## Chapter 391 — An Invitation, Not a Summons Wednesday, 19 January brought Thomas an invitation of a much smaller kind. Endo asked him to stay after the weekly office meeting. The request came while everyone was gathering cups, printouts and the two biscuits nobody had wanted enough to take first. Thomas sat again with his notebook open and watched Mori remain as well, which made the conversation feel more official than Endo's usual habit of speaking to people while already halfway through a doorway. Endo closed the meeting-room door. “This is about April,” he said. Thomas waited. The university was putting together a small cross-department working group for the new fiscal year. Student affairs, the registrar's side, international support, information systems and two faculty administrative offices would each supply a regular staff member. The remit was deliberately unglamorous: review student-facing guidance, identify duplicated or contradictory instructions, and map several processes where students currently moved between offices carrying information the university itself already possessed. Thomas looked at Mori. “You have the expression of somebody who knew this before I did.” “I knew there would be a group.” “And?” “I suggested your name.” That answered several questions and created others. Endo slid a single-page outline across the table. The work would begin in April and run initially for one year. One scheduled half-day meeting each month, with drafting and review work between meetings. It was not a new post, a supervisory title or a transfer. Thomas would remain in international support, but part of his normal workload would be reduced to make room for the project. He read that sentence twice. “Reduced by whom?” “Mori,” Endo said. Thomas looked at her again. Mori folded her arms. “You appear disappointed that I have anticipated the obvious problem.” “I am trying to determine whether the obvious problem has truly been anticipated or merely described.” “Your case allocation would be adjusted. Sugiyama would not inherit all of it. Some routine front-desk blocks would rotate differently.” Thomas returned to the paper. The working group was supposed to produce two things during its first year: a shared student-guidance standard for cross-office instructions, and a pilot process map for a small number of common administrative journeys. Nothing in the outline said *fix the university*. That improved it. “Why me?” Endo glanced at Mori, but let her answer. “Because your winter-arrival guide worked from Sugiyama's desk when you were absent. Because the four-date pilot did not become an international-support database. And because when Amina had two compulsory sessions yesterday, you waited for the offices that owned them to decide instead of making a plausible decision for them.” Thomas looked down at the page. “That last one mostly felt like failing to answer her question.” “Yes,” Mori said. “That is one reason I noticed.” He smiled despite himself. Endo rested both hands on the table. “There are other reasons. You write clearly. You understand enough English and Japanese to see where two versions stop meaning the same thing. You have previous administrative experience that is difficult to place neatly in your current grade, and you are now regular staff. We need to begin giving you work that belongs to a university career rather than only to the desk where you entered.” There it was. Not promotion. Not exactly opportunity in the dramatic sense either. A wider room. Thomas read the outline again. “Would this make a transfer more likely?” “Eventually?” Endo said. “Perhaps. Regular staff move. International support is a posting, not a lifelong classification.” Mori added, “Nobody is proposing to move you in April.” Thomas nodded. The thought landed strangely. He liked the office. He liked Sugiyama's plant, Mori's impatience with decorative apologies, the particular students who came back months later with entirely different problems. Becoming regular staff had meant accepting that a career might one day take him somewhere else in the same institution. He had understood that when he signed the papers. Understanding it had not made the office feel temporary. “Is there a reason I need to answer now?” “No,” Endo said. “Friday is fine.” Thomas folded the outline once without creasing it sharply. “I am interested.” “That was not the question.” “I know.” He took the paper back to his desk. For the rest of Wednesday he did the work already in front of him. Amina attended her make-up orientation at three and appeared at the international-support counter afterward solely to confirm that she had now fulfilled both compulsory requirements and wished never to discuss Tuesday morning again. Thomas told her that seemed reasonable. At four twenty, the faculty safety coordinator sent a short apology for the timetable collision and copied the programme office. Thomas saved it into the shared case record and closed the thread. Nothing required a working group to improve it retroactively. --- Isha read Endo's outline that evening with the same care she had given the Coach 1 material. Thomas had put it beside her bowl after dinner rather than presenting it as a problem requiring immediate household consultation. She finished eating first, washed her hands and then carried the page to the dining table. “So they want you because you did not solve Amina.” “That is one interpretation.” “It is the one Mori gave you.” “Yes.” Isha read the workload paragraph again. “Your normal work reduces.” “Supposedly.” “You asked.” “Immediately.” “Good.” Thomas leaned back in his chair. “I feel as though you are assessing my interview performance.” “I am assessing whether this is secretly three jobs.” “And?” “Possibly one and a quarter.” “That seems survivable.” She put the paper flat. “Do you want it?” Thomas had been waiting for questions about career progression, money, future transfers or whether the extra responsibility would make him start bringing work home. Isha's direct version reached the part he had spent the train journey circling. “Yes.” The answer felt better once spoken. “I think I do.” Isha nodded. He looked at her. “No further analysis?” “You have already analysed it.” “Excessively.” “Yes.” She reached across and touched the folded edge of the outline. “It puts you with people from other parts of the university. You will learn how their work actually functions.” “That is one attraction.” “And it may eventually make them move you somewhere else.” “That is less attractive.” “Still yes?” Thomas considered the office as it currently existed, then the larger university around it. Daniel had spent years becoming good at organisations until competence itself narrowed the available exits. Thomas did not want to recreate that life by refusing every broader path out of fear that responsibility would become captivity. “Yes.” Isha slid the paper back to him. “Then tell them yes.” He did on Thursday morning. Mori accepted the answer with no ceremony and immediately told him that if the working group attempted to make him minute secretary simply because he could write English, he was permitted to object. Thomas asked whether she had already predicted the first meeting. “I have attended universities longer than you have worked at one.” “That was unnecessarily powerful.” “It was meant to be.” The project returned to April and stopped occupying January. --- By Saturday, the more difficult invitation had accumulated three drafts. The first was too cautious. Thomas and Isha discovered this after breakfast when they read it aloud in Common. Every sentence had acquired so many safeguards that the page sounded less like an invitation than an ancient facility warning travellers that entering the wrong corridor might invalidate their descendants. Isha drew a line through half the opening paragraph. “We are telling them we want to see them.” “Yes.” “You have hidden that in the fourth sentence.” “I was establishing what the café is.” “They already met Ian.” “True.” She tapped the page. “Again.” Thomas took the pen. The second draft began better and failed when they reached time. Ian had said time was configurable. Thomas and Isha had immediately placed conditions around that, but neither knew enough to promise exact mechanics to people in another world. Writing *no time will pass* went beyond what they had agreed. Writing *time may be arranged safely* meant almost nothing in Common without explanation. They removed the claim and replaced it with a question. The third draft survived lunch. They wrote it by hand first, then Thomas prepared the final Common page on the glyph system they already used for correspondence, leaving enough room on the reverse for a short ordinary update if they decided they needed one. They did not. This page had one job. The final version began: > Kelda, and everyone with you who already receives these pages, > > We have something large to ask. > > Ian has offered to make a meeting place like the room where we have spoken with him. It would not be Earth and would not be your land. He says he can make a door for us and a door for you so that nobody has to travel into the other inhabited world. > > We want to see you. > > We mean that plainly. Isha stopped reading there the first time. Thomas did not hurry her. She touched the Common glyph for *want* with one fingertip. “Keep that.” “I was not planning to remove it.” “Good.” They continued. > This is an invitation, not a summons. > > Each person may decide separately. > > If you do not want to come, you do not need to explain why. If some want to come and others do not, that is allowed. If you would rather meet in smaller groups instead of all together, tell us. If you want more information before deciding, ask for it. > > Ian has agreed to do nothing until we ask him. > > He says anyone who enters the meeting place may leave immediately whenever they choose and will be returned safely to where they came from. He has promised that nobody will be physically harmed there. We have also told him that nobody's body, memory, feelings or belongings are to be changed. > > We will agree the time conditions clearly before anyone enters. We will not accept unexplained lost time, ageing, missed obligations or a return to a world that has advanced unexpectedly. Thomas had disliked that paragraph in Common. Some of the concepts required awkward phrases—*the work or promise you would have been doing while away*, *your body becoming older by a different amount from the people around you*. The final English rendering looked smoother than the underlying text felt. The next part was easier. > You have all met Ian already. > > If any of you want him to visit again before deciding, to show the meeting place, answer questions or prove that leaving works, tell us. We will ask him only for what you request. > > If you prefer that he not visit, he will not. > > Kanno would also come if we want her there and if you are comfortable meeting her. She is our close friend here. She knows the truth about our lives, Green Road, the correspondence and Ian. She will not come if you want the first meeting to be family and old friends only. Thomas paused over *old friends*. “Aelira will object to being called old.” “She is an elf.” “That is why she will object more efficiently.” Isha gave him a look and left the text unchanged. The last section had taken the longest to write because neither wanted to accidentally convert hope into pressure. > This does not create a permanent road between our worlds. > > We are asking about this meeting first. > > Ian says it need not be the only meeting that can ever happen, but we are not asking you to decide anything beyond this one now. > > We want to see Mira, Rowan, Mara, Tessa, Sereth, Ruvan, Aelira, Lethira and Kelda. > > We miss you. > > We are very happy here. Wanting to see you does not mean we want to leave our life on Earth. > > Please decide what each of you wants. Kelda, carry the answers as they are. Do not make them agree for the convenience of the page. > > Thomas and Isha Isha reached the bottom and stayed there. Outside the window, January light lay pale across the balcony. Someone below dragged a small wheeled suitcase along the pavement; the uneven joins made it rattle in short bursts. Thomas watched her face. “Too much?” “No.” “Too little?” “No.” She lifted the page. “I want to send it now.” “So do I.” The thirty-cycle wait remained. For once, Thomas hated it without qualification. Isha placed the page under the clear protective sheet on the sideboard. “February.” “Thirteen February, approximately.” “That is twenty-two days.” Thomas checked because dates were safer when they were facts. “Twenty-two.” Isha looked at him. “You should not have counted.” “You asked with your face.” “I did not.” “You did.” She left the page where it was. They spent another twenty minutes discussing whether they should tell Kanno the exact invitation wording. In the end they sent her a photograph of the completed page's English working translation, not because she needed to approve it but because her possible attendance was explicitly part of what the family would be deciding. Kanno replied after reading it. `This is good.` Then: `Aelira is going to have questions.` Thomas showed Isha. “She has met Aelira once through Ian and already understands the problem.” “She has not met Aelira.” “Not physically.” Isha considered that. “Soon, perhaps.” Neither said anything for a while after that. --- Thomas removed the page from the dining table before beginning dinner. That was deliberate. The invitation had occupied most of Saturday afternoon: Common phrasing, permissions, time, names, doors, the difficult simple sentence *we want to see you*. The phones had acquired messages from Kanno and then been answered. The working-group outline still sat in Thomas's office. Coach 1 papers waited on the sideboard. At six fifteen, Thomas put both phones on charge in his office and closed the door. Isha watched from the kitchen. “No group chat?” “No group chat.” “No correspondence?” “Not tonight.” “No career planning?” Thomas opened the refrigerator. “I am willing to discuss mushrooms.” “That is dangerously close to work.” “They are already sliced.” “Then acceptable.” He had chosen dinner precisely because it did not require proving anything. Chicken thighs, browned slowly enough for the skin to crisp. Mushrooms cooked in the rendered fat with garlic and a little butter. Cabbage softened with salt and black pepper. Rice from the cooker. A simple pan sauce Thomas adjusted once, tasted, decided was good and did not continue improving. Isha leaned against the opposite counter while he worked. She had changed after her afternoon shower into soft black leggings and a fitted pale-grey sleeveless top. The fabric followed the line of her waist closely enough that Thomas's attention wandered each time she reached above the refrigerator for something that was not there. On the third occasion, he stopped. “You are not looking for anything.” Isha lowered her hand. “I was checking.” “The cupboard above the refrigerator contains spare kitchen paper and a rice-cooker manual.” “It still does.” “You knew that.” “Yes.” Thomas turned back to the pan. Isha came behind him and rested her hands lightly at his hips. “Are you interfering with dinner?” “I am observing.” “That defence has been used against us recently.” “Then it must be valid.” Her mouth touched the back of his neck. Thomas's wooden spoon stopped moving. The chicken did not care about his marriage and continued cooking. He managed another turn in the pan before Isha kissed just beneath his ear. “Timing,” he said. “You taught me.” “I taught you to cook?” “No.” Her hands moved around his waist. Thomas laughed under his breath and shifted the pan off the hottest part of the burner before turning in her arms. At close range, the difference in height was small enough to disappear until she straightened fully. Thomas had long since stopped needing novelty to be affected by her. Familiarity had made the attention more specific. He knew the slope of her shoulders under his hands, the firm line of muscle along her back, the slight softness at her waist when she relaxed against him. Her pale hair was still damp near the ends and smelled only of shampoo. “You are going to burn something,” she said. “You caused the operational interruption.” “Yes.” He kissed her. The pan waited. Eventually Isha released him and sat at the counter with an expression of exaggerated innocence while Thomas finished the sauce. Dinner survived. They ate at the dining table with no paper between them. The chicken skin had stayed crisp. The mushrooms had absorbed too much butter to pretend health had been a primary goal. Isha took more cabbage after initially claiming she was not hungry enough for seconds, then stole one mushroom from Thomas's bowl because his had browned more deeply. “You have your own.” “This one is different.” “It was cooked in the same pan.” “Different location.” Thomas looked at her. She ate it. The conversation stayed close to the room. The range session Thomas wanted on Sunday if his shoulder felt fresh. Whether Isha's new grey paper would work better folded or cut. The absurd amount of hair she had trapped in the bathroom drain despite insisting humans shed less dramatically than elves. Thomas told her that was not a claim she could prove. Isha said she had fifty years of comparative experience. “That sample includes one elf.” “One excellent elf.” “Statistically compromised.” “Jealous.” “Of your hair?” “Of the quality of my evidence.” Thomas drank his water and declined to answer. They washed the dishes together. Thomas cleaned the pan by hand rather than using Cleanse because he liked the physical ending of cooking: hot water, detergent, the shift from greasy to clean beneath the sponge. Isha dried and put things away, standing close enough that their hips touched whenever one of them turned. When the kitchen was finished, Thomas looked instinctively towards his office. Isha caught the movement. “No.” “I was checking the time.” “There is a clock on the oven.” Thomas looked. 21:07. “Efficient.” Isha took his hand. The bath had already been filled. They stayed in longer than they intended. Thomas sat with his back against Isha, her legs along either side of him in the deep tub, his head resting beneath her chin whenever he let himself stop holding it up. The heat softened the residual tension he had carried through the week. Her hands moved over his shoulders without trying to fix them. Thomas closed his eyes. “This is preferable to working groups.” “Yes.” “Possibly also interworld family reunions.” “No.” He opened one eye. Isha smiled against his wet hair. “Different category.” “Fair.” She pressed her thumbs more firmly into the muscle beside his shoulder blades. Thomas made a sound he would have preferred not to classify. Isha stopped. “Too hard?” “No.” She resumed. After several minutes Thomas reached back, found her thigh beneath the water and ran his hand slowly along it. The muscle shifted under his palm when she adjusted her position. He had seen those legs sprint, squat, climb, kick and hold another person's weight against a cage wall. In the bath they were simply warm around him. His hand lingered. Isha's mouth touched his ear. “Thinking?” “Not usefully.” “Good.” She kissed him again. By the time they left the bath, Thomas had stopped feeling obliged to justify the day to himself. Isha dried her hair only enough to keep it from soaking the bedding. Thomas went to the bedroom first, changed into sleep trousers and was halfway through deciding whether he needed a shirt when Isha came through the door. She had chosen one of the private things from the back of her drawer: dark green, soft, close-fitted, with narrow straps over her shoulders and enough exposed skin that Thomas forgot the shirt question entirely. Isha stopped inside the doorway. Thomas looked. She let him. The colour made her skin look almost luminous beneath the warm bedroom light. The fabric followed the athletic line from her ribs through her waist and over her hips, leaving her long legs bare. Her hair, still slightly damp, fell loose over one shoulder. Her expression changed as his attention travelled. “You like it.” “Yes.” “That was fast.” “I have developed expertise in this domain.” “You are not formally qualified.” “I am willing to undertake further training.” Isha crossed the room. Thomas barely managed to laugh before she put one knee onto the mattress beside him and leaned down to kiss him. The kiss was slower than the ones in the kitchen. There was no pan behind him and no reason to count minutes. His hands settled at her waist. Isha moved closer until her weight began to press him back. Thomas let it. She stopped before taking the choice for granted. “Do you want me strong tonight?” The question was quiet and familiar enough that it did not break anything. “Yes.” Her smile reached him first. Then her hands. She caught him around the waist and lifted him from the edge of the bed with humiliating ease. Thomas's arms went around her shoulders from reflex and pleasure in almost equal measure. “I could still object,” he said. “Yes.” “You sound very confident.” “You are holding on.” “That is safety procedure.” Isha carried him two steps and put him onto the centre of the mattress. Thomas looked up at her. She remained standing for a moment, tall enough from that angle to make the room seem smaller around her. Then she climbed onto the bed and settled above him, controlling her weight carefully while allowing enough of it to make the point. Thomas's breathing changed. Isha noticed, because she always did. Her fingers closed around his wrists and guided them over his head. He went willingly. For a while the week disappeared into familiar things: the pressure of her body, his hands after she released them, the way she laughed when he managed to turn them once and looked far too pleased with himself, the kiss that ended the laughter. Isha's composure did not survive everything Thomas chose to do with his temporary advantage. His did not survive when she took it back. Neither discussed the café. Nobody said Ian's name. Thomas's new working group did not exist in the bedroom. Coach 1 did not exist. February did not exist. There was only the woman he had loved across two worlds and the pleasure of knowing exactly where he was allowed to touch her; only Thomas's mouth against her shoulder, Isha's hand in his hair, the mattress shifting under movements that needed no narrative purpose beyond wanting them. Much later, Thomas lay on his back with Isha partly over him, one long leg across his and her head on his chest. He reached for the water bottle beside the bed. Isha took it from his hand before he could drink. “You have your own.” “Different location.” Thomas stared at her. She drank half, handed it back and pulled the quilt higher over both of them.