"Come on, let him cuddle me a bit more, there's enough time until curfew."

Problem: if she lets them stay as long as they want because there's enough time left, there will very rapidly not be.

Problem part two: fighting this battle may very well take longer than just taking Jiang Cheng.

"...you get as long as it takes me to get Jiang Cheng to his room and then get back here."

"Yes, ma'am!"

Jiang Cheng stands up clumsily, but a well-practiced sort of clumsy, like someone who has been this kind of clumsy a lot and knows exactly how to compensate for it.

Once the door closes, he tells Ayako, "I love Yanli."

"I can see why, she's lovely."

Right, okay, she's been to Jiang Cheng's room, how does she get there from here, this way.

"I love her so much. She's so kind to everyone, and smart, and beautiful, and she always knows the right thing to say."

"She sounds... really good."

(Ayako has siblings, technically. She doesn't know them that well, the timelines just didn't really work out. She has Haruto and Rin and Hitomi instead, for older siblings, and the kids she tutored who will be her underclassmen in a few years for younger ones, and they're basically like what siblings seem to be to other people? Is that the same at all?)

"Her lotus root soup is so good. When we graduate you should come to Shanghai enclave and eat her soup."

"...I'm not supposed to make plans for after graduation." 

"Well, she can't make it here. --I miss her soup."

"I bet." 

He stumbles. "I love... Wei Ying."

She's right there if he needs help with balance, not that she particularly expects him to take her up on that. "I can tell. You guys are really sweet." 

"He's so smart. And good at everything. We're going to be together forever," Jiang Cheng explains. "He's going to be at my side at graduation and we're going to show everyone."

It's really weird hearing people already have plans for graduation. They're freshmen. Ayako isn't supposed to have concrete plans for graduation until halfway through junior year; until then she has a mission statement and the awareness that there'll be a bunch of things she'll have to deal with as they come up.

"He's brilliant," she agrees instead of saying that.

"He's so brilliant. He speaks every language I think and he's not even incantations-track."

"Wow, that's incredible."

"I don't have dogs because of him."

"...I don't know what that means."

"I had two dogs when I was little. Before Father brought Wei Ying home. And the dogs scared him so much that Father gave the dogs away and I haven't had dogs ever since and I'm never going to again. But it's okay because I have Wei Ying instead and he's better than dogs."

"I'm glad you have Wei Ying.

I've never had animals, what's it like?"

"They're soft. And nice to pet. And they want really simple things from you so you know you're doing it right. We had bunnies at the enclave and no one would admit to being the person who brought them in."

"That does sound really nice."

"I like animals. They're much better than people. People are assholes. Animals are never assholes."

"It's true. They're not."