Chapter 33:

It's ten in the morning when Chloe announces, with the specific finality of someone who has already decided this conversation is over before it's started, that she's leaving.

"It's ten," I say.

"It's TEN," she agrees, zipping her bag with a flourish that suggests the zipping itself is part of a larger performance. "Ten is a number. A perfectly respectable number. Many things happen at ten."

"Hana might not be ready for you yet. Her parents might have plans this morning. People don't usually start sleepovers at ten in the morning, Chloe, sleepovers are an evening phenomenon, that's structurally what the word means—"

"There is no LAW," Chloe says, drawing the word out with theatrical weight, "stating that a sleepover must commence at a specific hour. I've checked. I've checked extensively. There's no Geneva Convention for slumber parties, Michael, no international tribunal you can appeal to, no governing body that's going to slap my wrist for early arrival—"

"I'm not appealing to a tribunal, I'm just saying it's early—"

"Hana SAID it's fine," Chloe says, swinging her bag onto her shoulder with the confidence of someone who has already won an argument that technically hasn't ended. "She said, and I'm quoting directly, 'come whenever, the chaos has no schedule,' which, if you think about it, is consistent with the entire theme, the THEME, Michael, is no rules, and you're out here trying to impose a rule, an arrival-time rule, onto an event specifically designed to reject arrival-time rules, which makes you the single most chaos-incompatible element in this entire scenario—"

"I'm not trying to impose a rule, I'm making an observation about social timing—"

"Social timing is a CONSTRUCT," she says. "A construct I am actively dismantling, today, at ten AM, with my sleepover bag and my snacks and my—" she pats her bag, checking something, "—my backup snacks, in case Yuki's intention-based dessert doesn't pan out, which, statistically, given the ingredient list, seems likely—"

From the living room, my mother laughs—not at us specifically, I don't think, but at something on the television, where a panel of people in matching blazers are gesturing animatedly at a screen full of charts, the specific genre of weekend talk show that exists to let four or five opinionated adults debate something mildly controversial about workplace etiquette or seasonal vegetable prices while the rest of the country eats breakfast.

"Mom," Chloe calls. "Tell Michael that arrival times are a construct."

"Arrival times are a construct," my mother says, without looking away from the television, her tone suggesting she's agreeing more to end the conversation than out of genuine philosophical conviction.

"See," Chloe says. "Maternal confirmation. That's basically law."

"That's not how laws work either," I say.

"It's how THIS household works," she says. "Which is the only legal system I currently recognize."

My mother mutes the television, finally, and turns to look at us properly—Chloe mid-triumph, bag already on, practically vibrating toward the door, and me standing in the kitchen doorway still holding the dish towel I'd been using to dry the pancake pan.

"Michael," she says. "Go with her."

"It's a ten-minute walk," I say. "She's done it before."

"I know," my mother says. "Go anyway."

"I don't need an escort," Chloe says, though without much real protest in it—more reflex than conviction, the kind of objection you raise because not raising it would feel strange, not because you actually mind.

"It's not about needing one," my mother says, already turning back toward the television, already reaching for the remote, the matter settled in her mind with the specific lack of drama that settles most things in this household. "It's Saturday morning, the streets aren't busy yet, and I'd feel better. Humor me."

"Fine," Chloe says, in the tone of someone graciously permitting something she was never actually going to refuse. "But he has to walk at MY pace, not his weird long-route pace, we're going directly, no detours, no four extra minutes for reasons that only make sense to him—"

"I can walk directly," I say.

"You say that, but I've SEEN you, you have a whole system, a whole geometry, you probably have a preferred route to Hana's house that adds six minutes for no reason—"

"I've never walked to Hana's house. I don't have a preferred route yet."

"Then we're establishing one today," Chloe says. "And it's going to be MY route. The direct one. The one normal people use."

My mother, still facing the television, says—mostly to herself, mostly amused—"Good luck with that," in a tone that suggests she already knows exactly how this is going to go.

I put down the dish towel.

I get my shoes.