Riku is the lowest-ranked kid in this house, and he just turned seven.
Being at the bottom means you lose out on everything — especially snack time. This family has an old rule: the plate of treats gets passed around oldest first. Grandma Toyo goes first, then Mom, then his big brother, and Riku always comes last. By the time the plate reaches him, all that’s left are the broken pieces with the corners already gone. The snacks in this house are usually square dried sweets, and the corners are always the sweetest part. Riku has never once gotten to eat a corner.
In this town, hauling in fresh materials costs an absurd amount. So the bowls, the plates, everything, get made by gathering up old drifting grains and pressing them together.
“That’s not fair,” Riku said. “Why does it go by age?”
“Because age order is the fairest way there is,” Grandma Toyo said, gnawing on her corner. Every New Year she liked to say, “There, one more year between us,” as if she genuinely enjoyed the gap growing wider. Though honestly, it was hard to tell whether she cared about the order or just liked the sweet corners.
That day, Riku sat there pouting. Grandma Toyo wrapped both hands around her teacup and started talking.
“You think you’re seven, don’t you?”
“I am seven.”
“Your body’s a different story,” she said. “You, me, that teacup over there — all of us are made from grains that are unbelievably old. Nobody knows who made them, or when. Some unthinkable amount of time ago, something, somewhere, put them together and left them drifting. Gather enough of those up, and you get you.”
Riku looked down at his own palm. Suddenly it felt like something ancient.
“So how old is my body, really?”
“Can’t be counted. Too many zeroes,” Grandma Toyo laughed. “As far as material goes, you and I are about equally, ridiculously old. So show your elders some respect.”
She figured she’d steered the conversation neatly back to her own seniority. But Riku pointed at the basket in the corner of the room.
Inside it, Momo — his baby sister, who had only arrived last week — was fast asleep, snoring softly. She was eight days old.
“So Momo’s ridiculously old too, then?”
Grandma Toyo’s dentures clicked.
“Same materials, right? Tons of zeroes, right? So Momo’s just as much of an elder as you are, Grandma. Even though she only showed up eight days ago.”
Mom, mid-way through handing out sweets, burst out laughing.
Grandma Toyo glared at eight-day-old Momo for a long moment. Then she reached over, picked up the sharpest-cornered piece on the plate, and set it down beside Momo’s basket with a soft clink.
“Showing up a week ago and acting like you’re my age already.”
Momo let out a single trail of drool and grunted — maybe her way of answering on Grandma’s behalf.
In that instant, Riku snatched the second-best piece and popped it into his mouth. The corner was sweeter than he’d expected. Nobody told him to wait his turn today.