By the Grace of the Gods: Volume 3

by Roy

Tekun eased up when he heard about the singing and dancing, but now Gain narrowed his eyes and retaliated.

  “It’s nothing like in our world! Earth’s idols are adorable, and they try so hard! You can’t help but root for them!”

  “Uh, what?!” Tekun cried, intimidated by Gain’s sudden fury. Wilieris took a look at Gain’s face, and he seemed to know that he made a mistake.

  “You take these idols very seriously,” Wilieris said. “You just made that quite clear.”

  Now Tekun took a look at Lulutia, who decided to tell the truth before he could ask.

  “I was stressed out on Earth, so I ate just a little of their sweets during our breaks.”

  After that, Tekun’s shouts and Gain, Kufo, and Lulutia’s cries were heard across the realm of the gods.

  Extra Story: The Ones Left Behind (Part 1)

  ~Tabuchi’s Side~

  The day after the chief’s corpse was found, a somber air fell over the workplace. When I returned to the office yesterday, this department, in particular, was in such chaos that I didn’t even have time to feel the anguish.

  ■　■　■

  “Tabuchi! What is the meaning of this?!”

  As soon as I stepped into the room, my boss found me and shouted, his face red with rage, and thrust his phone in front of my face. He was so close that I could smell the stench of cigarette smoke that lingered on his body. I took the phone and checked the screen. It was opened to a popular social media site, which displayed the following comment: ‘Saw these extremely obnoxious passengers on the XXXXXXXX Line.’ It included a video of Iguchi and me on our way to the chief’s place. The video was most likely edited, starting when Iguchi yelled and ending when everyone glared at us. There were many responses to the comment, most of which were criticizing Iguchi.

  One comment asked, ‘Is this the same guy?’ and linked to a video of Iguchi being led out of the chief’s apartment by two cops and shoved into a police car. The moment I saw it, I realized that the police car was parked outside, and would have been seen by passers-by. To make matters worse, Iguchi struggled against the cops, giving whoever took the video a perfect shot of his clothes and face. It came to light that this was the same person, and this information spread far and wide.

  ‘Who’s this guy? The killer?’

  ‘He just found the body, he didn’t kill anyone, apparently.’

  ‘Seems like he thought they were just sleeping and beat up the corpse.’

  ‘He was screaming the whole time the cops dragged him out, so I think you can guess what actually happened.’

  ‘And when the cops questioned him later, he flipped out. Just like you see in the video, he went mental, insisting he wasn’t the killer.’

  ‘The police were just trying to get the story straight, too. He must’ve seemed real suspicious.’

  ‘If he’s not really the murderer, they would’ve found out the moment they determined the time of death. This asshole went out of his way to get arrested.’

  ‘Either way, if he acknowledged hitting the guy’s body, wouldn’t that be some sort of crime? Won’t he be questioned for that?’

  ‘I know this guy. He was a haughty thug that lived in my area up till a couple years ago. His name’s Iguchi Genji.’

  ‘Is he famous?’

  ‘Infamous, really. He was always walking around with a group of lackeys and hanging around in arcades, just a real jackass. When he won at fighting games, he’d kick the loser in the game, and when he lost, he’d strangle his opponent in real life.’

  ‘So he kicks corpses in games and in real life, then?’

  ‘Is he good in a fight?’

  ‘Not especially, from what I know. Maybe he could beat someone who hasn’t been in many fights, but that’s about it. He always kept lackeys around to gang up on people. But he never got involved with any real tough guys, the coward.’

  ‘Wow, what a loser.’

  ‘How does a chickenshit like that get away with acting like he owns the place? Was everyone else in the area just an even bigger chickenshit than him?’

  ‘He’s got a rich family of landlords who also run a business, so trying to stand up to him could get ugly. His lackeys were just after his money. They famously complained about him all the time in secret, but Iguchi had no idea. He was so convinced he was strong that he let it get to his head.’

  ‘His hometown, family, and even the school he went to have been found out now.’

  Judging by the timeline on this comment, it didn’t even take thirty minutes for the internet to identify Iguchi. After I gave it a read, my boss took the phone back.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he asked. “I took you along to make sure this wouldn’t happen! I just got off the phone with his father, and he was pissed! Do you have any idea how much shit I’m in right now?! Huh?!”

  I understood where he was coming from, but complaining to me about it wouldn’t do him any favors. Maybe I could have done something on the train, but not so much after we were split up. But that retort wouldn’t get me anywhere. I had no interest in listening.

  “What are you trying to do?!”

  “Boss! Phone for you!”

  “Give it here. Hello? Director?! Oh, yes, yes, they’ve already connected him to this company. We’re getting a lot of questions. Come to the president’s office? Yes, understood! Tabuchi is here too, actually, and he was with Iguchi when it all happened! You don’t need him? Yes, all right, I’ll be right there. Goodbye.” He feebly hung up the phone and turned to face me. “Tabuchi, get back to work. Now that Takebayashi’s dead, all his work is now yours, got it?!” After exerting the last of his energy to shout at me, he left with a pitiful look on his face. That was the last time I saw him that day.

  ■　■　■

  When I got to work the following morning, my boss was still absent. I hadn’t heard from him since he went to apologize to Iguchi’s parents.

  “Hello, this is Tabuchi,” I said, answering the phone. “Matsumura?”

  “Oh, Tabuchi? I finally got through to somebody! I tried calling other people but couldn’t get ahold of them. What’s going on?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. So, what do you need? It sounds like you’re outside.”

  “Oh yeah, I took the day off. Apparently Iguchi caused a disaster for the company. Dad told me not to go today... basically said I should take a vacation for a while to stay out of trouble. So yeah, I won’t be coming into work for the time being. Go tell the manager or whoever’s in charge that I’m just following my dad’s orders, all right? Bye,” she said, then hung up before I could reply.

  “Tabuchi, was that Matsumura? Doesn’t look like she’s here today; what happened?”

  “She’s taking the day off. Sounds like she might not come back to work for a while. Her parents told her about what happened with Iguchi, apparently.”

  “Matsumura too, huh?”

  “It’s already noon. She could’ve called sooner.”

  “She said she tried to call other people and couldn’t reach them.”

  “Sounds like a lie to me. Pushes the blame off herself. She’s an adult anyway, why does it matter what her dad says?”

  “At least she bothered to call in at all. Just about everyone else ditched without saying a word.”

  Our department had more employees than most, with thirty-two in all, but today there were only ten people in the room. Four of us, including the boss, were doing work away from the office. Three of us were entrusted with separate work elsewhere in the office, so seventeen employees in total were accounted for. That left fifteen employees who were absent with no excuse.

  “Well, it’s quieter without them, so we can get more work done,” I said to nobody in particular. That was the general consensus in the room. “All right, I need to go work outside the office.”

  “Tabuchi, did you have plans to do that today?”

  “I didn’t, but the chief did, and I inherited all that work.”

  A
solemn air permeated the room. Everybody present cared about what happened to the chief to some extent. They may have even been trying to forget about it by immersing themselves in work.

  “Well, I’ll be going.”

  “See you later,” my coworkers said. Their unpleasant stares made me want to flee from the office.

  ■　■　■

  By the time I finished greeting all the chief’s clients, the sun had set. I was exhausted from walking from place to place, but talking to them was even worse.

  “I’m sorry, but let’s pretend this conversation never happened.”

  “Your company hires some unscrupulous employees, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m in the middle of something. Could you please leave?”

  “Takebayashi passed away? That’s sad to hear.”

  “He looked like a yakuza, but he was a good man who took his work seriously. It’s unfortunate.”

  “He even tried to make deadlines that I knew were unreasonable when I asked for them.”

  The incident with Iguchi had a negative impact on the company’s image, and we lost a number of jobs because of it. Hearing about the chief from clients who knew him was honestly painful. My already heavy legs felt even heavier, but I still had a mountain of work left to do. I mustered up whatever energy I could and returned to the office.

  “I’m back,” I said, but the room was empty.

  “Welcome, Tabuchi.”

  “Whoa! Oh, it’s you, Baba.”

  “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to scare you.”

  “No, I should be sorry myself. Is it just you here?”

  Baba was the oldest employee in our department, close to retirement age, and he seemed to be the only one left. I missed him because he was standing in a blind spot, but I assumed everyone else had left to work away from the office. It was already night, so maybe that was more convenient for the clients. But that wasn’t what happened.

  “Everyone went home.”

  “They went home?!”

  That couldn’t be. There were always four or five people working late. That should have been especially true now that the chief was dead.

  “The boss called us and said he was going straight home, so we discussed going home at the regular time. After what happened to Takebayashi, it seems like everyone’s got things on their mind.”

  “I see.”

  “We decided to leave as much work for tomorrow as possible. It’s going to be brutal no matter which day it’s done on. Same as usual.”

  “I suppose.”

  “You’re having a rough time, I’m sure. Go home. None of us are in any state to do good work. You’re only going to make mistakes and give yourself more work to do if you try. I’ll be heading home now too.”

  “All right.”

  Every word out of his mouth came as a warning, and all those warnings stayed with me. Next thing I knew, I was at my front door. Not only that, but I was holding a bag full of food from a convenience store. I didn’t even remember buying it. I checked the bag and found a receipt from a taxi that was signed by Baba.

  In any case, I wanted to change out of my clothes. I put the bag down and hung up my suit. When I first joined the company, I was told that leaving suits on a chair for too long would wrinkle them. At the time, I think I was being introduced to a clothes hanger that could be attached to the tops of chairs at the office.

  The phone in my suit started to ring. Thinking someone might be mad at me for leaving work on time, I felt melancholic.

  “Hello?”

  “Kazuo?”

  “Oh. So it’s you, Mom.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Is that any way to speak to your mother? Someone has to do the calling here, and it’s never you calling me.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Kazuo, I was talking to someone in the neighborhood yesterday, and I heard that some guy named Iguchi’s become pretty infamous lately. He works for a company around here, and both him and his company have gone viral across the internet.”

  “So?”

  “I asked what the company was called, and it had the same name as your company. I looked into it, and people say that place overworks its employees. Have you been having any issues there?”

  “Well, I’m definitely busy. So I’m going to hang up now.”

  “Wait! Why don’t you come home?”

  “To what end?”

  “We have a room available, and Yuji and his wife say they wouldn’t mind living with you. You can come home and take your time looking for a new job.”

  “I’m good. I’ve got things to do here.”

  “I heard about this site where anonymous employees can leave reviews of their former workplaces and had Yuji check it out. The more we learned, the more horrible your company sounded! At least come home before you work yourself to death! Your father feels bad about the way he did things back then. You don’t need to be so stubborn. Kazuo? Are you listening, Kazuo?”

  “I told you, I’m busy,” I said, hanging up the phone. “You ask me to come home now, after all this time?”

  I remembered what the chief said about families and how complicated they could be. It was when my mom called me during a lunch break, and he overheard me arguing with her. I confessed that I distanced myself from my family due to a poor relationship with my father, and he told me about his own problems with his own father. He looked bitter, but after that, he smiled again. I thought he told me something else, but couldn’t remember what it was. My brain wasn’t working anymore.

  This was the right time for a drink. I went to my kitchen, a fairly cramped one, but big enough for a man living alone. I searched for a resealable bag of powder on the shelf. This was also something the chief taught me about. When I first joined the company, this was how we broke the ice. I thought he looked intimidating at the time and tried to avoid him, but he only looked scary. On the inside, he was a peaceful man. He was considerate enough to try and make me coffee while preparing his own drink. But instead of coffee, he accidentally made two of his own special drink. He apologetically asked if I wanted to drink it, and I figured I couldn’t refuse, but it ended up making me feel a lot better. It tasted like an unusual flavor of coffee.

  Soon enough, I grew to like it. I asked what it was and where I could buy it, and he said he made it himself. It was a concoction devised by his ancestors, he claimed, but I thought it sounded ridiculous. That must have been apparent from the look on my face, because the chief bashfully tried to clear things up by talking about his family, even though I never asked. The more I heard, the more it sounded like something out of a light novel. I was surprised, but fascinated. I also came to learn about his interest in geek culture around this time, quickly helping us grow closer.

  A month later, we were chatting all about our favorite light novels and games. After I learned about his interests, I began to suspect that everything he said about his family was made up, but we were such close friends that he went out of his way to prove it with a demonstration.

  I decided to drink his special beverage, but I only had a bit of the powder left. I had to use it all. It was hot and had a unique odor that somehow cleared my mind. Dandelion roots were the main ingredient, and it included mugwort and ginkgo leaves as well. There were around a dozen other types of herbs in there too. Supposedly, it improved the liver’s functioning, cured anorexia, cured constipation, cured indigestion, worked as a diuretic, lowered cholesterol, improved mental health, reduced stress, worked as a nutritional supplement, and more. I didn’t believe it at first, but now it felt like I was only able to keep working thanks to this drink.

  I would especially need it for our party tomorrow. The chief used to share his with me, but that was in the past now. His stock should have still been at the office, but if it was gone, I knew how to make more. He didn’t feel the need to keep it a secret, so after we got to know each other, he was happy to teach me. Whenever I asked him for some, he told me to make it myself, but then gave me
more anyway. At least there was still a way for me to get this drink, but the man who always made it for me was no more. As my brain started up, the memories came back to me.

  I had only used this kitchen to cook a few times. I never did housework until I moved from the countryside to the city, so my home life was horrible. I always ate out or had pre-made food at home, so the chief taught me how to cook some simple meals. He also taught me how to do everything from cleaning to dividing up my trash. After we got to know each other, we started to hang out away from work. I had often heard that city people hated when others interfered in their lives, but as someone from a rural area, I appreciated it. I was new to the city life, so he helped out a lot. More and more of these memories came back to me.

  “And here I thought I’d be the one to die first... Why’d you have to go and die before me?!” I cried, my heart full of sorrow and futility.

  Extra Story: The Ones Left Behind (Part 2)

  The next day, as usual, I arrived at the office before the scheduled time. I went straight to go see Baba.

  “Good morning.”

  “Morning. Did you make it home all right yesterday? I was worried about you.”

  “Yes, thanks for asking. Also, this is for you.”

  “You brought the receipt for me? Thank you.”

  “Wait, I thought you rode with me.”

  “No, I had a bit of business to attend to, so I just got you in the taxi and paid the driver. Do you not remember?”

  “I’m sorry, I have no memory of what happened before I got home. I had food from the convenience store that I don’t even remember buying.”

  “I see. You did seem to be rather stupefied. We went to the convenience store after we left the office. By the way, Tabuchi, are you free tonight?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Baba said he wants to go out drinking tonight. Just between us.”

  “I’m surprised to see you inviting us out for drinks, Baba.”

  “I’m in the right mood for it. It’ll be a good chance to mourn Takebayashi, and there’s something I wanted to tell everyone. How about it?”