Just seeing them made Aya's fingers ache from the memory of her own thousand cranes. The chains of paper birds were draped everywhere in the apartment, except for Hiro's sacred feed-watching chair.
He was slumped there, wearing a hoverball sweatshirt and rubbing his eyes. Green tea was swirling from the spigots of the hole in the wall, filling the air with the scents of cut grass and caffeine.
"Could you get those?" he asked.
"Good morning to you, too." She gave him a sarcastic bow and went to fetch the tea. Two cups, of coursefor him and Ren, not her. Aya couldn't stand green tea, but still.
"Morning, Aya-chan," Ren called groggily from the couch. He sat up, a flock of squashed cranes unpeeling from his back. Empty bottles were strewn everywhere, and a cleaning drone was vacuuming up the remains of food and spilled bubbly.
She handed Ren his tea. "Were you guys celebrating something, or just reliving bubblehead days?"
"You don't know?" Ren laughed. "Well, you better congratulate Hiro-sensei."
"Hiro-sensei? What?"
"That's right." Ren nodded. "Your brother finally cracked the top thousand."
"The top thousand?" Aya blinked. "Are you kidding?"
"Eight hundred and ninety-six, at the moment," Hiro said, staring at the wallscreen. Aya saw the number on it now: 896 in meter-high numerals. "Of course, my own sister ignores me. Where's my tea?"
"But I didn't " Aya's exhaustion turned dizzy-making for a moment. This morning was the first in ages that she hadn't checked Hiro's face rank. And he'd hit the top thousand!
If he could stay there, he'd be invited to Nana Love's Thousand Faces Party next month.
Hiro, like most boys, had a major crush on Nana Love.
"I'm sorry last night was really busy. But that's fantastic!"
He lazily stretched out a finger, pointing at the teacup in her hand.