One night, as Miyako was working late (as usual), she received a phone call from Itsuki.
“What’s up?”
“I wanted to visit Hakodate soon for research purposes. Can you come with me?”
“Huh? Hakodate? Why?”
“I’m having trouble picking a good location for my story, but as I researched Japan’s port towns, Hakodate seemed like the perfect spot. The skyline at night’s supposed to be great, there are all these historic Western-style buildings…”
In addition to the series that had just landed Itsuki in the wine cellar a few days back, Itsuki and Miyako were also working out an outline for his next novel. The proposal was still vague—a slightly bittersweet ensemble drama about young love, set in a port town—and apart from that, the setting, characters, and story were all still up in the air. Now he was bringing up Hakodate, a city on the southern tip of the large northern island of Hokkaido.
“Hakodate, huh…? It has a reputation as a bustling tourist destination, for sure, but do you really think it has the right vibe? Not some quieter, more desolate seaboard town?”
“I was thinking the same thing at first, but having it in a busier place creates more contrast with the bitterer aspects of the story.”
“Hmm… Well, if you think so, then let’s go check it out.”
It was common enough for an editor to join a writer on a research excursion. Miyako had gone to many with Itsuki and her other writers by now.
“Okay, what day works for you?”
“Umm…are we staying over, by the way?”
“Yeah. I wanna see the night skyline.”
“Right, right.”
Miyako opened up her schedule, searching for a two-day period free of meetings or other outside work. Then she offered a date to Itsuki.
“All right. I’ll get the tickets and stuff, okay? And a hotel.”
“Oh, you will? Great, then. Don’t forget to get a receipt written to Branch Hill for me.”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Thanks again.”
“You too.”
The phone call ended, and Miyako went back to work. It would be a trip alone with Itsuki. The Miyako of a few years ago would be too excited to sleep at this news, but now nothing about this set her heart aflutter—for the most part, she was dreading having this new responsibility placed in her lap when she was already busy. (That and glad for a chance to check out Hokkaido’s excellent seafood on the company’s dime, but that was immaterial.)
The next day, Itsuki sent Miyako a message.
I got Shinkansen tickets. Let’s meet up on 12/X at 10am at the Ueno Station central entrance.
✦ ✦ ✦
“We’re taking the train?!”
Miyako, assuming the distance from Tokyo to Hakodate meant this would be a plane trip, promptly called Itsuki on the phone.
“Why are we taking the Shinkansen over?”
“I want to see the views on the way to Hakodate, not just the city itself. Ideally, I’d love to take a car and stop here and there, but that’ll take too much time, so I’m going for this instead.”
“Even on the Shinkansen, we’re talking a four-hour trip or so…”
“Yeah, but even if it’s a bit over an hour by air, you still have airport security and all that stuff eating time, don’t you?”
“I suppose…”
“You have Internet access on the train, so you can just keep working while you’re on it. I got us Gran Class seats, so they’ll be really big.”
“You got Gran Class?! Accounting’s gonna hate you for that… I’m not sure they’re going to cover it.”
Gran Class was the Japan Shinkansen train system’s equivalent to premier class, even better than the first-class Green seats. Every seat was huge and high quality and came with a free meal—including unlimited drinks, alcoholic or non. It was still cheaper than a first-class plane ticket, but it wasn’t exactly a cheap date, either. Whenever Miyako took long-distance trains for work, it was always in standard class; accounting told her they’d never cover a Green-class seat unless all the regular cars were full.
“Well, I’ll cover the price difference, so don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, it’s fine; I’ll pay for it myself. Ughh…but anyway, I’ll meet you that morning at the station.”
“Great. Looking forward to it.”
“Me too.”
Miyako wrote the event into her schedule. And between the Shinkansen and the Gran Class tickets, it never occurred to her to wonder why they were leaving not from Tokyo Station—the origin point of the bullet trains to northern Japan—but Ueno instead, the next station after.
Meanwhile, Haruto had just received a message from Chihiro. In it, she explained that she’d be traveling to a university in Hokkaido soon to see a professor involved with robotic research for her senior thesis, so why didn’t Haruto join her? Apparently everything was already worked out with the professor in question—and when Haruto looked up the name, it turned out to be someone involved with agricultural robotics he’d been meaning to look more into for his work. By all means! he wrote back. I’m packed with work, but I’ll make it happen.
Then Chihiro gave him the date and time to meet up. December Xth…at Tokyo Station. Apparently, she’d arrange for the tickets.
We’re not flying over? Haruto asked.
The professor’s house is near the Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto station on the Shinkansen line, so it’d be a lot easier to just take the train there instead of working out transport from the airport.