For the past few years, I always ended up with a double chin if I was looking downward at all...
Said photo from the company retreat was a mandatory group photo, which explained the slight discomfort she showed in the funeral photo.
“Miss Hayakawa was a great asset to our company. When things were tough, everyone was lifted up by her dedication, her smile, and the cheerful sound of her voice,” her supervisor said.
A particularly successful area manager chimed in. “Absolutely. At every branch, we all knew to call Miss Hayakawa at headquarters whenever we were in a pickle.”
Ryoko was surprised that a man with such a busy schedule had come to the wake of a no-name office worker like her.
“Miss Hayakawa was brilliant and caring. She also had a tough side, but she never turned her back on anyone in trouble. Many of our local employees would have loved to come. I’m here on the behalf of everyone at the company, so as to not intrude.”
That’s why I’d get calls every day...
Ryoko recalled a particular day in the office. In addition to her normal tasks, she would often receive calls asking specifically for her. The caller would range from a branch employee or managers all the way up to a district manager. They would ask about all sorts of things that Ryoko, for the life of her, couldn’t see how they related to her job description.
“Hey, Ryo Baby, how’s it going? I got something to ask you, by the way...” That was just one example. Ryoko couldn’t exactly tell someone above her pay grade to stop calling her “Ryo Baby.” Looking back on it now, it was definitely inappropriate conduct, but Ryoko was just too busy at work to think about it at the time. Besides, once they got her on the phone, Ryoko was hooked by curiosity. She would look into anything she needed to, no matter if the question should have been directed to a different department in the first place, so she could make any reports and suggestions. Thanks to that, she ended up in a vicious cycle where she kept learning more and more about various departments within the company, which only led to more and more calls requesting her help.
I mean it wasn’t like I didn’t like being relied on.
Working at headquarters, Ryoko sometimes felt like she never really saw the fruits of her labor. Unlike jobs at the branch locations, she never interacted with customers directly or saw tangible results like boosted sales that could be plotted on a chart. But when someone came to her for advice and thanked her, she felt fulfilled. Like she had a purpose. She wanted to learn things she didn’t know yet. She wanted to feel needed. While it sounded like her boss and the district manager thought of those qualities in a positive light, Ryoko only ever saw them as self-gratifying.
Looking back on it, I was such a petty person. My bosses are painting me to be this... Wow, this is embarrassing.
Knowing that no one could see her, Ryoko clasped her temples in her palms where she stood. In contrast, her mother’s eyes thinned into a remnant of a smile.
“Really...” Her mother seemed exhausted, her cheeks sunken. She seemed to have aged an entire decade since Ryoko last saw her. Like her body had shrunk. “Ryoko didn’t tell us much about her work... I’m glad she was able to help the people of her company,” she said and turned to Ryoko’s funeral photo. “She was our oldest, so I relied on her for a lot of things, too. I was worried that I was preventing her from finding a husband by doing so, but it sounds like she was very fulfilled at work.”
Ryoko reminisced. Her work in her previous life hadn’t been easy. There were plenty of unpleasant experiences, even to the point where she had considered quitting on a few occasions. In hindsight, she would credit her family, as well as her bosses and coworkers, for her ability to tough it out.
How her boss and her mother had described her felt like an answer to the equation that was Ryoko’s life. She worked hard, delved into her hobbies, and spent time with the family she loved. All of it had come to an instant, irreversible conclusion in that accident, but Ryoko now believed that she had lived each ordinary day in her previous life as best she could. Even if no one else saw beauty in the life she lived, Ryoko wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Herscherik opened his eyes to see an unfamiliar ceiling. He was confused for a moment because of the dream he just had but concluded that he must have fallen asleep after listening to his father’s story, and he was now lying in his father’s bedroom. The bed he was on was made of the highest quality materials. A set of thick curtains blocked out the sunlight from the windows beside it.
“It’s not right...” Herscherik mumbled and sat up.
He clenched both of his fists. They were much smaller than they had been in his previous life. Maybe it was just a self-gratifying dream his subconscious had conjured up. Still, he knew that Ryoko’s life was the best she could have had. An ordinary life where her hard work was rewarded. But in this world, the ones who strove for justice were punished, while the deceptive ones mocked the weak with impunity.