March is empty, and Joey doesn't know what a day off is for. He cleans, he sleeps until seven, he counts the things he can put forward as proof — and notices he is counting again. In April there is a new job where overtime gets written down. Then a Saturday, a car at one, and a road that has nothing laid on it yet.
This is a translation of an original work.
Original Title: 13 未来のロード
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
I hadn't set an alarm, but I got up and looked at the clock and it was five.
I got up, went to the kitchen, drank water.
No site today. And not just today. March, the whole of it, is nothing.
For now I opened the fridge. Four eggs in it.
Shut it.
Opened it again, thought about frying an egg, and since there's nothing else to go with it decided against it and shut it again.
There was nothing to do.
It got to six, it got to seven, it started getting light outside, and at last I opened the curtains.
I realised I didn't know how long it had been since I'd opened them.
Light came in, and the inside of the room looked oddly detailed. Dust on the floor, marks on the wall and on the desk.
It isn't that I couldn't see it before, I don't think. I hadn't the spare strength to look. This might be what he meant, too — it was not that you could not see it, you were not looking.
First, I started cleaning.
Washed the plates in the sink and stood them up to drain.
Then I took everything out of the fridge. A multipack of yoghurt came out. Best-before was last November. Obviously I threw it away.
Wiped the shelves, ran the vacuum over the floor. Opened the closet, sorted the clothes by season again, and put them back.
Finally it got to midday.
Went to the convenience store, bought a bento, ate it in my room.
Finished eating, looked at the clock, and it was 12:40.
Still the middle of the day.
I sat where I was and looked at the wall for a while.
Second day, I woke at five too.
Third day, five again.
Fourth day it was 5:20.
On the fifth day, at last, I slept through to seven for the first time.
When I looked at the clock and saw it showing seven, my back went cold. Because I thought I'd overslept.
Once my head started working properly, I remembered there was nothing to oversleep for.
No site, no office. Nobody's phoning.
I looked at my phone and there were two notifications. One was a news app, the other was a card game app.
From the company, nothing. The leave ended, I formally resigned, and that was that. That's how it stands.
I got back into the futon and closed my eyes again.
Next time I woke, it was ten.
That day I didn't clean or do anything else.
At the start of the second week, on a weekday afternoon, I went to the card shop behind the station.
A shop I'd been to before. That time as well, the owner was on his own at the counter.
I looked through to the back and there were three high schoolers. Spring break, I suppose.
"Oh, it's the guy who won."
"Hey."
"You off today?"
"Something like that."
I played four, three wins one loss.
The one I lost, I got pushed through. The kid was the type who builds carefully, and my attack got stopped twice. On the third go I got it through somehow, but by then my defence had been broken open.
"You go on the attack, don't you."
"Do I?"
"You feel different from the bloke in that video I saw."
The video. The KC Cup final. That's a year and a half ago.
"That's right, different bloke."
"It's the same one."
The high schooler laughed.
On the way home, I thought about it a bit.
The me of a year and a half ago set cards, defended, got shaved down and lost. Back then I hadn't even noticed I was defending.
Now I'm attacking.
Attacking, and losing.
Same loss, and the tiredness is different.
During that week I sent him an email.
The address that was on the email from the senior managing director. Folded in four, and I'd been carrying it around in my backpack.
seto.kaiba@kaibacorp.co.jp
I typed it in and looked at the screen a while.
I hadn't decided what to write.
It's Wheeler. Want to Duel?
For now that's all I typed, and sent it.
The reply came in under an hour.
When you are at full strength, I will face you.
That was all.
I looked at the screen.
Full strength, what's that. I'm well right now. I sleep till seven, I eat, I'm handling the cards.
I am at full strength
I sent that, and no reply came.
Three days later I sent another.
How about today
There is no interest in crushing a weakened opponent.
Weakened, he'd written.
I got a bit annoyed.
I'm not weakened
Then prove it.
How am I supposed to do that
And then, no reply came.
Into the third week, I went over my own life.
Because being told to prove it, I didn't know how to prove it. What would count as proof?
If there's anything I can put out, what is it.
First, I weighed myself. Seventy kilos. Unchanged since the last time I weighed.
I worked out my sleeping hours. Seven and a half. Compared with four years or so of five or six, it's much better.
What about number of meals. Three a day, properly. Up to now I hardly ate breakfast, and dinner was doubtful too.
I'm not drinking. Three weeks or so, not a drop.
After I'd counted the things I could prove, I noticed I was counting again.
Counting isn't a bad thing in itself, I thought.
If counting is a tool, then use the tool. Being used by the tool was the only problem.
I opened my phone and typed an email.
Three weeks, no drink. Seven and a half hours' sleep. Three proper meals a day. That's enough, right
The reply came in ten minutes.
I see. So that is what you counted.
I counted it
Very well.
That was all.
But that day too, no date got fixed.
A month went by, more or less like that.
31 March. I was in my room getting ready for the next day.
Work clothes I've been given. New safety boots issued as well. The hard hat I can use the old one, apparently. The one nobody told me to give back.
The sample case, they'll hand me a new one over there. How many kilos it is, I don't know yet.
1 April, my first day at Yamato Setsubi Kogyo.
I was introduced at the morning meeting.
"This is Wheeler, joining us from today."
"Wheeler. Pleased to be working with you."
There was applause.
The senior managing director came forward.
"Mr. Wheeler is the man who was on the East District. He'll be going in on our Block C."
That day I filled in paperwork. Something similar to what I filled in once before. Only the date is different.
At lunch a senior took me out to eat.
"Wheeler, they say you had a month off?"
"Ah — yes."
"Lucky you."
"Sorry."
"No, it's a good thing. Our senior managing director's that sort of man."
At 17:30 the senior managing director went round the office.
"Right, off you go, off you go."
He really does say it.
I left the office at 18:00.
It was still light.
The first week ended and the second began.
The site is moving. Block C breaks ground in September, and right now it's at foundations. The same drawings I looked at at the old company, seen from a different position.
Overtime isn't fixed; it just gets paid, normally.
I won't see my first payslip until next month, but apparently the hours I write on the daily report get calculated straight through.
"Wheeler, what time are you on till today?"
"Till 19:00."
"Right, write your finishing time down properly then."
I wrote it.
Writing down something you're allowed to write down felt strange, somehow.
Saturdays and Sundays are off, and on the first Saturday I slept till ten.
The third week of April.
One evening, an email came.
This Saturday, 1 p.m. — would that suit? We will collect you.
The sender was Mr. Isono.
I looked at the screen.
Collect.
Where am I going
We will call at your residence. The destination is the main house.
The main house.
Kaiba Manor.
Once when I was in high school, once in February, I was carried there. A car's coming for me again, but this time, it seems I'm going of my own will.
On the day, I went out in front of the apartment at 12:50.
At 13:00 exactly, a black car came.
The engine was quiet. Whether it's the same car I rode in in February, I don't know. It feels like it is and it feels like it isn't.
The driver got out and opened the rear door.
"Mr. Wheeler. Thank you for waiting."
"Ah, cheers."
I got in, a bit nervous.
The seat is soft. This I remember. The feel of it in February, when I was pushed in and fell.
The car pulled away.
I look out of the window. The town I've looked at every day for four years, and before that too. I'm looking at it now as well. Only, the time I'm looking at it is different. Saturday afternoon.
We drove for about fifteen minutes.
Out of the commercial district, the street lights spacing further apart, walls running along both sides of the road.
This road I don't much remember. In February I was asleep.
The gate opened.
Long, as ever. From the gate to the front door took getting on for a minute by car.
I got out, and there was a big building in front of me.
Feels like it's been a while.
That morning in February, I came out of this place. Walking to the station took thirty minutes. The corridor and the stairs and the dining room I saw from inside are recent, so I remember them.
When I was brought here in high school I was hurried through, so this is the first time I've looked at it properly from outside.
"Welcome."
At the entrance, one of the staff was standing.
An older woman. The one who, in February, said breakfast is this way three times.
I stopped in front of her.
"Um."
"Yes."
"In February, you lent me a room. I didn't thank you properly at the time, so. Thank you very much."
I bowed my head.
When I looked up, the woman had a slightly surprised face.
Then she smiled, kindly.
"Not at all. If we were of any use, that is all to the good."
"And, um, I didn't cause any trouble, did I?"
"None."
"The sheets and that — I didn't make a mess of them?"
"Nothing at all."
"That's a relief."
It really was a relief, I thought. That bit had been on my mind a little.
"Master Seto is waiting. I'll show you through."
We walked the corridor.
The same corridor I walked in February. Carpet, no footsteps. Pictures on the wall.
That time, I didn't know which way to go, and for now I went left.
Today I turned right.
Down the stairs, and another corridor.
"Through here."
The door opened.
I looked in, and there was a wide room.
High ceiling, black floor. Equipment along the walls. Built the same as the head office basement.
"Test play room?"
"This is one of Master Seto's private rooms."
Private room.
He's got this in the house.
At the back, he was standing.
No coat. Black shirt and slacks. Duel Disk fitted to his arm.
"So you came."
"Yeah."
I put the backpack down and got the Duel Disk out of it.
"It's been over a month."
"I know."
I fitted the disk to my arm. It made a click.
"The misogi's done."
He stopped.
"…Misogi?"
"Misogi, yeah, misogi. A month off. Haven't drunk. I'm eating. So, done."
For a while, he said nothing.
"You."
"What."
"Do you understand the meaning of the word you are using."
"Course I do. Misogi means getting yourself clean and sorted."
"To whom."
"Eh, to who?"
"Misogi is a rite for cleansing defilement before a god. To whom are you apologising, and for what?"
"Shut up! You got what I meant!"
"I did get it."
You got it, then.
So that's fine, I thought.
He checked the Duel Disk had started up.
"Let us go."
"Yeah."
The Duel was ten turns.
I lost.
But ten turns.
My hand was used up. Not one card left.
Blue-Eyes came out on the third turn. Quick off the mark, as ever.
Even so I didn't fall back. Because falling back is the end. Put Red-Eyes out, attacked, got it turned back, and at the same time took one of his down with the card I had set.
On the fifth turn the second one was already out.
From there it was a straight shaving match on force. My Life Points hit zero first.
Solid Vision vanished.
I bent over with my hands on my knees, getting my breath. My breathing's up. First time in a while.
He was looking this way, but he said nothing.
Last time he said something like, your face looks better than it did. That was last November.
Today he doesn't say it.
The reason he doesn't, I sort of understood. There's no need to.
I stood up.
"Hey."
"What."
"How was that."
"Do not ask me."
"Why not."
"You know yourself."
I did know.
It wasn't bad, and I lost.
"Ah, damn."
"Ten turns."
"I know."
"Last time you stretched it to eleven."
"I know, I said."
He indicated the wall with his chin.
There was a table set.
The same as the usual one, the same as the table we do the post-mortem at.
I took my cards and moved over there.
The post-mortem ran about an hour.
The third-turn Blue-Eyes, how it could have been stopped. What I should have been holding on the fifth turn. Whether the seventh-turn judgement was right.
He remembered all of it. And today I remembered about eighty per cent.
Partway through, one of the staff brought tea, set it down and left.
I drank. Hot.
"I've been working somewhere new since April."
It was a point where the Duel talk had come to a break.
"The reports come up to me."
"You know about it?"
"I am in a position to know."
Well, of course, I thought. This man manages the whole town. Our company's in on Block C.
"And?"
"And what?"
"Work. You are working, and what."
I held the teacup and thought for a bit.
"It feels strange."
"What does."
"It's still light outside when I go home. Not used to it yet."
He went quiet.
"Overtime gets paid. I'm told I can write it down, so I write it down. Writing down something you're allowed to write down feels strange, somehow."
"There is nothing strange about it."
"I know that, but my body's saying it's strange."
"I see."
"And the senior managing director goes round telling people to go home. At half five he walks the office saying off you go, off you go."
"I dare say. It is a decent company."
I drank my tea.
"Did you make them do that?"
Having asked, I thought, damn.
"I did not."
Immediate.
"That company was like that from the start. I proposed moving your start date, that is all."
Knowing what this one does, whether it really stopped at a proposal, I don't know. But the senior managing director treats me normally, so I decided not to mind.
"Right."
"It is the company you chose."
I put the teacup down and raised my head.
For some reason, I felt he was close.
Because the table's small. Sitting across from each other, it isn't a metre.
We were at this distance the whole post-mortem.
While we were talking about the board, it hadn't bothered me.
But now, something else was bothering me.
Because it was about the same distance as that day in February.
I went to carry on talking, and lost track of what I'd been about to say.
"…"
"What is it."
"Nothing."
"Say it. Do not imagine hiding it will work."
"…"
I was looking at the teacup.
I can't say it.
Because all this time, I haven't asked.
Five years ago I didn't ask. Went down into the sea at the pier, a key came down, and I knew who dropped it, and I didn't ask.
Last May I didn't ask. I was handed water, the car went on, and I didn't ask why it had stopped.
February I didn't ask. Carried there, morning came, and I didn't ask what had happened.
The reason I didn't ask is that an answer comes back.
And when an answer comes back, I have to return something myself.
I haven't got anything to return.
That's what I've always thought.
But in February, this one returned something.
Without my putting anything out, he returned it first.
In that case — isn't it my turn to return something?
I have got something to return.
One thing, just the one.
"Listen, you."
"What."
"You, the — that."
"Which."
I raised my head.
He was looking this way.
"…D-do I have to say it for you to get it?"
"Say it."
"I can't say it!"
"Then I do not know."
He drank his tea, and there was a small pause. But his was a face that knew. A face that knew and was making me say it.
Something was hot. But stopping here isn't something I can do.
"You know exactly! And you're the one who said hiding it doesn't work!"
"…So it's that."
"It is."
"And what of it."
What of it, he says.
I closed my hands on my knees.
"Are you all right with it?"
I asked.
"With what."
"With — me, is what."
Having said it, I could feel my ears going hot bit by bit.
There should have been a better way to put it. But the one that mattered wouldn't come out.
He was looking straight at me.
"Do you imagine I misjudge?"
The answer came back.
But this one only ever puts it like that. Still an obnoxious bastard.
"That, that way of saying it! There's got to be something better!"
"Such as what."
"There obviously is!"
"Not my concern."
"Make it your concern!"
I stood up.
Having stood up, I noticed I hadn't decided what to do.
I hadn't decided, but sitting down means nothing happens.
Four years, that's how nothing happened.
I went round the table and stood next to him.
He looked up.
And stayed like that, not moving.
"Kaiba."
"What."
"Shut your eyes."
"…"
"I said shut your eyes."
"Do not give me orders."
"Just do it! Close them!"
For a while, he said nothing.
Then he closed his eyes.
He closed them.
He actually went and closed them.
What do I do.
Panicking, for now, I took a breath.
Took it, and bent down.
It was an instant. Under a second, I think. Touched, and came away.
I straightened up and moved back, and my heart's loud.
He opened his eyes and looked at me. At the same time, the corner of his mouth moved.
He was smiling, a little.
Smiling as though something amused him.
The same as in February, when he turned round at the door.
"Wh-what."
"Nothing."
"There's obviously something!"
"That was well done, for you."
He stood up and looked at me.
He's taller than me, so I have to look up.
A hand came out and touched my cheek.
"Wh — wait—"
He was close.
Closer than before. A hand at the back of my head, and closer still.
And then.
——It didn't stop at an instant.
When he came away, I couldn't say anything.
What am I supposed to return.
That's what I thought.
Having thought it, I thought again — this got returned to me, didn't it.
I returned it, and it was returned.
So I've got to return something again.
This is an infinite loop.
"Wheeler."
My name was called.
How many times, I've stopped counting.
"What."
"Your face is red."
"Shut up!"
I was walking the corridor from the room towards the entrance.
Outside it was still light. Before 17:00.
At the top of the stairs, a voice.
"Oh — Wheeler?"
It was Mokuba. He had the Domino High uniform on. Just back from school, apparently. So he was a high schooler.
"Hey."
"You were here?"
"Came to Duel."
"With Nii-sama?"
"Who else is there."
Mokuba came over to the stairs.
"You came to lose, then."
"I did lose, but…"
"Well, obviously."
"Shut up, you."
Mokuba laughed.
"Oh, Wheeler, you staying for dinner?"
"Nah, I'm just heading off."
"Stay and eat. It's curry today, apparently."
"Curry."
"Our curry's good."
It'll be good, I thought. The food I ate in February was good.
"Nah, I'm all right."
"Why not?"
"Why not, well."
The words stuck.
There's no reason. No plans either. And I am hungry.
"You could stay the night, you know."
Mokuba said. With a knowing sort of face. I might not be able to handle this high-school vice-president.
"There's a room. Wheeler, you used it before, didn't you."
I froze.
"No, that was—"
"That was what?"
"That was — sort of an accident."
"You stayed over by accident."
"That's not what I—"
The high schooler is tilting his head.
He means no harm. But there's definitely mischief in it.
"Ah, right. It doesn't have to be a separate room, does it."
Correction. Mokuba is definitely enjoying this.
"D-don't wind up your elders."
"Oh, so you're being wound up."
I gave in and looked to the side.
He was looking at the corridor window. The face of a man entirely uninvolved.
"Oi, Kaiba."
"What."
"What's happened to your brother's education."
"I have no idea."
"No idea, he says."
"Well. Choose."
This one's more than I can handle in his own way.
Choose, he says.
"…For today, I'll head home."
"I see."
No attempt to stop me. Obviously. This man hands the decision to the other person. Hands it over, and says nothing until you decide.
"What, you're going?"
Mokuba said.
"Yeah, today was the comeback match."
"Right. Come again, then."
"Yeah."
"Oh — right, Wheeler."
I was stopped by Mokuba's voice, like he'd just remembered something.
"What."
"Don't send emails to the company."
I stopped.
"…Huh?"
"The ones to the president. Our department reads those, you know."
"You read them?"
"Read them — more like sort them. How many hundreds do you think come in a day."
Hundreds.
True enough. The president's address at KaibaCorp, sales pitches and solicitations, there'd be mountains of them.
"I'll start filtering them out. Right, see you."
With that Mokuba went off inside, and there were two of us in the corridor.
I looked at the one beside me.
"Oi."
"What."
"That email I sent you. I did send it, right."
"It was sent."
"And it got through, right."
"It got through."
"…So why did it get through."
I asked.
He made a face like he was thinking about it. A face that wasn't thinking. He was pretending to think, no question.
"Because the address was correct, presumably."
"That's not what I'm asking!"
"Then what are you asking."
"Mokuba just said they get filtered out."
"It was not filtered out, then."
"So why."
"Who knows. Since it got through without being filtered, you are here now, are you not."
We're not lining up. But there's no problem at all.
The words stuck.
What he's saying is certainly correct.
"That's not an answer."
"I am answering."
So it isn't an answer.
I went quiet for a while, and then I understood.
This one doesn't answer.
It's been that way since last year. The water, the car, the documents — not once did he give a reason.
But he did all of it.
So, asking is pointless.
"Never mind."
"I see."
I got my phone out of my pocket.
"So give me a contact."
"The email gets through."
"That's the company one."
"It is."
"Mokuba's reading it, isn't he."
"Not only Mokuba."
"That's even worse!"
I brought up the QR code and held the phone out.
"A different one. Give me."
For a while, he said nothing.
He looked at my phone. But he didn't go to scan it.
Instead, he put a hand in his pocket.
What he took out was a card case.
Black leather. Different from mine. Mine was issued by the company when I joined, synthetic, worn at the corners.
He drew one out.
Then he took out a pen. Turned the card over and wrote something with a quick hand.
Finished writing, held it out, and I took it.
I looked at the front.
KaibaCorp. President and Representative Director. Seto Kaiba.
The head office address, the main switchboard number, and that company address.
The paper's thick. Held between the fingers, the stock has an unusual feel to it. An elaborate, expensive-looking card.
I turned it over.
An eleven-digit number, and an email address.
Neat handwriting.
"…This is a business card."
"What else does it look like."
"No, it is, but."
I was looking at the card.
On the front, several titles everyone knows.
On the back, one that nobody knows.
"Why a business card."
"There is no other paper."
"There is, though. This house, there's got to be paper."
"Looking for it is a nuisance."
Is that the problem.
I stood there a while holding the card.
Then I opened the pocket of my backpack and got out my card case.
The company's changed, so the contents have been swapped. Yamato Setsubi Kogyo's cards, twenty of them. Not one handed out yet.
Four years, I've counted these. Whether there are twenty, whether it's enough, whether I need to top them up.
Right on top of them, I put the one I'd been given.
Put it in face-down, back upwards.
When I raised my head, he was looking at me.
"What."
"Nothing."
"There's obviously something."
"There is not."
"…Shall we trade. One of mine."
"I received your contact details last year."
"Come on, what's the harm."
I borrowed the pen and wrote both the phone number and the email address on the back. The handwriting didn't come out neat.
He said nothing and put it in his own card case.
I put my card case back in the backpack.
Come to think of it, this one must hand out hundreds of cards. To clients, to journalists, to government. Hundreds of people have that front.
The ones with writing on the back — how many are there?
I didn't ask.
If I ask, an answer comes back.
So, next time, I'll try asking.
The car I'd got into went out of the gate.
In the back seat, I was looking out of the window.
For the destination I asked for the station, not home. Thought I'd do some shopping on the way back.
I opened the backpack, got out the card case, and looked at the one on top.
The back is upwards.
Eleven digits, and letters.
I got out my phone and typed it in. I hesitated a bit over what to save it as.
Kaiba, I typed. But I put in Seto as well, properly.
Somehow, that felt better.
Saved.
I put the card back at the very back of the case so it wouldn't crease.
Then, straight away, I typed a message.
Can I come next week too
The reply came before I got to the station.
Saturday. A car at one.
I looked at the screen.
Next week, there's one.
The one after that, probably too.
I looked out of the train window.
The town I've looked at every day for four years.
A road has been made. Block A is finished in March next year.
People walk on the floors I sold.
That isn't my road.
My road has nothing laid on it yet.
But which way I'm going is decided.
Decided, then all that's left is to walk it.
About misogi.
Misogi is a Shinto rite of purification — washing away defilement before a god. Kaiba is correct and Joey is not, which is the joke. It is not a word for having had a month off and stopped drinking.
