## Chapter 282 — The Life We Remember Kanno arrived seven minutes early and found Thomas removing a notebook from the dining table. He had placed three cups beside a pot of tea, aligned the chairs so no one sat directly opposite both others and written six headings on the page before deciding that bringing notes into the conversation made the evening resemble an interview. Kanno stood in the open doorway with her new black work bag over one shoulder and watched him carry the notebook towards the office. “You prepared an agenda.” “We prepared subjects.” “That is an agenda with emotional ambitions.” Thomas put the notebook in the drawer. “You were not meant to see it.” “You invited a proofreader.” Isha took Kanno’s bag before its strap could slip from her shoulder. The octopus key ring on Isha’s own bag turned once beside the genkan wall. Kanno had dressed more plainly than she usually did when visiting Flat 202: dark trousers, a soft blue blouse and low shoes. No plum coat, despite the apartment’s reliable air-conditioning. She had brought a paper bag from the bakery near the station. “I said we would make dinner,” Thomas said. “These are for tomorrow. I do not intend to eat a carefully symbolic dessert after being told something serious.” Thomas looked inside. The bag contained three ordinary bread rolls, each marked with a different filling. “You selected one for each of us.” “That is logistics.” Isha closed the door. The flat had been cleaned to its ordinary standard rather than the excessive one Thomas had initially considered. No letter, spell notebook or private calendar remained visible. The cream page from Kelda was locked in the office cabinet. Their phones rested on the sideboard with notifications muted. Dinner waited in the kitchen: rice, grilled aubergine, chilled tofu, cucumber and chicken cooked with ginger and soy. Nothing required last-minute attention or invited praise. Kanno noticed that too. “You chose food that cannot become the subject.” “It can,” Thomas said. “I am choosing restraint.” “You made five dishes.” “Two are cold.” Isha touched Kanno’s back and guided her towards the table before Thomas could classify the meal further. They ate first. Kanno described the revised annual report. The client had approved the corrected table and then asked whether the removed fifth heading might be restored as a decorative element. Thomas reported that the university’s temporary bus stop had returned to its original position without anyone removing the sign directing students towards the temporary one. Isha told them that a trial climber had attempted to put both legs through one side of a harness and then blamed the harness for being asymmetrical. The conversation continued because all three knew how. Kanno asked about Matsuda’s latest photograph. Thomas showed her the message: a bowl of noodles, a boiled egg and half a packet of bean sprouts on the company-flat table. Kanno inspected it. “He used a pan.” “The presence of steam supports that.” “He may have placed the food into a pan for the photograph.” Isha enlarged the image. “There is water on the stove behind it.” “That proves a second vessel.” For several minutes, Matsuda’s dinner remained the most urgent uncertainty in the room. The ordinary talk did not make the coming conversation false. It established that the friendship had existed before the explanation and would have subjects afterward, unless Kanno decided otherwise. When the plates were empty, Thomas cleared them without beginning coffee or dessert. Isha brought the teapot from the sideboard. Kanno watched both of them perform the small household exchange: Thomas moving behind Isha without asking her to shift, Isha handing him the cups before he reached for them, neither looking to confirm the other had understood. “You have rehearsed,” Kanno said. Thomas sat beside Isha. Kanno occupied the chair angled towards them. “We discussed what we were prepared to tell you,” he said. “And what you were not.” “Yes.” The answer contained no apology. Kanno folded her hands around the cup. “Then begin with that.” Thomas glanced at Isha. She gave a small movement of her head, offering him the first words without transferring the whole conversation. “What we tell you tonight will be true as we understand it,” he said. “It will also be incomplete. Some facts are private because they involve other people. Some would sound impossible, and we are not prepared to disclose them yet.” Kanno listened without moving. “We are asking you to keep this conversation private. Nothing else. You are not being asked to monitor me, help with the medical situation or take responsibility for a secret process. You may doubt us. You may leave. You may remain angry.” “You can stop listing my rights,” Kanno said. “I know how doors work.” Thomas closed his mouth. Isha’s hand settled over his on the table. Kanno’s gaze followed the contact and returned to their faces. “What do you remember from before the accident?” she asked. The question reached the part they had spent a week approaching. Thomas answered first. “I remember general Earth knowledge. English, Japanese, technology, institutions, food, transport, ordinary history. I do not remember the childhood, education, years in Tokyo or university life recorded under my name.” “I know that part.” “You know we called it memory loss.” Kanno’s fingers tightened slightly around the cup. “Was that untrue?” “No.” Thomas looked at the tea rather than arranging the next sentence around her reaction. “It was incomplete.” Isha spoke before the pause could become another layer of preparation. “We did not wake with empty lives.” Kanno turned towards her. Isha’s posture remained upright, though her hand had tightened over Thomas’s. “I do not remember the university. I do not remember meeting you there, living in the old flat or becoming Thomas’s partner in the way your photographs show. I remember years with him somewhere else.” The room became quieter without losing the hum of the air conditioner or traffic beyond the balcony. Kanno looked from Isha to Thomas. “The same years?” “Yes,” Thomas said. “How many?” Thomas considered the difficulty of converting the remembered chronology without exposing more than they intended. “Enough that our relationship, families, work and most of our adult lives were already established.” “That is not a number.” “No.” Kanno let the refusal stand for the moment. Isha drew her cup closer but did not drink. “I remember meeting him when he was younger. I remember disliking how quickly he trusted people who offered food. I remember him being injured and pretending questions were less serious than they were. I remember travelling with him, fighting beside him, arguing about decisions and sleeping beside him in more places than I can count.” Her voice remained controlled until the final sentence. The change was small, a roughness at the edge of the words rather than a break. “I remember my family,” she continued. “I remember people who raised me, people I served, people I protected badly and people I loved well. I remember a home that still feels more familiar than any place in my records here.” Thomas turned his hand beneath hers and linked their fingers. Isha looked at Kanno directly. “When I woke in hospital, I knew Thomas. I did not know Japan. I did not know you. I knew who I was.” Kanno’s expression shifted. She had never treated Isha’s amnesia as complete emptiness. She had seen skill, temperament and preference survive. The new account changed the organising principle. Isha had not been rebuilding a self from fragments. She had arrived with one already intact and found documents describing another. “What did Thomas remember?” Kanno asked. “The same places,” Isha said. “The same people. The same events.” “Independently?” “We woke separately,” Thomas said. “We confirmed details before either of us could have built the whole account from the other.” “How separately?” “Different beds in the same hospital room. Isha woke first. We spoke after I regained awareness.” Kanno lowered her gaze to their joined hands. “And you recognised each other.” “Yes.” “As the people you remember being?” “Yes.” The answer came from both of them, close enough to overlap. Kanno sat back. Her cup had cooled untouched. She moved it aside, creating empty space before her without leaving the table. “This could be a shared delusion.” “It could,” Thomas said. Isha looked at him. He continued before the possibility sounded like retreat. “A neurological or psychological explanation is one hypothesis. We cannot prove everything we remember through ordinary evidence without disclosing facts we are withholding.” “Do you believe it was a delusion?” “No,” Isha said. The force in the word made Kanno’s eyes settle on her again. Isha released Thomas’s hand only to place both palms flat on the table. “I have doubted details. I have doubted what caused our arrival here. I have doubted whether this world existed before us in the same form or whether we entered lives already in progress. I have not doubted that I loved my family or lived beside Thomas.” Her breath changed once. “I remember grief that does not belong to a story someone told me. I remember choices I wish I had made differently. I remember Thomas before he learned the habits you know, and I remember the moments that gave some of them to him.” Kanno’s face had lost the restrained professional attention she used when clients explained impossible deadlines. Hurt had entered beneath concern, not because she thought Isha was lying, but because the words gave shape to how much had existed beyond her. “You said your family,” Kanno said. “Are they dead?” “Some people died.” Isha’s gaze moved briefly towards the locked office. “Some were alive when we last knew them.” “When was that?” “Immediately before we woke here.” Kanno looked at Thomas. “You said you were waiting for information connected to this life.” “Yes.” “Information from whom?” Thomas did not answer immediately. The boundary they had agreed upon became visible in the silence. “Someone we knew there,” he said. Kanno’s attention sharpened. “You believe they can still communicate with you.” “We believe we received information connected to them.” “How?” “That is one of the impossible parts we are not telling you tonight.” Kanno’s mouth tightened. She did not accuse them of manipulating her. The account was incomplete exactly where they had warned it would be. That did not make the absence comfortable. “Was the hospital episode caused by this information?” “The collapse began at the moment it arrived,” Thomas said. “Stress was real. Anticipation and grief may have affected the severity. The direct mechanism is part of what we are withholding.” “And the earlier episodes?” “The same connection.” Kanno looked down at the table. The emergency protocol now made sense in a different way. Thomas and Isha had not merely identified an emotional trigger. They expected an event with enough consistency to prepare food, clear the floor, position his body and start a timer. Her concern sharpened into anger. “You let this happen repeatedly before going to hospital.” “Yes,” Thomas said. “Because you did not want doctors asking about the impossible part.” “Yes.” Isha’s hand closed around his again, not shielding him from the judgement. “We believed we could manage it safely. We were wrong.” Kanno stood. The chair moved back with a short scrape. Thomas and Isha remained seated while she crossed to the balcony window and stopped before the glass. Below, bicycles passed beside the river. Flat 202’s reflection placed all three of them over the darkening sky: Kanno standing apart, Thomas and Isha close at the table. She folded her arms. “I thought you were frightened because doctors could not explain it,” she said. “You were frightened because they might ask the right question.” “Both,” Thomas said. Kanno turned. “You are very good at answers that contain every available truth except the one I am asking for.” “I know.” “That is not an apology.” “No.” Thomas’s acceptance of the criticism made it harder for her to use anger as momentum. He did not defend the secrecy through risk calculations or explain that Kanno had been safer without the information. He let the choice remain theirs. Isha rose. She did not approach Kanno immediately. The open space between the table and balcony belonged to Kanno until invited otherwise. “I am sorry,” Isha said. Kanno’s expression tightened further. Isha seldom apologised merely to reduce conflict. The words carried enough weight that Kanno could not dismiss them as politeness. “I am not sorry we kept everything private when we first woke,” Isha continued. “We did not know what this world would do with the truth. We did not know you as we know you now.” Kanno listened. “I am sorry I let the old reason continue after it changed.” The city lights began appearing in the window behind her. Isha held her arms at her sides. Without a bow, uniform, climbing harness or tailored dress, she looked less defended than Kanno had seen her in months. “You told me about the woman you knew,” Isha said. “You gave me photographs, work stories, bad lunches, the argument about Matsuda’s bicycle and the time I apparently cut my own fringe before a seminar presentation.” “It was uneven for three weeks.” “I believed you.” Kanno swallowed. “I did not remember her,” Isha said. “Sometimes I felt as though listening to you was taking something from her. Sometimes I thought refusing your friendship because I was not her would take something from you. Then I wanted you for myself, and that felt worse.” The final sentence entered without protection. Thomas looked at Isha. She had told him parts of the fear, never with those exact words. Kanno unfolded her arms. Isha’s voice lowered. “I did not know whether I was stealing your friend by allowing you to love me when I already had a whole life you could not see.” Kanno remained by the window. “You did not allow me,” she said after a moment. “I decided.” “Yes.” “You also made me work for it.” “Yes.” “That part was familiar.” A small breath left Isha. It did not become laughter, but the room loosened enough for Kanno to return to the table. She did not sit immediately. “What about Thomas?” she asked. “Was I supposed to think he was only included because he belonged to you?” Thomas answered before Isha could. “No.” Kanno looked at him. “At first, you were one of the people attached to records I did not remember,” he said. “Then you came to our flat and criticised my food accurately. You helped Isha choose clothes without turning her into a project. You argued with Matsuda, slept in our spare room, brought us a terrible film and arrived at my workplace with twenty-three proof errors selected for lunch.” “Some were serious.” “Several were.” He stood now, though he remained beside the table rather than closing the distance. “You are not important to me because Isha chose you,” he said. “I chose you too.” Kanno’s face changed before she could prevent it. Isha spoke from the other side of the table. “So did I.” They had not rehearsed the answer. Kanno could hear that in the different shape of each sentence. She sat down. For several moments, no one spoke. Thomas poured fresh tea because the first cups had cooled. The practical movement gave Kanno time to look at them without being watched continuously. She accepted the new cup. “Did you know me in the life you remember?” “No,” Isha said. “Did anyone there look like me?” “Not closely enough to matter.” “Did you know Matsuda?” “No.” “Does he know any of this?” “No,” Thomas said. Kanno held the cup beneath her face, breathing in the steam. “Does anyone here know?” “Only us,” Isha said. “Doctors?” “No.” “Your employers?” “No.” “The police in Vietnam?” “No.” Kanno looked towards Thomas. “You realise that answer would become absurd if I continued through every person you have met.” “Yes.” She drank. The tea had gone slightly bitter from standing too long before Thomas refreshed it. He noticed and reached for the pot. Kanno kept the cup. “What were your names?” she asked. “Thomas Albrecht,” Thomas said. Kanno stared at him. “In both?” “As far as I remember.” Her attention moved to Isha. “Isha Vaeloren,” Isha said. “That is also my legal Earth name. Albrecht is Thomas’s surname, not mine. We are partners. We are not married.” The clarification came with enough firmness to suggest some document or introduction had blurred the matter before. Kanno stored it without pursuing the error. “The same names, same faces and another shared life,” she said. “The faces are close,” Thomas said. “Our bodies here are not exactly the ones we remember.” Kanno looked at Isha’s rounded ears without yet knowing that she was looking at an answer. “The accident changed both of you.” “The records and medicine explain the bodies through the accident,” Thomas said. “We cannot tell you what caused the deeper continuity.” “Continuity.” “It is one word. It may not be the right one.” Kanno set down the cup. “Are the Earth records fabricated?” “We do not know,” Thomas said. “People remember you. There are photographs.” “Yes.” “You had jobs, rent, university enrolment and dead parents.” “Yes.” “And none of it belongs to your memory.” “No.” The answer left no satisfying target for disbelief. The records were real enough to withstand offices, hospitals, banks and Kanno’s own history. Thomas and Isha were not claiming an elaborate conspiracy had manufactured every witness. They were claiming the records described people whose lives they did not remember inhabiting. Kanno rubbed one thumb over the edge of her cup. “Do you think the Thomas and Isha I knew died in the accident?” Isha closed her eyes briefly. Thomas’s reply took longer than any previous one. “We do not know whether they were ever separate people from us.” “That is not what I asked.” “It is the only honest answer.” Kanno’s gaze hardened. Thomas held it. “I will not tell you they died so our arrival has a clean shape. I will not tell you we simply recovered altered memories when the life we remember contains years this world cannot account for. The people in your photographs may be us in a way we do not understand. They may be another continuity. We do not know.” Kanno looked towards the sideboard, where one purikura strip stood inside a small acrylic holder. The filtered photograph showed all three beneath badly aligned fantasy decorations. Kanno remembered forcing Thomas’s arm into a less formal position before the flash. That event belonged to no supplied history. It had occurred after the accident, chosen by the people in this room. “I do not need you to solve what happened to the people in the old photographs tonight,” she said. “I needed to know you understood why I might ask.” “We do,” Isha said. Kanno nodded once. The anger remained. It had changed from pressure seeking a single release into several distinct injuries she would need time to examine. She returned to the remembered life. “You said work and travel. What kind of work?” Thomas and Isha looked at one another. The question could be answered truthfully only at a broad level without introducing ranks, spells, monsters or non-human societies. “We travelled between settlements,” Thomas said. “We solved practical problems where we could. Sometimes we carried information. Sometimes we helped people who were injured or trapped.” “You were aid workers?” “Not in an Earth institutional sense.” “Soldiers?” “No,” Isha said. “But we fought.” Kanno’s attention moved to her hands. The Da Nang account, the MMA gym and the extraordinary calm beneath pressure changed shape again. Kanno had attributed the competence to retained general skill, athletic potential and a personality altered by trauma. “How often?” she asked. “Too often,” Isha said. “Against people?” “Sometimes.” Kanno waited for more. Isha’s face had become closed around the withheld categories. “You said there were important impossible details,” Kanno said. “Yes.” “Does the fighting belong to them?” “Partly.” Kanno accepted the boundary with visible effort. “What did Thomas do?” Thomas’s mouth opened. Isha answered first, not to control the account but because her memory of him carried a different truth. “He helped everyone he could reach,” she said. “Often past the point of wisdom.” Kanno looked at Thomas. “That part crossed intact.” “Yes,” he said. “He also cooked?” “Badly at first,” Isha said. Thomas turned towards her. “The available ingredients were hostile.” “You created the ingredients.” Kanno’s eyebrows rose. Thomas and Isha both stopped. The sentence had crossed too close to magic. Isha recovered without replacing it with a lie. “That is one of the details we are withholding.” Kanno looked between them. For the first time that evening, curiosity almost displaced hurt. “What kind of detail makes ingredients impossible?” “The kind we agreed not to disclose tonight,” Thomas said. Kanno leaned back. “You rehearsed that sentence.” “We rehearsed the boundary.” “That is becoming clear.” She did not press further. The accidental edge had proved the impossible category contained more than metaphor. They had not invited her merely to describe an intense shared dream. “Were you happy?” she asked. The question altered the room more than the ones about fighting. Thomas looked at Isha. “Yes,” he said. “Not continuously,” Isha added. “There was fear. Grief. Long periods when the next duty was larger than the life around it.” Her hand found Thomas’s again. “There was also a house. Friends who entered without asking enough. Meals. Work we chose. Roads that were beautiful even when we were tired.” Her eyes brightened. She did not look away from Kanno. “I had a family who knew Thomas. He had a family who argued with me about whether he ate enough. We had people who expected us to return.” Kanno’s anger could not defend against the grief in the final sentence. “Do you believe they are still waiting?” “We believe they know we survived,” Thomas said. Kanno froze. The answer contained more than the earlier admission of information. It meant something had travelled in both directions or evidence had reached people beyond Earth. “How can they know?” Thomas’s fingers tightened around Isha’s. “We are not telling you that tonight.” Kanno stood again, more slowly this time. She crossed only as far as the sideboard and picked up the purikura strip. The photograph’s digital ears made Isha look like a decorative version of something Kanno did not yet know had been real. She returned it to the holder. “You keep saying somewhere else,” she said. Thomas and Isha waited. “Was it another country?” “No,” Thomas said. “An isolated community?” “No.” “Some period of Earth history that you believe you remember?” “No.” “A constructed world you both developed after the accident?” “It is possible that the memories have a psychological origin,” Thomas said. “We do not believe we constructed them after waking.” Kanno turned towards them. “Were the people human?” The question reached the omitted truth before the larger one. Isha went very still. Thomas did not answer for her. “Some were,” Isha said. Kanno’s gaze moved to the purikura image again, then to Isha’s actual ears, her height, her unfamiliarity with earthquakes and the careful sentence about bodies not being exactly the same. Understanding did not arrive as belief. It arrived as elimination. She returned to the table and placed both hands on its edge. “When you say elsewhere,” she said, “do you mean another world?” Thomas and Isha had planned several possible ways to reach the sentence. None had sounded like Kanno’s voice. Isha answered. “Yes.” The word entered plainly. Kanno looked at Thomas. “That is what we believe the life we remember was,” he said. “Another world.” No light changed. Nothing impossible appeared on the table to reward the disclosure. Traffic continued beyond the balcony. The refrigerator began a cooling cycle in the kitchen. Kanno sat. She looked at the wood between her hands for long enough that Thomas considered offering water and decided against converting the moment into care she had not requested. “Another world,” she repeated. “Yes,” Isha said. “With people who may still be alive.” “Yes.” “And some were not human.” “Yes.” Isha’s voice had become quieter. Kanno lifted her eyes. “Are you going to tell me what you were?” “Not tonight,” Isha said. The answer cost her. Kanno saw that more clearly than if Isha had protected it with firmness. “Magic?” Kanno asked. Thomas remained silent for one beat too long. Kanno closed her eyes. “Do not answer.” She raised one hand before either could speak. “I asked because the category was obvious. I am not asking you to prove it now.” Thomas let the breath leave him. Kanno opened her eyes again. “Do you have proof?” “Yes,” Isha said. “Something you could show me here?” “Yes.” The room tightened around the answer. Kanno looked towards the office, though she could not know whether the proof was paper, object or something else. “Do not show me tonight.” Thomas studied her. “Why?” “Because you are both waiting for me to believe you, even while saying I may doubt. If you produce something impossible now, the rest of this conversation becomes a demonstration. I need to decide what I believe about you before you force me to decide what I believe about reality.” Neither Thomas nor Isha corrected the word *force*. Evidence powerful enough to remove an ordinary explanation would exert its own pressure. Kanno touched the bridge of her nose. “I believe that you remember this life,” she said. “I believe the memories are shared and that you did not invent them for this conversation. I have not decided what I believe happened.” “That is fair,” Thomas said. “I was not asking whether it was fair.” “No.” Kanno looked at Isha. “Did you think I would leave?” “Yes.” The answer came with no delay. “Do you still?” Isha’s composure failed at the edge. “I do not know.” Kanno’s expression softened despite herself. “You are very brave with people who might kill you.” “I understand that ground.” “And terrible with a friend holding a work bag.” Isha lowered her gaze. Kanno stood and moved around the table. She stopped in front of Isha. For a moment, neither woman knew what form the friendship could take after the sentence *another world*. Kanno solved it by touching Isha’s shoulder. “I am angry,” she said. “I know.” “I may become more angry after I have had time to identify the correct parts.” “I know.” “I am not leaving the friendship tonight.” Isha’s breath broke. She put both arms around Kanno. The embrace was immediate and stronger than Kanno expected. Isha bent enough to hold her without lifting, one hand across the upper back and the other at the base of Kanno’s neck. Her face disappeared against dark hair. Kanno’s arms remained at her sides for one startled second. Then she returned the embrace. Thomas stayed where he was. Isha had opened more of herself than the planned disclosure required, and relief moved through her without restraint. Kanno held her until the pressure eased. When they separated, Kanno’s eyes had become bright. She adjusted Isha’s blouse at one shoulder because the fabric had folded beneath her hand. Then she looked at Thomas. “You also thought I might leave.” “Yes.” “You were less visible about it.” “I had a table.” Kanno stepped towards him. Thomas expected a hand on his shoulder. She hugged him too. The contact was shorter than Isha’s and no less deliberate. Thomas held her carefully at first. Kanno tightened her arms in objection, and he responded properly. “You should have gone to hospital before,” she said near his ear. “Yes.” “If the impossible thing makes you unconscious again, I still expect Isha to call.” “She will.” “I did not ask you.” Isha answered from behind them. “I will.” Kanno released Thomas. The emotional movement had not resolved the disclosure. It had only prevented fear from owning the remainder of the evening. She returned to her chair and finished the tea that had cooled twice. “Does Matsuda need to know?” “No,” Thomas said. “Not because we trust him less. Telling one person does not create an obligation to tell the next.” Kanno nodded. “I do not enjoy knowing something I cannot discuss with him.” “We understand,” Isha said. “That does not mean I will tell him.” “I know.” Kanno examined both of them. “What are you asking me to do differently?” “Nothing,” Thomas said. “That is impossible.” He waited. Kanno pointed towards the university lunch they had shared. “Next time I ask why you were in hospital, I now know the answer has another world behind it. Next time Isha does not know something everyone in Japan learns as a child, I know the gap may be geography larger than amnesia. That changes how I hear you.” “Yes,” Thomas said. “We are asking you not to expose it,” Isha added. “We are not asking you to pretend it changes nothing.” “That is a better answer.” Kanno stood and collected her bag. The evening had lasted less than two hours. Thomas had expected it to continue until every prepared heading was exhausted. Kanno had no interest in completing their agenda for them. At the genkan, Isha brought the bakery bag from the counter. “These were for tomorrow,” she said. “They remain for tomorrow.” “You should take one.” “I bought them for your breakfast.” “There are three.” Kanno looked into the bag. “The third was operational redundancy.” Thomas took the bag before the dispute became a reason for her to stay. Kanno put on her shoes. Her hand rested on the door handle without opening it. “One question.” Thomas and Isha waited. “Was your relationship there exclusive?” Thomas blinked. Isha’s face changed from grief to complete attention. “Yes,” she said. Kanno nodded. “Good. I was checking whether the other-world explanation was about to become structurally irritating.” Thomas understood the earlier harem implication only after Isha did. “No,” he said. “It was not.” “Then some laws of nature remain usable.” Kanno opened the door. The corridor light reached into the genkan. She looked back at both of them, ordinary and impossible within the same flat. “I will message when I am home.” “You do not need to decide anything tonight,” Thomas said. “I have already decided several things. The universe is waiting.” She left. Isha closed the door and remained facing it. Thomas set the bakery bag on the hall shelf. He placed one hand at her waist. Isha turned and folded around him, holding with enough force that his ribs registered the fact without complaint. “She stayed,” Isha said. “Yes.” “She may change her mind.” “Yes.” Thomas did not promise what another person would choose tomorrow. They returned to the LDK without clearing the cups. The purikura strip remained on the sideboard, digital ears and horns fixed over three faces that had known none of this when the photograph was taken. At ten twenty-three, Kanno’s message arrived. **Home.** A second followed. **I believe that you remember it. I have not decided what else I believe.** The third took longer. **I am still angry. I am still your friend. Do not answer tonight.** Isha read it with her shoulder against Thomas’s. Neither of them replied.