It was 8:45 a.m. Mitsuri Nakao’s shift started at nine, and when she opened the door to the staff room, the scent of roses was so strong she almost choked.
“A richness of roses!” she blurted out, and looked around. Two huge bouquets had been left there, so big they barely fit on the table. The roses in both were a deep crimson color, but the petals of one were streaked with figures of gold. Thinking they were artificial, Mitsuri took a closer look, but they were actual roses, with letters impressed in gold leaf on the petals:
Mon chéri
There were easily thirty roses in each bouquet, and on the petals of each flower, the same thing was written, in tiny, delicate letters. Love is a heavy burden, thought Mitsuri and let out a sharp laugh.
“Those look really expensive, don’t they? I’m sure it’s something about love, but what does it mean?”
“It’s French. Apparently it means ‘my darling,’ ” said Muraoka, a university student who worked part-time at the store. He had arrived earlier and spoke without looking up from his phone, but he must have noticed the gold lettering as well.
He lifted his head for a moment and scanned the room, then grimaced. “I mean, he’s really popular, isn’t he? You-know-who.”
Muraoka had started at Tenderness almost a year ago, but he wasn’t a big fan of Shiba. It’s not that he disliked him, he said, but when they got too close to each other, his nose would itch and he’d be unable to stop sneezing. He never made a big deal about it, just said it was probably his allergies, but Shiba always seemed a little lonely around him, being treated like pollen.
“I still don’t understand what’s so great about the store manager,” he said earnestly, “but sometimes I get the feeling I’m in the minority.” Mitsuri, too, took a quick look around. The staff room, which was not particularly large, was piled high with gifts of all sorts. Large stuffed animals, gift bags from well-known stores, boxes tied round with brightly colored ribbons. They were all for Shiba, the store manager, courtesy of his legion of fans, who weren’t about to miss the opportunity to shower him with love during the holiday season.
“I mean, wasn’t he working his shift until nine p.m. last night? Why didn’t he take some of this stuff home with him?”
At Muraoka’s words, the smile disappeared from Mitsuri’s face. “He took yesterday’s lot home already…!”
Yesterday was Christmas Eve, and Mitsuri had been on duty from morning to sundown, but even now, thinking about it gave her heartburn. The store was jam-packed with Christmas sale items, and then on top of that, gifts addressed to Shiba kept arriving one after another, in quick succession. A crowd of people had queued up in front of the register where Shiba was stationed, so that the whole situation began to resemble a celebrity autograph session at a convention.
“I’m very happy that we can all be together on Christmas Eve,” Shiba said with a calm smile, and the store erupted in joyful shrieks. One by one, the customers stepped forward to present their gifts, fidgeting while the store manager would frown as if troubled and say something like, “Of course, your patronage at the store makes me happy enough.” Mitsuri, who was busy scanning barcodes for rice bowls and energy drinks, could hardly keep track of where she was or what she was doing. Who in their right mind would expect to hear someone shouting, “Time at the front is limited to two minutes per person!” in a place like this? And their celebrity icon, well, it was just a convenience store, and he was just its manager.
The queue on Shiba’s side of the counter went on forever, so he couldn’t step away from the register, even for a minute. Shiba’s fans purchased products in large quantities, probably because it meant they got to be close to him for a few seconds longer, so restocking the shelves—which were emptying at an abnormally fast pace—was added to the workload of the staff. Hirose, another part-timer who had come in yesterday, had said, with bloodshot eyes, “This is just too much! Let’s set up a tent for the manager in the car park and they can do what they want with him.” But even while Mitsuri was doing her best to restrain Hirose from making good on his suggestion, the shelves continued to empty.
Mitsuri shuddered involuntarily as she flashed back to yesterday’s disastrous spectacle, then said to Muraoka, “All I know is that the manager’s already made two trips home to clear out the gifts. So all these must have arrived after he went off duty.”
“What? Are you kidding me? Well, his place must be a real sight to see by now, don’t you think?”
Muraoka grimaced again, and Mitsuri nodded in response. There were surely enough gifts up there for him to open a small shop of his own.
“The manager ought to take on a new line of work. If he really applied himself, he could transform Mojikō’s economy. We could be bigger than Hakata!”
Muraoka picked up a small package that was near at hand as he spoke, while Mitsuri laughed at his words.
“I know how you feel,” she said, “but you know, even if he has the ability, he doesn’t have the desire.”
Mitsuri had felt much the same as Muraoka at first, but as she spent more time with Shiba and got to know him better, her thinking changed. She came to understand that Shiba loved the convenience store with all his heart. He observed all of his customers carefully and had a thorough knowledge of the regulars. Even in the midst of yesterday’s insanity with the gifts, he’d addressed each and every person in the queue by name.
Shiba did his job with more care and precision than any of the area managers, or even the supervisors from the head office. It was said that the number of customers had grown explosively since Shiba became manager, and now the Mojikō-Koganemura branch boasted the top sales ranking for all of Fukuoka Prefecture. He was in the store so often that customers speculated that he lived there, and his enthusiasm for sales events and other store activities was unparalleled.
It got to the point where it seemed as though Shiba was even devoting his personal time to the store, but he always seemed to be enjoying himself. “I like to spend time in the shop,” he’d say. He took great pleasure in seeing all the joys and sorrows of his customers’ lives, he said, and his happiest moment ever was surely the day he learned that two regular customers were to be wed. Apparently the couple had met in the dine-in space, and one thing led to another. When the two of them had come to Shiba to let him know their plans, his cheeks had turned bright red and he said, “Thank you!” almost as if they had confessed their love for him instead of for each other. “It’s an honor to be a part of such joy in someone’s life. And I couldn’t be more delighted that it happened at this store. I wish you every happiness!”