Even Miss Satomi didn’t know how difficult it was when you didn’t feel real. Even Miss Satomi didn’t know how it felt when the only real thing genuine about you was the hurt your existence caused.

Shirley felt herself generating tears.

They were surely from her mother’s subroutines, based on the reactions of others to this music. To verify, she searched her databanks to retrieve information on its composer. She paused. She checked again.

It was not a game song. Not an anime song. Not part of the classical repertoire.

There was no prior data on this piece, at all.

Katrina was improvising?

But if that was true, what program was making her weep? This was defect. This was error. This was why she had to self-destruct. She should not be feeling this. She wasn’t real.

But she could not escape the music. The despair. The hopelessness she shared as well.

Shared?

Shirley had been listening so deeply that she had lost track of Katrina. But if she was going through this now, then …

“Katrina!”

But Katrina didn’t respond. Her eyes were shut tight, her lips were trembling, her legs were shaking.

Yet, through it all, she kept playing. Katrina and her faithful violin never wavered, never blinked. And her hands were steady, her posture perfect.

It reminded Shirley of every morning at the donut shop, saluting her mother, even as she knew that her mother would not look her in the eye.

“Another red light?” Lan muttered impatiently.

“They happen.” Lan’s exceptional willpower was already fighting off Shizuka’s charm.

Shizuka let Lan free herself on her own. That way, she’d not notice she had been controlled—she’d just feel a little foggy.

Lan fidgeted and looked to the other lane, but there was another Toyota, going even slower.

“I need to get Shirley home.”

“I understand. But you promised you’d get tea with me, didn’t you?”

Lan turned red. She had no idea why she had done so, but she had promised.

“Very well, but let’s be brief.”

Shizuka glanced at Lan. She looked every bit the starship captain who had brought a family across a galaxy. But now they were in Alhambra. And maybe being a starship captain was not the best thing to be.

They pulled into the Teatopia parking lot and walked inside. Shizuka ordered her Hokkaido cream milk tea. Lan asked for a simple iced jasmine.

“What size?”

“Small.”

“Make it a large,” Shizuka countermanded. “And an order of tea eggs.”

“Shizuka—”

“They are going to be okay. They’re good girls.”

Shizuka found a quiet table away from the front door.

“Lan, set your phone to Korean, then put it down. They’ll be fine.”

Lan shook her head. “You don’t understand. Shirley disobeyed a direct order.”

“Sounds like a normal teenager.”

The server brought their drinks. Shizuka sipped her Hokkaido cream tea.