Nakane was serious about bread. Whenever a new bakery opened in the shopping district, she’d scout it out before the day was done.

That’s exactly what she did the morning Jumon-do appeared.

The modest sign had materialized overnight in a space that had been vacant — construction barriers up the day before, and now a fully dressed shopfront, apparently finished in a single night.

The first thing that struck her inside was that the place didn’t feel new.

The wall hooks were positioned with uncanny precision. The display shelf sat at just the right angle for your fingertips to graze it naturally. The paper menu had faded slightly at the edges. A faded menu on opening day — that was odd. Nakane noticed it, then let the smell of croissants talk her out of caring.

But it was the customers who really threw her.

About ten people had lined up for the eight o’clock opening, none of them faces she recognized from the neighborhood. Yet every one of them moved like a regular. One man stepped up to the register and said, simply, “The usual.” A woman took her baguette one-handed and counted out exact change before being asked. The baker — Fujikawa, according to a small card on the counter — responded to all of it with a quiet “Thanks,” the way you’d acknowledge someone you’d known for a decade.

“Um,” Nakane said, not quite sure why she was speaking. “Congratulations on your opening.”

Fujikawa didn’t stop folding the dough. He smiled, just a little.

“Thank you. The twelfth one, though.”

She almost asked what he meant, but a voice behind her cut in: “Extra raisins, please.” The moment was gone.

She paid and stepped outside. Walking home, she turned it over. The wall — there had been a faint “11” near the door, like a number someone had peeled away. The shelves had small holes where screws had been countersunk and refilled, a series of them, as if the brackets had been repositioned more than once. The oven handle had the smooth, darkened feel of something gripped for years.

Twelfth. Meaning this shop had opened eleven times before, closed eleven times, and was now opening again.

The people in that line, she thought — they’d probably been there since the first one.

Nakane looked down at the croissant in her hand. Pressed into one end, small and clean, was a stamp: 12.

She glanced back. The line outside Jumon-do was already a little longer than when she’d left.