Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Keys.  Phone.  Wallet.  Tie.

Yup, that’s everything.

Click.

I pull the key out of my apartment’s door and make for the stairs leading to the ground floor. 

Today doesn’t feel much different from yesterday or the day before.  Summer is in full swing, shedding any cold spells spring is prone to.  The sun is in the same annoying spot, glaring its laser-hot beams onto me.  Of course, there're no clouds or wind.  The old chocolate retriever landlady, Chieko, with her raisin face, is weeding her humble cucumber garden.   The family of four elementary school cheetah cubs are funneling into the street and heading to the nearby subway.  Apartment 102’s several weeks-old pup is barking his head off, his voice muffled through the paper-thin window. 

As I pass Chieko, we exchange “good mornings,” and nothing more.  After passing the apartments’ mailbox wall, I walk out into the street.  I’m a few buildings down the street when I realize something.  Shit, did I remember to pay my rent this month?  I guess I’ll ask her later.  She’s good about reminding my forgetful ass about stuff like that, and she’s definitely would’ve brought it up since it’s the 7^th.

Whatever.

I keep a careful distance from the cubs as I head for the subway myself.  All those headlines of scumbags touching children are really getting to me.  I never want my ugly mug plastered on the front page of the internet for something I’d never do.  What am I saying?  Ugh, I should stop reading the news.

Three girls, one boy.  I never learned their names since I like to keep to myself.  Wonder what it’s like to be a boy with three sisters.  As an only child, I can only imagine it’s miserable.  I’ve only seen their parents once or twice—wonder if they cope well.

We end up merging into a one-way current of people once we get closer to the subway.  Buildings are growing taller, their facades fancier, chiseled and shiny.  Coffee and cinnamon fill my nostrils.  Hugging street sides, food stands are preparing for the day.  My stomach growls.

We all descend downward into the bustling concrete estuary, an ascending stream of people next to us partitioned with a metal railing.  We all arrive at the automated turnstile, scan our commuter’s passes one after the other, and spread out into the waiting station.  I stand in my usual spot closest to an empty wall and away from the yellow watch-your-feet lines, televisions, and people.  All I can hear are the Japanese and English arrival and departure announcements coalescing with energy drink advertisements.  Random conversations of other salarymen, students, and whoever drone in the background. 

I space out looking at my phone, doing my daily rounds of twitter and Instagram.  Nothing interesting.  Earthquake in Nagoya.  Typhoon heading for Hokkaido.  Tsunoda posted another pic of her thighs—fuck, it is Thursday.  Fuck Fenneko for being so observant and telling me about this shit.  How does it even have that many likes?  …Why do I care?

I continue my mindless browsing until the loud mechanical box passes my eyes, stops, and opens its many mouths.  Abandon hope all ye who enter here.  We all wait our turn as its drowned victims escape its bowels.

Once they trickle out, I and everyone else take their places inside.  The air is disgustingly moist, stagnant and warm.  Was the AC busted?  Could they not open any windows?  Everyone is within a breath’s reach of each other and on their phones. Since I was, ahem, shoved here, I’m hugging a center metal pole with five dudes in suits pressing against me.  The train announces it’s closing its doors and does exactly that.

Last thing I see before returning to my phone are the cubs sitting in seats next to each other. 

The boy is laughing and pinching his nose as if he let a huge one rip.  I smirk but bite my upper lip once I felt it.  The girls and some OLs are glaring at him.

-  -  -

Once I get to the top of the subways stairs, the sun is back oppressing me.  I wish I could destroy it sometimes.  Haida, sun destroyer.  Ha…why does that sound badass yet cringe?

I walk my usual route within the same tide of office workers.  Some splatter off, turning corners, disappearing into buildings, or waving down taxis.  Tokyo’s streets are always talking, whether it be yelling with car honks or whispering with passersby.  Today was one of the former variety, and I unfortunately get a front seat.  Stopped by the 3 min 19 second crosswalk, I watch all the countless vehicles waltz in a coordinated fashion to their destinations.

If I skipped this, I could’ve been at work sooner.  Wait.  What am I saying?  I don’t want to get there sooner.  I don’t want to be late but also not too early.

…what am I?  Fucking Goldilocks?  Where are the bears to eat my dumb indecisive ass?  Or am I misremembering that part?

It must be my white button-up shirt sticking to my hot fur, or maybe I haven’t been sleeping well lately, but I can’t help but notice this whole-body discomfort.  This malaise.  I’m not one to complain, but I hate this route.  It’s the same damn 32-minute-subway, 16 minute-five-crosswalk-stop, 731-meter-walk bullshit five days a week. 

Bored out of my mind, I let my eyes go wherever.  A boujee Uniqlo with its enormous open glass everything, displaying its Westerner-looking fashion on male and female mannequins.  An Apple store that has six wooden tables running along the length of its interior and exploding with shuffling people.  A Starbucks a block away with people in tables dotting the outside, sipping on their caffeinated drinks.  Some have their laptops out, some are carrying conversations with fading smiles.

I sigh. 

You know what?  Fuck it.

I flip around and make my way for the Starbucks.  All I can smell is coffee.  I wonder if coffee would help me get out of this funk.  I usually only drink the canned vending machine kind but never actually tried the hot, made-to-order kind. 

I enter the Starbucks and see a few people sitting in green-colored booths, typing away on their laptops and sipping on their drinks.  I feel like I walked into a cult of coffee where I need to bring my laptop too or be shunned.  Seriously, what was up with this?  People can actually sit in a public place and work like this?

I focus on the menu high above, checking prices and names.  What were these names?  Cafe Latte?  Frappuccino?  Cappuccino?  You could get tea?  And what were these extras?  Syrup?  Chocolate mousse?  Sauce?  What?  Why the fuck does something cost as much as a meal at McDonald’s?

I keep my distance away from the main counter where a bunch of deer are frolicking behind, attending to other customers.

“Astro!” a buck wearing a green visor says with a light-colored coffee in hand and looks around.

A white mutt stands from his seat and comes up to the counter.  The buck hands him the drink.  “Thank you, m’dude.”

The buck then looks to me.  “Are you ready to order?”

I look around, making sure I didn’t cut someone off.  Looks like I’m safe.  “Uh, yeah, sure,” I say.

He guides me to the register and places his hoof onto it.

“Go ahead when you’re ready,” he says.

“A-Americano,” I say.  All I know is that Americano is a no-frill drink, and that’s probably all I need to go with.  No added sugar for me, thanks.  Though, isn’t America land of obesity and sugar?  I wonder why they would have a sugar-free coffee named after them.

“What size?” he fires back as he clicks away on the register.

“S size.”

“Iced or hot?”

Well, it is hot outside.  “Iced.”

He lifts his head up and looks me straight in the eyes.  “Name?”

My name?  “Haida?”

“350 yen.”

Expensive.  Definitely once in a month thing.  I pull my wallet and pay the man.  After ringing me up, he hands me my receipt.

“Coming right up, Mr. Haida.” He grabs a plastic, empty cup from a leaning tower behind him and loads it full of ice.

“Haida?  That you?” a familiar voice said.

I turn my head to the speaker who’s at the end of the counter, near where that Astro guy picked up his drink. 

It’s Tadano wearing a gray hoodie, sunglasses, and a blue baseball cap that kinda matches his bushy hair.  Trying to keep a low-pro I see.  He did just show up on the news for ENI-O’s planned roll out.  He also has a coffee in hand.  I approach him and say, “Oh, hey, Tadano.  Didn’t see you there.”

“How is life?” he asks and takes a sip.

“Oh, you know, going.”

The buck appears and slides me the cup filled with coffee and ice. 

“Straws are over there with the napkins.”  He points across the room.

“Thank you,” I say and go in that direction.

After putting a straw in, I take the first sip and squint my eyes.  It’s smooth and not bitter, but something about it is off.  Did I just get scammed?  As if he knew something was up, Tadano asks, “Do you drink coffee often?”

I inspect the cold cup in my hand, making sure nothing more was mixed in with it.  Ice swirls around.  “Only the canned stuff.  This tastes different.  What about you?”

“It’s part of my routine, yeah.  It takes some getting used to.  Though, I’m a latte kind of guy.”

“What’s a latte?”

“More milk and sugar than espresso.”

“Huh,” I say and scratch the back of my ear.  “There’s so much about this coffee crap.  Maybe I should just stick to the canned stuff.”

I take another sip and scrunch my nose.  Maybe I wouldn’t be able to finish this.  A thought occurred to me.  “Oh, I wanted to ask you, dude.  Have you seen Tao Mari’s new startup company?”

Tadano tilts his head.  “The Chinese shoe bird?  I met him once at an afterparty.”

“Yeah, well, he’s past that now,” I say, excitement welling up inside of me.  Finally, someone I get to talk to about this.  “He made his own social media site, and apparently it’s picking up traction in China.  It’s called AniBook.”

Tadano waves his lavender hand dismissively.  “I don’t keep up with headlines that much.  I’m always so busy.”

“Ah, with your AI?”

He nods.  “That and talking to investors and going to conferences.  It’s exhausting.  Everyone wants me to fly to all parts of the world just to talk in person for a few hours.  I’d rather exchange emails than this crap.”

I snort.  “Sounds like to life to me.  I wouldn’t mind traveling outside of Japan.”

“Well then,” he says and chugs the last of his latte.  He tosses it in the garbage next to him.  “What’s holding you back?”

“My accountant job.  I barely eke by with what I make.  Tokyo is super expensive, and I’m always so tired.”

“You ever think about making more?”

What’s with this guy and all his questions?  I sigh and shove the thought away.  “Well, yeah, of course.  But who else is going to hire a business major other than these soul-sucking office jobs?”

He flashes a smile.  “Get into tech, dude.”

I fight the urge to roll my eyes.  Says the CEO of his own AI company.

“You mean programming?” I ask.  “I tried it—even bought books on it.  I can’t motivate myself to get through them.”

He rubs his chin, his sunglasses shining from stray light.  “Books are nice references.  Some even have nice exercises…but, if you want to get your feet wet, I recommend open source projects and using StagOverflow for all your questions.”

“Yeah, but, if I don’t understand the bare minimum, how can I get anywhere?”

“You have to try first.”

I don’t fight it this time.  One eye roll later, I say, “I’m too dumb for programming.”

He’s smiling again.  “Maybe I could lend a hand then.”

“No,” I say and flick my hand.  “I’m busy.  You’re busy.  Just forget it.”

As I’m flicking my hand, I realize I should look at my wristwatch.  “Shit,” I say, “I’m going to be late for work.  Later, Tadano.”

I make for the door, expensive drink in hand. 

“Bye,” I hear him say right before the exit door closes behind me.

I buck for it in the increasingly wild Tokyo heat, skipping two five-minute crosswalk stops and chugging my coffee down.  My heart is racing, and my body is hotter.  Oddly enough, it did make me feel more alive.  I made it to the office, right on time, and to nobody’s surprise.  Thank fuck.

I even realized what was off about that coffee.

No metallic taste.

Chapter Text

I hate working so much.  It’s so boring and…ugh.  It feels like I’m fighting this urge to scream “Fuck this shit!” more than ever lately. 

I shift through the five spreadsheets I worked on today and make sure all the graphs are in their respective positions.  Last time I left one graph out of thirty, I got grilled hard by Ton for my misconduct.  He made it sound like I sacrificed his first fucking son to Satan or pissed on his God’s shrine—whatever he believes in.  I also don’t think he has a son, but you get my point.  Thankfully, my pay wasn’t docked, but the experience still haunts my dreams. 

It’s done.  The last quarter’s expenses have been sifted through with a fine-tooth comb.  Everything is adorned with two matching graphs and labeled axes.

I glance at the clock at the bottom of my screen.  2 PM.

I still have 3 hours to kill before I can go home.  Sigh…

I crane my head around to the Fenneko, Anai, and of course Retsuko.  They were all clacking away at their keyboards and flipping through their daily paperwork.  The room sounds no different from a droning downpour with how quickly they are going.  Bossman Ton hasn’t returned from lunch, which makes me happier.  Seems like asskisser Komiya wasn’t around either.  Means I could slack off and not worry.

Now, what was that site Tadano was talking about?  StabOverflow?  After I search the web for it, I learn it was StagOverflow.  Looking on the front page, I’m confused why he suggested this.  It looks like they want me to pay to use their website?  The fuck?  Did I not make it clear I’m poor?

I grind my teeth together but try to dig deeper into the website.  Maybe one of my programming books is talked about on the site.  He said to use it for questions.  I got stuck on problem 3 in that Python book a couple of weeks ago.  I search for the site with the book’s title and problem.

…what?  There're actual results.  I click the top result and see someone is asking a question with his code embedded.  He had a similar setup to mine, except embellished a bit more with functions I’ve never seen before.  I blink and read every single thing on the page.  When I get to the answer, I widen my eyes. 

THAT was all I had to do?  For fuck’s sake.  That was literally on the page before the problem!  I reached the bottom of the page and notice a “browse all the questions with [python] tag,” which, of course, I clicked on in a heartbeat.

So many questions and answers.  So many questions that went over my head with complexity, yet some people could figure out the puzzle.  Maybe I could use this site to finish one of my books at least…

“What are you doing?”

I look over to my side to see Fenneko’s black, soulless eyes pounding me into the ground.  She apparently had stood up and made it to my desk across the room at one point.

I knee-jerk alt-tab out of the browser, back to my spreadsheet, and whisper, “What?”

I check the time.  3 PM.  Shit, where did the hour go?  Ton still wasn’t back.

“Were you browsing websites while the entire office works on this god-forbid project?” she asks quietly, though it seems as if she were threatening to get louder.

“No!” I say and force a smile.  “Of course I would never slack off at work!” It came out as clunky and loud as you’d imagine.

To defend myself, I click through all my sheets.  Numbers, pie charts, and scatter plots complemented with linear regression lines flood the blue screen.  “Look, see?  I made the graphs and everything for last quarter.”

She draws closer to my screen, squinting her black eyes and thinning her cream-colored mouth.  The anticipation of waiting for my judgement is so thick you could chainsaw it in half.  I’m looking at her and the screen with a weak smile, hoping that maybe she won’t kill me.

Her face finally relaxes and so does my heart.  She says, “Whatever.  Just don’t let Ton see you.”

I wave her away, smirking.  “Yeah, yeah.  I know.  Speaking of which, have you—”

SMASH.

The entrance door to the accounting department was blasted open.  The clacking keys stop, and eyes are drawn to the noise.  At the door’s threshold, Director Ton is holding in his massive hands a white tower of papers. 

Oh no.  I’ve seen this tower before only twice before.  All it brought was dread and misery in its wake, not meant for the faint of heart or mind.  My eyes flicker to Retsuko and Fenneko, who quickly returned.  The tower was now drifting to the center of the room.  Just when I thought he was going to pivot behind the row of desks to the right to her, Ton went to the left.  To my row. 

The sailing tower coasted past three of my coworkers’s backsides before finally stopping at me.  Ton, not checking for anything there, drops the daunting thing right onto my desk, a loud thud resonating throughout the room.  Papers at the top waft off, fleeing from the scene. 

I think I smell bacon.  I blink and tighten up.  My spine is straight as an arrow.  “Sir?  What is this?”

His visage covered in sweat, he sharply inhales and glares at me.  I think.  I’m always worried if I’m not making enough eye contact with the guy, but the amount of fat on his face bloats any semblance of facial feature.  If he didn’t have that snout in the dead center of his face, I wouldn’t be able to tell you from forehead or chin.

His voice is low and guttural.  “You make the graphs, right?”

I open my mouth but—

“Higher ups need you to compile all this and get presentation graphs by tomorrow morning.  An overseas client is coming in.”

“Tomorrow!?” I ask, my volume reaching its max.  This was more than unreasonable.  It was insane.

Ton grunts.  “Split the work up and maybe you’ll make it.”

The director gestures his arm around the room, and my gaze follows.  The room is pissed.  The room is tired.  Retsuko has her head in her arms. 

Fuck.

“Now,” he says, turns around, and heads back to the door.  “If you’ll excuse me, my daughters’ play is tonight, and I need to go get ready.”

As soon as he leaves with a bang of the door, someone belts out, “What a diiiiick.”

Fenneko groans.  “I wasn’t even finished with today’s crap.”

Seeing everyone deflate made me get to my feet, nearly toppling the wobbly tower.  I looked around and say, “He gave it for me to do.  You guys don’t need to help at all.”

“Shut up, Haida,” Fenneko fires back, not even a drop of sarcasm in her tone.  I blink like an idiot. 

She continues with a pinched expression, “You know better than us that if you don’t get it done, then we all suffer the consequences.  Come on, split up the work.  We’re wasting time talking.”

I want to say something back.  I really want anything to come to mind and fix everything. But I find myself reaching towards the top of the papers and dishing out daily-work portions to everyone.

My insides are hollowed out.  It’s the end of the day, and I’m giving people more shit to do.  As I’m doing this and gauging everyone’s soured reactions, I feel heavier and worse.  Even though Retsuko normally gets assigned more than everyone else, she never had to do this walk of shame of handing out more work.  Ton always instructs us to leave her be, which makes me feel bad, but this was beyond different.

I’m the most reluctant when I approach her with her portion.  Her tangerine-white fur looked shinier today.  I wonder if she’s been sleeping and eating better.  She doesn’t look mad or sad.  Just neutral.

Wordlessly, Retsuko takes the papers from my hands with both of hers and turns back to her laptop, promptly scanning the cover document.

Please yell at me.  Please tell me you don’t deserve this.  Tell me I’m a slacker idiot who causes problems.  Anything.  I wait for a few moments for her to give me some cathartic reaction.  But nothing.  She gives me nothing.  I return to the last of the stack.

I guess I’m not even worth that.  Was this some divine punishment for messing around on the computer?

I don’t even look at Fenneko when I hand her the last of it.  I already know she’s pissed.  About to go back to my desk, I hear her say, “We’ll get through this.”

I crane my neck to her and notice Retsuko is also looking up.  Retsuko had a smile grazing her dull eyes.

It was beautiful.  She’s always stunning when she’s smiling, but I knew it was fake.  She’s always fantastic at faking things.  This became ever clear when I learned about all the things she does outside of work, like dating Tadano, singing heavy metal at a karaoke bar, or being in a pop idol group.  And, despite learning more about her life, I can’t shake this helpless feeling that I still know jack shit about her.  I’ll admit, I don’t know how she really feels more than half the time.  I’ll admit that she knows fuck all about me.

On top of that, ever since we sang together in that freaky, downtrodden karaoke bar, things between us stagnated yet again.  Like nothing happened.  Like the guilt I went through with Inui was nothing.  But the rebound this time wasn’t as painful as the last few times this happened.  I can’t tell if I’m getting used to this cycle of me desperately wanting her to accept me and getting nowhere, but that’s something I don’t want to admit.

I know that I can’t do much at this point.  She knows how I feel, yet is cordial enough to maintain a relationship with me.  I can’t compel her to feel anyway about me.  I would be worse off if I told Retsuko my thoughts…again.

I guess I’m no different from her in that regard, walling myself up and never truly expressing myself.  I’m always terrified what people think of me or about their harsh judgements.  Maybe it was for the best for us—to finally accept this for what it was.

She says in that lovely soprano, “Yup, this is just another day for me.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and weakly smile.  I say, “Right.  Let’s get to it then.”

Proper.  Coworker.  Relationship.

I need to focus on work.

As I’m going back, the downpour of clacks begins again with its intermittent rustling, flipping pages.  Surprisingly, no one is talking or complaining, only relenting to this bullshit.  I think because everyone accepted the reality and knew what this extra work meant.

Overtime.

Unpaid.

- - -

It’s midnight when I unlock the door to my apartment and stumble in.  I somehow made it to the last train of the night.  I did not look forward to paying a taxi for working overtime.  This freaking sucks.  But at least it was done.  At the end, everyone was actually laughing and cheering.  Damn it, my coworkers are saints.  Next cherry blossom viewing, I’m definitely bringing another bottle of sake around.

I don’t even bother turning on the lights.  Kicking off my shoes at the foyer in darkness, I see the silhouette of the first thing I can lie down on: my ¥15,000 probably-previously-own-by-gang-members-who-needed-to-quickly-liquidate-before-the-cops-found-them couch.  Fuck, I hate the thing with its lumpy springs and used and abused cushions, but it’s been my bed an embarrassing amount of times.  Even if I got rich and moved into a mansion in America, I’d bring it and still use it for my late night crash-landings.

I drop myself onto it, sinking deeply into its interior and making the springs squeal.  I sigh.  My urge to go to the fridge and get a beer is much duller tonight.  Even to my surprise, I’m too exhausted.

I loosen my red tie and undo the first two top buttons of my white shirt before giving up.  I at least undo my cuffs and free my wrists.  I slap my phone onto my equally what-has-this-thing-seen-before-I-bought-it coffee table and stretch my limbs out longer than the couch.

As I’m doing this, I notice the shadow of my pitiful book corner.  Book spines were obscured by darkness, only a faint streak of gilded letters revealing themselves.  I own 5 books, but I could only tell you what 3 of them were: 2 Python books and a bible. 

I seriously wonder if I could get into programming.  It may even be more fulfilling than manipulating numbers and making the same graphs ad nauseam.  Maybe even come up with my own AI like Tadano.  Make bank.  Quit job.  Give up this apartment.  Move to America.  Marry whoever will take me.  Have children aplenty.  I guess I’d have to refine my English too.  High-school classes only taught me “This is a pen,” and “Sorry, I don’t speak English,” which I don’t think is enough in any country. 

I’m getting ahead of myself.

I blink.  My attention dwindles.

Maybe I could do it.

Chapter Text

Open source python projects.  If you asked me what that was two weeks ago, I wouldn’t be able to tell you fuck all. But, now, here I am, making daily commits, or contributions, to this Machine Learning project I found surfing the web.  It’s only little, tiny, insignificant commits like fixing statistical errors and responding to open threads about math I did back in college, but it’s still something.  I haven’t felt this blissfully useful since my part-time college tutoring job.

But don’t ask me about data mining.  I’m still learning.

I’m checking StagOverflow every 30 minutes, trying to keep up-to-date with what’s happening, checking my emails in case something happens.  FOMO is my blood, and I will bleed out if I can’t respond fast enough to someone and get those sweet internet reputation points.

It’s lunchtime.  Fenneko, Retsuko, and I are sitting at our typical spot: at the table nearest to the vending machines.  Both of them are on their phones playing some mobile pretty-boy sword game while I slurp in my microwaved ramen into my mouth.  Salty, filling, satisfying.

Since neither of them is carrying a conversation, I browse my emails on my phone.  Before I began this coding journey of mine, my email would be full of spam and random updates from the HR department about new straight-from-college hires or seasonal mixers.  Now it’s nothing but constant bombardment of email chains, listing all modifications and commits to my side project by other people.  Any spam/HR emails are buried deep under the commits.  It’s much better.

Something catches my eye.  It’s an email from someone in charge of the Machine Learning project.  I’ve helped him the most with any statistical math, and I was surprised to see the email had nothing to do with a question.  I skim words.

A bounty?  Looking for statisticians…

“Whatever it is, don’t bring it into work like slacker over here.”

My eyes break away from my phone and was met with Fenneko and Retsuko looking at me.  I slurp up the loose noodles into my mouth and swallow before speaking.  “Hm?  Who?”

“You,” Fenneko says nonchalantly.  “Yesterday, you spent 2 hours and 37 minutes on random websites.”

While scratching my chin and looking up, I say, “Yesterday I finished the reports for Friday and then…”

Wait, I know what she’s talking about.  I stop and bite my upper lip once it dawned on me.  I was correcting math between 2 and 5 PM again.  It’s been happening more frequently than I want to admit, but what else am I going to do for all that downtime!?  I’m not idly browsing the web or going through social media.  More importantly, how the hell did she know that?

As I’m about to defend myself, mouth open and eyes furrow, I can see Retsuko sinking into her disappointment with me, her shoulders and eyes falling. 

“I’m just as productive as anyone here!” I say to Fenneko.  “Look, I’ll go back to my desk right now and work!”

Heart racing, I’m on my feet, about to leave.

All I hear is Fenneko snort.  “Yeah, back to slacking off.”

I inhale sharply.  “I’m coding.  Not wasting my time on shit that doesn’t matter.”  Not exactly coding, but I will get there, eventually.  Fuck, why did I say that.

“If you’re on the job, then doing anything but your job is wasting time,” she spits back and waves her hand.

I exhale, an inkling of guilt pulling at my heartstrings.  “Look, I do my dailies before I do anything outside of work.  I haven’t left you guys high and dry ever, right?”

“Stop being mean, Fenneko,” Retsuko says and sips her bottle water.

She turns to me with those dazzling eyes and says, “I think it’s great you’re doing something you like.”

I could kiss her.  I mean—no.  That would be wildly inappropriate and against anything I stand for.  Our relationship has nothing but frayed, anyway.  The constant pulling back and forth.  Inui.  Nothing changing.  Appropriate.  Coworker.  Banter.

“Thank you,” I say to her with a smile and sip from my canned coffee, the opening a few degrees off from center.  After throwing away the rest of my ramen and coffee, I head back to the office room alone.  Once I sit down at my desk, I open spreadsheets and get back to work.

I can’t stop thinking about that bounty.  I don’t think it requires much programming knowledge. 

Fuck, why did I say that.

- - -

This place never stops smelling like brewed coffee beans.  It’s weird; they sell baked goods too, so I’m surprised coffee eternally permeates the air.  Murmuring patrons and shrieking percolating coffee fade in the background.  It’s comfortably cool and dry unlike the encroaching humidity on this summer day.  I’m sitting alone at a booth, drumming my fingers on the table, waiting for my Americano to be done. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I still think this place is overpriced as heck and doesn’t deserve the deluge of customers it gets.  I think its hipster laptop army is still disgustingly dogmatic.  But today was different.  Today, after finishing another mostly-math-and-a-smudge-of-Python bounty, I had an extra ¥1000 yen this month for whatever I wanted. 

And that was going to be coffee, I guess.

My eyes scout the place.  I look at my watch.  I got here the same time I did a few weeks ago.  Where was he?

“Haida!” a voice calls out to me from the counter.

I get up and come up to the white stork holding my drink with his feathered hands. 

“Thank you,” I murmur to him and take the icy dark cup into my hands.  I ordered the same thing because it’s the only safe thing I know.  I don’t have the money or time to experiment on whatever the hell a sakuranbo frappucino is.  Maybe it’s just coffee and cherries added together which sounds weird.

“One latte, two pumps of vanilla, no foam, soy milk.”

That’s…

I turn my head.  The stork that attended to me is now taking Tadano’s order.  Tadano is wearing the exact same thing I saw him in weeks ago: gray hoodie, blue baseball cap, sunglasses. 

“Size?”

“M size.”

After getting his receipt, he waves at me as if he knew I was here the entire time.  Approaching me, he says, “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Been busy,” I say back and shrug.  “I’m surprised you have the time to come here every morning.”

“Day doesn’t start without my latte.”  He waves around his receipt. 

“Emi!”  The white stork is shuffling behind the counter, handing a tray of sloshing drinks. 

“Pardon me.”  An orange cat comes up to the counter where we were at and cut us apart.  She receives her tray and scurries back to her booth filled with other similar-looking cats, all purring as they took up their drinks and started sipping away.

“Shall we take a seat?” I ask once it occurs to me we are in the way.  I don’t wait for an answer and navigate to the booth I was just at, grabbing a straw in the process.  I sit down.

I can’t stop thinking about everything that has transpired since I last saw him, the thoughts wanting to rush out of my lips.  Should I even mention it?  Maybe that would be cringe.  He’s a CEO of his own freaking AI company, after all.  Why would he give a shit about my tiny side math project or paltry bounties?

He sits down in front of me, sunlight reflecting off his shades. 

Instead, I think about the next best thing.  I say, “So, ENI-O is rolling out to companies soon, huh?”  FOMO is a hard drug to quit.

Tadano nods once.  “Yup.  I’m also presenting at a tech conference about the new features I added.”

I nod as if it were new knowledge.  He’s been ironing out ENI-O’s decision making by tempering with a questioning cascade tree how much freewill he has.  I wouldn’t even begin to understand how he implements such features, but damn, does it sound interesting. 

I sip my coffee.  It’s smoother this time.  Maybe even sweeter.  I ask, “At Adder-con, right?  Here in Tokyo?”

A smirk flashes across his face.  “Yup.”

I really want to talk about myself, but I can’t bring myself to do it.  He could easily destroy any of my happiness I’ve had lately with a flick of his millionaire tech wrist.  Don’t talk about it.  You have so much to live for…

“Tadano!” the stork barista calls out and shaking his latte.

“You should come,” he says and stands up.  “I could get you wherever you want to go.  Mari apparently is going to be there too, unveiling something to do with hardware.”

I stop sucking on my straw, my teeth biting down on the plastic.  What?  Did I just get invited somewhere that wasn’t a mixer or a birthday party?  Mari was doing something?  What about hardware?  How did I miss that?

After he comes back with his latte and sits back down, he takes the lid off.  Vanilla steam wisps roll up out of the cup.  It smells…interesting.  Reminds me of cupcakes and cookies.

“Well?” he asks.

I blink.  I say the only thing that comes to mind, “Dude, my job.”

Tadano firms his lips and shrugs.  “Well, could always catch the livestream, I guess.”

I scratch my chin.  Technically, I could take time off.  I’ve accrued 6 vacation days from working nonstop six day 8-hour shifts for six months.  But I was saving them if I had a terrible binge drinking episode again.  Last time, if I didn’t have four vacation days stashed away, I would’ve been fired. 

The whole reason was embarrassing as hell too.  Retsuko had posted this image of herself with some random guy at a restaurant on social media.  I thought for certain this was the end for us.  No more hanging out or even talking.  She was marrying this guy.  To numb the pain, I drank to my heart’s content for days.  My stomach, however, never consented to the massive influx of booze and promptly reminded me of such fact with nonstop face-in-the-toilet heavy vomiting.  Thank God I’m a degenerate only less than 1% of the year.  Thank God I’m a functional alcoholic.

The guy ended up being the restaurant’s server or something.  Of course, I overreacted and made something out of nothing.  This is exactly why I’m stuck at this job.

I catch myself scratching my eyebrows furiously once I notice Tadano staring at me.  Or, I think he’s staring at me.  I vaguely can make out his eyes behind those darker than black shades.  He’s not saying anything, which kinda gets under my skin.

Fuck it.

I suck down a mouthful of coffee and say, “You know, I’ve actually been doing that open-source thing you told me about.”

I can see his eyebrows rise above his sunglasses.  “For what?” he asks.

I inhale and puff out my chest.  “This tiny machine learning project.  Mostly helping with statistics.  Oh, and, I’ve also been doing online bounties.  Only done two and got 3000 yen but—”

“Isn’t it nice?” Tadano interrupts me before I can finish the thought.  He’s wearing a half smile.  Can’t tell if he’s serious or not but…

“It is,” I say and smile back.  Why do I feel guilty…?  I mean, I like my job.  I don’t have to worry about healthcare or job security.  Seriously, it’s the only reason why I haven’t sold all my things, forfeited my citizenship, and become an American already.  I’ve built myself into this position where no one else can mass produce charts and numbers like I can in under a day.  I also repair and restore company laptops for no extra pay.  I’m a valuable asset to my company.

And yet, it was no different from cheating on my 3-year-relationship with my company.  Taking days off was heresy.  Thinking about other sources of income was like having another idol.

Tadano takes a gulp of his latte. 

“I think I can take some time off of work,” I say and take another gulp.  “I’ve got the vacation days to spend but never use it.”

It was so weird to say this.  I never make plans like this with anyone.  But I’m excited?  It feels like impulsive college adventures all over again.

Tadano shrugs and says, “Sure.  Could we exchange numbers then?”  He whips out his smart phone from his hoodie.

“Oh, uh, sure.”  I fish into my pockets for my phone and bring up my contact app.

My head is light. 

This is actually happening.

Happening so fast.

Chapter Text

Lights, phone flashes, murmurs.  There are so many bodies packed into this auditorium in the convention center.  Annoyingly, the seats are closer than any subway train I’ve been on.  My elbows and legs are tight against me.  I adjust my tie that’s wringing my neck with my index finger.  Taking a glance around the place from my first row seat, I recognize personalities that I’ve only seen in magazines or online.

Shuichi Nakamura, fashion designer of Bee People.  Makoto Yamashita, inventor of iMAD.  Seiichi Yamamoto of DoNKY studios. Of course, Mari Tao of AniBook with his new wife.  I couldn’t believe it—a whole smorgasbord of these tech giants and socialites sitting mere meters from me, some even a couple of rows behind.  I turn back around when my curiosity is fully sated, the atmosphere sinking me into my seat.  I know I don’t deserve to be here—especially knowing how much one of these seats cost.  It was Tadano’s presentation, though, and he was kind enough to reserve a place just for me, which of course I’m more than thankful for…but I kinda wish this would hurry up and be over.  If anyone asks me what I do for a living, I think I might die from how low on the totem pole I am. 

“Oh, I move numbers around and make graphs.  Sometimes I even fix hardware!”  Shut up, shut up.  Stop thinking.

This place is so noisy with interesting conversations that my phone can’t hold a contest—not even as a distraction.  Just a few more minutes before it starts.  Just a few more minutes.

Regardless, I try to look at my phone, but nothing is appealing than the clock.  My thumb slides across the screen and endless pictures and text appear.  A minute from schedule, the lights of the auditorium dim and hushing ebbs and flows across the place.  I lift my head away from my bright screen and focus on where the spotlights were centered on the empty stage.

Leaning back, I didn’t realize how tense I was until I spread my legs out in front of me.  My knee accidentally knocks into a purple skirted feline next to me, who promptly gives me a curt look.  I swiftly shut my legs and scratch the back of my head. 

“I’m sorry,” I say and bow my head.  A slight nod later, she turns her head back to the stage and pays me no more mind.

I straighten my back and try to keep my legs as narrow as possible at the expense of any comfort.  I hope this presentation would not last thirty minutes like the program said, because sitting like this sucks. 

Familiar blue and purple covered in black emerges onto the stage.  In a pressed dark tuxedo and wearing a smile I’ve never seen before, Tadano has finally arrived.  The spot light makes his tux’s gilded stripes running against his height shimmer.  His posture is noticeably more upright but relaxed.  Holding a microphone in hand, he clears his throat out of audible range and opens his mouth.

“Greetings, everyone!” he says, a hint of enthusiasm reverberates in the microphone and out into the room.  “Thank you all for coming today.  My name is Tadano, creator of ENI-O, the AI who will change your life.”

It feels like he’s towering over me with how close I am to him.  How does this guy do it?   My eyes skim across the room again, confirming my crowded location once more and how much they invested in him.  How is he able to stand in front of all these people—these influential individuals—and just…

I watch his mouth continue to produce words, but I’m unable to comprehend.  He may as well have been speaking English.  My claws are deep into the arm rest before I notice they weren’t retracting.  My chest and body refuse to obey me.  I breathe through my nostrils and mouth as slowly as I can.  I try to focus on his mouth, gestures, and words, but…

I stiffly stand up and traverse the lengthy aisle up to the exit, nearly bumping into neighbors and grazing against aisle seats.  After I get through the security and ushers at the top, I am blinded by the bright setting sun glaring through the windows of the front entrance in front of me.  The air out here in the lobby is cooler, but my heart wasn’t relenting its pounding. 

I try to find what my mind kept chanting: bathroom.  Thankfully, the blue standing man icon advertises itself to me on my immediate right.  I go inside and beeline for the sink, turning it on full blast and running my hands under the stream.  I slap my face over and over again with cold water for what seems an eternity, a splash of relief with each pat.  Sounds of sloshing water are the only thing I hear.  Finally, I stop but let the water continue.  I breathe deeply.  Checking myself out in the mirror, I notice my arm pits have soiled my shirt even though I put on deodorant this morning.  My dark face is slick but thankfully much cooler than it was.

I grab a handful of paper towels and scrub my face, nuzzling my face into my hands.  I turn off the water and let silence take me.  Was it right to come here? I mean, being around all these big shots, all the money, all the tension.  Sure, my life has been going better lately with the StagOverflow projects and bounties, even more so with the bounty money now almost competing with my day job.  I’ve gotten so much deeper into data science and machine learning that I never would’ve seen myself doing a month ago—especially in the last freaking week.  I’m learning how to code and make shit.  I’ve been the happiest I’ve ever been in a long time.

But what was this gut wrenching heavy feeling?  I look back into the mirror and inspect myself again, appearing as dumb as I usually am.  Apparently, the water also had dashed against my chest and arms when I was struggling to calm myself.  My underbite looks worse today.  My eyes are beady and gross.

That was it.  Everything here, everyone that I think of as inspiration…they will always be out of my scope of understanding.  Having any equilibrium with these people is and never will be possible.  I’m a nobody trying to masquerade himself as a somebody.

I pinch my cheek fur with the paper towels, drawing out any moisture as I could.  Three lions enter the bathroom and head straight for the urinals lining the walls.  A giraffe enters.  Then a hippo. 

Before long, that entire wall is occupied with a pissing ensemble, a disgusting resonance echoing all throughout the porcelain kingdom.  How long have I been in here wallowing?  I throw away my used paper towels and check my phone for the time.  A dry as desert smirk inches across my face.  36 minutes. 

In other words, for the entirety of Tadano’s presentation.  What a friend I am for missing it because I can’t keep my cool for a second.

I half want to leave without a word and send him a shitty apology text.  But the memory of Peo plants itself front and center of my consciousness.

In high school, I fucked my relationship up with my crush, Peo, instantly.  We were teenagers with puppy-love crushes, and she had asked me to attend her play out of the blue one day.  Stricken with nausea during the opening of her play, I missed her lead role performance since my ass and head both were in the theater’s toilet reciting their own lines of agony.  Later, I would find out that my mother was also going through the same symptoms. 

Food poisoning.  It was food poisoning from my god-bless-her-soul mother’s undercooked chicken curry.  Not even considering the train, I walked home with my bowels exploding, and my pants and pride thoroughly ruined with shit.

That night after the play, Peo berated me over the phone, telling me I should’ve been more direct with rejecting her and how I wasn’t good enough for her.  Confused and disoriented, I said nothing and hung up.  We never spoke again.

Looking back at it now, I dodge a bullet by not responding, but her visceral reaction had stuck with me all these years.

Don’t leave without a direct word.  Even if your bowels are doing whatever it takes to evacuate salmonella-infused chicken.

I exit the bathroom after a murder of crows comes through the door.  The lobby is now expectedly flooded and bustling with people.  I eye the swinging auditorium door, funneling clamoring people out.  I wait for a stoppage in the stream of people which ends up taking another 10 minutes.

After showing security my pass, I re-enter the mostly empty auditorium.  Ambient light was restored to the room, vanquishing all shadows.  Tadano was in front of the stage on the floor, surrounded by suits and gaudy dresses.  At least two of them were CEOs—Naoki Hayashi of Pop Jam, Kuro Kato of Kaado.  The rest I have no idea. 

I approach slowly, not wanting to be seen, dreading if I had to explain myself.  Tadano—mid-chuckle—notices and gazes right through me. My breath hitches.

He throws his arm out and directs everyone’s piercing attention to me.  “Ah, Haida!  You made it.  Thank goodness.”

I freeze with wide eyes.  W-what was he talking about?  We talked just this morning before he went on stage, and he gave me the ticket for the convention and presentation.  I somehow audibly say, “Um, yeah.”

Tadano looks around at everyone and says, “Everyone, this is my business associate.  He’s been waiting for quite a long time to talk to me, and we’re finally in town at the same time.  I must apologize but this is farewell.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about.  Calling him out or disagreeing with whatever he says seems idiotic, however.  Tadano shakes hands with the CEOs, saunters over to me, and says, “Shall we get going?”

That I understand.  “Sure.”

He goes ahead of me and the climbs the stairs of the stage, leaving me to catch up.  I glance back at the bottom to see the CEOs watching our backsides ascend the stage.  Their furs and clothes all screamed luxury, influence, and money.  I stiffly turn my back to them and adjust my suit jacket, my wet undershirt reminding me of how dumb I am.  I need to apologize to Tadano like a man or whatever.  Ways of how to apologize populate my thoughts and speak over each other once I try to judge which one is best.  “I had explosive diarrhea,” sounded more appealing than “I’m a pussy.”  Damn it, this was hard.

Once we leave the auditorium and into the dim backstage, Tadano sighs out loud.  “So glad to finally get away from those vultures.”

He glances at me.  “Sorry ‘bout that.  Had to say something to get out of there.”

I shrug.  “It’s fine.  If being your pretend associate means I get to ride in your limo back home sooner, then so be it.”

Tadano cocks his head and wipes his mouth.  “It could’ve been an offer too.  Maybe.”

“Yeah, and then maybe you’ll make me the next tech billionaire.  Maybe.”

The sound of footsteps is now the loudest thing.  I half-think I might’ve said something weird, my feet growing heavier with each step.  I’m still thinking about how to apologize but maybe I was overthinking it.  Again.

“I saw your ‘little’ project,” he says, his face sobering.  “You’ve made over 500 commits in two weeks.  You’re quite the natural data scientist, you know.”

I’m making a face, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you what.  I try to make words, but nothing is coming.  I didn’t tell him any names, like my handle or the project name, so I’m shocked he found my profile.  Good Lord, I’ve never in my life been stalked and complimented by a freaking CEO.  What do I do in this situation?

Tadano continues, “I’ve been thinking about hiring a couple of data scientists for my AI.  I mean, sure, I can do the whole thing, but I’ve more money than time anymore so I’ve been seriously considering it.”

The gravity of the situation is now dawning on me.  He’s freaking serious?  Oh God, that means I have to give a serious answer.

“I don’t know,” I say unevenly, shaking my head.  “It’s hard enough to do this in my spare time.”

I swear his eyes are twinkling at this point with that Starbucks smile I saw the other day.  “Then quit your job.  We’ll negotiate your salary once we get to some lawyers.”

Quit?  Quit my job?  “Quit my job,” I utter with little thought, a daze overtaking me.  Quit, fix math problems, learn more Python or anything.  Actual salary negotiations, meaning competitive choices.  But if I were to quit my job, then… “Wouldn’t be immediate.  I would have to put in my last month.”

We’re at the back door exit of the stage.  He pushes it open and walks out, holding it for me.  I blink stupidly when I see his limo is already here, humming its impatience.  He puts his hands in his pockets and says, “You know, there’s no law saying you have to put in a last month.  It’s two weeks.”

“Yeah, but,” I say, but stop the last half of the thought. … that’s what everyone usually does.  Putting in only two last weeks meant you truly don’t give a shit about the company, which was not me.  Besides, this was happening too fast!  My head is spinning.  Who in their right mind would accept an offer for a live-changing event so quickly?

He leans in closer to me.  Our faces are uncomfortably close.  “Think about it.  What did this job do for you other than exploit you for your time and effort?  Kept you poor?  Kept you from doing the things you wanted to do?”

My daze is dispelled once his odd words register.  What was this speech?  I remember Tadano himself lamenting how Retsuko broke up with him because she wanted her job more than he wanted him.  At the time, Tadano looked like he was going to literally drown himself in his bowl of ramen noodles once he said it.  Hearing all these words only leads me to one conclusion.  I ask in a composed voice, “Is this what you told Retsuko?”

His ears perk and his eyes are wide.  He asks in an equally calm voice, “Does that bother you?”

Him and his fucking questions.  I’m getting so sick of it.  Something is off, but I can’t say what.  Like I want to thrash against this unknown, invisible force.  But against what?  Him?

“I…”

“Are you attached to your job?  Like her?” he asks, words like thorns.  More questions.  This was getting annoying.

“Can we leave her out of this?” I say and frown deeply.  “She has nothing to do with this conversation.”

He places a hand on his chest and says, “I respect her.  She wanted to stay at that office.  But, Haida, I personally do not think you’re meant for that life.”

That was it.  That was the thing that was annoying.  His disrespectful attitude towards other people, his sanctimonious bullshit.

“You don’t know shit about me!” I say, throat tightening. “Nothing at all.  We barely know each other.”

Yeah, sure, we’ve eaten ramen and drank sake together here and there, but it wasn’t like we’re brothers or anything.  I just met the guy like last year, and even then I’ve learned more about his bio from a freaking magazine than actually talking to him.

Fuck.  I don’t need this.  Fuck this.

“I’m walking home.  Good bye.”

Chapter Text

I’ve tried praying for a whole multitude of things in the past like the usual stuff people want: money, health, and love.  In my case, the lattermost has primarily encompassed Retsuko and somehow attaining her affection.  Cringe, I know.  Of course the affection or anything else never came true, no matter how much I wanted it deep in my heart.

I was told that if I’m charitable and a good person and if I don’t fuck up burnable and non-burnable garbage, then life would sort itself out for me.  But after 25 listless years of wishing for a better tomorrow, it finally dawned on me one day that this whole prayer game was a joke.  So, I wanted something to confirm my suspicions once and for all.  I decided during New Years this year, I would wish for something simpler than any of the former things I wanted: my sleep schedule to improve.

Seven months later, nope.  Not even that came true.  I still stay up until 3 AM and struggle to get up at 9 for work.  No matter if you believe in Buddha, Jesus, or some random venerated spirit, life passes you by if you keep waiting for it to change for you. 

…ok, ok. I know what you’re thinking.  I'm acting like I’m a passenger in my own life, as if I have no control over its direction.  I act like a victim when I’m the one perpetuating my own problems.  Religion is supposed to be rules to live by, not a magical panacea.  I know deep down the shitty decisions I make every day is what keeps me here, I know.  I just hate the thought of straying from what I know.  I don’t know what change will bring.  I’m terrified of what will happen.  So, what’s easier than blaming some external force for all the bad things in the world?

“Shiawase wo mitsukerareru youni,” the useless words exit my mouth.  Wishing to find happiness—wanting to be able to anyway.  I toss my coins into the open slot wood alter in front of me and hear them clatter all the way to the bottom.  I clap my purified hands three times, close my eyes, and bow my head.  After I’m done pretending I’m communing with the spirits, I turn around and descend the shrine and walk past the wall of good luck charms clattering together and hanging on for dear life against soft wind gales.

Bathed in twilight and lanterns, Fenneko and Retsuko are waiting for me off to the side, away from the line of people in front of the shrine.  Fenneko is wearing a solid green yukata while Retsuko is wearing a pink floral one, each of their obi belts snug against their frames. 

“It’s so late.  I want a candy apple before we leave,” Fenneko says and starts walking back to the festival grounds where all the stands are.

“Ok,” Retsuko says and trails behind Fenneko, her geta start thumping against the ground.

I grunt and follow.

My eyes somehow land squarely focused on the back of Retsuko’s orange head as I match her walking tempo.  She’s so much shorter than me.  Much cuter, too.  It’s so weird doing things with her outside of work—amazing, even.  I’m relishing the moments.  It’s a nice escape from my usual routine anymore of sitting at home and learning more applicable python…or dealing with my temper.

It’s been a week since I left Tadano at the convention center.  Neither of us tried to contact each other.  Walking home that night sucked, by the way.  I had to go through 5 blocks—40 minutes of walking—to get to the nearest subway.  I can’t stop thinking about that night though, simulating different scenarios, acting as if I could solve my problems by going down a different mental path like it’s some harem visual novel.  His shiny eyes and upright posture.  His disrespectful words.  His questions.  My surging anger.  It’s hilarious how useless it is for me to do this because they all end with me getting pissed off.

I wish I could stop.

Something else about the whole thing pisses me off but makes me feel smug as fuck.  Respect.  Tadano doesn’t know shit about the word since he’s always elevated beyond the clouds, looking down at the puny hard working mortals on the ground.  Bet he doesn’t know what a late night is or the bliss of camaraderie during drinking parties are.

Though, I don’t know that for sure.  I’m assuming such only because I’m…mad.  But justifiably so!  He did no different than stomp on my toes, like talking about Retsuko and questioning my loyalty to my job.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to focus on other things.  My eyes veer off to the pitch-black forest on the side.  Leaves snicker and giggle from the wind’s rippling tickles. 

I’ve come to the conclusion that once Retsuko was brought up, everything went downhill.  I have to be so defensive about her—this girl that has rejected me and has made it abundantly clear that she does not want anything more than friendship with me.  Damn it…why do I defend her so relentlessly?  Would she do the same?

There was one thing I know for sure: I don’t know shit about him and vice versa.  So, going on about his ‘you hate your work’ nonsense was out of line.  Even if there was some truth to it.

I want to punch myself.  What am I saying?  I need a drink.  Actually, I want to drink my ass off at this festival so these stupid thoughts can finally stop.  I’ve tried to avoid drinking for a while — for too long.  Last April during the cherry blossom viewings I spilt a whole bottle of sake on Director Ton, and the resultant embarrassment prevented much of my sleep.  But that embarrassment has been eliminated by fucking AI CEO Tadano.  Maybe I could just make an excuse, go home, lie on my couch, and do math problems.

Only reason I’m here at this summer festival is because Retsuko and Fenneko invited me at the tail end of the night after they already did everything.  Like a dopey idiot, I couldn’t say no when Retsuko herself asked.  But, honestly, if you’ve been to a festival, you’ve been to them all.

Oh, wow.  Look at all the red and white striped stalls, loaded with banal foodstuffs or trivial games.  Deep fried squid and octopus and shiny candy apples take refuge in the hands of passersby.  Giggles of children and roars of men intermittently break out all around us.  People are scooping their gold fish and shooting their popguns for plushies.

I sigh.  OK, I’m being a little bitch right now, but only because I’m just not in the mood.  Hopefully Fenneko or Retsuko haven’t caught on how much I don’t want to be here.  I wouldn’t want to ruin their fun.  I grimace once the thought occurs to me.  Maybe I shouldn’t drink then; I would become a nuisance to everyone around me like I always do.

Regardless, my eyes gloss over every single character—every stroke of calligraphy painted across these stalls.  Surprisingly, I don’t find anyone advertising sake or beer.  I don’t stop inspecting, but our group eventually halts at some stall overflowing with candy apples and cotton candy.

Both Fenneko and Retsuko buy their lot and nibble at their food.  I shake my head once when they turn to ask if I wanted anything.

“I would much rather have a beer, to be quite honest,” I say to them.

“Can’t you go one weekend without drinking?” Fenneko asks with a stiff lip.

“I haven’t had a drop in months but thanks for your concern,” I reply and crane my neck around, still looking.  I can’t believe this place is dry.  There’s no way.

“I could’ve sworn you went drinking with the office last weekend.”  She whips out her phone. 

After a bit, her eyes widen.  “Oh, that was Taida, that new Taiwanese Hyena.”

That pulled my attention away from beer or agony. 

“Is the great social media princess losing her touch?” I ask with a tight smirk.  It actually was a rare thing for Fenneko to be wrong so, yes, I’m going to be petty as fuck about it.

She rolls her eyes and scoffs, “Whatever.”

She’s so mad.  Delectable.

Without anymore protest, Fenneko walks off to a nearby goldfish scooping stall.  Retsuko and I follow her, all of us paying the old man running the stall for fishing attempts.  Glancing at his lot, it seems his lot is full of smallest fish I’ve ever seen, their brilliant orange and whites feverishly shimmering against the dark wooden container.

Fenneko goes first and struggles a bit.  She keeps trying to catch the fish where they were instead of where they were going to be, so naturally they’d slip past her flimsy white paper scooper by sliding across its surface.  She eventually catches one to my surprise.

Retsuko is next.  I didn’t expect her to be worse than Fenneko since I always thought of her of having a light touch, but I was proven wrong.  Once her paper scoop completely punctured due to her hasty scooping, her and my eyes went wide.  She scratches the back of her head and says, “Whoops.  I don’t think I’m that good at this.”

She stands up and offers her seat to me.  “Your turn, Haida.”

I sit down promptly and roll up my navy sleeves, scoop in hand and eyeing my potential targets.  The slow ones would be the easiest, but maybe they were on their verge of dying.  Would the fast ones be the best ones to aim for then?  I place my scoop underwater and slowly guide it around, testing to see which fish flicked away the fastest.

Without trying much, I managed to gather three in my scoop in one go.  The old man procures a bag full of the water from the wooden container and places my lot into it.  The three critters—two orange, one orange-spotted white—bump and slide into each other inside the sloshing bag.

As soon as he hands it to me, I turn to Retsuko and hold it out for her.  “Take them.  I’m bad with taking care of things and would kill them in a day.”

“Oh, are you sure?” she asks as she takes the bag into both of her hands.  A tepid smile spreads across her face and lights up my heart.  Fuck, was it real?  Was it fake?

I have to inhale to keep my head steady.  “Yes, I’m sure.  You’re really good at taking care of things instead of, you know, me.”

Her smile tempers with confusion, and she cocks her head.  “Hm?  What do you mean?”

Wait, I think that came out wrong.  I blink rapidly and look away, hoping that Fenneko wasn’t listening to this because she would eat my ass up with snide remarks.  “Please just take the fish and forget I said anything.”

A wave of relief crashes into me once I see Fenneko turning around.  I’ve been spared.  She says, “I’m going to the toilet.  Be right back.”

Retsuko and I step away from the stall and traverse the length of the festival, towards where Fenneko went for the toilets.  Thankfully, we aren’t saying anything.  I’d probably say something awkward or dumb again where I only confuse her. 

Thoughts of finding beer again.  I still can’t believe it.  This place was dry.  I glance at Retsuko and see she’s holding the fish bag high and letting the light from lanterns transmit.  She’s so undeniably cute that I could burst.  Her short stature, her yukata, her sharp pointed features feathered by her glimmering fur.  Coworkers.  We’re coworkers.

She wanted to stay in that office.

I want to slap myself.  Tadano, you bastard, shut the hell up for once.  I’m trying to cherish how much I enjoy being in her company.   And, no, not the work company but being around her.  I am not as loyal to this company that Tadano thinks I am, but if I leave on such a short notice, then I would probably injure my relationship with Retsuko, right?

God, what am I saying?  I just want these thoughts to end.  Or at least start making sense.

There’s no alcohol to dull my senses.  No way I can simply just leave without Fenneko being here.  And, of course, I wouldn’t just leave Retsuko by herself at night at some festival.  Should I try to distract myself by talking about something else?

No.  No.  I’m going to choose to follow my own damn advice and be proactive for once.  Fuck everything.

“Retsuko,” I say.  She looks away from the fish to me.  My heart is jumping out of my throat, but I manage to say, “There’s something I want to ask you.  I want your utmost honesty!  Don’t sugarcoat anything!”

“Okay.”  Her voice is much quieter than what mine apparently was.

A nervous smile flickers across my face, muscles spasming out of control.  I say, “So, remember that whole coding thing I was talking about like two months ago?”

She nods.

“Um, it’s actually has become a thing of its own.  It’s…it’s amazing!” I clench my fist.  “I’m making money off it.”

I’m like an eagle with how I’m gauging any micro-expression she will make.  She’s unflinching.  Listening.  Maybe even pensive.   I’m terrified to say the next part because it might break her heart.  Should I even mention Tadano?  Probably…not.  No, definitely not.  Bringing up her ex would probably kill the whole mood.

I have to really force myself to say it.  “If I…If I quit my job, I could make even more money if I focused on it entirely, maybe even more than what I make now.”

“You want to quit?” she asks, the pointed question piercing my heart.  She’s so smart and she listens.  Total wife material.  The guy she eventually marries will be the luckiest man ever.

“I,” …feel horrible but continue anyway, “It’s been on my mind.”

I expect her to really think about it, as if reality itself would stop and I would be left on this unending cliff of anticipation for her answer.  But it’s quick. 

The smile I saw before reappeared.  “I’m happy for you.  If someone can get out of this miserable pit of accounting, it’d be you, Haida.”

My limbs tightening, I’m shaking.  I don’t know how to answer.  Happy?  Sad?  I can’t tell why my heart was wrenching so much.

“Would you still be around to teach me guitar or bass if I needed?”

That caught me off-guard.  I answer as fast as I can, “Of course.  Of course.  It’s not like I’m leaving the city or anything.”

“Then, you should totally do it.  It’ll be a great change of pace for you.”  Her face is radiating beauty and humility with that smile.  I am beyond jealous of her future husband that will never be me.

I stare at her. 

“It’s 10 PM.  Time for me catch the last train.” Fenneko reappears from my right side, smoothing the edges of her yukata. 

“Oh, it’s that late already?” Retsuko asks.

“Yup, you coming or nah?”  Fenneko waves at me with a lazy flick of her wrist.  “See ya, Haida.”

“I guess.  Bye, Haida,” Retsuko says and follows her with fishes in her hands.

“Bye,” I mumble and lift my hand up slightly.  I watch their backs disappear once they turn a corner around a fence.  The sounds of mothers soothing their children and shopkeepers advertising their goods fill my ears.  Clattering silverware and rustling plastic trash bags begin to coalesce into an unending drone.

I check the time, but my mind is not here anymore.

Chapter Text

I’m not unaware I haven’t drank in quite a while.  2 months-ish.  It wasn’t on purpose, I swear.  I simply haven’t.  Before I stopped, I would have a routine of drinking a beer or two right after work and, well, floating on the internet, hammering out contracts with people wanting data analysts has been surprisingly taking up all of my free time.  But after what transpired tonight, the thought of plowing through all of those old ass beers in my fridge was killing me.  

I do not want to be left alone with my thoughts anymore.  Make them stop.

As soon as I get home from the festival, I beeline for my fridge and yank a can off of its plastic ring.  I slam it onto the couch table and sit down.  I undo my obi of my yukata and check my phone for any notifications.

My eyes flick between the beer and my phone.  I scroll through emails and social media before sitting down on my gross couch.  Something catches my eye in the news.  It was a featured article about Tadano and his current rollouts for ENI-O, and, of course, he looks so established and très chic in his tux.  

Fuck, I hate this guy.  I hate his stupid face, his stupid wealth, and his stupid intellect.  So disrespectful and disruptive.  He doesn’t know shit how to talk to people.  Everyone loves him because ENI-O does so much and automates basically small shit in people’s mundane lives, like making appointments, monitoring food stores, climate control, light adjustments, etc.  If he were here right now, I’d tell him how much of an asshole he is and knock the shit out of him.

I open the can and take the deepest drink, bitter hoppy fizz biting the back of my throat, beer gurgling down my esophagus.  Almost half the can is gone when I stop.  Relishing the beer’s taste, I lean back and look up at the dim ceiling, legs splayed and back sinking into the couch.  

“Why does Retsuko want me to leave,” I ask myself the only question that precipitated out of my cluttered mind.  Does she not actually care about me?  If I were in her shoes, I’d… well…I would…I’d also encourage her to follow her dreams, but I would express how much I’d miss her.  She didn’t try that much.  

If someone can get out of this miserable pit of accounting, it’d be you, Haida.  

What did she even mean by that?  Why do I always feel like I’m in this guessing game with her?  Why can’t I ever tell when she’s happy, sad, or upset?  And why do I always walk away feeling like I did something wrong?

My arm is reaching for the beer again.  Another swig, albeit shallower.  Another.  Another.  And it’s gone.

I stand up and go grab another one, instantly opening and drinking it.  Though I drink it slower, I still finish without much thought or patience.  My tense body is now apparently relaxing, and it’s a welcoming respite.  Since I haven’t had any delicious beer in a while, the internal peace I got from drinking was achieved with only two beers instead of six, and I’m definitely not complaining.

Would you still be around to teach me guitar or bass if I needed?

“Of course, of course,” I mumble through bitter burps.  Of course.  I would be there for her even if she needed me to stand out in the rain, holding an umbrella, a jacket, or my entire body for her.  I would be there even if she rejected me a million times but still needed me for anything.  I…I…

Leaving the fridge door open, I rip another beer off of its ring and drink its entirety even more slowly, the bitterness of the hops fading, my stomach popping and gurgling.  My cheeks are warm against the chill billowing from the refrigerator.  I pull another beer off the ring before shutting the fridge and sitting back down.  My phone finds its way into my hand, and I look back at Tadano’s article, mindlessly scrolling past its colorful contents.  

I find it odd that even with all the money he has, Tadano wasn’t able to keep Retsuko.  I never learned the real reason why she broke up with him—I mean, the ‘she didn’t want to quit her job’ explanation never sat right with me.  Of course it’s not any of my business but…but, even I, when presented with the opportunity to increase my salary, find it hard to think about leaving the company.  There wasn’t any doubt that Tadano would pay me more than my accountant job nor for whether I’d like to focus on data science.  Hell, what am I saying, I’d love to get paid more and perceived as a ‘scientist’.  Mom would be proud.  I could actually talk about myself without feeling like a bottom-feeder of society.  All I do is move numbers around and make pictures of those numbers.

I rub my face.  I drink my beer.  

And the whole problem with Tadano was that whole ‘your work is fucking you’ nonsense.  Yes, my work pays me shit, but nothing can replace the memories or community I’ve been long incorporated in.  I mean, what do I actually know about Tadano personally?  How do I know he’d not flip at a drop of a hat?  What if that friendly, good guy shit was just a front?  I’ve eaten ramen with him and drank with him a couple of times but I’ve never heard where he’s from or the like.  I can’t blindly chase more money.  I can’t just quit.  Fuck, maybe Retsuko did feel this way.

“Are you attached to your job? Like her?”

I massage the back of my head with one hand and drink with the other.  

Buzz.  Buzz.  Buzz.

My phone purrs against my leg when I notice someone is calling me.  Glancing at the screen, I see it’s Fenneko, and I answer it.  “Hello?”

She screeches into the cochalea of my ear, “Why am I hearing that you’re quitting?”

I pull my phone away as I wince.  I don’t say anything as I register her words.  I’ve honestly have never heard Fenneko so hysterical before.  Well, there was that one time when Retsuko nearly fell off a stairwell while drunk.  Thankfully, she caught her in time but, boy, was Retsuko beyond her limit that winter night.

“I, um, who-who told you?” I ask.

“It isn’t important who told me.  Is it true?”

I think before I answer.  Oh, it was Retsuko.  I’m so slow.  In any case, Fenneko doesn’t sound the way she did at the festival tonight—you know, barely engaged and bitchy.  She sounds shattered like broken glass.  

I say, “Uh…”

The phone line turns into muffles and crackles, as if she’s scraping her phone against a sidewalk—so jarring.  My breath deepens.  She should be home by now, right?  I wonder if something else happened?

“Fenneko?  Are you still there?”

“I am,” her voice crackles.

“I don’t know,” I tell her.  “I don’t know what I want.”

There’s a pause.  “Have you been drinking?”

“A bit.  Why?” I ask.

“I can hear it.  You really are a liar.”  She sounds normal again.  Maybe it was the reception making her sound weird in he beginning.  My apartment does get pockets of random dropped calls.

I smile.  “I wasn’t a liar at the festival.  I needed something to numb the pain.  Please forgive me.”

“The pain of what?  Why were you talking about that coding stuff again?”

Do I dump all my petty problems onto her?  Even though I’ve been drinking, my well-ingrained manners know not to test their boundaries.  I’d talk her head off with useless nonsense.  Maybe if I keep it vague, it wouldn’t seem as awkward or heavy for her.  

“Why do you think Retsuko left Tadano?” my mouth says.

“Um,” she says, “because he’s an ass.  Like, literally, the guy is an ass.”

I stifle a chuckle.  “You mean she doesn’t like donkeys?”

She sighs.  “If you were looking for a serious answer, I don’t know.  If I had to guess, the shitty public perception of her probably didn’t help their breakup.  I don’t think Retsuko is a girl who wants to be known as a gold digger for tech millionaires.  You know how she likes doing things herself.”

“She deserves more than accounting, though, don’t you agree?”

“I have no idea how this is relevant to my question, Haida.  God, you’re slurring hard.”

“Ah, you’ve seen through my bullshit,” I concede, sigh, and cover my face.  “Well, not all of it is bullshit.  I do think she deserves more, especially what Ton dishes out.”

“Sure, but this has nothing to do with what I’m asking.”

“This has everything to do with what you’re asking.  I’m thinking about Retsuko and Tadano.”

“W-what?  Why are you thinking about them?” She sounds utterly befuddled.  “Their breakup had nothing to do with you?”

“No, but, Tadano is rich and smart.  Why would Retsuko walk away from that?”

“Haida, you better start making sense or I’ll hang up now.”  Her tone was flatter than a pancake.

My head could touch the ceiling with how light it was; I stand up and finish my beer.  I belch.  

“You’re disgusting,” Fenneko says.

Regardless, I continue, “All I want is your opinion about why I should quit and accept Tadano’s job offer.  Do you think Tadano is a bad guy?  Do you think he’d backstab me or be a worse boss than Ton?  I mean, why would Retsuko walk away from him?  He’s friendly, smart, and rich.”

A long silence.  “He offered you a job?”

I stumble across the room back to the fridge, my world’s equilibrium shifting against my feet, no different than walking across the tops of dribbling sand dunes.  “Yes, but, you see, I truly believe he did it because he wants to give me money.”  

I throw my arm into the air into an arc.  “Of all the people in Japan, he wants me to work for him.  I don’t even know how many people he’s employed, but I know that getting the offer from the CEO himself never happens to anyone.”

I grab the last beer and don’t bother taking it off the plastic ring.  I crack it open.  “But, you know, he wants me to admit that my job sucks and I should go and suck his dick graciously.”  

I squint my eyes and speak in a high-pitched voice, akin to Tsunoda’s, “It’d be like ‘oh, thank you Tadano-sama!  You saved me from my shitty job and gave me happiness I thought I could never have! Thank you!’”

“Pffftahaha,” I hear from my phone.  “You are so wasted.  You should stop.  You have work in the morning.”

The plastic slapping my face unceremoniously with each gulp, the can is now empty.  I crush it lengthwise against my bare foot and end up slamming myself backwards against a nearby wall, the can cupping my foot, my back parallel to the surface.  I slide down slowly, phone still in hand, dignity long gone.

Fenneko chimed, “Haida?  Are you OK?  That sounded bad.”

It was bad.  I can’t feel much pain at all, and I know I was supposed to feel something more.  I think I overdid it.

My ass meets the floor, but I inch forward intentionally and let my head rest against the cool linoleum.  Yeah, I’m not moving anymore.  I raise the phone to my face and say, “I’ll live.  I’ll just sleep on the floor tonight.”

“Won’t you catch a cold without a blanket?”

“I’m not moving,” I say.

“Tch, if you say so.”

I roll onto my side and see specks of black and grey all over my floor.  I’m shedding again.  Why does vacuuming have to be such a chore?

“I wish I could hire a maid.  I hate cleaning,” I mumble.

“You could if you worked for Tadano.  He seems like a nice guy.  I actually don’t think their breakup was because he was a dick.”

I graze my teeth against my upper lip.  The statement was heavier than she’ll ever know.  Having a maid or some live-in help to stop me from doing stupid shit sounds nice.  Maybe I could have less nights on that freaking couch or the floor.  Every time I close my eyes, it gets harder to open them again.  I curl up and try to keep the phone against my ear.

…

“…”

“W-what?” I ask and realize the phone is on the floor now.  My hand was still against my face.

“I said ‘Good night, Haida,’” Fenneko answered.

“Gud…night,” I reply and shut my eyes.

I drift off to sleep on the cold, hard kitchen floor, wreaking of booze and coalescing dreams.

Chapter Text

I’m probably still drunk.  I slept like shit.  Feel like shit.  I am shit.  My head aches and throbs like a jackhammer has been working at my skull.  The sun hasn’t been this annoying in a while.  I push my sunglasses up my nose where my vision is completely cloaked to the relief of my pounding headache.  

Positioning myself closest to the front door of the Starbucks, I sip my iced Americano and listlessly browse my phone.  Words and pictures glide across my vision, but none of it is sticking.  All my mind can think of is him and how this talk was going to go.

Ching.  A wind gust enters alongside another person.  My spine straightens once I see the familiar periwinkle cross my eyes.

“Latte, single vanilla pump.  M-size.”

“Yes, sir.”

My Americano is rattling beneath me.  I’m gripping my plastic cup tight as if it owed me money, but I can see in my periphery that it’s no use: brown spots are splattering the lid and the surrounding area.

I hold my arm down with my other arm. No good; coffee still is going all over this table. I let go of my stupid expensive bean juice and huff an abrupt, loud sigh that even surprised me. My pounding heart is going straight to the temples of my head.

The sigh was obnoxious enough to get his attention. He glances across his shoulder in my direction, and his eyebrows hitch above his sunglasses, his mouth ajar, wavering.

“Haida?” he asks as if his eyes were mistaking the coffee-spilling idiot in front of him.

Enfeebled, I smile crookedly. “Tadano. Got a minute?”

Tadano rubs his neck. His drink is handed to him with his receipt, the paper folding over his fingers, the slowness making me think he was deeply considering it. He takes a sip of his drink and approaches me, taking up the empty seat in front of me. He grabs a napkin off to the side of the table and wipes up my brown nervous, drunken mess.

“What’s up?” he says, more casual and cool I could ever do, not even acknowledging what he just did.

I shrug. “Not much, can’t complain. Just going through the motions, you know.”

“You smell interesting today.”

I blink but don’t respond. I don’t know if he knows. I changed my clothes and gargled a ton of mouthwash this morning. I dematted my fur from residual beer and drool that was painted across my face. I’m not that unseemly to be out in public even if he were saying something—I don’t think.

“Well, you’re looking same as ever,” I say, hoping he wouldn’t prod.

He takes the lid off his latte, steam billows out from the container. “I can’t change much. My company’s stock would tank if I even considered changing my hair. Or that’s what my advisor tells me.”

“Sounds rough.”

“I sell commodities and am a commodity myself.” He flicks his wrist, swirling his latte around. “I can’t complain.”

He’s avoiding eye contact, and the tension is getting worse. Who’s gonna mention it first? That endless annoying rage that has been prodding me for days is nowhere to be found. Fuck, I just need to say something—anything. I let out a forced breath through my nostrils and open my mouth.

“I’m sorry.”

I stiffen as my thought withers away out of my mind. Tadano’s hand is taut around his latte, motionless. He continues, “I thought about how annoying it was of me to think you’d drop your job if I tried to sell it to you—to force it. It was,” he swallows, “a dick thing to do.”

I open my mouth again but it was no different than a moment ago: without words or intention. Fuck, I didn’t expect this. I had let his claws wring and twist around my neck that day after his presentation, let the blood flow and clot and dry, caked on, let the wound fester with necrosis and maggots and…what am I supposed to say now?

I clear my throat. His ears perk from his ball cap. I say, “We could pretend it was a bad joke.”

Finally, he looks at me, and all I can see is how soft and muted he is. 

“No.”

“Why then?” I ask.

“I’m tired of pretending this doesn’t exist.”

“So, what then?” The words plummet out from me. “Are you going to say how shitty my job is again and how I should freaking worship you? Should I get on my knees and kiss your feet?” It came out more hostile than I wanted it. Yikes, can I have a do-over? Or, no, this is how I feel. Fuck, fuck. “No? No. This-this isn’t what I meant.”

I sharply inhale, steadying my thundering heart, casting my eyes out in the ocean of the cafe, far away from him to avoid how awkward his expression is definitely now. 

“Despite what you think,” I start and reel my eyes back to his soft ones, “this job is my life. I wouldn’t be able to maintain the same amount of relationships if I were doing something else. I kinda like the simplistic tasks too. It keeps the stress down and keeps things boring. If I have to think more or actively create things, I’d probably fuck it all up.”

He takes a long gulp of his drink and looks out the window to all the passersby outside. He frowns and says, “How many more people dying from being overworked and underpaid is it going to take to finally have some change?”

I ask, “What?”

“I’m looking to change, society, Haida, not looking to ruin what life you know, nor looking to make you worship me.” The corners of his mouth curl. “I want to automate jobs like the one you have now, so there’s positive growth in technology and less burdened workers. I want people to have more time for recreation and for their families without worry about money or work.”

Sunlight peaks through the window and bathes Tadano, his purple fur shining, his eyes revealed behind his shades. “I’ve been laughed at for mentioning this idea to other CEOs, presidents, managers, et cetera. I’ve been told it is a silly dream to make workers happy. ‘If you give them more money for less work, then they’ll get lazier and more entitled,’ they tell me, but, right now, as it is, it’s…it’s disgusting. The exploitation of workers is so openly blatant, hidden behind this thin veil of being a part of a ‘family’ and that’s what you’re supposed to do: give your life to the company you work for. How could we have gotten to the point of conditioning people into loving this toxicity?”

 He tries to drink his latte again, but it’s empty and he pushes it off to the side, out of his grip. “ENI-O was my project to start that dream—to push things in the right direction. ENI-O was the reason I dropped out of college and lived in my car for three years on a barista budget. I was going to save and spend my money on a startup.”

With his mouth ajar as if he were going to continue, he pauses and shakes his head. “If you’re not interested, then I will drop this for good. I did put you in an awkward position, and, again, I am sorry for that.”

Thinking, processing, I press my straw to my lips and vacuum the rest of the unspilled coffee up and place the empty container next to his. Even though I finished, I still have nothing to say. I’m half-wishing he had asked something more racy—no, I won’t be the third wheel in a MMF; no, I won’t donate a kidney to you; no, I won’t loan you 4 million yen, does it look like I carry more than 500 yen at a time on me? Quite honestly, I don’t know what to say.

So, I say, in a creaky voice, “You really thought you could change things with ENI-O?”

He weakly smiles. “Yeah, yeah, I did. The bullshit answer I give to magazines is that I wanted ENI-O—”

“To automate minor inconveniences in life. To simplify people’s lives so they can focus on more important things,” I finish for him, the black and white words erupting from my memory. Yeah, I read a lot of tech magazines, and, yeah, he happens to be in a lot of them. I’m not obsessed—it’s simply knowing who is going to be the next big thing. And that certainly was motherfucking Mr. Clean-and-Pristine Tadano.

His smile grows, but I can tell there was nothing but pain behind it. He lowers his voice, “I say that because if I said it was to replace jobs, people from CEOs to workers would freak out and blacklist me from the industry. I’m challenging the status quo of society, and no one seems to fathom how nice it would be to work less for more. So, I say something that is appealing to the people who have money, aka my investors. It is a fact that they want to make less decisions across the day and are willing to pay anything for minutes saved.”

He wipes his mouth with a napkin. “I’ve been secretly building ENI-O’s learning capabilities which involves a lot of trial and error with designing models. I’ve learned enough statistics to brute force my way through things, like getting ENI-O to schedule things automatically, but now I’m getting to the point where that approach will not work anymore. I need another set of eyes to help me plan how to implement the next step for ENI-O. Namely you.”

My cheeks heat up as if I were slapped. “There are better people than me, though,” I say and that wasn’t me being humble. “I’ve seen how complicated and creative people are with their big data manipulations and their neural networks and whatnot. How crazy it is to train an AI to walk or talk. Even thinking about it now shakes me to my core.”

“Yes, but are those people office workers in accounting?” he asks.

“Well, no. At least I don’t think so.”

“Right, they are already employed by the very industry that I bullshit every time I make a public appearance. They are not the people I want.”

I drop my eyes and shake my head. Was this actually happening? Was all of this a dream? Maybe the booze is still going strong in my system and making me mishear. “You want to hire me because I’m an office worker?”

“Yes,” he says.

“And if I say no, you’ll scout another guy in my office or something?”

“No—well, maybe. I don’t know. It’s hard to say since no one else in your office does anything interesting outside of work. I’ve skimmed your department’s roster on social media and didn’t find a sliver of hope. It’s all children, booze, or food with your coworkers. Or that girl that posts her thighs.”

I snicker. “Sounds like Tsunoda.”

He shrugs. “Seems like a boring OL-san obsessed with how she looks.”

“Heh, most of the time, she’s kissing up to my boss or tearing other women down. Sometimes she even writes her names on her paperwork.”

“Sounds like you know an awful lot about someone that isn’t worth your time,” Tadano says. “Time is money as they say.”

I checked my phone in a panic. Wait, no, I decided I wasn’t going to work today. I had muted my notifications too to avoid anyone asking where I was; though, I knew Fenneko would be blowing it up soon enough. Fuck going into work with this hangover. She would understand especially after that spectacle I did last night, right? I ask Tadano, “Speaking of which am I taking yours?”

That painful smile he had earlier was a distant memory on his face; the smile he had now touched his nose and even his shaded eyes. “I’m taking the day off. But I think I should be asking you that: isn’t it a weekday? Is your boss going to raise hell?”

“My boss is an asshole that leaves before everyone and thinks he is above Japanese customs,” I say, venom coursing through my veins, coating my tone. I never truly voiced my grievances about Ton’s bullshit but… “But it doesn’t matter what he does since he’s been there since he graduate college back in 1980 or something; he’s protected by the company. 40 something years of punching away at numbers or barking orders.”

“A fresh out of college graduate damned to the life of an office worker with the hope of receiving a promotion to management where he can tell other fresh out of college graduates what to do, huh?” he says.

I rub the back of my neck. “Yeah, exactly.”

It was weird that the words were coming much easier than they ever had, weird that someone outside my job was interested in listening to me. All I ever talk to about shit like this is Fenneko because she understands Ton’s bullshit like his Towers of Damned Paperwork or how he leaves before everyone else without care. I don’t even tell my mom this shit—don’t even tell myself how fucked up it is to have a boss that makes his livelihood off of the backs of the workers or to have a boss who treats female coworkers—namely, Retsuko—as if they’re meant to do domestic duties, such as making tea and cleaning up the place, on top of doing their job.

“I’m taking the day off too,” I say. “Because I drank a lot last night and I’m feeling like garbage, and because…” I trail off, half-considering not saying it, “because I want to talk more about this job you’re offering.”

Tadano’s posture shoots straight up, as tall as a bamboo forest. Before he says anything, I make it clear, “A talk. No promises.”

He nods deeply but the smile is here to stay.

I hope this is the right thing to do.

Chapter Text

You ever wake up and realize you are the happiest you’ve been since you were a kid at Christmas? After talking with Tadano about every stupid little thing I wanted, I thought seriously about it all. He and I could change things — well, he can. And I would be proximal to his goals. But, you know what? I’m okay with that. Tadano wants society to improve, and I want something different. Anything else I could do was extra icing on the cake for my life.

It’s Friday night. And guess what? I had put my two weeks notice to Ton last Monday, meaning that today was my last day working for him, for the company. He was naturally furious with me, so much in fact he conveniently found years worth of work to be finished before I left. He demanded me to work overtime until my fingers bled. I knew this was going to happen the moment I did it, but I wasn’t prepared for what was going to happen next.

“You quitting?” Ookami said to me outside in-between his long cigarette drags.

I sighed. “Mm.” And I downed my canned coffee and chucked it into the recycling.

“Man, life won’t be the same without you around here, you know?” he said and flicked his cigarette butt away. 

I shrugged. “Mm.”

“Who you gonna go work for?”

It takes a second for my slow mind to catch up. “Tadano. AI stuff. Programming.”

“Tadano? You mean that ENI-O guy?” Ookami hitched his voice.

“Mm.”

He wrinkled his nose and sighed. “You seem like you don’t care and want nothing else to do with me.”

I shook my weary head. “Nah, I’m just exhausted. Living day by day now. Ton has me working overtime until my last day.”

“Man, fuck him.” He slapped my shoulder. “There isn’t a damn thing going on that warrants overtime. Leave his shit with him and walk out I say.”

“I don’t want the extra shit to spill over onto you guys, though.”

Ookami crossed his arms and spat a loogie the size of Texas on the sidewalk. “You’ve always done this — worried about what’s gonna happen to the office if you don’t pull your own weight. You’ve pulled so much weight that I haven’t had to work hard since your last overtime night.”

He had wrapped his arm around my neck and pulled me close. He said, “Look, you want to not feel so sorry for yourself or for your ‘inconvenience’, then half your overtime with me. I am volunteering my time to you, buddy.”

I jerk my body away from his grasp. “It isn’t yours to take.”

“Oh, Haida’s such a hero,” a voice pipped up from behind us.

We both snapped our heads in its direction. It was Fenneko. “Shouldering his burdens without anyone’s help. What a manly thing to do. Just like when he took on extra work for skipping work the other day because he was hung over. You have vacation days; don’t feel bad.”

I furrow my brows, annoyed by her tone dripping with sarcasm and jeer. Normally I’d be able to let it slide, but I’ve been getting so little sleep that my moods are all over the place.

She poked my chest. “You’re going to split your overtime work with us, and you’re going to like it because this would be the best going away present that we could ever give you outside of money.” 

“Nngh.” I facepalm. “FINE, if you guys want to work more for absolutely nothing, then be my guest! Take some of this boring work organizing of all our client’s files since the 90s. It’s full of outdated crap and will want to make you scream.”

And they did. They took my overwork crap and redistributed to all my other coworkers. My jaw dropped to the floor when I heard that the whole office was doing my overtime work without complaint and without Ton figuring out what was happening. It was this very thing that I knew was priceless to have: a community of people like my coworkers willing to help each other out. I cried — at home — tears of happiness throughout these two weeks because I didn’t know if I would ever have this again. Even Retsuko had helped out.

Her and I unfortunately never had a moment alone with each other. Something would always come up or someone would interrupt us — someone wanting to spend time with me before I left. It’s been bothering the shit out of me the fact I couldn’t talk to her as soon as I could in person. And, even then, I still rehearsed what I was going to say to her because no doubt she heard about me going to work for Tadano.

This morning, Friday, my last day, I shook like a leaf when I placed the last piece of paper on top of our tower of work and delivered it to Ton’s desk, right in front of him. 

“Everything is finished, sir,” I said.

“Hmph. Everything, huh?” He plucked a document from the middle, nearly compromising the tower’s integrity. It swung more violently than was comfortable.

I watched him scan over it. I could feel my coworkers also watching all of this transpire. 

After what felt like an eternity, he huffed again and said, “Alrighty, you’re free to go. Get out of my office and don’t bring you rear back here.”

I widen my eyes. Then I beamed. “Yes, sir!”

“The rest of you lot,” Ton said and gestured all around the room. “You’re all free to go home for the weekend.”

The previously silent room turned into a bustling room of rustling papers, packing backpacks, and slapping laptops shut. 

“You’re coming with us, Haida,” Ookami said and jerked me away from our tower.

“W-what?” I tried wiggling out of his grip but Fenneko came from behind and pushed me forward.

“Time to have your good bye party,” she said and shoved me along and out of the office. “To the bar!”

I was dragged out into the parking garage until I decided to relent to their advances. All my coworkers who had helped me were tailing us so I of course was even more obliged to surrender.

We’re at the bar now, the whole establishment reserved for us by the goodness of crowdfunding. There are numerous chabudai that are dotted with people laughing and carrying on. Dim lights brush against everyone’s figures, softening features and moods. Retsuko, Fenneko, and all the other OLs are at their own table, while I am with an assorted crowd of people downing sake and telling stories of the good times.

“When are you gonna give your speech?” Ookami asks me and slaps my back.

“Speech?” I say.

“Spe-e-ch,” he repeats. “Spe-e-ch.”

I gawk at him and hear other voices around me mimicking him. “Spe-e-ch.”

Eventually the whole establishment is looking at me and chanting, “Spe-e-ch!”

“C’mon, man, you gotta say some words to us before you leave us forever,” Ookami says.

I get to my feet, nearly tripping on my pillow seat, and dart my eyes around. I clear my throat, and my surroundings calm down. “I, uh, thank you, everyone,” I say and deeply bow. “Thank you for coming to this going away party. I know you all have heard me do this ad nauseam but: Thank you all for helping me with the overtime work. It means a lot to me that so many care.”

“Well, it doesn’t hurt that I normally come here on Friday nights anyway.” Ookami elbows his neighbor's side who snickers with him.

“I,” I say and blink. And blink again. Faster. At this point I’m going to start bawling like a baby if I don’t say anything. “I’m going to miss you all. Let’s keep in touch, yeah?”

All the guys at my table “Aw,” and stand up and surround me in a hug embrace. Even some OLs came over, including Fenneko, but Retsuko kept her place at her table.

The young night ages until it’s matured and dark out: ten o’clock. People begin to peter out back to their own lives, waving their good byes. I’ve been spending my night with everyone, except the one person I’ve been wanting to talk to for weeks now, and I must scratch this itch. My eyes have been checking in with her, but she seemed perfectly content with staying in her group of OLs. Finally, however, it seems that even all of the OLs, except for Retsuko has left.

“See ya, Haida,” Ookami says as he waves his goodbye.

Since he’s one of the last of my coworkers, I see him out to the door. “See ya, dude.”

As soon as he walks out of the exit, I turn around to beeline for Retsuko, but something snags my arm. It’s her; It’s Retsuko.

“Retsuko,” I say, wide-eyed. “Um, hi, I was about to go looking for you.”

“Well, I suppose it’s a good thing I came to you,” she says, her hands cupping a lager that was as big as her head.

My chest seizes. I’ve been dreading this moment ever since I put my letter of resignation down on Ton’s desk. I had this sneaking suspicion that Retsuko’s niceness would be torn to shreds by her rage, but maybe — just maybe — this would be the better outcome instead of guessing for the rest of my life? I’ve rehearsed and simulated what I could but none of it felt like her, only my incomplete understanding of who she is.

As I open my mouth, ready and willing to shoulder this, she says, “You didn’t tell me you were going to go work for Tadano.”

I shut my mouth. I look away. I swallow hard. “I, uh, you see…”

I throw open palms at her with a half-hearted smile. “I meant to but…I just didn’t…I…hahaha.”

I’m dying because it looks like she isn’t a purveyor of my genuine bullshit. My head is swirling around a drain. I didn’t mean to not tell her. At that time at the festival, I knew that mentioning anything about Tadano would only ruin that smile she had. They’ve only been broken up for a few months and re-opening new wound would be awkward, no? Now, it feels like I was trying to deceive her — which I wasn’t — but maybe I was? I don’t know. I didn’t mean it. I truly, truly didn’t intend for — it was was split-second decision. I’m —

“He didn’t,” she breaks my thoughts in half, “make you, right?”

“Make me?” I ask her—ask myself. Once it dawns on me what she means, I shake my head, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. “No, he didn’t make me do anything.”

“Haida,” she says and gives me a look my mother would give me if I did something bad or idiotic. “He’s really good at convincing people that he’s right.”

She crosses her arms, but her eyes soften. “Please tell me you’re quitting because you want to.”

I inhale as my eyes dart up and down, from her eyes to the floor. “I…of course I’m quitting because I want to. I want more than this life. I want more money so I can achieve more. I talked with Tadano about this for hours, and I had weeks to think about it.”

I twiddle my thumbs. “I’ve been working more and more on my side stuff, and I’ve been getting more attention from other people asking me to do things for them — some things for money. I think…I think if I pursue this, I can get away from…”

I lose the words because it wasn’t what I meant. There are moments of a disconnected line between us, where she’s waiting for me to finish and where I’m not even sure where I was going. Retsuko was willing to sit there and wait patiently for me to drum up the carefully selected words…until I shook my head and hid my face in my hands. I already said what I didn’t say: if I can get away from accounting, then my life would improve.

Retsuko grabs her lager and then knocks her head back and guzzles it down. She doesn’t finish it, leaving only about a quarter of it left, and she sighs loudly once she’s done, her chin high. “I see. Well, I hope things work out for you. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

I’ve never felt this before. Usually when I’m anxious, I want to puke, but this is different — a tightness in the pit of my stomach, a knot that won’t undo. I don’t like this. I want something more but I don’t know what I want in particular. A bomb? Lightning? Someone to flip a table? Maybe it’s the booze tainting my thoughts, maybe it’s purely anatomical. I blink and my vision has blurred.

“Thank you,” I say and wipe my wet eyes with my greasy paws.

Thereafter, we don’t talk anymore about it. We reminisced about the good times at the office, like birthday parties, mixers, crazy office antics or working together in overtime.

The night ages in quietude, and we pay no mind to it. We don’t notice it’s closing time until the barkeep, a large bear, encroaches upon us. “Time to wrap it up. Closing time.”

“It’s closing time already?” I ask and look at my watch. “Oh fuck, we missed the last train.”

Retsuko murmurs as she looks at her phone, “Seems like I’m walking home then.”

We’re at the exit now, walking together, in-sync. The brisk summer night air slapped our cheeks once we’re outside. Tokyo nightlife surrounds us; lights beaming up and down the avenue, sparse passersby talking in murmurs. 

We’re standing together, side-by-side, quietly, unmoving. I’m waiting for her to say something, and I guess the same goes for her.

She finally says, “I’ll miss you.”

Without much thought, I say, “I’ll miss you too.”

Retsuko turns to me, her fur glimmering like stars in the sky, her cheeks flushed with alcohol. “Bye, Haida.”

She doesn’t wait for me to reply — instead, she walks away from me, down the steps from the bar and onto the main avenue sidewalk.

“Bye, Retsuko,” I say to her, even if she couldn’t hear me anymore.

I can’t help but watch her, holding out something else may happen, stopping the thought of offering to walk her home, stopping myself period. She incorporates herself into an isolated cluster of pedestrians that eventually aggregate with another cluster, becoming one. They newly formed crowd waits at a crosswalk on the horizon until lights permit its passage. I see Retsuko flakes off once she’s on the other side of the street and turns a corner, disappearing from my sight.

I clenched my chest. That tightness, that unease never left the moment it showed up, and I suppose it never will. I went home that night, thinking about what I wanted, about what I wasn’t happy with. My coworkers clearly are going to miss me, but for some reason I didn’t get that intensity from her. I only got standard canned acquaintance talk, only further engraving the divide that was between our private lives. I guess I wanted Retsuko to want me as much as I wanted her. I wanted her to break down my door and demand that I stay at the company. But I know better. I knew that was impossible, for a long time, forever. She would never feel what I felt for her, and I respected that, but fuck was it hard to admit to myself.

Tadano and I are going to forge something together now, I suppose. I was trading my accountant life for something new, something scary, something uncertain.

I lay on my shitty couch, looking at my shitty ceiling, pondering my shitty life.

Everything was going to change, and I could not comprehend I was the one who chose to do that.

Chapter Text

You ever wake up and realize you are the happiest you’ve been since you were a kid at Christmas? After talking with Tadano about every stupid little thing I wanted, I thought seriously about it all. He and I could change things — well, he can. And I would be proximal to his goals. But, you know what? I’m okay with that. Tadano wants society to improve, and I want something different. Anything else I could do was extra icing on the cake for my life.

It’s Friday night. And guess what? I had put my two weeks notice to Ton last Monday, meaning that today was my last day working for him, for the company. He was naturally furious with me, so much in fact he conveniently found years worth of work to be finished before I left. He demanded me to work overtime until my fingers bled. I knew this was going to happen the moment I did it, but I wasn’t prepared for what was going to happen next.

“You quitting?” Ookami said to me outside in-between his long cigarette drags.

I sighed. “Mm.” And I downed my canned coffee and chucked it into the recycling.

“Man, life won’t be the same without you around here, you know?” he said and flicked his cigarette butt away. 

I shrugged. “Mm.”

“Who you gonna go work for?”

It takes a second for my slow mind to catch up. “Tadano. AI stuff. Programming.”

“Tadano? You mean that ENI-O guy?” Ookami hitched his voice.

“Mm.”

He wrinkled his nose and sighed. “You seem like you don’t care and want nothing else to do with me.”

I shook my weary head. “Nah, I’m just exhausted. Living day by day now. Ton has me working overtime until my last day.”

“Man, fuck him.” He slapped my shoulder. “There isn’t a damn thing going on that warrants overtime. Leave his shit with him and walk out I say.”

“I don’t want the extra shit to spill over onto you guys, though.”

Ookami crossed his arms and spat a loogie the size of Texas on the sidewalk. “You’ve always done this — worried about what’s gonna happen to the office if you don’t pull your own weight. You’ve pulled so much weight that I haven’t had to work hard since your last overtime night.”

He had wrapped his arm around my neck and pulled me close. He said, “Look, you want to not feel so sorry for yourself or for your ‘inconvenience’, then half your overtime with me. I am volunteering my time to you, buddy.”

I jerk my body away from his grasp. “It isn’t yours to take.”

“Oh, Haida’s such a hero,” a voice pipped up from behind us.

We both snapped our heads in its direction. It was Fenneko. “Shouldering his burdens without anyone’s help. What a manly thing to do. Just like when he took on extra work for skipping work the other day because he was hung over. You have vacation days; don’t feel bad.”

I furrow my brows, annoyed by her tone dripping with sarcasm and jeer. Normally I’d be able to let it slide, but I’ve been getting so little sleep that my moods are all over the place.

She poked my chest. “You’re going to split your overtime work with us, and you’re going to like it because this would be the best going away present that we could ever give you outside of money.” 

“Nngh.” I facepalm. “FINE, if you guys want to work more for absolutely nothing, then be my guest! Take some of this boring work organizing of all our client’s files since the 90s. It’s full of outdated crap and will want to make you scream.”

And they did. They took my overwork crap and redistributed to all my other coworkers. My jaw dropped to the floor when I heard that the whole office was doing my overtime work without complaint and without Ton figuring out what was happening. It was this very thing that I knew was priceless to have: a community of people like my coworkers willing to help each other out. I cried — at home — tears of happiness throughout these two weeks because I didn’t know if I would ever have this again. Even Retsuko had helped out.

Her and I unfortunately never had a moment alone with each other. Something would always come up or someone would interrupt us — someone wanting to spend time with me before I left. It’s been bothering the shit out of me the fact I couldn’t talk to her as soon as I could in person. And, even then, I still rehearsed what I was going to say to her because no doubt she heard about me going to work for Tadano.

This morning, Friday, my last day, I shook like a leaf when I placed the last piece of paper on top of our tower of work and delivered it to Ton’s desk, right in front of him. 

“Everything is finished, sir,” I said.

“Hmph. Everything, huh?” He plucked a document from the middle, nearly compromising the tower’s integrity. It swung more violently than was comfortable.

I watched him scan over it. I could feel my coworkers also watching all of this transpire. 

After what felt like an eternity, he huffed again and said, “Alrighty, you’re free to go. Get out of my office and don’t bring you rear back here.”

I widen my eyes. Then I beamed. “Yes, sir!”

“The rest of you lot,” Ton said and gestured all around the room. “You’re all free to go home for the weekend.”

The previously silent room turned into a bustling room of rustling papers, packing backpacks, and slapping laptops shut. 

“You’re coming with us, Haida,” Ookami said and jerked me away from our tower.

“W-what?” I tried wiggling out of his grip but Fenneko came from behind and pushed me forward.

“Time to have your good bye party,” she said and shoved me along and out of the office. “To the bar!”

I was dragged out into the parking garage until I decided to relent to their advances. All my coworkers who had helped me were tailing us so I of course was even more obliged to surrender.

We’re at the bar now, the whole establishment reserved for us by the goodness of crowdfunding. There are numerous chabudai that are dotted with people laughing and carrying on. Dim lights brush against everyone’s figures, softening features and moods. Retsuko, Fenneko, and all the other OLs are at their own table, while I am with an assorted crowd of people downing sake and telling stories of the good times.

“When are you gonna give your speech?” Ookami asks me and slaps my back.

“Speech?” I say.

“Spe-e-ch,” he repeats. “Spe-e-ch.”

I gawk at him and hear other voices around me mimicking him. “Spe-e-ch.”

Eventually the whole establishment is looking at me and chanting, “Spe-e-ch!”

“C’mon, man, you gotta say some words to us before you leave us forever,” Ookami says.

I get to my feet, nearly tripping on my pillow seat, and dart my eyes around. I clear my throat, and my surroundings calm down. “I, uh, thank you, everyone,” I say and deeply bow. “Thank you for coming to this going away party. I know you all have heard me do this ad nauseam but: Thank you all for helping me with the overtime work. It means a lot to me that so many care.”

“Well, it doesn’t hurt that I normally come here on Friday nights anyway.” Ookami elbows his neighbors’ side who snickers with him.

“I,” I say and blink. And blink again. Faster. At this point I’m going to start bawling like a baby if I don’t say anything. “I’m going to miss you all. Let’s keep in touch, yeah?”

All the guys at my table “Aw,” and stand up and surround me in a hug embrace. Even some OLs came over, including Fenneko, but Retsuko kept her place at her table.

The young night ages until it’s matured and dark out: ten o’clock. People begin to peter out back to their own lives, waving their good byes. I’ve been spending my night with everyone, except the one person I’ve been wanting to talk to for weeks now, and I must scratch this itch. My eyes have been checking in with her, but she seemed perfectly content with staying in her group of OLs. Finally, however, it seems that even all of the OLs, except for Retsuko has left.

“See ya, Haida,” Ookami says as he waves his goodbye.

Since he’s one of the last of my coworkers, I see him out to the door. “See ya, dude.”

As soon as he walks out of the exit, I turn around to beeline for Retsuko, but something snags my arm. It’s her; It’s Retsuko.

“Retsuko,” I say, wide-eyed. “Um, hi, I was about to go looking for you.”

“Well, I suppose it’s a good thing I came to you,” she says, her hands cupping a lager that was as big as her head.

My chest seizes. I’ve been dreading this moment ever since I put my letter of resignation down on Ton’s desk. I had this sneaking suspicion that Retsuko’s niceness would be torn to shreds by her rage, but maybe — just maybe — this would be the better outcome instead of guessing for the rest of my life? I’ve rehearsed and simulated what I could but none of it felt like her, only my incomplete understanding of who she is.

As I open my mouth, ready and willing to shoulder this, she says, “You didn’t tell me you were going to go work for Tadano.”

I shut my mouth. I look away. I swallow hard. “I, uh, you see…”

I throw open palms at her with a half-hearted smile. “I meant to but…I just didn’t…I…hahaha.”

I’m dying because it looks like she isn’t a purveyor of my genuine bullshit. My head is swirling around a drain. I didn’t mean to not tell her. At that time at the festival, I knew that mentioning anything about Tadano would only ruin that smile she had. They’ve only been broken up for a few months and re-opening new wound would be awkward, no? Now, it feels like I was trying to deceive her — which I wasn’t — but maybe I was? I don’t know. I didn’t mean it. I truly, truly didn’t intend for — it was was split-second decision. I’m —

“He didn’t,” she breaks my thoughts in half, “make you, right?”

“Make me?” I ask her—ask myself. Once it dawns on me what she means, I shake my head, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. “No, he didn’t make me do anything.”

“Haida,” she says and gives me a look my mother would give me if I did something bad or idiotic. “He’s really good at convincing people that he’s right.”

She crosses her arms, but her eyes soften. “Please tell me you’re quitting because you want to.”

I inhale as my eyes dart up and down, from her eyes to the floor. “I…of course I’m quitting because I want to. I want more than this life. I want more money so I can achieve more. I talked with Tadano about this for hours, and I had weeks to think about it.”

I twiddle my thumbs. “I’ve been working more and more on my side stuff, and I’ve been getting more attention from other people asking me to do things for them — some things for money. I think…I think if I pursue this, I can get away from…”

I lose the words because it wasn’t what I meant. There are moments of a disconnected line between us, where she’s waiting for me to finish and where I’m not even sure where I was going. Retsuko was willing to sit there and wait patiently for me to drum up the carefully selected words…until I shook my head and hid my face in my hands. I already said what I didn’t say: if I can get away from accounting, then my life would improve.

Retsuko grabs her lager and then knocks her head back and guzzles it down. She doesn’t finish it, leaving only about a quarter of it left, and she sighs loudly once she’s done, her chin high. “I see. Well, I hope things work out for you. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

I’ve never felt this before. Usually when I’m anxious, I want to puke, but this is different — a tightness in the pit of my stomach, a knot that won’t undo. I don’t like this. I want something more but I don’t know what I want in particular. A bomb? Lightning? Someone to flip a table? Maybe it’s the booze tainting my thoughts, maybe it’s purely anatomical. I blink and my vision has blurred.

“Thank you,” I say and wipe my wet eyes with my greasy paws.

Thereafter, we don’t talk anymore about it. We reminisced about the good times at the office, like birthday parties, mixers, crazy office antics or working together in overtime.

The night ages in quietude, and we pay no mind to it. We don’t notice it’s closing time until the barkeep, a large bear, encroaches upon us. “Time to wrap it up. Closing time.”

“It’s closing time already?” I ask and look at my watch. “Oh fuck, we missed the last train.”

Retsuko murmurs as she looks at her phone, “Seems like I’m walking home then.”

We’re at the exit now, walking together, in-sync. The brisk summer night air slapped our cheeks once we’re outside. Tokyo nightlife surrounds us; lights beaming up and down the avenue, sparse passersby talking in murmurs. 

We’re standing together, side-by-side, quietly, unmoving. I’m waiting for her to say something, and I guess the same goes for her.

She finally says, “I’ll miss you.”

Without much thought, I say, “I’ll miss you too.”

Retsuko turns to me, her fur glimmering like stars in the sky, her cheeks flushed with alcohol. “Bye, Haida.”

She doesn’t wait for me to reply — instead, she walks away from me, down the steps from the bar and onto the main avenue sidewalk.

“Bye, Retsuko,” I say to her, even if she couldn’t hear me anymore.

I can’t help but watch her, holding out something else may happen, stopping the thought of offering to walk her home, stopping myself period. She incorporates herself into an isolated cluster of pedestrians that eventually aggregate with another cluster, becoming one. They newly formed crowd waits at a crosswalk on the horizon until lights permit its passage. I see Retsuko flakes off once she’s on the other side of the street and turns a corner, disappearing from my sight.

I clenched my chest. That tightness, that unease never left the moment it showed up, and I suppose it never will. I went home that night, thinking about what I wanted, about what I wasn’t happy with. My coworkers clearly are going to miss me, but for some reason I didn’t get that intensity from her. I only got standard canned acquaintance talk, only further engraving the divide that was between our private lives. I guess I wanted Retsuko to want me as much as I wanted her. I wanted her to break down my door and demand that I stay at the company. But I know better. I knew that was impossible, for a long time, forever. She would never feel what I felt for her, and I respected that, but fuck was it hard to admit to myself.

Tadano and I are going to forge something together now, I suppose. I was trading my accountant life for something new, something scary, something uncertain.

I lay on my shitty couch, looking at my shitty ceiling, pondering my shitty life.

Everything was going to change, and I could not comprehend I was the one who chose to do that.

Chapter Text

I can’t stop fiddling with my golden tie. This new tailored suit fits me too perfectly. The cuffs stop exactly at my wrists, my ankles are sufficiently covered, and my blazer stops right above my thighs. My shoes are shinier than facet cut onyx, and my fur had been groomed to hell and back with a fine-tooth comb. I’ve been pacing between these two crates forever. My heart will not abate its thumping, my breathing will not stabilize, and I cannot stop thinking about how I’m going to fuck this up. I could trip on my feet or do some crazy gang signs with my hands—I know how dumb I can get when I’m explaining something to someone. Boy, I’d do anything for this to be over. Fucking anything—please. Tadano assured me that I should get over my public speaking anxiety, but if there were a simple on-off switch for such a thing, I would’ve welded the damn thing to OFF. He keeps telling me that I just need to present more and I’ll get used to being in front of people and I want to believe him but right now I can’t get over myself.

Distant murmurs of the auditorium filling up. I watch random crew members moving around back here, like demons prowling in darkness. I rub my eyes. I keep my eye on the crew member that said he’d wave me onto stage when they were ready, but I end up looking away every time he looks at me back because I want to avoid the distracting eye contact and because I’m needlessly pestering him with my nervousness.

I’m supposed to open Tadano’s presentation with my short one minute talk. My name is Haida, newest member of Tadano’s research and development team. Research and development. Develop.

Something is moving rapidly in my periphery: the crew member—a mouse guy with tiny gray hands gesturing me towards himself from across the stage.

I take the deepest breath of my life, broaden my shoulders, and walk onto the stage. Lights from several directions sear me while an ocean of darkened observers fill my vision. My limbs are shaking. I force an interpretation of a smile and adjust the tiny pill mic on the collar of my shirt, a low, rough reverb resounds throughout the stadium of people. 

“Greetings, everyone, and thank you for being here tonight. My name is Haida, newest member of ENI-O’s research and development team.” My hands have a mind of their own; they’re gesticulating every three or so words I say.

“I am one of the first data scientists Tadano has permanently hired and am out here to announce that we are in active search for like-minded individuals for our team.” I inhale, shaking, old and new sweat slicking my brow and back, spot lights glaring me down as if I’m annoying and incomprehensible. “If you are interested in building neural networks and algorithms and have a strong background in statistical reasoning and or data science, especially in R and python, feel free to contact me, Haida, on StagOverflow. I would love to see your work, as well as show you mine. And, hey, who knows where our conversations will lead us.”

My eyes scan any movement in the quiet audience; its members are mumbling or checking their phones. I inhale and nod deeply. “Thank you all for your time. I hope to speak with some of you soon.”

The lights dim, and I walk back where I came from; I can scarcely make out the silhouette of the stage exit but still manage to find my way.

“You did well.”

I freeze but then nod with a flick of a smile. “You think?”

“Yup,” Tadano says and pats me on the shoulder as he passes by me and takes my place on stage.

My cheeks are aflame when the lights brighten again and reveal the splash of periwinkle and purple on stage. My boss straightens his spine and smiles. “Greetings, everyone. I thank you for attending my presentation for news features that will be implemented in ENI-O. I would like to reiterate Haida’s search for our future Research and Development team members…”

Tadano talks with such ease in front of an audience that isn’t any different from when we talk casually. He never seems to freak or overthink things like I do. I practiced my tiny speech for weeks, but he only started to work on his presentation a couple of days before today. How the fuck he does it is beyond me. I wipe any moisture off my face with a handkerchief and travel to the catering that was backstage. I find myself a chilled bottle of water and press it to my face. 

You did well. Did I? I think I did bare minimum good enough. I wipe my face again and sigh. At least I don’t feel nauseous. If I did this presentation six months ago, I’d would’ve stormed to the nearest toilet and made best friends with it for the night.

Six months ago. Ah, yes, it’s been six months since I’ve left my accounting job and became a data scientist for Tadano. Six months since I’ve made the 32-minute-subway, 16 minute-five-crosswalk-stop, 731-meter-walk-five-days-a-week commute I’d grown to dread. Six months since dealing with Ton’s paperwork towers and six months since I’ve shot the shit with any of my previous co-workers, including Fenneko and Ookami.

And Retsuko.

I’ll admit it. It’s been hard not texting her needy messages about seeing her. I’ve reminded myself that I can learn how to live a life without seeing her almost every day. I get paid more now—triple my previous salary. I live in a better apartment in a better neighborhood that’s closer to the subway; it’s still scant of furniture, and I’ve still got those books and that cheap shady couch but mostly because it’s a pain in the ass to get rid of it. I’ve met so many different people from so many different backgrounds, and I know I’m only scratching the surface of where Tadano is going to take me.

But the patch of cute orange and sullen eyes looking longingly at her cup of tea at lunchtime—I will miss breaking up her self-doubting thoughts and reminding her she is needed and wanted by the people around her.

Oh my god what am I saying? I rub my cheeks with both hands. 

So, yeah, I’m still struggling with it, and it’s a process, but I’ll move on. Maybe. Eventually. Yes. Yes, I can.

I haven’t opened any social media we were both on. I know myself enough that I would comb through everything and anything she would post and know that I am too dumb to control myself. Hopefully she doesn’t think I’m avoiding her or something happened to me, but I bury such a thought away and remind myself: get over her and move on.

My phone buzzes and I check it. My client is pinging me on Snack to go over how I interpreted the data sets I dumped into the machine learning repository last night. Apparently there’s inconsistencies and errors, which, yeah, I agree since I haphazardly did my boiler plate code and didn’t bother to check anything because I was stressed about today. I tell him I’ll get it fixed and turn my notifications off. Clients can wait. Today was about Tadano’s presentation—nothing more.

I have upped my clients to four at a time since I quit my accounting job, and I don’t regret it. Freelancing takes up most of my time these days since Tadano doesn’t require nor wants me to work more than a couple hours a week. It gives me the time and freedom that I never knew I needed. I can take vacations without guilt and not need to worry about making tight deadlines. And for everything, that initial step in this direction, was all thanks to…heh.

“I don’t want stressed out workers,” he chides me every time he sees I have more than five windows open on my laptop. I never reply verbally--only snort in acknowledgment and continue tapping away keystrokes. I learned a long time ago trying to reason with the guy about this was no different than talking to a brick wall.

Tadano doesn’t seem to understand that I enjoy and look forward to doing this every day when I wake up. It is as if he wants me to do little to nothing every day while giving me an insane salary, but he only reminds me again, “Not everyone can do what you do.” 

And, without missing a beat, I repeat, “Not everyone can do what you do.”

He only curls his lips and looks away. I roll my eyes. Bastard knows he’s good and doesn’t need the reminder I guess.

Nevertheless, the new career is nice. Tadano never acts like a boss; I never feel like I have to tiptoe around giving him bad results or bullshit him about why I couldn’t figure something out. It makes me suspicious how the fuck the guy got so rich in the first place—don’t most rich tech guy step on and abuse lowly workers? Oh, right, Tadano only contracts freelancers and doesn’t even own a building of his own because of his philosophy of owning private property is a wasteful and a hassle. Every time I bring up the idea that he should live in a apartment, he says he doesn’t want to deal with the paperwork and likes living in the limo with ENI-O, which, okay, but you leave your AMZN boxes and latte cups and you make me ride with you, bruh.  The lattes that have been sitting out for a couple of months are kind of dank, but I say nothing.

I mosey on over back to where the threshold of the light of the stage cuts backstage off. I drink my bottled water and watch him. I can’t believe I’m looking at a guy, valued at 10 billion dollars, who shit, shower and shaves in his limo, but, damn, I can’t help but be envious that I can’t have his confidence about things.

“Understandably, people worry about their data and, more importantly, how corporations use it for monetizing and advertising products. ENI-O stores and will show you what he stores for your perusal.”

I huff and drink more water. There’s so much easy money with training AI to learn consumer patterns and selling them useless shit, and Tadano despises it. He can’t outwardly denounce the practice since his industry friends would alienate him, but he can do the next best thing by giving consumers the freedom to delete their data which is a bold move regardless. Banana recently rolled out the no advertiser tracking feature on all their smart phones which rocked the tech world to its core. Banana is such a leader and holds so much marketing power and customer loyalty that cleaved relations between companies in twain.

It was exactly what Tadano wanted. One of his wants anyway, but he knows that he can only take a nibble of the capitalism cookie here and there.

Towards the end of Tadano’s presentation where he’s wrapping things up, I browse my phone and skim any tech news for anything coming out. Cryptocurrency, semiconductor shortages, security vulnerabilities—ah, yeah, I already checked the news this morning when I was getting coffee with Tadano. I can’t help but long for the time when the internet was for arcane and beyond the scope of society; the days where only playing outside matter with your friends mattered and homework was due tomorrow. Or adding midis or eventlisteners to webpages were more important than looking at other people’s photoshopped lives.

“Finally…” Tadano yanks me right out of thought. I gawk at him as he’s walking off stage towards me, undoing his red tie.

“Oh, you’re finished?” I ask.

He knocks his head back, eyes wide, clearly confused. “Yeah, uh, I said, ‘And that’s all; thanks for coming out’?”

“I, uh…”

“There was clapping and everything. There’s still clapping, even.”

I facepalm. “I get it. I spaced, okay? Ready to go?”

Tadano shrugged and had to fight to keep a smug smile from appearing on his face. “Sure, whatever.”

We grab our things from our private dressing room in the back and exit the exhibition center through the gated exit. ENI-O patiently purrs for us with open doors for us to enter. Miraculously the limo is sparkling clean with no boxes or cups in sight.  We get in, and Tadano pours a glass of champagne for himself from his car bar. Tadano dims the inner lights of ENI-O, and street lamps strobe in orange columns as we pass by each one.

“I know this is silly to ask, but do you want any?” he asks.

I shake my head. I’ve been clean since that night I talked to Fenneko, and I’d like to keep it that way. “Dinner would be nice, though.”

“You’d like dinner?” He was beyond surprised by my remark.

I have turned him down for dinner because of my work, but tonight was different. I shrug. “It’s celebration tonight, right? Sticking it to the industry a little at a time right?”

He shrugs and says, “Okay then. It’s a celebration then.”

“Your treat,” I say.

“Sure, but you gotta pay me back in KittyCoin,” he says and is on his phone, probably looking up places nearby. I know he can easily ask ENI-O to call but for this he probably wants the secrecy.

I stifle a guffaw. “I would rather sell you PuPu leggings than crypto, donkey boy.”

“Hey, you might actually turn profit.”

I huff. Both of us know that the possibility of becoming overnight millionaires in crypto has become an infinitesimal impossibility—not when everyone has thousands of mining farms, fighting against other miners to solve the same complicated math problems the fastest, expending vast amounts of energy to do so, burning carbon the world will never see again, and destroying the planet in the process. All crypto has devolved into is pump and dumps, frauding investors, and and funding the worst crimes that humanity has ever known. I shake my head and the thoughts away. I give no two shits about crypto and won’t touch the shit ever.

I stare at his blue glowing, darting eyes. I have no idea what actually is going on in his head; where he’s going, what he’s actually thinking. Sure, we can speak the same language, but sometimes it feels like we are on different levels of intelligence and Tadano is leagues ahead of the sentient beings, capable of emotions far more complex than what I experience.

Tadano continues, “But, the biggest scheme of them all: make our own crypto and convince everyone that it’s real and have their friends and families invest in it and then their friends and families invest in it and so on and so forth.”

“Surprised you’d even joke about that,” I say, my smile fading.

His face turns mirthless. “If I hear another celebrity using their clout to promote another scam coin…ah, time and time again, Haida,” he says, puts down his phone, and drinks his champagne. “The working class keep falling for the same tricks like this.” He swirls the bubbling liquid and stares at it. 

ENI-O makes a sharp turn, navigating towards a destination.

He says, “Maybe one of these days it’ll see how priceless it is.”

I sigh and shake my head. “Not everyone in the world is a saint, you know. There are rapists and murders and people who are truly evil.”

“There are people like that who do exist, but they are not the norm,” he says, “I think that everyone deserves at least one bite at the apple. We’re going to find more people like you, Haida.”

I open my mouth…but…nothing comes—I have nothing. What does he want me to say? Of course we’ll find people more people to employ, but will their stories be worse than mine? Will they have suffered worse than me? Lost more? Gained more? Again, what does Tadano want? All of it comes back to what exactly makes the guy tick and what makes him so damn motivated to give such a fuck about the world around him. About why he gave such a fuck about me and my future.

I avert my eyes and see elongated, brilliant painted facades and terrifically-clothed people. He knows how I feel about expensive, ritzy places but I guess he’s relishing the fact that this is an occasion. I could spit, but I respect ENI-O’s pleather interior too much. “I hate expensive shit.”

“No choice; didn’t ask.” And he doesn’t hide the smirk this time.

“Tadano…” I say, ENI-O still moving, orange street lamps still strobing against us in rhythm.

“Hm?”

It takes me a second to figure out what I want to say but, “Thanks. For everything.”

He doesn’t say anything back; only averts his gaze and nods gently with a crooked kind of smile I’ve only seen when he was around Retsuko. I press my face against the cool glass window, loosen my tie and wait patiently for what the next thing Tadano is going to drag me into.