Chapter Nine — The Fork in the Road (Part One)

“This Is Rough”

Keisuke heard the sound of his alarm clock somewhere in the distance and muttered,

“I’m in trouble…”

He had a feeling that it had already been ringing for quite some time.

He had stayed up late playing online games the night before, and getting out of bed was painful.

(If our company doesn’t introduce flextime soon, they’re going to lose a highly talented employee like me!)

The night owl finally managed to drag himself out of bed, irrationally angry at the world.

Ouch… my back hurts, too.

It had to be from sitting in the same position, staring at the screen for so long.

(This is rough…)

…For about another ten minutes, he lay in bed, drifting between sleep and wakefulness. Eventually, his mother’s angry voice from downstairs finally forced him to get up.

No one in Keisuke’s family could ever dare to defy his mother…

---

When he arrived at the company, he noticed the security guard grinning at him.

“Good morning.”

Keisuke said it quickly and tried to walk past, but—

“Morning. You don’t look so good today.”

There was a teasing tone in the guard’s voice.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Come on, don’t say things that kill the motivation of the Manufacturing Department’s ace.”

“Oh, really? I hear Takahashi’s the ace these days.”

“Takahashi? That awkward young kid? No way, no way, no way.”

“Apparently, the plant manager’s really got his eye on him.”

“Seriously? Maybe the plant manager’s getting a little tired these days.”

The security guard shrugged, still grinning.

“That’s some confidence you’ve got there.”

“I’m the ace.”

Keisuke said it as he walked away.

You’re a young kid yourself, the security guard thought, laughing to himself.

---

About two hours after work began, the plant manager came over to Keisuke with a cup of coffee.

“Hey, Sano. How’s it going?”

“What’s this, Boss? Coming all the way over here yourself?”

“What, am I bothering you?”

“Nah, I’m fine. I’ll have it finished before four. No need to worry.”

Keisuke kept working as he spoke.

The plant manager stood a short distance away, watching Keisuke work while sipping his coffee.

“You’ve got some real talent, you know.”

“Thank you.”

“You were asked to make this one out of stainless steel, and that makes it harder to shape… I thought it might be difficult. But it’s turned out really nice.”

The plant manager leaned against the edge of the worktable as he spoke.

“……”

“What’s wrong? Not satisfied with it?”

Keisuke looked up.

“Come on, Boss. This is nothing. That V08 box we did the other day was way harder. You couldn’t hammer it into shape, so I had to come up with some tricks with the welding.”

“Oh, that one. Yeah, we usually had Yamase-san handle the V08s. That one really did turn out well.”

The plant manager paused.

“Oh, speaking of which, another one of those has come in.”

“What? Again?”

“What, you don’t want to do it? We could ask Tsubaki instead.”

The plant manager said this as he started to straighten up from the edge of the table.

Keisuke hurriedly stopped him.

“No, no, it’s not that I don’t want to. I’ll do it.”

“……”

“I’m counting on you.”

“OK, Boss!”

Keisuke said it jokingly.

(What did he come over here for, anyway?)

Still wondering, Keisuke immediately got back to work.

(To be continued.)