KC starts calling. A seal has to go on an original, so someone has to come in person, and the someone is always Joey. The section chief asks the same questions every time — which room, who came out, how long, whether there was coffee — and writes the answers in his notebook. In January, Joey turns twenty-one. Four months of visits, and he has not seen Kaiba once. Of course he hasn't. The one being called isn't him.
This is a translation of an original work.
Original Title: 05 押印
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
Drinking, one on Tuesday, one on Thursday. The week after, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. The week after that, four came in.
Ten days off is all it took, and my body had forgotten how to drink.
So that's a thing that happens, I thought. Over a year at three or four a week, and it had become normal. And ten days off is all it takes to forget how to go back. Partway through the second place I got the timing wrong on ordering water. Order late and it catches up with you later.
Next morning I couldn't get up to the 5:20 alarm.
I woke with a start at 5:40 and went out in a rush without showering. On the train I was bothered by my own smell, but nothing to be done.
When I got to the site Mr. Eguchi told me I didn't look well.
"Had a late one yesterday."
"'You're young' — you're not meant to say that these days, are you."
Mr. Eguchi said that and laughed.
I laughed back.
The first contact from KC came at the end of November.
An email arrived at the company. Addressed to the section chief, with my name in the body, apparently.
Regarding confirmation of floor material specifications, East District Block A. As a seal must be affixed to the original, we would ask that a representative of your company attend our offices. No particular person is specified, though someone with a grasp of the contents of the documents is preferred.
The section chief called me over.
"Wheeler. Can you do this?"
"When is it?"
"16:00, day after tomorrow."
Day after tomorrow is Thursday. Thursday I've got drinks with the younger lot from Mr. Ando's side. From 18:00. I'll make it, probably.
"I can do it."
"Right, off you go then."
"Shouldn't it be Omiya rather than us?"
"Given the contact has come to us like this, it's us."
The section chief answered firmly, but that was the whole of his reasoning.
I opened my schedule and wrote KC at 16:00 on Thursday. Below it, the 18:00 entry was still sitting there.
Thursday, I got to the KC building ten minutes before the appointment.
It's the second time I've come like this.
The doubled automatic doors, the large slabs of stone on the floor, unchanged. The pace people walk at is the same too.
I went to reception, and this time I could give a name.
"I'm Wheeler of Minami Setsubi. I have an appointment at 16:00 with someone from the Business Development Division."
"Mr. Wheeler. We've been expecting you."
This time the name went through properly.
Reception handed me a card to hang round my neck. Guest written on it. I held it up as I'd been told at the desk, and the gate opened.
The person handling it rode the elevator with me, held a card up, and then pressed the button for the twenty-fourth floor.
"Twenty-fourth floor?"
"Yes."
High up. The town was visible out of the window, dropping away fast. The road I always walk turned into something like a diorama.
I was shown into a reception room.
A long table with chairs lined up along it. Some sort of picture on the wall. A wide window at the back, and after a while coffee came.
There were two documents.
Floor material specifications — ours, cross-checked against KC's design standards. Confirm both sets of numbers, confirm there are no errors, affix the seal. That was all it was.
The job itself was done in ten minutes.
"Thank you very much. Just to be safe, could we also go over the delivery schedule going forward?"
"Yes."
From there we talked for another fifteen minutes or so. Looked at the schedule, confirmed quantities for next month and the month after, answered questions. Where I couldn't answer I made notes to take back.
"Thank you for coming today."
I left the building at 16:35.
When I looked at my phone there was a message from the section chief.
Finished?
Just out now
Get back here
I went straight back to the office and arrived a little past 17:00. The section chief was at his desk.
"How was it?"
"Sealed it and that was it. The spec was all correct."
"Where did they put you?"
"Huh?"
"Which room."
"Reception room, twenty-fourth floor."
The section chief's hand stopped.
"Twenty-fourth."
"Yes."
"Who came out?"
"A Mr. Hirano from Business Development, and one younger guy."
"How long were you there?"
"About thirty minutes… I suppose. Went in at 16:00 exactly and came out at 35 past."
The section chief opened his notebook and was writing something.
"Did they serve coffee?"
"They did."
He wrote again.
What's he checking? We serve green tea, not coffee, I was thinking, standing there.
"Um, the 18:00."
"Ah."
The section chief finally looked up.
"It'll have started. Going now would be neither one thing nor the other. Leave it today."
"Is that all right?"
"I'll tell Mr. Ando's lot myself. Say you were at KC and they shouldn't have a word to say."
Is that how it works, I thought.
I went back to my desk and sorted my notes. Even so, I left by 18:30.
That day, I ate an evening meal for the first time in a while.
Bought a bento at the convenience store on the way home and ate it in my room. While I was chewing the rice, something felt odd.
It had a taste.
That the taste was what had felt odd, I worked out later.
The second time was the second week of December.
It was about a replacement to the construction procedure document. It said it couldn't be taken off site as it was in a secure zone, and would we attend and confirm it there.
Tuesday, 17:00.
That day I had client entertainment from 19:00.
But I went again. The section chief named me.
Not the twenty-fourth floor this time, but still a meeting room on the twenty-second. Read through the procedure document, confirmed the changes, signed it off.
I checked the clock and it had taken twenty-five minutes.
When I got back, the section chief asked the same things again.
"Where was it today?"
"Meeting room, twenty-second."
"Coffee?"
"They served it. Sweets as well."
The section chief wrote in his notebook again.
By the time I got to that evening's entertainment they'd already moved to the second place. I joined them, but since I arrived at 20:30, the amount I got made to drink was less than half the usual.
The third time was late December. Confirmation of the year-end delivery plan.
That day too, there was something on in the evening.
The year turned, and in mid-January.
After the morning meeting the section chief said another email had come from KC — but today he called someone who wasn't me.
"Kobayashi. You go to KC."
Kobayashi is three years above me. He isn't on the East District at the moment, but he knows what's in the documents.
"Wouldn't Wheeler do it?"
"He's on site in the daytime. You go."
I'd finished on site and was working at my desk when Kobayashi came back from KC. Went out in the afternoon and was back in an hour and a half, apparently.
"How was it?"
the section chief asked.
"Ah, handed the documents over and that was it. Got the seal on them, didn't take ten minutes."
"Where did they put you?"
"Where — the room next to reception. The one for meetings, partitioned off."
"Upstairs?"
"Didn't go up."
The section chief said nothing.
While Kobayashi was giving his report I was working up a quotation at my own desk. I couldn't follow the details, but the sound of them talking on the other side of the partition came through in patches.
"Coffee?"
"No chance, it was ten minutes. There was a vending machine, mind."
The section chief said nothing.
After Kobayashi went back to his own seat on the floor, the section chief came out too and looked over at me.
Only looked, and said nothing.
25 January was a Monday.
In the morning there was a notification on my lock screen. A game app I've had installed forever. Happy birthday! Please claim your login bonus, it said.
Right, I thought, and didn't open it.
I turned twenty-one.
Washed my face, shaved, put on a shirt. No site first thing today. I'm going straight to the office.
On the train I looked at my phone and there was a message from Serenity.
Big brother, happy birthday! How are you doing? Let me know next time you're over this way
Yugi had sent one too. So had Tristan and Téa. The three of them had written in the group, and it had turned into a birthday conversation there.
Let's go get a drink, Tristan wrote.
Joey, you must be busy — don't push yourself, Yugi wrote.
Still, I'd like to see everyone's faces, Téa wrote.
I marked them read and got off the train.
Once I got to the office I worked up three quotations. Calls came in with changes several times while I did.
In the afternoon there was a delivery to Omiya, about two hours round trip.
At 17:30 the section chief called me over.
"Wheeler. Come along straight from here today. Two of Mr. Ando's young ones are coming."
"Yes."
From 18:00, a place by the station.
Six of us in a tatami room. I sat in the seat nearest the entrance.
The beer came and we drank to it.
There was a moment's pause before I picked up the glass.
The ritual that's always there was there today as well.
I drank the beer. It switched to sake after 20:00, and we moved to the second place at 22:00.
It's a place with a girl the department head favours, and there's a bottle in keep with a tag on the neck bearing his name. But for some reason it isn't him drinking it, it's me.
When the glass gets down to about a fifth, more gets topped up from the bottle. At first it was cut with water; at some point it became soda. When that changed, I don't remember. Somebody being thoughtful said it goes down easier, I think. Depending on the mixer, the girls get a cut. When I learned how a place like that works, I don't remember either.
Both of the young ones went under, and I saw it through to putting them in a taxi.
I got home just before midnight.
Turned on the light in the room and drank two glasses of water.
Before the date changed, I opened my phone and replied to Serenity.
Yeah, thanks. I'm doing fine. Work's busy but it's normal, more or less. I'll let you know when I'm over there, and you let me know if you're coming this way
That's what I sent.
Wrote in the group as well.
Thanks, everyone. I'll come once things settle down
After I wrote once things settle down, my hand stopped a bit.
The predictive text was showing I'll come. I've written the same thing before.
I can't remember when I wrote it, but it feels like I'm always writing it. Or rather — it's in the predictive text because I write it.
I tried to remember what I did on my birthday last year.
Last year was the year I turned twenty. I turned twenty, and from about two months after that I started drinking. Started drinking — or rather, started being made to drink.
The birthday itself doesn't come back.
Three years ago I remember. Tristan and Téa and Yugi, the four of us went to karaoke, Tristan started saying he'd pay and in the end we split it, and when we came out it was snowing. That was January of our last year of high school. The stretch when I was fretting over whether I'd get a job.
Last year I was one year and ten months in.
The January of my one year and ten months, what was I doing?
Working, probably. On today, at two years and ten months, I worked.
I put the phone down and hung my shirt on the chair. I didn't shower. I thought I should.
I checked the alarm. 5:20.
Tomorrow it's the site first thing.
At the end of January, word came again.
The section chief called me over.
"Wheeler. KC."
"What is it this time?"
"Confirmation of the February deliveries and a drawing replacement, apparently."
"Wouldn't Kobayashi do? He went the other time."
"You go."
"I've got a site on Friday."
"The site can be passed to someone."
That's what he said.
It can be passed, then, I thought.
Up to now I've been told the site can't be passed. Only Wheeler can go, it takes stamina, it's an early start — reasons like that, for about three years of it.
If it can be passed, then it could have been passed, couldn't it.
I thought it, and didn't say it out loud.
Saying it wouldn't get me a right, we'll pass it on from now. It just happened to be passable today, I think.
"Understood."
"Wheeler."
"Yes."
"If they say anything over there, make notes on all of it. Who said what, as well."
"Right."
"And, where they put you."
"You ask that every time."
The section chief stopped for a moment.
"…It's part of the job."
"Yes."
Twice in February, three times in March, I went to KC.
Every time I went, the section chief asked the same things. Where they put me, who came out, how long I was there, whether coffee was served.
I answered all of it. Since I get asked the same things, I started taking notes each time on the items I get asked about, in order to answer. Floor, room number, name of the person handling it, times in and out.
I don't know what it gets used for, but at some point it had become part of the job.
There were plenty of days it clashed with something in the evening. Obviously, there were days it didn't. One of the March ones was in the morning, and one of the February ones was a day with no entertainment.
So at the time I took that for coincidence, and I never once looked at it the other way.
What I was thinking about was something else. When I go to KC, the day gets shorter. With the travel in it, the time I spend at the office goes down. If I'm not at the office, I don't have to answer the phone. I've got to work up the quotations separately, mind, but there's no site, so my body doesn't get tired.
Compared with that sort of thing, going was easy.
Whether I was allowed to find an easy thing easy caught on something a bit. It's work, after all. But I made a point of not thinking about it too hard.
At the end of March, Mr. Hirano said something to me in the lobby of the building.
"Mr. Wheeler, thank you as always. In our division, Minami Setsubi means you now."
"That so."
"You take notes, don't you. That's a help, actually. Next time you come, the previous conversation is joined up."
"Ah — well, I report it upstairs."
"Even so, joined up is easier."
Mr. Hirano laughed, said see you again then, and went off through the gate.
I was standing on this side of the gate.
I returned the card round my neck to the drop box.
The card with Guest written on it. Obviously, but however many times I come, a guest is a guest.
Outside, it was the end of March and still cold.
I looked up at the building. Still as big as ever.
Around the twenty-fourth floor there's a row of windows visible. I can't tell which room is which, but the reception room I was shown into is probably about there.
Above that there are another twenty floors or so.
And at the top of it, there's him.
Four months, and I haven't seen him once. It's not that I want to, and it's not that I've got business with him.
My business is the Business Development Division. Mr. Hirano of Business Development, and sometimes a younger guy, and I check the documents and affix the seal. There's no scene where he comes out.
Of course there isn't.
The one being called isn't me, it's Minami Setsubi. And even if it were me, he'd have no business with me either.
That's what I thought, and I walked towards the station.
About the seal.
In Japan, a document is validated by a hanko — a personal or corporate seal, pressed in red ink — rather than by a signature. The two are separate acts. A company's seal lives on the company's premises and is applied to the original copy of a document, which is why an actual person has to travel to the other company's building to get it done. An email will not do it.
English does have the vocabulary for this (to affix a seal, signed and sealed), but the weighting is reversed. Here a signature is the act that binds and a seal is largely ceremonial. In Japan the seal is usually the operative act, and the signature is often optional.
Worth holding on to.
