Chapter 41: The Price of Arrogance
In late March 1987 the cherry-blossom front had only just reached Ueno Park.
Inside the Marunouchi office building the air remained dry and pleasantly warm. The central air-conditioning system delivered a steady, filtered current, sealing away the capricious spring beyond the double-glazed windows.
Saionji Industries, President's Office.
The room was almost unnaturally quiet.
"Click."
"Click."
Shuichi stood before a camphor-wood table by the window, holding a pair of black-steel pruning shears. Before him rested a fifty-year-old Japanese white-pine bonsai.
The needles were a vibrant green, the branches twisted like miniature dragons, yet on the left side a cluster of stray shoots disrupted the tree's hard-won balance.
Shuichi pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses, his expression one of absolute concentration, as though performing delicate surgery. He tilted his head, studied the direction of the branches and leaves, then snipped once more.
"Click."
The offending cluster fell neatly into a tray lined with white sand.
"President."
The secretary eased the door open, her voice barely above a whisper, afraid to disturb the stillness.
"Deputy Manager Gonda of the Seibu Group has arrived."
Shuichi did not turn, nor did his hands pause.
"Let him in."
A few seconds later, heavy, hurried footsteps shattered the office's tranquillity. Leather soles struck the floor with ill-mannered thuds.
"President Saionji, what a refined hobby."
Gonda's voice came from behind him.
Though he struggled to maintain the composure expected of a senior executive in a major zaibatsu, the faint tremor in his tone betrayed his inner state.
Shuichi kept his back turned, gently stroking the pine needles with his fingertips as he searched for the next point of correction.
"Deputy Manager Gonda, please make yourself comfortable."
His tone was flat, as if greeting an ordinary deliveryman.
Gonda stood motionless, staring at Shuichi's back, a muscle twitching along his jaw.
He drew a deep breath, forced down his rising anger, and strode to the sofa. He dropped his briefcase onto the coffee table with a heavy thud.
"I will not waste time on pleasantries."
Gonda pulled a check from the briefcase and slid it to the centre of the table.
"Regarding that plot in Meguro Ward, the Seibu Group prefers efficiency. We do not enjoy lingering over trivial details."
He tapped the check with two fingers.
"Two hundred million yen."
His voice rose slightly, carrying the habitual condescension of a man long accustomed to command.
"As I understand it, you purchased the land for only fifty million. In just two months that represents a fourfold return. President Saionji, one should know when to be content. Such a profit margin would be considered exorbitant in any industry."
His words echoed through the quiet room.
Then came absolute silence.
Shuichi appeared not to have heard him at all. He rose slightly on his toes and extended the shears toward a dead branch at the top of the pine.
"Click."
The snap of the severed branch rang clear in the stillness.
Gonda's eyelids twitched.
"President Saionji?" he frowned. "I am speaking to you."
"I am listening."
Shuichi finally turned around.
He still held the sharp shears. Instead of glancing at the check on the coffee table, he examined Gonda from head to toe with the same critical eye he had given the bonsai.
"Two hundred million," Shuichi repeated tonelessly. "It does sound like a substantial sum."
"Of course!" Gonda thought he had made an impression and leaned forward, forcing a smile. "This is a cashier's check, immediately redeemable. With two hundred million you could purchase many more of those… scraps."
Shuichi smiled.
He walked behind his desk, opened a drawer, and withdrew a single pre-printed A4 sheet.
The paper was thin, bearing only a few lines of text.
Holding it, he circled the large desk and approached Gonda.
He did not sit. He simply looked down at the man slumped on the sofa.
"Deputy Manager Gonda, your arithmetic is correct. Four times is indeed an excellent return."
Shuichi released the sheet.
It floated down and settled neatly over the two-hundred-million-yen check.
"However, the Saionji family's mathematics tutor taught a rather different calculation."
Gonda lowered his gaze to the paper.
The content was simple: one bold line of figures.
Transfer Price: 1,000,000,000 yen.
Gonda froze.
He blinked, convinced he had misread the decimal point.
Ones… tens… hundreds… thousands… ten thousands… hundred millions.
One billion.
"Whoosh!"
Gonda shot up from the sofa with such force that he nearly overturned the coffee table.
"One billion?!"
His voice cracked, rising sharply with shock and fury.
"Are you insane?! That is a thirty-tsubo patch of worthless land! You could not even build a decent toilet on it! You dare demand one billion?!"
"Thirty-three million per tsubo?! Even prime Ginza land does not command such a price! This is blackmail! Outright extortion!"
Spittle flew. Gonda's face turned purplish-red; the veins on his neck bulged like earthworms.
Facing the storm of rage, Shuichi remained unmoved. He calmly removed his glasses, took a soft deerskin cloth from his pocket, and began polishing the lenses with deliberate care.
"Deputy Manager Gonda, please mind your language."
Shuichi held the glasses up to the light, inspected them, then replaced them on his nose.
"This is a market economy. Freedom of contract. If you find the price too high, you are under no obligation to buy."
"Not buy it?!" Gonda laughed in disbelief. "Your barbed-wire fence slices our construction site in half! Our bulldozers cannot move; our dump trucks cannot enter! How can you tell me not to buy it?!"
"That is your problem."
Shuichi returned to the table and picked up the shears once more.
He examined the pine, deciding the left side still appeared slightly overcrowded.
"However, I have performed a small calculation on your behalf."
As the shears opened and closed, Shuichi's voice continued at an unhurried pace.
"The Meguro Ward project carries a land cost of approximately thirty billion yen, correct? Adding demolition expenses, the total investment likely exceeds forty billion."
"Click."
A branch fell.
"Of that forty billion, at least half is bank-financed. At current commercial-loan rates the daily interest alone must be around five million yen."
"Then there are rental fees for dozens of heavy machines, wages for hundreds of workers, and rush premiums to meet deadlines."
"Click."
Another branch dropped.
"If construction remains stalled, the Seibu Group will be pouring ten million yen into the water every single day."
Shuichi paused, turned, and regarded Gonda, whose face had begun to lose colour.
"One billion yen may sound enormous, yet it equals only three months of losses from project delay."
"And I have heard…"
Shuichi's lips curved into a meaningful smile.
"…that Chairman Tsutsumi intends to list Seibu Land Development this autumn. The Meguro Ward project is listed as a core asset in the prospectus, is it not?"
"If this narrow strip causes further delays—or worse, prevents you from obtaining a construction permit and thereby jeopardises the listing…"
Shuichi did not finish the sentence.
He simply pointed at the paper with the tip of the shears.
"Compared with potential stock-price volatility, one billion yen is little more than an insurance premium. Is it not?"
Silence.
Absolute, suffocating silence.
Gonda stood rooted to the spot, chest heaving. His fists clenched and unclenched repeatedly.
He wanted to shout, to curse, even to lunge forward and strike the calm man before him.
Yet he found himself powerless.
Every word, every figure Shuichi had uttered landed like a precisely driven nail into the Seibu Group's most vulnerable point.
This was an open conspiracy.
A brazen, overt open conspiracy.
I have set the price. Buy it or do not buy it; the choice is yours.
"You…"
Gonda forced the words through gritted teeth; his voice sounded as though scraped across sandpaper.
"Saionji Shuichi, by doing this you are declaring war on the entire Seibu Group. Chairman Tsutsumi will not let you escape unscathed."
"Will he not?" Shuichi turned back to the bonsai. "Whether Chairman Tsutsumi will let me off, I cannot say. But I do know he will certainly not let you off."
He resumed pruning.
"As for Chairman Tsutsumi… I merely hope he pays attention to the group's public image."
"By the way, this quotation remains valid for only three days."
The shears closed with a crisp snap.
"After three days the price will rise by one hundred million yen for each additional day that passes."
"Because, as I understand it, land prices in that area continue to climb."
Gonda stared at the man's back.
With every snip of the shears it felt as though another blood vessel of the Seibu Group had been severed.
"Good… very good."
Gonda snatched the thin quotation sheet from the table, his fingers nearly tearing the paper.
He offered no further words.
In the business world, losers have no right to issue threats.
He turned and strode toward the door.
His footsteps remained heavy, yet they no longer carried the arrogant bluster of his arrival—only the hurried panic of defeat.
"Bang!"
The office door slammed shut.
A framed picture on the wall tilted slightly from the impact.
Shuichi did not look back.
He regarded the perfectly pruned Japanese white pine before him.
All superfluous branches had been removed; the tree now displayed an aloof, sturdy elegance.
He set down the shears, lifted the nearby watering can, and misted the needles with a fine spray.
Droplets caught the sunlight and refracted tiny rainbows.
"One billion, hmm…"
Shuichi murmured to himself.
Only three months earlier this land had been an unwanted garbage dump. When Satsuki purchased it for fifty million, even Shuichi had harboured doubts.
Now it had become a one-billion-yen asset.
No—more accurately, a one-billion-yen fishbone lodged in the giant's throat.
Satsuki had been right.
In this mad era, if one stood in the right position, even trash could be turned into a weapon.
"But this alone is not enough. Next, it is time for the little ants to demonstrate their strength."