"A remarkable gathering," he said pleasantly. "The Hero of Light, my dear sister, the young heir and our distinguished guest from Tenebria." His gaze settled on Nathan last and stayed there a beat longer than the others. "May I join you?"
The silence that followed Takehiko's question had its own texture.
Haruka's expression carried the particular stillness of someone buying themselves a half second to compose an appropriate response to something they hadn't fully prepared for. Ryuuki's hand had shifted almost imperceptibly toward his hip — not reaching for the sword, simply knowing where it was, the automatic spatial awareness of someone whose body had logged a potential variable.
Nathan stabbed a piece of something resembling tuna with his chopstick and ate it.
Takehiko waited with the patient ease of someone entirely comfortable inside a silence that was working in his favor.
