"Did you come all the way here to sweet-talk me?"
"Well, you know I have a taste for sweets." Laughing, Gojo tilted his glass toward Nanami.
The cocktail was sweet, sour, and glistening amber. Nanami stared at it in silence, as if it contained the precariousness of youth.
"I'm no good at that stuff," he said.
Without any conscious attempt to synchronize, the two drained their glasses as one.
"That's sweet!"
"Delicious, ain't it?"
Their voices resonated in the subdued bar. The sorcerers' night grew long, and the sweet taste on their tongues was like all the swirling suffering of the world.