The next morning, there was an extra empty tray beside the sink.
When Kiyo saw it, he first circled halfway around the sink, as if confirming whether he had dreamed the tray into existence during a nightmare last night. Four shallow trays were already enough of a headache, and now there was another one. Its mouth faced upward, holding no water, only reflecting a patch of gray-white sky beyond the window paper.
"It looks like it means trouble," Kiyo said.
Morita Yu set down his schoolbag. "Trays don't mean good or ill."
"That's because you don't understand trays yet," Kiyo said seriously. "They increase homework."
Che stood by the door and did not laugh right away. He saw that the fifth tray was not beside the first four, but set off toward the other end of the sink, linked to the light falling in through the window by a thin line. Yesterday's cracked tray was still there, its crack pressed beneath the water like a stroke that had not been erased. Today's empty tray, however, was far too clean—so clean that no one knew what they were supposed to put inside it.
When Takuya came in, he held a stack of blank slips. He did not begin the lesson immediately. He merely placed the slips on the lectern, then pushed the fifth tray a little closer.
"Yesterday's question was, 'Who touched it?'" he said. "Today's question isn't for you to answer."
Kiyo's eyes lit up. "So can we cancel it?"
"No."
The light in Kiyo's eyes went out quickly.
Takuya wrote four words on a slip and pressed it beneath the empty tray: Who saw it?
The classroom fell quiet for a moment.
Those four words were unlike the previous questions. Who kept it, who could see it, whether it