Chapter 4, Mitsuha's Awakening:
Mitsuha was running as fast as she could, but now with her work and commitment in mind, not with her heart. And maybe that's why, when she was arriving at Shinanomachi station, she was more tired than ever. "Arf! Arf!", Mitsuha exhaled forcibly, and as if that wasn't enough, after catching the train, she would still have to take another run after getting off it at historic Tokyo station, to go to the headquarters of the insurance company where she works.
While waiting for the next train, Mitsuha realized that she was all sweaty and couldn't come to work in those conditions, she would have to clean herself during the train ride. "Ah Taki! What do you do to me...", she said at first upset, but an uncontrollable smile sketched her face when she remembered that she had his contact. She took the small paper out of her purse, and looked at the numbers as if it were the winning key to the lottery, even though the prize was an as-yet-unknown individual. She pressed the contact against her chest, and at the same moment the train she was going to enter appeared; In her instinct for discretion in public spaces, she quickly stored her contact in her purse as if it were a confidential paper.
"Wait!", shouted Mitsuha inside on her head, as she took long strides to one of the entrance doors of the train, she was afraid to be careless and let the train pass, something unusual for a routine she had been doing for several months, it was as if that boy she met had deregulated her habits and automatisms. In fact, she had been making this trip for some time now, about a year ago, when she had the opportunity to join Tokyo Flood Insurance, a large insurance company that is part of an even larger conglomerate, of which it controls almost a tenth of the Japanese economy. Mitsuha's role in this company was to deal with insurance associated with natural disasters, specifically in the prevention of them. Probably, something inside her wanted to be the conscious heroine she wasn't in Itomori and pulled her into a career that would have been previously unthinkable for her.
When she got on the train, instead of sitting as usual, she went to the bathroom to clean herself with various papers, perfume herself and touch up her makeup undone by the sweat of her body, fortunately she had a mini-first aid beauty kit in her bag like any minimally well-groomed woman. During the short trip, she got out of the cramped cabin and headed for the seats, she had already passed two stations and the train was going around Chiyoda Park. She remembered this unusual fact and had a desire like never before to visit it, something strange since she had visited a few times with classmates and workmates, and although she thought it was beautiful, some sections reminded her of her homeland, and she ended up leaving crestfallen and with a disturbed spirit without even understanding why. "It must be because it reminds me of destroyed Itomori," Mitsuha thought at the time, although she couldn't explain certain feelings of anguish, as if she had lost someone, something was missing.
That missing thing seemed to no longer bother her, as if she had met that need, and that new contrast made her want to revisit what she thought was beautiful with that new perspective, and she would like that unknown individual to accompany her. She wanted to visit the park with him, she wanted to savor the scent of pine and cherry with him... "Concentrate Mitsuha, it's not time to think about parks and walks, you have a justification to be given for the delay of your workplace!", she scolded herself in the thought. She thought, thought, and couldn't come up with anything concrete, how was she going to be able to prove that a man late her on the way to work? And even if he did, would she want to use him as a scapegoat for something she did voluntarily? It didn't seem honest, although it wasn't the main reason that stopped her, it was more because of what she felt for an individual named Taki, the only person who seems to have moved her heart all these years. She leaned back in her seat while something unsettling popped into her mind: "Was I going to think about lying for my own benefit in the prejudice of other?"
Mitsuha, groped his face with her hands and thought something wasn't right. A year ago, she joined Tokyo Flood Insurance, and although it was a company with noble purposes, it became known for corruption scandals, ranging from massive non-payment to customers to dubious government donations. Mitsuha was not there at the time, but the company was almost shut down had it not been for a serious earthquake in the north of the country that required its services, diverting the public's attention to what various elements of Tokyo Flood Insurance did. In any case, more than 100 executives and other related employees have resigned or been fired, in an unprecedented purge of the company. It was a few years after this incident that Mitsuha managed to get a job at this insurance company, from which it had been growing in new hires, perhaps in the last year that this happened to her luck. Until then, nothing that made her conscience weigh, she had nothing to do with what the previous administration had done. But what perhaps made her conscience heavy was that she had witnessed some acts of corruption from favoritism, fraudulent contracts against customers, among other situations without doing anything.
Mitsuha, in fact, already tended not to intervene in what others did wrong in her view, at least when it only affected her, such as at the time when she was teased at school for "spitting" chewed rice into a traditional box. But it was different when others suffered injustices and she could do something about it, such as when her grandmother Hitoha was betrayed by her father Toshiki because he broke with the family tradition of her mother and grandmother Myamizu that he had sworn to keep. Her father even promised her perks, especially getting out of that exhausting life of a shrine maiden, but Mitsuha (not her sister Yotsuha who was still too young) took her foot off and stayed with her grandmother, never looking back on her decision. Or when Katsuhiko Teshigawara (known as Teshi) was mocked at school for his interests in occultism, and Mitsuha, teaming up with his best friend Sayaka Natori (known as Saya), defended him against anyone who disturbed him, deepening a friendship between the three of them. These and other examples demonstrate that in fact, Itomori's Mitsuha would not let such acts of corruption pass unscathed, but the girl who came after the comet disaster was an indifferent, distant person, and what was moral or not no longer mattered so much to her.
Why bother with other people's things if you had a daily routine as close as a train track? She woke up every day from tears and could only compose herself after combing with her kuhimimo rope, patiently intertwining her hair, as if she were organizing her neural structure; there was a popular legend in her homeland that this hairstyle had been created by Shitori-no-kami, the local Shinto deity of textiles, so that Myamizu women could better deal with their tragedies and focus on the duty to protect the shrine and the people faithful to it. Whether it's true or not, what is certain is that the hairstyle helped her to do the rest of her day, to be resilient against the feeling of frustration that ran through her every morning, that she didn't understand why she had it, she just knew that a mysterious dream came that she never remembered. After the morning ritual, she would occupy herself with her studies and later with work or some other solitary occupation, all so as not to think about that mysterious thing she cried about in the morning, which she sensed was a need for someone she liked very much.
This was something strange, she had never been interested in anyone there in Itomori, let alone in Tokyo, she always wanted to stay single for the strangeness of both family, friends and college classmates and later work. But despite her conscious affirmation of not wanting anyone, these mysterious dreams guided her making her search every corner for something or someone, an involuntary tic she gained after the comet struck, and to which she mentioned several times in her free psychology consultations that all the inhabitants of Itomori were entitled. Its conclusion? Unknown! Only deductions about family problems and other unconfirmed causes, which she wanted to believe were the real causes of her tics, but which were never supported by what she felt. Moreover, she had not even broken up with her grandmother at the time of these appointments, and the strange feeling of loss and lack of these dreams and tics remained exactly the same after this breakup. Therefore, to maintain her daily routine she wanted to bury this mystery in the depths of her mind, but her sudden attraction to that Taki revived her suspicions that she was really looking for someone who was important to her, someone she had already been looking for in Itomori, since the exact moment of the comet's fall. And this unknown boy was not only a rare late enthusiast for his land and consequent comet disaster, but he also seemed to be looking for someone unknown like her.
Until the moment before meeting him, she limited herself to fulfilling her goals coldly, a coldness that did not come from a lack of feelings and compassion for other people, but from the repression of strong unrequited emotions for the stranger she was seeking. In that sense, her indifference to the world was her self-defense mechanism to ease the pain of her anguish in looking for someone unknown eternally, and only practically for her best friend Saya-Natori with her fiancé Teshigawara and her sister Yotsuha was she not indifferent. This indifference of hers made the previously intolerable now tolerable, for example, making the dubious acts in her company only part of her daily life, something that she did not have to interfere with or even judge. However, it only took half an hour of conversation with a random individual for her to change her perspective, as if she had woken up from a deep sleep. Her heartbeat again in a way she no longer remembered, the weight of the eternal fatigue of her head seemed to have disappeared, despite her numerous worries at the time. "Taki, who are you? Why do you move me so much?" she said to herself, giving small punches to her forehead as if she were trying to wake up from some dream.
On work-related issues, after turning her mind several times on a subject on which she was less focused than she should have been, she concluded that it was best to tell the truth and say that she wanted to meet a man who seemed to have something urgent for her. With this, she would not be lying, and, at the same time, it seemed plausible even if she was reprimanded for being late in it. Just as Mitsuha managed to organize her mind a bit, the train arrived at her work station at Tokyo Station.
After a long walk, Taki arrived at Yotsuya Station. The walk back seemed much longer than the outward one, after all, he had been running before and had stopped at the library, unlike now. In addition, the very perception of wanting to meet Mitsuha right away seemed increasingly unrealistic to him, his clothes were messier than usual, and he smelled of sweat despite the cool temperature still typical of April days.
After nearly an hour's walk, Taki finally caught sight of Beck's Coffee Shop and its glass roof rolled up so characteristically, as if it were a meatloaf. Further ahead was Yotsuya Station, all Taki needed was to cross the bridge over the railway lines and climb the stairs to one of its usual stops. When Taki finally reached the long stairwell, he gave a long sigh and said to himself, "what a long day." After that he sat in the corner on one of the stairs, on the side that made the most shade. He didn't care much if it was decent or not to sit there, he just wanted to rest, until a thought interrupted him: "Wasn't that the place where I had met Okudera?" Although he has been to that place several times, only now he remembered that fact, it seems that incident in the morning and all that investigation of memories made him trigger other memories, in an associative effect like dominoes. "Yes, that was the place, how have I never remembered it before?", after Taki uttered it in his mind, he became curious again to find new lost memories that seemed to revolve around his date in the morning, but he was too exhausted from that exercise. He just wanted to think about one thing, when he goes to meet that girl from Itomori.
After recovering, Taki got up from the stairs and decided that he would go home first to get ready and call her later in the afternoon. In the meantime, he headed to the station building to check the timetables. There was a train just minutes away from its destination, at Shinjuku station. After that trip, he would have to walk around 1 mile or more than a quarter of an hour to be able to reach his modest family apartment overlooking the main skyscrapers of Tokyo that so fascinated a certain Mitsuha in unknown circumstances.
Usually, she used to walk for just over 5 minutes to her workplace. But because she went at an unusual time, she wanted to take the first taxi that appeared in front of her to hurry. Along the way, as Mitsuha approached the workplace, the thoughts she might still have with that unknown boy and what he meant to her faded away, to give the worries about what to say at work now stronger than ever. When she reached the imposing orange building, her limbs began to tremble discreetly but heartily, and her heart raced again, this time from distress and not from some delusion of love perhaps. Her nerves were equivalent to young people who were late for class without any convincing justification to give to the teacher, Mitsuha didn't really have any either, and this made her fear that all her good work would be jeopardized. Meanwhile, she heads to the entrance hall, catching sight of the familiar doorman from whom she had seen him for half a year almost daily; He was someone with gray hair and beard, already of retirement age, and he wore a modern black-gray suit that did not correspond at all to the age of the man in question. Mitsuha greeted the doorman with a "good morning" as natural as possible, hoping that he would just wave or respond as if nothing had happened. But her hopes were vain, the man with worn dark circles and creased wrinkles did not spare in his observations of that unusual moment:
– I'm surprised to see you here, I thought you were going to miss today... Has something happened to you? – looking at Mitsuha as if it were a Mahjong game, an entertainer for him.
– Oh! No, I mean... I had a mishap along the way, but it has already been resolved. Now I must go! It was good to talk to you..." Mitsuha replied with a lot of hesitation and nervousness, the elderly doorman took her by surprise, and she wanted to hurry up as soon as possible.
– Hmmm... So have a good day, my lady. And don't annoy your superiors, especially on the last working day of the week! – he courted and alerted the doorman.
Nevertheless, the old man looked at her suspiciously, as if he sensed that there was something more to the story, but let her escape the pastime interrogation, perhaps out of good manners. After passing the impertinent but courteous doorman, who reminded him of her gossipy neighbors back in Itomori, she headed for the elevator that was going to take him to his office, passing only a receptionist too busy with phone calls to notice her. She enters the elevator with tense steps, and after pressing the button corresponding to the floor where she works, she hugged her brown suitcase as if it were a teddy bear. She no longer remembered the time when she felt so nervous and needy, maybe back in the early days in Tokyo, and that teddy bear in the shape of a suitcase took the shape of that unknown boy, Taki, she wanted him to be present now with her in the elevator, making her regret not letting him go with her to work. Such a strange thought made her wake up to the childish figure she was making, making her drop her suitcase back to her right shoulder: "What the hell are you thinking, you only met that man today!", she said to herself scolding herself, "After work I think about how to meet him, okay?", concluded Mitsuha, trying to reassure herself. Meanwhile, during the endless seconds of waiting, the automatic doors open, and she sighs deeply when she sees the corridor that leads to her office, uttering to herself the words: "It's now". When she enters the hallway, Mitsuha starts walking with the lightest steps she has ever taken, as if she had come from a night out and didn't want to wake her parents as she headed to her room with silent steps. But, as expected, she "woke up" someone, in this case her superior and her boss who oversees the section where she works, the executive sensei Hikaru Sumino. He was someone relatively tall, at 1 meter and 80, with prescription glasses, elegant and with a technicist face; his countenance was reminiscent of Emperor Hirohito, who fit his profile of authority in the company's section. He looked at her with sternness and irritation:
– Is this time a good time to arrive, Myamizu-san? At your expense, a dozen reports were delayed because they did not pass through your hands. Tell me, what kept you from coming on time? – Sumino-sensei asked with sparks in his eyes.
– I... A man had something urgent for me. I have come to comply with his wishes, but... It took longer than I thought. And with that I missed the train – replied Mitsuha trembling inside like an angle grinder.
– Was this gentleman sick? Did he need me to accompany him? Do you have any medical report to prove it? – bombarding Hikaru-sensei to Mitsuha with interrogation questions.
– No, that's not it. Mitsuha denied "He's very healthy, just like me." – she says this last part inside. She felt her chest aching just by imagining taking the unknown boy to the hospital.
– So, if he's not sick, what other reason would you have to grant such an urgent request to a man? – Sumino-sensei asked, but it seems that he got the answer to his own question faster than Mitsuha. – Don't tell me you were flirting in work time! And precisely you, who never had a partner as far as I know! Wouldn't there be a better time to get a partner, Myamizu-san, a time when, for example, it wouldn't make you late for your work? – Sumino says such gossip out loud and sketches a smile in the conversation for the first time, even though it is one of sarcasm. Some employees turned for a few seconds in the direction from where the two were talking from the main hall.
– No... It was just a conversation. – A red on Mitsuha's cheeks grew as she hesitated in her answer. – I... He had important things to tell me... I'm sorry for the delay in work but it won't happen again. – Mitsuha begged in this last part, bowing.
After her apology, Sumino-sensei looked up and down at her subordinate. He had never seen her like that, hesitant, emotional and valuing something more than her work. Something was different about her and he didn't understand what and why. He reasoned that perhaps she had been deceived by a malicious man and that he had taken advantage of her inexperience with men. It's not that he worried too much about her personal life, but he wanted to know more about the man who disrupted his section of the company by seducing one of his employees. And so, he gained time to better decide what to do with Myamizu-san. He responded to the plea after half a minute of silence:
– Before deciding what to do with you, I want to know, who is this man, is he some swindler, someone who tries to seduce women with false promises? – Hikaru sensei asked bluntly.
–No! He is no swindler! – Mitsuha said almost screaming, abstracting from her nerves, as if it was his mission to defend the man. Some other employees turned around again – And I wasn't flirting with anyone either... The conversation with him was relevant, he knew a lot about my land, he... could give important data on the feasibility of rebuilding the houses in Itomori! – She lowered her voice after realizing she spoke too loudly.
Mitsuha was trying to make an excuse for Sumino-sensei while not lying about Taki and what the two of them talked about. But he replies:
– Myamizu-san, do you happen to see any Itomori reconstruction projects in our section? – with Sumino indicating a secretary with papers – No! I know it's your dear lost homeland, but you can't put your personal interests ahead of the company! We had already said that there was no economic viability and territorial cohesion in the first project you presented to us. – concluded Hikaru-sensei.
– I know Sumino-sensei... – Mitsuha paused for a few seconds to try to ease her nerves –What I did was not professional, I had an impulse that I couldn't resist and I went to the man by choice, he seemed to need help urgently. But... obviously, it does not change the facts in question. I hope you forgive me. – Mitsuha begged and bowed again, trying to appease his demanding superior.
– Hmmm, I didn't know you were Mother Teresa of Calcutta, I didn't expect that from you – Sumino joked, sketching a smile of contempt on his mouth, then returning to his serious face. – How old is he? And where is he from? Sumino-sensei returned to interrogation mode.
– His name is Taki... Tachibana Taki if I'm not mistaken. He... he's 22 years old and he's from here in Tokyo – Mitsuha hesitated, sketching an embarrassed face for having to tell that, as the company's normal procedure is to identify who disturbs its operation. However, a slight smile appears in her for the first time during the confrontation with her superior. Just being able to talk about him brought her an involuntary smile.
– So young? – Sumino made a surprised face – Could you please tell me what profession he does? – Sumino-sensei asked in a more formal way than necessary, taking the identity of the stranger more seriously than one would expect.
–He... The truth is that I don't know. I only know that he studied at the Agronomist University here in Tokyo. I don't know if he's taking another course. If he's employed... – Mitsuha replied to him, but her superior's speculations about what Taki does were also for herself.
– Are you sure you don't know anything else about the boy? – You arrived more than an hour late, and it seems that the two of you had common conversation topics. Come! Try to remember. – Sumino-sensei wanted to know more about him as if he were a jealous partner of hers, although Sumino supposedly did so for professional reasons.
–Well... I don't even remember, I don't think our conversation is of interest to the company... – Mitsuha said hesitantly, twitching.
She was afraid to reveal the circumstances of their conversation. How could she explain the way she met that Taki and the mutual questioning between them without seeming like an insane asylum interaction?
– For your information, everything that happened in the incident that caused you to be late concerns the company. – Sumino-sensei takes any paper – In the statutes of your contract it is said and explicit that all relevant events in the operation of the company must be reported by the employee to a hierarchically superior entity, under penalty of sanction to be determined by the responsible entity – adjusting the Sumino-sensei glasses as if he had just read an official clause – And given that this individual made you delay more than an hour, everything you two have done is relevant to the company. In other words, Myamizu-san, you must tell me everything you know about the individual in question and what circumstances you found yourself in. If I were you, I'd tell everything to avoid problems – said these last words, Sumino-sensei, with a victorious smile that is hard to contain.
– Are you sure... Do you want to hear this boring report without interest? – Mitsuha said hesitantly and trembling with fear inside, just like at the beginning of the interaction with Sumino.
She was panicked about having to tell what happened, not only in front of her superior but also to other people around who could hear.
– Yes, I'm sure. Is that a question to ask Myamizu-san?! – feigning an offended Sumino-sensei face.
– Okay, I'll tell you what happened," Mitsuha sighed resignedly. – Well, I was doing my usual route, everything was normal, until... – Mitsuha didn't know if she should say that – I crossed my eyes with an unknown man, or a boy as you call him. After our exchange of glances, I felt the need to go to him, and he also to me, which proves, well, that both he and I had the urgency to meet, in my case... well, to help him and he to be helped. This urgency made us deviate from our usual path and we found ourselves near a shrine... What was it called? – Mitsuha took out her phone and opened Maps to get her bearings, then showed it to Sumino-sensei. – As you see, I left Shinbashi Station, and the nearest shrine is the... Suga Shrine! – Mitsuha sighed deeply, to try to relieve herself of the pressure of having to tell the truth, and at the same time try to maintain the coherence of the little lie she made up about her helping him, when in fact it was something mutual.
– Exchange of glances? How so? Couldn't you talk to each other? – Sumino-sensei asked with a look of skepticism.
– No, because we were on different trains – Mitsuha replied to a little calmer.
– But what the hell is this? – Are you making fun of me? Since when did you have telepathic powers to identify people who need help? Are you some kind of telepathic Mother Teresa of Calcutta? Oh! Tell me a better one! If you call it real, then I am the Emperor of Japan! – Hikaru sneered – But now seriously, tell me the truth, no matter how embarrassing it may be, if you don't, you already know – pointing to the random papers in the company's bylaws as a form of threat – And if it's to lie, come up with something more credible! – raised his voice Sumino-sensei, as a way of pressing her.
– No, this is real. I can't explain it myself, but it happened – Mitsuha was starting to feel desperate for not being able to get away with it, even with the truth – But if you don't believe me, wouldn't it be better for me to go to work and forget about this story? – Mitsuha tried one last escape.
–No. I won't leave here until I hear everything – Sumino said uncompromisingly – And if you can't find something better of how you met him on the train, then go straight through the content of the conversation, maybe this one is of more interest to the company. – Sketching a face of annoyance.
– Okay, it's better this way – Mitsuha grimaces, she couldn't stand being with that man anymore. – So... The conversation started with our names, let's say, out of good manners. Then he asked me for help, he was lost because... – Mitsuha's mind blocked, she couldn't continue that lie. A dozen seconds passed, and she had a brilliant idea, just in time to get away with Sumino's interruption – Because he was looking for people from Itomori to interview, he did it as a hobby, that's why I didn't mention it as his job. But it was a hobby that he took seriously, and as I am one of the very few people from a village spread across a huge country like ours, I could not fail to make my contribution to the cause. – Mitsuha concluded the sentence, for the first time feeling a hint of pride stand out amid the fears and nerves in that place, giving her the dose of confidence she needed at an opportune moment.
– So, it was all about a guy disguised as a reporter? Have you taken time out of your precious work to fulfill the wishes of this puny boy? – Sumino concluded, looking at Mitsuha with a contemptuous and mocking face.
–No! He is not a puny boy! – Mitsuha almost screamed, her words curled up in her throat, causing some of the employees of the hall to turn around again to see what was going on. – He knows everything about my land, I'd say he even knows more than I do... – Mitsuha felt that the offense directed at that Taki was as if it were an offense directed against herself, making her ignore for a moment that she was being watched.
– Look Myamizu-san, I've dealt with several female employees in my life, and I know how to recognize them when they have a crush or are in love with an individual. And you can clearly see that you have at least a soft spot for him. Aren't you lying and have you met this man before? – Sumino wanted to put more pressure on her. He wanted to see if he could get something more out of her to use to his advantage.
– Hikaru Sumino, I thought I made it clear, I met him for the first time! If I already knew him, I would have no reason to meet him during working hours. I have principles... – Mitsuha was offended by her superior's insinuation.
– Well Myamizu-san, regardless of whether you met the boy or not, are you sure you want him? Don't you think you'd do better to look for more mature men, who can offer you what you want, treat you as you deserve? – Sumino-sensei puffed his chest as he said this, clearly knowing that Mitsuha's description of the best man fit his profile.
– What are you talking about?" Mitsuha changed to a puzzled face. I... I had nothing to do with that man, it was just a conversation, nothing more – she didn't understand why she hesitated to say that.
– Okay, so if it's true, how do you explain your nervousness? I see your hesitation when I ask him what this man is to you. Do you want to see that you had love at first sight and the company is the one who suffers the consequences of the damsel-in-love-san? - Sumino questions her with a sarcastic tone at the end.
– I'm not... Wait! This is from my personal life! You only have the right to ask professional questions with me! – Mitsuha stated her limits, realizing that sensei wanted to know more about her life than he should.
In fact, Myamizu-san had always been a reserved woman, perhaps one of the few things she had taken from Itomori, and she continued to be so during that conversation. Therefore, she went on the defensive by closing the floodgates after having opened them.
– I'm very sorry that you interpreted me that way, you think that I put my personal life above the interests of the company is a serious accusation. – Sumino-sensei retreated in his offensive as he looked around, he feared a boomerang effect from his interrogation with her. – I already have the information I need, let's end the conversation here. As for your lateness, since you have always been punctual and you have always done an impeccable job, I have no other option but to give you the benefit of the doubt, let's pretend it never happened. – uttering these words Sumino-sensei with a face of annoyance.
–Th... thank you sensei – Mitsuha hesitated in the words of thanks – I will never do anything again that makes you regret your decision. As you once said when I was still an intern, a bad day does not make a bad professional! Again, thanks sensei! – And Mitsuha bowed again, trying to pretend to the others that everything ended well.
– Look, let it go, the only warning you're entitled to has already been spent, let's pretend it never happened – forcing a smile Sumino-sensei, signaling to the staff around him his supposed kindness – Myamizu-san, could you come with me if you please? – Sumino was heading to a corridor where there were no people around, Mitsuha followed him.
– Remember, this counts as punishment, you won't get your salary for the hours you missed, and the next time you falter, you know what! – Sumino-sensei almost whispered those words in her ear, ending with a discreet gesture of slitting his throat.
– I already know that, now let me go to work in peace! – Mitsuha replied in the same tone of voice.
– You can go now, but it doesn't stay like that Myamizu-san, we'll talk about it later – giving Sumino-sensei a warning to Mitsuha as if it were a threat.
After another half-hour of dialogue, this time one of the undesirable kinds, Mitsuha finally freed herself from the constraints of her lateness, at least for now. But what would Sumino-sensei want from her? Why this insistence on getting to know the man she met better? These were questions that arose in her head, but soon dissipated to give way to the fear and sadness that flooded her after having had such a conversation in public.
Mitsuha walked quickly and lightly to her office located three cubicles on the left and one on the right from the entrance door of the main hall, and after sitting down, she rested her head and began to cry, as if the water of a dike had exceeded the limits of its capacity and it poured through valleys and plains uncontrollably. She cried for the humiliation, for everything related that might happen next, and, strangely, for the unknown boy not being with her. After about 5 minutes, she wiped away her tears and said to herself "Concentrate, snif! It's time to work." She took the papers, turned on the computer and started to rummage through her work in arrears.
After a morning without any major shocks, the lunch break does not seem to have done her any good. After eating the lunch box she had brought in her suitcase, Mitsuha could barely concentrate on work around 1:30 pm; each document, each analytical file of some project she had to deal with, seemed like a salad of letters and numbers swirling around her as she first thought about her conversation with her superior Sumino and its consequences in the workplace. She was back in a position she thought she would never be again: in the spotlight. One of the main reasons for her desire to go to Tokyo was precisely to become anonymous, the opposite of what happened in the village of Itomori where not only did everyone know her, but they placed expectations on her in everything she did, both because she was the maiden of the only shrine present in the place, and also because she was the daughter of the deputy mayor in a re-election campaign. Overnight, one of the few things that made her comfortable disappeared. Mitsuha pinched her arm to refocus on her work.
Such focusing did not last even 20 minutes, starting now to think about that Taki and her meeting with him. When she thought of the latter, despite the mysteries involved, she could only think of reuniting with him to try to forget her moment of hesitation in public before Sumino-sensei. Such a thought of reuniting with him relieved her fears and made her able to concentrate again on her work, until a certain point work faster than usual, to the point of compensating for the previous moments of distraction. It was as if she, as an athlete, saw a goal, and began to extend her strides and run more than ever in the guarantee of making the best time possible, to meet again with that unknown boy, the goal. Mitsuha hadn't had such emotions for years, the last time she had such emotions was perhaps in her famous race to warn her father sub-mayor of the comet disaster, whose reason for the impulse she didn't remember, unlike now.
After hours of hard work, the end of her working day had come. She wanted to leave as discreetly as possible, this time so as not to face her colleagues who saw her being metaphorically beaten by her superior, and above all, she did not want to be seen by the latter who had already put up with her for more than half an hour. It was now 6 p.m. on a Friday, and so Mitsuha was lucky that practically no one had the energy available to meddle in other people's affairs. After a thankfully discreet exit, she drove to Tokyo Station to head home, getting off at Shinjuku Station...