## Chapter 395 - Sunday Visitors

### Monday, 14 February 2028

Valentine's Day reached 202 on a Monday and therefore had to fit around work.

Isha discovered the local convention early enough that Thomas became suspicious when she refused to let him look inside one of Sunday's shopping bags. On Monday morning she waited until he had put on his coat, then took a small dark box from behind the rice container and held it across the kitchen.

"You hid chocolate behind the rice," Thomas said.

"You do not inspect the rice before work." Isha watched him open the box. Six chocolates sat inside, individually different and considerably nicer than anything he would have bought on the way home. "The woman at the shop explained which contained alcohol. I rejected those because you have work." Thomas looked from the chocolates to her and accused her of adapting to Valentine's Day with alarming administrative competence. "I had help from a label," she said.

He set the box down long enough to reach into his work bag and produce a flatter package wrapped in pale paper. Her smile changed as she took it. "I was told the woman gives chocolate today."

"I have lived in Japan long enough to understand the rule and been married to you long enough to disregard it."

"Then I will disregard it too," she said, and tucked the package against her chest before he could reclaim it.

They ate one from each box after dinner, side by side at the table with their work clothes changed and Monday already losing its hold on the room. Thomas's had a thin shell around bitter ganache; Isha's contained hazelnut and something citrus-bright she took several seconds to identify. The rest went into the cupboard. By Tuesday, Valentine's Day had become two partly empty boxes beside the tea.

### Sunday, 20 February 2028

Thomas stood in the genkan with a small day bag that was slightly too large for what he had put in it.

"You are going to Tokyo for one day," Isha said from the hall. "There are shops there." Thomas listed a charger, a book, the documents, a clean shirt in case he spilled something and emergency socks.

Isha repeated, "Emergency socks," with the attention she usually reserved for dubious safety claims. Thomas told her Tokyo was dangerous.

She reached past him to straighten the edge of his scarf, although it did not require straightening. The documents were the real reason for the bag. He had copies of the assay, paperwork from the small completed sale, the accountant's notes and the lawyer's summary on his tablet, plus a paper folder because anxiety remained fond of redundancy. The larger specimen itself had spent months becoming easier to ignore.

"You do not have to ask him," Isha said. Thomas checked the zip he had already checked and admitted he was mostly worried Matsuda would ask the obvious question.

"Why I possess a large piece of natural gold."

"Yes." She leaned one shoulder against the wall. "We have an answer. It is simply an answer he cannot have."

Matsuda had been their friend through work, birthdays, Tokyo and the wedding. He knew almost nothing about the secret that made the gold difficult, and Thomas had spent months using that as a reason not to ask for help.

Isha touched two fingers to the front of his coat. "Go and see your friend. If the question feels possible, ask it. If it does not, eat something expensive and complain about Tokyo instead." Thomas called that an excellent fallback plan. "I know," she said.

He kissed her, put on his shoes and left for the station.

Kanno arrived just before eleven carrying a flat archival box and a convenience-store bag containing three canned coffees. She had forgotten that 202 already contained coffee in almost unreasonable quantities.

Isha looked into the bag. "Thomas has gone to Tokyo. You have brought coffee to the wrong household at the wrong time." Kanno told her to keep it until he came back. "I have solved tomorrow."

The archival box was more interesting. Kanno placed it on the dining table and removed four small prints with clean hands. Three came from her camera on Venus. The fourth had been generated by Ian's machine from whatever access it possessed to their world and then sent back to her. On a phone screen the difference between the two kinds of image had been easy to discuss. On paper it became stranger.

The generated photograph was good. Kanno disliked the word because it answered almost nothing. It showed her turned towards Venera 14, winter coat hanging heavily from her shoulders, camera low in her hands. Ochre ground and compressed sky occupied most of the frame. Beside it, her own closest photograph was less composed and more specific. The lander's details disagreed in small places. Her hands were different. So was the fall of her scarf.

Isha moved the prints closer together, careful of the edges. "I like yours more."

"You are biased." Isha agreed immediately. Kanno sat back. "Mine was there. His machine's version is trying to describe being there. I thought printing it would make the difference simpler. It has made it more annoying."

Isha smiled. "Do you still like it?"

"Yes. That is part of the annoyance."

Isha went to put water on for tea despite the coffee. Kanno returned the prints to the box one at a time. Ian's reconstruction already lived in a separate directory; the print would remain with it. She liked the image. It would still live apart from the photographs made by her camera on Venus.

"He has been quiet," Isha said from the kitchen. Kanno reminded her that he had said he was going to bed. "A week ago for us," Isha said.

Kanno considered that while closing the box. "Possibly twenty minutes ago for him." Isha brought the tea over and pointed out that Ian had also promised to leave them alone for a few days. "Then either he is sleeping very efficiently or he has managed the calendar problem."

Neither checked the group chat. There had been no new message from Ian.

They moved on to Kanno's March event. She still intended to show existing work from *Until Replaced* and nothing from the unfinished wall series. The Venus photographs sat even farther outside that decision. She had made working prints because photographs changed when they became objects; she had not decided whether the objects were going anywhere beyond her own shelves.

"You could keep them," Isha said. Kanno gave her a look and told her she was aware this was permitted; she had been thinking aloud. Isha inclined her head. "Fair correction."

She reached for one of the canned coffees anyway. The doorbell rang before she opened it.

Saitō stood in the corridor with her cane in one hand and an expression Isha recognised as advance refusal of unnecessary sympathy.

"Are you busy?" Saitō asked. Isha said no.

Saitō glanced past her and saw Kanno at the table. "I am stealing her for five minutes. Possibly ten if my furniture has become vindictive." Kanno raised a hand from her chair and said she could wait. Saitō returned her attention to Isha. "I need strength, not manners. I have already removed the drawers."

Flat 203 was warm and smelled faintly of tea and the citrus cleaner Saitō preferred for the kitchen. In the smaller room off the living area, an old low cabinet stood against the wall. Its top had been cleared. Four drawers rested on towels in the corridor, leaving the dark wooden carcass empty and still obviously heavy.

"It needs to go there," Saitō said, pointing to the opposite wall. "The sensible solution is two people and furniture sliders. The sliders are already underneath. I am not summoning either of my children for one cabinet, Yoshimura would organise a committee, and Arakawa would arrive with enough tools to rebuild it. You live next door."

Isha crouched to inspect the feet, the sliders and the route, then asked how old it was. "Older than you. I bought it before my second child was born, and I have regretted its weight during every move since."

The cabinet was dense and awkward. Its broad front offered little room for fingers, and the timber had survived too many years to deserve being dragged carelessly. Isha folded the sliders aside and tested one corner with both hands. The weight answered immediately.

"I can move it," Isha said. Saitō's mouth twitched; she had reached that conclusion before knocking.

Isha took off her cardigan and laid it over the back of a chair. Underneath she wore a fitted long-sleeved top chosen for an unremarkable Sunday. When she crouched again, the fabric made the work easy to read: shoulders settling, forearms tightening, the long line of her back taking load as she worked her fingers beneath the lower rail.

She lifted.

The cabinet rose only a few centimetres. That was all she needed. The weight showed in the set of her shoulders and the controlled breath through her nose, but she had room left. She turned inside the small space, took three short steps, paused to clear the edge of the tatami and lowered the cabinet exactly where Saitō had pointed.

Saitō watched with increasing offence.

Isha straightened and asked if anything was wrong. "No. It is irritating."

When Isha asked why, Saitō tapped the cane once against the floor. "Because when I was about your age, my husband and I moved that thing together and considered ourselves impressively strong." Her expression shifted as she looked at the cabinet in its new place. "I had very good arms then. Normal good arms. You would have been extremely annoying." Isha laughed.

Back in 202, Kanno heard it faintly through the adjoining wall and looked up from the archival box.

She had stayed alone in the flat before while Thomas or Isha went downstairs, but this was different: Thomas was in Tokyo, Isha had been requisitioned by the neighbour, and Kanno had been left with tea, three unnecessary canned coffees and photographs of Venus. She considered opening one of the cans and decided against rewarding her own mistake.

Instead she took out the prints again. The closest image of Venera 14 remained the one she had marked almost immediately on the planet. Enlarged and printed, the machine occupied more of the frame than she remembered. Its age was visible in surfaces she could photograph but could not interpret with certainty. Standing beside it had given her proximity; expertise was another matter.

She put that print aside and picked up Ian's reconstruction. That presented a different problem.

Her phone buzzed with a work mailing-list notification. She dismissed it unread. Ian remained absent.

In Tokyo, Thomas had already spent nearly four hours avoiding the reason he had carried a folder all the way from Sendai.

They met near Shinagawa, ate lunch somewhere Matsuda described as cheap until Thomas saw the bill, walked through a bookshop, and spent forty minutes in a homewares floor because Matsuda needed a saucepan lid and objected to buying one that did not sit perfectly flat. The transfer had changed him in small ways. He moved through the station without checking signs he once would have checked. He knew which exit became annoying on Sundays. He complained about a colleague Thomas had never met and a project whose exact purpose remained difficult to infer beneath company vocabulary.

Thomas found that reassuring. He had missed him.

They ended up in a quieter café in the middle of the afternoon, bags under the table and two coffees cooling between them. Matsuda had just finished explaining why a meeting scheduled for thirty minutes had required eleven people and produced a decision that could have been made by three emails.

"You sound happier," Thomas said. Matsuda frowned and called that a malicious response to his complaint.

"You are complaining with confidence."

"Tokyo has given me many opportunities to practise."

Thomas smiled and glanced at his bag. He could leave the folder closed and still go home glad he had made the trip.

Matsuda followed his gaze. "You have looked at that bag six times since lunch." Thomas asked if he really had. "Seven now."

Thomas rubbed a thumb against the edge of his coffee cup. "There is actually something I wanted your professional opinion on. I have been trying to decide whether asking you is unfair."

The amusement left Matsuda's expression, though he did not look alarmed. "If it is unfair, I can tell you."

That was inconveniently reasonable.

Thomas reached down and rested one hand on the zip without opening it yet. "Isha owns a fairly large natural gold specimen."

In Sendai, the doorbell rang again.

Kanno looked towards the hall. Isha was still in 203 and Thomas was in Tokyo. She considered leaving it unanswered until a familiar voice called Isha's name from the corridor.

Kanno went to the door and opened it only as far as felt appropriate for somebody else's guest.

Miyake Natsumi stood outside with a narrow wrapped book tucked beneath one arm. She blinked once at Kanno, then smiled in recognition.

"Kanno-san."