The man regained his perch and looked over at her, interest in his eyes. ‘You a doctor?’
‘Not exactly,’ she laughed. ‘Though you’re not too far off. I’m a pharmacist at a hospital.’
‘Ah, that explains it.’
‘Do you live near here?’ she asked.
‘Pretty close.’
‘Do you think you can get home OK?’
‘Yeah. Thanks to you, I’m right as rain,’ he said as he stood from the bin.
‘You should go get yourself checked out when you have a chance. Acute gastritis can be pretty scary.’
‘The hospital near here?’
She blinked, not understanding. ‘There’s the General Hospital in Hikarigaoka. That’s pretty close.’
The man started shaking his head before she’d finished speaking. ‘I meant the hospital where you work.’
‘Oh. That’s the Imperial University Hospital, out west in Ogikubo.’
‘Right,’ the man said, beginning to walk. He stopped after a few paces and looked around. ‘Thanks.’
‘Take care of yourself,’ Noriko replied. He raised a hand and started off again, this time disappearing into the night.
She hadn’t expected to see the man again. Still, the following day at work, her thoughts kept drifting back to him. She didn’t expect him to actually show up at her hospital, but even so, she couldn’t resist the urge to take the occasional glance out at the waiting room, and every pharmacy request for stomach medicine for a male patient set her imagination wandering.
He didn’t show up at the hospital, but they did meet again. It was exactly one week later, in the same place they’d met the first time.
The man was sitting on the bin and she was just getting home from the evening shift. It was eleven o’clock at night and she didn’t recognise him in the darkness. The idea of a stranger sitting in front of her apartment building this late at night was creepy, frankly, and she had already hurried past him when she heard a familiar voice say, ‘They must work you pretty hard at that hospital.’
She turned. ‘You! What are you doing here?’
‘Waiting for you. Thought I should thank you for the other day.’
‘How long were you waiting?’
‘I forget,’ the man said, looking down at his watch. ‘Guess I got here around six.’
‘Six?’ Noriko’s eyes widened a little. ‘You’ve been waiting here for five hours?’
‘The last time I saw you was around six, so…’
‘Right. I’m on evening shift this week.’
‘You don’t say.’ The man stood. ‘Right, well, you’re here now. Let’s go get something to eat.’
She frowned. ‘There’s nothing open this late around here.’
‘Shinjuku’s only twenty minutes away by taxi.’
‘I don’t want to go that far. I’m tired.’
‘That’s too bad.’ The man lifted his hands. ‘Guess I’ll have to take a raincheck.’
He waved and began to walk off. He had only made it a few steps before Noriko stopped him. ‘Wait,’ she said.
He turned.
‘There’s a Denny’s down the street.’
The man took a sip of beer and declared it had been at least five years since he’d set foot in a Denny’s. He had plates of sausages and fried chicken in front of him. Noriko had ordered one of the Japanese dishes off the menu.
It was then that the man introduced himself as Yuichi Akiyoshi from Memorix, which was a computer software company, or so it said on his business card.
‘Basically, we take orders from other places and write software for them to run their computers.’ That was all Akiyoshi ever said about the work his company did and he never talked about work again.
He seemed very interested in Noriko’s work, however, wanting to know every detail. He asked about shifts, salaries, bonuses, and the kind of duties she was expected to perform. She expected it to bore him, but on the contrary, his eyes gleamed with interest.
Noriko had dated before, but she usually settled into the role of listener, mostly because she had no idea what sort of things a guy might want to hear. Small talk never came easily to her. But Akiyoshi seemed to know exactly what he wanted to hear, and he was always fascinated by what she had to say. At least it looked that way.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ he had said when he left.
He called three days later. This time they met in Shinjuku. They had drinks at a bar and Noriko found herself talking to him about anything and everything again. He was full of questions. He wanted to know about her home town, how she was raised, what her school was like.
‘Where are you from?’ Noriko asked.
‘Nowhere in particular.’ He didn’t seem happy about the question and she resolved not to push. All she knew about him was that he was from western Japan, probably Osaka, and even that she’d had to pick up from his accent.
They left Denny’s and Akiyoshi saw her back to her apartment. All the while she was wondering should she just say goodnight, or should she invite him up? The closer they got, the louder the argument inside her head grew.
It was Akiyoshi who made the decision easy. There were just nearing the apartment when he stopped in front of a vending machine.
‘Thirsty?’ she asked.
‘I just wanted some coffee,’ he said, putting some coins into the slot. He looked up at the display and reached for one of the buttons.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘I could make you coffee.’
His finger paused in mid-air. He didn’t seem particularly surprised, just nodded and gave the coin return lever a yank. The coins fell down with a clatter. He fished them out without saying a word.
Inside, Akiyoshi’s eyes scanned her apartment. Noriko made coffee and worried he’d see something of her ex-boyfriend’s.
He seemed to enjoy the coffee, and commented on how clean she kept her place.
‘Oh, I never clean these days.’
‘That why there’s dust on the ashtray?’
She blanched. ‘What ashtray?’
‘Up on top of your bookshelf.’
‘No,’ she said at length. ‘It has dust on it because I don’t smoke.’
Akiyoshi grunted.
‘We broke up two years ago.’
‘Wasn’t asking.’
‘Right… sorry.’
Akiyoshi stood. Noriko stood to show him out. But then his arm reached out to her and, before she could speak, he was holding her.
She didn’t resist. When he brought his lips closer to hers, she leaned into him and closed her eyes.
The light from the overhead projector lit the presenter’s face from below. He was from the Overseas OEM Department, a section chief, still in his early thirties.
‘We have every reason to expect that the United States Food and Drug Administration will approve our hyperlipidemia medication Mevalon. The handouts you have describe our sales proposal for the US market.’
Sounds a little nervous, thought Kazunari Shinozuka. He watched as the man licked his lower lip and scanned the faces in the room.
They were in conference room 201 at the Shinozuka Pharmaceuticals main Tokyo office, having a meeting about overseas sales for their newest products. Seventeen people were in attendance, most of them from sales, but he spotted a section chief from research and another chief from manufacturing among them. The highest-ranking person in the room was managing director Yasuharu. He sat in the dead centre of a C-shaped configuration of desks and his eyes were shooting daggers at the speaker. He seemed to hang on every word, unwilling to miss the slightest syllable. Kazunari saw it as a bit of a show, but it was one Yasuharu couldn’t afford to do without. He knew what people said about him riding on his father’s coat-tails, and he knew well the danger of risking even a single stray yawn in a meeting like this.
The silence in the room lingered for a moment before Yasuharu spoke.
‘The licensing agreement we were supposed to make with Slottermeyer is already t
wo weeks late, according to the date we were given at the last meeting. What’s the holdup?’ He looked up from his handout and glared at the presenter. The rims of his glasses glinted under the fluorescent lights.
‘About that.’ A short man sitting in front of the presenter spoke. ‘There were some difficulties with our export procedures.’ His voice sounded strained, almost cracking.
‘Why can’t we just follow the same procedure we use for base powders. Like our exports to Europe?’
‘Right, well, it’s about the particulars in the handling of the base powders. There was a bit of a misunderstanding —’
‘This is the first time I’m hearing about it. Did I receive a report?’ Yasuharu opened the file in front of him on the desk. Not many of the board members brought personal files to meetings like this. As far as Kazunari knew, Yasuharu was the only one.
The short man exchanged a few words with the man next to him and the presenter, before turning back to Yasuharu.
‘We’ll send you all the related documents immediately.’
‘Do that.’ Yasuharu’s eyes went back down to his file. ‘So assuming that settles Mevalon, what about the antibiotic and the diabetes medicine? They should already have been submitted to the FDA for approval.’
‘Wanan and Glucoz are both still in clinical trials. We should have a report by the beginning of next month.’
‘Well, let’s move on that as soon as we can, then,’ Yasuharu said. ‘I’ve heard some of our rivals are pushing for more industrial manufacturing rights acquisitions from overseas, and we don’t want to fall behind.’
‘Of course,’ the presenter said. Several of the men around him nodded.
The meeting went on like that for an hour and a half. Kazunari was gathering up his things when Yasuharu walked over and whispered to him, ‘My office, fifteen minutes. There’s something I want to talk to you about.’
‘Yeah, sure thing,’ Kazunari replied quietly. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound like company business, which meant Yasuharu was gearing up to break the rule both their fathers had set for them: no personal talk at the company.
Kazunari went back to his seat in Planning and Management, where he was deputy director – a post that had been created solely for his benefit. Until last year, Kazunari had gone through positions in general management, accounting, and HR. This was the standard course for a Shinozuka man. Personally, Kazunari would have preferred being down in the trenches with the new recruits rather than the sort of general administrative position he was in now. He had even requested reassignment once. But after a year in the company, he realised that as long as he was a member of the family that was impossible. In order to keep the complex system that was Shinozuka Pharmaceuticals running smoothly, management needed to wield a free hand when they ordered their underlings around. A Shinozuka doing grunt work would only be a rusty cog, gumming up the works.
Immediately next to Kazunari’s desk was a small blackboard-style placard where he was supposed to write his current whereabouts. He erased ‘201’ and wrote ‘Gen. Management’ in white chalk before getting up from his chair.
He knocked on the door and a low voice said, ‘Come in.’ Kazunari stepped inside to find Yasuharu sitting at his desk, reading a book.
‘Hey, sorry to drag you in like this,’ Yasuharu said, looking up.
‘No problem.’ Kazunari took a look around the room. They were alone in the office, which wasn’t particularly large – just a desk, a cabinet, and a simply apportioned meeting space.
Yasuharu grinned. ‘Did you see the look on those overseas guys’ faces? Bet they didn’t imagine I remembered those licensing agreement dates.’
‘I bet they didn’t.’
Yasuharu shook his head. ‘You got to wonder what they’re thinking, not telling their direct supervisor about the slippage.’
‘I’m sure they won’t underestimate their manager in future.’
‘Let’s hope not. Anyway, I’ve you to thank for it, Kazunari.’
‘Not at all,’ Kazunari said, waving a hand dismissively.
It had been Kazunari who had told Yasuharu about the slippage in the licensing agreement date. He’d heard it from a guy who joined the company at the same time he had, and was now in the Overseas OEM Division. Gathering titbits of information from each department and passing them on to Yasuharu was another one of his tasks. It wasn’t one he particularly relished, but it had been a direct request from the CEO – Yasuharu’s father.
‘You wanted to talk to me about something?’ Kazunari asked.
Yasuharu shook his head. ‘Don’t sound so serious. It’s not about work.’
A premonition rose in Kazunari’s stomach, and he felt his right hand clench into a fist.
‘Have a seat,’ Yasuharu said, standing and pointing towards the sofa.
Kazunari waited for Yasuharu to sit down before joining him.
‘I was just reading this, see,’ Yasuharu said, laying a book on the table. The cover read Etiquette for Ceremonial Occasions.
‘Should I be congratulating someone?’
‘Unfortunately, no, it’s not that kind of ceremony.’
‘Did someone die?’
‘Not yet. But soon.’
‘Do you mind me asking who?’
‘As long as you keep it to yourself. It’s her mom.’
‘Sorry? Her?’ Kazunari asked, though he knew the answer.
‘Yukiho,’ Yasuharu said, his voice crisp despite a slight blush that came over him.
‘What’s wrong with Yukiho’s mom?’
‘Yukiho called the other day, said her mom collapsed at her house down in Osaka.’
‘Collapsed how?’
‘A brain haemorrhage. She just found out about it yesterday morning. One of her mother’s tea students came over for a lesson and found her in the garden.’
‘And she’s been hospitalised?’
‘They took her in right away. Yukiho was there when she called me.’
‘I see,’ Kazunari nodded. ‘How’s she doing?’ he asked, though he knew the answer to that question, too. If Yukiho’s mother was on the road to recovery, Yasuharu wouldn’t be reading a book about funeral etiquette.
Yasuharu gave a slight shake of his head. ‘I called just a short while ago. She still hasn’t regained consciousness. The doctors aren’t particularly hopeful either. Yukiho said this might be it. Never heard her sound so defenceless before.’
‘How old is her mother?’
‘Around seventy, I think. Yukiho’s adopted, right? Thus the age gap.’
Kazunari nodded. He knew all about that.
‘So why are you reading this, boss?’ Kazunari asked, pointing to the book on the table.
‘Don’t call me that. At least not while we’re talking about personal stuff.’ Yasuharu said, an exasperated look on his face.
‘I just don’t see why you’d be so concerned about her mother’s funeral.’