"A man's worth is not measured by the promises he makes, but by the first task he is given and the silence in which he completes it."
– From the collected letters of a Kaishi industrialist
Riku woke not to the gentle chime of a smartphone.
He woke to the pale, insistent light of dawn filtering through his window.
For a moment, deep in the warm cocoon of his new futon, he forgot where he was.
Then the scent of aged tatami and the unfamiliar silence of a room without a single electronic hum brought him crashing back.
Torai. The 1990s. His first day of work.
Panic, cold and sharp, tried to seize him. He had no alarm clock.
What if he was late?
He scrambled up. He squinted at the sky. It was still early. The light was soft and gray.
A wave of relief washed over him. It was so potent it left him dizzy.
In this world, time was kept by mechanical things. By the sun. By discipline.
Not by a pocket-sized computer that managed one's life.
He dressed with meticulous care. Pleated gray trousers. A crisp white button-down shirt.
The clothes felt foreign. The fabric was stiffer. The cut was looser than he was used to. But they were a costume, a uniform that helped him feel the part.
He ate a small bowl of last night's rice. The simple taste was a comfort.
He left at seven-fifteen. A full forty-five minutes early.
The morning air was cool and damp. Salarymen walked briskly toward the tram station. A shopkeeper methodically rolled up the metal shutter of his store.
Riku felt a strange sense of belonging in this morning ritual. He was a silent participant in the city's steady pulse.
........
He arrived at Watanabe & Sons at seven-thirty. The lights were on.
Taking a deep breath, he slid the door open.
"Good morning," he said. His voice was louder than he intended.
The woman from yesterday, Mrs. Sato, was seated behind the front desk.
Today her hair was styled in a neat, sensible cut. She wore a simple blouse and skirt. She looked up from a stack of papers. Her expression was unreadable.
"You're early, Hayashi-san," she said. It was a statement of fact. "I am Sato Emi. I manage the office. The president has not yet arrived. You may wait."
"Thank you, Sato-san," Riku replied, bowing slightly as she gestured to the dilapidated chair.
He saw the office with new eyes now. It was a time capsule.
The dominant color was beige. The computers. The telephones. The filing cabinets.
A hulking dot-matrix printer sat on a cart. Its wide ribbon of paper was neatly folded behind it.
The centerpiece of the main desk was a massive CRT monitor, its screen dark.
The air hummed with the whir of cooling fans. It smelled of old paper and the faint, sharp scent of ozone.
This was the technology he was now expected to navigate.
........
A few minutes before eight, Mr. Watanabe entered. He was carrying a steaming can of coffee.
He nodded at Riku. "Hayashi. Good. You're on time."
He looked at Mrs. Sato. "Has Kenji brought the files from the warehouse?"
"They arrived yesterday evening, President," she replied. She gestured to a tall stack of cardboard boxes.
Mr. Watanabe turned his sharp gaze back to Riku. "That's your desk. And that," he pointed to the boxes, "is your first task."
Riku moved to the desk. It was cluttered with old stationery, a Rolodex, and a computer with a keyboard yellowed by age.
"Those are the import manifests and customs declarations for the last three years," Mr. Watanabe explained. "They are a complete mess. Some on paper, some on floppy disks."
"I need you to create a single, unified digital ledger. I want to be able to search by client, date, and product code. Understand?"
"Yes, sir. Perfectly," Riku said. This was familiar territory. Or so he thought.
Mr. Watanabe seemed satisfied. "Sato-san will provide you with what you need. Don't interrupt me unless the building is on fire."
With that, he disappeared into his private office.
Mrs. Sato approached, all business. "The software is an old version of Ichitaro," she said. She placed a thin manual and a box of 3.5-inch floppy disks on his desk. "The previous boy used its table functions for the ledgers. Do you know how to use it?"
Riku looked at the Japanese software manual. He'd never heard of it.
"I'm a fast learner," he said.
........
He booted up the ancient machine. It groaned to life with loud beeps.
He started with the paper files. His fingers found a rhythm on the clacky keyboard. Then he turned to the floppy disks.
He inserted the first one. The machine whirred, clicked, and then fell silent.
An error message popped up. It was a string of Japanese characters whose meaning was universal: Disk Unreadable.
He tried another. Same result.
A cold knot formed in his stomach. The most critical data were likely lost.
He remembered reading about old tricks. Folk remedies from the dawn of the computing age.
He took the first failed disk. He tapped it gently against the side of the desk. He reinserted it.
The drive whirred. It clicked. And then, a single file icon appeared on the screen.
His heart leaped. He quickly copied the file to the computer's tiny hard drive.
He tried the next disk. Nothing.
He remembered a more obscure technique. He had seen it in a documentary. A minuscule change in temperature could sometimes allow a misaligned drive head to read the data.
He looked around. Mrs. Sato was on the phone, her back to him.
He cupped the stubborn disk in his hands. He breathed on it, the warm, moist air fogging the plastic. He rubbed it between his palms for a full minute, transferring his body heat to the delicate object.
With his heart in his throat, he slid the warmed disk into the drive.
The machine whirred, clicked, whirred again. It was a longer, more promising sound this time.
And then, two more file icons appeared.
A slow smile spread across Riku's face. It was a bizarre, archaic solution for a bizarre, archaic problem.
One by one, he performed the strange ritual, coaxing secrets from forgotten machines.
........
By late afternoon, he had recovered data from all but two of the seventeen disks. He had integrated them with the paper files. The unified ledger was taking shape.
He was so engrossed, he didn't notice Mrs. Sato standing behind him.
"How are you progressing, Hayashi-san?"
He turned, startled. "Ah, Sato-san. It's going well. I've recovered most of the digital files."
She raised an eyebrow. "Recovered? The last boy said they were corrupted."
"They just needed a little… persuasion," he said with a tired smile.
Her eyes flickered to the screen. Neat columns of data now stood there. She didn't ask how. She simply gave a short, sharp nod.
For the first time, her expression held a flicker of respect.
At five o'clock, Mr. Watanabe emerged from his office. "Report," he said.
"I've consolidated the paper records and recovered about ninety percent of the digital files," Riku said. "I've created a preliminary master ledger. The core data is there."
Mr. Watanabe peered at the screen. He scrolled through the file. The silence stretched.
"Hmph," he grunted finally. He looked at Riku. "Not bad for a first day. Don't be late tomorrow."
It was the highest praise he could have hoped for.
He bowed and left the office. The tension drained out of him.
The evening air was cool on his face. He had survived. More than that, he had proven his worth.
The message on the card echoed in his mind. Second chances are earned, not given.
Today, he had earned his salary. He had earned that flicker of respect. And he had earned that gruff approval.
He started the walk home, his new wool coat pulled tight. He felt, for the first time, not like a lost man.
He felt like a man with a job to do. A man with a place in the steady, rhythmic hum of the city of Torai.