Of the Twenty-Three Special Wards of Tokyo, Edogawa City — the wards called themselves “cities” — ranked pretty much at the top, right next to Adachi City for being “the least desirable city to live in.” The general image held by those not living there was that it was a place that, due to being frequented by delinquents even in this day and age, had very bad public order. The truth of the matter, however, was that it was an extremely liveable city. This was especially true of the area alongside the Toei Shinjuku Line between Funabori Station and Mizue Station, a neighborhood within which could be found multiple supermarkets and no shortage of public facilities, like parks and sports centers. To top it off, rent here was extremely reasonable. Because of all these reasons, there was even a certain percentage of the population who were born here, worked here, and planned to die here as well. In a way, I, too, was one of them.
I, Ezoe Kazuhiko, am a resident of Edogawa City and am turning forty this year. If asked what I did for a living, I’d say management consulting. It was ten years ago that I obtained my Small and Medium Enterprise Management Consultant license and quit my job. Now, I make my living taking on jobs related to social insurance from small and medium companies in the area around Edogawa City, Koto City, and Chiba Prefecture, with the occasional lecturer gig at a training course. It might sound like I do a lot, but my annual income never really exceeded the six-million mark.
Having no intention of getting married, I had bought a modest, thirty-year-old house located in the Shishibone neighborhood, a place so lonely — even for Edogawa City — that it had earned the nickname of “Landbound Solitary Island.” Out of the seven days of the week, I would work two days, rest a day, work two more days, then rest the remaining two days. Mine was a laid-back lifestyle with three days off weekly..
I had no siblings, and both my parents had already passed away. I did have a few slightly removed relatives living not too far away who would come over every once in a while, but that was about it. I knew quite a few people in the area, but there were only a small handful who I considered close friends. There was no one to order me about and no one that I had to always be considerate towards. Despite not being all that affluent, life was still enjoyable and stress free.
“Hey there, Ezoe-san. How you doin’? You feel like dropping by tonight?”
One of the advantages of the bachelor lifestyle was the freedom to go drink wherever and whenever without having to mind anyone else. Not too far away from the northern entrance of Mizue Station was one of my favorite lounges, ROCO. It was one of the staff members, Mochizuki, who had called out to me.
“Who’s there tonight, Mocchii?”
“It’s Yuzu-san tonight.”
“Sure, count me in, then.”
In this way, I would drop by this place about once every week. As a self-employed bachelor, weekdays and weekends were all the same to me. When I felt like drinking, I drank; when I felt like sleeping, I slept. What I had attained after being freed from the bindings of company life was overwhelming freedom. After drinking for about two hours, I took a taxi home.
Shishibone, the area where I lived, was a large “railway blindspot” sandwiched between Mizue Station on the Toei Shinjuku Line and Koiwa Station of the Sobu Line. The distance from where I lived to either of those stations was roughly a thirty minutes’ walk. My fifty-square-meter plot of land had a second-hand, detached house and a small yard. Here was where I planned to live out the rest of my quiet, modest life.
I took off my jacket and retrieved a beer from the fridge. As I was also feeling a bit peckish, I poured hot water in one of the cup noodles that I had in stock. It was already past midnight, but tomorrow was one of my planned days off, so it didn’t matter if I stayed up late. Lately, I had been growing a bit of a belly, and my blood pressure levels were starting to climb a little. But what was one more night? I felt a slight tremor or wobble, probably because of all the alcohol in me. After kicking my slacks off as well — which reduced me to my trunks — I then added super-spicy sauce to my favorite flavor of seafood noodles and ate it. In the end, it was way past 2 a.m. when I finally went to bed.
In my own way, I was happy with my routine-like life of basically a stable sameness sprinkled with the occasional bit of excitement.
“What...is this hole...?”
Or at least, I was happy, up until that fateful day at the end of June, when the name of Japan’s new era had only just been ushered in.