Chapter 18: “The Newspaper Club”

“Yagishita, the plant manager wants to see you.”

Yagishita was in the middle of inspecting a large steel frame, and the interruption irritated him. Deliberately taking his time, he finally headed over.

“What is it? You know I’m inspecting the T7 right now, don’t you?”

“Sorry, sorry. But I really need to ask you something, Yagishita. And it has to be today.”

The plant manager was unusually polite.

That alone made Yagishita suspicious.

Sure enough, after listening to what the man had to say, he found himself being handed a rather troublesome request...

Yagishita was a member of the company newspaper club.

Well, member might not have been exactly the right word. Nobody had ordered him to do it.

When he had filled out his résumé years ago, there had been a section asking about extracurricular activities in high school. He had written that he had belonged to the school newspaper club.

Someone had noticed.

“Would you do something like that here?”

That was how it had started.

And somehow, twenty years had passed.

The person who had first asked him had been the company's executive vice president at the time—the current president, Masao Kurogane...

“This is going to be a pain,” Yagishita thought.

And yet...

(This could actually be interesting.)

He found himself quietly smiling.

---

“This issue is pretty good.”

President Kurogane was sitting in his office, drinking tea as he spoke to his daughter, Wakaba.

“Did you read the company newsletter?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What did you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we've been publishing this thing for twenty years, and this is the first time Nezu has ever submitted anything. That surprised me.”

“Now that you mention it...”

Wakaba thought for a moment.

“I can't really imagine Mr. Nezu writing anything. So yes, that does seem a little unexpected.”

“And it's well written, too.”

Masao picked up the newsletter and read it again.

The title was:

“And, With Gratitude”

As I prepare to retire at the end of September, I felt that I wanted to express my gratitude to everyone, and so I have taken up my pen—something I am not particularly accustomed to doing.

The company newsletter is published only once every three months. If I missed the July issue, there would not be another opportunity, so I hurried to write this. There are still things I wanted to say, and things I probably should have said, that I have not been able to put into words.

Looking back, I joined Kurogane Manufacturing more than forty years ago.

At the time, I wanted to go to Tokyo more than anything. I left my hometown and came to the city, throwing myself into a completely unfamiliar life.

There is a song by Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi called Dragonfly. For people like us who came to the city from the countryside, that song truly struck deep into our bones.

Through a fortunate connection, I found a job at this company. It was not Tokyo, but Yokohama—and I still remember how deeply moved I was to have found work in a big city. I was so happy that I could have cried.

The president at that time was the late Yasuo Kurogane, the previous chairman of the company.

The chairman took wonderful care of me. He treated this country boy almost as if I were his own son.

Working for him became the purpose of my life, and that alone was enough to make me happy.

When he passed away, I felt as though I had lost my compass.

But then the current president, Masao Kurogane, took his place and worked tirelessly to carry the company forward. I cannot express how much that meant to those of us who had been here for many years.

We are old-fashioned people. We find meaning in dedicating our lives to our work.

We want to work—for the company, for society, and for the future of our children.

That is why the president's way of leading this company is connected, in a straight line, to what gives us pride and happiness.

I am grateful that I was able to work for this company.

And I am grateful for all the happy years I have spent here.

I am certain that many happy days are waiting ahead for all of you who still have your futures before you.

...

The rest of the article ended with the usual, conventional words.

Masao smiled to himself.

(Nezu?)

(That hopeless drunk?)

(The man who got yelled at by the chairman more times than I can count?)

(The guy who used to hide alcohol at work, drink it when nobody was looking, and then cause all kinds of trouble?)

(And now he's writing something this sincere?)

(No chance.)

(Yagishita from the newspaper club had something to do with this.)

That was what Masao thought.

Sure enough, when he confronted Yagishita a few days later, Yagishita admitted that he had written the article himself.

“Well... it wasn't exactly Nezu who asked me.”

Yagishita scratched his head.

“The plant manager asked me to do it...”

Masao couldn't bring himself to blame him.

But Yagishita continued.

“Still, I only put the words together. What I wrote came from Mr. Nezu himself.”

Masao listened quietly.

“When I asked him, ‘Are you really going to write this?’ he said, ‘I can't write something like that. I've never written anything in my life.’

“So I tried not to change it too much.

“I wanted to make sure that what he felt came through.”

...

Back in his office, Masao picked up the company newsletter once again.

“Oh? You're reading it again?”

Wakaba had brought him some tea and spoke from behind his chair.

“...”

“Dad?”

Masao said nothing.

With his head slightly lowered, he simply sat there...

...and looked at the article for a long time.