water, he turned toward her.
“Yuki, I enjoy spending time with you,” he said. “More than I expected to enjoy anything when I came here.”
She smiled.
“But I also know that our lives have been very different. I don’t want you to feel that you owe me anything because I’ve been kind to you.”
She looked at him carefully.
“I don’t.”
“Good. Because I have very little patience for emotional debts. The interest rates are terrible.”
She laughed, but he continued.
“If this becomes something more, I want you to choose it because you understand what you’re choosing. Not because you’re lonely, not because I’m lonely, and certainly not because I can make an excellent argument about the statistical probability of finding someone who tolerates my cooking.”
For a moment, Yuki could not think of anything to say.
She had met people who rushed to define relationships because they
