Why don’t you just throw it away and pretend you don’t know anything? He felt like his father was beside him. No one saw you take it, after all.
Was that really true? The man lying there in the hole had been staring right at him the whole time. Hadn’t he? Or was he too covered in ash to see anything at all?
“Daddy, I’m ready!”
Sae called out to him as she put on her schoolbag, so he stopped thinking about it for the moment. He left their condo with Sae, thinking over which tasks to tackle first before meeting with Araki today.
“See you later!”
Mitsuhiro waved goodbye to Sae as she walked toward school, and then he headed for the train station. On the train, he took his phone out of his bag to check his call log. He didn’t think he had any, but after all the commotion last night, he didn’t want to miss an urgent call from his boss.
Fortunately, there were no work calls—but there was one from an unexpected source. His mother, who still lived in the old house in Hachioji, west of Tokyo. Again, the call had come while he was deep underground.
Mitsuhiro pondered what it could be about. His mother, Akiko Matsunaga, was of the opinion that no news was good news. She didn’t bother keeping up with family members, and she never sent cards out for New Year’s, either. This had caused some friction with Miyoko’s parents, the Umeharas, who were both diligent letter writers and believed connections mattered in everything. The total lack of response to the New Year’s cards, Christmas cards, and any sort of other seasonal greeting they sent Akiko was, in the Umeharas’ eyes, simple rudeness (and yet another thing to complain to Mitsuhiro about).
Miyoko and Mitsuhiro had convinced them that it was just an innocent difference in personality and customs, and that settled the matter—but as a result of that, the two families had maintained little to no contact for a long time. Maybe Mitsuhiro and Miyoko didn’t talk with their parents all that much, but at least Akiko would step in to help when the couple needed something, which wasn’t so much the case with the Umeharas. There was a point when Miyoko relied on Mitsuhiro’s mother more than her own parents—another nit for the Umeharas to pick. Now that Akiko had developed diabetes, however, Miyoko was more reluctant to over-rely on her.
Did she fall ill, maybe? Mitsuhiro thought about calling her during his lunch break, but instead of putting his phone in his bag, he reconsidered and put it in the pocket of his jacket instead. If he kept two cell phones in that bag, he might accidentally take out the wrong one.
While he was at it, he also turned off the Twitter poster’s phone entirely. He considered what to do with it but failed to think of a good solution. By the time he arrived at Shibuya Station, he’d given up on the problem entirely, too tired to think. For now, he opted to wait until he was sure nobody knew he had picked it up. Throwing it away now would be like admitting his mistake…but if he gave it to Araki right away, that’d cause more headaches for him, so he decided to just hold on to it.
To be honest, he didn’t want to think about Twitter guy’s phone at all anymore. He had something much more important to do. Stopping at a convenience store, he withdrew money from the ATM there—the two hundred thousand yen for the amulet. The… What was it? The “harvest offering.” It was pretty unusual for Mitsuhiro to withdraw such a large amount at one time. Very unusual, in fact. If he ever took this much cash out at once again, it’d be for the assorted stuff they’d need to buy after their second child was born.
As he put the stack of twenty bills in an envelope and put it in his bag, he wondered how he should explain this to Miyoko. No good excuses immediately came to mind. He’d just have to come up with a reason before Miyoko noticed and said something.
Would a two-hundred-thousand-yen amulet really solve everything? He didn’t know that either. Their living expenses, the mortgage, and Sae’s college fund kept running through his mind. But by the time he reached Shimaoka, he had pushed all those thoughts out of his head.
The moment Mitsuhiro arrived at the office and put his bag on his desk, Takenaka immediately approached him. “Hey, can we talk for a moment?” he began, but when he saw the cuts on Mitsuhiro’s face, his mouth fell open.
“What happened? No, wait—let’s talk over here.”
Mitsuhiro took his bag along, following Takenaka’s gestures. It had both a large amount of cash and someone else’s phone in it, and he didn’t want to let go of either.
In a few seconds, they had sat down at a partitioned-off conference room.
“Did you find anything yet?”
“Yes, a little. I found Yoshikazu Hara, the person I saw at the East Wing’s ritual hall earlier. I questioned him, but when I tried to hand him over to an employee from Tamai Construction, he suddenly grew violent.”
“Violent? You mean he hit you?”
“Well…yes.”
Takenaka’s face became stern. If an on-site worker assaulted a Shimaoka employee, it’d call the project’s site management into question—and if news leaked out, they’d have to take measures to stave off the rumors. Takenaka himself would have to answer some tough questions, too, about giving his staff tasks that exposed them to physical danger.
“No taking it back now, though,” Mitsuhiro quickly added, trying to reassure him. “I think I took the wrong approach with him, sadly. I know my face looks bad, but it’s really nothing serious.”
Not serious enough to make it a criminal case or claim workers’ comp, anyway. Making this statement to Takenaka didn’t mean Mitsuhiro was waiving all his rights along those lines, but he felt a need to calm his boss down a little. Otherwise, Takenaka might start thinking about taking him off the team as the first step to control the damage. Mitsuhiro wasn’t about to stand for that. After all the hard work he’d put in, losing his position within the company would be a disaster.
Takenaka seemed sympathetic to Mitsuhiro’s frame of mind and nodded slightly, softening his expression. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. This is just about a ritual hall anyway, not actual construction work. Did you record your interview?”
“On my phone, yes. Would you like to hear it? It’s a bit long.”
“Not right now, thanks. I’ll be late for my next meeting. Just submit the transcript with the rest of the data. Oh, also, all the tweets got deleted.”
“Yeah, I saw that, too.”
“So your feelers did the trick?”
“I suppose? All I did so far was introduce him to a support group.” Mitsuhiro chose his words carefully, trying not to say anything unnecessary.
“Well, good work on that. Legal channels didn’t seem to be going anywhere anyway.”
“Thank you.”
“Fortunately, it didn’t attract much attention, but this is an area we definitely need to watch in the future. I’ll want to see a detailed timeline.”
“Understood.”
I didn’t really do anything, Mitsuhiro resisted the urge to say. All I did was take a phone from the man at the bottom of that hole and delete his posts with my own two hands. In other words, I stole it. If that came to light, it’d be over for him. Now the contents of his bag were a major concern.
Don’t worry about it. He suddenly felt his father next to him. No one will ever find out. Don’t forget the most important thing here.
The most important thing?
Takenaka looked at Mitsuhiro’s seat next to him.
“What’s wrong? Something on there?”
“Huh? Nothing…”
The fire. His father’s voice rang in his ears. I told you. If we want to keep that hole from being filled, the fire will be so important.
Right. You’re right, Dad. I’m sorry.
“Matsunaga? You didn’t hit your head, did you?”
“Sorry. I’m fine. Come to think of it, I remembered that I haven’t investigated the arson case yet.”
“The arson? The one that happened while you were there? I’m sure the Chief’s taking care of that.”
“Well, just in case, I think we should make sure that it wasn’t Yoshikazu Hara who did it.”
“That’s more the police’s job. If we interfere with them, it’ll look like we’re trying to hide something. We’d get investigated for no reason.”
“But someone who had access to the site must have started the fire. It could have been Yoshikazu Hara, or maybe the Twitter poster. If they have a grudge against the company, who knows what they might do next? They could set fire to our actual homes.”
“Whoa, keep it down!” Takenaka raised his voice to interrupt him. “What are you talking about? Stop saying these ridiculous things without any evidence. Or do you know who the arsonist is?”
“No…but shouldn’t we have a plan in case there’s another arson later?”
“I told you, that’s the director’s job. Stick to your own duties. I don’t want complaints that Crisis Management is meddling with construction work. People already dislike us for prying into employees’ business.”
Mitsuhiro bowed his head, intimidated by Takenaka’s stern response.
“Right. I’m sorry.”
“Now, let’s get ready for the meeting. Also, that company car ain’t yours forever, remember.”
Without waiting for a reply, Takenaka got up and left the meeting space.
Mitsuhiro slowly stood up, bag in hand, and returned to his desk. He hadn’t meant to set off Takenaka, and now he felt depressed. If the boss retaliated by revoking his company car rights, it’d become much more difficult to search for Yoshikazu Hara.
But his father next to him had some advice. That guy doesn’t know the job that really needs to be done here. Don’t worry about him. You’re doing far more important work than he ever will. Do a good job and show him what you’re made of.
I will.
Mitsuhiro instantly felt better. Takenaka was busying himself with first-half financial reports and investor relations and so on, but Mitsuhiro was conducting important investigations for a construction project that could determine the fate of the entire Shimaoka Group. That thought alone gave him a natural high.
At least keep your head down, though. Don’t want your boss getting too jealous of you.
Mitsuhiro couldn’t help but smile, finally putting down the bag in his hands. After turning on his laptop, he began to tackle the first task of the day.