Page 98 of Bearly Out Loud

Hana laughed. Wet. Broken. Real. “He cried?”

“Blamed dust.”

“The room is hermetically sealed.”

“That’s what Takumi said.”

Hana wiped her face with her sleeve. Sniffed hard. Looked at the two of them—at Nari’s hip resting against Dojin’s thigh, his hand settled at the small of her back, neither of them having arranged it.

“You two are disgusting.”

“We’re supportive.” Nari didn’t move.

“You’re supportive while being disgusting. Those aren’t mutually exclusive.” She squared her shoulders. Picked up her laptop bag. The armor was going back on—but the seams were wider now. Light got through. Music and family and a room full of strangers crying over her work had pried apart what Vance Reeves had sealed shut.

“Hana.” Dojin caught her arm. Gentle. He reached into his jacket and held out a second carving. Smaller than Suki’s. A bear with its head tilted, listening. Cherry wood. Stellan’s hand.

Hana stared at it. Her lip trembled once. She took it. Closed her fist. Pressed her fist to her breastbone.

“Tell Dad—” She stopped. Started again. “Tell him I’m listening again.”

She walked down the corridor. Headphones on. Back straight. The carving gripped tight.

Dojin watched her go. The hallway was too bright—fluorescent, institutional, the wrong light for a moment like this.His sister walked into it carrying a carved bear and a name on a credit roll and the first piece of herself she’d reclaimed since the man she trusted had stripped her bare.

Nari’s hand found his. Laced their fingers. Squeezed.

“She’s going to be okay.”

He brought their joined hands to his mouth. Kissed her knuckles. “She already is.”

The brownstonethat evening was loud.

Not a formal dinner—Suki hadn’t organized one, and the absence of ceremony was its own statement. People came because they wanted to. The Wixx kitchen expanded to hold them the way it had held three decades of gatherings: noisily, generously, with Akemi at the stove producing dishes that outnumbered the guests three-to-one because she had inherited Hideo’s belief that love was best communicated through surplus.

Nari was holding court at the kitchen table with a glass of wine and a monologue about the screening that had been running for twelve uninterrupted minutes.

“—and when Sora draws the gate sword? The animation on that blade? Priya, you absolute genius. That light refraction was Grandpa’sexactspecification from the 1992 sketches. I saw his brushwork in the movement. You translated ink into motion and I need you to understand that I will never recover from this, and also, you’re invited to every family dinner until I die.”

Priya, at the end of the table with a beer she’d earned, raised it. “The animation team did the heavy lifting.”

“The animation team is also invited. I’m expanding the guest list permanently.” Nari turned to Dojin, who was leaning against the kitchen counter with a coffee, watching her.Watchingher.Not his phone. Not the room. Her. With a focus so complete, it bordered on devotion, and he would never call it that and she would never stop noticing. “We need a bigger table.”

“I’ll have one built.”

“You can’t solve every domestic problem with carpentry.”

“I’m a bear. Building things is how I cope.”

Takumi, from across the kitchen: “Put that on a dating profile. ‘Bear shifter CEO. Builds furniture when emotional. Has personal beehives. Names his sourdough.’ You’d go viral.”

“Please don’t put my mate on dating apps.” Nari pointed her wine glass at Takumi.

“Theoretical.”

“Theoretically, I will destroy your mixing board.”

“That’s where mysoullives, Nari.”