## Chapter 292 — One Week Off Thomas finished the final repetition of the seated row and returned the handle without letting the weights strike. The stack settled one plate at a time. His shoulders remained down, his lower back stayed against the pad, and the effort had travelled where the exercise intended rather than escaping into his neck. Two months earlier, the same setting had made the eighth repetition uncertain. Today he completed ten and knew he could have forced another. He did not. Thomas released the handle, flexed his fingers and recorded the set in the small training notebook kept inside his gym bag. The page contained no targets beyond the next session. Date, exercise, load, repetitions and one brief note where something required attention. **Row — all clean. Keep.** Around him, the campus gym moved through its lunch-hour population. Two postgraduate students alternated beneath a barbell while discussing an experiment in language too specialised for Thomas to follow. A professor walked steadily on a treadmill with a folded article resting across its display. Near the windows, someone had left a towel on an unused bench and disappeared long enough for the towel to begin asserting ownership. Thomas drank water and waited until his breathing had returned to normal. The programme had changed little since the conservative assessment after his recovery. A short warm-up. Several basic movements covering legs, pulling, pushing and trunk stability. No failure, no difficult barbell work without a spotter and no attempt to turn each visit into evidence that the previous one had been insufficient. The lack of drama had become part of why he trusted it. He moved to the adjustable bench and set it one position above flat. The dumbbells he selected were heavier than the first pair he had used in winter and light enough that nobody nearby would notice the distinction. Thomas sat, brought them to his thighs and used each knee to guide one weight into position. The first repetitions rose evenly. By the sixth, his right arm slowed slightly. He corrected the angle of his wrist and completed two more before returning both weights to his thighs. His chest worked. His shoulders felt warm. Nothing hurt. Thomas sat for several seconds with the dumbbells resting against his legs. Sweat travelled from his temple towards his jaw. In the mirror opposite, the change in his body remained modest: shoulders a little fuller beneath the training shirt, arms no longer entirely shaped by ordinary daily use, posture less inclined to fold inward when tired. The body still belonged comfortably within the broad middle of adult men. It had acquired no hidden history, exceptional measurements or talent that made strangers turn. It felt better to live inside than it had six months earlier. Thomas lowered the weights to the floor, wrote down the set and continued. Split squats came last. He held one light dumbbell at his chest, placed his rear foot on the low support and lowered under control. Balance had improved enough that the movement no longer required constant negotiation with the floor. His front leg trembled on the final repetition, but the knee held its line. He changed sides, completed the set and stopped. The digital clock above the entrance showed that he had eleven minutes before showering would become hurried. Thomas wiped the bench and returned the dumbbell. He had used forty-two minutes, achieved nothing remarkable and finished with more energy than he had brought to several early sessions. On the stairs back to the office, his legs felt worked rather than depleted. He climbed the second flight while reading a message from Sugiyama about a revised residence notice and reached the landing before noticing he had not altered his pace. The improvement was small enough that nobody else could have identified it. Thomas noticed. --- Two days later, his judo bag sat beneath his desk. The folded gi occupied most of it. The belt lay across the top, beside tape, a water bottle and the small towel he used after practice. Thomas had packed everything before leaving flat 202 that morning, although the class would not begin until seven. At ten sixteen he helped a student find the section of an online application where the university required the address written on the current residence card rather than the address used by the student’s bank. At eleven forty, Mori returned a translated summer-closure notice because Thomas had preserved the source document’s courtesy and obscured the practical deadline. He shortened the paragraph. At lunch, he ate rice, grilled mackerel and pickled cucumber on the covered walkway. His legs carried no lingering fatigue from the gym. The air was hot enough that the shaded concrete had retained warmth from the morning, and cicadas worked continuously in the trees beyond the courtyard. The judo bag remained under his desk when he returned. Thomas saw it each time he moved his feet. Nothing about the evening was dangerous. Nakamura would manage the class properly. Tanabe would offer useful resistance without contempt. The tatami would be clean, the room familiar and the practice restricted to techniques Thomas had already encountered. He knew how to fall. His body had tolerated the work for months. The thought of going produced no fear. It produced a dull, immediate wish that the class had been cancelled. Thomas opened the residence notice again and checked the date. He had already checked it twice. The deadline remained unchanged. At three twenty, an email arrived from facilities concerning a corridor sign. At four five, Sugiyama asked whether the English phrase *application failure* sounded as though the student had failed rather than the upload. Thomas agreed that it did and replaced it with *the application could not be submitted*. At four forty-eight, Mori began closing a folder in the inner office. Thomas’s judo class required him to leave by five forty-five, eat something small and reach the municipal building with time to change. His usual train would place him there early enough that waiting became part of the routine. He looked at the clock. The anticipation in his body resembled the minutes before an unpleasant appointment whose result was already known. He would arrive. He would bow. He would try to move at the right moment, receive corrections he understood and fail to make them usable before the next attempt. Tanabe would throw him. Thomas would stand, perhaps more quickly now, and spend the journey home determining whether the speed of standing concealed the fact that he had learned very little about remaining upright. One poor evening did not define a sport. The previous week had not been the first poor evening. Thomas lowered his gaze to the training bag. He liked Nakamura. He liked Tanabe. He liked the clean boundaries of the dojo, the requirement to protect a partner and the absence of any need to pretend a fall had been something else. He had learned to land safely. He had completed one real sweep. Sometimes a corrected movement worked for half a second and gave him a glimpse of why people devoted years to finding it again. Most Thursdays, he wanted the class to be over before it began. At five twelve, Thomas took out his phone. He opened the contact group used for adult-beginner absences and wrote in Japanese: **I will not attend this evening. I am not injured. Thank you.** The message looked incomplete. He considered adding an explanation about work, fatigue or the need to review his training schedule. None was required. The instructor needed to know that a registered participant would not arrive and that no accident or injury required follow-up. Thomas sent it. Relief entered before the screen dimmed. It began in his shoulders and travelled down his arms, leaving him seated more heavily in the office chair. The response was so immediate that he nearly distrusted it. Relief could reward avoidance as easily as good judgement. Daniel had felt relief whenever he cancelled a social plan, then loneliness when the evening became quiet. Thomas had felt relief on roads where another person took command, even when obedience moved him towards harm. A feeling arriving first did not make it correct. It remained a feeling he had been producing every week and naming only after the class ended. Mori came out of the inner office carrying two folders. Her eyes moved to the training bag, then to the coat Thomas had not yet put on. “You are leaving at the usual time?” “Yes.” “Not directly to practice?” “No. I am going home.” Mori accepted the answer with the same lack of interest she would have given a change of supermarket. She placed one folder in Sugiyama’s tray and the other on her own desk. “The residence notice can wait until tomorrow. Facilities have not approved the Japanese version.” Thomas closed the file. “Understood.” At five twenty-nine, he shut down the computer and put the judo bag over one shoulder. The bag felt more conspicuous now that its contents had no destination. Nakamura’s reply arrived in the lift. **Understood. Thank you for notifying us.** No persuasion followed. She did not ask whether he had lost confidence or remind him that improvement required patience. The adult-beginner class had rearranged itself around absences many times before Thomas joined it. Someone else would pair with Tanabe. The dojo would continue without interpreting his empty place. Thomas put the phone away. Outside the university building, the evening was bright and humid. He walked towards the station carrying the unused gi and discovered that he had no desire to replace the class with another workout. He wanted to go home. --- Isha was sitting on the LDK floor when Thomas entered flat 202. A clean towel lay beneath her tattooed arm. The skin no longer needed protection from ordinary contact, but she had returned from training and was applying a small amount of moisturiser where the healed area felt tight after showering. Three black lines travelled over the inner upper arm, settled now into the skin rather than lying above it. Her MMA gloves rested near the wall to air. One had fallen onto its side. Isha looked first at Thomas, then at the judo bag still hanging from his shoulder. The clock above the kitchen showed six twelve. “You are early.” “I did not go.” She capped the moisturiser. Her attention moved over his face and posture, searching only long enough to establish that he had not arrived injured. “Did something happen?” “No.” Thomas lowered the bag beside the dining table. “I chose not to attend.” Isha remained seated. Her hair was damp and loose, the ends spreading across the back of a pale sleeveless shirt. She waited while Thomas removed his shoes, put away his work bag and returned to the LDK. “Have you stopped?” she asked. “I don’t know.” He sat on the floor opposite her rather than taking a chair. The judo bag remained between the table and kitchen, still zipped. Isha drew one knee up and rested her right forearm across it. “Then what did you decide?” “To miss one class.” “That decision appears complete.” “For tonight.” Thomas pressed his thumb into the centre of his palm. The callus from weights was slight but discernible. Judo had added other small marks at the knuckles and wrists, none of which made the choice clearer. “I had a good gym session on Tuesday,” he said. “Not exceptional. I added two repetitions in one exercise and completed the rest more cleanly than I used to. I left feeling better than when I arrived.” Isha nodded. She had seen the gradual change in his body before he trusted it enough to name. His shoulders sat differently beneath shirts. Carrying shopping no longer produced the careful redistribution he once pretended was only efficient packing. When they walked uphill, he recovered while still speaking instead of finishing the sentence several breaths later. Thomas looked towards the unopened judo bag. “The gym is working. I am stronger than I was. My balance has improved. I sleep better on training days unless I go too late, and the office stairs have stopped feeling like an accusation after lunch.” “The stairs were poorly behaved.” “They have accepted correction.” The small humour passed without moving the larger subject away. “With judo,” Thomas continued, “I keep waiting for the same gradual return. There has been some. I fall better. I understand more words. I completed one throw properly.” “Tanabe threw you immediately afterwards.” “Yes. That helped preserve scale.” Isha’s mouth shifted. Thomas looked down at his hands. “I know being bad at a new thing is not an injustice. Nobody has promised that effort will make me talented. Nakamura teaches well. Tanabe is patient. I am safe there.” Thomas paused. “I am also disappointed almost every time.” The admission felt childish once spoken. Adults were permitted to leave hobbies. No family depended on his attendance; no opponent would be harmed by his absence. The decision carried less objective consequence than several university lunch orders. Thomas still felt as though he were confessing a failure of character. Isha did not rescue him from the discomfort. “What disappoints you?” “That I understand the correction and cannot make my body use it. That one correct movement disappears by the next session. That everyone says this is normal for a beginner and I continue to dislike it.” He leaned back against the sofa. The upholstery touched the damp edge of his work shirt between the shoulder blades. “After a gym session, I notice what I completed. After judo, I notice everything I failed to understand before I hit the floor. Standing sooner did not change that. It only made the review happen while I was moving.” “Your wish was not to become unable to think.” “I may have specified it poorly.” Isha extended one bare foot and placed it against the outside of his calf. The contact was familiar and lacked any attempt to guide him towards an answer. “Did you enjoy the class last week?” she asked. Thomas thought of Tanabe’s hand, Nakamura’s correction, the unresolved final sweep and the wagyu waiting at home. “Parts of it.” “Did you want to go today?” “No.” The answer arrived before he could qualify it. Isha let the silence remain around the word. From outside came the mechanical chirp of a pedestrian crossing and the softer movement of someone opening a balcony door on another floor. The air conditioner changed speed. Thomas rubbed his palm again. “I wanted to have gone.” “That is different.” “Yes.” He looked at her foot against his leg. Isha moved her toes once beneath the fabric of his trousers. “I like being someone who goes to judo,” Thomas said. “I am less certain that I like judo.” Isha considered this with the seriousness she usually gave a structural weakness or an opponent’s stance. “Why do you like being that person?” Thomas had several answers prepared and trusted none of them completely. “Because it is physical and social. Because people can correct me where I cannot explain my way around the correction. Because falling used to mean something had gone wrong, and there it is part of the work.” He hesitated. “Because it seemed like something a healthier version of me would do.” “The gym also belongs to a healthier version.” “Yes, but the gym is controlled. I choose the load, stop before failure and write down the progress. Judo gives another person permission to interrupt the plan.” Isha understood that attraction. She sought it in a more complete form. Arai’s punches, Mizuno’s submissions and Morita’s possible left-sided pressure all offered resistance that could not be reduced to a private measurement. Thomas had wanted some part of the same uncertainty. His body had not found pleasure in it merely because his mind respected the purpose. “There is another reason,” he said. Isha waited. Thomas looked towards the three lines on her arm, then at the gloves near the wall. “I started because we started together.” “We still attend the same dojo.” “You moved into intermediate practice before I finished learning how to tie the belt consistently.” “I showed you the knot.” “You tied it for me twice. That is not the same achievement.” Her foot pressed more firmly against his calf. Thomas covered it with one hand. “I knew you would progress faster,” he continued. “I did not know how quickly the activity would separate into something that belonged to you and something I was continuing beside it.” Isha’s gaze sharpened, though she did not withdraw her foot. “Judo does not belong to me.” “No. But combat does, in a way it never belonged to Daniel and only belonged to Thomas because magic kept making danger unavoidable. You understand bodies under pressure. I wanted one part of that world where I was learning rather than being protected.” The words had been difficult to arrange because they exposed an old comparison in a new form. Isha’s greater strength had never made Thomas want her smaller. He enjoyed it, relied upon it and desired her authority when both of them chose it. A quieter part of him still searched for a physical competence that would make the difference feel voluntary. “One clean sweep did not answer that,” he said. “Neither has being thrown for months.” Isha moved from the floor to kneel in front of him. She placed both hands on his thighs and looked directly into his face. “Do you want to be able to defeat me?” “No.” “Do you want people to believe you could?” Thomas nearly denied it. The answer required more care. “Sometimes I want the comparison not to begin.” “It begins because I am taller and visibly stronger. Your attendance at beginner judo has not confused anyone.” “That is severe.” “It is accurate.” Thomas looked away. Isha caught his chin with one hand and returned his attention to her. She did not tell him that his value was elsewhere. She had already said that in more important rooms and under worse pressure. Repeating it each time he found a new measurement would turn love into maintenance. “I chose judo because I enjoyed the problem,” she said. “Then I chose MMA because judo removed too many answers. You did not ask me to remain in the beginner class so that we could fail at the same speed.” “No.” “Why are you asking yourself to remain?” “I don’t know whether I am leaving because it does not suit me or because I dislike being poor at it.” “Both may be true.” Thomas had wanted the motives separated into one respectable answer and one cowardly one. Isha’s refusal to divide them was inconvenient. “If I stop now,” he said, “the last class was one of my worst. That makes leaving feel reactive.” “You went for months before that class.” “Yes.” “You were disappointed during those months.” “Often.” “Then last week may only have made the existing answer louder.” Her hand left his chin and settled against the side of his neck. Thomas leaned into the touch before deciding whether it weakened his position. “I do not want to become someone who leaves every activity that resists him,” he said. Isha’s thumb moved beneath his ear. “You have remained through several activities that resisted you.” “Most of those involved people dying if I left.” “That may have damaged your standard.” Thomas laughed once, without much amusement. The sound still loosened something in his chest. Isha sat beside him against the sofa. Their shoulders touched. She stretched both legs in front of her, one long enough to reach beyond his bare feet. “What do you enjoy at the gym?” she asked. Thomas considered the question through sensation rather than principle. “The first warm set when a movement feels easier than I remember. Stopping while I still have control. Writing down a small improvement and knowing it came from the previous weeks rather than luck.” “What do you enjoy at judo?” “Tanabe’s commentary. Sometimes the breakfall itself, when I land properly. The order at the beginning and end.” He searched further. “Once, the moment before the sweep completed. I understood where his foot was going.” “Once.” “Yes.” Isha rested her head against the sofa. “Do you enjoy trying to find it again?” Thomas did not answer immediately. He enjoyed the idea of finding it. He admired the patience required. During drills, there were moments when attention narrowed usefully around grip, balance and movement. Those moments usually ended before satisfaction arrived. The thought of another year producing four or five successful throws did not excite him. It sounded like an obligation he would defend because the failures had made the investment expensive. “No,” he said at last. “Not enough.” Isha accepted the answer. She lifted his hand and examined the pale grip marks at the wrist, then placed the hand across her thigh. Thomas looked at their joined position. “You are not going to tell me what to do.” “No.” “I suspected that.” “You did not ask for instruction.” “I may have been hoping you would provide permission.” Isha turned her head towards him. “To stop?” “To consider stopping.” “You have already considered it.” The distinction irritated Thomas because she was right. “I sent the absence before telling you,” he said. “Good.” “I knew you would not object.” “That is not why it is good.” He waited. Isha looked towards the judo bag. “You made one choice before asking whether I would approve of the person who made it.” Thomas’s fingers tightened against her thigh. Crownholt had taught him to present conclusions in the form most likely to preserve access to another person. Earth had not removed the habit merely because the current room had no guards. “I was still going to discuss it.” “You should. It affects our week and something you have done beside me. Discussion is not permission.” Thomas lowered his gaze. “I know.” “Yes.” The answer carried no praise for knowing. Isha leaned over and kissed his temple. They remained on the floor until hunger made the evening require another decision. Thomas suggested chilled soba. Isha took the noodles from the cupboard before he could stand and assigned him cucumber, spring onion and the remaining chicken from the refrigerator. The meal took fifteen minutes and demonstrated nothing about either of them. Thomas sliced the cucumber too finely for the dressing, Isha put more ginger in her bowl than he expected, and both ate beside the open balcony door while summer insects struck intermittently against the outer screen. The judo class began while they were washing the bowls. Thomas knew the time because his body had learned the schedule. At seven, Nakamura would call the line together. At seven ten, the beginners would begin movement and falling drills. By seven thirty, Thomas would usually be warm enough to stop noticing the stiffness in his hips. At eight twenty-five, the final practice would end. He dried a bowl and placed it in the cupboard. Relief had remained. Guilt now sat beside it, less physical and more articulate. Tanabe would have another partner. Nakamura would teach the same lesson. Thomas was not abandoning a person in danger; he was absent from an adult recreation class after sending notice. His mind continued trying to improve the moral scale of the decision. Isha handed him the final cup. “Walk?” Thomas checked the time. “During judo?” “That is when evening has occurred.” He put the cup away. “Yes.” They changed into shoes and left flat 202. The river path retained the day’s heat. Air moved above the water but did little to cool the road beside it. Thomas and Isha walked upstream beneath trees filled with cicadas, then crossed where the path widened around a small playground. Thomas’s legs felt good. The gym work earlier in the week remained inside them as stability rather than soreness. He walked quickly enough that conversation required breath, then slowed before the pace became another assessment. Isha noticed and matched him without comment. They passed a man running with a light around one arm, two elderly women walking abreast and a family trying to persuade a small dog that the river did not require inspection from inside the water. Thomas and Isha moved around them, sometimes together and sometimes single file. After fifteen minutes, Thomas said, “I don’t want to decide tonight.” Isha had been watching a cyclist approach from behind. She moved closer to Thomas until the bicycle passed, then returned to his side. “Then do not.” “I will take one week. I’ll keep the gym sessions and leave judo alone. If I miss the class, that tells me something. If I only miss being able to say I attend, that tells me something else.” “One week may not answer it.” “No. But continuing by default has answered very little.” They reached the footbridge and climbed its shallow ramp. Thomas’s breathing rose with the incline and settled before they reached the centre. Isha rested both forearms on the railing. Below them, the river carried broken reflections of apartment windows and the last pale section of sky. Thomas stood beside her. “Would you think less of me if I stopped?” he asked. Isha turned from the water. The question was too direct for dismissal and too familiar for surprise. “I would be annoyed that you had assigned me that judgement.” “That is not an answer.” “It is part of one.” She faced him fully. “No. I would think you tried judo, learned what it gave you and decided whether the price remained worthwhile.” “The price is one evening and some bruises.” “The price is also recurring disappointment. You are allowed to count it.” Thomas looked back at the water. “There are people who continue much harder things.” “They are not using your Thursday.” The answer settled more cleanly than reassurance would have done. Isha leaned against the rail beside him. “I would object if you stopped moving because one sport made you feel incompetent. You are not doing that. The gym gives you health, strength and pleasure. You walk. You train consistently. You do not need to turn exercise into combat because I enjoy combat.” “I may have been doing that.” “Yes.” “You could soften these observations.” “You brought me here for accuracy.” “I believed we came for a walk.” “They can coexist.” Thomas rested his elbows on the railing. Farther downstream, a train crossed beyond the buildings, its lit windows briefly visible between trees. “I wanted to share a road with you,” he said. “We share many.” “That sounds suspiciously like the title of a lesson.” Isha looked at him. “Then I withdraw it.” She moved away from the railing and held out her hand. Thomas took it. They continued across the bridge and returned by the opposite bank. At eight twenty-five, when the judo class would have ended, Thomas was carrying two ice bars from a convenience store while Isha tried to open hers without tearing the wrapper through the frozen fruit. He took the packet, opened it along the marked edge and returned it. “That was useful,” she said. “I remain suited to some disciplines.” Isha bit into the ice bar and gave him a look made severe by cold. Back in flat 202, Thomas unzipped the judo bag. The gi smelled only of clean cotton and the cupboard where it had waited. He took it out, refolded it along the existing creases and placed it on the wardrobe shelf. The belt went on top. Tape, towel and water bottle returned to their usual places. He left the bag empty on the floor. For one week, that was all he decided.