Mine's sleeve caught on the doorframe as she entered.
She glanced down at the crease, ignored it, and set the paper lantern in her hand on the lectern first. It was small, its round belly propped open by several bamboo strips, though not quite evenly—it leaned a little to one side. The outer layer of thin paper was old. One side of the lantern had been patched, the replacement paper lighter in color, with a fine fuzz curling up along the edge. When wind slipped in through the window crack, that strand of fuzz twitched.
Kiyo had already leaned over.
He looked first, then sniffed, and finally extended one finger.
Mine used two fingers to slide the lantern closer to herself.
Kiyo looked up. "Can it be eaten?"
Morita Yu lay sprawled across his desk without even lifting his eyelids. "Yesterday, you asked whether paper could be eaten."
"Yesterday was notice paper," Kiyo said. "Today it's a lantern."
"So?"
"The shape is different."
Someone in the classroom laughed, then swallowed it back halfway through. Zhen Shu stood in the back row with his arms folded, looking uninterested, but his eyes remained fixed on the patch on the paper lantern. Keisuke leaned against the wall, grinding a speck of lime powder on the floor beneath his shoe until it became finer and finer.
There was no flame inside the paper lantern. A grayish-white sensing paper had been stuffed where the wick should have been, cut into a shape that was not quite round, with a notch in it. Mine turned the lantern around so they could all see.
"When chakra gets close, it lights up."
Kiyo took half a step back. "Will it explode?"
"No."
"Will it burn my hand?"
Mine gave him a look. "That depends on you."
Kiyo's face