Kael's POV
The elder Renshi had, as predicted, argued about the bag. The argument had begun right from the discharge desk to the elevator, and then in the elevator she had shifted her argument from why she could carry it herself to why the bag didn't need to come home at all, as if the contents of the bag were the issue rather than the principle of carrying it.
Akira had walked beside her with the expression of someone who had grown up with this specific variety of argument and had developed the patience to let it run its course.
To avoid any other conflicts, I carried the bag.
She looked at me twice on the walk to the car with the expression she used when she had lost an argument and was reassessing her feelings about the person who had won it. By the time we reached the car she had reassessed completely and was talking about the hospital kitchen's shortcomings in the tone of someone who had decided the bag situation was irrelevant and other topics were more interesting.
