My name is Takamatsu Tomori. I'm twenty-six years old… and a corporate drone.
It's been over ten years since Crychic — the band from my middle school days — fell apart. And yet, somehow… I still haven't quite moved on.
The day Sachiko disbanded the group, I swore off girl bands entirely. I never joined another one. Not once.
Isn't that kind of strange, for someone who grew up in an era defined by them?
Maybe. But then again, ninety-nine percent of girls who were ever in a band eventually go back to living ordinary lives.
The road I took to get here was different from theirs — but we all ended up in the same place.
We became tiny little screws in the great machine of society.
Only… I don't think I ever fit properly into that machine.
Even as a screw among other screws, I constantly feel like I don't belong — like there's something off about my very existence.
I've stood alone beneath the stars more times than I can count, gazing up at worlds light-years away. I know they're far from me. But somehow, the planet beneath my feet feels even further.
Do I belong here?
I've asked myself that question, over and over, more times than I can remember.
Always alone. Always drifting.
Hmm… maybe this is just how my life is going to be.
...
Near the west exit of Akabane in Kita Ward, Tokyo, sits Yotsuya-ba Co., Ltd. — a company with stones in its very soul.
The building is modest: a small four-story structure, nothing grand about it.
Takamatsu Tomori works there as a stone inventory manager.
Her job is to record and track the inventory of stone materials, keeping all the data accurate and up to date.
Honestly, Tomori couldn't say she particularly loved the work.
But it wasn't boring. The pay wasn't bad. And best of all, she got to bring home oddly-shaped little rocks every single day.
In the years since she'd joined, Takamatsu Tomori had filled every corner of her rental apartment with stones of every variety.
Most of them were offcuts that would otherwise have been thrown away, or strange rocks she'd spotted in the undergrowth on her walk home from work.
Stones. Always stones.
Her job was cataloguing stones. Her hobby was collecting stones. Most of her dreams were about the time in high school when she'd been rummaging through a little patch of grass and flipped over a rock to find a roly-poly bug underneath.
All going according to plan.
For the next fifty or sixty years of ordinary employee Takamatsu Tomori's life, she would keep working here. Right up until retirement.
Or — perhaps the company would be swallowed by a competitor and go under before she ever made it that far.
That was the nature of the market. Nobody could say for certain.
"Phew——"
Today was November seventh. The first day of winter, by the old calendar. Tomori arrived at the office as usual.
She exchanged her usual greetings with the receptionist — a colleague whose face she knew but whose name she'd never quite learned — then headed upstairs to her workstation.
The small office held two positions, but between the sluggish economy, a dearth of new talent, and the fact that the work was dull and the salary merely average, the second seat had never been filled.
For years now, Takamatsu Tomori had worked alone in that sealed, quiet room.
Knock knock——
Someone was knocking on her office door — something she hadn't heard in quite a while. Without even opening her eyes, she already knew it was her supervisor coming to ask a favour.
"P-please come in!"
Dressed in the polished style of a city professional, Tomori fussed anxiously with the hem of her skirt. She hated wearing this uniform. The stuffiness was unavoidable — and worse, she found the whole thing vaguely humiliating.
After years in the workforce, she still hadn't grown used to wearing office clothes. It was yet another sign that she and the typical white-collar worker were fundamentally incompatible.
Only when she retreated into the little world she'd built for herself did anything feel better.
"Takamatsu, you're getting a new colleague. She should be arriving at the office soon — make sure you show her the ropes properly."
Ms. Kira was always crisp and efficient: she arrived quickly and left just as fast, dispensing a few brief instructions before hurrying back to her own work.
"I… of course."
A new hire? What kind of person would she be?
Maybe she'd take one look at her weirdo coworker and quit on the spot.
Tomori gave her head a little shake, trying to scatter all those stray thoughts to the wind.
She stepped out of the office and made her way down the corridor — grey-brown carpet underfoot — toward the break room.
Coffee… and watering the little potted plant in the break room…
These were two of her exactly three sources of leisure and entertainment at this company.
The third was collecting the stone offcuts from work.
Following her usual routine, Takamatsu Tomori poured herself a cup of black coffee.
The break room coffee was terrible — thin as dishwater — but she'd gotten used to the taste, the same way she'd gotten used to working alone, commuting alone, coming home alone, and going to sleep alone.
The second-floor break room occasionally had a few other colleagues drifting through, but today Tomori didn't spot a single one.
"Everyone must be busy."
While Tomori was lost in thought, a trickle of coffee slipped out from the corner of her mouth. She reached for a paper napkin to dab it away — and then froze, drawn by a strange sound coming from the supply closet nearby.
Like someone rummaging through things. Or maybe… moving something?
But the supply closet was just old binders and documents nobody ever needed. The veteran employees certainly had no reason to be digging through it on any given day.
"That's weird."
It was the first thing this month that felt even slightly out of step with Takamatsu Tomori's perfectly ordinary routine.
Unremarkable as it was, it gave her mind something to wander toward — a luxury she hadn't had in a long time.
[Maybe there's a corporate spy in there stealing files…]
[Or maybe one of the old-timers is making instant noodles in secret?]
[What if someone's been living in there to avoid paying rent!]
Wow. The last time her brain had been this lively was a month ago at the supermarket, agonizing over a buy-two-get-one promotion.
Tomori knew she should go back to work. But halfway through turning around, she felt something — some invisible pull — drawing her forward.
[I want… to go take a look.]
Besides, she'd already finished today's work yesterday out of sheer boredom. Even if she spent the whole shift napping at her desk, it wouldn't exactly be a crisis.
Still hesitating, she found her hand already closing around the supply closet door handle — and at that very moment, the door was pulled open from the inside.
A girl stepped out carrying a towering stack of files. The pile was piled so high it blocked her view completely, leaving her blind to Tomori's presence just on the other side.
Predictably, neither of them had time to dodge.
They collided.
"Ah!"
"Oof…"
A startled cry. Papers and documents erupting into the air like a small explosion.
Tomori, wincing and sprawled on the floor, looked up and saw the "offending driver" had also been knocked flat.
The fluttering papers did nothing to block the view between them. Takamatsu Tomori got a clear look at the other girl's face.
White hair. Red eyes. She looked like she took good care of herself — and her figure, slightly scandalous in the way it strained against her clothes, was only more striking for it.
[She's… so pretty… ah…]
Tomori hadn't even had time to process the thought before the other girl had already scrambled to her feet and was walking toward her.
"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry — I couldn't see where I was going. I'm really, truly sorry for running into you!"
"N-no, it's — I, it's — I'm fine, really, it was me who ran into you."
The more Tomori looked, the hazier everything seemed — especially those shining, luminous red eyes.
They seemed… familiar somehow.
Had they… met somewhere before?
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