Page 23 of Bearly Out Loud

The man who quoted her Empress Kira work with the specificity of someone who’d watched it multiple times. Who brought food from a kitchen that didn’t exist and tried to lie about it in front of a woman who’d already clocked the lie. Who looked at her through the booth glass during her Yua performance like the ground had shifted under his feet and he was deciding whether to fight it or fall.

A man that bad at lying is not a man capable of hiding stolen IP.

But she didn’t know him. Not yet. Not enough to stake her grandfather’s legacy on a gut read and good honey.

She picked up her phone.

Nari:He brought me honeycomb.

Takumi:What kind

Nari:The kind from a personal rooftop beehive.

Takumi:FROM WHERE?

Nari:His. Personal. Beehive. On top of his building. In Manhattan.

Takumi:HE HAS PERSONAL BEEHIVES?

Nari:On the roof. Of a forty-story building. He harvests the honey himself.

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. A seventeen-second voice note arrived. Nari played it. Takumi’s voice, escalating:

“He keeps BEES. On a ROOFTOP. And he’s bringing you the HONEY. Nari. NARI. I’m calling National Geographic. This is a courtship ritual. This man is courting you with artisanal honey products from his personal apiary and you’re telling me this over TEXT? This deserves a PHONE CALL. This deserves a DOCUMENTARY.”

Nari pressed the phone against her forehead and laughed. The kind of laugh that loosened the knot in her chest, because Takumi was ridiculous and Takumi was also—annoyingly, persistently—not wrong.

Nari:It’s not a courtship ritual. He’s a producer supporting a lead actress.

Takumi:Producers send fruit baskets. This man is sending you THE LABOR OF HIS BEES.

Nari:You’re being dramatic.

Takumi:I am being OBSERVATIONAL. There’s a difference. One is me. The other is also me but accurate.

She set the phone down. Picked up the pad thai. Ate standing in her kitchen because the floor was covered in evidence and she wasn’t ready to put it away.

The next sessionwas on Thursday. Scene twenty-two—Yua’s first alliance with the Second Gate Guardian. Technical work, not emotional. The kind of recording that required precision rather than vulnerability, which meant Nari could stay in her head instead of cracking herself open for an audience.

Dojin was in the control room when she arrived. Back corner. Coffee in hand. The chair that was apparently his permanent residence now, despite running a company that spanned animation, gaming, and live entertainment across three continents.

She noticed things.

The way he leaned forward when she started a take—small, unconscious, his body tilting toward the glass like a plant toward sun. The way his eyes tracked her mouth when she spoke between scenes, then snapped away when she looked over. The way he positioned himself between her and the door whenever anyone entered the control room—not blocking, not obvious, but consistent enough that she’d started mapping it.

He’s doing it again. The door thing. He shifted left when the audio tech came in. Moved right when the animator brought storyboards. Always between me and the entrance. Like a very polite, very large, very expensive wall.

She also noticed this: the way he watched her perform. Not the casual attention of an executive checking on an investment.Not the technical focus of a producer evaluating delivery. He watched her the way she ate good sushi—like nothing else existed in the room, like the world had narrowed to one thing and he’d decided that thing was worth his complete, undivided, frankly intimidating attention.

That’s either the most flattering thing a man has ever done in my presence or a workplace concern. Possibly both.

She filed that.

Between takes, Priya called a note. “More weight on ‘oath.’ Yua’s making a promise she knows she can’t keep. I need to hear the cost.”

Nari adjusted. Found the heaviness. Let the word sit in her chest before she released it. The take was better. Priya said nothing, which meant it was good.

In the control room, Dojin’s coffee cup hadn’t moved in twenty minutes.