Chapter Fifteen — Gin-san (Part Three)

“Sasaki, do you have a minute?”

Sasaki looked up from the blueprint he had been studying.

Deputy Plant Manager Yamashiro was standing there.

Behind him stood Maebashi, one of the supervisors.

“Is something wrong?”

“Hm.”

Yamashiro removed his thick glasses and blinked a few times.

“It's about Kano. The new employee you've been training.”

Sasaki's expression changed.

“...Is this about Handa-san?”

“That's right.”

Yamashiro sighed.

“It's becoming a bit of a problem.”

Of course it is.

If Handa is smoking whenever he feels like it during working hours—and now a new employee has started copying him—the company can't just ignore it.

“Someone from another department mentioned it to me the other day.”

Sasaki nodded.

“I gave Kano a pretty serious warning.”

“When was that?”

“Last Wednesday, I think.”

Sasaki thought for a moment.

“I remember because he was on bathroom-cleaning duty. I caught him while he was carrying a mop and gave him hell.”

“I see.”

Yamashiro put his glasses back on.

“Yesterday, I received a report that Handa and Kano were smoking together.”

“What?”

Sasaki froze.

“...Are you serious?”

“...”

“That idiot...”

Sasaki stood on tiptoe and began looking around for Kano.

Then Maebashi, who had been silent until now, spoke.

“Sasaki.”

His voice was calm.

But serious.

“We need to deal with this properly.”

Sasaki turned toward him.

“The management has been willing to overlook some of Handa's behavior.”

Maebashi continued.

“But if he's starting to involve other people, especially new employees, this could become much more complicated.”

Maebashi was a tall, thin man with a gentle manner.

Sasaki swallowed the words I know.

“Yes.”

He answered simply.

But inside, his face had gone pale.

This is bad.

---

That evening, Sasaki invited Shun Kano out for drinks.

The bar he usually went to had a private room in the back.

“Wait. Sasaki-senpai... are you buying?”

Shun followed him eagerly.

“Come on. Let's have a drink.”

“Thanks!”

Shun took a long drink of beer.

After the heat of the day, it tasted especially good.

“There was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Sasaki watched him carefully.

“Can you guess what it is?”

Maybe he's noticed how much better I've been getting lately.

Compared with the other new guys, I'm really starting to stand out...

Shun thought about it for a moment.

But then he shook his head.

“Nope. Nothing comes to mind.”

He took another drink.

His glass was empty.

Just as he reached for the beer bottle—

“This is about you and Handa-san.”

Damn.

They found out.

Shun immediately remembered that, even while smoking with Handa, part of him had known they would eventually get caught.

“I'm sorry.”

He lowered his head.

“I just...”

“I warned you about this the other day.”

Sasaki's voice remained calm.

“Why did you break your promise?”

“I'm sorry.”

“...If there's a reason, I want you to tell me.”

Shun hesitated.

“...I couldn't tell Gin-san that I wasn't coming anymore because Sasaki-san told me not to.”

“Then why not just tell him you've decided you shouldn't be skipping work to smoke?”

“Yeah.”

Shun looked down.

“I thought about saying that.”

He paused.

“But if I said it like that, it would sound like I was saying Gin-san was slacking off.”

“Handa-san is slacking off.”

Sasaki answered immediately.

“Smoking during working hours isn't allowed.”

He leaned forward.

“If that's not slacking off, then what is?”

“...”

---

For nearly an hour, Sasaki patiently listened as Shun tried to explain himself.

Little by little, he began to understand what was really going on inside the young man's head.

Put simply, the time Shun spent with Handa had become the part of the workday he looked forward to most.

There was something about Handa's outlaw behavior that fascinated him.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Shun even seemed to want to become like him.

But Shun himself hadn't fully realized that.

He seemed to make decisions based on whatever he happened to be feeling at the moment, without always being able to see clearly what he was doing.

“Well.”

Sasaki finally leaned back.

“I'll explain what's happened so far to the people upstairs.”

Shun nodded.

“But from now on, don't do it again.”

“Yes.”

“And can you tell Handa-san that yourself?”

“...Yeah. I can.”

“You're not thinking that he'll hate you if you say it, are you?”

“No.”

Shun shook his head.

“I don't think that.”

“Good.”

Sasaki picked up his beer.

“Handa-san is a strange guy, but he's not the kind of person who'd hate you for something like that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Sasaki nodded.

“I've heard that he used to be one of the best workers in the company.”

“Apparently, customers even asked for him by name.”

“'I've heard'?”

Shun looked surprised.

“You don't actually know?”

“No.”

Sasaki shook his head.

“That was long before I joined the company.”

He smiled faintly.

“Apparently, they used to call him one of the Four Heavenly Kings of Kurogane.”

“Seriously?”

Shun leaned forward.

“Then what about now?”

Sasaki lifted his beer and drank deeply.

“Now...”

For an instant, a scene from that day flashed back into Sasaki's mind.

...