The next night Emily came back before midnight. No snow this time, only wet streets and a sky the color of old metal. She walked in fast like she had been holding her breath since the hospital doors and only now could let it go.

You’re here again, Kenji said.

Yeah, she said. You’re open.

He nodded toward her chair. Same seat.

She sat. Her shoulders sagged. Her hands were shaking a little. Not from cold. From something inside.

Rough night, he said.

She let out a dry laugh. You could say that.

Kenji dropped daikon, tofu, and chikuwa into the pot. The broth moved in slow circles like a calm heart. He did not ask questions. He knew some people talk better if no one tells them to.

Emily rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and said I lost a patient.

Kenji waited.

He was twenty two, she said. OD. Fentanyl. They brought him in already blue. We worked him for twenty minutes. We tried. We did everything. His mom was outside the room screaming please please please. And I am standing there holding a bag of fluids like that will change anything.

Her hands pressed flat to the counter now.

I told her we did our best, Emily said. I lied. I always say that. Sometimes it’s true. Tonight it wasn’t. I was on hour eleven. My head felt like I was underwater. I dropped a syringe. I had to check the chart twice because the numbers blurred. My best would have been better three hours earlier. That’s the truth.

Kenji set the first bowl in front of her. She didn’t touch it yet.

You did not kill him, Kenji said.

That doesn’t matter, Emily whispered. He died in my hands. My hands. She looked down at them. They were steady now, resting on the counter, palm side up like she was waiting to read a fortune.

Kenji filled a small cup with tea and slid it over. Drink.

She lifted it and took a slow breath of the steam before sipping. Her shoulders dropped half an inch. I hate this part, she said. After. When it’s quiet. During the code I know what to do. After the code I don’t know who I am.

Kenji understood that. He had lived through fire and knew the way silence can feel louder than sirens.

Eat, he said.

Emily took a bite of daikon. Closed her eyes. Breathed out. Warm spread across her face like color returning.

How do you do that, she asked. Make something that feels like it forgives you.

Kenji shook his head. I don’t forgive. The broth forgives. I just keep it warm.

Emily smiled a little. You always talk like that?

Always, Kenji said.

She laughed. Good.

They ate for a while. She didn’t rush. He noticed the way she relaxed with each swallow. He was used to watching people come back to themselves slowly, like waking from too deep a sleep.

After a few minutes she said My brother died like that kid. Same way. Not the same day. But same way. I used to think I could save him. I used to think if I answered every text and picked him up every time he disappeared and let him sleep on my couch I could fix him. I thought I could keep him between me and the world like a shield.

Kenji listened.

She wiped her mouth with her sleeve. He overdosed in my apartment, she said. I was home. I was asleep in the next room. I woke up too late. So when kids come in like that I don’t see them. I see him. And I am right back there on the floor shaking him and calling 911 and saying please wake up Daniel please wake up please.

Her voice cracked on his name. She pressed her lips together hard.

Kenji poured her more tea. He didn’t say I’m sorry. He had learned long ago that I’m sorry often makes grief feel small, and her grief was not small.

Instead he said He loved you.

Emily let out a short breath that was almost a laugh and almost a sob. Yeah. He did. Idiot.

Kenji nodded. Idiot is sometimes another way to say family.

Yeah, she said. Yeah.

Outside a siren passed again and faded. The streetlights reflected in the wet road and made the night look like it was made of glass.

Do you sleep, Kenji asked.

Not well, Emily said. You?

Sometimes. He stirred the pot. Most nights I listen.

To what.

To the building, Kenji said. It talks to me. The walls creak when the air gets cold. The pot shifts when someone is about to walk in. The sign outside hums louder some nights. It’s like it knows who needs to sit down.

Emily gave him a sideways look. You think I needed to sit down?

Yes.

She snorted. Fair.

He refilled her bowl without asking. She took it without refusing.

Then she asked quietly Can I ask you something, Kenji.

Yes.

Why are you here. Why this. Why this shop.

He watched the broth. The surface moved in slow rings. He picked up an egg and lowered it in with careful hands.

My wife, he said, used to say that I was good at feeding people who didn’t know they were hungry. She died. After that I could not work in a normal kitchen anymore. Too loud. Too fast. Too much noise where people pretend they are not hurting.

Emily looked at him. I’m sorry about your wife.

Thank you.

How did she die, Emily asked.

Fire, he said. One word. Simple. True. He didn’t add the parts he did not say to most people. He did not say smoke in his lungs for weeks after. He did not say I could not save her. He did not say I still hear her voice by the stove when the broth settles. He did not say I am still in that room some nights.

Emily didn’t push. She just nodded.

She said I don’t know how to live like this forever. I don’t know how to keep doing the job and not fall apart.

Kenji wiped a small ring of broth from the counter with the corner of a cloth. You will not live like this forever, he said. You will live like this tonight. Then you will live like this tomorrow. And slowly it will change when you are not looking.

That sounds like lying, she said.

It is not lying, he said. It is patience.

Emily let that sit. Then she said I don’t like patience.

No one does at first, Kenji said.

She laughed. That’s true.

She finished the last piece of tofu. Her color had come back. Her face was still tired but no longer shaking.

Can I leave something here, she asked.

Yes.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her hospital badge. Daniel’s photo was still tucked behind hers. She slid it out, just the photo. Her brother. Young. Smiling like he had plans.

Can you keep him, she asked. Just for a little while. I don’t want to put him in a drawer at home. And I can’t keep carrying him in my pocket. It feels like I’m breaking him.

Kenji held the photo in both hands. He bowed his head a little. I will keep him warm, he said.

Emily swallowed, hard.

He took a clean chopstick, snapped it neatly in half, and used a piece of twine from the postcard box. He made a tiny stand and set the photo near the flowers and the coin. The small shrine of the counter.

There, he said. He can watch the night.

Emily covered her mouth with her hand. For a second she just breathed.

Then she said Thank you.

You are welcome.

She stood slowly like someone much older than her body and put on her coat.

Will you come back, Kenji asked.

Yeah, she said. I think so. I don’t know why but yeah.

He nodded. The broth will be waiting.

She smiled at that. You always say that.

Because it is always true.

Emily laughed under her breath. Good night, Kenji.

Good night, Emily.

When the door closed the cold came in for a moment and then left. The shop felt quiet again, but not empty.

Kenji turned to the counter. The coin. The flowers. Miles’s note. The photo of Daniel. All of them together like candles that did not need flame.

He thought about what Emily had said. I am scared that if I stop moving I will fall apart.

He whispered into the steam I know.

Then he reached for a blank postcard from the box and wrote in his slow careful English

Dear Emily
You are allowed to rest

He did not sign it. He placed it under her brother’s photo so she would see it next time.

The pot kept its low sound. The kind that says stay. The kind that says you are here now. The kind that says you do not have to be strong every second.

Outside the night shifted, soft and heavy. The street was empty. The air tasted like metal and snow.

And in the small light of Night Oden, warmth kept burning for whoever was still awake in the city and did not know yet that they needed saving.