I hate birthdays. You’re supposed to have gained a year’s worth of experience, but I always feel like I’ve lost something in equal measure.
Ever since I was little, I’ve always had one dream or another. When I was five, I wanted to become a princess and live in a castle made of sweets. When I was eight, I wanted to become a singer and appear on TV wearing cute outfits. When I was twelve, I wanted to become a pastry chef and bake cakes that would make the whole world happy. Those dreams were so dear to me, I wanted to squeeze them tight in my arms. They practically glittered.
When I was fifteen, I wanted to live my own “Cinderella” story by marrying the president of a big company. When I was eighteen, I wanted to become a civil servant with a stable income. When I was twenty, I wanted to become an office worker at a halfway decent company and quit when I got married. When I was twenty-two, I wanted to get a job with whatever company would have me. Now that I’m twenty-seven, I’ve totally forgotten those dreams overflowing with hope from when I was young. Now the bar has lowered considerably, and I’m desperate to achieve even an average level of happiness.
If I try to remember when, exactly, I became like this, an empty feeling overtakes me. Everything I’ve learned as an adult is important and yet ridiculous. Like the fact that it’s shameful to rely on others if you haven’t struggled to make it on your own. Or that there are some people you must never argue with, even if what they’re saying is completely wrong. Or that sometimes, no matter how hard you work, you won’t be rewarded for it. The older I get, the more I take these “important and yet ridiculous” things for granted. And whenever I’m reminded of that, I get fed up with myself. If you ask me, that’s more than enough reason to hate birthdays.
“Ms. Yoroizuka, may I speak with you for a moment?”
Nagi Yoroizuka stopped typing.
“Yes?”
She glanced in the direction of the voice. Her coworker Ai Saotome was looking at her hesitantly.
“I’ve finished the revised design specifications for Yummy Foods,” she said. “The document is in the shared folder.”
“You’re done already? I swear, you’re almost too fast!” Nagi answered.
“Oh, no, not at all,” Saotome replied bashfully.
Two years younger than Nagi, with a sweet face, a polished style, and a voice like cotton candy, Saotome was the embodiment of “femininity.” She was so ridiculously attractive that after she was hired, Nagi heard guys who weren’t even in their department were getting weak in the knees over her. It wasn’t just her appearance, either—her personality was cute, too. And to top it all off, she carried out her work with admirable efficiency. Nagi felt constantly grateful to have such an amazing team member.
“Please look it over when you can,” Saotome said with a polite nod. Nagi thanked her before turning back to her computer.
Nagi had joined the software development company Sync. System straight out of university five years earlier. The company had two development divisions, and the one Nagi belonged to was called System Development Division One. Her department mostly built systems for small and midsize companies in a range of industries, from medical and food to apparel and e-commerce. Simply put, they did a little of everything. When she was first hired, she didn’t know a system or a software program from a sandwich. But at this point, she was an engineer on the cutting edge of her industry. She’d never dreamed, back in her days as a humanities major, that she’d end up doing anything like this, but life was unpredictable.
“…Right, back to work.”
Nagi took a gulp of coffee from her tumbler and brought her focus back to the monitor in front of her, where she’d pulled up the system design specifications for Yummy Foods. The food-processing company was launching an e-commerce project, and Sync. System was developing the website. As a project manager, Nagi spent most of her time meeting with clients, managing schedules, and designing systems. They’d been working on the current project for about three months and were supposed to hand it over the week after next, which meant it was crunch time.
Just then, a notification popped up on Nagi’s screen. She had a message on the internal chat system from Takumi Saiga, a younger coworker who had just been hired that year. Saiga was in charge of programming for the Yummy Foods project, but according to his message, he was taking a little more time than planned. Nagi stood up and walked over to Saiga’s desk, which was located diagonally behind hers.
“Saiga…?”
“…Yes?”
Saiga, who’d seemingly been in a staring contest with his computer screen, turned around. With his lightly permed, bleached-brown hair and baggy suit he didn’t yet seem used to wearing, he still looked like a university student. Nagi was a little put off, however, by the frown on his face which clashed with his otherwise youthful aura, and the grumpy mood he was making no effort to hide.
“Um…it sounds like you’re running a little behind schedule. Is everything all right?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah… Sorry about that,” Saiga replied. “Something is tripping me up. The part that issues members-only discount coupons should stay on the screen when you scroll, but it seems to disappear under certain conditions.”
“Ah, gotcha. That part could be tough.”
Saiga had been a STEM major, and Nagi had heard he’d taken programming courses. But book knowledge only counted for so much in the real world, and he seemed to agonize over that gap. He tended to work at about half the speed of more senior programmers.
“I still don’t know what’s causing the problem. Would you mind if I stayed late tonight?” he asked.
“No worries, I’ll do that part. Why don’t you handle the newsletter? That should be easier. Sorry for sticking you with such a tough job.”
Nagi was grateful for Saiga’s willingness to tackle the issue, but she wanted to avoid overburdening him when he still had so much to learn. It would be better for her to stay a little late so that he could leave on time.
“…Okay, if you think that’s best,” Saiga answered. For some reason, his tone seemed a little short. He turned back to his computer and began pounding the keys in a suspiciously violent manner.
“K-keep up the good work…,” Nagi mumbled to his hostile-looking back before retreating to her desk, inwardly troubled.
The truth was, she had failed to build a positive relationship with Saiga, and he seemed to have a low opinion of her, though Nagi had no clue why. She thought she’d treated him normally, but before she knew it, the guy hated her. System Development Division One was broken into smaller teams, and the one Nagi led had only three members: herself, Saotome, and Saiga. As team leader, Nagi genuinely wanted to get along with him. She bought him little snacks and attempted to chat with him, but Saiga’s attitude remained unchanged. Conversation might have been easier if they were closer in age, but Nagi was five years older than him. And her birthday was coming up, which would only widen the gap even more. Oh well. She made up her mind to stop thinking in circles. Yet no sooner had she cleared away these mental distractions and gotten back to work than she heard someone calling her name.
“Hey, Yoroizuka.”
Immediately, any optimism she’d had vanished. It was Kojima, head of the sales team. He was gesturing to Nagi from his desk, which was some distance from the development team’s area. Nagi stood up immediately and hurried over to him.
“What’s going on with Yummy Foods?” he asked right out of the gate, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed. He was in charge of marketing on the project.
“I posted a status update in the regular thread.”
“Did you? I haven’t opened it.”
Don’t talk to me until you have, Nagi thought, but she was used to this. She stood by silently as he read the thread.
“Aha…so you’re on schedule,” Kojima muttered, still looking at his monitor.
“Yes. We’re managing to keep up.”
She added emphasis to the words managing to. Problems were a fact of life in system development, and Yummy Foods was no exception. But they’d worked through the issues methodically and were finally nearing the end. If they continued at their current pace, they should safely make their deadline.
“You can’t work a little faster?” Kojima asked.
Nagi gaped at him.
“Are you seriously asking me to move up the deadline?”
It wasn’t unusual for clients to request an earlier date, but this late in the game? Accelerating the schedule any more would be impossible. As Nagi panicked, Kojima shook his head.
“You don’t get it, do you? You need to keep internal costs in mind.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t understand Kojima’s point. The faster they finished one project, the sooner they could take on the next, which meant more profit for the company. But the truth was, while individual skill did impact speed, building a system took a certain amount of time no matter who did it. System development required testing, after all. If you slacked on testing, you ended up with a system full of bugs. The quantity of bugs was directly proportional to the quantity of customer complaints, which would ultimately drag down the company’s reputation. For that reason, Nagi and her team had to run tests on dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of patterns to hone the system’s quality. Everyone knew that, which was why no one else in Sales would ever say something like this to the development team. In fact, in an industry so plagued with problems, finishing a system on schedule was cause for celebration.
“I realize that’s important. But at this stage, I don’t think I can move up the schedule very much. I’ll do what I can, but…”
There were plenty of things she wanted to say, but she did her utmost to sound humble. Kojima clicked his tongue anyway.
“People like you who get hired through connections always mouth off,” he spat. Nagi could feel her cheek twitching. “Listen, Yoroizuka. You may think you’re hot shit because you’re the president’s niece, but you won’t get any special treatment from me.”