Page 138 of Mercy Written in Blood

"You don't know when you were born?"

"I know the season."

"Which one?"

"Winter."

"The year?"

"Not with certainty."

Haruki was quiet. Nearly a thousand years required time to enter the imagination. Renji had seen that calculation before — people began with history, wars, dynasties, cities before electricity, loved ones born and buried while one life continued beyond them.

Haruki looked towards the handwritten sheet of music on the wall.

"You knew the people who owned these things."

"Some of them."

"You said the bowl belonged to a friend."

"Yes."

"When?"

"Early last century."

Haruki's eyes returned to him.

"You said a long time."

"It was."

"To you?"

Renji considered the question.

"Yes."

Haruki looked around again. The apartment had changed simply because he now understood it. Every object had acquired the burden of time.

"What are you thinking?" Renji asked.

"That you weren't speaking metaphorically when you said no one knows you well anymore."

Renji's expression remained neutral. The accuracy of the observation made that difficult.

Haruki continued.

"And that you must find most conversations exhausting."

"That was already true."

"Nearly a thousand years, and you still avoid direct answers."

"I answered the important one."

Haruki nodded.