Hiro pushed off the doorframe. "Anything?"
"Maybe." I flipped through pages of architectural sketches—buildings that didn't exist yet, notes about load-bearing walls and sustainable materials, little doodles in the margins. Class notes. Personal thoughts about missing her friends in London, about feeling homesick, about worrying she wasn't good enough to make it in her program.
Normal things.
Then I found recent entries among the sketches.
My hands steadied as I read them.
Two weeks ago:
Couldn't sleep. Went to get water around 2am and saw Sako coming out of Mami's room. Weird. What could he have needed at that time? Are they. . .messing around?
Ten days ago:
Sako again. Mami's room. Past midnight. They were whispering but stopped when they heard me in the hall. I waited. Mami came out and said he was fixing her window latch.
At 1am?
Five days ago:
This is the fourth time I've seen Sako go to her room late at night. When I asked Mami about it thismorning, she said I must have been dreaming. But I wasn't dreaming. I know what I saw.
Are they in love?
Three days ago:
Saw Mami with a phone—not her regular one. Black, cheap-looking. When she noticed me watching, she shoved it in her pocket so fast she almost dropped it. Her face went pale. She didn't say anything. Just smiled and changed the subject.
I don’t think this is about love.
I'm scared.
I want to talk to Reo. He would know what to do. But if I'm wrong, I could ruin Mami's life. And Sako has always been kind to me.
Something is wrong. I can feel it.
Maybe I'll go to Kenji.
My throat tightened.
"Hiro." My voice came out rough. "You need to see this."
He crossed the room and read over my shoulder.
I felt his body go rigid beside me.
"Sako?" He sneered. "Not fucking Sako."
"Hina knew. Or at least suspected they were up to something." I closed the journal carefully. "That's what I saw on the island—not guilt. It was worry. The weight of suspecting people she loved and not knowing what to do about it."
"She was trying to protect everyone."
"Including Mami." I set the journal back exactly as I'd found it, smoothing the covers and adjusting the pen. "Poor Hina. She's been carrying this alone."
Hiro's jaw was tight. "And Sako's been slithering into Mami's room in the middle of the night. Whispering and plotting."
The clues clicked together in my mind like puzzle pieces finally finding their mates.
