat.”
“It is shaped like a cat.”
Chem looked offended.
“You have no imagination.”
By then the television-studio formality was completely gone.
No one sat straight unless the chair required it.
No one worried about where their hands were.
No one was thinking about cameras, although they all knew photographs of the evening were already moving through the network.
Sael still wore the scarf.
One hand occasionally found it while she talked, adjusting an edge that did not actually need adjusting.
Noa noticed.
“So.”
Three green faces turned toward her.
“Tokyo?”
Sael answered first.
“I like it.”
“What part?”
Sael thought about that.
“The clothes.”
Chem made an exasperated noise.
“You knew that before we came.”
“No.”
Sael looked around the cafe.
Students.
Workers.
Shoppers.
People dressed carefully and people who looked as if they had taken the first clean thing available.
A young man in something aggressively fashionable sat beside a woman wearing what looked like her grandfather’s sweater.
A girl at another table had expensive shoes and a cheap bag covered in handwritten names.
None of it obeyed one system.
“I knew I liked fashion.”
Sael touched the dark scarf where it crossed the pink.
“I did not know how much I liked seeing people argue with clothes.”
Noa smiled.
“Argue?”
“Everyone here keeps being told what something means. Expensive. Cheap. Formal. Childish. Respectable. Rebellious. Masculine. Feminine. Fashionable. Outdated.”
She looked down at herself.
“And then they wear it differently anyway.”
D’stan looked at her.
“You have been here five hours.”
“Yes.”
“And you have developed a philosophy.”
“No.”
Chem pointed at her.
“That sounded like a philosophy.”
Sael shook her head.
“It is clothes.”
Noa lifted her drink.
“That is what people who love fashion always say right before talking about it for three hours.”
Sael smiled.
“That sounds acceptable.”
D’stan studied the scarf again.
“You know Neokawa will see photographs.”
“I hope so.”
“You changed their outfit.”
“I changed how I am wearing their outfit.”
Noa nodded.
“Very important difference.”
Sael looked down at the pink again.
“I still would not have selected this much pink.”
Emi laughed.
“There she is.”
Sael smiled.
“But they were right that I could wear it.”
Noa leaned back.
That answer pleased her more than the scarf had.
Sael had not spent the night discovering that Neokawa had been wrong.
She had spent it discovering why they might have been right and why she still got the last word.
Chem frowned.
“Cat Street has no cats.”
Emi dropped her forehead onto the table.
Noa laughed.
“You are never letting that go.”
“No.”
“The day after tomorrow will be better.”
Chem narrowed her eyes.
“Why?”
Noa took a slow drink.
“No reason.”
Emi started smiling into her cup.
Chem noticed.
“What do you know?”
“Nothing.”
“You know something.”
D’stan leaned back.
“This is why no one tells you surprises.”
“I dislike surprises.”
“You love surprises.”
“I dislike knowing there is a surprise and not knowing what it is.”
Sael looked toward Noa.
Then Emi.
Then Chem.
“Is it cats?”
Noa said nothing.
Chem went completely still.
Then she turned.
“Is it cats?”
Noa smiled.
Chem inhaled sharply.
“Is it cats?”
Emi lost control first.
She started laughing.
D’stan groaned.
Sael smiled into her drink.
Chem leaned across the table.
“Where?”
“You will find out the day after tomorrow.”
“How many?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“What kind?”
“Chem.”
“Can I hold them?”
Noa laughed.
“I am not answering any more questions.”
Chem sat back.
“This is cruel.”
D’stan looked at her.
“You have survived an evening without cats.”
“Barely.”
“You bought three.”
“Objects.”
“You bought three cat objects.”
“They are not cats.”
“Correct.”
Chem pointed at her.
“Finally, you understand.”
At eleven, Noa checked the time.
“We need to move.”
Chem looked down at the table.
“We still have food.”
Emi stared at her.
“You have been eating since six.”
“That was not dinner.”
“You had noodles.”
“Cafe noodles.”
“You had pancakes.”
“Dessert.”
“You ate half my sandwich.”
“That was yours.”
“You ate it.”
“It was available.”
Noa shook her head.
“Do not argue with alien logic.”
They left at eleven-ten.
Tokyo had not become quiet.
It had merely changed shifts.
They returned toward the hotel carrying bags, leftovers, drinks, and the debris of five hours spent stopping anywhere that looked interesting.
Sael still wore her scarf.
It cut a dark line through all that pink exactly where she had wanted one before they left the studio.
D’stan had bought less than anyone expected.
Chem had bought more cat-related merchandise than anyone thought possible without encountering a single actual cat.
Emi’s chunky heel had survived the train.
Noa had several photographs on her phone of D’stan’s moon-backed kimono taken by strangers who had asked permission.
There were already pictures of Sael online too.
Some from the broadcast, entirely pink.
Some from later, the same Neokawa fashion kimono with the scarf changing the balance.
Sael stopped once while they waited to cross a street and looked at one Noa showed her.
The difference was small.
She liked that.
She had not needed a new dress.
She had not needed to reject the one somebody else made for her.
She had needed one choice that was hers.
Noa slipped the phone away.
“Happy?”
Sael considered the word.
“With the pink?”
“With tonight.”
Sael looked around.
“Yes.”
Then she added, “And somewhat with the pink.”
Noa laughed.
Chem had a grievance.
At eleven-twenty-five, the hotel came into view.
Chem looked at Noa.
“Day after tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Cats.”
“Yes.”
“Real cats.”
“Yes.”
Chem considered that.
Then nodded.
“Tokyo is forgiven.”
D’stan looked toward Sael.
“For Cat Street?”
“No,” Chem said.
“That remains fraudulent.”
They walked into the hotel at eleven-thirty carrying shopping bags, leftover sweets, one extremely good scarf, a cat-shaped purse, several smaller feline objects, and enough stories to make the evening feel much longer than five hours.
Chem Corvos had spent an evening in one of the largest cities on Earth.
She had ridden a Tokyo train.
She had learned that unpleasant old men remained a problem centuries after humanity should have solved them.
She had also learned that Emi Tanaka possessed excellent aim and very substantial shoes.
She had explored Harajuku.
She had walked Cat Street.
She had wandered through Omotesando.
She had eaten almost continuously.
She had become recognizable on Tokyo streets while she was still walking through them.
She had purchased evidence of her obsession in multiple forms.
She had seen exactly zero cats.
As far as Chem was concerned, Tokyo still owed her.
