The weather was kinder that morning.
The sun had not disappeared entirely, but it remained behind a pale layer of cloud, brightening the sky without quite breaking through it. Dew still clung to the edges of leaves and darkened the pavement in patches where the morning air had not yet warmed enough to dry it.
By now, the commute to the museum no longer required thought.
We knew which streets to take, where the pavement narrowed, where the morning traffic became heavier, and which corner always smelled faintly of bread because of the bakery further down the street. The walk had become familiar enough that we could talk through most of it without checking where we were going.
Our new income had also made the future feel slightly less abstract.
We had begun making plans.
Nothing extravagant. A trip someday. Somewhere outside the capital, perhaps. We had not decided where.
Megumi had a habit of bringing it up whenever we passed something that suggested somewhere else.
She stopped briefly near the museum entrance and looked at a travel advertisement displayed beside a shop.
"That must be why he made us new bank accounts," she said.
I looked at her.
She had already started walking again.
"Probably," I said.
It made sense. There were things we could now afford to think about that we had not needed to think about before.
By the time we entered the museum, the warmth of the morning had begun to replace the coolness of the street.
"Good morning, Sadako. How was your night?"
I almost missed the greeting.
"Nakamura. Good morning."
I turned toward her, trying not to let my surprise show.
Nakamura-san was standing near the entrance to the staff corridor, adjusting her hair with one hand. She looked rested, which was more than I could say for myself.
"It was fine. And yours?"
"Haha. It was fine."
She glanced past me.
"That was Megumi just now, wasn't it?"
I looked toward the corridor where Megumi had disappeared with our bags.
"Yes."
Nakamura gave a small laugh.
"You really like teaching. I saw you yesterday."
There was no accusation in it. Just curiosity.
"Ah." I smiled. "I was a teacher. It had been something I loved."
The words came out more easily than I expected.
Nakamura nodded.
"Teacher. That's nice."
She paused, apparently considering her own answer.
"I don't think I ever thought too much about what I wanted to be."
I understood that more than I wanted to admit.
We continued into the staff room.
I opened my locker and placed my bag inside, shifting it against the side so it would not fall over when I closed the door.
Nakamura was still beside me when I took out my identification card.
The card caught the fluorescent light.
EF-ARI-1902-029-C0L1
I stared at it for a moment.
"Oh, you got your identification card," Nakamura said from behind me.
"Yes."
I turned it over once before looking back at her.
"You wouldn't happen to know what these numbers are?"
"Hm?"
She leaned slightly closer.
"EF is the Eastern Front, which—"
"The region covering Zhōngchéng Zhōu and Húmāo Zhōu."
The words came out before I could stop them.
I paused.
"Sorry for cutting you off. It just seemed obvious."
Nakamura stared at me for a second.
Then she laughed.
"All right. That's fine."
She pointed toward the card.
"EF is the Eastern Front. ARI is short for Aries. Then you've got the year, the intake number, and your clearance."
"Clearance?"
That was the word that caught me.
Nakamura gave me a sideways look as we left the staff room.
"That is what interested you?"
She glanced at her watch.
"Not the Aries?"
"Aries isn't one of the constellations?"
"It is."
She pushed open the door leading into the gallery.
"But do you know its origin?"
We stepped into the public section of the museum.
Morning light filtered through the tall windows and fell across the polished floor. The museum was quieter than it would be later in the day, with only a few visitors moving between the exhibits.
"Well, yes," I said. "But they weren't always there."
Nakamura looked at me.
"They were said to have appeared during the Faux Renaissance."
She said it casually, almost as if she had mentioned the weather.
Then she walked away to attend to something at the other end of the gallery.
I remained where I was.
"The Faux Renaissance."
I repeated the words quietly.
Then I looked toward the displays.
Nothing immediately stood out.
I began moving along the cases, checking the descriptions as I passed.
I had never considered myself particularly interested in constellations. But now that Nakamura had mentioned them, the question had lodged itself somewhere in my mind.
The museum had a way of doing that.
A small piece of information entered your head, and suddenly ordinary things became suspicious.
A few minutes later, a man approached with a woman beside him, their hands linked loosely between them.
"Excuse me," he said. "Could you point us toward the mythical creature display?"
"Ah, yes."
I stepped away from the case.
"It's this way. Just follow the arrows."
I gestured toward the signs and led them a short distance through the gallery.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
They continued on.
I returned to my section.
I didn't ask Nakamura what she meant by clearance.
I glanced toward the staff area.
I can ask during lunch.
For now, I had visitors to deal with.
My attention fell on one of the display cases.
A blade from the Epoch of the Demigods, c. 12,000–3,000 B.P.
I read the plaque twice.
The Epoch of the Demigods was not unfamiliar.
That, at least, was a period I had heard of.
Perhaps that was what Nakamura had been referring to earlier.
I moved closer to the glass.
The blade rested beneath the controlled museum lighting, its surface carefully preserved. There was something strangely satisfying about seeing history reduced to an object that could be placed behind glass and labelled.
Not necessarily understood.
Just preserved.
"Good morning."
I looked up.
A woman stood in front of the case with two children.
"Sorry, could you tell us a little about this exhibit?"
"Yes, of course."
The children immediately looked at me.
Their attention was almost startling.
Children had always been honest that way. They did not pretend to listen. If they were interested, you knew.
I looked down at the plaque.
"This is the Chi-lse-ong geom—"
The pronunciation was wrong.
The children laughed.
Their mother smiled apologetically.
"Chilseong geom," she corrected gently.
"Yes," I said. "Chilseong geom."
I tried it again.
That sounded better.
"It was a weapon used by Goo Daon, a general from present-day Zhōngchéng Zhōu."
The little girl leaned closer to the case.
"Is the sword real?"
Her tail wagged vigorously behind her.
"Ah, yes. It is."
She immediately turned toward her brother.
He had begun tapping their mother on the arm.
"Can we touch it?"
I laughed before I could stop myself.
Their mother gave me an apologetic look.
I waved it away.
"Don't worry."
The children remained fascinated by the case.
For some reason, I felt myself relax.
There was something uncomplicated about their curiosity.
They wanted to know whether the sword was real.
They wanted to touch it.
They wanted to know who had used it.
No hidden implications. No institutional language. No boundaries between the public explanation and whatever waited behind it.
Just a sword.
Just history.
For the moment, that was enough.
Lunch came sooner than I expected.
Megumi was already seated when I arrived, her food arranged neatly in front of her.
"How are you enjoying your job?" she asked after taking a bite.
"Just fine."
I sat down and took a sip of water.
"It would seem even I am learning something new."
"Oh, really?"
Megumi slurped some noodles and looked at me over the bowl.
"Yes."
I lowered my voice slightly.
"Did you know some of the constellations in the sky are not as old as the others?"
She stopped eating.
"What?"
"Really?"
"Yes."
I smiled.
"Isn't that interesting—"
"Sadako."
I looked up.
Nakamura was approaching our table.
"Oh, you must be Megumi."
Megumi swallowed and straightened slightly.
"Yes."
Nakamura gestured toward the empty chair.
"May I?"
"Of course."
She sat down, setting her food on the table.
"How do you like working at the back?"
"It's really interesting."
Megumi glanced at me.
My eyes had fallen on Nakamura's identification card.
C1L2.
I barely had time to register it before the question I'd been carrying since morning came back.
"What did you mean by the Faux Renaissance?"
Nakamura looked at me.
Then she smiled.
"So that's what stayed with you."
"Yes."
She picked up her fork.
"Have you ever wondered why a good number of people are at least bilingual?"
My mind immediately went back to the family I'd helped earlier.
The mother speaking naturally to her children.
The way languages seemed to move through ordinary conversation here without anyone treating it as remarkable.
"Isn't that just how it is?" Megumi asked, raising an eyebrow.
Nakamura laughed.
"No."
She took a bite of her pasta.
"But if you want me to explain it properly…"
She paused.
"Then you two owe me a drink."
I looked at Megumi.
Megumi looked back at me.
Neither of us had expected that answer.
Nakamura smiled as though she had already won whatever bargain she had just invented.
I leaned back in my chair.
Apparently, history had a price.
And, judging by Nakamura's expression, she had no intention of giving us the cheap version.