Chapter 69: Reconnaissance
They ran.
Not far. Just far enough to let Kori and Kenzo stand there for a beat with the air of two people who had been left at the punchline of a joke and had not decided who was funnier. Kenzo glanced down at his ledger like it had turned into a stranger. "We could start with the east row. Those back alleys flood. The valves rust."
Kori nodded because the city never stopped asking for checks. But really, she couldn’t do anything but nod...
The eight of them ducked behind a lantern post that had absolutely no intention of hiding anyone. Keahi peeked around it like a cat. Hikari stood on her toes and tried to be a shadow. Ichiro adopted the posture of a statue who had grown tired of being alive. Esen pretended to read a posted event flyer about a late show. He seemed way too invested.
"They’re walking" Feris whispered.
"Incredible" Esen said. "Feet. In use."
"Stop" Arashi whispered. "Lowkey, they look good."
They did. Kenzo’s pace slowed by a half step to match Kori’s. Kori pointed out a loose grating like she had eyes for every hinge. They spoke the way people speak when they share a language built out of hard jobs and the unwilling affection those jobs breed.
They followed with all the stealth of a grand parade. Then hid behind a paper fan stall. They hid behind a street musician who was too busy keeping tempo to care. They hid inside the doorway of a photo booth where Hikari slipped, Raizen seemed ambushed but barely caught her, so she wouldn’t eat some ground. Ichiro did not change expression at all in three separate frames.
They watched Kori and Kenzo inspect a back door latch together, two sets of hands working without tripping over one another. They watched Kenzo listen to a vendor who kept saying everything was fine and Kori ask three precise questions that made everything less fine and then fixed. Despite her assertiveness, her ears looked pink – no, red! From a good distance away. They watched them share a skewer because the vendor refused to take money and Kenzo looked like a man who had been forced at gunpoint to accept a kindness. Kori didn’t eat her pastries, so... We can safely say that she was hungry.
"Are we the worst?" Raizen asked softly, "or just...?"
"Efficient" Arashi completed him.
"The worst" Lynea tried to end.
Hikari wiped a sugar flake from her cheek. "They seem happy."
"They seem not miserable" Esen corrected. "Which in the language of adults is the same as happy."
"Maybe it’s fate?" Feris started saying, only to receive 7 concerning looks.
Kori and Kenzo crossed to the next section. The eight wannabe spies bounded across the street in a choreographed near disaster. A hostess yelled at them to watch the steps. A paper balloon bumped Esen’s head and took offense by bobbing harder.
They stuck their faces into a storefront window to pretend to be interested in a row of carved good luck charms. No joke, Feris really was interested. Their reflections looked back like a different crew. Lynea saw herself and for a second did not brace for something to be taken. Ichiro saw himself and the set of his jaw softened. Arashi saw himself and decided he could scowl better if he practiced. Raizen saw the lines his mouth made when he did not have to make them.
"Left" Esen whispered.
They tracked Kori and Kenzo to a narrow side lane where deliveries came and went. Here, Glowline stopped posing and turned practical. Boxes stacked. Sturdy locks. Markings in chalk. Kenzo crouched to check the seam of a drain. Kori tested a latch and looked up because she didn’t want to look elsewhere. You know where.
Her eyes met Raizen’s, clean across the distance. She did not flinch. She did not scold. She let a sigh show and nothing more.
"Abort" Raizen said, too late to save anything.
Kenzo’s mouth tilted, the lift so small it barely counted, which for him counted as huge. He leaned toward Kori without looking away from the spies. "They think we cannot see them."
"They think a lantern post is a wall" Kori answered.
Raizen straightened and walked forward like he had been on an entirely different errand and had simply arrived here by logic. Keahi followed with a cough that tried to be casual and failed. Hikari tried to hide behind Arashi, which would have worked better if Arashi were taller.
"You all are hopeless" Kori said. It came out warm, but with a small small hint of annoyance.
Kenzo checked his ledger. "Good to know we have backup if a valve tries to escape."
Arashi did not blink. "We were just confirming your route for safety purposes."
Feris nodded far too earnestly. "We are responsible like that."
Hikari held up the photo strip. "We didn’t really plan to take this."
Kori took the little row of pictures and looked at it long enough to make all of them itch. A smile twitched and chose life. "Frame it" she said, handing it back to Hikari. "Proof that you once had a day."
Around them, The Glowline kept being... The Glowline. A street drummer found the downbeat. A vendor shouted about a special on grilled onion. Somewhere, a brass horn blew a fast melody that bragged about how high it could go. The Lighthouse up on the Spire kept its patient turn, slow and constant, reminding the city that sunsets were not shields, only beautiful.
Kenzo tapped his pencil on the ledger. "Last row" he said to Kori. "Then I promise to be a civilian."
"You really don’t know how" she said, and did not make it sound like criticism.
Raizen looked down the street that opened into the busy square where the real fun lived. Games and signs and too many decisions. He felt the itch of it. He felt the lightness of it. He felt the strange comfort of being caught and forgiven in the same breath.
"After that row" Kori turned, facing them, "you lot will eat something that is not ration bars or protein, and you will not argue with me about vegetables."
Arashi pointed at his mouth. "This mouth does not argue. It critiques."
Esen flicked his ear. "It will chew. Peacefully."
Hikari tucked the photo strip into her pocket like treasure. "What should we try first?"
"Just enjoy yourselves. Call it... Reconnaissance" Kori said, turning to follow Kenzo. Then she threw another look that clearly meant "And don’t you dare follow us again"
Raizen watched them go and could not tell if the weight in his chest was relief or something else that should not be named where other people might hear it.
"Reconnaissance" Esen repeated. "I am excellent at that."
Feris grabbed his sleeve and dragged him toward the square. "Then recon that dumpling stall before it sells out."
They jogged a few steps, then stopped, then pretended to study a menu posted on a wall because Kori had paused at the end of the lane and looked back like a teacher who knew they would run and loved them enough to let them.
Caught. Seen. Not punished. The day still held.
The drum line hit a clean fill. The crowd cheered something that did not need a reason. Above everything, the Lighthouse kept its quiet pivot, the city’s unblinking eye, and even that felt like part of the weekend.
The eight ex-spies tried to look casual at a claw machine that swallowed coins like a polite monster. Arashi refused to play on principle. Feris played on principle (We already know she was thinking about fate) and lost on principle. Hikari laughed and covered her mouth like laughter needed taming. Raizen looked up at the sky that Neoshima had borrowed for the afternoon and decided to return it later. The petal walls shifted barely, allowing more sunlight, or what could barely be called sunlight, behind the clouds.
Kori and Kenzo, at the mouth of the lane, shared a glance that knew exactly where the eight of them were and exactly what they were doing. Kenzo lifted two fingers in the smallest salute. Kori did not bother hiding her smile. Not this time.