## Chapter 267 — The Space Between Traffic The idea began with four empty squares in Thomas’s calendar. They were not truly empty. Thursday and Friday contained work until five. Saturday held no judo because the university dojo had been reserved for an interdepartmental event, and Sunday contained the ordinary domestic tasks that gathered whenever a weekend appeared unclaimed. Monday was a university closure associated with work elsewhere on campus rather than a national holiday, while Isha’s climbing-centre roster showed a training morning she could exchange if Yoshida still wanted the Saturday family session. Four squares could become three nights away without either of them pretending their lives had paused. Thomas noticed this on Tuesday evening while checking the shared calendar at the dining table. The early-summer rain had returned after one dry afternoon. Water moved along the balcony rail in a continuous silver line, and the glass reflected the room more strongly than the dark buildings outside. Isha sat opposite him with one foot tucked beneath the other leg. She had returned from the mixed gym an hour earlier, showered and changed into loose grey shorts and one of Thomas’s old university shirts. A darkening bruise occupied the outside of her left thigh where repeated low-kick defence had proved less complete than the lesson required. She was reading Kelda’s third page again. The letter had been stored properly after each reading, away from sunlight and the exterior walls, but it had spent more time outside the cabinet than either earlier reply. Kelda’s road contract, failed culvert wall and sticking workbench drawer seemed to invite reinspection in a way that declarations of survival had not. Thomas expanded the calendar to the following week. “What are you looking for?” Isha asked. “I am not sure.” “That usually means you have found something and dislike its administrative shape.” He turned the tablet towards her. Thursday evening through Monday night formed the clearest opening they had possessed since Tasmania. Neither workplace had been arranged around the possibility. It existed because several unrelated schedules had failed to overlap in the usual inconvenient ways. Isha studied it. “Where?” Thomas had not reached that question. “Possibly nowhere.” “You opened the flight application.” “I opened a comparison site.” “You selected international.” “That was an exploratory category.” Isha’s eyes moved to the page beside her. Kelda’s final instruction remained visible through the protective sleeve. **Do not spend the next page proving that you are alive. Tell us something that happened because you were.** “We should not travel for the letter,” Isha said. “I know.” “You were considering it.” “I was considering that we have several days and have not left Japan since Tasmania.” “That is not the same thing.” “No.” Thomas closed the comparison screen. Rain struck the balcony door harder for several seconds, then softened again. The change might have been wind or water released from the balcony above. Tasmania had been their first chosen international journey. It had also been unusually gentle. They had rented a small car, stayed in quiet accommodation, walked among cliffs, forests and cold beaches, and learned that Isha’s confidence with distance did not include automatic trust in driving on an empty road after sunset. The trip had given them long roads, clean air and animals that seemed assembled from remembered parts in unfamiliar order. It had not required either of them to negotiate much uncertainty among people. “I would like somewhere neither of us knows,” Isha said. Thomas reopened the tablet. “That includes most places.” “Not somewhere you understand from living nearby in another life. Not somewhere arranged so carefully for visitors that understanding is unnecessary.” “That sounds like a request for inconvenience.” “Some.” “How much?” She considered the scale with more seriousness than the question deserved. “Enough that we must pay attention. Not enough that we need an expedition plan.” Thomas entered dates. A three-night search produced cities rather than countries. Seoul appeared first because of distance and flight frequency. Taipei followed. Several Japanese destinations remained in the results despite the international filter, apparently because the software believed Thomas’s intent required correction. Farther south were Manila, Hanoi, Da Nang, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City. Isha moved around the table and stood beside him. Her damp hair brushed his shoulder as she leaned closer. Thomas gave her the tablet rather than turning it repeatedly. She opened maps, photographs and transport summaries without reading every description. Seoul held her attention for less than a minute. “This looks like another city where you would become useful quickly,” she said. “I have only visited once.” “You can read the transport system.” “That is not the same as knowing it.” “It would become the same within a morning.” Taipei lasted longer. She liked the mountains visible beyond dense streets and the idea of hot springs, though three nights seemed too short once she began identifying places outside the centre. Bangkok produced an expression Thomas could not classify. “Too much?” he asked. “Possibly exactly enough. But not for three nights.” She opened Da Nang. The first images offered a long coast, modern hotels, low local streets, bridges and green mountains rising behind the city. The next page showed old yellow buildings beside a river in Hoi An. Another showed steep stone steps entering a cave beneath the Marble Mountains. Isha stopped scrolling. “This one.” Thomas read more carefully. Da Nang was large enough that three nights could not pretend to contain it, but compact enough that they could choose a few parts without spending the entire trip in transit. Hoi An lay close enough for a day visit. The Marble Mountains sat between the two. The temperature would be high, the humidity higher, and the probability of rain remained substantial. “The traffic may be difficult,” he said. “For you?” “For pedestrians generally.” “Good.” “That was not a recommendation.” “You wanted somewhere that requires attention.” “I had imagined unfamiliar ticket machines.” “You understand ticket machines.” Thomas looked at the photographs again. The sea appealed to him. Not because Sendai lacked a coast, but because their daily life rarely reached it. The old streets of Hoi An appealed to Isha for reasons she did not need to state. The cave temples and stone routes risked resemblance to places they had survived, but resemblance was no longer sufficient reason to avoid a landscape. “We would have one full day and parts of two others,” he said. “Four nights.” “That requires Tuesday leave.” “You have leave.” “I have a fixed-term contract.” “With leave.” “That does not make using it morally simple.” Isha turned the tablet off and placed it facedown. Thomas looked at her. “You used two days for Tasmania,” she said. “That was planned months in advance.” “And therefore permissible?” “Administratively considerate.” “Will your office collapse if you ask for Tuesday?” “No.” “Will Mori refuse?” “Probably not.” “Will you apologise before asking?” Thomas did not answer quickly enough. Isha returned to her chair. “Then Da Nang.” “My workplace has not approved Da Nang.” “Your workplace is not being invited.” The rain continued while they assembled a more serious possibility. Thomas checked his office calendar. Tuesday already carried one internal meeting, but it was a routine guide revision that could move or proceed without him. No student appointment belonged exclusively to him. The Rahman replacement-original deadline would have passed by then. Mai’s next review had not yet produced a confirmed date. Isha checked the climbing-centre roster. Yoshida had asked two days earlier whether anyone could take her Saturday family session because her younger sister was visiting. Isha could exchange Tuesday’s opening shift and request Monday as leave. The climbing centre would be busiest on the weekend, but the Saturday exchange gave Ishikawa more coverage rather than less. Their first outline became four nights: travel Friday after work, arrive late, spend Saturday in Da Nang, Sunday between the Marble Mountains and Hoi An, Monday deliberately unplanned, return Tuesday. Thomas examined the flight durations. “That is inefficient.” “It is four nights.” “We lose Friday to travel and much of Tuesday returning.” “Then it is three days somewhere else.” The distinction settled him. They booked nothing that evening. Thomas submitted his leave request before he could improve it into an explanation. The form required dates and a category. It did not require a defence of leisure. He selected annual leave, added a note that the guide meeting could proceed from his written comments and sent it. Isha messaged Yoshida about the shift exchange, then wrote a separate request to Ishikawa. Both replies arrived before Thomas’s. Yoshida accepted immediately and added three grateful stamps. Ishikawa approved the roster change with a reminder that Isha’s Friday shift ended at four and asked whether she needed it shortened for the airport. Isha answered that four was sufficient. Thomas’s approval arrived the following morning from Mori. **Approved. Please update the shared case notes before departure. Sugiyama will cover reception Tuesday morning. Do not monitor office messages while on leave.** Endo added nothing. Sugiyama reacted to the calendar change with a small aeroplane symbol and later asked whether the destination would be hotter than Sendai. When Thomas said Vietnam, she looked at the rain beyond the office window. “Then you can compare kinds of wet.” “That was not the primary purpose.” “No one travels in June for dryness.” The booking happened during lunch. Thomas chose a modest hotel two streets back from the beach rather than the taller international properties facing it. The rooms had air conditioning, reliable recent reviews, a staffed reception desk and no claims that every guest would experience transformation. Breakfast was available but not compulsory. The photographs showed tiled floors, pale wood, a small rooftop pool and a lobby containing more plants than chairs. The flights required one connection and most of Friday evening. They would arrive late enough that the first night should contain no ambition beyond reaching the hotel. Thomas paid. The confirmation appeared. For several seconds, neither the hotel nor the destination felt more real than before. Then the shared calendar acquired coloured blocks, reservation numbers and a departure time that would require them to leave their workplaces without returning home first. Thomas forwarded the details to Isha. Her reply came from the climbing-centre floor. **We are going.** The sentence produced more certainty than the payment had. --- Packing began on Thursday night. Tasmania had taught them that shared luggage did not require shared definitions of necessity. Thomas placed documents, chargers, medication, a compact first-aid kit and spare glasses in ordered groups across his office floor. Isha selected clothing in the bedroom, then brought him a small stack that occupied less space than his planned contingencies. “You have four shirts,” he said. “Yes.” “For four nights.” “Yes.” “One will be worn on Friday.” “Yes.” “What if one becomes wet?” “They will all become wet. It is hot.” “I meant unusably wet.” “I will wash it.” Thomas looked at the hotel information. “The room has laundry service, not a washing machine.” Isha held up one hand. “Water. Soap. Sink.” He returned the fifth shirt to the wardrobe. They packed one checked suitcase between them and carried separate small bags. Isha’s training clothes stayed home. Thomas did not pack cooking tools, though the thought occurred when he considered whether a small folding knife belonged in checked luggage. It did not. Cleanse reduced some of the practical anxiety without becoming a reason to travel carelessly. Thomas could clean clothing privately in the hotel room if ordinary washing became inconvenient. He could not use it in public, remove a tropical illness, purify food he did not understand or replace attention to heat and water. The transfer page remained locked in the office cabinet. Thirty cycles had not passed. Even if they had, they would not attempt a crossing abroad. Their protocol depended on a known home, emergency language and institutions they understood. Thomas wrote no note to Kelda about the holiday before leaving. The world did not require advance notice of four nights. Mugi appeared on the balcony while the suitcase was open. She entered after Isha opened the door and inspected the bedroom with the immediate suspicion of an animal who had found household order deteriorating. Her nose moved over the suitcase edge. She stepped inside, turned once on top of Thomas’s folded trousers and sat. “That is not an approved packing method,” Thomas said. Mugi looked at him. Isha crouched beside the suitcase. “She objects to the destination.” “She has not read it.” “She inspected the confirmation.” “She walked across the tablet.” Mugi lowered herself onto the trousers. Thomas removed her with both hands. She became longer during the operation and placed one back foot against the suitcase rim as though leaving under protest. “You do not live here,” he reminded her. Mugi settled on the bed. The distinction did not alter her evening. --- Friday reduced the holiday to a sequence of ordinary obligations completed in travel clothes. Thomas worked with his small case beside the office cabinet. He updated notes, answered two messages and handed Sugiyama a student enquiry that could wait until Tuesday but would otherwise occupy part of her attention all weekend. “You are allowed to leave,” she said. “It is three fifty-two.” “Your train is at four twenty.” “The station is seven minutes away.” “It is seven minutes when you are not attempting to make departure ethically complete.” Mori looked up from her desk. “Go.” Thomas left at three fifty-six. Isha reached Sendai Station first. She stood near the agreed entrance wearing loose black trousers, a white sleeveless top beneath a light overshirt and the small dark backpack she used for day travel. Her pale hair had been braided tightly enough to survive several hours of seats and recycled air. The shared suitcase waited beside her. Several people looked at her while passing. Most redirected their attention. One young man walking backwards to continue looking nearly struck a ticket machine and recovered with more dignity than accuracy. Isha watched Thomas approach. “You are late,” she said. “I am four minutes early.” “You usually arrive twelve minutes early.” “That is not lateness. It is reduced anxiety.” She handed him the suitcase handle. “Then the holiday has begun.” The journey to Sendai Airport, check-in and first flight contained no difficulty worthy of memory. That became its own relief. Their passports matched their faces. The reservation existed. Security objected to nothing in Thomas’s carefully separated liquids. Isha bought bottled tea after the checkpoint and declined a pastry whose photograph had promised more filling than the object provided. The flight to Incheon placed them above the cloud before sunset. Thomas sat by the window because Isha had given him the seat during booking without discussion. She preferred the aisle and the freedom to stand without negotiating around a stranger. The city below disappeared. Cloud filled the window, level and bright, while evening developed above it more slowly than on the ground. Isha slept for thirty-eight minutes with her head against Thomas’s shoulder. At Incheon International Airport, they walked farther than Thomas had expected, passed through transfer security and entered the international concourse with enough time to eat. They chose bowls of noodles from a busy counter because the alternative was a restaurant advertising regional food through a menu designed to remove every regional uncertainty. The noodles were competent. Thomas ate without analysing them aloud. Isha noticed. “You dislike these,” she said. “They are fine.” “You have used the word that means the cook committed no offence.” Thomas drank some broth. “They are airport noodles.” “Food does not know where it is.” “The kitchen does.” She accepted this as a partial defence. The longer flight departed after dark. Isha watched the safety demonstration with the same attention she gave every repeated procedure. Thomas had once asked whether she still needed to do that after several flights. She had asked whether the aircraft had become incapable of failure through familiarity. He had not repeated the question. The cabin lights dimmed. Beyond the window, no land remained visible for long stretches. Thomas read until the words began losing their position on the page. Isha alternated between a film, the map display and sleep. They crossed south through time without changing enough of it to matter. Arrival returned the world abruptly. The corridor at Da Nang International Airport held warm air despite its cooling systems. By immigration, Thomas could feel the climate pressing through the building: humidity caught in clothing, skin and the spaces beneath backpack straps. The queue moved steadily. Their passports were inspected, stamped and returned. Baggage arrived intact. Beyond customs, drivers and hotel representatives held names on boards. Families gathered around luggage carts. A child slept across two suitcases while an adult attempted to move both without waking her. Thomas opened the ride application and compared the pickup point with the signs. Isha looked through the glass doors. Motorbikes passed beyond them in numbers large enough that individual movement became a single restless surface. Cars entered and left gaps that closed immediately. Horns sounded frequently but without the sustained anger Thomas associated with them elsewhere. “This is better,” Isha said. “We are still inside the airport.” “The traffic is visible.” “That was the feature I described as difficult.” “Yes.” Their driver found them after one confused circuit of the pickup lane. He was a narrow man in his thirties wearing a pale polo shirt and an expression suggesting that airport collection required patience with travellers who believed standing near the correct numbered pillar was sufficient. Thomas confirmed the hotel through the application. The driver checked the destination, loaded their suitcase and spoke enough English to establish that it was late, the road was busy and the beach area would take about twenty minutes. It took thirty-seven. Da Nang entered through the car windows in fragments. Wide roads alternated with narrower streets crowded by signs, open-fronted shops and parked motorbikes. White light spilled from cafés. Families sat on low stools around late meals. Construction continued behind sheets of green mesh. Small hotels rose between older buildings, their façades narrow and brightly lit. The air beyond the sealed windows looked almost visible. Motorbikes moved around the car with confidence Thomas could not yet interpret. They occupied lanes, edges and temporary spaces between vehicles, sometimes carrying two adults and a sleeping child between them. A delivery rider balanced boxes behind his seat. Another carried a long rolled mat extending beyond both sides of the bike. Isha watched without speaking. The car crossed a bridge. The river below held broken reflections of buildings, boats and coloured lights. Farther ahead, the city opened towards darker space. “The sea?” Isha asked. The driver heard the word and pointed ahead. “Beach. Hotel near beach.” The hotel stood on a side street between a laundry, a small restaurant closing for the night and another hotel whose entrance contained a marble staircase too large for its frontage. Their own lobby was quieter than the photographs suggested. Two ceiling fans turned above potted plants. The receptionist stood when they entered and greeted them in careful English. Passports were copied. Breakfast hours were explained. The rooftop pool closed at nine, which made it irrelevant. Their room was on the fifth floor. The receptionist circled several places on a printed neighbourhood map: the beach, a convenience store, two restaurants open late and the larger road where taxis were easier to find. She advised them to use the hotel safe for passports and to keep bags close in crowded areas. The warning was ordinary enough to reassure Thomas. It belonged to travel rather than omen. Their room contained a broad bed, tiled floor, a desk beneath the television and a small balcony facing east between two taller buildings. The sea could not be seen from it. Its presence arrived as damp air and a low continuous sound beyond traffic and air-conditioning units. Thomas placed the suitcase on the luggage stand. Isha opened the balcony door. Heat entered immediately. Not the retained indoor warmth of Sendai after a humid day, but air with weight and salt in it. Her braid shifted against her back in the moving current. “It is nearly midnight,” Thomas said. “Yes.” “We should sleep.” “Yes.” She remained at the balcony. Thomas joined her. Below, the street had not become quiet. A motorbike stopped outside the neighbouring hotel. Three people left the late restaurant carrying plastic bags. Somewhere around the corner, dishes struck one another in a kitchen. The sea continued beyond the buildings. Isha rested her forearms on the rail. “We are very far from the apartment,” she said. “Approximately—” “Do not calculate.” Thomas closed his mouth. She looked towards him. “Were you going to give me kilometres?” “Only approximately.” “I know what distance feels like.” He placed one hand over hers on the rail. The city did not resemble the fantasy world. Its heat was different, its light more abundant and its roads full of machines that belonged to no old analogy. It did not resemble Sendai either. Thomas could read the hotel instructions, use the applications and understand the broad shape of the institutions around them. None of that allowed him to read the street below. Isha could read movement, but not yet its local agreements. Neither of them led. The fact felt less like failure than Thomas expected. “We should still sleep,” he said. “Yes.” “Will you come inside?” “In a moment.” He waited with her until the moment became several. --- They woke before the alarm because the city began morning in another order. At five twenty, a motorbike horn sounded below. At five twenty-six, something metallic rolled across the neighbouring pavement. At five thirty-one, a voice called from farther down the street and received an answer. Thomas opened his eyes to unfamiliar grey light and the sensation that he had slept in damp cotton despite the air conditioner. Isha was already sitting at the edge of the bed. “Beach,” she said. Thomas looked at the clock. “It will remain there.” “So will breakfast.” She dressed while he attempted to identify the argument for returning to sleep. It failed because he also wanted to see the coast before the heat became stronger. They left the hotel at six. Morning had not cooled the air so much as removed one layer from it. The side street was already active. A woman washed the pavement outside a small shop with a hose, directing yesterday’s dust towards the gutter. Two men sat over coffee at a low table. Delivery riders stopped, exchanged bags and left. At the larger road, Thomas halted. The beach lay directly beyond several lanes of moving traffic. There was a marked pedestrian crossing. It did not appear to alter the road’s behaviour. Motorbikes flowed past in dense groups, separated by cars, taxis and occasional gaps that closed before Thomas could decide whether they qualified. A signal stood farther along the road but served an intersection they would need to reach by crossing another smaller road first. Several local pedestrians crossed without waiting for emptiness. They stepped into the traffic at a steady pace. Motorbikes adjusted around them. No one ran. No one appeared surprised. Thomas watched one older man reach the central divide. “I understand the principle,” he said. Isha stood beside him. “Your feet do not.” “That is accurate.” A gap appeared between two cars. Thomas began forward, then stopped when three motorbikes entered it from the side. Isha caught the back of his arm before his retreat placed him closer to another lane. “Do not change direction suddenly,” she said. “I noticed.” “You noticed after changing.” The motorbikes passed. Isha watched the next group approach. Her attention moved differently here than it did at home. She did not track every vehicle as an individual threat. She read the spaces they maintained, the slight shifts of handlebars, the speed at which one rider closed behind another. “When I move, stay beside me,” she said. “That sounds like an order.” “It is.” She stepped into the road. Thomas went with her. The first motorbike altered its line by less than a metre. Another passed behind them. The movement felt impossible only while Thomas attempted to isolate each machine. Together they formed a current with enough variation to pass around two pedestrians who remained visible and predictable. Isha walked at an even pace. Thomas resisted the instinct to hurry. A car slowed. They crossed its lane. Two motorbikes passed through the space behind its rear bumper. The central divide arrived. Thomas released a breath. “That was half,” Isha said. “I had reached the same conclusion.” The second half carried more cars and fewer motorbikes. A woman with a shopping bag joined them without speaking. Isha waited until she moved, then matched her pace across the first lane. Thomas stayed beside Isha. They reached the far pavement. Nothing dramatic marked the success. Traffic continued. The woman walked away. A motorbike used the crossing they had just occupied. Thomas looked back across the road. “I disliked that.” “You will improve.” “That is an unsettlingly athletic interpretation of pedestrian safety.” Isha took his hand. “You understood the system.” “In theory.” “I understood when to enter.” “Then you led.” “For twenty seconds.” She drew him towards the beach entrance. The sea appeared beyond a line of palms, exercise equipment and parked motorbikes. It was already crowded. People walked the broad pavement in groups. Older men stretched beside the rail. Women performed slow coordinated movements beneath the trees. Runners travelled in both directions. Farther along the sand, several games had formed around nets. Swimmers stood chest-deep beyond the break, their heads dark against the brightening water. The beach itself extended farther than Thomas expected, a long pale curve beneath a sky still softened by morning haze. Buildings rose behind it, but the width of sand gave the sea room to exist without becoming a view owned by hotels. Isha stopped. Her hand tightened around his once. “This is better than the photographs,” she said. They removed their shoes and carried them. The sand was cool only at its deepest surface. Beneath it remained yesterday’s heat. Isha walked towards the water with the directness of someone returning to a place rather than seeing it for the first time. A wave reached her ankles. She laughed. The sound made two nearby walkers glance towards her, then smile without knowing why. Thomas entered more cautiously. The water was warmer than he expected, the sand shifting beneath each retreating wave. Isha rolled her trousers to the knee and went deeper. “You did not bring swimwear,” he called. “I am not swimming.” A larger wave struck above her rolled cuffs. Thomas looked at the darkened fabric. Isha looked down. “The sea changed its position.” “That appears unlikely.” She returned before the next wave could improve the argument. They walked north along the wet sand. The city remained close enough to hear but lost some of its authority beside the water. Here the dominant sounds were waves, voices and the soft repeated impact of bare feet. Vendors prepared carts farther back from the shore. A group of children chased a ball that repeatedly entered other people’s routes and was returned without complaint. Thomas’s body remained tired from travel. The heat gathered quickly despite the hour. Isha shortened her pace without announcing that she had done so. They stopped near a row of round basket boats pulled above the waterline. Their woven hulls had been sealed dark and worn pale again along the rims. Thomas crouched near one without touching it. “Do they move well?” Isha asked. “I assume they move adequately.” “That is not an answer.” “I have never used one.” “You know boats.” “I know some boats.” She considered the round hull. “Kelda would object.” “Kelda objects to vessels that conceal which direction is forward.” “That is reasonable.” They returned towards the beach entrance as the sun rose higher behind the haze. Crossing the road back to the hotel remained difficult. This time Thomas did not stop after entering. Isha watched the traffic. He watched her shoulder and the lane beyond it. They moved together, neither hurrying nor retreating. A motorbike curved around them. Another slowed enough that Thomas saw the rider glance at his face and decide he was predictable. They reached the opposite pavement. “You improved,” Isha said. “I complied.” “That is one form.” Breakfast occupied a shaded open-fronted restaurant near the hotel. The menu contained photographs, English descriptions of uneven usefulness and prices that forced Thomas to stop translating them into yen after the first attempt. They ordered mì Quảng because the bowls carried less broth than Thomas expected from noodles and because the woman serving them recommended it by pointing twice and saying, “Local.” The dish arrived with broad turmeric-coloured noodles, pork, prawns, herbs, peanuts, crisp rice cracker and a shallow intensely flavoured broth beneath rather than around everything. A separate plate held lettuce, mint, basil, banana blossom and lime. Thomas looked at the bowl. Isha looked at him. “You may analyse,” she said. “I have not tasted it.” “You began at the table edge.” He mixed the herbs through the noodles and broke part of the rice cracker over the top after watching another customer do the same. The first mouthful contained too many textures to separate immediately: soft noodles, crisp cracker, roasted peanuts, herbs, rich meat and the sharp lift of lime. Thomas chewed. “Well?” Isha asked. “I do not know enough.” She tasted hers. The broth clung to the noodles instead of asking to be consumed separately. The herbs altered each mouthful depending on what her chopsticks caught. She added more mint, then less banana blossom. “This is excellent,” she said. “Yes.” “You sound troubled.” “I understand some of it.” “That is often the beginning of trouble.” Thomas tasted again. “I could make a good dish inspired by this.” “But not this.” “No.” The admission pleased him. He did not know the exact stock, the balance of fish sauce, the local turmeric, the handling of the noodles or the sequence by which the toppings had been prepared. His palate could identify relationships without supplying ownership. They ate slowly. A fan turned above them. Motorbikes passed beyond the open front. The woman who had recommended the dish brought iced tea and corrected Thomas’s attempt to place the herb plate out of her way by placing it back between them. Isha added another piece of cracker to her bowl. “Do you regret not choosing Seoul?” she asked. Thomas looked towards the road they had crossed twice, the damp heat, the unfamiliar breakfast and the city he could not reduce to a transport map before noon. “No.” “Good.” “What do you want to do today?” Isha considered the question. The itinerary contained several saved possibilities: the river, the Cham museum, markets, cafés, the beach again after the strongest heat had passed. Nothing had been booked. “Walk,” she said. “Until we understand enough to choose.” Thomas drank the iced tea. Outside, traffic continued filling every available space without appearing to stop. He no longer mistook that for the absence of a path.