It wasn’t until later that evening that Suzui finally headed home.
Following the afternoon rounds of sales, he had a business dinner with his final appointment, a chief purchasing contact, then took the train home. Suzui clung to a hanging strap and stared out the window. It was before ten o’clock, so the train wasn’t packed. The crowding after nine o’clock and after ten o’clock were completely different. Because Suzui’s dinner partner wasn’t a drinker, he hadn’t had to worry about being held late into the busy nightlife hours.
Suzui wasn’t much of a drinker, either. He could barely hold his liquor. In fact, he seemed to have almost no alcohol-metabolizing enzymes; even the disinfectant alcohol wipes before a vaccine shot made his skin puffy and red. He’d tried getting hammered a few times as a student, hoping the old wives’ tale about building tolerance the more you drink was true. However, it only made him sick and forced other people to look after him. The silver lining was that he knew his limits before becoming a working adult.
Suzui heard that companies didn’t force their employees to drink like they had in the past. In fact, during his tenure in the planning division, no one gave him a hard time about liquor.
But since coming to sales, he’d learned that you didn’t always get that ideal treatment.
“You can’t drink? What were you doing in college, man?”
Unsurprisingly, that’s what Chief Sato said. He’d eyed Suzui with a mixture of annoyance and snide mockery.
“You never took part in a sports team, did you? I didn’t think so; that’s why you don’t know how to get along with people. Look, you only have to join in for the first sip or two. If you’re not drinking, don’t come to the bar meetups.”
That would have been fine with Suzui. He didn’t want to go out drinking after work if he could avoid it. But he knew that if he didn’t attend, it would put him on the outs with the section chief, so he forced himself to go. Although Suzui’s sales job meant occasional solo meetings, like the one today, there were plenty where he assisted the chief. Sato never wasted any time insulting Suzui in front of the client.
“Can you believe this guy? Can’t drink a drop. I want to complain to personnel for sending him to sales. I apologize on his behalf for being so boring and not having a good time with us.”
Sato believed that mocking people on his side helped him maintain a harmonious relationship with the client. It was a mindset that made Suzui sick to his stomach, but even worse was the way Sato gave him a condescending smile as soon as the outing was over.
“If I didn’t address that one right off the bat, you’d end up feeling like a real asshole when they found out you couldn’t drink later, right? I did you a favor by bringing it up first.”
Suzui had learned through personal experience that there were methods of getting through social drinking functions. There were plenty of ways he could have handled the situation without a big fuss. It was irritating that the chief made the choice for him. Unfortunately, the contacts Sato wanted to personally meet were always the sort who got along with him. By turning Suzui into the butt of a joke, he defined their relationship in a certain light.
Suzui saw Chief Sato and those like him as old-fashioned, but he knew they saw him as the one at fault. He couldn’t drink, yet still called himself a man? No, he was a boring drudge who couldn’t get along with others. They often asked him what he had done in college. Did they think Suzui wasn’t mocked like this in school? College was unbearable, too. Why was Suzui forced to endure this attitude in the workplace?
These days, the accounts Suzui managed all belonged to customers who were moderate drinkers, even at big gatherings. He’d learned that Mutsumi, his section leader, had arranged that. Naturally, she never pressured Suzui to return the favor.
The stations that flew by beyond the window steadily got closer to the one by Suzui’s place, where he lived alone.
At one station that Suzui never got off at, the train’s stop took longer than usual. Before long, a voice came over the speakers.
“We’re receiving a stop request from the train ahead of us. Please bear with us. The wait will be an extra two minutes.”
Suzui wasn’t in any particular rush to get home, so he took out his phone to pass the time by browsing the internet or looking at social media. However, something caught his attention in the blurry background past his phone, out through the train doors. Suzui looked up, and his eyes locked on to someone.
There was a familiar face at this station he’d never visited—Jin. Despite his height and usual good posture, the man was hunched. He carried a large document briefcase and had a cellphone to his ear.
On the phone? Suzui thought, confused. A train platform, with all the trains coming and going and various other noises, was a terrible place for a call.
Suzui couldn’t make out Jin’s voice, but he saw him. Phone in one hand and heavy briefcase in the other, Jin hunched over even more than before, as though apologizing to the person on the other end of the call, who wouldn’t be able to see.
“We’re sorry for the ongoing delay. It should be one additional minute,” the voice over the train loudspeaker said. Suzui didn’t care about the delay, although maybe enough other people did to warrant the announcement. Then again, he might have felt differently were he in a rush. Thinking about it got Suzui in a bad mood, and he jumped off the train on an impulse. The coworker around his father’s age, a very capable employee in his own right, was apologizing to someone over the phone. Suzui’s body moved unconsciously.
“Jin!” he called while stepping off the train. Jin flinched at the sound, but he didn’t remove the phone from his ear. His eyes found Suzui, and his mouth made a shape like “Oh.” He continued speaking solely to the person on the other end of the call, however.
“Oh, er, it’s nothing. Yes, it’s fine. Yes, yes, that sounds very bad. I know, Section Chief. I agree, I think you’re correct.”
Section Chief.
The words made Suzui’s head feel numb from the center outward. Jin was clearly troubled. There were weak wrinkles around his eyes. His eyebrows hung low as he stared in Suzui’s direction apologetically. It was the kind of expression someone made when they were crying and smiling at the same time.
“Hang up the call,” Suzui said.
“Huh?” Jin replied, shocked.