The dinner was, by every measurable standard, excellent.
Satsuki's father had coordinated with the precision his binder had promised, and the catering moved through the reception with the invisible efficiency of something managed by someone who had spent forty years making sure complicated things ran on time. The tables were right. The food was warm when it should be warm. The timing between courses was exactly the timing between courses.
He stood at the edge of the reception hall at one point during the main course and surveyed the room with the quiet satisfaction of a man whose work was complete and had been done correctly.
Satsuki appeared beside him.
"Well?" she said.
"Adequate," he said, which in his register meant excellent, and she knew it, and they stood together for a moment in the comfortable parallel of people who expressed satisfaction the same way.
"You did well," she said.
"Saki ran a tight operation," he said. "I had good material to work with."
