“But finding out that Ms. Kiyokawa got married made it worthwhile coming. I am so, so glad about that.”

Kurata smiled happily. He was not faking it. He looked genuinely pleased. Miki, who was sitting opposite Kurata resting her cheek on her hand, had been listening to the exchange.

“Why did Fumiko change her name?” she asked Nagare.

“You change your name when you get married,” Nagare said, sounding a little irritated, like a parent who is bombarded with similar questions every day.

“What? Me as well? When I get married, will I change my name too?”

“If you get married.”

“Huh? No way. Hey, Mistress, will you change your name?” She looked at Kazu.

Recently, Miki had started calling Kazu “Mistress.” No one exactly knew why. Several days earlier, it had been “Sister Kazu”; before that, “Sister,” and before that, simply “Kazu.” It was as if Kazu’s rank had been slowly and steadily rising.

“Mistress, are you going to change your name if you get married?”

“If I get married.” Responding to Miki in her usual cool way, she carried on wiping glasses.

“Oh... I see,” Miki replied.

It was unclear what Miki “saw,” but she nodded and returned to the seat at the counter to start writing some more wishes for the tanzaku.

Beep-boop beep-boop... Beep-boop beep-boop...

The phone began ringing from the back room. Kazu was about to go and answer it, but Nagare put his hand up to stop her and disappeared into the back room himself.

Beep-boop...

Kurata dropped his eyes to the tabletop and stared at what he had written on his tanzaku.

Despite being two years his junior, Asami Mori never spoke to him in the kind of polite language normally used with more senior employees, because they joined the company at the same time. As a person full of smiles who appeared to be completely genuine, she was popular, including within the company.

Fumiko, who worked in the same office as Asami, was popular for her looks, but at work she was called a bitch behind her back. That made Asami’s presence there all the more welcome as she helped soften the war-room atmosphere that would hang in the office when a deadline approached. Kurata and Asami would often go out drinking with people who had joined at the same time. Conversations would often center around work grievances, but Kurata never once bad-mouthed the company or his superiors. On the contrary, he always looked on the bright side, and he showed leadership when the going got tough and the situation seemed hopeless.

Asami saw Kurata as an extremely positive guy, but she had a boyfriend when she joined the company and never really thought of him as a “man.”