Garden Nobody Waters — entry II. Corrections are never only about grammar here.
Reyneese had left the paper behind by accident.
That alone would have made it interesting. Reyneese did very little by accident. Even her absent-mindedness had structure. The page sat near the candle tray, written in a neat hand that had become more elegant over the last months and was therefore, in Shiya’s opinion, still full of crimes.
Hiyori found her staring at it.
「またその顔（かお）をしている。」 — You are making that expression again.
Shiya did not look up.
「表情（ひょうじょう）はいくつも持（も）っているわ。」 — I have many expressions.
「でもその顔（かお）は、誰（だれ）かがあと少（すこ）しで正（ただ）しくできた時（とき）の顔（かお）よ。」 — But that one is the expression you make when someone has almost done something properly.
That was close enough to insult and close enough to understanding that Shiya allowed it.
The line on the paper was simple. Beautiful, even. Reyneese had written it the way she wrote most things: with patience, with clarity, with a kind of earned tenderness that made ordinary words feel as though they had been washed and set carefully in sunlight.
It was also imprecise.
Shiya picked up the brush.
「本人（ほんにん）がいなくても、書（か）き換（か）えるのね。」 — You rewrite her even when she is not here.
「いない時（とき）こそよ。時間（じかん）が節約（せつやく）できるもの。」 — Especially when she is not here. It saves time.
Hiyori moved closer. Not enough to crowd. Just enough to read.
Reyneese’s version had chosen softness where force would have been truer. Not cruelty. Never cruelty. But truth with a cleaner edge. Shiya crossed out one character, replaced another, shortened the final clause, and let the sentence breathe in a different register.
Now it stood.
Now it knew what it meant.
「優（やさ）しさは曖昧（あいまい）さの言（い）い訳（わけ）にならない。」 — Kindness is not an excuse for vagueness.
Hiyori read the revised line once, then again.
“She will notice.”
“Good.”
“She will also know it was you.”
Shiya set the brush down with surgical care. “Better.”
That drew a quiet laugh from Hiyori. Not loud. Not warm. But real enough to mark.
The basement smelled faintly of ink and cooling stone. Outside the little pool of candlelight, Shadowlily’s walls held their silence like a grudge. There were nights when the place felt almost holy. Not because it was clean. Certainly not because it was safe. But because it had become a vessel for the things broken women could not carry alone.
Tonight it felt like a classroom.
“You are harder on her than you are on anyone else,” Hiyori said.
“Incorrect.”
“No. You are merely more selective with where the blade lands.”
Shiya leaned one hip against the table. “Reyneese already has warmth. Clarity will not injure her.”
“That was not what I said.”
Shiya’s eyes narrowed. Hiyori’s talent for stepping around verbal defenses without appearing to move was deeply irritating and therefore, occasionally, useful.
“You mean I care whether she improves.”
“I mean you care enough to be exact.”
Shiya’s gaze went back to the paper.
There it was. The real offense. Not that Reyneese needed correction. Everyone did. Even the dead. Even the ancient. Even women who had turned their own ruin into architecture. The problem was that Shiya had begun to care about the finish.
Care was always more dangerous than skill. Skill could be compartmentalized. Care insisted on seepage.
“She is reaching for N1-level discipline,” Shiya said at last. “If she wants beauty, she may earn beauty after precision.”
“And if she wants comfort?”
“Then she may go to someone else.”
That answer should have ended the matter. Instead Hiyori tilted her head, studying her as if she were a system showing hairline fracture under pressure.
“You say that as though she has not already done exactly that,” Hiyori said.
Shiya said nothing.
Reyneese, of course, went to everyone. That was part of the problem with her. She did not distribute herself cheaply; she distributed herself with method. Tea for one person. Silence for another. Practical help for a third. The correct pressure at the correct angle. She made care look effortless because people only ever saw the receiving end of it.
Shiya, infuriatingly, had begun to notice the structure.
Hiyori’s gaze dropped to the revised sentence again.
“You didn’t make it colder.”
“No.”
“Only cleaner.”
“Yes.”
Hiyori smiled with one corner of her mouth. “So this is tenderness, from you.”
Shiya’s expression did not alter, which was answer enough.
“Do not romanticize correction,” she said. “It becomes sloppy when people do that.”
“Everything becomes sloppy when people do that.”
“Exactly.”
They stood with the page between them like evidence. Not of guilt. Of investment.
At last Hiyori touched the lower edge of the paper and turned it slightly back toward the candle.
“Will you tell her why you changed it?”
“No.”
“Will she ask?”
“Probably.”
“And what will you say?”
Shiya’s smile returned. Brief. Needle-fine.
「もっと良（よ）くできるから、直（なお）しただけ。」 — I corrected it because it could be better.
Hiyori’s eyes sharpened with something close to affection and too intelligent to be harmless.
“Cruel.”
“Accurate.”
“She will hear what you mean anyway.”
That was the risk, of course.
Reyneese heard more than most people, especially when silence was doing the speaking.
Shiya blew gently on the wet ink, then set the page aside to dry.
「甘（あま）やかすより、立（た）てる言葉（ことば）を渡（わた）すほうがいい。」 — Better to give someone words that let them stand than to indulge them.
Hiyori answered without delay.
「だから彼女（かのじょ）は、あなたの訂正（ていせい）を捨（す）てない。」 — That is why she never throws your corrections away.