Side Fifty-Five – Watanabe Karen
“Thank you, oh thank you!” her neighbour, Tanaka-san, was bowing repeatedly, so low his head was almost touching his knees. “I won’t let you down, I promise!”
I’m so embarrassed. All I wanted to do was a favour for a neighbour down on his luck, like Akio-kun did for … Forcing a smile, Karen nodded, backing up towards the door. “I’m sure you won’t.” she agreed. “I’ll transfer the advance of salary for the first month when I get back to the office. You can start tomorrow, once you’ve got everything in order and cleaned yourself up.”
“The office is at Shirohebizumi shrine, right?” Tanaka-san said, showing life in his dull eyes for the first ti in weeks. “That’s quite a decent commute!”
“Yeah, it’s the office outbuilding on the back hill of the shrine. It’s the second building, the first is the ho of our boss, so don’t go bothering him, all right?”
“You got it!” he started bowing again, tears and even so snot dripping from his face. Oh gods, this is awful. Seeing soone so much older than acting so grateful to the extent that they’d even cry about it… Akio-kun owes another bottle of whiskey.
“There’ll be so travel involved, to Osaka, Sapporo and a few other cities. When you need to go, I’ll arrange the tickets, and you’ll get expenses. I assu your work suits are still fine?”
“I might need to get them taken in a bit.” Tanaka-san chuckled, self-deprecatingly. “I… well I haven’t been eating properly these past few months.” Indeed, the older man did look gaunt, and his hairline had receded significantly, his remaining hair grey. “But I should be fine. Hotels, huh? Not the business I was in before, but I have so experience in Human Resources, so I should be fine.”
“You can always liaise with the HR departnt for the chain as well, if there are any problems. Here’s his card.” She passed over Fukuda-san’s contact details. “Still, we’d like to handle most matters in-house if possible, we deal with a lot of confidential matters and important clients, so…”
“You don’t need to say a word, I completely understand.” Tanaka-san was wiping at his face, trying unsuccessfully to clean the ss off. Wordlessly Karen handed him a handkerchief, and he took it gratefully, flushed with embarrassnt. So not cute, seeing an older guy bawl and blush like a girl. Still, his emotions are a ss. I can sympathise. I rember when I was at rock bottom, before Akio-kun reached out a hand to . It’s why I want to pay it forwards. Of course, I need the help too…
“I’ll have your company mobile and laptop ready for collection tomorrow. There’ll also be a lot of research and information gathering, on a variety of strange subjects. How’s your IT skills?”
“Passable.” Tanaka-san admitted. “I don’t claim to be able to keep up with the younger generation, it’s… it’s one of the reasons I was let go, but I’m thorough and have work ethic! I’ll get the job done, whatever it is!”
Well, I like his enthusiasm anyway. “Great, well, I’ll let the boss know you’re hired on, and no doubt he’ll co and see you at so point, to welco you to the team. Now all I need is another recruit and I can finally start to relax a bit.”
“I’m amazed to find out Oshiro-san was such a big-shot.” Tanaka-san mused. “He always struck as a quiet, polite young man, keeping to himself.”
Yeah, I thought the sa too, but look at him now. Two-timing a couple of beautiful girls, owning hotels, being fabulously wealthy… That wasn’t all. There were very intimidating security in plain clothes lurking about the shrine, and the other night, when she was working late, so remarkably expensive cars had driven up to the shrine, with so passengers who just radiated high-class getting out. Most of them were girls as well. Akio-kun really is a playboy. Well, can’t say I bla him. In his position I’d enjoy myself too… The uniforms the girls were wearing stood out to her, they looked pretty unique and old-fashioned, pure black sailor-suit style, with bright crimson ribbons and edging, but the skirts and sleeves were long and modest, ankle and wrist length, giving it a refined, tidy look. Being an expert researcher now after Akio-kun’s many strange requests, it didn’t take too long to find out which school they were from, not that there was much information online. It was as if details about the school were restricted sohow, or regularly scrubbed from public view. Hanafubuki Private Academy. One of the few posts she managed to find talking about the school said it was probably called that as the girls attending the school were as beautiful and elegant as a cherry-blossom blizzard, and just as rare to see… seriously, Akio-kun is treading on dangerous ground if he’s ssing with girls from that school. Apparently only the daughters of the most important and rich families in Japan go there…
“Uh, Watanabe-san, is everything all right?” Tanaka-san interjected nervously, seeing as she had gone silent.
“Oh sorry, was just thinking about the boss. Yeah, he’s a good kid for sure. He gave a chance when I was staring into the abyss, and I took it. I’m expecting you to do the sa, got it?”
As he assured her that he would grasp the chance firmly and not disappoint her or Akio-kun, she smiled and said her farewells, stepping out of the dingy (and none too clean) apartnt, taking a deep breath of the crisp air, a faint chill heralding the end of sumr clearing her lungs. Yeah, it slt of despair and sorrow in there. Still… suddenly she blushed, rembering her apartnt in an even worse state when Akio-kun visited. Damn, I had even left my used underwear lying around. I guess Tanaka-san isn’t so bad in comparison. Still, it was a risk taking him on, so to start with she wouldn’t give him any critical jobs, or ones that required strange secrecy. Yeah, I’m not stupid. Sothing VERY strange is happening at that shrine. I’m not in a position to ask though. I daresay I’ll find out in due course… huh?
An unusual sight was sitting a few doors down from Tanaka-san’s apartnt, a schoolgirl, by the looks of it. That’s gyaru fashion, right? Karen had been a bit of a gal in her younger days, wearing her skirts short, her shirt a little too unbuttoned, and her make-up heavy, but she had never gone down the gyaru route, the look being rather too extre for her. Besides, I wanted to be cute and liked, not gossiped about. She was sure that most gyaru weren’t promiscuous like the stereotype, but even so…
The girl was heavily tanned, and her hair was bleached a ssy blonde. Her make-up was heavy too, dark eyeshadow and heavy lipstick on her face. She was wearing an unfamiliar school uniform, not one Karen recognised from the local schools, and her skirt was so short Karen could see up it as she crouched in front of an apartnt, arms around her legs, face downcast. That’s Hashimoto-san’s door, right? He did say he had a daughter in school, but what is she doing here in the middle of the day? Is she playing truant? If so… why here?
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