One week after moving into the apartment in Iidabashi, Sosuke decided to take a part-time job. He went through the Iwashimizu Group pamphlet Yukino had given him, picked out the companies that caught his eye, and figured he would try experiencing how each of them actually ran.
Naturally, no one was going to hand real responsibility to a student part-timer. Even so, just getting a feel for a company’s atmosphere would be enough.
Ever since he had made Yukino cry at the Kyushu mansion, Sosuke had been thinking seriously about his future. Back then he had blown up because he hated the way she went about things – but if he was going to join an Iwashimizu Group company in the end, it was still better to see one from the inside first. So he had asked Yukino to put in a word, and signed on for a summer job.
What Sosuke picked was a pharmaceutical company called Tomita Pharmaceutical. It had not originally belonged to the Iwashimizu Group. About ten years earlier, though, a quality-inspection scandal had come to light, the share price had cratered, and the firm had slid to the brink of bankruptcy. At the time, the management of the day had come begging, and Iwashimizu Holdings had become a major shareholder. Kosaku had ordered the whole structure overhauled, and now that performance had recovered, Tomita had turned into a sound, first-rate company.
Leaving the apartment, Sosuke changed trains and headed for a product warehouse in Nerima Ward. This was where products sent from two pharmaceutical factories in Kanagawa Prefecture were stored.
The medicines in the warehouse were shipped out to wholesalers according to orders. Since Sosuke was only a student part-timer for the summer holidays, what he handled was simple labor: stacking medicines brought over from the factories onto the warehouse shelves, or moving them to the shipping area to match the orders.
When Sosuke arrived at the warehouse, he first went to General Affairs and had the work regulations explained to him by the section chief there. After that he was handed over to the section chief of Product Management and sent down to the floor, where he was introduced to Yamanishi Nanase, the chief who would be his instructor.
Nanase was a big, energetic woman in her late twenties with round, wide-open eyes. She stood about the same height as Sosuke. Apparently she had played volleyball as a student, and she was used to steering people as part of a team. She taught the work carefully too, and her instructions were dead easy to follow.
When the morning’s work ended and lunch break came, he went with Nanase to the small employee cafeteria, and while she taught him how to order, they ate together. The menu was a hearty daily set meal. Maybe because she was big, Nanase put away a lot.
During work she kept the chatter to a minimum, but over the meal her face took on a deeply curious look.
”Hey, Sawamizu. What exactly are you?”
”Huh? What do you mean, what am I?”
”The other day the section chief told me. He said the student coming in as a part-timer is connected to the Iwashimizu family, so whatever I do, don’t be rude to him – teach him properly. Connected how?”
Sosuke gave a wry smile. He had prepared an answer in case he got asked something like this.
”My family’s a branch of a branch of the Iwashimizu family.1 When I asked whether I could work part-time at this company, they put in a word for me. That’s all.”
Even so, Nanase looked intrigued.
”A branch of a branch is still Iwashimizu blood, isn’t it? So what, is your family loaded?”
”Not a chance. Both my parents are hairdressers. They run a little salon out in Mitaka.”
It was true both that the Sawamizu family was a branch of a branch, and that his parents ran a hair salon. But he judged he should not say that he was Iwashimizu Yukino’s fiancé. If it ever got out that he was going to become the son-in-law of the company’s major shareholder, everyone would start minding themselves around him, and he would never get to see the company as it really was.
Nanase pressed further.
”But if you can ask the Iwashimizu family for a favor, you must be pretty close to them, no?”
”We’re not especially close. Close enough to ask a favor, that’s all.”
”Maybe after you graduate, you’ll join this company?”
”That, I don’t know yet.”
”Hmmm.”
He felt as though he caught a suspicious glint flicker in Nanase’s eyes.
In the evening, when the day’s work was done, Nanase called out to Sosuke.
”Sawamizu, you got anything on after this?”
”No, nothing in particular. Why, is something up?”
Nanase smiled brightly. That was when Sosuke noticed. Her makeup was heavier than it had been during work.
”We’re coworkers now, even if it’s only for the summer, so I thought I’d throw you a welcome party.2“
Yukino’s work was busy at the moment, and she had said that for a while she would be coming home late and would not be able to cook for him, so he was carrying 100,000 yen in cash as meal money. A commoner like Sosuke had no need for 100,000 yen worth of food, but he had taken it anyway.
Today he had been planning to eat somewhere on the way back to the apartment in Iidabashi.
”Thank you. So where are we going?”
”Leave it to me. I know a good place.”
With that, Nanase took him by the arm and led him along.
The place she brought him to was a yakiniku restaurant near the station closest to their workplace. It was said to be a shop reputed for good meat at reasonable prices.
Sosuke found the yakiniku delicious after so long. Every dish Yukino made was good. It was good – but for a healthy twenty-one-year-old man it was too refined. Sometimes, after all, he wanted a meal where he could feel, I’m eating meat!
Watching Sosuke work his way steadily through the food, Nanase ordered draft beer and lemon sours, one refill after another.
”Kids your age really do need meat. When someone eats this happily, it makes me glad I brought them.”
”Nah, this is properly good. Ms. Yamanishi, you’d better eat up too – ah, you already are.”
Even while drinking, Nanase was eating no less than Sosuke. She looked up at him from under her lashes.
”By the way, Sawamizu. Do you like older women?”
Like them or not, his fiancée Yukino was sixteen years older than him. He answered without hesitation.
”I do. When an older woman shows me a cute face like that, my heart goes all thumpy.”
Sosuke was thinking of Yukino’s “that face.”
”Huh. I’m older too, you know. Twenty-nine this year. I’d say I’m at that ‘ready to eat’ stage of life as a woman…3“
And under the table, she twined her leg around his. Sosuke’s cheeks grew slightly red.
”I can’t. I’ve got someone I’m seeing.”
Nanase unwound her leg and sighed.
”I see… I kind of had a feeling, somehow.”
Saying that, she drained her lemon sour in one go.
”Truth is, today I was going to make a move on you, and if you went along with it, I figured I’d eat you right up.”
”Urk…”
”I mean, you’re in a position to talk to the Iwashimizu family, aren’t you? Graduate, join our company or some other Iwashimizu Group outfit, get promoted ahead of everyone else, maybe end up rich. If I snagged a man like that, my future’d look pretty bright, right?”
Even if they were coworkers, Sosuke thought, that was a bold thing to say to someone she had met for the first time today. Still, he also thought that maybe Nanase’s personality simply had no front or back to it – she just said whatever she honestly thought.
”Our company’s got no chances to meet anyone. Most of the men are already married, and more than half the women are part-time housewives, so the only conversation is childcare and complaining about their husbands. Every now and then a cute young guy joins, and then it’s a turf war between the women who are in a hurry to marry. And the one who wins is usually the one with the sex appeal. I’ve got none, so I don’t get a look in…”
Somehow Sosuke found Nanase cute. Living as he did with the intense “pressure” that was Yukino, being around her while she aired such unguarded complaints put him at ease.
”Me, I like women like you, Ms. Yamanishi. You’re cute to look at, and I feel like I could relax with you.”
Nanase’s face lit up.
”Really? I’m cute?”
”Cute. Really.”
”Nobody’s called me cute in ages.”
With a bashful smile, Nanase said in a coquettish voice, “…So then, I won’t ask you to make me your girlfriend. But could you take me out to eat now and then?”
”Of course. Ah – we split the bill, though.4“”You’re still a student, huh.”
”Yeah.”
”And one more thing. When it’s just the two of us, call me by my first name. Nanase. Even if it’s only make-believe, I want to feel like a girlfriend.”
”Yes. Gladly.”
The distance between the two of them shrank all at once.
Three weeks had passed since Sosuke started the job. He had come to understand the atmosphere of the workplace, more or less. This was a thoroughly serious company. The employees did their work properly, with a sense of responsibility. Sosuke was at the product warehouse, not the head office, but since it was the same company, the air could not be completely different.
He and Nanase had grown close enough to go out to eat now and then. Yukino let him know in advance on the days she would be late home, so on those days Sosuke would invite Nanase himself. She lived alone in an apartment in Nerima Ward, so unless she had overtime, she accepted.
Since he normally lived with the intense “pressure” that was Yukino, being with the easygoing Nanase was comfortable. Their taste in food matched, too. If eating with Yukino was high-class kaiseki, eating with Nanase was yakiniku and gyoza. His palate sat closer to Nanase’s than to Yukino’s.
If Yukino said she wanted yakiniku or gyoza, she would probably go along with it – but when those “pressure”-filled eyes were on him, it was hard to bring up. Sosuke found himself leaning, in some vague way, on the Nanase who put him at ease.
It was the weekend, with only one week of the job left. Even though it was Sunday, Yukino had gone in to work on her day off. She really was busy. Having become a managing director at the young age of thirty-seven, she did not want anyone saying she had made executive only because she was the president’s daughter, and so she worked harder than anyone.
Before noon, just as he was wondering whether to make do with cup noodles for lunch, a message came from Nanase. She said she would treat him to lunch, so if he was free, she wanted him to come shopping with her.
They met in front of a department store in Ikebukuro and went first into an Italian place nearby. Sosuke ordered pizza; Nanase ordered pasta in a cream sauce.
Poking at her pasta with the tip of her fork, Nanase pursed her lips.
”Honestly, you can’t trust women’s friendships. I was supposed to have lunch and go shopping with a friend from high school today. And then her kid comes down with a fever out of nowhere, so the whole outing’s off. I called another friend, and she’s got plans to go out with her husband. Being single at my age is lonely.”
”Wellily comes first. Once you’re married, you’ll put your family first too, won’t you, Nanase?”
”Better get married before I have a family, then.”
Nanase let out a sigh.
When the meal ended, the two headed for the women’s clothing floor. The main purpose of the day was buying Nanase an autumn skirt.
She tried several on in the fitting room. Nanase was tall, so her legs were long, and on top of that she had played volleyball as a student, so they were muscular and toned. He liked Yukino’s gently rounded legs too, but he thought Nanase’s legs were beautiful as well.
In the end she could not choose between the two finalists, and bought both.
After that the two wandered the town, poking into shops that caught their eye and eating sweets that were supposed to be trendy, enjoying Sunday in Ikebukuro to the full. Ikebukuro was not Sosuke’s territory, so part of the fun was the novelty, and being with the often-laughing Nanase was fun too.
In the evening, when it was about time to head home, Sosuke walked Nanase to the Seibu Line platform to see her off. Bit by bit, her face clouded over.
”Um… is something wrong?”
”…Yeah…”
When they faced each other squarely, her shoes made Nanase a little taller.
Suddenly she hugged him. And she kissed him on the lips.
When she pulled away, Nanase’s face was red.
”…Sorry…”
Leaving those words behind, Nanase ran for the ticket gate.
Left alone, Sosuke stood there dumbfounded, bathed in the curious stares of everyone around him.
Trivia:
- The Tomita Pharmaceutical backstory quietly establishes how Iwashimizu Holdings absorbs failing firms, hinting at the group’s rescue-and-rebuild pattern under Kosaku.
- Sosuke hides his engagement specifically because he fears being treated differently, which mirrors Yukino’s own fear of being seen as merely the president’s daughter.
- Nanase’s bold kiss after being refused shows she acts on honest impulse rather than scheming, reinforcing that her earlier flirtation was sincere rather than calculated.
Translation Notes:
1 ↩ A “branch of a branch family” refers to a distant collateral line of a main household, implying only a thin blood connection to the Iwashimizu main family.
2 ↩ A welcome party (kangeikai) is a customary gathering held to greet a new coworker or member, often involving food and drinking.
3 ↩ Literally “ready to eat,” used for food at its best; here applied to a woman as a playful, slightly risqué pun meaning “in her prime.”
4 ↩ “Warikan” means splitting the bill evenly among the people present, a common practice for casual meals in Japan.