Yamato gnaws on his lip, gilded eyebrows knit in tormented contemplation.

Hiroaki loosens his tie, fingers functioning drowsily. He lapses into the chair at the table in the silent apartment that doesn't remind him of anything but cardboard boxes and cold coffee. It's been a long day, and it'll be an even longer sleepless night.

"Dad," Yamato says, "are you going to remarry someday?"

Hiroaki looks his son and sees the only face that he will see in the claustrophobia-provoking apartment, the only face that he sees clearly because he doesn't really care for any other nameless ones. He sees his son and he sees the bleak wall clock telling him it's two in the morning and he just now is home from work, identifies his son's handwriting on the note anchored by the remote.

"No," the recently divorced father replies. "It will just be you and me from now on."

And he sees the unsteadiness in Yamato's young face withdraw, sees that he stops harassing his lip.