"Can I ask about..." Haruka said carefully, "...Why is he called Mikey? Is it because of Mike?"
"Yes," Ellie said, as if this were slightly obvious but she were going to explain it anyway because explaining things was something she enjoyed. "His name is Mike, and when we were kids there were two Mikes in our class for a while, so one of them became Mikey, and it stuck even after the other Mike left because that's how nicknames work."
"They outlive their reason."
"I didn't know that about you," Haruka said, looking at Mike.
"You've only known me for five days," Mike said.
"That's true," she acknowledged. "But still."
"What program are you in?" Mike asked Ellie, which redirected the conversation in the way that asking someone about their program does when they're the kind of person who cares about it.
