Takenaka frowned again, as if just realizing that for the first time. “You’re gonna put a homeless person in the car?” he reflexively replied, then turned his eyes aside, a tad embarrassed. “Well, I guess you’ll have to, yeah. Just, uh, try to keep the car clean, if you can.”
Mitsuhiro couldn’t help imagining himself laying newspaper on the car seat and sitting Yoshikazu Hara down on it. Like spreading a bath towel over the back seat after a trip to the beach so you didn’t get it all wet and sandy. He wondered for a moment how the other person might feel, being treated that way, but quickly pushed the thought out of his mind. He could worry about that when the time came. For now, he had something more important to bring up.
“Right. I’ll do my best to find him before Tamai Construction does.”
“Yeah… I don’t know what kinda religious ceremony is involved here, but we need to confirm with Mr. Hara whether he’s being forced to do it. If we don’t, things could get real complicated real fast. And as for the Twitter poster, Legal advised me it’s unclear how long it’ll take to get the account’s personal info disclosed. They asked Twitter to suspend the account, at least, but no response so far.”
Don’t worry about that. Mitsuhiro felt his father standing next to him again. He popped an idea into his son’s head, and Mitsuhiro decided to float it to his boss.
“What do you think about reaching out to the account owner? We can send direct messages to them via Twitter.”
“We can contact them personally? I mean, without it being made public?”
“Sure, as long as neither of us makes the messages public.”
“Well, what would you say, though? You can’t mention the company name, no matter what.”
“They posted that they lost their home. How about contacting them and offering to introduce them to a support organization? If I created a personal account, it’d just look like a kind gesture.”
Takenaka frowned, deep in thought. He wasn’t familiar with social media, so he probably didn’t know what call to make.
“Yeah, we can do that much, at least. All right, give it a shot.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll report back when I’ve made contact.”
“Please do. As for the ritual hall in the East Wing, I received a report from Chief Sugawara. He confirmed that a man named Araki from Tamai Construction manages the site, and that Yoshikazu Hara was brought in for the rituals involved. However, only Tamai employees were going in and out of the site, and they don’t have any idea how the Twitter poster got in.”
“What about the fire?” Mitsuhiro asked softly so the employees around him couldn’t hear. Criminal cases like arson were the responsibility of the crisis-management team, and the rules stated that they couldn’t discuss those with people from other departments, in order to prevent unnecessary rumors from spreading.
“Chief Sugawara said that the police will be investigating. You might be questioned as well.”
“Were the workers at the scene questioned yet?”
“Yes, both of them. Oh, but no one suspects you. Everyone knows why you were there that day, and you had no reason to set the fire. Someone from Tamai Construction also confirmed that Yoshikazu Hara was at the scene with you.”
Still, remembering the reactions of those workers at the time made Mitsuhiro uncomfortable. Even when he’d insisted there was another person down there, they still looked at him like he was lying.
Ah, well. It’s not your fault. Not many people understand how vital your job is. He felt his father next to him again. You have an important role to play. Don’t let the responsibility get to you. Have some pride in yourself.
Mitsuhiro smiled. He was already feeling better.
“What’s up?”
Takenaka seemed puzzled by his smile. Mitsuhiro began to feel stranger and stranger.
Even your boss may not necessarily understand your role, you know.
Yeah, you’re right, Dad, Mitsuhiro replied silently in his mind, and he kept smiling at Takenaka.
“You know, if Yoshikazu Hara set that fire in order to escape, that’d be a big deal, right? Or if the Twitter poster did it out of spite.”
“Why’re you smiling about that?” Takenaka grew sterner.
Mitsuhiro bowed his head. “I’m sorry. My father told me I shouldn’t take on too much responsibility. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Takenaka gave him a look. “…Didn’t your father pass away?”
“Yes. I…I just feel like he said that to me, I mean.”
“…Are you sure you’re not too tired for this?” Now Takenaka seemed concerned. “It hasn’t been long since the fire. Are you okay to drive?”
“I’m fine, Mr. Takenaka. I’m in great shape.”
Mitsuhiro brushed away the idea. In fact, he felt like he could do pretty much anything at the moment.
After that morning meeting, Mitsuhiro immediately registered a free burner email address on his cell phone, opened the Twitter app, and created an account for himself. He wanted to use a name that’d make people feel an affinity for him, so he chose “Mr. Scraping By.”
It was a little hard to believe that he could send anonymous messages across the world so easily. He didn’t know if that was a good thing, but at the very least, there was this one person on Twitter attacking a major project, and so far, nobody had been able to stop him—a worst-case scenario.
Mitsuhiro thought about what to write, typing a draft into the memo app on his phone.
Sorry to contact you out of nowhere. There’s a group called Helping Hands Mutual Aid that does a lot to support people in need. They’re a bunch of really trustworthy guys, so I’d like to introduce them to you if you’re interested. Hoping you’ll reply before your situation gets any worse.
If he phrased it like this, then even if there was no direct reply, the person who received the tweet might contact Helping Hands, and Mitsuhiro could get in touch through them.
He showed the message to Takenaka at his desk, got the go-ahead, and then, as Takenaka watched, he pulled up Mole Unit-01’s account and sent the direct message over.
“Let’s hope he takes the bait,” Takenaka said.
“Yeah,” Mitsuhiro replied.
Taking his bag over to General Affairs, Mitsuhiro filled out the company-car paperwork, accepted the keys, and walked over to the lot. Now that he was approved, he wouldn’t have to go through the same procedure every single day; filling out a time record and submitting it to General Affairs would suffice. This car was his alone for the next week, and he couldn’t have been more grateful for it.
He found the company car assigned to him and got in, but the direct sunlight made the interior a sauna, so he left the driver-side door open and turned on the AC.
“Right. Once the temperature is comfortable, let’s get going.”
That was Kosuke. Mitsuhiro hadn’t noticed him before, but his father was now in the back seat.
“Feels kind of funny, driving my dad around.”
“Yeah, same here. Fasten your seat belt, okay? And watch the road. This is important work, so you gotta do it right.”
Mitsuhiro closed the door, fastened his belt as instructed, and started the car. Feeling almost giddy with excitement, he checked the map on his phone and looked at the route he’d worked out in advance. The sight of Kosuke in the back, visible every time he glanced in the rearview mirror, was tremendously reassuring.
He really needed that encouragement, too. The rest of the IR team was busy with the important, exciting task of rehearsing for the upcoming shareholder meeting, and here he was, prowling the streets of Tokyo in search of a couple of homeless people. Of course the task would get him down.
This morning was devoted to casing the main parks, the railway bridges and overpasses, and the vacant lots along the railroad tracks and riverside around Shibuya Station—the places that Okuyama from Helping Hands had informed him of—but all he saw were homeless people from various walks of life, none of whom were Yoshikazu Hara. It was a real slog from start to finish, but despite spending the entire morning searching in vain, Mitsuhiro still felt fulfilled. He even had a sense of mission, like he was doing something only he could do.
At noon, he stopped at a fast-food parking lot, bought a burger combo for himself, and was returning to his car when his phone rang—his personal phone this time. Looking at the screen, he saw that it was his mother-in-law.
“Hello?”
“Oh, Mitsuhiro? I’m at the hospital with Miyoko right now.”
“What? The hospital?”
“She said she suddenly fell ill—there was some kind of awful odor, and it made her sick. So I rushed over to her, but she was asking if you could leave work early today, because Sae’s all alone at home right now.”