By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter SS

Extra Story: A Magazine Journalist Feels Something Is Wrong

In a dimly lit and mostly empty cafe, two men were sitting at a table, trying to avoid attention.

“Thank you for your cooperation.”

“Don’t ever come back. And another thing—”

“I know. I won’t write about you. It’s your company that we want to write about. Farewell.”

Leaving the disheartened man behind, the other man stood up. He paid the bill, left the cafe, and took a cellphone out of his pocket.

“Hello, this is Urami.”

“Urami? How’d it go?”

“Perfect. I even got proof.”

“Excellent!”

“I’ll continue gathering information and return to the office tonight.”

“Good, keep it up.”

“You can count on me.”

Urami kept the conversation brief and simply stated what was necessary. After the phone was hung up, he checked the clock. There was a bit of time before his next job, so he decided to get a bite to eat at another cafe. He didn’t think twice before ordering the first sandwich and coffee listed on the menu, then lit a cigarette and enjoyed smoking for the few moments he could. This was the only part of his day where he didn’t have to think about anything.

“Here you are, an egg sandwich and coffee,” the waiter said as he left a plate, then left. Urami silently watched him go. He didn’t touch the sandwich until he was finished smoking. When he put it out in the ashtray, he began to think again.

“Sorry, neighbor, but there’s a better story here than I was expecting,” Urami thought to himself. Urami lived next door to Ryoma, and he was present when Ryoma’s corpse was found. He was a magazine journalist, and he later investigated Iguchi and Ryoma’s workplace. “That company’s got dirt hiding under every crevice.”

Ryoma’s company was undergoing massive scrutiny online after the incident with Iguchi went public. Disgruntled ex-employees began to anonymously complain about the company online, and numerous others gathered further information. A website listing all known data about the company and the incident with Iguchi went up this morning. Urami saw this as a chance to improve his standing within the editorial department, but it was a precarious situation. If he wanted to seize this opportunity, he needed to uncover even deeper information. He primarily sought out members of Ryoma’s company, and he found that this job was going unusually well.

“I thought it’d take a bit more digging, but I hit the jackpot here. Everything I investigate turns up a new story. My reputation should skyrocket after this, but considering how easy this has been, I’m impressed this has all been secret for so long. Well, can’t complain about an easy job.”

His job was to use any means necessary to expose dark secrets to the public. Sometimes the law got in the way, or sometimes his targets were too powerful, so after those painful experiences, the ease of these last few days felt lacking. Even with the most minor information, following the lead inevitably led to something. Whatever he asked and wherever he asked it, there was something to discover.

“It’s been going so smoothly that it’s almost eerie,” Urami thought as he shoved the sandwich into his mouth and washed it down with coffee. “Speaking of eerie, why didn’t that guy just up and quit working there, anyway?” The company assigned excessive work, had violent bosses, hid the crimes and mistakes of employees hired through connections, and treated Ryoma’s department poorly. Urami had investigated the company enough to learn a fair bit about Ryoma’s working conditions. Nothing about it was entirely unique to this company, and similar stories could be found elsewhere. But in Ryoma’s case, it was even worse than the complaints Urami so often heard. If Urami were in that position, he would have resigned right away, so he couldn’t comprehend why Ryoma stayed there for sixteen years.

Urami asked for the bill, finishing the meal as quickly as possible. After he paid, he headed out to town and sought information once again.

■ ■ ■

Urami visited the local shopping district. Dazzling neon and bustling crowds filled the place at night, but it was currently the middle of the day. Many of the stores were closed, and the crowds were sparse. Urami entered an alleyway and came to a gay bar called MITHUKO. Someone called out to him from a seat further back in the dark room.

“The hell d’you want? We’re closed, didn’t you see the sign? Get outta here,” said a woman who was wiping a table. She looked at him dubiously.

“Sorry to intrude. I’m a journalist, you see,” Urami said and handed her a business card.

“Great, now bugger off, would you? I have nothing to say to the press.”

“Don’t be like that. Would you mind chatting with me for a bit?”

“No thanks. I already know why you’re here. This is about Take’s company, isn’t it? You people just wanna make a profit off someone’s death,” the woman complained, disgusted at Urami. She looked to be in her sixties and wore a thin dress. Her excess flab jiggled as she tried to force Urami out. But he didn’t go anywhere.

“Come on, please?”

“I said no! Get out now, or I’m calling the cops!”

“I just want to talk. If my company doesn’t publish something about this incident, somebody else will. His company’s already being excoriated online, as I’m sure you know.”

“And why should that mean I have to talk to you?” the woman asked, expressing even more displeasure. She was right that by writing an article about this, Urami and his company stood to profit, and that was Urami’s biggest goal. But he had other reasons too.

“I’d personally like to learn more about him. I actually happened to be there when his body was found.”

“What?” the woman said, not expecting to hear that. Urami then said that he lived next door to Ryoma. “Were you close to Take?”

“Somewhat. We were both too busy to see each other all that often. But he helped me out when I first moved in. He was a nice guy.”

“Yeah. Too nice. And clumsy, too. He kept making a fool of himself until the day he died,” the woman muttered sadly. Urami told her about his memories of Ryoma. All he had were stories of his small acts of kindness, but that was enough to bring to mind her own memories of Ryoma.

“I want to expose the boss who abused him, and the actions of the company at large. I can’t deny that I’m going to make something off it myself in the process, but my questions go deeper than that. Why did he keep working there, in spite of everything? Is there anything I can do to honor his memory? Can you help me with that?” Urami pleaded to the woman.

Urami was by no means a man with much passion for justice. Rather, like the woman implied, he would do anything to get a scoop. But this particular case began with the death of his neighbor. He was also present when the body was found, so he felt somewhat more attached to this job than average. His personal investment was enough to convince the woman.

“Come with me. I’ll give you a drink,” she said and headed to the counter. Urami followed her and sat at a seat across from her. “Sorry I got so snippy.”

“Oh, no. I’m the one barging in on you...”

“It’s fine, you’re hardly the first.”

“Were there other journalists?”

“I don’t know how they ended up finding this place, but they’ve been coming nonstop since the day Take died. They even showed up at my house this morning. I’ve driven every one of them away, though.”

“I’m sorry about that. Not everyone in our profession is that way,” Urami said and clicked his tongue. “That’s such an old way of doing things. The mass media already takes enough heat nowadays, assholes. You’re only making things harder for the rest of us.”

“So what did you want to ask about specifically?”

“I want to know what Takebayashi and the other employees from his company acted like at this bar.”

“Well, Take was a regular here, but only because he was attending the others, from what it seemed like. I remember hearing that he didn’t drink otherwise. And they came to my bar because it was their favorite, aside from all the bars they’re banned from.”

“Why are they banned from bars?”

“They’re the worst drunks imaginable. These people would come in here and say the most vile, homophobic shit. Like, they’re the ones who chose to come to a gay bar in the first place. They were always so full of themselves, and they loved to look down on everyone, so a lot of the bars around here banned them outright. Take apologized for them every time, though, so I gave them a pass. I think he was the biggest victim in all this. Do you mind if I smoke?”

“No, go ahead.”

The woman took a cigarette out of the counter, lit it up, and inhaled deeply. She rested her head on her arm as she kept talking. “I think he could’ve laid into those people if he wanted to, but he never did. He always did what they said. For all the shit they threw at us, Take got it even worse.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“They’d go on about how they didn’t like how he acted at work, or how they didn’t like the way he looked at them, things like that. They’d also act like they were the older, wiser ones, but their opinions could completely change from one day to the next, and nothing they said meant anything. Oh, that reminds me of something,” the woman said. Urami tightened his grip on his pen. “When they got drunk, they would call Take a traitor. They’d say they were being generous letting a traitor stay at the company, nasty stuff like that. I always wondered what that was about.”

“I knew that the company treated Takebayashi poorly, but did they actually call him a traitor?”

“I don’t know much more about that. I was curious, but he never told me about it when I asked. In fact, Take never disparaged or complained about his company. I can’t imagine he literally betrayed anyone. I doubt he was happy about doing anything to help these people either, but he was an honest man. And if he were capable of doing something especially cunning, I think he would have just quit the company anyway.”

Maybe he had his reasons, or maybe he simply made a mistake and paid the price for it. Neither Urami or the woman knew the details, but it was odd how they chose to call him that word. Urami jotted this down as something worth investigating.

“That’s all I can tell you about their insults. To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention to that. The way they made him chug rectified spirits and beat him with bottles was a much bigger concern.”

“Can you tell me about that? Rectified spirits have extremely high alcohol content, don’t they? And they committed acts of violence too?”

“That’s right. These spirits were 96% alcohol, while your average whiskey averages around 40%. One bottle of whiskey is enough to get most people drunk, and these drinks were twice as bad. I still can’t believe what they did.”

“And what happened after he was forced to drink this?”

“Take was fine. It was almost scary how well he could hold his liquor. He seemed pretty drunk, but he was able to walk home well enough on his own. Hell, he probably would’ve been worse off if he couldn’t! I considered calling an ambulance at the time, though. After this happened a few times, I stopped stocking those spirits.”

“I see. And what about the violence?”

“That was mostly instigated by the chief of their department. Things would escalate until he lost his temper and beat Take with a bottle. And not just empty ones. After he started, his cronies would join in. We got used to it after a while,” the woman said and slumped her shoulders. “Now I wonder if things would have been different if I reported them to the police. I had plenty of chances.”

“I don’t want to place any blame on you, and I won’t write about this in the article. But can you tell me why you didn’t report any of this?”

“A few reasons. I didn’t want to subject my bar to the cops, and Take asked me not to make a big deal out of these incidents. He hated to cause trouble. It seemed like he was always treated poorly, and if something happened, maybe it could have seriously threatened his position.”

“Did he have no choice but to stay with the company?”

“I guess so. He never quit, did he? It’d be easy for outsiders to suggest that he should have, but he couldn’t quit whether he wanted to or not. Those sorts of ultra-exploitative businesses are all the same way.”

“True.”

“And maybe there was some particular reason. I listen to a lot of people’s grievances as part of my job, and some of them have high wages but hate how they can’t go home on time, while others would love to work overtime if it meant higher wages. Everyone has different values. I can’t imagine he was sticking with those scumbags because he liked them, I’ll say that much.”

“What was he like? Did he ever get mad at them?”

“No, he just about never did. Even when he was beaten and forced to drink, he just said that he could handle it. But if he couldn’t handle it, maybe he would’ve accepted that too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he seemed like he wouldn’t have minded if it killed him. He was generally cheerful and always claimed to be doing fine, but in these brief moments, he seemed like he’d given up on everything.”

Urami was Ryoma Takebayashi’s neighbor, but never spent much time with him. He wrote down the woman’s impressions of him in great detail. He also asked about the unique traits and behavior of the employees who Ryoma attended. Right around when he finished asking questions, his phone began to ring.

“Pardon, I need to take this.”

“It’s fine, go ahead.”

Urami took out the phone. “Hello, this is Urami. Chief, I’m interviewing someone right now. Oh? I’m in the usual shopping district, yes. It’s not that far away. What is it?” It sounded like there was a lot of chaos in the editorial department, and the chief seemed to be in a panic. Urami asked knowing that something must have happened, but the answer still shocked him. “Somebody’s been injured?!”

Someone at the very company he was investigating, from the same department as Ryoma, got into another incident. The company’s reputation would inevitably get even worse, but to Urami, this gave him yet another lead.

“Understood. I’ll be there as soon as possible. What was the location, and who was the culprit?” Urami whispered, wary of the woman across the counter. He reviewed his notes again. The name he was given for the culprit matched one of the names he wrote down. “He had black hair, glasses, and looked like the studious type? Chief, there’s something I’m curious about. I’ll call you back later, if you don’t mind. Thank you, goodbye.”

“What was all that about?” the woman said.

“Was this one of the men who beat Takebayashi with a bottle?” Urami asked and showed her a picture he pulled up on his phone.

“Yes, I know him! He’s one of the chief’s cronies! Did he do something?”

“He was drinking in the middle of the day, and he ended up beating an acquaintance with a bottle for joking about the company’s reputation online.”

“Oh dear! I’m not surprised he’d do something like that.”

“I need to go dig up some info on that, so I’ll be going now. Thank you for your cooperation.”

“Oh, wait a moment!” the woman said and ran to the back of the bar. Urami wanted to get a move on, but waiting was the least he could do to repay her. A couple of minutes later, the woman returned with a videotape from a bygone era. “Take this. There’s a recording of Take drinking with those people on this tape.”

“Really?! Surprised you’d have that.”

“One of our employees got sick of them and recorded them in secret. It’s an illegal recording, and it could’ve made trouble for Take, so we never ended up using it, but I kept it around. I was cleaning up yesterday and considered throwing it out when I found it. I never spoke up about what they did to him, so maybe I’m in no position to talk, but there’s no point in me keeping this anymore. Plus, I want you to make those assholes pay.”

And so, Urami obtained even more of the information he desired. His intentions with this information were obvious. As to his thoughts about all this and what would happen next... well, that’s a story for another day.