“Which restaurant?”

“New Motsuyoshi,” she said. “It’s just over there.”

Milton saw a small building that was on the corner of the street and an even narrower alleyway. It had yellow-painted wooden facing, a stainless-steel chimney that vented the kitchen, and a helium-filled inflatable that was styled as a lantern bobbing to and fro against its tether. The interior looked too small to take more than a handful of customers, so a number of diners were eating their meals outside. They gathered in small groups in the alleyway, using chopsticks and foil plates.

Milton saw a large machine with a series of labelled buttons, perhaps sixty of them arranged down its front-facing surface, together with slots for coins and notes. “What’s that?”

“Where you order your meal. Choose what you want, press the button and pay for it, then take the ticket it gives you to the kitchen. They split it; you keep the stub and then present it when the food is ready.”

“And no tables?”

“Standing only. It won’t be too busy yet, but if you come back in a couple of hours, there’ll be even more people in the street. It doesn’t look like much, but the food is excellent.”

She was about to say something else when she stopped. She stared at the restaurant and, as Milton turned to follow her gaze, he saw an older man waiting at the entrance.

“My father,” she said.

He was a short man, aged perhaps fifty, dressed in a simple pair of loose slacks and a cream shirt. He was looking down at his phone and hadn’t seen them yet.

“You’d better go.”

She stayed where she was. “It’s ridiculous. I’m afraid of him—of my own father.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“What do I tell him?”

“Tell him everything. There’s no point in holding anything back. You’ll feel better having it off your chest.”

She swallowed and gave a nod that bore as much conviction as she could muster. “Okay.”

“Call me when you’ve finished speaking to him.”

“Where will you be?”

Milton gestured down the street to another restaurant. “There,” he said. “I’ll be able to see you.”

Sakura nodded and, after a deep breath, made her way to the entrance. Milton watched. Sakura must have called her father’s name; he turned and Milton heard him cry out in delight as he wrapped his arms around her. She hugged him back and, as she did so, the man looked out into the street and saw Milton. Their eyes met. Even from that distance, Milton could see that they had clouded with suspicion. And why not? Milton was, after all, a gaijin, a foreigner. He was a long way from the more obvious tourist areas of Tokyo, and perhaps it was obvious to the old man that he had delivered Sakura here.