## Chapter 380 — Back on the Rota Monday, 20 December 2027, began with a grey sky and a train that was three minutes late. Thomas found both facts reassuring. The promised Sunday had done exactly what Isha had asked of it: clear, dry, cold enough to be December, and otherwise uneventful. By Monday morning the sky had returned to a pale sheet over Sendai, the pavement outside the station still held yesterday's grit, and a recorded announcement apologised for the delay as though nothing more serious could reasonably be happening anywhere. Thomas stood among coats, briefcases and school bags with one hand around an overhead strap. Two days earlier he had watched the fantasy world rotate above Ian's palm. On Sunday he and Isha had spent part of the afternoon discussing whether asking an omnipotent acquaintance for useful things could become a bad habit. Now somebody's backpack was pressing against his elbow, so he moved half a step and made room. At the university, the international-support office had entered the particular end-of-year state in which almost every task contained the phrase *before the break*. A stack of outgoing notices waited beside Mori's desk. Sugiyama had three coloured flags attached to the edge of her monitor and a paper bag containing small mandarins beneath it. Endo was already in a meeting elsewhere. The office plant had acquired a handwritten watering date because Sugiyama did not trust the holiday rota to interpret soil. Thomas removed his coat, started his computer and had just opened the shared case list when Mori appeared beside his desk with two sheets of paper. “Morning. These are the revised winter contact instructions. Facilities changed one emergency number on Friday afternoon.” Thomas took them. “Of course they did.” “They sent the correction before anyone printed five hundred copies,” Mori said. “We are calling that success.” She moved on before the revision could become a discussion. There was no space in the exchange for Thomas to wonder whether she would believe that he had spent Saturday in an artificial café with a man who could replace the ceiling with space. He liked that. The first student arrived at nine twelve with a problem involving a bank document, a tuition instalment and two versions of her address. None of the versions was false. Her residence card used the formal building name, the bank had abbreviated it, and the online university form had dropped one block number after the student copied the address from an old delivery app. Thomas put the three records beside one another. “The addresses all describe the same place. The finance office needs one version it can match consistently, so we should use the residence-card form for the university record and attach the bank document with the abbreviation explained.” The student looked at the screen. “Do I need to change the bank too?” “Not for this payment. If you want the bank record changed later, that is separate. I would not turn one administrative problem into two before lunch.” She laughed, mostly from relief. Thomas checked the finance-office note before promising anything further, found that Sugiyama had already added the correct contact name, and sent the student away with one short list rather than three competing instructions. The next hour was less coherent. A visiting researcher wanted to know whether a family member could collect a document during the closure period. A student had attached the wrong page of an insurance certificate. Someone from another department called to ask whether the international office owned a field in a shared spreadsheet which Thomas knew, after several months of deliberate argument, belonged to student housing. “It is still Housing's field,” he said. The caller hesitated. “They asked whether you could fill it this time because you have the arrival list.” Thomas looked at the four-date pilot sheet on his second monitor. The information was visible to him; entering it would take less than a minute. “I can tell you which arrivals are affected, but Housing should enter the status. If I update it, the next person will assume our office owns it.” The caller agreed after a short pause. Thomas sent the relevant names and left the cells untouched. Sugiyama looked over the partition when he hung up. “You resisted. Was it painful?” “A little.” She nodded as though this confirmed a manageable chronic condition and returned to her email. By eleven thirty, the weekend had receded to something that belonged behind his eyes instead of in front of them. Thomas caught himself thinking about Ian only once, when a printer produced a page with the lower centimetre missing and Sugiyama said the machine had made an editorial decision. The association arrived, was rejected as unhelpful, and disappeared while he opened the rear tray. At lunch he ate curry in the staff room with Mori and two colleagues from another section. The conversation concerned a cancelled year-end gathering, a child with influenza and whether one of the campus convenience stores would close earlier than expected. Mori asked Thomas whether he and Isha had plans for Christmas. “Something small,” he said. “We haven't decided exactly what.” “Good. If you decide on something large by Friday, you have misunderstood Christmas week.” Mori opened the yoghurt she had brought with lunch. “That sounds like professional advice,” Thomas said. Mori shook her head. “It is advice from someone who has not bought two gifts yet.” Thomas did not ask for whom. The afternoon supplied a scholarship form with a missing signature, one difficult telephone call conducted half in Japanese and half in English, and a student who apologised seven times for arriving without an appointment. Thomas eventually told him that the eighth apology would be entered as a separate administrative request. The student stopped at seven apologies. At five twenty-six, Thomas closed the shared case list. The cells he did not own were still owned by other people. The winter contact notice contained the corrected number. The student with the address problem had uploaded the requested explanation and nothing else had become metaphysical. He put on his coat while Sugiyama was still working. She glanced at the clock and then at him. “You are leaving on time.” “Yes.” Her brief suspicion made him smile before he had even reached the corridor. By the time Thomas stepped outside, the campus had settled into early winter darkness. --- Isha's Monday had started with rental shoes. The climbing centre possessed enough pairs for the morning school group, but not enough patience to keep them in numerical order once twenty children began returning them. By ten, two size labels had been swapped, one shoe had migrated beneath the wrong bench, and a boy had become convinced that the red pair helped him climb faster. Isha spent more time on the floor than on the wall. Her first adult beginner session began after lunch. The group was small: two women in their thirties, a university student and a man who had climbed once at an outdoor activity centre several years earlier. Isha handled the equipment briefing, then watched the first attempts from the mat while Yoshida covered another section. One of the women, compact and broad through the shoulders, stopped halfway through a low route. She could reach the next handhold if she straightened fully, but every attempt pulled her hips away from the wall and made her feet less secure. “I can reach it,” she said, annoyed now. “I just cannot keep it.” Isha stood below and to one side. From her own body, the route was trivial in precisely the least useful way. Her extra height would let her take the hold before the awkward position existed. “Keep your right hand where it is,” she said. “Move your left foot first. There is a smaller foothold below your knee.” The woman found it and tested the edge, then looked down again. “Then what?” “Stand through that leg and let your left hip come closer. Do not reach until you feel your weight settle.” The first attempt failed because the woman turned her shoulders too early. Isha said nothing until she came back to the previous position. On the second, the movement shortened. Her fingers closed over the next hold without the lunge. “Oh.” The woman looked down at the foothold as though it had changed. Isha smiled. “Yes.” The woman finished the route, climbed down and immediately asked whether the same method would work on a steeper wall. Isha answered that the principle might, the exact movement would not, and took her to a route where the difference could be felt without adding much height. Later, the man with outdoor experience discovered that remembering how a harness looked was not the same as remembering how to adjust one. He asked for help before loading it. Isha corrected the leg loops, had him repeat the check himself and moved on. The rest of the session stayed uneventful, which suited the shift. Near four, Ishikawa called her into the small office while another staff member took the floor. A single page lay beside the rota rather than a contract folder or incident form. “Head office is collecting development interests for next year,” Ishikawa said. “This is not an application and there is no course date attached yet.” Isha sat opposite her. The page listed several internal and external training categories; one had been marked beside her name in pencil: **Sport Climbing Coach 1 — interest / employer-supported route**. She read the line twice. “We discussed a later coaching qualification when I accepted the regular contract.” “Yes. We left it until after your first-aid training, and then your health made another programme a poor priority. I did not want to put this in front of you while you were returning under medical limits.” Ishikawa turned the paper so they could both see it. “The operator is willing to support this route if you want it. We would confirm the actual programme and eligibility when the next schedule is available.” Isha took a moment over the wording before asking, “What changes here if I have it?” Ishikawa had apparently expected the question. “More of the structured beginner teaching. Regular small-group sessions when we can protect the time. More involvement in lesson planning and staff coaching. It would also give us a clearer basis for reviewing the specialist part of your pay.” Isha's eyes stayed on the paper. “More shifts? Management?” “No. Your contract remains three regular shifts; extra days remain extra days. And this is a coaching qualification, not a management appointment. You already take responsibility on the floor. This would formalise a different part of the job.” That answer interested her more. Ishikawa continued, “I am not asking you to decide now. I need to return the interest list after New Year. Take a copy. If you are interested, I will ask head office what support they are actually offering before you commit to anything.” Isha took the photocopy. “I want the actual support written down: fees, time, required travel, duties afterward, and whether the qualification creates any expectation that I teach outside my three days.” “I will ask them to state those separately.” Isha folded the page once and put it into her work bag. When she returned to the floor, the compact woman from the earlier group was trying the steeper route and had forgotten the foothold lesson completely. Isha watched one attempt, waited for her to step down and asked what had changed in her hips. The woman swore softly, laughed at herself and tried again. Isha stayed with the group until the booked hour ended. --- Thomas reached flat 202 first. He changed out of his work shirt, started rice and was slicing cabbage when Isha came in. She removed her shoes, put her work bag against the wall and stood in the kitchen doorway long enough for him to notice that she was carrying a folded page. “That expression usually means paperwork,” he said. “It is paperwork. Possibly good paperwork.” Isha placed the Coach 1 interest sheet on the counter, clear of the cutting board. Thomas read the marked line and then the handwritten note Ishikawa had added beneath it: **interest only — schedule/support to confirm**. “You've already asked what it changes,” he said. “Yes.” Isha folded her arms when his expression shifted. “Do not look pleased because you predicted me.” “I wasn't.” Thomas returned to the cabbage before the charge could be proved. “Or I was only becoming pleased.” Isha told him what Ishikawa had said. More structured beginner instruction. Protected teaching time where possible. Lesson planning. A possible specialist pay review. No automatic fourth day. No automatic management role. No known course date yet. Thomas listened while he finished cutting the cabbage and moved it into a bowl. “Do you want it?” “I think I want to know enough to decide properly.” She came closer and rested one hip against the counter. “That sounded like yes with administrative armour.” “It is not yes,” she said, and Thomas accepted the correction without improving his phrase. After a moment she added, “I liked today's beginner group. One woman could not use the route the way I would use it. My body gave me the wrong answer first.” Thomas rinsed the knife. “And you found another answer.” “Yes. But that is the part I would want to become better at. Teaching someone who is not built like me. Explaining why something works instead of merely seeing it.” Thomas dried his hands and asked about route setting. Isha said Ishikawa had not mentioned it and she might consider it later. “Good. You currently have climbing work, kyūdō, MMA, strength work, occasional running and a husband who sometimes expects access to the calendar.” “You have archery,” Isha reminded him. “I know. I am making a household capacity argument, not claiming moral superiority.” She stepped close enough to kiss his cheek and told him that had been wise. They left the paper on the sideboard during dinner. Neither opened the nameless group chat. The phones stayed where they were. --- On Tuesday, 21 December, Kanno spent forty-three minutes fixing somebody else's line breaks. The client had approved the wording on Friday. On Monday evening they had replaced a short heading with a longer one while keeping the instruction that the heading remain on a single line. The type size could not shrink without breaking the visual hierarchy used elsewhere in the booklet. The text box could not widen without colliding with a photograph. Kanno sent one email explaining the available choices and moved to another proof rather than solving the contradiction privately while she waited. At lunchtime, her phone remained face down beside the keyboard. The nameless pixel chat existed behind the screen. She knew that without opening it. Thomas and Isha had not sent anything since Sunday evening. Ian had not contacted her separately. The lack of activity was useful. It let the invitation settle into the same category as other communication: available, not compulsory. Kanno ate a convenience-store rice ball at her desk and opened a blank document. She typed **If I meet Ian:** and stopped. The heading made the idea look like a project. She deleted the colon, disliked the result, restored it and continued anyway. **Not at 202.** That one was easy. Flat 202 belonged to Thomas and Isha's life and had already carried enough impossible functions. If Kanno chose to meet Ian, she did not want his first physical presence in relation to her to occur beside their drying rack. **Artificial café or another agreed neutral place.** **No demonstrations unless I ask.** The planet had been impressive in description. She did not need one. Kanno paused over the next line. Thomas and Isha had accompanied one another because the meeting concerned both of them and because the history with Ian was shared. Her relationship with him was different. Most of what she knew had arrived through her friends. A smaller part came from the restaurant encounter, the direct phone exchange, the group chat and the evidence he had allowed her to see. If she met him with Thomas and Isha sitting beside her, she would spend half the conversation watching their reactions. She typed **Probably alone.** After a moment she added, **T/I in 202 if they want to be, and if I decide I want that.** The document was beginning to resemble operating procedure. Kanno selected the whole thing and nearly deleted it, then removed three explanatory lines instead and left the practical points standing. One more belonged there: **He does not ask me to explain Thomas or Isha for him.** Kanno knew both of them well. She had heard things their employers, sport friends and other wedding guests never would. That did not make her their authorised interpreter. The client replied while she was considering whether to add a time limit: **Please reduce the heading size slightly.** Kanno looked from the established type hierarchy to the email, then wrote back asking whether the client accepted the heading becoming the only one at the smaller size. The meeting document stayed open behind the proof for the rest of the afternoon. At four ten, Kanno returned to it and deleted **Probably**. **Alone.** looked more accurate. She saved the file locally under the name **ian-meeting-not-yet.txt**, immediately disliked the filename and kept it because changing it would not improve the decision. Then she returned to work. Nothing was sent. --- That evening, Isha sat at the dining table with Ishikawa's photocopy, a notebook and the operator's existing staff-development guidance open on her tablet. Thomas had gone to the municipal range for his beginner recurve session. The flat was quiet except for the heating and an occasional vehicle outside. Isha made two columns. The first was headed **What changes at work**. The second began as **What I want**, which felt too broad, so she crossed out *at work*, stared at the two headings and decided the original problem had been smaller than her correction. She left the crossing-out visible. Under the first column she wrote: - more structured beginner classes - lesson planning - staff coaching involvement - specialist pay review possible - no automatic extra day - not management Under the second: - teach better - keep three regular shifts - learn modern coaching properly - not turn every sport into work She stopped there. MMA belonged in the last line even though no one had suggested otherwise. The loss to Naruse had not made Isha less interested in fighting. If anything, it had given her more technical questions. She wanted to return to the gym after the bruising had finished settling and find out which of Naruse's entries she had read too late. She did not want to be paid for that curiosity. Kyūdō was different again; its discipline had become part of her Earth life because nobody needed it from her. Climbing was already work, and she liked that too. Isha closed the notebook before she could produce a third column. Thomas returned after eight with cold hands and an expression she recognised from sessions in which several arrows had landed well enough to create optimism and the next group had corrected it. “How was it?” she asked. “Educational. The target remains committed to statistical humility.” Isha smiled. “So, bad.” He noticed the notebook on the table but did not reach for it. “Did you decide?” “I decided what I want to ask Ishikawa.” Thomas took off his glasses to clean a faint mark from one lens and said that was probably the decision available tonight. “You sound like Kanno,” Isha said. Thomas called that concerning; when she told him it had not been criticism, he decided that was more concerning. She left the notebook closed. --- Wednesday, 22 December, brought the first real answer. Ishikawa had spoken to head office that morning. She caught Isha between an equipment check and the afternoon beginner block and handed her a printed email summary with several lines highlighted. “There is still no next-course timetable to give you,” she said. “They will confirm the programme when the relevant schedule is published. But the support position is clearer.” Isha read. The operator was prepared to support the qualification route for staff whose managers recommended it, subject to the actual course and eligibility requirements. Required in-person dates would be handled through scheduling rather than simply added on top of a normal shift week. The operator expected qualified staff to take more structured coaching work at their home centre. Any pay adjustment would be reviewed with the role once the qualification was completed and being used. There was no promise of promotion, and no compulsory fourth day appeared between the lines. Isha tapped the paragraph about coaching work. “How much of this would be beginner instruction and how much would be training other staff?” “At first, mostly customers. You already help newer staff informally, but I am not planning to make you responsible for everybody because you completed a course.” “And if I qualify, then discover I dislike formal classes?” Ishikawa looked at her. “Then we revise the role. I would prefer to know before paying for the course, which is why I am asking now.” Isha considered the answer, then handed the sheet back. “Put my name on the interest list. Interest only—I still want the actual schedule and course details before I apply, and I want the three-shift schedule stated again when we discuss it.” Ishikawa reached for a pen. “I know. You are saying it for head office.” She wrote beside Isha's name, **interested — confirm programme and schedule terms before application**. The whole exchange took less than five minutes. Ten minutes later Isha was kneeling beside a rental-shoe rack, trying to find the missing partner to a size thirty-nine left shoe. The qualification had not changed her shift yet. She found the right shoe beneath a bench occupied by a child who denied all involvement while wearing size thirty-seven. --- Kanno met Isha after work at a coffee shop near the station. She had suggested the meeting the previous week for unrelated reasons: one of Isha's wedding photographs had arrived from Nagai in a crop Kanno wanted to complain about in person, and Isha had a book Kanno had lent her. Neither reason survived more than ten minutes. They took a small table against the wall. Isha had changed out of centre clothes into dark trousers and a long knit top, her hair tied back loosely after washing chalk from her hands and forearms. Kanno put her work bag beneath the chair where no passing foot could catch the strap. “The Coach 1 route is real,” Isha said after they had ordered. “Not scheduled yet. Ishikawa put my name on the interest list today.” Kanno looked up from removing the paper sleeve from her cup. “You want it?” “Yes. Probably.” Isha paused over her own answer. “I want the work it might lead to. I do not yet know whether I want the actual course because I do not have the actual course.” “That is less decisive than usual.” Kanno asked whether the qualification added another regular day or management responsibility. Isha shook her head and described the likely changes: beginner classes, lesson planning, some staff coaching later, and a pay review if she was actually using the qualification. “That sounds like the parts of the job you talk about when you're interested.” Isha considered the observation. “I also talk about customers putting on harnesses incorrectly.” Kanno pointed out that she enjoyed those stories too. “Sometimes,” Isha admitted. Their drinks arrived fully into the conversation. Kanno's was black coffee; Isha had chosen tea and immediately removed the lid because the plastic opening restricted the smell. Kanno waited until Isha had taken the first drink. “I decided how I would want to meet Ian. Not when,” she added when Isha lowered the cup. “How.” She did not take out the text file. Reading terms from a list would make the conversation sound more settled than it was. “I think I want to meet him alone.” Isha's expression changed very little, but her attention sharpened. “All right.” “I would like you and Thomas to be in 202 if you are both willing. Not supervising. I want the same sort of Earth-side point I gave you, except I do not want either of you in the café.” Isha nodded once. Kanno continued, “No demonstrations unless I ask. I do not need space, Larchmeet or a planet.” “That is disappointing,” Isha said. “For you.” Kanno ignored the resulting smile with visible effort. “And I do not want him asking me to explain you two. He can ask me what I think. He can ask about my relationship with you if it belongs to me. I am not going there to provide editorial notes on your marriage.” Isha's mouth moved around the beginning of a smile. “He may be disappointed.” “He has survived worse.” Isha laughed quietly, and Kanno took another drink before continuing. “I am still not ready to ask him. I want the idea to stop feeling like an event first.” “You told us that on Sunday.” “I know. I have now decided that waiting was not a polite way of saying no.” Isha rested her forearms on the table and asked whether Kanno wanted either of them to offer anything when she was ready. Kanno shook her head. “I will ask him myself—probably through the group chat, perhaps directly. I haven't decided.” Kanno looked at her over the cup. “You are being unusually easy about me going alone.” “Would you prefer resistance?” Isha asked. Kanno's expression answered before her quiet no. “Then I will not manufacture it.” There was a brief silence while someone at the next table struggled to fit a laptop, two drinks and a tray onto space intended for half that amount. Isha watched the negotiation until the tray was moved to an empty chair. “I think I understand why you want to meet him alone,” she said. “When Thomas and I met him, I watched Thomas almost as much as I watched Ian. Thomas watched me. That belonged to our meeting. It would change yours.” Kanno nodded. “Yes.” She did not add more. The subject moved back to Isha's work because Kanno wanted to know what *lesson planning* meant at a climbing centre and Isha had only partial answers. She described beginner sequences, equipment teaching, movement problems, customers whose fear changed what an instruction could accomplish, and the compact woman from Monday who could reach a hold but could not keep it. “I used my own body as the first model,” Isha said. “It was a bad model.” Kanno looked at her height across the little table. “Your body is a bad model for many commercial products.” “That too. Thomas made a household-capacity argument when I told him.” Kanno closed her eyes briefly. “Of course he did.” When Isha defended the argument as sensible, Kanno said that was why it sounded like Thomas. Isha smiled into her tea. They stayed until Kanno's coffee was gone and Isha's tea had become too cool to reward patience. The wedding photograph received its promised criticism in the final five minutes. Kanno disliked the crop because it removed part of a chair leg while retaining empty wall. Isha had not noticed the chair leg before and then could not stop seeing it. “This is a harmful friendship,” she said. “Yes.” Kanno put on her coat. “You are welcome.” Outside, the station approach was crowded with people carrying shopping bags and end-of-year parcels. They walked together as far as the ticket gates. Kanno adjusted the strap of her black work bag. “When I decide I am ready, I will tell you before I ask him, so you know whether I still want you in 202.” Isha nodded. “And I will tell you when the Coach 1 course becomes an actual course rather than a highlighted email.” “That information is less dangerous, but acceptable.” Kanno stepped through the gate. Isha watched until the crowd took her, then turned towards her own platform with Ishikawa's marked interest sheet folded inside her bag.