The section chief has a way of making up for Friday: go to KaibaCorp and introduce yourself. No appointment, no department name, no contact. Joey takes twenty business cards with him. The receptionist is unfailingly polite, and one card ends up in a tray beside her desk. On the way out, a display by the exit is advertising a tournament.
This is a translation of an original work.
Original Title: 02 名刺
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
In the office, everyone who isn't on site that day lines up and listens to the section chief read out the schedule. Today was Monday, so it was this week's, as far as it's known.
Deliveries in the East District, quotations due next week, then the stocktake at the end of the month. I open my notebook and write them in beside the dates. As a matter of course, there were some on the Saturday.
"Oh — about last Friday. We heard from Mr. Ando."
The section chief looked up from his paper.
Friday and Mr. Ando means the tatami room.
"Wheeler."
My name was called.
"Yes."
"Do you remember what you said to him?"
What happened, I remember. Two beers, then after a while it switched to sake, we talked about the outlook for this term, we talked about a new KaibaCorp product, and then we moved on to a second place. I remember the outside air being cold at that point, too.
"…What about it?"
"The East District. Word is you told him we could get in as a first-tier."
I didn't say it.
I have no memory of it. That's what I thought, but my mouth didn't move.
"He was laughing about it. Said it's good to be young, plenty of drive. But that's Omiya's call to make. It isn't ours."
"Sorry."
"Well. It was drinks."
The section chief said that and turned over the paper in his hand. The others are already set to hear the next item, faces down over their notebooks.
I was looking at the toes of my own shoes.
Maybe I said it, maybe I didn't. I've got no way to check.
I can't very well ask Mr. Ando. And I can't very well tell the section chief that I don't remember.
I didn't say it, and we moved on to a second place. I remember it properly. I haven't lost to drink. Mr. Ando must have got it wrong. That's what I thought.
After midday the section chief called me in.
There's no such thing as a section chief's office; a small area partitioned off is what counts as his space. A desk, a shelf, and, for form's sake, chairs for visitors. I could hardly sit down uninvited, so I listened standing.
"About Friday. I've been thinking about how you make up for it."
"Right."
The business from the morning meeting that I have no memory of.
"KC."
That building is visible outside the window. From this office there are other buildings straight ahead, so only the top part shows.
"Go over and introduce yourself in person."
"…To KC, sir?"
"The East District is tied to KC's redevelopment plan. The idea is to get our name in front of them directly, not through Omiya. Introduction and apology — both, really."
"Have we got an appointment?"
"If we could get one we'd have got one long ago."
The section chief leaned back in his chair.
"Wheeler. You were in the same year as President Kaiba, weren't you."
"Well, yeah, I suppose."
"In sales you use that kind of thing."
Is that how it is, I thought.
That's surely how it is. Sales is connections, they told me when I joined. I've seen the senior guys land jobs off contacts from their old workplaces, and use what you can use is what I've been taught.
Only, I don't know whether what's between me and Kaiba can be called a connection. What it'd be I don't know, but it'd probably be a different word.
"Go tomorrow. Have you got enough business cards?"
"I've got them."
"Take twenty, mind."
Back at my desk, I checked the card case. For now I added some from the refill box and made it up to twenty.
With no appointment, leaving one behind would be doing well.
I thought about it while I got the cards ready, and I still didn't know who the introduction and the apology were for.
The next day, ten o'clock.
I stood in front of the KaibaCorp head office building.
Looking up from directly underneath, it's so big my neck starts hurting and I can't see the whole building anyway, so I stopped partway. I look at this every day. From the office window, from the station platform, and it's visible from the outside stairs of my apartment too. It's got bigger since I was in high school.
It was the first time I'd been inside.
The automatic doors are doubled. Once you're through the first one, air comes out — there's something fitted to blow the dust off you. When the second one opened, the sound changed. The ceiling is high. And still, voices don't echo.
The lobby runs about forty metres deep. The floor is stone, in large slabs with no joints. What does one of those cost, I thought. And then I realised what I was thinking about, and it put me off a bit.
The job's been showing since I walked in.
There were plenty of people, but every one of them was walking fast towards somewhere, and nobody was stopping or standing about talking.
There are three reception seats straight ahead, with women in uniform sitting at them. For now, I went to the one on the end.
"Thank you for your continued business. I'm Wheeler of Minami Setsubi, second-tier under Omiya Setsubi Kogyo."
I said that and held out a card. The receptionist took it with both hands and answered that the pleasure was theirs.
"Which department is your appointment with today?"
"Ah…"
Only now did I notice I didn't even know the department name.
Nobody told me which department handles the redevelopment plan, and the section chief didn't say either. Urban development, business promotion — most places have names along those lines, but I couldn't see a guess getting me through here.
"I've come to introduce myself regarding the East District redevelopment."
"Do you know the name of the person handling it?"
"No."
"Forgive me. You don't have an appointment?"
"I don't."
Her expression didn't change. She didn't look troubled, and her smile didn't stiffen.
"I'm very sorry. We are not able to put through visitors without a booking."
"Um, then, could you put me through to the head of the company, or…"
"All of our contact points are handled through the prescribed procedure. For enquiries regarding business, please use this form."
I was handed a card printed with a URL and a QR code.
"Thank you for visiting."
I'd turned up unannounced, and from start to finish she was polite, and I was never once handled carelessly.
My card was placed in a small tray beside the reception desk. There were already a few others in it, so it must happen often.
When I got outside, it felt like the sun had come up a little.
There's a plaza in front of the building, with benches lined up. I sat down on one for now. I'd have to phone the office, but what was I supposed to report?
I checked the clock. It was still 10:20.
Might as well do what I can, so I looked at the card. This form URL is probably the kind anyone can fill in. Just a general enquiry window, the sort that's up on the website. Even without me coming, the section chief could have sent it from his computer.
I came because I was told to come.
The fact of having gone is what's needed — that's what I understood now. Because for Omiya, there needs to be a report that says we sent Wheeler over. All that, just for that.
When I looked up there was a staff entrance on the side of the building. The card round their necks opens that door. The ones going in and the ones coming out, all of them walk fast.
How many thousands work here?
And at the very top of it, there's him.
That, everyone in this town knows, and he's famous worldwide, so a fair number of people know it. You see him on the news, you see him in ads, you see him on magazine covers at the convenience store.
I really was his classmate, in the same room.
Not just that. We were two of the four left at the end of that tournament, on the same ship.
I remember being dragged into the sea at the pier, too. An anchor on the end of a chain, me shackled to Yugi, and down I went. I thrashed, my breath started running out, and then a key came down through the water.
I know who dropped it.
A man I sat in the same classroom with, rode the same ship with, climbed the same tower with — and I've got no way to meet him.
I don't know his phone number, don't know his email. Yugi might have some line to him.
But there's no way I could say it to Yugi.
What would I even say. Am I going to tell him I'm stuck at work so put me through to Kaiba? Sales or not, that's not something you can say to a friend.
And on top of that, I've turned down three invitations to the Sunday thing. I can't ask him that out of nowhere.
I got up from the bench and cut across the plaza.
Beside the exit there was something like a large digital display set up. A KaibaCorp product advertisement was running on it. Not an ordinary one — Solid Vision footage, and around it a white dragon spread its wings inside the screen, vanished, and it switched to the next thing.
An announcement for a Magic & Wizards tournament.
Hosted by KaibaCorp, open entry, scheduled for the month after next. Venue, the stadium inside Kaiba Land. Win it and there's some prize money, and apparently the newest-model Duel Disk as an additional prize.
I watched it to the end. I waited for it to come round again and checked the details.
The host is KaibaCorp. So it isn't out of the question that KC's president comes to this tournament.
There's every chance he doesn't, of course. Any way you look at it he's the type who enters, and even if he did come, it isn't as though I'd be told when or where he'd be.
Still — I don't know how it'd go, but the odds of him being there are better than being turned away at a reception desk.
At the very least, I can get into the tournament.
I got out my phone and photographed the details.
Then I phoned the office and reported that I'd been turned away at reception.
For someone who'd told me to go, the section chief only said, well, that figures.
