"Why does she turn young again when she's sleeping?" Minji asked, then started coughing. 

Yuki passed Rhett's little sister another throat lozenge before refilling both their popcorn cups from the bowl. In the darkened room, the light of the screen shone brighter as they watched a Ghibli movie. The main character, a teenage girl, had been cursed to become an old woman, but as she slept her appearance reverted.

"Maybe it's because she's not thinking about the curse, or it doesn't affect her when she's asleep," Yuki answered, snuggling back under the blankets on the couch. 

Although Minji had recovered from her bout with the cold, she still had a cough. Yuki had brought over some okayu, rice porridge, and they'd eaten it before settling in with a cozy film.

"I think it's because he can see the real her," Minji said sleepily. 

Yuki watched the younger girl's eyelids sag and reached over to tuck the blankets around her. Winter had struck with ferocity, bringing a freezing rain that shut down schools for the day. Not wanting to be holed up in her room, she'd called the Tudor's landline and asked if she could visit. 

Rhett had gone with Mr. Tudor to his work, so it'd been a girl's day with Mrs. Tudor and Minji—helping iron quilt squares, listening to Minji's piano piece, and now movie time. Yuki much preferred it to one with Era and Sophia.

She smoothed Minji's soft hair back with her hand, when Minji whispered, "I wish I had a sister like you."

Yuki smiled. "You already call me 'Unnie', don't you?"

"That's different," Minji protested, waking up a little even though her perfect peach blossom eyes threatened to shut. "I mean a real sister and you could live here and we'd do things together all the time."

"You'd get tired of me," Yuki teased. "But I do wish I had a sister like you too."

Minji closed her eyes. "Brothers can be a pain."

"They can, but they're fun in a different way." After watching several more minutes of the movie, Yuki dimmed the lights so Minji could nap undisturbed and crept upstairs.

She found Rhett making a sandwich in the kitchen.

"Want one?" he asked, somehow not surprised to find her at his house. "The ice storms are supposed to get worse so my parents went to stock up on groceries."

"Sure, I'll take one," Yuki said, sitting down on a stool next to the counter. "Want help?"

"Please. I can never cut the cheese evenly." Rhett slid the cutting board across the counter and handed her the knife. 

Determined to make the prettiest cheese slices possible, Yuki lined up the block under the blade. Slowly now...

Rhett stared at her.

"Could you not?" Yuki growled at him. "I can't work under these conditions."

"Sorry, sorry." He turned his back on her to wash lettuce at the sink. "I zoned out. You'd think cheese cutting is a secret art or something."

"Of course it is." The knife did not want to cut through, but Yuki made an even cut of ideal thickness. "Though speaking of secrets, I need your help with something."

The bread bag crackled as Rhett pulled out four pieces. "The great sage of cheese comes to me for help? I am but a humble bread peasant." He bowed in mockery.

Yuki frowned. "Rhett, I'm being serious." 

He immediately stopped smiling and gave her his full attention, putting the sandwich-crafting ingredients aside. "You know I'll help you with anything, but I think this time it's fair if I get something in return." At her questioning glance, he said, "I ask one question and you give me nothing but the truth."

"I already told you that you're my Truth."

Rhett leaned on the counter, closing the distance between them. Today he looked like himself with grey eyes behind glasses. "I'm not asking about that, Yuki," he said in a low voice. 

Despite his ever-gentle demeanor, Yuki thought she saw a glimmer of something intense. A severity that stopped her like a deer in the headlights. But she had to know about Era and Pearl. She had to know what they had to do with her and why Era seemed intent on connecting her to a dead girl.

"You first," Rhett said.

Yuki took a deep breath. "Era keeps mentioning that I remind her of a friend, Pearl Iwasaki. I need to know anything you can tell me about her."

Fingernails tapping the counter in a rhythm, Rhett lowered his head in thought. "I can see the resemblance," he said. "Or at least why Era thinks the two of you are alike." He paused. "Where's Minji, by the way?"

"She's asleep downstairs," Yuki said, flipping the cheese slice over. "We'd been watching a movie and she dozed off. Probably still needs her rest. How do you think I'm like Pearl?"

Rhett held up a finger. "You're both Japanese."

Yuki scoffed, almost laughing.

"Hold on, Snowflake. I'm starting with the basics." Clearing his throat which still rasped at times, he continued, "Two, you're both very extroverted, straightforward people. You're not afraid to go after what you want. Three, you have influential parents. Finally and most importantly" —Rhett held up four fingers— "you both have problems, and Era thinks she can fix you."

At Yuki's answering silence, he sighed. "Different problems though. Overall I think yours isn't quite as harmful, but that might mean she's more confident about fixing you."

"What's with the fixing?" Yuki asked quietly.

Rhett continued drumming on the marble surface. For some reason, Yuki found it comforting. "You're telling me you don't know what Era's dreams are? What she wants to do for college and a career?"

Like a fisherman with a torn net, Yuki cast back into her memory for anything she and Era had discussed about their futures and came up empty. "I guess I never asked her."

"Era wants to study psychology. Pearl wanted to be a model. You wanted to be a veterinarian, an astronaut, then a doctor." Rhett took off his glasses to inspect a smudge. "The last one seemed to be less your idea, more of a wish to make your parents happy at the time."

"Stalker," Yuki muttered. "I still need to know about Pearl though. How did she die?"

"Car crash," Rhett said simply, as if it weren't a mystery at all.

"But Ethan said nobody knew for sure." Yuki frowned. Maybe Ethan hadn't been honest. He could've decided to play the game after all. Why else would he have agreed to go with Sophia to winter formal?

 "If you want solid proof, you won't find anything." Rhett continued to fiddle with his glasses, looking uncomfortable. "But if you're someone who notices the behavioral patterns of other people, it clicks together. Era and Pearl attended parties together but Era always stayed sober to be the designated driver."

Funny. Yuki hadn't been to any parties. Either Era hadn't invited her, or she didn't go either. This felt like peeking into someone's private journal, but Yuki couldn't bring herself to shut the pages. "Then what happened?"

Rhett shut his eyes completely, as if he couldn't bear to read the words as he wrote them out for her. "It was always a joke of Pearl's to say she'd get Era to drink something besides water someday. Then there was a night where I noticed Pearl was...sober, and Era wasn't." He spoke slower and slower, as if the words had to be tugged out of his mouth.

"I think I'm the last person who saw them both alive, walking to the car together. Pearl's car. I turned around after that, but if I'd watched for even a minute longer..."

"You'd know who got into the driver's seat." Chest constricting, Yuki once again watched the blink of the clock to midnight. She couldn't remember much beside that and limping along the road in the rain. So much of it had blurred with her nightmares that even that might not be real.

Rhett nodded, his face drawn. "Pearl never had a funeral. She's labeled as a missing person, even though Era disappeared for a couple weeks at the same time. No one questions. No one digs. We leave it be."

"But that has to be murder right? If Era was the driver?" Rhett's story sounded like the accurate account, but it nagged at Yuki. Was she really just Era's replacement for a lost friend?

"I'm guessing it's manslaughter," he answered, opening his eyes again. "And if your next question is whether Era would intentionally hurt you, the answer is no. I think she's looking for closure and being your friend is the best way she knows how."

A burden lifted from Yuki's shoulders, but it almost didn't seem worth it seeing how Rhett's now sagged. "I didn't know you were a party guy."

"I went to make sure my friends didn't make bad decisions," Rhett replied. "And you know as well as I do that the world isn't about what you know, it's who. Zenith is full of who's." He sighed, rolling out a tomato and a couple apples. "My mom still worries though."

"She just loves you a lot." Yuki eyed the apples. Maybe she'd cut one into a swan for Minji. It'd always been a special tradition just between her mother and her. Not for her father or her brothers—only her. She picked up the knife and sliced off another piece of cheese.

"My turn," Rhett said. "And I'm not going to beat around the bush because I know this is an awkward question to ask. Like, I don't want to be weird at all or make you uncomfortable."

The fact he prefaced it made it worse, but Yuki kept her mouth shut. She grabbed an apple, hoping this wouldn't be an instance of the dreaded "is there anyone you have a crush on?" question. She forgot though, that Rhett was nothing if not unique and his question would be equally so.

Perfectly serious, he asked "Yuki, do you have a terminal illness...like cancer?"

"What—" Yuki took her focus off the apple for a split second but that was all it took.

She looked down to where the knife had slipped and nicked her finger, blood already staining the golden flesh of the apple.

Chapter Word Count: 1676