Sleep is impartial, visiting all equally and bringing a new day not quite like any before.
Fuuka, whose presence was uncertain, began to study writing and reading. And for Sora, it was just possible that here in Shizukuishi, he was beginning to live and coexist with other people for the first time in his life.
Sora was thinking about what Tatsuko—who brought them her delicious chicken hot pot the day before—had said that day at the park.
“They say wolves and dogs used to be the same kind of animals. One lives together with humans; the other can tear them apart. Maybe that’s the only difference, and we humans give them different names for our own selfish reasons.”
At some point, without realizing it himself, Sora had come to long for a steady life with the people of this town, to live in harmony with them. And to that end, he needed to work hard to earn his keep.
At this moment, he was having a glass of barley tea in the reception space at the Kouichi Koudera Tax Accountant Office, nestled in a side alley next to the Shizukuishi shopping street.
The tax accountant Natsuki Koudera was smiling broadly at him in such a puzzlingly brazen manner that Sora bowed instinctively. “Thank you for making the time to meet,” he said, despite being the one who’d had to accommodate her schedule because she had been too busy for an appointment the previous day.
If he remembered correctly, the woman in the blue-gray pantsuit sitting in front of him was the one with a keen sense of finance. She liked her beer with two kilograms of kimchi. Sora wondered where Kouichi Koudera was.
“Thank you. I’m so glad you came.”
Her lecturing Keita on the cost percentage and management of his vegetable business made sense to him now, considering she was a tax accountant.
“You seemed to be quite busy. Was today a good time for you?”
Sora was simply excited that someone in Shizukuishi might be in need of the rather specialized services of a certified fraud examiner. In his own way, he was eager to make the best impression.
“Oh, no, I just happened to be out on a routine audit for a client company yesterday—I have way too much time on my hands around this time of year. Way too much, let me tell you. Work is so, so slow. My calendar’s so blank, I even went out for drinks after the audit,” she said, waving her hands vigorously.
She was a little hungover, though she gave the impression of a neat and tidy woman in her midthirties. Her hair was clipped in a straight bob just above her shoulders.
“I see…”
After he quit the Public Prosecutors’ Office, Sora had only worked with stuffy, older men in internal audit offices who wore their ties stiff and straight. He wasn’t used to being in the presence of a woman, let alone having a conversation with her. He glanced toward the back of the office, anticipating the moment when Kouichi Koudera would swap places with Natsuki. At the moment, the fifty-something man in the back, who looked exactly like how he’d expect a tax accountant to look, was busy filing away some receipts at his desk.
“January, February, and March are hell. The rest of the time, I’m pretty free. I wish everyone handed in their receipts every month! If I could keep a monthly register, I wouldn’t have to work myself to death in the busy season.”
Sora was well aware that tax accountants sometimes helped manage a company’s accounts, but their real battle came when it was time to file tax returns. For a certified fraud examiner, how a company did their accounting, kept their records, filed their tax returns, and paid taxes were all crucial details.
“I want to renovate this office, you see,” said Natsuki, looking around the room with eyes defined with sharp, clean eyeliner. She sighed.
Sora had hoped she might finally broach the real subject of their meeting, but it was not to be. “Now that you mention it, the office is a little…” He trailed off. Slightly overly keen to land a new project to stay in this town, he was trying his best to keep the conversation going, though he was very perplexed by the abrupt change in topic.
“It’s old, right?! Doesn’t it look like some tax office from the ’50s or something?” She looked over her shoulder. “Hear that, Mr. Hiraga? He thinks it looks ancient, too!”
The fifty-something man in black-rimmed glasses was apparently not Kouichi Koudera.
“Oh, no, I never said that! Not in the least!” Sora blurted out, almost rising to his feet in a fluster. He wasn’t used to trying to talk about something he didn’t understand just to be agreeable, and now he’d put his foot in his mouth.
“Ms. Natsuki’s always going on about it,” said Hiraga, smiling gently. He himself looked like he’d stepped right out of some ’50s TV show, wearing a white shirt, holding a calculator and receipts.
“You know we don’t have time for that, boss.” A woman chimed in from near the door, twirling her smartly curled hair around her finger. Her name tag read KAWAGUCHI. She appeared to be in her twenties, apparently doing some minor clerical work, and she clearly didn’t care about mincing words. “Renovation means hauling all our papers and computers outside till it’s over, right? Fat chance. Literally impossible. I’d quit.”
“Awww, Mikuuu. I’d die if you quit. Ummm, anyway, I should introduce us. I’m the chief here, and Mr. Hiraga is my firm partner. Ms. Miku Kawaguchi here is the best assistant ever. My father set up this office to do taxes for the people on the shopping street and things like that, but we lost him ten years ago. He died so young,” she concluded lightly, drinking her barley tea.
“I see. My condo—” Sora paused, unsure whether it would be appropriate to offer his condolences for someone who was still there in the name of the office, even after ten years.