Chapter 84 | Something Is Fishy

Chapter 84: Chapter 84 | Something Is Fishy

Kai came out of his room at seven.

The apartment was quiet. The kind of quiet that meant both wives were still in their rooms, which was normal. Mira did not surface before seven-thirty. Shira sometimes earlier but not always.

He went to the kitchen to start the specialty rotation.

He stopped.

His tea was already on the counter.

Not the kettle. Not the leaves set out. The tea — made, in his cup, at the temperature he drank it, sitting there waiting.

He looked at it.

He looked at the hallway.

Mira’s door was closed.

He looked at the tea again.

He picked it up. Drank. It was exactly right — the second blend, steeped to the time he used, the temperature it needed to be to drink immediately rather than wait.

She had timed it.

He put the cup down.

He stood in the kitchen for a moment.

Then he went to make breakfast.

======

He was halfway through the specialty rotation when he noticed the notebook.

It was on the kitchen table. Not his notebook. Shira’s — the small one she kept in her room, the one she had closed when he walked in two days ago.

It was open.

He looked at it from across the counter without going to it immediately. He finished the bowls. He set them on the table. Then he sat down and looked at the notebook properly.

Her handwriting. Dense and precise, the way she did everything.

The page heading: KAI — GALE STRIKE FORM CORRECTIONS (OBSERVED).

Below it, a full page of notes. Not the basic corrections she had given him verbally. More than that — detailed observations she had been making through the wall for weeks. The elbow drop he did on the second beat. The weight distribution. The initiation tell she had spotted from the stairwell incident before she had ever coached him directly. A note at the bottom in smaller writing: Signal-to-rotation ratio improving. Cutoff point still inconsistent. Check dominant shoulder alignment before initiating — this is the root problem, not the elbow.

She had been watching him for longer than she had let on.

He read the page.

He read it again.

He sat with it.

Mira came out at seven-thirty.

She found her chair. Found the table. Found Kai sitting there with a notebook open in front of him and an expression she could not read.

She found her bowl.

She picked up her spoon.

She ate two spoonfuls.

Then she picked up the marker.

Your tea is on the counter.

"I know," Kai said. "I already drank it."

She held the board.

Good.

She ate.

Kai looked at the notebook. He looked at Mira. He looked at the notebook again.

"Did you know about this," he said.

Mira looked at the notebook.

She looked at her bowl.

She ate one more spoonful.

About what.

"The notebook," Kai said. "Did you know she was leaving it."

Mira looked at the table.

She picked up the marker.

She held the board up.

No.

She lowered it.

She wrote again.

But I’m not surprised.

She ate.

Kai looked at the notebook.

—---

Shira came out at eight.

She positioned herself at the table. She looked at the specialty rotation. She looked at the notebook, which Kai had left exactly where he found it — open, facing the same direction, not moved.

She looked at Kai.

He was eating.

She looked at the notebook again.

She picked up her spoon and ate.

Nobody said anything for a full minute.

Then Mira’s board appeared.

She held it facing the center of the table so both of them could read it.

His tea was already made when he came out.

Shira looked at the board.

She looked at Mira.

Mira was eating with great concentration. Deeply absorbed in her bowl. The board sitting there.

Shira looked at the notebook.

Kai looked at his bowl.

He was not smiling. He was entirely unsuccessful.

Shira set her spoon down.

She looked at Mira.

"The temperature," she said.

"Yes," Kai said.

"You timed it."

Mira picked up her spoon. She ate. She did not write anything.

Shira looked at her.

Mira looked at her bowl.

"How long have you been timing it," Shira said.

Mira held the board up without looking at anyone.

Four days.

Shira looked at the board.

She looked at the notebook.

The corner of her mouth moved.

"Four days," she said.

Yours took six weeks, the board came back.

Shira looked at the board.

"That’s different," she said.

Is it.

"Yes."

How.

Shira picked up her spoon. She ate. She looked at the window.

"It just is," she said.

The board appeared again.

That’s not an answer.

"I know," Shira said.

Kai ate his rice.

He kept his face completely still.

He was almost entirely successful.

—-

After breakfast after the dishes Kai was at the table going through the Gale Strike corrections in the notebook when Mira appeared in the kitchen doorway.

She held the board up.

The notebook.

"Yes," Kai said.

She’s been keeping it since the stairwell incident.

He looked up.

"You knew," he said.

I heard her writing, Mira wrote. Eleven-twenty. Every night for three weeks. She thought I was asleep.

He looked at the board.

She does that, Mira wrote. Does things she thinks nobody notices.

He looked at the notebook.

He looked at Mira.

"So do you," he said.

She held the board.

Her ears went slightly pink.

She lowered the board. Capped the marker. Went back to her room.

He sat at the table.

He looked at the notebook.

He looked at his tea cup — empty, rinsed, already dry because she had made it early enough that it needed to be timed to be exactly right when he arrived.

He sat there for a while.

=====

Denko called at ten.

"The investigation committee confirmed the hearing date," Denko said. "Three weeks. The Renmei family’s legal team filed a delay motion this morning. The committee rejected it in four hours."

"Four hours," Kai said.

"They rejected it before lunch," Denko said. "That’s the committee telling you how seriously they’re taking this."

"The dungeon unsealing," Kai said.

"Accelerated," Denko said. "Two weeks from today. The Renmei family cannot access it, cannot reseal it, cannot file any further civil action to delay it. The criminal complaint has classified it as an active investigation site."

Kai looked at the window.

"Dana Holt and Reese Calloway," Denko said. "Their independent filings have been formally attached to your case. The committee is treating all four filings as a single connected complaint. It’s no longer two people disputing a classification. It’s a pattern of systemic fraud across multiple expeditions."

"How long has Holt been trying to file," Kai said.

"Eighteen months," Denko said. "Every filing was returned for procedural reasons. Always a different reason. The committee reviewed the return history and that review is now part of the evidence."

Kai was quiet.

"They blocked her for eighteen months," he said.

"Yes," Denko said.

He stood at the window.

"Two weeks," he said.

"Two weeks," Denko confirmed.

He hung up.

—---

He went to Shira’s door. Three knocks.

"Come in."

She was at the desk. The physio sheet was open but she was not looking at it. She was looking at the window.

He told her. Hearing in three weeks. Dungeon unsealing in two. Dana Holt blocked for eighteen months. All four filings treated as one case.

She looked at the window.

"Eighteen months," she said.

"Yes," Kai said.

She was quiet.

"Cara Venn," she said.

He looked at her.

"The wind-type provisional," she said. "She filed once, in the first year. They told her the classification was under routine review and to wait for the official assessment. She waited eleven months. Then she stopped."

She looked at the window.

"She stopped," Shira said, "because she thought the system was handling it."

"I know," Kai said.

"She trusted it," Shira said.

He said nothing.

She looked at the window for a long time.

"Two weeks," she said.

"Yes," he said.

She nodded once.

He left.

—--

He knocked on Mira’s door.

It opened. She had the board ready.

He told her. Same information. All of it.

She held the board for a long time after he finished.

Then she wrote: Joel Marsh’s family.

"I don’t know yet," Kai said. "Denko is working on it."

She held the board.

She wrote: When the dungeon unseals. His frequency will still be in there.

He looked at the board.

The Resonance node inside the canyon. The frequency that the Renmei family had been trying to reach. The same frequency that Mira’s Gift had detected first — eight-forty hertz — before anyone else felt the escalation coming.

Joel Marsh had been the acoustic-type support hero. His Gift and Mira’s Gift had been calibrated to the same range.

"I know," Kai said.

She lowered the board.

She wrote slowly.

When the investigation team goes in. Make sure they know what to look for.

"Denko has the technical documentation," Kai said. "Everything you gave us."

She held the board.

She nodded once.

She went back to her chair.

He stood in the doorway.

"Mira," he said.

She looked at the wall near his shoulder.

"The tea," he said. "Thank you."

She picked up the marker.

She held the board up without looking at him.

It was four days.

"I know," he said.

Hers took six weeks.

"I know," he said.

She lowered the board.

She did not write anything else.

He went to make lunch.

=====

That evening Kai was at the table when the system chimed.

『 INVESTMENT RETURN — SPECIALTY INGREDIENTS DAY 40. 』 『 Combined return at ×2,000: 』 『 Account balance: 1,491,847,200,000 → 1,493,847,200,000 coins. 』 『 The system notes: 』 『 This morning both wives did something for Host independently and without knowing the other was doing it. 』 『 Mira Elys made his tea. Four days of observation before she attempted it. She said nothing. 』 『 Shira Voss left the training notebook open. Six weeks of notes she had been keeping since the stairwell incident. She said nothing. 』 『 Both of them. Same morning. Neither coordinated with the other. 』 『 The system notes that Host sat at the table for eleven minutes after finding the notebook. 』 『 The system does not have data on what he was thinking. 』 『 The system suspects he knows. 』 『 Two weeks until the dungeon unseals. 』 『 Three weeks until the hearing. 』 『 The system will note one more thing. 』 『 Mira Elys said: hers took six weeks. 』 『 She said it twice. 』 『 The system is paying attention. 』

Kai read it.

He put the phone down.

From Shira’s room — the form. The full sequence. The signal crossing the cutoff, five beats past, six, seven. She held seven. Then eight.

She had never held eight before.

From Mira’s room — the RF-7 running. Then her voice following the second phrase of the album. Not the first phrase. The second one — the harder one, the one that required more channel stability. Thirty-one seconds. Thirty-eight. Forty-two.

She let it end.

She started it again.

He sat at the table and listened to both of them from where he was.

He sat there for a long time.

Then he went to bed.