Setagaya Ward, Kyodo.
At 4:10 PM, when Minako placed the shopping bag on the kitchen counter, the S-Mart logo on the plastic bag faced her.
Inside were the day's groceries: 300 grams of pork shoulder, two blocks of tofu, a quarter head of napa cabbage, and a ten-pack of eggs.
There was also a bag of discounted udon noodles. S-Mart's private label, a five-pack for 190 yen.
At this time last year, she was still shopping at Tokyu Store, a high-end chain supermarket.
Wagyu chuck eye roll, 480 yen per 100 grams, sliced thin for sukiyaki. It was Yuta's favorite. He could eat two bowls of rice with it every time.
Later, it changed to Australian beef. Then, starting last month, pork.
Yuta never asked why. A seven-year-old child had no concept of meat varieties. He only cared whether there was meat on his plate.
But one day at the dinner table, he said, "Mom, the meat today is a different color than before," and Minako could only smile and say, "I switched to a different brand."
S-Mart was recommended by her neighbor, Junko.
"The prices there are marked very clearly, all in whole numbers, so you don't need change. The checkout is fast too. It's done in five seconds, unlike the department store where you have to wait forever."
When Minako walked into S-Mart for the first time, she stood at the entrance, stunned for two seconds.
The lighting was softer than at Tokyu Store, the shelves were lower, and the product labels read "100," "200," "500." All clean, round numbers.
There were no figures like "298" or "397" that required her brain to do extra work.
In that moment, she felt an indescribable sense of relief.
Relief in every sense.
And an indescribable bitterness.
When she took the pork out of the bag, her hand paused. The meat under the plastic wrap looked fresh, pinkish white.
She put it in the refrigerator, placing it next to the half-carton of eggs left over from yesterday.
At 4:30, Yuta returned from school.
He threw his schoolbag on the floor in the entryway, kicked off one slipper, and rushed into the living room.
"Mom, I don't have to go to piano lessons today, right?"
"Yeah, the teacher is still sick."
In reality, the teacher wasn't sick.
Last week, Minako had called to reduce Yuta's lessons from twice a week to once.
The excuse was, "The child has been busy with schoolwork lately." The teacher was silent for two seconds on the other end of the line before saying, "I understand."
The monthly fee saved was 12,000 yen.
Yuta didn't press for details. He was probably glad not to go.
He turned on the TV, switched to the animation channel, and lay on the carpet to watch Dragon Ball Z. Minako washed vegetables in the kitchen, the sound of the faucet mixing with the fighting sounds from the TV.
At 5:40, she started cooking.
Ginger pork, miso soup, and chilled tofu.
She steamed three cups of rice. Previously she steamed four, and Yuji would eat one and a half for dinner. But for some reason, his appetite had decreased recently.
Yuji returned at 7:20.
He was forty minutes later than usual, with no smell of alcohol.
His tie was loosened, but his shirt was neatly tucked in. He had sat in the office for a while longer, probably waiting for his colleagues to leave before he did.
"Welcome back," Minako said, coming out of the kitchen with the miso soup.
"Yeah."
Yuta had already eaten by himself. Two sets of bowls and chopsticks remained on the table.
Yuji sat down, picked up his chopsticks, and put a piece of pork into his mouth. He chewed a few times.
"It's good," he said.
Minako sat opposite him, poking at the rice in her bowl.
There was silence for about two minutes.
"Minako."
She looked up.
Yuji's chopsticks rested on the edge of his bowl. His fingers clenched slightly, then relaxed.
"If…" His voice was very low, as if he were afraid Yuta, watching TV in the living room, would hear. "If the company asks me to 'voluntarily resign'…"
He didn't finish.
Minako looked at him.
She knew. Two days ago, she had felt a folded document in the inner pocket of the suit hanging in the closet.
The company logo was printed at the top, and the title read "Business Improvement Plan (Draft)."
She hadn't opened it fully. She had only caught a glimpse of a few words: "Personnel Consolidation," "Voluntary Resignation," "Severance Pay Increase Coefficient."
She had folded the document back exactly as it was and returned it to the suit pocket. The position, the creases, the orientation, everything was identical.
"Let's talk about it later," Minako said, standing up and taking the empty plates in front of him. "The soup is cold. I'll go heat it up."
She walked into the kitchen and turned on the faucet.
The sound of the water hitting the stainless steel sink was loud.
She wiped the corner of her eye with the back of her hand and then continued washing the dishes.
---
11:30 PM.
Yuta was asleep, and Yuji was asleep as well.
Minako sat alone at the small kitchen table, the household account book spread out in front of her.
The pencil moved slowly along the "Monthly Fixed Expenses" column: mortgage 78,000, utilities 21,000, Yuta's tuition and lunch fees 15,000, piano lessons already halved 6,000, insurance 14,000, food expenses. Her pencil tip paused, then she wrote 35,000.
It added up to 169,000.
If Yuji was forced to resign…
She closed the account book.
The small radio on the kitchen counter had been bought three years ago. The antenna was crooked and wrapped with tape.
She turned the dial to FM Tokyo. At this time of night, they usually played late-night jazz.
But the program was different tonight. The DJ's voice was very soft, the speaking pace slow.
"This song is from a newcomer about to debut under S.A. Entertainment."
A pause.
"Izumi Sakai."
The sound of a piano leaked from the radio's small speaker, very quiet.
Then came the vocals.
A female voice.
Her breath control was steady, the mid-range full, and there was a faint, delicate vibrato at the end of the notes, as if pushed up from a very deep place.
She felt this voice was very familiar. It seemed she had heard it somewhere before.
The lyrics were also very simple, about a ray of light.
Minako's hand rested on the cover of the account book, motionless.
She listened to the entire song.
She didn't quite catch what the DJ said, something about a "themed concert," something about a "small theater."
But she remembered the name.
Izumi Sakai.
---
Waseda University, Building 14, 3rd floor, recruitment briefing.
Sato Kenichi sat on the left in the seventh row, a corporate brochure for Daiwa Bank spread out on the desk.
The paper quality of the brochure was noticeably thinner than the briefing he had attended last year. It wasn't coated paper anymore, but standard matte paper.
The color saturation of the panoramic photo of the office building on the cover was also a notch lower.
Last year's briefing was in the banquet hall of the Imperial Hotel. Upon entry, everyone received a cup of orange juice and a pastry box.
The HR manager stood behind a podium covered with a white tablecloth. The first sentence was, "Welcome, you outstanding individuals."
But this year.
The HR manager on stage cleared his throat.
"Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to come."
There was no orange juice this year. The HR manager's suit was the same one as last year. Sato remembered the diagonal pattern on the tie.
It was just that the dark circles under his eyes were deeper than last year.
"The number of general staff positions our bank is hiring for this year has been adjusted compared to the previous year."
"Adjusted." Sato translated those two words in his mind: Cut.
The last page of the brochure printed the number of hires from last year: 320 people.
What about this year? The person on stage didn't say.
The student next to him looked down and flipped the brochure to the last page. That column was blank.
The briefing ended in forty minutes. When Sato came out of the conference room, there were already over a dozen people lined up in the hallway waiting for the next session.
Everyone held the same thin brochure, their expressions a uniformly adjusted shade of gray.
He had applied to twenty-three companies, had seven interviews, and zero job offers.
And he was a third-year student in the Waseda Department of Economics.
In previous years, with this resume, he should have had at least two or three job offers in hand by the end of October.
But this year, until the end of October, his pockets were filled with seven standardized letters saying, "Seikuni zannen desuga. We regret to inform you…"
His roommate, Nakamura, was waiting for him in the dorm. On the table were two cans of Kirin Ichiban Shibori.
"How did it go?"
Sato threw his schoolbag on the bed and cracked open the can.
"The same as the previous six."
Nakamura didn't press. He fished a piece of paper out of his drawer and pushed it over.
Sato picked it up and glanced at it. It was an offer letter. The header read "S.A. Logistics Co., Ltd."
"Got it last week," Nakamura said, leaning back in his chair with his legs crossed. "Twenty-minute interview, shook hands on the spot. Starting salary is ten percent higher than a general staff position at Daiwa Bank. And it includes lunch."
Sato placed the offer letter back on the table.
"S.A… is that under the Saionji Group?"
"Yeah," Nakamura took a sip of beer. "I checked. The parent company is S.A. Holdings. The Saionji Family's. They do logistics, retail, finance, real estate. They do everything, basically."
Sato's impression was very vague.
Saionji.
He occasionally saw the name in newspapers, associated with Ginza, Odaiba, and some 500-meter skyscraper.
What they specifically did, he couldn't say.
"While every company is cutting back on hiring, this one is still hiring on a large scale," Nakamura said, scratching the back of his head. "Maybe they're buying the dip."
He chuckled. Sato didn't.
---
8:00 PM. Takadanobaba izakaya "Kiba Taro," window seat on the second floor.
Five people. Sato, Nakamura, plus classmates Baba, Hayashi, and Kobayakawa.
On the table were five 280-yen draft beers and three plates of edamame. Before, when they came to this place, they would order yakitori platters and sashimi. Now they only ordered the cheapest items.
"My dad was forced to resign last week," Kobayakawa said, holding his glass, his voice flat. "Taisei Construction. He worked there for twenty-six years."
The table was silent for three seconds.
"How much was the severance pay?" Hayashi asked.
"It was increased by twenty percent. Sounds like a lot, but he still has 14 million in mortgage left."
No one spoke. Edamame shells piled up on the edge of the plate, glistening with oil.
"Our generation…" Watanabe's voice was muffled behind his beer glass, "is the sacrificed generation, right?"
"The bubble should have burst long ago," Hayashi said, pushing up his glasses. "Land prices tripled from '85 to '89. Everyone knew it wasn't normal."
"Knowing that doesn't help," Nakamura crushed his empty can. He had brought his own canned beer, saying he thought the izakaya's draft beer wasn't cold enough. "Even if you knew, you couldn't stop it."
Sato didn't join the discussion. He held his 280-yen draft beer and looked at the street outside the window.
The neon lights of Takadanobaba were still on, but he noticed that the sign for the mahjong parlor diagonally across the street was only half-lit. The other half probably had a broken bulb that hadn't been replaced.
A sound drifted up from the karaoke room on the first floor.
Someone was singing.
It was a very soft female voice, the melody slow.
Sato turned his head and listened for a few seconds.
The lyrics weren't very clear. But the texture of the voice was quiet, clean, as if someone were sitting right beside him, speaking from a very close distance.
"What song is that?"
No one answered.
Watanabe was arguing with Hayashi about whether housing prices would fall further, Kobayakawa was silently peeling edamame, and Nakamura was flipping through the offer letter in his pocket.
Sato listened for a while longer.
The song ended. Scattered applause drifted up from downstairs, and one or two people were laughing.
He withdrew his gaze and drank the last of the beer in his glass.
The foam had already collapsed.