'Saturday: November 26th: 08:00:29'

Saturday

26th November

08:00:29

Naoki held the backspace button, watching his search disappear from the blinking bar at the top of his screen and into nothingness, where it belonged.

What am I, an idiot?

He had to dwell on the question a good, few, long seconds.
Hadn’t he just won an award for this?

Tiredness driven to idiocy. Idiocy driven to tiredness. It was a chicken-and-egg problem, but the man, somewhat regretting the total lack of any fat reserves on his body, really did not want to think about that particular bird right now.

As his stomach growled, he sat back from his desk, holding his head gently in his excellently-defined hands.

What wasn’t quite so much a shapely, reliable balance between softness and strength as the backs of his palms and his knuckles, which he was currently jamming into his temples, was his plans for the next twenty hours of the countdown before Mrs. Senzaki came knocking—

Kkok-kkok-kkok.

“Ahem. Katsumacchan?”

Kkok-kkok.

“Are you awake, dear?”

Naoki had been through enough phony online webinars to know manifesting wasn’t real. Yet it seemed that sometimes, facts were stranger than fiction.

“I’ll… Be right there!”

Slowly, he unstuck himself from his little office chair.

Premeditations, excuses, the anxious works ran circles around each step towards his door. It felt like his feet were being bogged down by wet chains.
No matter how much of an Achilles you became, it only took a few panicky thoughts nipping at your ankles to bring you down.
For Naoki, in this moment, it was:
‘Did I get the date wrong?’

“H-how can I help, Ms. Senzaki?”

He opened the door to a demure, pleasant-looking woman standing about forty years his senior, and four feet his junior.

He’d been expecting her ever since he heard ‘Katsumacchan’.
Sometimes, the landlady would come and visit out of the blue, often with a bean bun in hand, the occasional treat her granddaughter brought her to share.

Today, she was empty-handed. But the same seemed to go for her face, as she squinted up at towering Katsumacchan, her smile only a little strained.

“So sorry to bother you, dearie.” The little woman said. “But I seemed to’ve lost my glasses. I need a big, strong man to help me look. Won’t you, love?”

She flashed him a wink, although it was lost in the same wide sweetness of the smile she usually had on for the world.
If nothing else, it was a look of sweetness that gave rise to a great sigh of relief in Naoki. Albeit one he refrained from breathing.

That was all?

“—Sure.” All at once, he straightened up.

“Thank you, dear. I usually wear them on a necklace, but I can’t tell you where I put it. Went and fell right down when I let them go! It’s the silliest thing.”

The man practiced absolute caution as he padded down the hallway after Mrs. Senzaki, who shuffled along in her slippers without a care. She led him several doors down, almost to the next wing of mansion apartments, and he wondered why she’d decided to call on him.

“Ehm… I think it was around here that I must’ve dropped them.” She squinted, searching a floor that was just patterned enough to not be sure. “Oh, by the way, dear, how are you finding your room? Not too small, is it? I can’t bear the thought of you getting squished in there.”

“Oh?” The check-in caught Naoki off-guard. He wondered at the selflessness of the landlady who was looking out for him, when she couldn’t even see.

Though, as an immediate aftertaste, came a wave of guilt.

“I-it’s not too small at all.” He shook his head profusely. “It fits my needs perfectly. I should be super grateful to you for waiving my key fees…”

“Oh, I don’t mean to get all bothersome on you about it.” Mrs. Senzaki drew her elbow into her chest, her palm on her chin, her fingers curled against a weathered, but relatively vibrant face.
“I just worry that it’s not the sort of place you’d be proud to bring your lady friend round.”

“Ah… Aha.” Naoki took the piece of friendly gossip with a smile, waving a hand gently. “I wouldn’t worry, Ms. Senzaki. I don’t have much in the way of that…”

“Oh, really?” The little old woman’s face was surprisingly coy, and totally distracted from the search along the floor. At least she could make out his shape and the direction of his voice, and that was enough to meet Naoki’s gaze with a glint, a coy look that was gradually shifting.
“Who was that girl you were with last night, then?”

“Ah…
"—Ah?”

The pit of the man’s stomach went hard, harder than the iron he was used to hearing about so much. And much colder.

Mrs. Senzaki had seen them?

Them?  Who?

Him, and… Her?

What had she seen?

What was he supposed to tell her?

What… Had even happened?

Contrary to the chill of stillness in his abdominals, his heart had begun protesting to the well of memories with all the attitude of a locomotive, and he began to inch backward, to take some room to breathe and collect himself.

“Oh… She was just lost.” He determined.

“And asking for directions in return for… Favours?” Mrs. Senzaki arched an eyebrow. “Before addlement with age, at the very least, comes wisdom, love. Please do try harder than that.”

Crap. This was by no means the quietest neighbourhood in the city, but around this particular block was a relative bubble of peace. It was no doubt easier to sniff out when something was up here than anywhere else nearby, and easy to sniff out his attempt to downplay the situation.

The downside to peace was that it made little things far too exciting, and it didn’t take much, and certainly didn’t take long, before they turned into big deals.

And sometimes, very big deals.

The variables swam in Naoki’s mind. Whatever images and sensations his one-track mind were desperately failing to block out were probably a recollection of events that toed the kind of line that got lawyers, and prosecutors, a little more up in the morning than they needed to be.

All it would take was a little investigative curiosity, or for Mrs. Senzaki to find herself in a talkative mood the next time she found herself in conversation with someone who knew someone, and it would turn into a scandal.

Costs, to preserve his business’s image. Costs, to preserve his, and Takiguchi’s independently, and to salvage the relationship with his business partner.

Or, at the very least, whatever it would cost to placate Mrs. Senzaki. offer some incentive to refrain from over-gossiping.

There were two rails in Naoki’s mind, running in anything but parallel. The engine in his chest continued to strain and stretch between the two as they diverged, but he couldn’t decide which devil to entertain.

He had only ever seen Senzaki give, despite her position as landlady. Where did that variable fit in his little equation?

As if to confirm his suspicions, Mrs. Senzaki sighed. Her fingers went up to adjust a pair of glasses that were currently missing.

“—Oh.” She caught herself. She instead cleared her throat to dispel the only, silent, response the man had given her.
“Listen, Katsumacchan. You need to stay away from types like that. You’re trying to make your way up in the world, aren’t you? You need a girl who’ll do you good.”

“Hah…” Naoki nodded. Something about her lecture was momentarily soothing, a reminder that there was something the cutthroat backdrop of his maneuvering mind couldn’t account for in the world.

That there was enough of it, whatever it was, out there, that he could take a proper breath.

“You’re right.” He shifted, opening up his posture, widening his stance to let in some semblance of relief. “I’ll… Try to be more careful.”

Crunch.

Just then, a small, plastic noise wiped Naoki’s sheepish smile from his face.

He didn’t even have to look.

His foot, foolishly thinking it had taken an ordinary step, onto ordinary ground, had instead landed on a pair of thin, ergonomic frames.

The man remembered with some admiration the first time he’d seen Mrs. Senzaki’s glasses. They seemed robust, and practical, even cost-effective.
At the same time, they didn’t seem cheap.

“Oh…” He began.

“—Katsumacchan?”

He heard the woman’s voice wonder aloud, as he went to make the natural motion that should follow from this.

Waves had begotten waves. One pang of horror, and regret, and frustration dovetailed neatly into a big flush of guilt that overtook him.

And only from there, did the feeling grow, and grow, and grow.

Suddenly, the landlady was the one towering over him, though not by her own choice.

“Mrs. Senzaki, I’ve made a huge mistake.”

He presented the frames to her feet.

Certainly quicker than she'd been able to keep up with, the man had bent down onto his hands and knees. His shoulders came up roughly to the woman’s waist, but he was doing his best to widen the gap, reach her shins, perhaps.

Perhaps sink all the way into the floor and disappear.

If only.

“O-oh, dearie.” Came the reply. “I-it looks like someone’s broken them!”

Oh, God. Naoki curled in on himself. He’d almost reached ankle-height on Mrs. Senzaki, at this point.

“I-it was only a spare pair of glasses!” The sweet old landlady changed tack, realising anything other than simple reassurance would do more harm than good. “Not to worry, I know a fabulous repair shop not too far away. They’ll be good as new in a few days!”

Naoki appreciated it. Really, he did. But that only made things worse.

Eventually, he steeled himself.

“—No, there's… Something else."

Another tenant chose this moment to walk by, regarding the scene with eyes like headlamps. Their pace quickened, and took them out of sight of the massive prostration of a man bowing before Mrs. Senzaki.

“O-oh? What's that, dear?”

The landlady nodded sheepishly to her tenant before turning back, with a look that barely contained the broken expectations she couldn’t be blamed for developing.

"It's about my rent." The great, muscular, prostrate man said.
"I’m… 100,000 short.”

In the silence that followed, he took a deep breath. He knew what he had to do in this moment. It was all he could do.

"A-at least, right now." He went on. "I'm working on finding something that can fill the gap... But in the worst case scenario, I can take out a loan."
From the very moment he'd opened his mouth, he felt like he was babbling.
It wasn't like she needed to know any of this. If anything, he was just telegraphing the worst kind of weakness and incompetence.

Maybe it wouldn't be her. But if he made a habit of this, he'd get taken advantage of someday.
He wondered if that'd already happened enough.

But this time, it was too late not to open his mouth.

Voice strained, but resigned to his fate, he finished. "I just wanted to let you know... And apologise."

“... Oh!”

Finally, her eyes showed some sign of understanding.

Naoki could feel the woman peering over him. Eventually, he felt a warm hand come down onto his back.

“I’m not worried about it, dear.” She petted, her palm warming him like a candle against the steep side of a freight train.

One that’d run out of steam.

“Are you sure?” He raised his head, desperate. “I… I promise I’ll pay it as soon as I can.”

“Oh! Isn’t that nice.” She chuckled musically.
“But it's no rush, dearie. These things happen. I know you’ve been working hard.”

“But…”

“That’s it! You best be more worried about next month’s. Shall I bill you for these when the time comes?”

Naoki wasn’t sure if she’d winked, as she held up the ruined glasses in front of her face.

“Please do.” He lowered his head, narrowly dodging a soft slap.

“Oh my goodness gracious. I’m only joking!”

Bzzzzt.

Even prostrated with his forehead pushed as far into the floor as physics would allow, Naoki maintained the certain amount of dignity that came from his zero-delay texting technique.

In a touchscreen flicker, his device was out its pocket, the screen unlocked.

‘where r u’

Finally, the technicolour vortex of deadlines, schedules, task-trackers spat out a useful realisation.

“—My meeting!”

He jumped up, suddenly electrified.

“M-Mrs. Senzaki, I’m sorry. Is it alright if I give you the 320 tomorrow?”

“That’s the collection date, so no problems there.” The woman pulled a spare pair of glasses out of her pocket, and it was something of a divine providence that Naoki didn’t see.

She just waved pleasantly, her voice following the man as he became a hulking projectile down the hall.

“Good luck in your meeting, Katsumacchan!”