Mei learned to walk on a Tuesday.
She had been considering it for some time — standing at the edge of things, the low shelf in her room, the kitchen table's corner, the particular low ledge of the living room sofa — with the focused assessment of someone who understood the physics of the problem and was not going to commit until she was ready.
When she was ready, she walked.
Four steps across the kitchen floor, from the cabinet to Nana's legs, without announcement or audience except for Kaito who happened to be there and made the specific sound of someone who had just witnessed something significant without any preparation for it.
Mei sat down heavily at the end of the four steps, looked at the kitchen floor, and then looked up at Kaito with the expression she had inherited directly and completely from Nana — the one that said I have just done a thing and I would appreciate appropriate acknowledgment.
He gave it.
