Ichimaro was due for a promotion.
They were hard to come by when you couldn't stay out until one in the morning every night with the boss. Even harder when you had to take time off to spend time with your son. Much longer, too, if you had to switch companies midcareer because the economy had decided to melt down again and you had a toddler at home…
There was more money in corporate finance anyway.
Sure the people weren't as interesting, the work wasn't as rewarding, and the bosses were even more demanding but at least it meant more money going into the mortgage. More money in Ritsu's college fund. More money for family trips…not that they had taken one in a while….but now they could! if this meeting went well they could. If this meeting went well them he was a shoe-in for management.
It just had to go well, first.
"You can do this. Do it for Ritsu. Do it for…do it for Ritsu. You're the man, you've got this, Kageyama." Said Ichimaro as he stared at himself in his desk mirror. He straightened out his tie and smoothed down his hair. This was the biggest meeting of his entire career. The Suzuki Conglomerate were setting their eyes on Seasoning City. They had been here before, years ago, before the economy melted down for a second time. The last people they used weren't in business anymore and their building now housed a department store.
It was great!
Not for the people who'd lost their jobs and had to worry about how they were going to feed their families of course, he prayed for them, but for him…well it was a good thing. The stars had aligned for once…in a good way. Not in the way…in a good way. Things were finally going to look up. Sometimes it felt like it had all been downhill since Shigeko…since she left them…
That was because it had.
He put his desk mirror back in his drawer. That was enough staring at himself. He looked fine…he looked nearly forty…or older. His hair had been salt and peppered for a while. Stress, the doctor had said. The stress of life. Supporting a family…supporting most of a family…running himself ragged for them…or maybe just to run himself ragged. It had been a blur of work back then…back when the economy had been good. Things had been looking up back in 2005….at least something had gone right for him then.
He closed his top drawer.
He opened his middle drawer.
He liked to rotate out the pictures of Ritsu. Back when he'd been in personal finance people had liked it, seeing pictures of his son. The clients had always like swapping kid stories with him. It had been mostly families then, or people starting them. People trying to get out of debt, buy a house, set up a college fund for their kid, care for an aging parent. It had just been so much more…human, back then…mainly because he'd been working for people and not faceless corporations. Corporate financial consulting…not the place for a family man. Fewer pictures of Ritsu covered his office than he would have liked…but he had some out.
A few.
Ritsu at elementary school graduation. Ritsu and Tobio playing volleyball at Mom's house last year. Three year old Ritsu in that damn duck costume…it had been murder trying to get him out of that thing. 'I'm not Ritsu, I'm a duck' he'd say…thank God Hana had talked him out of that preschool with uniforms...he wouldn't have done well. Ritsu had never taken a good picture in his life, he always looked slightly pissed off, like he was holding a grudge against the picture taker or something…but he was full on glaring in the photograph of him in his middle school uniform. Ichimaro had taken the morning off that day, he had to see his son off after all…his only child…the only one he had right now. He'd had to wish Ritsu well on the first day of middle school and he didn't care what people in the neighborhood had said, what every single person in his office said…what his boss said…
He wasn't missing a single milestone in his son's life.
God, how Ritsu hated that uniform. There was one of him in the middle drawer making that same face. He had hated the kindergarten uniform, the yellow coat and hat. His duck phase had ended a year too soon…he'd still been cute though. He'd taken the whole day off to see Ritsu off at kindergarten. It was a milestone…he wasn't missing a single moment in his son's life…
Even if he wasn't the biggest fan of all of his moments.
"Four….not a good number…" muttered Ichimaro as he dug through the photographs in his middle drawer. He had four pictures on his desk, two on the right and two on the left, for symmetry. If he left three then it would be uneven…but four meant death. He needed a new one in the middle…or to take them all off. What kind of a man had pictures on his desk, his boss had asked. This kind of a man did, Ichimaro had answered. Raising children wasn't just a woman's game. He had a son, a family, and he did it all for them.
Even if they did give him grief, sometimes.
"Maybe…no, definitely not." Said Ichimaro as he flipped past a photo that he knew better than to put up. Taking time off for his kid was one thing but putting that picture up…it would have been career suicide. Hana had taken that one on their family trip to the Cultural Tower…their family plus Teru. He didn't mind the kid! Really! Ok, so he did use up all the hot water and monopolize the bathroom for hours when he came over…and he wasn't crazy about how close he and Ritsu sat when they watched those weird foreign movies Teru liked…the hand holding could be a little excessive at times…and the less said about the hickeys that Ritsu had tried to hide under a turtleneck in the middle of summer the better…he liked Teru…and he still loved Ritsu.
He loved his gay son.
He loved Ritsu no matter who he loved. He had lived enough to know, however, that the rest of the world wouldn't love Ritsu as much as his parents did. The world was slow to change. People were only slightly more accepting of these sorts of differences than they had been when he'd been a kid. He'd been born in the eighties and grown up in the nineties. Back then there hadn't been this kind of acceptance. No rainbow days, open harassment, even open violence…Ritsu got picked on but nothing like what had happened to that one gay kid he'd known in school. That poor guy…things were better now…but they weren't perfect…
That picture would be staying in the drawer for now.
His office was filled with the clinking of glass as the picture frames bumped together. He needed another one of Ritsu…or maybe just Hana. He didn't have one of just her out. She hated being on the other side of the camera. He didn't know why, she was just as beautiful now as the day they'd met…he had a picture of her in here somewhere…maybe towards the bottom…
He'd dug too far.
There. Shigeko's little baby face was staring up at him. He took his hands out of the drawer. He heard something crack and break…he shouldn't have let all those picture frames crash against each other. He…he was fine. He had just forgotten he'd even had that picture, that was all. He had thought that, in his last office move, he'd mustered enough strength to bring it home and put it in storage with the rest…with most of the rest…but no, here it was.
Shigeko.
She had been so small the last time he'd seen her. She'd been sleeping. The only way to get her out of the house had been to drug her. If she had known where she was going…if she had tried to stay then there would have been nothing that he could have done. So they'd given her a quarter of a sleeping pill in her milk and…and then off she went. She had been so peaceful…not like in this photo. In this photo she was smiling…but in that Shigeko way of hers. That nonsmile…she and Ritsu were so alike…
He wondered what she was up to now.
Were they taking pictures, her new family? Did her new father….the only father she had ever known…keep pictures of her on his desk? He was supposed to have been some president or something…he hadn't read the documents that closely. He had just been happy she'd found a home that could…that could meet her needs. Was she happy? Did she still have tantrums? Was she in middle school now? She was thirteen…of course she was. There was probably a picture of her on the first day of school on some desk…she was probably scowling like Ritsu did on his first day of school…he was just young enough that he nearly missed the cutoff…he was smart enough to have made it. Was she smart? How was she doing? Was she happy? Eating enough? Had she-
He needed air. More of it. Now.
He took a deep breath. She was…not going on his desk. That was not the place for her. He wasn't her father anymore and…and a picture of her would have been too much. For him and for….for work. For the deal. For his career. Too many questions. The official story was that Shigeko had died. There had been a funeral and everything…a tiny empty coffin in a tiny grave…not even Mom knew the truth…he left her picture in the drawer. Nothing killed a deal faster than talking about his dead daughter. A tragedy. That was the go to line whenever people found out. It was always such a tragedy when someone died young. Another go to line. If you need anything…why were there so many lines? How often did it happen that there was a whole…a whole script that people had memorized? How often did people lose their daughters that it just-
Footsteps.
Voices.
He reached over and took a picture from his desk. Now there were three. Ritsu in his middle school uniform, Ritsu at his elementary school graduation, Ritsu glaring at the camera on his nineth birthday….three was good. He straightened up his desk, his hair, his tie, he would have even gotten up and ran a lint roller over himself if he'd had the time. He had to focus. He had to bring his A game. He had to get this contract, he needed to land this promotion, he had to support his family.
He had to do this for Ritsu.
He got up from his desk quickly, making sure to grab a proper business card as he got up. Not a name card, a real business card. The kind on the good, expensive paper. He held it properly in both hands…why was he nervous? He'd been working for the past fifteen years, he knew the drill. He had met with business before…local business…
Not international conglomerates.
He could see them now through the frosted glass of his office door. He took a deep breath. He had this. He stood beside his desk and tried to stay calm. He had this. He could do this. He knew what to do. Exchange business cards, bow, and then get down to it. He wouldn't have been given this assignment, and on his own too, if he hadn't been ready. If the bosses didn't have faith in him…or unless they wanted him to fail…unless they wanted his new office to be in the supply closet…
He wasn't going to let that happen.
"Hello! Welcome!" said Ichimaro loudly…a little too loudly. He had practically be shouting…reign it in. He had this. He had…he bowed just to be safe…no, wait, bowing came later…come on! You know what you're doing!
He straightened up.
He was being bowed to now. He had ended it too soon. He shouldn't have still been this bad at it. A kid right out of university would have done better than that. Clueless. Everyone had always told him, for as long as he could remember, that he was hopelessly clueless. Kids at school, teachers, his brother…even his own parents…everyone had told him not to go into finance. Stick to something where you won't have to talk to people, they had said, even Hana…but he wanted to work in finance. He wanted to help people…that had been the best part of the job…
But he was still helping people, his family were people too.
"Hello, my name is Kageyama Ichimaro of the City Seasoning, I mean the Seasoning City-" said Ichimaro. Fuck! He knew how to talk. This happened sometimes. He just got so nervous but…but this was not the time to be nervous. He thought of Ritsu, how much more time they'd have together, how much he'd be able to do for his son.
"Hello, we represent the interests of the Suzuki Conglomerate. Here, please accept this business card." Said the man in front of him. He would have been unremarkable aside from the massive scar on his face….Ichimaro looked away…but then at it…but then away…but then at it again. He wasn't sure what to do or where to look. If he looked away then it could have been rude…but staring was rude too…maybe if he looked just slightly away-
The man cleared his throat.
"H-Here! Please accept this business card!" said Ichimaro as he held out his own business card. Now went the dance of the business cards. They both had to accept them at the same time…and he managed to mess that up, too. Hana was going to kill him. He had practically yanked the card out of the man's hand…he was going to lose this account…he was going to get reassigned to the supply closet…Ritsu was going to be so disappointed.
No university for you, son, because your Dad doesn't know how to function in polite society.
"Shall we get to it, then?" asked the man. Ichimaro nodded and bowed again…too frazzled. He was too frazzled. He had ever creased the business card in his hand…damn. This had been on nice paper, too. Ritsu would known what kind. It felt nice, sort of like parchment paper almost, or a wedding invitation. Bright red, though, so red he would have thought that they were a Chinese company. Their logo was weird…was that the character for curse?
Oh, right, time to sit down.
He quickly sat down on the other side of his desk and began to pass over the appropriate documentation. Company brochures and the like. That was good etiquette…for a local company. This was an international conglomerate…he needed to calm down. Ritsu's bored, slightly pissed off face looked up at him. Where in the hell had he gotten it from? He got the idea, the crazy idea, that Ritsu would have been able to handle this. Ritsu, small as he was now, in a business suit conducting meetings…making billion yen deals…all at eleven years old…
This was not the time to smile, either.
"So, how can we best suit your financial and investment nee-" said Ichimaro
"We want to buy. If we have to invest we want a controlling stake. We want the Seasoning City Spice works, as much of the industrial plant as we can get, the Seasoning City entertainment group, and whichever company currently owns the Cultural Tower. We're also interested in buying land and I've been instructed to have you point me to a good real estate service." Said the man…the man who hadn't given Ichimaro his name yet. The card had just had the name of the conglomerate on it and that weird logo…it would have been easier to follow the rules if the other side could do so first…but he could work with this. He had to work with this.
"Well my wife is a realtor-" said Ichimaro
"Good. Give us her business card, and take this as well. This is a more in depth report on what the boss wants. Make it happen." Said the man as he rested his briefcase on Ichimaro's desk. A picture of Ritsu tipped over. He didn't know if it was alright to fix it…this meeting had no rules…he needed…he was so clueless right now….
Taking the documents would have been a good move.
He nearly dropped them. This document packet was as fat as a phone book. At least it wasn't all in red. He didn't know if he could have stood to look at all of that red. This was doable…and then another document packet came out….and he had been planning on taking Hana and Ritsu, and probably Teru too, to Saltland this weekend…he wanted to…but this was a lot of work…
Work that he'd make time for.
"Thank you so much for this opportunity!" said Ichimaro with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. This was what a big client looked like. At least his bosses thought highly enough of him to drop all of this work on his lap….or they wanted him to fail…but he couldn't fail. Even if the client had dropped an entire teams' worth of work in his hands…even if he was pretty sure that the Cultural Tower was owned by the municipal society…even if he was pretty sure that this assignment was meant to get him reassigned to the supply closet…he could not afford to fail. He had a family to support and a son who looked up to him and a daughter who…who would have looked up to him if she'd been there. He wasn't going to fail.
He was going to earn the hell out of that promotion.