and empty cans Mr. Suga left everywhere, washed the dishes, and sorted the garbage and took it out. I picked up the socks and T-shirts he stripped off and left lying around like a little kid, tossed them in the laundry, and scrubbed the bathroom and shower. After that, I finally got to the tasks that felt like an actual job. I sorted the postcards and envelopes crammed into the mailbox, wrote invoices to send to publishers, and took the receipts out of the empty box where they’d been tossed and pasted them into a notebook, sorted by date. The task that took the most time was transcribing interviews. I typed up the audio I’d recorded on my smartphone or IC recorder as text files. That text would be used as a resource when Mr. Suga or Natsumi (or, rarely, I) drafted articles. Before long, Natsumi arrived at the office on her pink Honda Cub. She was a part-timer, not a full staff member, but she was the one in charge of the company’s accounting. “Uh, excuse me? I know I told you liquor costs are social expenses!” Natsumi scolded, checking over the account book. “What, that’s all you got still?” Mr. Suga told me off, peering in at the computer screen. “You know you’ve got to buy these things on sale.” Natsumi gave me a hard time when she saw my supermarket receipt. “I’ve told you before, take out all the throat-clearing! What’s the point of writing down every single hem and haw?!” Mr. Suga yelled at me when he read my copy. “Is he still out of the office? Yesterday, you told me he would be back ‘by tomorrow,’ remember?” I apologized to an editor who’d called with a deadline reminder. “Kid, if you don’t chill soda water, you wreck it!” Mr. Suga criticized my highball while he was busy pretending not to be home. Every day, I felt like I was being swept along by an unfamiliar muddy torrent, and I spent those days working desperately, startled every time I came up against my own ignorance and incompetence. Still—and I thought this was really strange, myself—despite the constant criticism, the work wasn’t painful at all. As a matter of fact, the more they yelled at me, the more thrilled and happier I was. Why? Was I that type of person? Just last month, being bossed around and pinned down had been more than I could take, and yet… What was it about me that had changed over these two weeks? Page 32 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com