Akiyama Satoru, owner of a moderately successful textbook distribution company, married Taguchi Yukiko on the 31st of April, 1953. They were as happy as any other newlywed couple; in the first year of their marriage, Mrs. Akiyama became pregnant and gave birth to Akiyama Riku. The first memory the adult Riku could remember was standing at the street crossings, holding his mother's hand, and looking over his shoulder to see the small, rather shabby sign that proclaimed the residence of Akiyama Textbooks, and she told him that one day he would inherit that company. Years later, he could recall the disappointment that settled in his mouth like a tonic. Bitter, with the promise to one day become rancid. Out of every company in the world to inherit, he gets the one with the dirty sign and peeling door.
But Riku never rebelled against his fate, as a few of his peers did in their teenage years, but calmly and rationally completed school, as valedictorian, and went on to college, where he majored in business administration. During his school breaks and after he earned his degree, he worked as an assistant in his father's company before Satoru died of a stroke on the 21st of August, 1980, whereupon Riku assumed the position of chairman of Akiyama Textbooks.
But it was several years earlier, in 1976, his final year of college, that he met her. She was two years older than him, and though his drinking friends all said she was attractive, the first thing Riku noticed about her was her eyes. She was cold. At times, she could dress herself up in a warm exterior, fool the world around her, but whenever she looked at Riku — really looked at him — he shivered. If anyone thought she was anything but, that only went to prove that she was an incredible actress. But she didn't feel emotion for anyone or anything, unless it was connected with her ambition. There, into that dream that she held onto so desperately, she poured everything. Riku understood this, and never brought up the question of a romantic relationship. He wasn't brave enough to want to see her cold eyes when he woke up.
But she saw something in him, and so helped him. She encouraged him in his own, far lesser, ambitions, and their unique, indefinable relationship began. They met, they discussed, they argued, they came to conclusions. Though he completed each of his college courses without complaint, he felt that his education shifted from what he and his peers were learning in the classroom to what he learned simply by having a beer with her in a bar and talking about business. He began to know her, and he began to fear her. He knew that she had some sort of power, one that went beyond the mostly-bright, sometimes-unethical world of "moderately successful" business. And he had proof, no matter how flimsy, and no matter how inconsequential before a jury.
For instance, in his first year of work at Akiyama Textbooks, an interesting phenomenon occured. In Akiyama's client schools, attendance jumped by 4%, and a closer examination of the demographics from 1976 to 1977 showed that an increased number of lower-class children — those who were suspected of, but without enough conclusive evidence to bring a formal charge to, being former druggies, gang members, prostitutes, et al, — attended in 1977. And the vast majority of these children went to school on need-based scholarship provided by a private individual, identity undisclosed. When he told an incredible story of a 15-year-old boy who had been kicked out of school for carrying a steel pipe on campus, but had come back to the school at age 17, well-dressed, clean, respectful, and had asked to be readmitted, she only smiled and nodded. Her reaction only confirmed what his intuition, feeble and unreliable thing that it was, had been telling him for quite some time. The next year, 1978, saw an additional 7% increase, and Akiyama Textbooks was able to branch out into two new cities: Osaka and Kyoto.
On 14th of October, 1979, they met in Tokyo, in the district called Shibuya, for one of their regular meetings, and she asked him for monetary aid. She was founding a company, she said, and she would greatly appreciate the help. Akiyama had done well for a handful of years now, and he knew who to thank for that. He asked her how much she wanted, already withdrawing his checkbook. The figure that came out of her mouth saw the checkbook dropping to the ground. His jaw felt slack, his hands went limp, and his mind raced around that number. Compared to what she would make off the company, and what he would earn off his share, the amount would seem a pittance, but he didn't know that at the time. After his mind stopped racing, all he could say was that in two weeks she would find the money in a storage locker at the train station in Kyoto, one of their many drop-off locations, but only under one condition. He would gladly give her the money, if she would consent to make him her assistant. She smirked, and agreed. Later, she would tell him that he would have inevitably ended up in that position, so it was perhaps for the best that he had asked her that day.
Between themselves, they would refer to the company by its nickname, in remembrance of the place where it earned its first financial backer. They called it Hachiko.