"The most dangerous ghost is not one that haunts a house, but one that haunts a dream. For a house can be abandoned, but a dream, once truly dreamed, can never be escaped."
– From a Kaishi play, The Last Shogun's Regret
KOYAMA MARKETING & ADVERTISING, SHINJIN - FRIDAY AFTERNOON
Arakawa Shinji hated the color beige.
It was the color of compromise. Of apathy. Of the endless, identical cubicles that stretched out beyond his glass-walled office.
His own space was a bastion of minimalist black and brushed steel. A fortress against the bland corporate world he inhabited.
On his oversized monitor, the logo for a new soft drink, "Zest!", glowed in an offensively cheerful orange.
His job, for the past three hours, had been to make it three percent larger.
He was nudging a pixel when his assistant knocked. She entered and placed a single, crisp white envelope on his desk.
"This just arrived for you by courier, Arakawa-san."
A courier. Not a fax, not an internal memo. An anomaly.
He noted the sender: "Watanabe & Sons." The textile fossil. He sighed.
He sliced the envelope open with a silver letter opener. He read the brief once, his professional eye scanning for mistakes. He found none.
It was clean, concise, and surprisingly well-written. He was about to toss it in the bin when he decided to read it again, more slowly.
........
That's when he saw it.
The words were under the heading Tone & Style.
"…intuitive ease… a user should never need a manual…"
The air in Arakawa's minimalist office suddenly felt thin. The cheerful orange of the Zest! logo seemed to mock him.
These weren't just words. They were echoes.
They were the exact gospel he and Takeda Masaru had preached to each other in the dead of night. They had been fueled by cheap coffee and the manic energy of two young men. Two young men who were convinced they were about to change the world.
He remembered the cramped room they called an office. The walls covered in frantic scrawls.
Takeda, the wild-haired genius programmer, pacing like a caged animal.
And Arakawa, the architect, translating Takeda's chaotic brilliance into elegant design.
Prometheus OS wasn't just a project. It was their masterpiece.
And it had failed. Spectacularly.
The money ran out. The market wasn't ready. Their partnership had fractured, leaving nothing but the bitter ash of their dream.
To see that dream's ghost staring back at him from a piece of paper, from a textile company, sent a jolt through him.
It was part rage. And part a dangerous, terrifying hope.
........
This Hayashi Riku. The man from the café.
He dressed like a clerk but spoke with the precision of an analyst.
He worked for a relic of the past but was fluent in the language of the future.
And he knew Takeda's name.
It didn't add up. It was a design with a flawed foundation.
........
Arakawa stood. He clutched the brief in his hand. He walked to the window.
He could call the number on the brief. He could demand answers.
But you couldn't see a man's eyes over the phone. You couldn't watch him lie.
This wasn't about a brochure. It never was. This was about Takeda.
And this mysterious Hayashi Riku was the only path back to him.
Arakawa made a decision. He was an architect. And architects always inspect the foundation before they agree to build anything.
He needed to see Watanabe & Sons. He needed to see its worn desks and clunky computers.
He needed to see Hayashi Riku in his natural habitat.
He walked back to his desk. He grabbed his black jacket. His assistant looked up, surprised.
"Are you going out, Arakawa-san?"
"Yes," he said. His voice was a low, determined hum.
"I have to go see about a ghost."