The East District starts moving and the work doubles. April was nine drinking sessions; Joey only knows because he counted them afterwards in his notebook. On a Tuesday in May the pause before the glass fails to work, and he goes down on a guard rail. A car stops that doesn't drive past. Two weeks later, a notice arrives from above about labour compliance, and the lights start going off at 18:00.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 06 未来のロード
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
Nothing to do with that, the East District started moving.
Block A broke ground on 12 April, Block B in June, Block C in September. Three schedules went up side by side on the office wall.
Our deliveries went into full swing too. Up to March it was the stage of confirming specifications and pinning down quantities; from April the actual goods move. Attending deliveries, acceptance inspections, swapping out defects, and adjusting the next week's schedule as well.
The volume of work changed. Went up enormously.
I started getting up at five. Days came up where 5:20 didn't get me there. Getting back to the office runs past 19:00. Work up quotations from there, and being home by 21:00 is on the early side.
Even so, the entertainment didn't go down.
Far from going down, with Block A moving there were more companies involved. Not just Mr. Ando's side but the main contractor on the construction, other materials suppliers, sessions with places like that started coming in.
April was nine.
It wasn't logged anywhere. I counted it afterwards, going back through my notebook.
Over the May holidays I took three days.
Until the afternoon of the third day I was mostly asleep. Woke, ate, slept again.
Woke in the evening and looked at the room. Not much different from before the break started.
Plates had piled up in the sink, however many days' worth. I didn't open the curtains once over the whole holiday.
The deck case was on the shelf. I haven't opened it since last November.
The tournament ended, I had my one match with him, and I put them back in the case. Left it on the shelf, and that was that. Wiped it once in March, that's all.
I sat down and opened the case.
Laid them out on the floor one at a time.
Forty, all there. I haven't so much as taken them out, so obviously.
I went through them in order. Six months ago, with these forty, I won a tournament of four hundred.
I did win, though, I thought.
For some reason I noticed I was doubting it.
That I came first is certain. There's the prize certificate, and the Duel Disk from the additional prize is sitting there, in its box. In the end I've never once opened the box.
I looked at the cards laid out for a while.
Beyond that I didn't even try drawing one.
Gathered them, squared them, put them back in the case, put the case back on the shelf.
That day, I did that much and it was over.
It was the Tuesday of the third week of May.
There was no summons. Twice in April and once in May, but that week there hadn't been one.
The entertainment was coming in as usual. From 18:00, Mr. Ando and his young one. The site manager from the main contractor on the construction, the deputy manager, and two more. From us, me and the section chief.
The first place was a yakitori place by the station.
The site manager could hold his drink. He drinks himself, and he's the sort who makes others drink. He seemed to have taken to me: whenever mine was empty he poured, and then watched until I drank it. Not an atmosphere you can refuse in.
Partway through, the section chief stopped looking my way.
Beer went to shochu, and at 20:00 the sake came out.
The moment's pause before picking up the glass didn't work properly.
The ritual that should always be there had gone thin that day.
I drank as it was poured.
How many I got made to drink, by that point, I wasn't counting.
At 21:30 the first place finally ended, and we were moving on to a second. Five minutes' walk, somebody said. Mr. Ando's favourite place.
I always sing a song there that nobody ever listens to. An old one; I learned it in that place.
I came out of the shop running through the list of Mr. Ando's favourite songs.
The outside air was cold against my flushed face, and it felt good. That's the last part I clearly remember.
I was following everyone, walking.
I meant to be walking.
But partway along the road it swayed, and I put a hand on the guard rail. From there my knees went down.
"Wheeler?"
Someone said.
"You all right there?"
I'm fine, I tried to say.
Whether it came out, I don't know.
"You lot go on ahead, I'll sit him down."
That was the section chief's voice.
"No, one of our young ones has gone under as well. Same on both sides."
That's the site manager's voice.
Laughter moving away.
I was sitting propped against the post of the guard rail. The ground was cold.
"Wheeler."
I could tell the section chief had crouched down.
"Can you stand?"
"I can stand."
I couldn't stand.
"Wait there a minute. I'll get water."
The section chief moved off.
I shut my eyes and rested my head against the post.
When I shut my eyes it went round and round, so I opened them. Open, and what was going round was still going round.
Cars going past are dazzling. Headlights come from the right and pull away to the left.
One of them didn't go past.
It stopped a little ahead of me.
I opened my eyes thinking an ambulance had come, and it was a big black car. The engine was quiet.
While I was looking at it, the rear window came down.
"…"
I could see the face of the person inside. I took it for a trick of the eyes.
"What are you doing in a place like this."
That was what it sounded like, in a voice I'd heard before. I took that for a trick of the ears as well.
I think I tried to say something, but I don't remember what.
I might have said hey, Kaiba, and I might not have.
The face in the car didn't move.
That he'd sighed, I could tell from the movement. Probably.
The window closed.
But the car didn't move.
The passenger door opened and a man in a black suit got out. He came in front of me and crouched.
"Excuse me."
I was set upright, put into a position with my back against the guard rail on the pavement side.
"Water."
A plastic bottle was put in my hands.
"Do you have someone with you?"
"…Section chief. Gone for water."
"Understood. Would you wait here, please."
The black suit stood, went back towards the car, and said something through the window.
Then the car pulled away.
I stayed leaning against the guard rail with the bottle in my hands.
The black suit stayed as well. Stood a little way off, looking at me.
The section chief came back.
"Wheeler. Water."
"…Got some."
"What?"
The section chief noticed the black suit and stopped.
The black suit inclined his head.
"Forgive the intrusion. We were passing."
"Er — who might you be?"
"We are with KaibaCorp."
I just watched from below as the section chief's face changed.
The black suit said nothing further, bowed once, and walked away.
The section chief was quiet for a while.
"…Wheeler."
"Yes."
"What was that."
"…Dunno."
I didn't know.
I really didn't know any of it.
Next morning I woke at six.
I'd slept on the floor. Just inside the entryway. One shoe still on.
My body hurt, and when I got up my head hurt enormously instead.
I went as far as the kitchen, went to drink water, and noticed I was holding something.
An empty plastic bottle.
The one the section chief went to buy yesterday, then. Seems I managed to drink water and get home.
When I looked at the label, the KC logo was on it.
The same one they put out in the reception room when I was summoned in April. The same one that got thrown to me in that waiting room last autumn.
Not sold in shops.
I've never even seen it on sale in a convenience store.
I looked at it for a while.
Time to leave for work was coming up. Today of all days I did at least shower, and put on a shirt. I set the bottle beside the sink.
No particular reason to throw it away, and no particular reason to keep it.
In the first week of June a summons came.
Specification confirmation for Block B. Thursday, 15:00.
I went. It was routine by now. Get the card at reception, through the gate, into the elevator. Twenty-fourth floor this time.
I came out of the elevator and was walking the corridor towards the reception room.
Nobody's escorted me for a good while. They just tell you the room number at reception.
I turned a corner and people came the other way.
Four of them, and the one walking in front was the tall white coat.
Four months.
Whether I ought to at least bow and say something, or whether that was a bit late by now — while I was thinking it, he looked at me.
Our eyes met, and the pace of his walking didn't change.
I hadn't meant to speak. But my mouth opened.
"Kaiba."
His feet stopped.
Only his. The three behind stopped a beat later, then dropped back a little.
"Uh, the other day, the…"
Probably I'm not wrong. He looked after me.
All I had to say was thanks. That's a matter that ends at appreciate it.
"Unnecessary."
Cut off.
"Huh?"
"That matter is finished."
I stopped with my mouth open.
He finds being thanked a nuisance. That's how it looked to me.
No — he doesn't even think it's the kind of thing you'd remember and thank someone for.
In his head, that business is finished. Water was put in my hands, and with that the processing was complete. Replying to a finished matter is the same as submitting the document twice.
"…Right then."
"Wheeler."
He used my name.
It might have been the first time. Up to now it's been you, or some name that wasn't a compliment. I've got no memory of him using my name.
"What."
"At least think about your own road of the future."
He said. The meaning isn't clear. That was all.
"Huh?"
"Did you not hear."
"I heard, but what's that supposed to be."
"It means what it says."
He started walking.
"Oi, hang on."
He didn't stop.
The three fell in behind, and four sets of footsteps moved away.
I was standing in the corridor.
I came to and checked the time, and there were five minutes until the 15:00 appointment.
Went into the reception room, checked the documents, affixed the seal, answered questions, came out in forty minutes.
The whole time, what he'd said was caught on something.
The road of the future.
Is that a lecture, maybe.
If it's a lecture, I should have told him he's got no business saying it to me. There was time to answer back.
But I didn't answer back.
It wasn't that I couldn't say anything — the words didn't come.
What am I doing right now.
I couldn't think about it.
Because there was nothing in my head to think with.
It was two weeks after that.
Before the morning meeting, the section chief was talking with the department head. Both of them looking at a computer.
The morning meeting started, and the section chief read from a sheet of paper.
"A notice has come from Omiya Setsubi Kogyo. It asks all business partners to review and correct their labour management arrangements."
The office went quiet.
"It's apparently based on a request from the client — that is, from KC. It says we're to submit a report on our current position regarding compliance with the Subcontract Act and labour legislation, plus a remediation plan, by the end of July."
Someone coughed.
"If we don't submit it, or if the contents are insufficient. It says orders for the next period may be subject to review."
He put the paper down.
"So. From today we're strict about leaving at finishing time."
The office stirred.
"Overtime applications go in beforehand. Not accepted on the day. Same for weekend working. And take-up of paid leave is in the reporting items too."
Paid leave.
I hadn't heard that phrase in a while.
I got the explanation when I joined. Starts at ten days a year and goes up with length of service. How many have I got now?
I'd never thought about it.
"Wheeler."
"Yes."
"How many days of paid leave have you got left."
"Dunno."
"Find out."
"Yes."
After the meeting I got one of the admin staff to check.
Thirty-two, I was told.
"Thirty-two."
"Yes. Twenty carried over from last year, and twelve for this year."
"I haven't used any?"
"You haven't used any."
Obviously, since I've got no memory of using any.
But the admin girl made an apologetic face.
Why is she the one making an apologetic face, I thought.
In July the atmosphere in the office changed.
Leaving at finishing time was enforced. The lights go off at 18:00.
But that was all that happened.
I started leaving the office at 18:00 and heading to a site. Acceptance inspections can fall in the evening depending on the site. If I'm not at the office it isn't overtime.
I started doing quotations at home. Carried the laptop back every day. It isn't working hours, so no application needed.
The volume of work doesn't go down, so without that it doesn't get done, and everyone was getting through their work the same way.
The entertainment didn't go down either.
Or rather, it disappeared from the records.
"Wheeler, we can't put this through expenses, so cover it yourself today. I'll give it back in cash later."
I started being told that from time to time.
The number of times I drink doesn't change. And yet nothing is left on paper.
At the end of July the remediation plan was submitted.
The section chief said so at the morning meeting.
"It went through without trouble. Thanks to everyone's cooperation."
There was applause.
I clapped too, but I didn't know what I was clapping for.
On paper, our company became decent.
My life had got worse than in April.
About the paid leave.
Japanese law grants annual paid leave that accrues with length of service, starting at ten days a year. It carries over for two years and then lapses. Employers are obliged to grant it; in practice, whether an employee can actually take it varies enormously.
Since 2019 there has also been a legal minimum: employers must ensure that employees who are granted ten or more days a year actually take at least five of them. Joey has thirty-two days accrued and has taken none of them, which is not merely unfortunate. It is a compliance problem for his company, and that is why the question suddenly gets asked.
