Chapter 9: Yuki, 1971 — The First Tank

The compound tastes of copper first, then something else — not brine exactly, more like the memory of brine, the mineral suggestion of it, as though someone had dissolved a stone taken from the seafloor and asked you to hold it on your tongue without swallowing.

You hold it on your tongue.

You are twenty years old and you have decided that this is a reasonable thing to do.