Uzume had a reputation for laughing brashly in the face of fear. Some people called her impulsive and, yeah, fair, guilty as charged. Some people called her crazy, and they didn't know shit. There was something she'd learned, long before she left the Plain of High Heaven, when discord still raged between shining Amaterasu and her dickhead brothers: when you were laughing, the fear couldn't touch you.
In that small hitch of Tuck's voice, Uzume thought she heard the snagging hooks of fear. Tuck swiftly smoothed over it, and his voice remained calm and even, but it seemed to her that the light in his smile had faded, just a little.
She slid Tuck's phone back across the table, brushing her fingertips across his knuckles as she did so. "Well. He's not here now. That's something, right?"