Oh, the Whatever Guy, Mitsuri thought to herself. The man was one of the store’s regulars. He had shaggy hair and a beard like Shōhei’s, fully covering the bottom half of his face. He always wore a light green coverall—it was possibly his only outfit—with white bubble letters on the back reading “Whatever Guy.” His customary ride was a white mini-truck, now sitting in the store’s car park. On the tailgate was written: “Junk Removal—Leave Your Problems to the Whatever Guy!” The truck was always loaded with old fridges and broken-limbed mannequins, so he must be a junkman. She wasn’t sure about the “problems” part.
The man always spent a long time in the store. He worked his way through the aisles, looking at everything from the book corner to the beverage section to the household items. She kept a close eye on him at first, but it seemed he just liked to browse.
“He’s here again. That customer. What’s his deal?” Nomiya said in a low voice. He had quietly drawn near to Mitsuri, never letting his suspicious gaze drop from the man. “Shōhei says he doesn’t know much about him, so he must be really shady.”
“Really? That’s amazing,” replied Mitsuri. To make his tourist maps, Shōhei was always running around town collecting the latest news. He boasted that he was Mojikō’s top informant. In fact, there wasn’t much that Shōhei didn’t know, if you asked him. Had he finally met his match?
The man had been coming in since Mitsuri started at the store. She’d had several chances to address him, but he never offered more than a syllable in reply: “Oh,” “Yes,” or “Well…” A former colleague of hers at the store had surmised that he had some particularly severe form of social anxiety disorder, but if that were the case, he’d have difficulty working in the junk collection business, wouldn’t he? It seemed as if he kept a deliberate distance around him somehow. She had the sense that he liked his privacy.
“Also, he could be trouble,” Nomiya whispered, dropping his voice another notch. “Actually, I saw him together with the store manager at the Joyful Restaurant in Mojikō—just the two of them.”
“Really?” she exclaimed loudly, without thinking, then hurriedly covered her mouth. Did Shiba’s wiles extend even to the Whatever Guy? But a lovers’ tryst at a family restaurant, the two of them feeding each other cheeseburgers? Would the manager do that? It seemed impossible to imagine, but she couldn’t resist trying…
“He handed the manager a package!” Nomiya continued. “Or it looked like that, anyway. Was it some kind of payoff?”
“Whaa…?” Mitsuri’s jaw dropped and a meaningless gasp escaped her. Together with the Ayumu business, today was a day of too many surprises. Mitsuri was speechless, but then with a start she pulled herself together.
“Okay, this won’t do at all. I’m going to the stockroom for a minute. You keep an eye on things here.”
Mitsuri emerged from the back, arms full of bento lunches for the people waiting in the dine-in space. As she was carrying them over, she noticed the man happily perusing the shelves, basket in hand. He was still standing there when she returned. In his basket she saw an assortment of sausages and a large spaghetti peperoncino. The man clearly liked variety, and always put together a selection of small dishes. Lately, he seemed to be particularly taken with spaghetti peperoncino—a pasta with chili, garlic, and olive oil. Peperoncino was also a favorite of Mitsuri’s son, Kōsei, and she was just thinking it might be nice to make it for dinner that evening, when she had a sudden idea.
Oh! This was her chance to speak to the man. But was it okay to ask? She faltered for a moment, but really her mind had been made up from the moment she had the thought.
“Um, excuse me!” she called out to the man, who was scanning the drinks in the beverage section, and he slowly turned. The eyes under his floppy hair met hers. Mitsuri was startled for a moment, and it occurred to her that she and the man had never faced each other properly. He was so covered in hair that she hadn’t noticed previously, but he seemed surprisingly youthful. Was he around the same age as Shiba? There was something special about those determined, dark eyes.
“What is it?” the man asked quietly.
“Um, you’re a junk collector, right? I was wondering if you accepted broken bicycles.”
The other day Kōsei had come home with a broken bicycle. It had been wrecked somehow, and the frame had been crushed beyond any likely hope of repair. She thought they should get rid of it, but somehow it was still lying around in the yard.
“I do, but where is it?”
I got more than a syllable! Feeling a small sense of accomplishment, Mitsuri replied, “At my house.”
“And your house is where?”
“About ten minutes from here on foot.”
She told him the address, and the man nodded. “I’ll come around soon. If you have other things you want to toss, I can take them at the same time. Bicycles are free, but for some items there may be a recycling fee, just be aware of that.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Deep down, Mitsuri was quite surprised at the gentleness of the man’s voice and manner. She had imagined he would be brusque and unfriendly, even when he was at work.
“Uh, hold on…oh, wait…here it is.”
The man fished around in his overall pockets and pulled out a piece of paper. “Right, here you go,” he said and handed over a business card with the same lettering that was printed on his back: “Whatever Guy.” Then, in small letters, a mobile phone number.
“If something comes up, you can reach me here.”
“ ‘Junk removal and problems’…Um, so what kind of problems do you mean?”
This was the question she had been wanting to ask for so long. She raised her gaze from the business card and looked at him.
“Whatever’s bothering you, I take care of it,” he replied. “When I go to older people’s homes, I get asked to do a lot of chores or odd jobs. Moving furniture, shopping, that sort of thing. So I figured I might as well write that.”
Makes sense, Mitsuri thought. “Oh. There’s no name here, on the card…”
The man scratched his cheek. “When I ordered the cards I forgot to put that in.” He looked a little embarrassed, then added, “Tsugi.”
“Sorry?”
“You can call me Tsugi.”
Tsugi. An unusual name, Mitsuri thought. I wonder what characters he uses to write it? Harbor-tree, City-castle, something like that? Just as she was about to ask, a string of customers entered the store.
“Sorry, I have to get back to work now. But it was nice to meet you.”
Mitsuri wanted to talk more with Tsugi. Reluctantly, she returned to work.