## Chapter 302 — The Sound That Travelled

Saitō knocked on the door of 202 at ten twelve on Sunday morning and asked whether their washing machine had learned patience.

Thomas looked towards the washroom. The machine had finished twenty minutes earlier and was currently holding damp towels in silence.

“What kind of patience?” he asked.

“One knock. Then enough time for me to decide I imagined it. Then another.”

Saitō stood in the corridor with her cane in her right hand and a folded cloth shopping bag over the other wrist. She had dressed to go out but had stopped before the lift because the sound returned while she was locking 203.

Isha came from the LDK carrying one of the damp towels. “I heard it yesterday.”

Thomas looked at her. “You did not mention it.”

“It stopped after four.”

“That appears to have been temporary restraint,” Saitō said.

The knock arrived again.

It was dull, contained and too regular to be a dropped object. The sound travelled through the second-floor structure without offering a clear direction. Thomas felt it faintly through the floor before hearing the final wooden note.

Isha looked towards 204.

“Miyake’s press,” she said.

Saitō adjusted her grip on the cane. “A book press is preferable to a pipe. I would still like it to stop addressing my wall.”

They crossed the short corridor together. Miyake answered after the second ring, reading glasses pushed onto the top of her head and a strip of grey repair paper caught against one sleeve.

The main room behind her contained the private repair work Thomas and Isha had first seen when a parcel delivered the small press to the wrong flat. Cutting mats covered one section of the table. Brushes stood in jars beside weights wrapped in clean paper. The press now occupied a low wooden cabinet near the interior wall.

Miyake listened to Saitō’s description and looked immediately at the machine.

“I thought the table had begun moving,” she said. “I tightened the feet yesterday.”

She invited them inside. Saitō left her outdoor shoes at the entrance and carried the cane rather than using it across Miyake’s floor.

A partly repaired family album lay beneath the press. The pages had been interleaved with clean sheets, then held between boards while the repaired spine dried under pressure. Miyake turned the screw handle by half a rotation.

The base rocked.

One corner struck the cabinet with the same muted knock that had reached 203 and 202.

Miyake crouched and looked underneath. Three black isolation pads remained beneath the metal feet. The fourth had shifted backwards until most of it projected beyond the base.

“That explains why tightening made it worse,” she said.

Thomas examined the cabinet without touching the press. The surface bowed slightly beneath the uneven load but appeared undamaged. “The missing support lets the base turn around the opposite front foot.”

“I understand rocking,” Miyake said. “I had not understood where the pad went.”

Isha put the towel she was still carrying on an empty chair. “Do you want me to lift it?”

Miyake checked the album, the pressure boards and the screw. Moving the whole press would disturb less than unloading and rebuilding the stack.

“Only enough for the pad.”

Isha stood at the side, set both hands beneath the edge of the metal base and raised it several centimetres. The press, boards and album came up together. Her arms tightened, but the movement remained small and steady.

Miyake retrieved the displaced pad and inspected its underside. Dust and fine paper fibres had reduced the grip. She cleaned the cabinet with a dry cloth, then took a square of cork-rubber packing material from a drawer.

“The original pads are too small,” she said. “I kept this because discarding useful packing is apparently beyond me.”

Saitō watched from beside the table. “Your hobby appears to rely on objects no one else permits themselves to store.”

“That is why I live alone.”

Miyake cut four larger squares rather than replacing only the missing one. Thomas held the ruler while she marked them. Isha continued supporting the press until Miyake told her to lower it onto the new pads one corner at a time.

The base settled flat.

Miyake turned the handle. The screw tightened against the upper board. No knock travelled into the cabinet.

She gave it another half-turn.

Silence remained.

Saitō looked unconvinced by a test performed in the same room. She returned to 203 while Miyake loosened the pressure slightly, waited and tightened it again. Thomas heard only the dry movement of the screw.

Several seconds later, Saitō knocked once on the shared corridor wall.

Miyake opened her door.

“Nothing,” Saitō called from 203. “I knocked so you would know.”

“That defeats the purpose,” Miyake said.

“The first knock was informational.”

Saitō returned with her shopping bag and cane. She examined the four pads from standing height, accepted that they were larger and asked whether the cabinet required checking for damage. Miyake showed her the surface. The faint compressed marks were even now and did not break the finish.

Thomas picked up Isha’s damp towel from the chair before it could become repair material by accident. Miyake thanked them without offering bookmarks, payment or another object from her storage.

“You lifted that as if it were an empty box,” she said to Isha.

“It was balanced.”

“It was not light.”

“No.”

Miyake adjusted the press handle so it projected away from the walkway. “Then I will describe the balance if anyone asks.”

Saitō looked towards Thomas. “You did not repair anything.”

“I held the ruler.”

“Good. The building remains shared.”

They left Miyake to the album. Saitō continued towards the lift and the shopping trip the knock had delayed. Thomas and Isha returned to 202, where the washing machine had still failed to develop any further behaviour.

Isha began hanging the towels on the rack in the flexible room. Thomas clipped the first one beside hers.

“You heard four knocks yesterday,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And concluded that the source had stopped.”

“It had.”

“That is not usually your standard for unexplained structural sound.”

Isha spread the second towel, aligning its lower edge with the first. “It sounded small, dry and made by a person. The building did not move.”

Thomas considered the information available through her current human hearing and the judgement carried from a longer life. “You could have told me.”

“I intended to if it returned.”

“It returned to Saitō.”

“She told you.”

Thomas clipped the final corner. The towels hung evenly.

The knock did not return.

---

Mai came back to the office at four twenty on Monday carrying two folders.

The blue one held the graduate programme’s decision. The clear one held the notes and forms from the financial-support appointment. She placed them separately on Thomas’s desk before sitting, as though allowing the papers to touch might cause one office to adopt the other’s answer.

“The submission extension is approved,” she said.

Thomas opened the blue folder. The programme had accepted 27 November as the revised deadline, with weekly progress updates to the supervisor and a short written review after the next complete experiment sequence. Registration and laboratory access continued through the extension. No additional scholarship funding followed from the approval.

The last sentence appeared in bold.

Mai watched him reach it. “They said academic permission and funding are separate.”

“They are.”

“I know. They said it three times.”

The financial-support adviser had given her a different kind of answer. Mai met the basic conditions to apply for a one-time hardship grant. The award was not automatic, and any payment would cover only part of the expected November gap. A short-term university loan remained available if the grant was refused or insufficient, but the loan required a separate application and repayment plan.

Thomas read the adviser’s handwritten notes. The grant application had to be complete by Wednesday for the next review meeting. A decision was expected before the end of October. The loan could be considered later and more quickly, though eligibility still did not guarantee approval.

“What did you decide?” he asked.

Mai opened the clear folder to the expense worksheet they had begun on Friday. The blank at the bottom now contained a range rather than one exact shortfall. Her current savings could carry her through rent and ordinary costs until the middle of November if nothing unusual occurred. The hardship grant, if awarded near the upper end, would cover most of the remaining period. If it was smaller, she would have to use the loan, ask family for a defined amount or combine both.

“I will apply for the grant,” she said. “I don’t want to borrow until I know the result.”

Thomas checked the timing. “The adviser believes the loan decision can still be made before your savings run out?”

“Yes. She wrote the date here.”

Mai pointed to the margin. The adviser had recommended returning with the grant decision and an updated account balance no later than 2 November. Thomas underlined that date once.

“What does the application still need?”

“Two bank statements, the programme approval, my lease and the supervisor’s schedule. I have all of them.” Mai took out a draft statement explaining the circumstances. “This part is too long.”

It was almost a page and a half. The first paragraph described her mother’s illness, surgery and recovery. The second apologised for leaving Japan. The third explained the experiment delay, failed restart, revised plan and scholarship decision. By the final paragraph, the application had become a defence of every choice made since spring.

Thomas put the programme approval beside it.

“The grant office needs to understand why the funding gap exists and what period the support would cover. It does not need you to persuade them that you were a good daughter.”

Mai looked down at the apology occupying the middle of the first page.

“They asked for special circumstances.”

“Your mother’s surgery is a circumstance. Whether leaving was morally correct is not a field on the form.”

She removed the first sheet and began again on a blank copy. Thomas did not dictate. He pointed to the dates already verified in the supervisor’s schedule and the scholarship letter. Mai wrote that she had travelled during her mother’s surgery and early recovery, that the resulting interruption and failed experiment sequence delayed the approved submission date to 27 November, and that scholarship support ended on 31 October.

The new version occupied six lines.

Sugiyama read it when Thomas asked whether the Japanese sounded too formal. She replaced one phrase that implied the graduate programme had caused the delay and removed an honorific expression more suitable for a personal letter than an application.

“The documents already show the history,” she said. “This paragraph only connects them.”

Mai copied the revision. Her handwriting became smaller near the end but remained within the box.

Mori came from the inner office after finishing a call. Thomas gave her the two decisions in one sentence: academic extension approved; hardship-grant application available, outcome pending. Mori checked that Mai had been told the support was not guaranteed and that the loan remained separate.

Mai answered both before Thomas could.

Mori nodded. “Then the office has no third answer to add.”

She returned to her desk.

Mai arranged the application documents in the order printed on the checklist. Bank statements first, then the programme decision, lease, revised schedule and personal statement. The scholarship result went behind them because the checklist requested proof of the ending support.

Thomas watched her compare each page against the list.

“Are you continuing to 27 November?” he asked.

Mai kept one finger beside the final checkbox. “Yes.”

The answer did not sound triumphant. It sounded like a date placed where several uncertain costs could now be measured against it.

“If the grant is refused?” Thomas asked.

“I will return to the adviser. Then I decide about the loan and the amount I can ask my family for.” Mai closed the clear folder. “I am not promising I will finish before the deadline. I am saying I will use the approved time.”

Thomas left the sentence as she gave it.

At the printer, Mai made one complete copy of the application for herself. She checked the page count, clipped each set separately and put the original in the blue folder because it closed more securely. The programme approval moved into the clear folder, reversing the arrangement she had brought to the office.

Before leaving, she wrote **2 November** on the front of her copy.

The lift arrived before she reached it. Mai stepped inside with both folders held against her chest and pressed the ground-floor button.

Thomas returned to his desk.

The winter-closure guide was still open to a paragraph whose deadline had not changed while he was away from it. He corrected the final sentence and sent it to Mori.