Joey opens his wallet at the end of August and the arithmetic doesn't work. Ninety-five thousand yen of drinks he paid for himself hasn't come back. In September the section chief tells him what a year of the same four questions was for, and uses a word he seems to surprise himself with. That night, on the kitchen floor, Joey works out what counting has been doing for him — and what it has been doing to him. He looks at the road ahead and finds nothing on it.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 07 同級
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
The site moves from six. There's work they want finished before the sun gets high. I join at half past six, attend the unloading, do the acceptance inspection, write up the slips.
Past ten it goes over forty degrees on the concrete. Sweat pools inside the hard hat and runs down the line of my jaw. Inside the safety boots gets wet too.
In the third week of August the extreme heat held, and two people went down with heatstroke on Block A. Not our people, tradesmen on the construction side. They were taken away by ambulance, and work stopped that afternoon.
That night too, I was drinking.
When the site stopping came up, the site manager just said, well, it's hot. Somebody said the correct approach these days is apparently to get up at five and sleep from noon, and there was laughter.
I took a mouthful of beer.
That day I got up at five, and at 22:00 I was still in my seat.
The counting started after I started work.
I used not to count even the days I was late.
In high school I really didn't count anything. If I had no money I borrowed and lent, if I got hungry I ate my lunch early, if I got sleepy I napped.
In Duels too, I'd watch people fighting while doing fine subtraction on the opponent's Life Points and think, they really go for it. I calculated as well, but basically I attacked when there was attacking to be done. Some of it I only understood after trying — whether it would shave all the way through or not.
That changed when I went into sales.
A quotation is numbers. Multiply the unit price by the quantity, apply the rate, drop the odd numbers.
A deadline is a number of days. A delivery is a number of vehicles and a time. If one number on a slip is wrong, the whole thing gets done again later.
Maybe from looking at numbers all day, I started thinking in numbers.
Weighing the sample case was surely because of that. 8.2 kilos. Before I weighed it, it was just a heavy case. After I weighed it, it became 8.2 kilos.
Once I knew it was 8.2 kilos, it got a bit easier.
Things you know, you can take.
Things you don't know are what wear you down.
So I started counting all sorts of things. The road from the station to the site is fourteen minutes, two traffic lights. Leaving the office is 19:20. The drinking session ends at 22:30. Go on to a second place and it's 24:00.
Count, know, and with that I thought I was managing.
At the end of August, I opened my wallet.
At the convenience store I didn't have many thousand-yen notes.
I hunted for coins, held things up at the till, and people queued behind me. Sorry, I said, with a small bow of the head.
Went outside, sat on a bench, checked what was in the wallet.
It was a mess of receipts and things, but there was 3,000 yen and a bit.
Payday is in ten days.
I checked the account on my phone.
There was 42,000 yen.
Last month's rent has already gone out. The next one is the 27th of next month, and by the arithmetic the salary lands before that. Utilities and phone come out next week. Fifteen thousand or so, together.
It works, but it's odd. Why is this all there is, I thought.
The salary is 220,000 take-home. It's fixed overtime, so overtime doesn't get added. But it was the same last year.
I don't remember what the end-of-month balance was around this time last year. Even so, I've got no memory of minding it this much.
So it has definitely gone down.
Why has it gone down.
Rent hasn't changed. Utilities are up a bit because it's summer, but not by that sort of amount. Meals are mostly convenience store, but they usually are. The money for drinking, I don't pay at the venue.
At the venue, I don't pay?
That's where my hand stopped.
I opened the notes on my phone. Everything I've covered myself, I make a note of. Date, amount, purpose. I'm told it comes back in cash, so without a record it's a problem.
I added them up from the top.
July. Two of them, 46,000 yen.
August. Three of them, 61,000 yen.
107,000 yen.
Of that, what's come back.
One from July, 12,000 yen.
That was all.
I added it again, and it was the same.
Of 107,000 yen, only 12,000. Ninety-five thousand that hasn't come back yet.
Looking at the screen, I thought about how it was last year.
I think there was covering last year too. But not that much. Basically I was given a company card and paid with that.
The number of people covering it went up from April.
April. The stretch when the remediation plan came up and I started being told we can't put this through expenses.
Which means the drinking money that can't be left in the records is being carried by me.
It comes out of my account, and it's supposed to come back.
And it hasn't come back.
The section chief has forgotten, I think. There's no bad intent in it, surely. He's busy. I forget to write up a slip sometimes myself. That's what I thought.
All I have to do is say it.
Section chief, the money I covered, if you could. That's all.
So why haven't I said it before now?
Right. Because there was no timing to say it in. Mornings on site, days at the office, nights drinking. There was no time when it was the two of us.
No — there was.
The way back from drinking, waiting for a taxi. In the office, too, there were several times a month when everyone was out and it was just the two of us.
At those times, I didn't say it.
I didn't say it because I didn't want to talk about money.
My old man was a man who talked about money. Lent so-and-so, so-and-so won't pay it back, that one took it off me. When he drank it turned into that. Because he was drunk, he said the same thing over and over.
I don't talk about money.
And so 95,000 yen is out there.
I got up off the bench.
Got up and started walking. Tried to stop counting. But my head carried on with the arithmetic on its own.
95,000 yen is 1.2 months of rent.
In the first week of September, the section chief called me in.
Inside the partition. He didn't tell me to sit, so I stood.
"Wheeler. Have you been talking with anyone at KC lately?"
"Talking about what?"
"Their upper end."
"Upper end — you mean not Mr. Hirano and that lot?"
"That's right."
I thought for a bit.
There was nothing to think about. There's only a countable number of times.
"Kaiba, a little."
The section chief's face lit up. Not that I've said anything worth calling talk.
"When."
"Twice. May and June."
"In order."
"May was when I drank and went under. When you went to buy water."
"That day."
"That day. A car stopped in front of where I was sitting, the window came down, and it was probably him. It was through a window, so probably."
"Did you talk?"
"He said something. What are you doing in a place like this, something along those lines."
"And you?"
"Don't remember. Might have said something."
The section chief was quiet.
"Then the window closed, a black suit got out, and I was given water. The car went on."
"…And that's May."
"Yes. June was the twenty-fourth floor at KC. In the corridor on the way to the reception room, he came the other way, and as we passed."
"Did you talk?"
"Two or three words."
"About what?"
"I tried to thank him for the water in May. And he said, that matter is finished."
"That all?"
There was one more.
At least think about your own road of the future.
I started to open my mouth, and closed it.
For some reason, I didn't want to say it.
It isn't something to hide. If anything, it's a phrase I don't understand the meaning of, so reporting it would only put the section chief out. And then he'd say, so what does it mean, and that would put me out. And it'd end with, what's that supposed to be.
That it would end was, for some reason, what I didn't like.
"…That's all."
"I see."
The section chief looked at the ceiling for a while and leaned back in his chair.
"Wheeler. The May business. Why didn't you say?"
"I did say. The black suit said he was from KC, you heard that yourself, didn't you."
"Not that. I mean that the president himself came."
"I don't know that it was him. …Probably was, I think."
"Who else is riding in that company's car."
Put like that, he was right.
In June too, the one who stopped was him. Because I called out, but he had no obligation to stop.
The section chief leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling.
He was quiet a while.
"Wheeler."
"Yes."
"You were in the same year as President Kaiba, weren't you."
Third time.
The first was last autumn, in the tatami room of the izakaya. Mr. Ando said it. I hear you were in the same year as President Kaiba? Nobody demanded anything of me then. I said same year, yeah, and the conversation flowed off elsewhere.
The second was last October, in this room. The section chief said it. In sales you use that kind of thing. And I thought, is that how it is.
The third time wasn't a question.
It was a confirmation.
It was the way you say something already established, to check it.
"…Same year, yeah."
Appealing to that man's feelings is an absurd idea.
"You've heard about Block C."
"The September start."
"There's a move on for us to come in as a second-tier on it. They're selecting the main contractor now, and what's below gets decided after that. But if your name is up at the top, it tells at selection."
"Right."
"I want the name Minami Setsubi put in at their upper end."
"By me?"
"Who else is going to go?"
I looked at the section chief's face.
"Can we get an appointment?"
"If we could get one we'd have got one long ago."
The same words as last year.
Word for word the same.
"So how, then."
"You've got a face that works over there."
"It doesn't work."
"It works."
The section chief leaned forward.
"Wheeler. Do you understand where they're putting you?"
"Twenty-fourth floor."
"Kobayashi gets the little room by reception. The narrow partitioned one. Same documents to hand over, and he's ten minutes and you're forty. Coffee comes out. Sweets come out. Mr. Hirano comes down himself to meet you. That isn't normal."
I said nothing.
"A year. A year, every time you went, I've asked you the same things. Where they put you, who came out, how long you were there. Do you understand? I was checking, the whole time."
"…Checking what."
"Whether you have value."
The section chief said it, and stopped for a moment, as though surprised by his own word.
But he didn't correct it.
"Not in a bad sense. For a company like ours to get into a place like KC, you need that sort of thing. Connections. That's what sales is."
"Yes."
"I'm counting on you."
"Right."
I came out of the partition, went back to my own desk, and sat.
I looked at the computer screen. A quotation, partway through. Numbers in a row.
For about a minute, I couldn't read them.
I left the office at 19:00.
There was no drinking that day. From the last week of August into early September the sessions thin out with the post-Obon adjustments.
Got home, turned on the light, took off my shirt.
Showered, came out, drank water.
Beside the sink, a plastic bottle was standing.
The one from May. Empty, left there four months. It's started gathering dust.
I looked at it and sat down where I was.
I was checking, the whole time, the section chief said.
A year.
From last November, the day the first summons came, the section chief asked every time. Where they put you, who came out, how long you were there, whether coffee was served.
I took that for part of the job. I thought reporting it was the job.
It wasn't.
He was comparing.
Kobayashi's turn. Kobayashi went in January, finished in ten minutes by reception, and came back. The section chief asked. Where they put you, upstairs, coffee.
Kobayashi answered, and the section chief was quiet.
And then he said nothing, but he looked over at me.
The answer came out at that point.
From there the section chief stopped sending anyone but me. Twice in February, three times in March, twice in April, once in May. All me.
Once I asked whether Kobayashi wouldn't do.
You go, I was told.
I said I had a site, and I was told the site can be passed to someone.
It can be passed, then, I thought, and it surprised me.
Three years of being told it can't be passed. Only Wheeler can go, it takes stamina, it's an early start. Three years of it.
And it could be passed.
Why could it be passed.
Because when I go it takes forty minutes and coffee comes out.
Because the section chief judged that forty minutes was worth more than the site.
I sat on the floor and looked at my hands.
The knuckles are dirty. From handling things on site. I washed them and it hasn't come off.
There was one more.
8 November last year. The ten days before the Duel.
The entertainment was zero.
In three years, that had never once happened. Condition management, the section chief said. He said have a suit made, we'll put it through expenses. He said give the company name on the day.
That wasn't for me.
It would be a problem if I broke, so they stopped it for ten days.
They stopped it for ten days because they judged ten days would be enough.
From the eleventh day they put it back. From April they increased it. And on top of that, they took it out of the records.
What disappeared comes out of my account.
The 95,000 yen I forgot to mention again today.
I try counting the drinking. From April: April was nine, May seven, June eight, July six, August seven. Thirty-seven in four and a half months.
At four hours each, a hundred and forty-eight hours.
That much time, I've been sitting at drinking tables.
That time isn't recorded anywhere.
I haven't filed overtime applications. Because I can't. That's been made into something that isn't work.
Then what is it.
What have I been taking those hundred and forty-eight hours for?
Until now I thought it was work, and now I couldn't say it was work.
Not being able to say it probably means what it means.
There are thirty-two days of paid leave. In three years I haven't used one.
If I'd taken thirty-two days off, what would I have been doing?
Nothing came, and I sat vacantly for a while.
Nothing comes because I've forgotten what a day off is for.
I took three days over the holidays last year. Until the afternoon of the third day I was mostly asleep. Woke, ate, slept again. I thought that was a day off.
It isn't.
That's recovery.
It only puts back what was taken. Nothing gets added.
The kind of day off that's enjoyable, that adds something — what was that like?
In high school, what did I do on days off?
Right, I went to the card shop. Went to Yugi's place. Went to the river with Tristan on our bikes. Walked for no reason.
If I got hungry I ate, if I got sleepy I slept.
I didn't count anything.
Back then.
That was where my breath nearly stopped.
A life without counting, I was living until three years ago. Living it until three years ago, and now I know it's fourteen minutes from the station to the site. I know there are two traffic lights. I know the sample case is 8.2 kilos. I know there are thirty-two days of paid leave. I know 95,000 yen has been covered.
All of it is what I counted.
Because without counting, I couldn't take it.
Things you know, you can take. Things you don't know are what wear you down. So I counted.
I counted and became able to take it, and because I became able to take it, three years went by.
It's the other way round. Isn't it that it went on for three years because I counted?
The floor was cold.
It's September, and the kitchen floor felt cold.
I pulled my knees up.
The road of the future, that man said.
I took it for a lecture. I thought I ought to be angry. That I wasn't angry, I put down to not understanding the meaning.
Wrong.
It wasn't that I didn't understand the meaning.
I had nothing to put on it.
——The road of the future.
My road of the future — where does it go?
What am I doing next month? Going to get Block C through. But that's the company's future.
What am I doing next year? Probably the same thing. If there's a Block D, then Block D.
Three years from now? Three years from now, probably the same.
The same, and I'll be twenty-four.
Twenty-four, and will I still be counting and taking it?
Beyond that. Think as I might, beyond that was blank.
It isn't blank. I thought it was blank because I hadn't looked. When I looked, there was nothing there.
I stood up.
Stood up, and looked at the plastic bottle beside the sink.
Four months there, gathering a little dust.
Why did he give me water?
Why has he been summoning me since last year?
Thinking about it, the summonses were always on days with something in the evening.
Not always, to be exact. One in March was a Tuesday morning. One in February was a Thursday with no entertainment.
But most of them were.
From November last year to May this year, nine or ten times. Of those, seven or eight had a session in the evening.
I took it for coincidence.
Took it for — or rather, I never once looked at it the other way.
What I was thinking about was only that when I go to KC the day gets shorter. The time at the office goes down. I don't have to answer the phone. I thought it was easy.
Finding it easy caught on something a bit. I thought, it's work, am I allowed to find it easy.
It only caught, and I stopped there.
I stopped, and it wasn't because I was afraid of what came next.
It was because I didn't have the strength to think.
I picked up the bottle. Light.
The one who put it in my hands was the black suit, but the one who gave the instruction was the man in the car.
The car stopped. It didn't go past.
I never once thought hard about that.
On a road at night, a drunk man is sitting on the ground. There's no reason for a car not to go past. For him, all the more so.
Whichever way you take it, he has no reason to stop.
That it stopped means there was a reason.
What the reason is, I don't know.
I could have asked, and I didn't.
Five years ago, I didn't ask either.
Went down into the sea at the pier, a key came down through the water, and nobody said who dropped it.
I didn't ask either.
Why didn't I ask?
Because if I asked, an answer would come back.
And then I'd have to return something to it myself.
I put the bottle in the sink.
Turned the tap, filled a glass with water, drank.
After I'd drained two, I said it out loud.
"Maybe I'll change jobs."
In the kitchen, to nobody.
Change jobs. Saying it out loud, it was a more ordinary phrase than I'd expected.
An ordinary phrase, and in three years I've never once said it.
I got out my phone and searched job listings.
Searched a few, opened them, closed them, opened them again.
Before I knew it, it was past eleven at night. Tomorrow it's the site at half past six.
I put the phone on the charger and turned off the light.
Got into the futon, closed my eyes.
Before I fell asleep, I thought it once more.
The road of the future.
What did that man mean by it?
