Chapter 81 | Both Wives Blushing

Chapter 81: Chapter 81 | Both Wives Blushing

"Nobody was meant to find one," Shira said.

"I kept looking anyway."

She said nothing.

"I was at the debrief," he said. He turned his tea cup on the table. "I know what the actual time was."

Shira looked at her cup.

"Forty-one minutes," Carson said.

The room was quiet.

Kai did not look up from his notebook.

’He drove all the way here,’ he thought, ’to say that number to her face.’

Shira said: "It’s being corrected. In process."

"Good," Carson said. Like the word had something heavy behind it.

"Good," she said back.

They drank their tea.

—

Twenty minutes in, Mira came out.

She navigated to the kitchen doorway and stood there with the board uncapped.

Carson looked at her.

She held up the board before he could speak.

You have good taste.

Kai put his hand over his mouth and looked at the notebook.

Carson almost smiled. "The board. Han Dori mentioned it."

Han Dori talks too much, the board appeared immediately.

"He talks exactly the right amount," Carson said.

Mira looked at the approximate direction of Carson Webb for a moment.

Then she lowered the board and went to the kitchen and made herself tea and came back and sat at the table.

She did not participate in the conversation.

But she stayed.

And the board appeared occasionally — never at the wrong moment.

Always exactly calibrated, Kai thought. Always landing and then gone.

—

Shira was describing the recovery timeline when Mira’s board came up.

She runs the Gale Strike form every morning.

Shira stopped.

She looked at Mira.

"Mira," she said.

He came fourteen months, the board came back. He should know something real.

The room was quiet.

Carson looked at Shira.

She looked at her tea for a moment.

Then: "Every morning," she said. Quietly. "Since before the first dungeon run."

Carson nodded slowly.

He looked at his cup.

"Forty-one minutes," he said again. Like he was confirming something.

"Forty-one," she said.

That was the whole conversation about recovery.

===

He left at noon.

At the door he shook Kai’s hand.

He looked at him the way people looked at someone they were trying to understand quickly.

"The provisional license," he said. "Combat performance pathway."

"Yes," Kai said.

"Giftless."

"Yes."

Carson looked at him for a moment.

"Hm," Carson said.

He left.

Kai closed the door.

—---

From the living room Shira said: "He’s going to tell people."

Kai turned.

She was at the window. Her back to him.

"Is that a problem," Kai said.

She was quiet for a moment.

"Three months ago it would have been," she said.

She looked at the street below.

"Let him tell them," she said.

Kai looked at her back.

’Let him tell them,’ he thought. ’She said that like she’s already decided what comes next.’

"The filing is in four days," he said.

"I know," she said.

"After the filing — "

"I know," she said again. Not cutting him off. Just , she already knew.

He went to make lunch.

=======

Mira appeared in the kitchen doorway while he was cutting vegetables.

She held the board up.

Carson Webb.

"Yes," Kai said.

She held it.

He knew her before.

"Yes," Kai said.

She lowered the board.

She wrote something slowly and held it up.

Did it bother you.

Kai stopped cutting.

He looked at the board.

He looked at the vegetables.

’Did it bother me,’ he thought. ’Her sounding different. More open. Like she used to be before all of this. Did it bother me that someone from her old life could reach her in a way I haven’t yet.’

He looked at the board again.

"No," he said.

She held the board.

She wrote: Liar.

He looked at her.

She was not smiling. She was looking at the approximate direction of his face with the particular expression she used when she had said something accurate and was waiting to see if he would admit it.

He looked at the vegetables.

"A little," he said.

She lowered the board.

She went back to her room.

He stood in the kitchen for a moment.

’A little,’ he thought. ’And she knew before I did.’

He finished cutting the vegetables.

He made lunch.

He did not think about it again.

He thought about it the entire time.

======

Three days after Carson Webb left. One day before the filing.

Kai came home at noon. He hung his jacket on the hook and went to make lunch.

They ate.

Halfway through Mira set her spoon down and pushed the board to the center of the table.

Why are you doing this.

Kai looked at it.

Shira looked at her bowl.

"Doing what," he said.

Shira set her spoon down.

"Don’t," she said.

He looked at her.

"You know what she’s asking," she said.

He looked at the table.

"The specialty rotation," Mira wrote. The clinic. The wheelchair. The building. The filing. All of it. Nobody does this for no reason.

Kai picked up his spoon.

He put it back down.

"Because I wanted to," he said.

That’s not an answer, the board came up immediately.

"It’s the honest one."

Shira looked at the window.

Mira wrote: Then give us the real one.

He looked at both of them.

Shira at the window. Mira with the marker in her hand.

"I love you both," he said.

The table went completely silent.

Shira’s ears went red so fast she turned her face further toward the window. She picked up her spoon. She put it down. She picked it up again.

Mira’s board dropped into her lap. She looked somewhere near the table. Her ears had gone a color they had never been before. She reached for the marker. She put it down. She reached for it again. She did not write anything.

Kai looked at his bowl.

"That’s it," he said. "That’s the whole answer."

Nobody said anything.

Then Shira picked up her spoon and ate with the focused intensity of someone who needed something to do immediately.

Mira picked up her spoon and ate three spoonfuls in a row without stopping which she never did.

Kai ate.

============

After the dishes Mira came out of her room.

She stood in the doorway.

She held the board up without looking at him.

Did you mean it.

"Yes," he said.

She lowered the board.

Her ears were still pink.

She went back to her room faster than he had ever seen her move.

====

That evening Shira came to the living room.

She positioned herself in the center.

"You can watch," she said.

He was already in the doorway.

She ran the form. Not the partial one. The full sequence — everything rebuilt over forty-three mornings. Signal to the cutoff, reduced rotation, the flicker arriving and held.

Twelve beats. Thirteen. Fourteen.

Third attempt — the signal crossed the cutoff entirely for the first time.

She stopped.

She looked at her arm.

"It crossed," Kai said.

"Yes," she said.

She ran it again. It crossed. Again. Consistent.

She lowered her arm.

She looked at the window.

Then said, still to the window: "What you said at lunch."

"Yes," he said.

"I heard it," she said.

"I know," he said.

Her cheek was still faintly red. She did not turn around.

"When the filing is done," she said. "I’ll say something back."

She went to her room.

He sat on the couch.

The system chimed.

『 Bond Level — Shira Voss: 3.0 / 10. 』 『 Bond Level — Mira Elys: 3.0 / 10. 』 『 BOTH WIVES AT BOND LEVEL 3.0 SIMULTANEOUSLY. 』 『 MULTIPLIER UPGRADE: ×500 → ×2,000. 』 『 New account balance: 1,491,847,200,000 coins. 』 『 The system notes: 』 『 Mira Elys moved faster going back to her room than she has moved in eight months. 』 『 Shira Voss’s ears were red for eleven minutes. 』 『 Host said four words and caused more visible damage than the stairwell fight. 』 『 The system is satisfied. 』

Kai put the phone down.

He went to Mira’s door.

He slid a piece of paper under it.

He wrote four words on it.

He went to bed.

Through Mira’s door — silence. Paper picked up. Long pause.

Then something that had the shape of words.

He did not focus the Resonance Echo.

Some things were hers.