The husband loses money gambling or in a business deal. The lender offers to erase the debt if the husband allows his wife to spend a weekend with him. To "make it fair," the wife of the lender participates in the exchange.

And sometimes, late at night, Kaito would take out the copy he’d altered and smile at the little extra panel he’d added—the window and the steam—and keep it there, a breath preserved in paper, a small exchange that had quietly become their own.