Miki set the small camera on the sideboard between a roll of bubble wrap and the box of plates. It had not been used in almost two years. It fit in her palm, white, with no visible brand, and a black eye that swiveled when you plugged it in.
“Do you remember the password?” she asked.
Kenta already had his phone in his hand.
“It should be in the password manager.”
“Of course.”
She said it without smiling, but without irritation either. It had become a way of speaking about him, as one might observe that a handle squeaked or the bathroom window did not close properly. Kenta searched for “indoor camera,” found a fourteen-character login, and copied it. The device began turning slowly. On the screen, their living room appeared in black and white, very sharp despite the still-bright late afternoon.
He stepped back. The frame took in the couch, the corridor, and, through the open sliding door, part of their bedroom. The image’s edge cut the bed in two. Miki’s side was empty, the comforter folded against the pillow; his vanished out of frame.
“Flattering,” Miki said. “It looks as though I’ve already left.”
Kenta lowered the phone.
They had bought the camera after their neighbors suffered water damage the previous summer: three days in Osaka, an alert from the moisture detector, then six hours during which Kenta remotely watched a perfectly dry kitchen. Miki had teased him until they got home. He had kept the device because he preferred a useless image to the absence of an answer. Since then, she had called it “your insurance against things that don’t happen.”
“I can change the angle.”
“Don’t change anything. I just want to check it works before selling it.”
End of excerpt. Discover the other stories in this universe.