The ice cream shop was small.
Resort-adjacent, the kind of place that existed because people needed somewhere to go after the pool and before dinner — four tables, a chalkboard menu, a ceiling fan doing its best. It smelled like waffle cones and the particular sweetness of somewhere that had been making the same flavours for twenty years and saw no reason to change.
Hana had identified it from the shuttle window yesterday and had been working toward this moment since.
"Onii-san," she said, at the pool, with the focused energy of someone executing a plan. "Mama hasn't had ice cream yet. You should take her."
Kaito looked at her.
Hana looked back with the open innocent expression she deployed for operations.
"I'll watch Hana," Saki said, appearing beside her sister with the timing of someone who had rehearsed this. "You should go."
Kaito looked at Saki.
Saki looked back with the composed expression of a nine-year-old who had been planning this since the van.
He looked at Nana.
