The Miracles of the Namiya General Store

1

Shota came back from the storefront. His face was not encouraging.

“Still nothing?”

He nodded and sighed. “I guess it was just the wind.”

“That’s all right,” replied Atsuya. “No biggie.”

“I wonder if he read our response,” said Kohei.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Shota responded. “The letter isn’t in the milk crate. Who else would have taken it?”

“You’ve got a point. So why haven’t we heard back?”

“Well,” Shota began to say, but then he deferred to Atsuya.

“Who cares?” Atsuya said. “What are we supposed to do with him? It probably made zero sense to him. If another letter comes, it’ll just be more trouble. What are you gonna do if he asks us to explain?”

The other two looked down.

“See? That’d be a pain in the ass. It’s fine as it is.”

“It’s crazy, though,” said Shota. “I mean, what a coincidence that Floundering Musician was that guy.”

“I mean, yeah.” Atsuya nodded. There was no way he could disagree.

Just after concluding their correspondence with Moon Rabbit, they had received a letter from a new person asking for advice. They were incensed by what they read. This guy’s so-called problem was that he couldn’t decide whether to take over the family fish shop or pursue his musical career. Sounded like a spoiled brat who was never going to be satisfied.

When they wrote back, they took potshots at him and called him out for being spoiled and told him to smell the roses. This was not at all what Floundering Musician had been expecting, and he shot them back an inflammatory rebuttal. The guys doubled down with some more invective, but something strange had happened when the next letter from the Flounder arrived.

The guys had been sitting out in the store, waiting for his response, when they physically saw the letter slip in through the mail slot — and stop halfway. But what really got them was what happened next.

Through the mail slot, they heard somebody playing the harmonica. It was a melody they knew well. A song called “Reborn.”

This had been the breakthrough hit for the artist Seri Mizuhara, one with a famous backstory. And that backstory had a personal significance for the three guys in the store.

Seri Mizuhara was raised with her younger brother at a children’s home, Marumitsuen. When she was in elementary school, the building caught fire on Christmas Eve. Her brother would never have made it out alive if it weren’t for the man who saved him, an amateur musician hired to play a Christmas show. The man suffered third-degree burns all over his body and breathed his last at the hospital soon after.

“Reborn” was one of his originals. Seri sang his song for everyone to show her endless gratitude, and it had eventually launched her career as a singer.

These three had heard this story countless times since they were kids; after all, they were also raised at Marumitsuen. For the kids at the children’s home, Seri Mizuhara was a source of pride and a ray of hope. They aspired to follow her example and find their own way to shine someday.

Which was why Atsuya, Shota, and Kohei were stunned to hear “Reborn” outside on the harmonica. When the song was over, someone pushed the letter through, and it thwapped through the slot.

The three guys asked one another what was going on. They had calculated by now that the people asking for advice were living in 1980. Seri Mizuhara would have been alive but still a kid. It would be years before she recorded “Reborn.”

There was only one conclusion: “Reborn” had been written by the Floundering Musician. And he was the one who had saved Seri’s younger brother.

The letter said he’d been thrown off by their advice but that this had given him a chance to take stock of his situation. He told “Mr. Namiya” that it would help him figure things out if he could meet him in person.

The guys were stuck. Should they tell Floundering Musician about what was going to happen to him? Could they really tell him, “Hey, buddy, listen up. In 1988, you’re gonna play at a Christmas show at Marumitsuen, and the building is gonna catch fire, and you’re going to die”?

“Let’s tell him,” Kohei suggested. “Then he won’t have to die.”

“But if he doesn’t die,” Shota reasoned, “her brother will die instead.”

Kohei had no way of contesting that.

Atsuya made the final call: They weren’t going to mention the fire.

“Even if we did, he probably wouldn’t take it seriously. He’d think it was some creepster giving him a prophesy. It would turn him off, and he’d probably just forget about it. Plus, we already know about the fire and about Seri becoming a famous musician. Awful shit is going to happen, no matter what we write. All we can do is help him accept his fate.”

Shota and Kohei were on board. But what exactly should they say?

“I want...to show him how thankful we are,” Kohei began. “If it wasn’t for him, Seri Mizuhara maybe would have never gotten famous, and we wouldn’t have ever heard her singing ‘Reborn.’”

Atsuya agreed, and Shota said, “Let’s do it.”

They worked together on what to write. The following is a snippet of their letter:

They had left their letter in the milk crate and, a little later, gone back to check. The bin was empty. The Floundering Musician must have taken it away.

They were expecting a quick rebuttal. That’s why the door was shut, why they’d been waiting all this time.

But no letter came. Up till now, it had taken no time at all for a response to show up in the mail slot. Maybe the Floundering Musician had read their letter and got what he needed.

“All right, let’s open the door.” Atsuya got up.

“Wait a sec.” Kohei caught him by the leg of his jeans. “Just a few more minutes.”

“For what?”

“You know.” Kohei nervously licked his lips. “The back door. Let’s leave it open just a little longer.”

Atsuya sneered at him. “Why bother? I don’t think Flounder is writing back.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m done with him anyway.”

“Okay. Then why?”

“Well, I was wondering if someone else might send a letter.”

“What?” Atsuya snapped and looked down at him. “Listen to yourself. If we leave the back door shut, time will never pass in here. Get it?”

“I get it, I get it.”

“Yeah? ’Cause if you did, you’d know we can’t go pulling shit like that. We got in over our heads and had to muddle through, but now we’re out. We’re not goddamned advice columnists.”

Atsuya kicked free from Kohei’s hand and went out through the back.

He checked the time. A little after four. Two more hours to go.

The idea was to leave at six. The trains would be running by then.

He went back inside. Kohei looked dejected. Shota was toying with his cell phone.

Atsuya took a seat at the kitchen table. The candle on the tabletop was flickering. Must have been the air from the outside.

This sure is a weird house, he thought. He looked over the dingy walls. What the hell was causing all this supernatural woo-woo? And why were we dragged into it?

“I’m not sure if this makes sense,” whispered Kohei, “but I feel like tonight, for the first time in my life, I’ve made a difference in someone else’s life. Me, you know? An idiot like me made a difference.”

Atsuya scowled. “That’s why you wanna keep on doling out advice? It ain’t gonna pay you squat.”

“I’m not trying to get rich here. This is just the first time I’ve had a chance to seriously consider what someone else is going through, and maybe even help.”

Atsuya clicked his tongue.

“And what good is it doing us, getting drunk on this idea of helping people? No one needs any advice from us. Ms. Olympics interpreted our letter in the most convenient way possible, and Flounder doesn’t know what’s good for him. I’ve been saying the same thing all along. We’re losers. We got no business giving anyone advice.”

“But even you were smiling when we got that last letter from Moon Rabbit.”

“I wasn’t pissed. But the exception proves the rule. We’re in no position to offer people our opinion. We’re—” He pointed to the bag heaped up in the corner. “We’re good-for-nothing crooks.”

Kohei looked hurt and hung his head. Atsuya saw his reaction and snorted.

At that moment, Shota let out a loud cry. “What the?”

Atsuya almost fell off his chair. “What’s wrong now?”

“Wait, hold on.” Shota held up his phone. “There’s something on here about the Namiya General Store.”

“On the Internet?” Atsuya raised his eyebrows. “Just someone writing about their memories or something, right?”

“That’s what I expected, too, when I searched for it online. I figured someone must have posted something about it.”

“Is that what you found? Some kind of memory-lane thing?”

“Not exactly.” Shota showed Atsuya his phone. “See for yourself.”

“Come on,” he replied, but he took the phone and skimmed through the backlit screen. The header said “the Namiya General Store — One-Night Special.” Once he read what followed, he knew why Shota had been startled. Atsuya himself felt his blood go hot.

“What the hell is this?”

“No idea, but it says they’re doing this because September 13 is the thirty-third memorial service for the old man. Someone in his family set this up.”

“Wait, what?” Kohei hurried over. “What happened?”

Shota handed the phone to Kohei. “Hey, Atsuya. You know that’s today.”

Atsuya had realized, too. On September 13, from exactly midnight until daybreak — in other words, right now. They were in the thick of it.

“Wait, so they actually advertised that they’d be giving out advice again?” Kohei blinked repeatedly.

“That must be why all this weird stuff is happening. It has to be. Today is a special day. The present is communicating with the past.”

Atsuya rubbed his face. The specifics were beyond him, but he sensed Shota’s description was on point.

He looked at the back door, which was ajar. It was still black night.

“If the door’s open, we lose connection with the past,” said Shota. “There’s still some time left before daylight. What should we do, Atsuya?”

“Do...?”

“We might be screwing things up, you know? What if the door should have been shut the entire night?” Kohei got up and shut the back door tight.

“What are you doing?! Open that.”

Kohei turned around and shook his head. “It’s gotta be closed.”

“Why? If it’s closed, time basically stops. You wanna be in here forever?” Atsuya had an idea. “Know what? Let’s shut the door. Only let’s shut it behind us. That solves everything. We won’t be screwing things up anymore. Right?”

But neither of the other guys motioned to agree. They were crestfallen.

“Come on. You got something else to add?”

Finally, Shota spoke up. “I’m gonna stick around. You should go, Atsuya. You can wait outside or get a head start.”

“I’m staying, too,” chimed in Kohei.

Atsuya scratched his head. “Stay and do what?”

“It’s not about what we’re going to do,” said Shota. “We just need to see this through. To see what else happens to this weird house.”

“Do you understand anything about what’s going on? In an hour, the sun’s gonna come up. An hour out there is days on end in here. Are you telling me you’re gonna sit through that with nothing to eat, nothing to drink? I don’t think so.”

Shota looked away. Maybe he knew that Atsuya was right.

“Give it up,” said Atsuya. But Shota didn’t reply.

Soon after, they heard the shutter rattle. Atsuya and Shota faced each other.

Kohei jogged out into the store. “It’s just the wind again,” Atsuya yelled after him. “It’s just banging in the wind.”

Eventually, Kohei loped his way back, empty-handed.

“Told you. Just the wind.”

Kohei trudged back, but when he got closer to Atsuya and Shota, he dropped his act and reached behind him.

“Ta-daa!” He produced a white envelope. It must have been in his back pocket.

Atsuya was getting sick of this. Things were getting downright silly.

“This can be the last one, Atsuya,” urged Shota, gesturing at the envelope. “We’ll respond to this one and get out of here. Promise.”

He sighed and sat down at the table. “Let’s read it first. It might be something that’s way too much for us.”

Kohei carefully tore open the seal.

2

Atsuya snorted. “Oh, great. Can you believe this shit? This is the last letter we’ve got to respond to?”

“She’s in for it,” said Shota smugly. “She’ll learn. There’s always gonna be girls who go in for that kind of work, thinking it’s going to be glamorous.”

“I bet she’s really pretty,” deemed Kohei. “She got scouted on the street, and it only took her two months to make a solid living.”

“Sounds like she’s got a new admirer. Snap out of it. Hey, Shota, write her back.”

“What should I say?” He readied the pen.

“You know, talk some sense into her. Rough her up. Get her head out of the clouds.”

He puckered his face. “Does it have to be rough? This girl’s only nineteen.”

“For a dummy like her, you need to be a little harsh, or it won’t sink in.”

“I know what you’re saying, but let’s maybe take a softer approach.”

Atsuya clucked. “Grow a pair.”

“If we’re too harsh on her, she’ll snap. Something I think you can personally relate to.”

Here’s what Shota came up with:

“Yeah, this seems like the right tone to take.” Atsuya nodded approvingly at the letter. Of course, if it were him, he would have given her an earful.

Her folks put her through school, she finally finds a decent job, and then what? She becomes a hostess. What was she thinking?

Shota went out to drop their answer in the milk bin. He came back in and shut the door behind him. There was a faint rattle at the shutter. “I’ll get it,” he said and ran out into the shop.

He came back grinning. “Got it!” He flapped the envelope in the air.

“Let’s ignore it,” suggested Atsuya. He held up the letter. “What’s this crap about believing in herself? She better get ready for the real world.”

Kohei was despondent as ever. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Wait, though,” Shota said. “What this girl’s saying isn’t so far off. If a woman wants financial independence, working at a club will get her there, and fast. She knows the deal. Money is everything. Without it, you’re nowhere.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that,” Atsuya spat. “You’re right, but things aren’t gonna go the way she wants them to.”

“And why is that, exactly?” Shota asked. “How do you know things won’t work out for her?”

“Because things don’t work out for most people,” he explained. “Sure, she’s hot shit now and could probably open up her own club, no problem, but plenty of shops close six months after opening. A business isn’t easy to get going. It’s hard building that momentum. You need money to start, but money isn’t enough. It’s easy for her to write to us and say she’s gonna do it, but words are words, and she’s just a little girl who doesn’t understand the world yet. Once she’s neck-deep in this lifestyle, she’ll give up on all of this. But when she comes to her senses, it’ll be too late to catch up. She’ll have missed her chance to marry, and she’ll have aged twice as fast from working as a hostess. By then it won’t do any good to wish she’d done things differently.”

“Yeah, but she’s only nineteen. She doesn’t have to worry that far ahead.”

“That’s exactly why she has to worry.” Atsuya raised his voice. “Because she’s young. Write her back and tell her to cut the shit. She’s gotta quit the club and find some eligible bachelor at the company.”

Shota stared down for a few seconds at the stationery on the tabletop and began to shake his head. “No, I want to encourage her. This girl didn’t ask us for advice for kicks.”

“It’s not about how serious she is. It’s about living in the real world.”

“I think she’s being pretty realistic.”

“Think so? Let’s make a bet. On whether she succeeds as an entrepreneur. I’ll bet that working as a hostess, she’ll get tangled up with some shitty dude and wind up as a single mom and an all-around pain in the ass.”

Shota gulped his next words down. His head hung heavier than ever.

A leaden silence fell over the room. Even Atsuya’s eyes were on the floor.

“Hey,” started Kohei. “How about we ask her?”

“Ask her what?” Atsuya replied.

“To explain. I don’t think either of you is wrong, based on this conversation. Let’s ask her how serious she is about her plan and go from there.”

“Of course she’s gonna say she means it. She takes herself so seriously.”

“We could ask her for some details,” Shota offered. “Like if there’s a reason she wants to be financially independent, and how come she thinks marriage wouldn’t make her happy. Oh, and we could ask about her specific plans for starting up her business. Like Atsuya said, it isn’t easy. If we ask her and she can’t come up with decent answers, then I’ll agree that her dream is unrealistic, and we can tell her she should give up working as a hostess. Deal?”

Atsuya sniffled and nodded. “I don’t see what good it’s gonna do, but sure, go ahead.”

“Here I go,” said Shota, and he took up the pen.

As Shota filled the lines with text and paused to think before starting each new sentence, Atsuya watched and meditated on the last thing he’d said: Working as a hostess, she’ll get tangled up with some shitty dude and wind up as a single mom and an all-around pain in the ass. That was what happened to his own mother. Shota and Kohei had held their tongues because they knew that things were getting personal.

Atsuya’s mother had him when she was twenty-two. His father was a younger guy who worked at the same club as a bartender. Right before she gave birth, he left without a trace.

Stranded with a nursing baby, Atsuya’s mother continued working as a hostess. She probably had no other prospects.

In a few of his earlier memories, his mother had a man around. But Atsuya didn’t see him as a father. Eventually, he disappeared, and not long after, another man was staying in their apartment. His mother gave the man money, since he wasn’t employed. As time passed, he vanished, too, and another man came in. They came and went in cycles. Then came the worst of the lot.

This one beat up Atsuya for no reason. Well, maybe he had his reasons, but none that Atsuya could comprehend. Once, Atsuya got punched in the face because the man said he didn’t like the way it looked. That was when he was in the first grade. His mother didn’t speak up. She seemed to think he deserved it for getting on her man’s nerves.

Atsuya always had a bruise somewhere, but he tried to cover up. If they’d found out at school, it would cause a commotion. And he was sure that would only make things worse for him at home.

That man was arrested for gambling when Atsuya was in the second grade. A gang of detectives came to see them at home. When they showed up, Atsuya was in a tank top, and one of the detectives saw the bruises on his body. They pressed his mother for an explanation, but the excuse she gave was so weak they caught her in the lie almost instantly.

The precinct contacted Juvenile Affairs, who sent over a case agent.

When the agent came by to ask him a few questions, his mother insisted she could raise him on her own. To this day, Atsuya didn’t understand why she’d said that. He’d heard her lamenting over the phone about how much she hated being a parent, how she wished she had never had a kid, over and over again.

The agent left. Now it was just Atsuya and his mom. No more getting beat up at home, he thought. But while that was true, there was frequently no one home at all. More often than not, his mother didn’t come home at night. But it wasn’t as if she prepped his meals or left him money for food. Before he knew it, school lunches were the only thing keeping him alive. Atsuya told no one of his miserable existence. He wasn’t sure what was holding him back. Maybe he didn’t want their sympathy.

The season changed to winter, and Atsuya spent Christmas alone. It was winter vacation, and school was closed. His mother hadn’t been home in over two weeks. There was nothing left in the refrigerator.

On December 28, Atsuya was caught stealing a chicken skewer from a street stand. He was famished. He had no memory of how he’d been eating since the start of winter break. Honestly, he didn’t even really remember stealing the skewer. They had caught him in the act. He was apprehended swiftly, since he’d collapsed as he was about to make his escape. Anemic shock.

Three months later, Atsuya entered Marumitsuen.

3

“Looks good to me,” agreed Atsuya. He handed the letter to Shota.

“Now it all depends on what she says. Whether she writes back with a solid plan.”

He shook his head at Shota. “I’m not banking on it.”

“Why not? If you’re gonna be dismissive, at least back it up.”

“Even if she has a plan or whatever, I wouldn’t expect it to be more than a daydream. Like getting some celebrity or baseball player to be her sugar daddy.”

“Hey, that could work.” Kohei piped up with an endorsement.

“Shut it, numbskull. That’s never gonna happen.”

“Anyway, I’ll be right back.” Shota slipped the letter in an envelope and stood.

They watched Shota exit through the back door and listened to him opening the lid of the milk bin and letting it slam shut. Atsuya wondered how many times they’d heard that exact sequence of sounds that night.

Shota came back inside and shut the door behind him. A second later, they heard the shutter rattling. “I’ll get it,” Kohei volunteered, and he ambled into the storefront.

Atsuya looked at Shota. Their eyes met.

“What’s next?” he asked.

“Dunno.” Shota shrugged.

Kohei came with another envelope. “Can I read it first?”

“Go ahead,” Shota and Atsuya both told him.

Kohei began to read the letter. At first, he seemed to be amused, but gradually, his expression shifted into something ominous. He started chewing his thumbnail. Atsuya gave Shota a look. Kohei had a habit of doing that when he was panicking.

There were more pages than last time. When Kohei was done, Atsuya snatched the letter from him.

4

“I’m heading up to the shops by the station,” Harumi told Hideo, her great-aunt. She was at the stove, her back to Harumi. The air was fragrant with the smell of bonito flakes.

“All right.” Hideo nodded her good-bye over her shoulder. She had just scooped some broth into a dish and was giving it a taste.

Harumi stepped out and hopped onto the bicycle parked by the gate. She started pedaling nice and easy. This was only the third time that summer that she’d gone out early in the morning. Hideo must have known something was going on, but she didn’t pry because she trusted Harumi.

She rode the familiar route at a familiar pace. Before long, she was at her destination.

The Namiya General Store was surrounded by a light mist, the aftermath of last night’s rain. She made sure no one was around and walked down the alley alongside the house. The first time, she’d been really nervous, but she had since gotten used to the system.

Around back was a second entrance, and bolted to its wall was a beat-up milk crate. She inhaled deeply, exhaled, and lifted the lid. Inside, like all the other times, she found an envelope.

She let out a long exhale in relief.

Out from the alley, she hopped back on her bike and headed home. What would the third letter have to say? She pedaled hard; she wanted to be home as soon as possible, to open it and see for herself.

Harumi Muto had come back home on the second Saturday in August. She had lucked out that her day job and her side gig at the club in Shinjuku had set their Bon break for the same week. If the two breaks had not perfectly overlapped, she may not have been able to make the trip.

At the company, she couldn’t expect to get time off before or after Bon. They would probably deny her request. The club, on the other hand, had no problem with her taking extra days, as long as she gave them enough notice. But Harumi didn’t want to take any days off; she wanted to work every day she could.

To call this place her home wouldn’t tell the whole story. This wasn’t where she was born. The family placard on the front gate read TAMURA.

When she was five, Harumi lost her parents in a car crash. It was an uncanny collision; a truck crossed over the median into their lane. Harumi was in preschool, rehearsing for a school play. She had no recollection of when she heard the news. She was sure she’d been overwhelmed with sadness, but the memory had slipped free in one clean piece. The same goes for the six months she supposedly went without speaking to anyone. She knew about this only from what she had been told after the fact.

It wasn’t that she had no relatives, but she barely ever saw them. She wouldn’t have expected anyone to rush to take her in, but that was when the Tamuras held out their hands and welcomed her in.

Hideo Tamura was the sister of her maternal grandmother, which made her Harumi’s great-aunt. Harumi’s grandfather had died during the war, and her grandmother had fallen ill and passed away soon after. Like an angel sent from heaven, Hideo rescued Harumi and treated her as her own when there was no one else to count on. Harumi’s great-uncle was just as kind and good.

But those happy days would not last for long. The Tamuras had only one daughter, but she showed up unannounced with her husband and their children one day to live at home. Later, she heard that the husband had lost everything in a business venture and accumulated an exorbitant amount of debt, and they lost the house they lived in.

Just before entering elementary school, Harumi was given over to the children’s home. “I’ll come and get you soon.” That’s what her great-aunt said the day she dropped her off.

Six years later, she came as promised. Her daughter’s family had finally moved on. On her first day back, Harumi saw her great-aunt kneeling before the family altar and praying.

“It feels like a huge weight has been taken from my shoulders. I can finally face you again,” she whispered to a picture of her sister.

Diagonally across from their house lived the Kitazawas. They had a daughter, Shizuko, who was three years older than Harumi.

When Harumi had lived here previously, Shizuko had played with her fairly often. Now that she was back, ready to go to middle school, Shizuko was entering high school. When Harumi saw her for the first time in ages, Shizuko had something mature about her that Harumi didn’t have yet.

From that day on, the two of them were practically inseparable. Shizuko doted on Harumi like a little sister, and Harumi thought of her as the older sister she never had. With their houses so close, they could hang out anytime they liked.

Even now, she was looking forward to seeing Shizuko when she came home.

Shizuko was a fourth-year student at a college specializing in physical education. She had been fencing since high school and became strong enough to vie for a position on the Olympic team. Most of the time, she commuted to college from home, but once she became an elite athlete, her practice regimen went into overdrive; it wasn’t odd for her to be away from home for weeks on end with frequent travel overseas.

But this summer, Shizuko was just hanging around the house. The Moscow Olympics had finally been boycotted by the Japanese government. When Harumi heard the news, she worried Shizuko would be devastated, but it turned out that her worry had been groundless.

Shizuko was in good spirits when Harumi saw her during Bon. There was no avoiding the topic of the Olympics, and Shizuko didn’t try to change the subject. She told Harumi she had failed to make the final cut for the Olympic team, but she was lighthearted about it all. “I feel sorry for the athletes who did get picked,” Shizuko said in a lowered voice. She had always been kind.

It had been about two years since Harumi had last seen Shizuko. Once slender and svelte, her friend had bulked out considerably and exuded the latent energy of an athlete. Her shoulders were broad, and her biceps were more developed than most of the rail-thin guys around town. To qualify for the Olympics, thought Harumi, you have to have a special kind of body.

“My mother’s always saying the room gets cramped when I walk in,” joked Shizuko. She squinted a little, making a wrinkle just above her nose. She was always doing that.

Harumi first heard about the Namiya General Store one night when they were walking home from a Bon dance in town, dressed in festive yukata robes. They were talking about their dreams for the future and marriage, when Harumi asked Shizuko, “Hey, if you had to pick one, which would it be — fencing or romance?” She had meant to get a rise out of her. It worked.

Shizuko stopped dead and looked Harumi straight in the eye. The light in her eyes was full of sincerity. She began to weep.

“Hey, wait, what’s wrong? Did I say something to upset you? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” she apologized hastily.

But Shizuko shook her head and wiped her tears on the floral sleeve of her yukata. “It’s fine. I’m sorry I scared you. It’s fine. I’m fine.” She shook her head and started walking.

They were quiet after that. The walk started to feel very long.

Then Shizuko stopped short again.

“Hey, Harumi, want to take the long way home?”

“The long way? Sure. But where’re we going?”

“You’ll see when we’re there. Don’t worry; it isn’t far.”

Shizuko led Harumi up a few streets to a small, old shop. They stood outside. The sign read NAMIYA GENERAL STORE. The shutter was down, but it was hard to say if the store was closed for the night or closed for good.

“Do you know about this place?” asked Shizuko.

“Namiya... I feel like I must’ve heard that name before somewhere.”

“‘Let me answer your questions! Namiya!’” Shizuko sang.

“Oh, right, Namiya!” she cried. “Yeah, I remember people saying that in school. So this is where it came from...”

She’d first heard rumors in middle school, but she’d never been by until now.

“The store itself went out of business, but they’re still doing the advice thing.”

“Whoa, really?”

Shizuko nodded. “I mean, just the other day, I got some good advice.”

Harumi looked at her wide-eyed. “No way.”

“I haven’t told this to anyone else, but I know I can tell you. I mean, you’ve already seen me cry tonight.”

When she said it, her eyes teared up again.

Shizuko’s story caught Harumi off guard. She was surprised enough to hear her friend had fallen in love with her former fencing coach and was considering marriage, but what shocked her most of all was hearing that the man was no longer alive, and that Shizuko had trained for the Olympics knowing he was about to die.

“There is no way I could have done that,” Harumi admitted. “I mean, when the man you love is dying, I don’t see how you can spend all your time on sports.”

“That’s because you don’t know how things were with us,” Shizuko said. Her face and tone were at peace. “He knew his life was almost over, but that made him want to spend what little time was left on prayer. Praying that my dream, his dream, would come true. Once I understood that, I didn’t worry anymore.”

Shizuko said her worry had gone away thanks to the Namiya General Store.

“He’s an amazing guy. No tricks, no bullshit. I mean, when I told him about my problem, he practically bopped me on the head. But he forced me to figure things out and see that I was getting in my own way. He’s the reason why I was finally able to stop worrying and throw myself into the training.”

“Really...”

Perusing the battered shutter of the store, Harumi was overtaken by a curious observation. It didn’t look as though someone could have possibly been living here.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Shizuko, “but it is real. I don’t think anyone is here most of the time. He must come by at night to collect the letters. Once he has his answer, he leaves it in the milk crate. It’s there by morning.”

“Unreal.” Why would anyone go to all the trouble? she wondered. But this was coming from Shizuko. It must be true.

That night, she couldn’t rid the Namiya General Store from her mind, and for good reason. Harumi had a big problem, and she didn’t have anyone who could give her advice.

In a word, her problem was financial.

Though Hideo had never mentioned it directly, the finances of the Tamura family were in rough shape. If their household were a boat, it would be minutes from slipping under. By bailing bucket after bucket from the cabin, they had somehow stayed afloat, but they couldn’t keep up the bucket brigade forever.

Once upon a time, the Tamuras had been a family of substantial means, owning a great deal of property in the area, but over the years, most of the land was sold off to clear their daughter’s liabilities. Once they paid everything off, their daughter moved on, and they were able to welcome Harumi back into their home.

But that was not the end of the hard times for the Tamuras. The previous year, Harumi’s great-uncle had a stroke and fell. He could barely move the right side of his body.

This was what compelled Harumi to move to Tokyo to start working. She felt a duty to support her guardians in their old age, but with almost all her salary eaten up by living expenses, the thought of being any sort of aid to the Tamuras was a pipe dream.

She had her first encounter with the nightlife industry during this period of emotional crisis. If the offer had come at any other time, she wouldn’t have ceded. To be honest, she thought working as a hostess was beneath her.

But things changed. She now thought she should quit her job and hostess full-time so she could give back to the Tamuras in their time of need.

Can I really ask for advice about this? Won’t it be an annoying problem to have to respond to? Harumi sat at the desk she’d used since middle school and thought it over.

But then again, Shizuko’s problem had been quite difficult as well, and the Namiya General Store had solved her conundrum brilliantly. She should expect to get some kind of advice on her dilemma.

There’s no use worrying about this. Just write it. With that, Harumi began her correspondence with the Namiya General Store.

But when she showed up at the store to put her letter in the mail slot, she hesitated. Would she really get a response? Shizuko said she conducted her exchange the year before. What would happen if the house had been abandoned, and Harumi’s letter was left sitting on the floor?

Ah, what the hell, she thought, and she slipped the letter in the mail slot anyway. It didn’t have her name on it. Not her real name anyway. If someone found it and read it, it wasn’t as if they could trace it back to her.

But the next morning, she went back to check the milk bin and found an envelope inside. Of course she didn’t want it to be empty, but it felt bizarre to hold this letter in her hands.

When she read the message, she realized Shizuko wasn’t kidding. The Namiya General Store didn’t sugarcoat a thing. This was straight talk. Unreserved, insensitive. It almost felt as if he was intentionally trying to piss her off.

“That’s how Mr. Namiya gets the job done,” Shizuko had told her. “He gets you to speak your mind and encourages you to discover the right path on your own.”

Even so, Harumi found the response a little too rude. Mr. Namiya had already decided that she was so eager to consider this avenue because she had lost her senses to the allure of being a hostess. Nothing more.

She wrote back with a rebuttal straightaway, saying she wasn’t going to quit her job and go full-time as a hostess just so she could have a decadent lifestyle; she had a dream to start her own club someday.

But the letter she got from the Namiya General Store in return infuriated her even more. Unbelievably, he had dared to question her level of commitment. If she really wanted to repay her guardians for their kindness, why not get married and raise a family? The letter had really gone off the deep end.

Harumi felt that this miscommunication was on her. By leaving out the vital details, she had failed to get her point across.

For her third letter, she made an effort to open up a little. She clarified the details of her upbringing, the dire circumstances of her guardians. She delved deeper into her plans.

How would the Namiya General Store react? Half eager to hear, half scared to know, she pushed the letter through the mail slot.

Back home, breakfast was long since ready. She sat on the tatami at the low table and ate her meal. Her great-uncle was lying down in the next room. Hideo was feeding him rice porridge from a spoon and having him sip cold tea from a feeding cup. As Harumi observed them, she felt her sense of urgency all over again. She had to help them; she had to do something.

After breakfast, she went upstairs to her old room. She took the letter from her pocket and sat in the chair at her desk. Unfolding the pages, she saw the usual chicken scratches.

But the letter itself was utterly different from everything she’d seen so far.

5

Once Harumi had seen the third group of customers to the door, Maya pulled her into the staff-only powder room. Maya was four years older.

She shut the door behind them and grabbed Harumi’s hair by the roots. “You think because you’re young you get a free pass?”

Harumi’s face was tight with pain. “What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? I saw you making eyes at my man.” Maya bared her teeth. Her lips were glossy with red lipstick.

“At who? I wasn’t doing anything.”

“Don’t play dumb. I saw you cuddling up with Mr. Sato. I’m the one who brought that geezer here from my last job.”

Mr. Sato? Harumi couldn’t believe this. Make eyes at that old fat-ass? Please.

“He came over and said hi,” she explained. “I was just being polite.”

“You liar. You were getting all cute with him and shit.”

“We’re hostesses. It’s our job to be friendly.”

“Stuff it.” Maya let go of her scalp and shoved Harumi in the chest. Harumi’s back slammed against the wall. “Next time I won’t be so nice. Hear me?”

Maya laughed at her and left the powder room.

Harumi looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was a mess. She combed it back into place with her fingers and made a conscious effort to relax the muscles of her face. She couldn’t let this kind of thing unsettle her.

Outside the powder room, she was asked to sit at a table with three men who looked well-off.

“Why, hello, here’s another young one.” The man addressing her had a lecherous laugh and a gleaming scalp. He looked Harumi up and down.

“Good evening,” she responded, looking the man in the eye. “I’m Miharu. It’s a pleasure.” She sat beside him.

One of her older coworkers who was already seated at the table made a fake laugh and gave Harumi a cold stare. This girl had chided Harumi before, too, telling her to stop making herself stand out so much.

Yeah, whatever, she thought. If you can’t get a customer’s attention at this job, what’s the point?

A little while later, Shinji Tomioka showed up alone. He was wearing a gray suit with a red tie. Fit, and with no hint of a beer belly, he hardly looked like he was forty-six.

As expected, Harumi was called over to sit with him.

“There’s a classy bar in Akasaka,” Tomioka whispered. He took a sip of his whiskey and water and lowered his voice even further. “They’re open till five, and they have wines from all over the world. They just got in some choice caviar and asked me to come try it. Care to join me later?”

Harumi was intrigued, but she pressed her palms together and made a cutesy bow. “I’m so sorry. I can’t be late tomorrow.”

He made a dour expression and sighed loudly. “That’s exactly why you need to quit that job. What do they do again?”

“We’re a stationery manufacturer.”

“What do you do? Just desk work, right?”

Harumi nodded, though it technically wasn’t even that. More like grunt work.

“How are you going to get ahead, stuck making minimum wage? You’re only young once. You need to make the best of these years if you want your dreams to come true.”

She nodded again and looked straight at Tomioka. “By the way, if I recall correctly, you said you’d take me to that dinner club in Ginza. The one you said you helped get off the ground.”

“Ah, that’s right. Sure, whenever you like. When works?”

“If possible, I’d like to visit outside business hours.”

“Why?”

“For future reference. I want to ask the staff about their experiences and see what things are like behind the scenes.”

Tomioka’s face clouded. “Not sure that’s gonna fly.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I like to draw a line between work and play. And being close with the owner doesn’t give me the right to barge in with someone who’s unaffiliated with the restaurant. It might upset the staff.”

“Ah... That makes sense. I didn’t mean to impose. I’m sorry.” Harumi looked down.

“But there’s no reason we can’t go as regular customers. Let’s go sometime soon.” The life returned to his face.

That night, Harumi made it to her apartment in Koenji a little after three. Tomioka saw her home in a taxi.

“I’m not going to invite myself upstairs.” This was his favorite line. “Think over what I proposed.”

The romantic agreement. Harumi laughed in lieu of giving an answer.

Upstairs, the first thing she did was drink a cup of water. She went to the club four nights a week. On nights she worked, this was around the time when she got home. That left only three days when she was home in time to visit the bathhouse.

She removed her makeup, washed her face, and sat down to have a look at her planner. There was a big meeting in the morning, and she had to arrive half an hour earlier than usual. This left a mere four hours for sleep.

Harumi dropped her planner in her bag and pulled out an envelope. She unfolded the pages and sighed. She’d read the letter so many times she had it essentially memorized. But she still read it once a day. This was the third letter she had received from the Namiya General Store.

Harumi had been harboring the same doubts, but she pushed it from her mind. She would rather not dwell on it. If Tomioka was all talk, it would put her even further from realizing her ambitions.

The Namiya General Store was right to be skeptical. If she became romantically involved with Tomioka and his wife found out, could she really expect him to offer her assistance? Unlikely. Who would expect otherwise?

His behavior that evening had been suspect. On its own, it isn’t strange to say you like to draw a line between work and play, but Tomioka was the one who had proposed the visit to the dinner club to show off his accomplishments in the first place.

Maybe she couldn’t rely on him after all. But in that case, what was she supposed to do about the future?

She read through the letter yet again. One part said: What if I told you there was a way you could make all the money you wanted without working as a hostess? Would you be willing to do what I say? It went on to say: Once I have your answers, I’ll see if I can help you make your dreams come true.

What was going on here? How could he expect her to believe a word of this? It made him sound like a con man with a get-rich-quick scheme. Under any other circumstance, she would have tossed the letter in the trash.

But this was a letter from the Namiya General Store. Mr. Namiya had solved Shizuko’s predicament, and even if he hadn’t, he would have earned her trust based on how he had conducted their exchange thus far. He didn’t mince words or fuss over her reactions. His direct style came right at you, clumsy but genuine.

This letter was clear on one thing: He had nothing to gain by tricking Harumi. All the same, she still found the whole idea hard to believe. If making money were so easy, no one would need to struggle. And more importantly, Mr. Namiya would be a millionaire himself.

Harumi’s trip home had come to an end before she had time to respond. She was back in Tokyo, back to working as a hostess and at the office. Back to living two lives out of one body. And that body was taking a beating. Once every couple of days at the office, she would tell herself, “That’s it — I’m done.”

Harumi checked the calendar on the table. Another thing was on her mind. Today was Wednesday, September 10.

The last letter had mentioned they could correspond only until September 13. After that, she would have no way of reaching him. The thirteenth was this Saturday. What was so special about that day? Was he retiring from giving out advice?

She figured she may as well answer his questions. She wanted to hear what he had to say, for one thing, and she could decide whether to follow through afterwards. Even if she made a promise, it didn’t mean she had to keep it. If she broke her promise and kept on working as a hostess, he would have no way of knowing.

Before bed, she peeked into the mirror and found a pimple by her lip. It had been far too long since she’d had a proper night’s sleep. If she quit her day job, she thought, she could sleep past noon.

When she got off work on Friday, September 12, Harumi headed to the Tamura house. She took the night off at the club.

Harumi showing up at home less than a month after the break came as a surprise to the Tamuras, but they were thrilled. On her last visit, she and her great-uncle hadn’t had much of a chance to talk. That night at dinner, she caught him up on things. Needless to say, she told neither of them about working as a hostess.

“Any trouble making rent, utilities? If you come up short, do-don’t hesitate tuh...to ask.” He had to fight to get his words out. He let Hideo handle all their finances, meaning he had no idea what dire circumstances they were in.

“I’ll be fine, as long as I budget,” she assured him. “The good news is I’ve been so busy lately that I’ve had no time to relax, which makes it hard to spend anything.”

No time to relax — that was the truth.

After dinner, she took a bath. Through the screened windows of the bathroom, she looked up into the night sky. The moon was full and high, predicting that the next day would be a sunny one.

What would she learn from the next letter?

On her way home to the Tamura house, Harumi had stopped by the Namiya General Store. She left a letter in the mail slot saying she couldn’t care less about being a hostess, and if he knew some other way she might attain financial independence, she would turn down the proposed affair and quit working at the club and do whatever else he said.

The next day was the thirteenth. Regardless of what he had to say, she would have no chance to question it: This was the end of their exchange. She’d have to make her plans based on whatever the last letter said.

The next morning, it was before seven when she woke — or, more aptly put, when she got sick of tossing and turning between bouts of shallow sleep and kicked herself out of bed.

Her great-aunt was already up fixing breakfast. A stench wafted over from the tatami room. Hideo must have been assisting her great-uncle with cleaning his nether regions; he couldn’t go to the bathroom on his own.

Harumi told Hideo she was off to get some fresh air and left the house. She hopped on her bike and pedaled the route she’d come to know so well that summer.

Before long, she was in front of the Namiya General Store. A holdout from another era. The storefront looked as if it had been waiting for her to come. She went down the alley alongside the building.

Inside the wooden box, she found the envelope. Her heart was besieged by hope and distress, suspicion and curiosity. When she reached inside the bin to grab the letter, the surge of feelings made her hand throb.

The ride home tested her patience. Passing a park, she slammed on the brakes, looked around to make sure she was alone, and read the letter without even climbing off her bike.

Harumi was dumbstruck. The letter was more than she had bargained for.

This was a prophesy. And it was brimming with certainty.

From where she stood in 1980, the Japanese economy was nowhere near an upswing. The damage from the oil shock had yet to run its course, and even college graduates were struggling to find work.

But according to this letter, the country was due for unprecedented economic growth in just a matter of years.

She simply couldn’t believe it. He had to be pulling her leg.

But there was truth to what he had written before. There was no way lying about all of this could benefit Mr. Namiya.

This letter didn’t stop at prognosticating the economy. It made all sorts of suppositions about the future of technology. No, supposition made it sound as if these were theories. The letter read like a list of cold, hard facts.

Computer networks and portable telephones — this was not the world she knew. True, they were only twenty years shy of the twenty-first century. She would probably see all kinds of technologies become an everyday reality, even innovations she’d previously only dreamed of. But the letter sounded like something from an anime or a sci-fi novel.

Harumi fretted the whole day. By night, she had fretted herself out and sat down at her desk. She pulled out some stationery and wrote another letter. It went without saying that she was writing to the Namiya General Store. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be able to reach him, but it was still September 13. As long as she got there before midnight, maybe she would have a chance.

The letter said she wanted to know what he was basing his predictions on. Even if it was going to be hard to believe, she wanted to know. Once she did, she could decide what to do next.

A little before eleven, she tiptoed out of the house and pedaled through the night to the store.

When she arrived out front, she checked her watch. It was only five minutes past eleven. She was safe.

But she was barely a few steps off her bike when she got a good look at the building and stopped dead.

She knew, right then and there, that it was all over.

The otherworldly aura that previously enveloped the store had dissolved into the night. Before her was nothing more than a general store, out of business and unremarkable. Harumi couldn’t explain why she was so certain. But her confidence was unshakable.

This letter was not going in the mail slot. She climbed onto her bike and rode home.

About four months later, she confirmed that she had made the right decision. Home for New Year’s, Harumi had gone with Shizuko to a neighborhood shrine for her first visit of the year. Shizuko had found a job, starting in the spring at the corporate headquarters of a big-name supermarket. Which meant fencing would not be among her responsibilities. She said she was done competing.

“But you worked so hard,” Harumi lamented. Shizuko shook her head and smiled.

“I took fencing as far as it would go for me. When I was training for Moscow, I gave it everything I could. I think that up in heaven, he understands that.” Shizuko looked up at the sky. “It’s time for me to start thinking about the future. I want to make a good impression at the company, but once I’m settled in, I’ll find myself a good man.”

“A man?”

“Yep. I’m ready to get married and have a healthy baby.” Shizuko laughed mischievously and made that signature wrinkle above her nose. Her smile showed no trace of the sadness of losing a lover in the past year.

What a strong woman. Harumi was impressed.

On their way home from the shrine, Shizuko exclaimed “Oh yeah,” as if she’d just remembered something. “Do you remember last summer how I said there was this funny little store that gave out free advice?”

“Sure,” Harumi responded nervously. “Namiya, right?” She hadn’t mentioned their exchange to anyone, not even Shizuko.

“Yeah. Well, they closed for good. Its elderly owner passed away. I saw a guy taking pictures out front and asked what happened. He said he was the old man’s son.”

“Wow. When was that?”

“October. He said his dad had died the month before.”

Harumi gulped. “So, September?”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“What day?”

“He didn’t say. Why?”

“Oh. Just asking.”

“The store itself closed down when he got sick, but he kept on giving out advice. What’s crazy is I think I must’ve been the last one. The thought of it makes me get kind of emotional.”

No, it was me; I was the last one. As much as Harumi wanted to say it aloud, she held back. It occurred to her the old man had probably died the night of September 13. He must have said that was the last day he could communicate with her because he knew that would be the last day of his life.

If this was true, and the old man had predicted his own death, it meant his powers of clairvoyance were not to be discounted.

But that would mean...

She felt her imagination dilate and expand.

What if the last letter was all true?

6

December 1988.

Harumi was sitting in a room decked out with oil paintings, ready to sign a bill of sale for a certain property. The past few years, she’d been through this rigmarole countless times. Six-figure purchases barely fazed her anymore. This particular property wasn’t even that expensive. Nevertheless, she felt a nervousness she was not prepared for. She’d never been so emotionally invested in purchasing a piece of real estate before.

Wearing a two-piece suit from Dunhill that would have been a steal at two hundred thousand yen, the agent turned to face Harumi. His skin was the color of whole wheat; she figured he must frequent tanning salons.

“As long as there are no objections, please sign here and stamp your seal on this line.”

They had borrowed a room at the Shinjuku branch of a major bank, one that her company used to take out its loans. Apart from the man in Dunhill, who served as mediator, she was joined by Hideo Tamura and Kimiko Kozuka, the sellers of the property, along with Kimiko’s husband, Shigekazu. Kimiko had turned fifty the year before. Her hair was showing streaks of white.

Harumi looked at each of the sellers. Both Hideo and Kimiko hung their heads. Shigekazu, disconsolate, refused to look at anyone. What a sorry excuse for a man, thought Harumi. If you have a problem, at least have the balls to glare at me.

She took a pen from her bag. “No objections.” She signed and stamped the form.

“Thank you very much for your time,” said the Dunhill man. “That just about wraps things up. Congratulations.” He gathered up the documents, looking quite satisfied with himself. And why shouldn’t he be? It was a quick job, but it earned him a tall fee.

Both sides took their copies of the forms. Shigekazu scooted back his chair and stood. Kimiko was staring down at the table. Harumi extended her hand. Kimiko was taken aback.

“We’re finished. Let’s shake on it.”

“Oh, okay.” Kimiko squeezed her hand. “Uh, I’m sorry.”

“For what?” laughed Harumi. “There’s no need to apologize. Everyone benefits from this.”

“I guess. I mean, that’s true, but...” Kimiko wouldn’t look her in the eye, either.

“Hey,” barked Shigekazu, “come on. Let’s get out of here.”

“All right.” Kimiko nodded and turned to her mother. Her eyes were lost.

“Don’t worry about Auntie,” Harumi said. Even though Hideo was her great-aunt, she’d always called her that. “I’ll take her home.”

“Really? I might just take you up on that. Is that okay with you?”

“I don’t mind either way,” said Hideo quietly.

“Okay, then. Take care, Harumi.”

Before she could say “You too,” Shigekazu was out the door. Kimiko, a little penitent, nodded once and followed after him.

Outside the bank, Harumi walked Hideo to her BMW, parked in a nearby lot, and drove her home. But strictly speaking, the house was no longer Hideo’s. The Tamura family residence was now Harumi’s property. The contract they just signed made it official.

Her great-uncle had died of old age that spring, leaving this world on a futon soaked with urine. Hideo’s extended tenure as his caregiver was finally over.

The question had been on Harumi’s mind since she first heard that he hadn’t had much time to live. What would happen to the house?

The Tamuras had once possessed a number of assets, but the house was the only one they had left.

Real estate prices had been rising in Japan for three years straight. Located two hours from Tokyo, the Tamura house was a bit out of the way, but the property was plenty valuable. Which meant Kimiko and especially Shigekazu had their eyes on it. Those two had fallen back into some shady dealings, but it didn’t look like things were going well.

It was the day after they participated in another Buddhist service for her great-uncle, forty-nine days after his death. Kimiko called her mother, as if on cue. She was hoping to discuss the inheritance.

Kimiko proposed that since the house had been her father’s only asset, they could split it down the middle. Since they couldn’t cut a building in half, they’d transfer the deed to Kimiko, who would have an expert appraise the property and pay Hideo for her half. Hideo could, of course, continue living there, but she would need to pay rent. To make things easy, Kimiko could deduct the rent from what she owed Hideo. Everything would even out.

The deal was legally sound and at first glance even sounded fair, but when Harumi heard Hideo explain it, she smelled something fishy. The end result would be Kimiko seizing total control of the property without paying a thing to Hideo. And Kimiko could sell it out from under her anytime. This wasn’t some random tenant. It was her own mother. There were plenty of ways to get her out of the house. If she took that route, she would be obligated to pay Hideo for her portion of the property, but she must have known that her mother wouldn’t take her to court if she tried to pay it off piecemeal.

Harumi didn’t want to think that this wicked plan had been hatched by Hideo’s own daughter. Shigekazu must have been behind it.

Harumi proposed Hideo and Kimiko become co-owners of the property, which she would buy from both of them. They would split the money down the middle, and Harumi would let Hideo go on living in the house as usual.

When Harumi explained her plan to Kimiko, Shigekazu remonstrated, as expected. “What’s wrong with what we proposed?” he asked.

But Hideo had this to say: “I think it’s best for everyone if Harumi buys the house. I hope you can excuse me for being so selfish.”

Shigekazu had no rebuttal. He hadn’t had any right to speak in the first place.

Once Harumi had driven Hideo back to their house, she opted to spend the night. She would need to head out early in the morning. Her company was closed on Saturdays, but she had to focus on executing a big project. She was presiding over a party cruise around Tokyo Bay. Some holiday revelry for Christmas Eve. The two hundred tickets for it had sold out almost instantly.

Lying on her futon, Harumi gazed up at the familiar markings on her ceiling and lost herself in reverie. She still couldn’t believe that this house was hers now. It was a different feeling from what she felt when she purchased her apartment.

This purchase was not intended as a real estate investment. When Hideo passed away, she would hold on to it in one form or another. Maybe she’d use it as her second home.

Everything was going splendidly. So much so that it was frightening. It almost felt as if someone was protecting her.

Well, it had all started with that letter.

She closed her eyes, and those unique words appeared before her. That last mysterious letter from the Namiya General Store.

The letter was too much to handle all at once, but after much deliberation, Harumi had resolved to follow its advice. No other plan of action came to mind. She had realized she couldn’t bet her livelihood one the likes of Tomioka, and no harm could come from studying economics.

She quit her day job and started taking classes at a technical college. During any extra time she had, she studied stocks and real estate and obtained a handful of certifications.

At night, she worked harder than ever as a hostess, but she resolved to be out of the industry in seven years. By giving herself a self-imposed expiration date, she became more focused than ever. There was an almost comically proportionate return on how much effort she put in at the club. In no time, she had more regulars than any of the other girls and registered an all-time high in sales. Tomioka stopped coming after she rejected him, but she easily accounted for the loss. Later, she found that his claim to have had a hand in setting up a number of businesses was hyperbole at best. A few people had asked for his opinion, and that was the extent of his contributions.

In July 1985, Harumi threw her hat into the ring. Over the course of a few years, she’d amassed over thirty million yen in savings and finally coughed up the cash to purchase an apartment. It was an old building in Yotsuya. There was no way it was going to go for any cheaper, and she made the purchase knowing she’d face no major financial losses.

A few months later, economies the world over suffered seismic upheaval. Because of the Plaza Accord, the yen appreciated, and the dollar took a nosedive. Harumi had goosebumps. The Japanese economy depended on its export industries. If the yen continued to skyrocket, the country could plummet into a depression.

By now, Harumi was dabbling in stocks. She knew if the market slumped, the value of her stocks would fall. How could this be happening? It was the complete opposite of what the Namiya General Store had predicted.

But things did not take a turn for the worse. Facing a slump, the Japanese government issued an easy money policy and pledged to increase its investment in public enterprises.

Then in the summer of 1986, she got a call. It was the real estate office who had brokered her first apartment. “It appears you haven’t moved in yet,” they noted, “but we’re just calling to see if you have any plans to do so anytime soon.”

Harumi responded vaguely. The agent said that if she was interested in selling, they would like to buy it back.

It was happening. The real estate market was on the rise.

She said she wasn’t interested and hung up. Instead, she went straight to the bank. She wanted to see how much she could borrow with her apartment as collateral. Later that week, when they called her in to talk about the numbers, she was flabbergasted. The property was worth 50 percent more than what she paid for it.

She applied for a loan and started browsing other properties. She found a modest building near Waseda and bought it with the money from the bank. In a short time, that value shot up, too. Prices were going up so fast that the interest rates were barely a concern.

Now she borrowed again, using the second property as collateral. At this point, the loan officer suggested that she start a company. It would be easier to manage her finances that way. This was the birth of “Office Little Dog.”

Harumi was convinced. The Namiya General Store’s prediction had come true.

Through the fall of 1987, Harumi flipped apartment buildings. In some cases, property values tripled in a year.

As her stocks increased in price, her portfolio of assets began to swell and expand. She bid farewell to working at the club, but she cashed in on the contacts she had made there and turned her focus to event planning. She came up with ideas for events and dispatched party hostesses. The world was bubbling with prosperity, and somewhere every day someone was hosting an ostentatious soiree. She had no shortage of work.

In 1988, she assessed her holdings. She had buildings, stocks, equity memberships. The prices were hovering at what seemed to be a ceiling. The conditions were still favorable, but she had better play it safe. Harumi trusted Mr. Namiya’s word. He was spot-on with his comparison between investing and Old Maid. It would be far stranger if the boom went on forever.

There were only a few months left in 1988. What would the new year bring? Wondering endlessly, Harumi fell asleep.

7

The Christmas cruise turned out to be a huge success. Harumi toasted with the staff till morning, popping open more bottles of Dom Pérignon Rosé than she could count. The next morning, when she woke up at her place in Aoyama, she had to admit she could feel the wisps of a lingering headache.

She crawled out of bed and turned on the TV. The news was finishing a story. A building had caught fire. She had been watching in a daze, but when she saw the letters run across the bottom of the screen, her eyes went wide. “Flames Cripple Children’s Home Marumitsuen,” it said.

Startled, she listened closely, but the segment was over. She changed the channel, but no one else was running the story.

She dressed in a hurry to go down and get the paper. The automatic locks of her building added an extra layer of security, but they meant she had to go down to the ground floor herself to fetch the newspaper.

It was Sunday; the paper was thick. Thicker with the flyers. Almost all for real estate.

She looked through every article, but there was nothing on the fire at Marumitsuen. Maybe because it had happened outside the city.

She called Hideo to see if she had heard anything, assuming it would at least have made the local paper. She was right. Hideo said there was an article in the Local News section.

The fire broke out on the evening of December 24. One fatality, ten wounded. The deceased wasn’t someone from the building but an amateur musician who had been hired to play at their Christmas party.

She wanted to drop everything and go, but she held off, unsure how things would be there. If she barged in on an already chaotic scene, it would only make things worse.

Harumi had moved out of Marumitsuen when she graduated elementary school, but she’d been back to visit several times. She went to say a few words when she entered high school and after she had graduated and found a job. But ever since starting as a hostess, she had kept her distance. Something about her, some look or tone, might have betrayed her involvement in the industry.

The next day at the office, Harumi got a call from Hideo. The morning paper had more to say about the fire. The staff and children had taken refuge in the gymnasium of the nearby elementary school.

Living out of a gymnasium in late December... The very thought of it sent shivers down her spine.

She quit work early and drove her BMW to the scene. Along the way, she stopped at a pharmacy and bought a box of disposable hand warmers and some bottles of cold medicine. The kids were probably getting sick. There was a supermarket in the same lot, where she bought armfuls of prepared meals. The staff must have been stressed out trying to keep all of those kids fed with no kitchen.

She packed her shopping bags into the trunk and drove off. “Everyone’s Song [Minna no uta]” by Southern All Stars was playing on the radio. The chorus was supposed to be uplifting, but it wasn’t working. This had been a year of almost entirely good things, one after the other, only for this to happen at the very end.

The trip out to the building took her about two hours. The white walls of her childhood home had been reduced to blackened rubble. The police and fire departments were still conducting their investigations, preventing her from getting any closer, but from a distance, she could smell the reek of quenched flames and soot.

The gym was about half a mile away. The director, Yoshikazu Minazuki, was startled and effusively appreciative of her visit.

“Thanks for coming all the way out to see us. I never would have expected to see you today. You’ve grown into a fine young woman.” Mr. Minazuki kept looking at the business card Harumi had given him. “A self-made woman, at that.”

Mr. Minazuki looked much skinnier than she remembered. The fire must have taken its toll. By now, he had to be somewhere in his seventies. Last time they met, his white hair had been fluffy, but it had thinned out.

He gladly accepted the hand warmers, medicine, and food. She had guessed right about their being in need.

“If there’s anything else I can do, please let me know. I want to do everything I can to help.”

“Thank you. It’s reassuring to hear that.” His eyes were moist.

“Please don’t hesitate to ask. I want to take this opportunity to give back for all you’ve done for me.”

“Thank you,” he repeated.

On her way out, Harumi ran into someone from her past: Hiroshi Fujikawa. He had been at the home the same time as she had been, but he was four years older and left right after graduating middle school. He was the one who made her the carved wooden dog she carried everywhere as a good-luck charm. The namesake of Office Little Dog.

Hiroshi had become a professional woodworker. He said he heard about the fire and rushed over, just like Harumi. He was just as she remembered him, still reticent as ever.

After saying good-bye, she realized there were probably lots of people like them who had heard the news with great concern.

In the first days of the new year, the emperor crossed the great divide, ushering in a new imperial generation — the Heisei era. The days that followed were far from normal: The usual programming was suspended from television, and the first sumo match of the year was delayed by a whole day.

Once things settled down, Harumi took another trip to Marumitsuen. Outside the gym, they had set up an office, where she met with Mr. Minazuki. The children were still living in the gym, but a temporary dormitory was under construction, and once it was done, the kids would move in while a proper structure was being rebuilt on the ruins of the old one.

The police and fire department had determined the cause of the fire: a gas leak from an antiquated pipe in the cafeteria. They assessed that the air was so dry that static electricity could have sparked the flame.

“We should have renovated before this ever happened,” said Mr. Minazuki ruefully.

He seemed particularly grieved by the death of the musician. He had gone back in after one of the children, but the rescue was a beat too late for him to escape himself.

“It’s a shame that man had to die,” she tried to console him, “but with everything that happened, it’s fortunate that all the children came out safe.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Mr. Minazuki agreed, nodding. “Since it happened during the night, most of the kids were asleep when the fire started. One misstep, and it could have been catastrophic. That’s why I was saying to the staff, I think our old director was watching over us.”

“I think I remember her. It was a woman, right?”

Harumi vaguely recalled the former director, a petite old woman with a tranquil smile. At some point, she disappeared, and Mr. Minazuki took over.

“She was my older sister. She’s the one who started Marumitsuen, you know.”

Harumi looked at the wrinkles on his face. “I didn’t realize.”

“Really? I guess you were pretty little when you came to live with us.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it. Why did she start a children’s home?”

“Long story short, she wanted to give back.”

“She did?”

“I don’t mean to brag, but factually speaking, our family used to have a lot of land and some decent assets. When our parents died, my sister and I inherited everything. I invested my portion in a company I started, but my sister used hers to create a space for kids who weren’t so fortunate. She had been a teacher during the war, and it hurt her to see all those children lose their parents.”

“When did you lose your sister?”

“Nineteen...no, I guess it would be twenty years ago now. She was born with a weak heart. Everyone was with her in the end. When she died, it was like she just fell asleep.”

Harumi nodded. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. In her will, she asked us not to tell the children. We announced that she had gotten sick and was recuperating. I had my son take over my company, and I took over for my sister. For a while, we changed my title to interim director.”

“What did you mean about your sister watching over you?”

“Before she died, she turned to me and whispered something. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll pull some strings up there and make sure you’re taken care of.’ When the fire happened, those words came back to me.” Mr. Minazuki gave her a bashful smile. “Maybe I’m just being superstitious.”

“No, I think it’s a wonderful story.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Did your sister have any family?”

He sighed and shook his head. “She never married, single her whole life. You might say she devoted her existence to the cause.”

“Wow. What a strong woman.”

“If she heard you up in heaven, I think she’d disagree. She saw it as living life on her own terms. And how about you? Do you have any plans to marry? You seeing anybody?”

Harumi faltered when he turned the conversation to her. “No, I don’t have anyone like that.” She waved her hand at the idea, totally dismissing it.

“Is that so? If a woman focuses too much on work, she’ll miss her chance at marriage. Running your own business is all well and good, but you ought to try to find a decent man.”

“I’m afraid I might wind up like your sister. I’m living life on my own terms.”

Mr. Minazuki laughed. “Sounds like you’re the strong one. But prioritizing work wasn’t the reason why she didn’t marry anyone. You know, in fact, when she was very young, she was involved with a man, and they almost eloped.”

“Really?”

Things were getting interesting. Harumi scooched forward in her chair.

“The man was ten years older than her and worked at a small factory in town. They met when he fixed her bicycle for her, the story goes. They must have sneaked off together on his lunch breaks from the factory. Back then, the mere sight of a man and woman in public together was enough to set the rumor mill in motion.”

“Were they trying to elope because your parents didn’t approve?”

He nodded. “There were two main reasons. First off, my sister was still in high school. That wasn’t so terrible, since time would have solved that problem. The other reason was the big one. As I mentioned earlier, we came from a family of considerable means. Once you have money, the next thing you want is respect. My father wanted her to marry into a good family. He wasn’t about to pawn her off on some nobody mechanic.”

Harumi’s expression tensed. She drew in her chin. Back then, over sixty years ago, this sort of thing was probably not such a rare occurrence.

“So what happened when they ran away?”

Mr. Minazuki shrugged. “It didn’t go so well. Her plan was to stop by the shrine on her way home from school and change out of her school clothes.”

“Change into what?”

“There were a number of maids working at the house. One of them was almost the same age as my sister, and they were good friends. She asked the maid to bring a change of clothes over to the shrine. One of the maid’s kimonos, since her fancy school clothes would attract too much attention. The mechanic was waiting at the station, in his best attempt at a disguise. If she had made it to him, they would have hopped aboard that steam engine and made a grand escape. Their strategy was pretty well thought out.”

“So what went wrong?”

“It was awful. When my sister made it as far as the shrine, she didn’t find the maid, but two men my father had hired to catch her. The maid had originally agreed to help my sister, but she got scared and asked an older maid for advice. You can imagine what happened next.”

Harumi could see where the maid was coming from. Considering the time, you really couldn’t blame her for spilling the beans.

“What happened to her boyfriend, the mechanic?”

“My father had a messenger take a letter from her to the station. The letter said: ‘Forget I ever existed.’ It was signed in her name.”

“He had somebody forge her handwriting?”

“No, she had to write it herself. She didn’t have a choice. My father had decided to let the man run, but he had an in with the police. If he had wanted to, he could have had him thrown in jail.”

“What did the man do when he read the letter?”

Mr. Minazuki cocked his neck to the side.

“All I know for sure is that he left town. He wasn’t local, you see. People said he went back to wherever it was he came from, but there’s no way of knowing if that’s true. But I did see him one more time.”

“Really? What happened?”

“It was three years later. I was still a student. I left the house to go to school, and I’m walking along, when someone calls me from behind. I turn around, and there’s this man, looks like he’s maybe thirty. I had never seen the mechanic, only heard about him, so I had no idea who this guy was. But he holds out a letter and says, ‘I want you to give this to Akiko.’ That’s my sister’s name. Akiko.”

“Did he know you were her younger brother?”

“I don’t think he could have known for sure. I guess he followed me from the house. I hesitated, and he said, ‘If you have any suspicions about its contents, by all means read it first, or show your parents, as long as you deliver this to her.’ So I took it. To be honest, I wanted to see what it said.”

“Did you read it?”

“Of course! It wasn’t even sealed. I read it on the walk to school.”

“What did it say?”

“Well...” He looked at Harumi. He appeared to be deciding something. He slapped his knee. “Know what? I’ll let you see for yourself.”

“You still have it?”

“Should be somewhere. Just a minute.” Mr. Minazuki opened one of the boxes in the pile next to him and started rifling around. The box had Director’s Office written on the side of it in black marker.

“My office was a fair distance from the kitchen, so there was hardly any damage from the fire. I had them bring all my files down here, and now that I have a little time on my hands, I’m going to try to get myself organized. A lot of this stuff was left to me. By my sister. Ah, found it. Here it is.”

Mr. Minazuki pulled a square tin from the box. He opened it in front of her so she could see inside.

There were several notebooks with photographs scattered among them. From the pile, he extracted an envelope and put it down in front of Harumi. It was addressed to “Ms. Akiko Minazuki.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. He wrote it knowing she wouldn’t be the only one who read it.”

“Okay, let’s have a look, then.”

Inside the envelope were several folded sheets of ivory stationery. Harumi smoothed them flat on the desk. The handwriting was exact and fluid. The product of a fountain pen. Not the script she was expecting from a mechanic.

Harumi looked up and met eyes with Mr. Minazuki.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“He sounds like a good man.”

He nodded in agreement.

“I think so, too. I’m sure that when things fell apart, all kinds of thoughts went through his head. He probably despised my parents and felt disillusioned by my sister’s betrayal. Looking back, after three years, he could see that things had gone the way they needed to go. But he knew that realization wasn’t enough. If he never apologized, my sister’s heart would never be able to heal. He couldn’t be sure she hadn’t taken all the blame upon herself for double-crossing him, the man she loved. So he finally wrote this letter. When I read it, I understood where he was coming from and gave it to my sister. We had no reason to tell our parents.”

Harumi returned the letter to its envelope. “And your sister kept this with her.”

“Seems that way. When I found this in her desk after she died, my heart skipped a beat. I realized she had been single all her life because her bond to him was never truly severed. She never loved another man. Instead, she devoted everything to Marumitsuen. But why do you think she built the building here? My family had no connection to this place. My sister never told me, but my theory is that it’s close to his hometown. It’s not like I know his exact address, but based on conversations I’ve had, I’ve narrowed it down to this area.”

Harumi nodded solemnly and sighed with admiration. She thought it was a shame they couldn’t have wound up together, but she was envious of Akiko for being able to love one man so endlessly.

“She promised me she’d pull some strings up in the sky and make sure we were taken care of. I wonder if she’s watching over him, too. Mind you, if he’s still alive.” His face was serious.

“Yeah, I wonder,” Harumi said, being polite.

There was one thing she was stuck on. The man’s name. Yuji Namiya. How many Namiyas could there be?

In her correspondence with Mr. Namiya, she had never learned his first name. But according to Shizuko, he was pretty far along in years by 1980. It wasn’t out of the question that he was the same age as the man in Mr. Minazuki’s story.

“Something the matter?” he asked her.

“No, no, I’m fine. Thanks.” Harumi waved her hand in front of her face.

“So anyway, I figured, hey, my sister put her heart and soul into this place to keep it going; the least we can do is rebuild it,” he concluded.

“I think that’s a noble mission. You have my full support.” Harumi gave him back the letter.

She saw the script on the envelope again. Ms. Akiko Minazuki. The hand was conspicuously different from what she had seen in the letters she received from the Namiya General Store.

It must have been a bizarre coincidence.

Harumi decided not to ruminate on it anymore.

8

Seconds after Harumi woke up, she sneezed magnificently. Shivering, she yanked the terry-cloth blanket up over her shoulders. The air-conditioning was on full blast. The night before had been so hot that she had clicked it down a few degrees colder than usual, but she forgot to turn it back before going to sleep. Her most recent read was abandoned by her pillow. Her lamp was still on from the night before.

Her clock said it was a few minutes before seven. Her alarm was set to ring then, but she almost never let it. Most days, she woke before it and switched it off.

Today was no different. She reached to click it off and rolled out of bed in a smooth motion. Rays from the summer sun sliced through her curtains. It was going to be a hot one.

She used the bathroom and went to the sink to wash up. She stood in front of the large mirror, surprised by her own reflection. She’d felt a certain lightness in her body that made her feel as if she were back in her twenties, but the face she saw in the mirror belonged to a woman at fifty-one.

Harumi looked quizzically at her reflection. She figured it had been the dream that made her body feel this way. She had a gauzy, evanescent recollection of having dreamed of being young again. And Mr. Minazuki, the director of Marumitsuen, was in the dream, too.

Since she had an inkling of what had inspired that dream, it wasn’t really that bizarre. What was unfortunate was that she couldn’t remember it in detail.

She looked at her face and nodded. The modest wrinkles and the slackness of her skin were a matter of course. Proof she’d seized the reins in life. Nothing to be ashamed of.

She washed her face and did her makeup, then checked a few things on her tablet over breakfast. She had bought herself a sandwich and a vegetable juice the night before. She couldn’t remember the last time she cooked. Evenings, she generally ate out.

Once she was ready, she left for work, same time as always. Her car was a domestic hybrid, compact and manageable. She was sick of foreign luxury cars, which she found unnecessarily big. She drove herself to the office in Roppongi, arriving a little after half past eight.

She parked her car in the garage of the ten-story building of her office and headed toward the elevator.

“Ms. Muto, Ms. Muto!” a man’s voice wailed.

She turned and saw a chubby man in a gray polo waddling after her. His face was familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

“Ms. Muto, please, I beg of you, give us one more chance at the Sweets Pavilion.”

“Sweets?... Oh.” This man was the president of a confectionary company specializing in manju, a floury Japanese bun filled with bean paste.

“Give us another month. Is that in any way possible? We’ll prove we have what it takes.” He bowed too deeply. His thin hair was plastered across his scalp in black bands like a barcode. His head had a sheen not unlike the confectionary glimmer of one of his company’s chestnut manju.

“Are you forgetting our agreement? If a shop ranks lowest in the polls for two consecutive months, we reserve the right to ask them to leave. It’s in the contract.”

“I understand that. That’s why I’m here, begging you, to hold off for just one month.”

“That won’t be possible,” retorted Harumi. “We’ve already secured another vendor.”

She sauntered off.

“But maybe you could...” He would not relent. “We’ll show you we can do it. I’m confident we can. Give us a chance. If we pull out now, our business is done for. Just give us one more chance.”

Alerted to the disturbance, a security guard came over. “What seems to be the trouble?”

“This man has no business here. Kick him out.”

The color of the guard’s face changed. “Understood.”

“No, wait, I have business here. We’re business partners! Ms. Muto, wait, Ms. Muto!”

She could hear him whining until she entered the elevator lobby, and the doors closed.

The offices of Little Dog Inc. occupied the fifth and sixth floors of the building. The company had moved here nine years ago from their old office in Shinjuku. Her office was on the sixth floor.

She checked a few more things on her computer and settled in for the day. Her in-box was full of useless messages. Her spam filter was supposed to automatically sift out the trash, but there were still plenty of emails that were essentially pointless.

Responding to a handful of messages took her until past nine. She picked up the receiver and dialed an extension. The person on the other line picked up right away.

“Good morning.” It was Mr. Sotojima, the executive director.

“Could you come up for a moment?”

“Absolutely.”

Sotojima was there a minute later. He was wearing a short-sleeve button-up. Just like last year, they were cutting back on the air-conditioning.

Harumi told him about her encounter in the parking lot.

“That old guy? The rep was saying he talked her ear off, too. I didn’t think he’d try to appeal directly to you.”

“What do you mean? You told me you talked it over with them and they agreed to pack up.”

“I was under that impression, too, but I guess he can’t let go. It sounds like their main location isn’t doing well. Things are looking pretty bad for them.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but we’re a business, too.”

“You’re absolutely right. It’s none of our concern,” Sotojima replied coolly.

Two years back, a developer who was renovating a shopping mall on the coast contacted Harumi’s company with a project. They had an event space and wanted to make better use of it. The original idea had been to use it for small concerts and the like, but it wasn’t being used effectively.

They did some research and analysis, and they proposed turning the space into a mecca of sorts for confectionary companies. All the sweets shops and cafés scattered throughout the mall would centralize, and the rest of the space would be filled out with satellite shops of vendors from throughout Japan. This was the idea behind the Sweets Pavilion. To date, there were thirty shops and counting.

Thanks to an aggressive campaign of ads in women’s magazines and television commercials, the project had been a great success. Any shop who gained a reputation here could expect to experience a huge boost in sales at its original location.

But they couldn’t just set things up and walk away. If you don’t change it up, people get bored. The most important thing is to garner repeat customers. Which is why they periodically changed the lineup of shops. They polled visitors at the food court and warned shops if their results were consistently unfavorable. On occasion, they asked a business to leave. This kept everyone on edge month to month. Every neighboring store was a rival.

That president of the manju store had his main shop in her hometown. When they were putting Sweets Pavilion together, she invited him to join on the belief that “home comes first.” They were thrilled to participate. But their bestselling product was a fairly nondescript chestnut manju, a knob of sweet dough with a sweeter center. It wasn’t good enough. In recent surveys, their shop had consistently come in last place. They were setting a poor standard for the other shops. Pity wasn’t part of the equation. That was what made this business hard.

“And what about that 3-D anime?” Harumi asked. “Can we use it?”

Sotojima grimaced.

“I saw the demo reel. At a tech level, it’s not there yet. It won’t look good on a tiny smartphone. They said they’re going to make a beta version. I’d wait till then to see it.”

“That’s fine; I was only curious.” Harumi smiled. “Thanks. That should be good for today. Do you have any updates?”

“No, I’ve already emailed you about anything pressing. There was one other thing, though.” Sotojima gave her a meaningful look. “About that children’s home.”

“That’s an independent venture. It has nothing to do with the company.”

“I know, but that’s because I work for you. From the outside, it won’t necessarily look that way.”

“Did something come up?”

Sotojima worked his lips. “It appears someone contacted us about it, asking what our company plans to do with the building.”

Harumi frowned and scratched the roots of her bangs.

“Crap. How’d it come to this?”

“Being president makes you an easy target. Even when you’re doing something normal, it won’t look that way. Please keep that in mind.”

“Is that some kind of snide remark?”

“Not at all. I’m being realistic,” said Sotojima with aplomb.

“Okay. That’s all.”

“Excuse me.” With that, he left the room.

Harumi got up and stood by the window. They were only on the sixth floor. It wasn’t so high up. They’d had the option to move into a higher set of units, but Harumi passed. She didn’t want to get overly self-confident. But when she looked outside at the cityscape, it still reminded her how far she’d come.

The events of the past twenty years washed over her. She knew that it was more important than ever for a business to keep up with the times. Sometimes that meant the whole world had to be turned upside down.

In March 1990, to pull down absurd real estate costs, the Ministry of Finance imposed restrictions on loans for all financial institutions. This was a hard line, and it was unavoidable. Land had become so expensive that the average family man had given up on owning his own home.

Harumi was not alone in doubting whether such a stratagem would actually pull down the price of land. The media had unanimously declared the directive “a drop in the bucket,” saying nothing would make prices drop overnight.

But these restrictions dealt a body blow to the economy.

The value of stocks in the Japanese market took a downward turn. Then in August, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait caused oil prices to shoot up and spurred a recession.

And eventually, the price of property did begin to fall.

There were still a few pots of gold scattered around. One-off real estate miracles. A lot of people maintained that things would turn around. It wasn’t until 1992 that everyone accepted that the carnival was over.

Harumi had been briefed by her letter from Mr. Namiya and made it out in time. She knew ahead of the game that the era for flipping real estate was over, and she divested from all her investments by 1989 — stocks, equity memberships, everything. She had won at Old Maid. Over the course of the Japanese asset price bubble, she had turned a profit of several hundred million yen.

By the time the world had wised up, Harumi was already putting out new feelers. The Namiya General Store had predicted the advent of an information network that would connect personal computers with portable telephones. A cellular phone in every pocket, and a computer in every home. If he was right about this, too, she could not afford to miss out.

Harumi expected that increasing computer connectivity would usher in an era the world had only dreamed of. She did her best to stay informed and up-to-date.

In 1995, as the Internet was beginning to become a fixture of their lives, Harumi hired a handful of tech majors to work for her. She set each of them up with a computer and tasked them with figuring out ways to utilize the Internet. These innovators spent entire days in front of their computers.

Office Little Dog made its first foray into web-related business designing home pages. For starters, they created a website for themselves to advertise their services. The newspaper picked them up for a feature story, and the response was superb: a steady stream of queries from companies and individuals alike who wanted to have their own home pages. This was years before the Internet was universally and constantly accessible, but the recession gave people high hopes for new modes of advertising. Jobs kept rolling in.

In the ensuing years, Office Little Dog was conspicuously successful. Web-based advertising, sales, game distribution, you name it. Everything they touched turned to gold.

At the dawn of the new millennium, Harumi began to think about branching into other areas and founded a consulting department. What motivated her was a message from an acquaintance who ran a restaurant that was unable to turn a profit, barely scraping by.

Harumi was already a federally certified small business management consultant. She assigned dedicated staff to the project and conducted a thorough analysis. Their conclusion was that advertising on its own would not suffice; the business would have to be overhauled and rebuilt on a stronger foundation. This meant a whole new menu and interior.

When the restaurant implemented their suggestions and reopened for business, it experienced unprecedented success. Three months following their reopening, it was hard to even book a table.

Harumi was convinced there was good money in consulting, but she needed to take it all the way. It was easy to pick apart the root cause of poor performance. But to make the business viable, they would need to demonstrate an ability to take drastic measures and yield results. Harumi headhunted talent. At times her team played a proactive role in product development for clients, and at times they recommended heartless layoffs.

Propped up by the twin pillars of their IT and consulting departments, the newly dubbed Little Dog Inc. continued to grow. In retrospect, her success was preternatural. Harumi became renowned as an “industry visionary.” This was true to a degree, but without that letter from the Namiya General Store, things never would have gone so well. Which is why she wanted to give back, if she ever had the chance.

And along those lines, she couldn’t forget everything Marumitsuen had done for her.

She heard rumors that their management had fallen into disarray that year. The rumors turned out to be true. In 2003, when Mr. Minazuki died, his eldest son kept the home running on the side, but when his transportation business fell into the red, there was little room for keeping Marumitsuen afloat.

Harumi contacted them as soon as she heard the news. As it turned out, Mr. Minazuki’s eldest son was the director in name only; his vice-director, Mr. Kariya, was the real one running the show. Harumi told him to let her know if there was anything she could do and even offered to invest if necessary.

But he was not enthused. He even made a point of telling her that he preferred not to rely on others.

Frustrated, Harumi tried asking the Minazuki family directly if they would let her take over managing the home, but she got the same dismissive reaction: “Kariya is already taking care of it.”

Harumi did some research on Marumitsuen and discovered that in recent years the number of full-time staff had been halved. In turn, the number of temporary employees with dubious titles was concerningly high. To make matters worse, she found no evidence that any of these people had actually worked there.

She put it all together. Following Mr. Minazuki’s death, the children’s home had become involved in fraudulent activity, most likely false claims for subsidies. She suspected Kariya was the principal offender. No doubt he had refused her offer to help manage the building to keep the truth from coming out.

It became increasingly difficult to look away. She had to do something about what was happening. Harumi began to see herself as the only one who could save Marumitsuen.

9

Harumi acquired this information almost by accident. Punching a search into her newly upgraded smartphone, she stumbled upon a result that said “the Namiya General Store — One-Night Special.”

The Namiya General Store... These were words Harumi would never — could never forget. When she clicked on the result, she was routed to a proper website. The site announced that with September 13 marking the start of the thirty-third year after his death, they were hosting a memorial service for the old owner with hopes that people who had written to him for advice would write again and tell them whether it had made a difference in their lives. They asked for people to leave their letters in the mail slot out front, between midnight and sunrise.

This was unbelievable. After so many years, she was not expecting to see that name today. And what was this about a “One-Night Special”? The site was apparently being managed by someone in his family, but beyond saying the event was being held to coincide with the old man’s memorial service, it gave no other details.

At first, she suspected it must be a prank. But why would anyone bother? What payoff could there be in fooling people? How many people would even read the post?

What moved Harumi most profoundly was discovering that September 13 was the date of the old man’s death. On September 13, it would be precisely thirty-two years since her contact with the Namiya General Store had been suspended.

This couldn’t be a prank. She was certain the event was real. And if it was, she couldn’t sit back on the sidelines. She, of all people, had to write one of these letters. It would of course be a letter of thanks.

But there was something she would have to check first. Was the Namiya General Store really still around? Was it still there? Harumi went back to the Tamuras’ old house a few times a year, but she had never ventured as far as the shop.

She had an errand to run at Marumitsuen that day anyway. A meeting about transferring over the building. She could stop by the store on her way back.

The meeting, as before, was with the vice-director, Mr. Kariya.

“The Minazukis have given me full authority on this matter. As you know, it’s been their policy to stay out of managing the home.” His thin eyebrows twitched as he spoke.

“In that case, you might apprise them of the fiscal standing of their property. It may well change their way of thinking.”

“They’re regularly informed, thank you very much. That was part of our agreement when I took over.”

“I see. Would you mind sharing the same information with me?”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. It’s none of your concern.”

“Mr. Kariya, I need you to listen to me. As it stands, this building is going to go under.”

“That’s not for you to worry about. We’ll get by one way or another. Safe trip home.” Kariya bowed his head of slicked-back hair.

Harumi decided that was enough for today, but she had no intention of giving up. She would just have to figure out a way to persuade the Minazukis.

In the parking lot, she found her car covered with clots of mud. She spun around to see a posse of kids was peeking over a fence. They ducked down to hide their faces.

Oh dear, she sighed. They must think I’m a bad guy. No doubt Kariya had told them some tall tale.

She drove away without cleaning off the car. Through the rearview mirror, she saw the kids had spilled into the street, shouting “Don’t come back” — or something like it.

Despite this unpleasant distraction, she had not forgotten her intention to stop by the Namiya General Store. Harumi turned the wheel, relying solely on a fading memory.

Soon she was back in a familiar scene. In those thirty some odd years, it had barely changed.

The store was just as it had been when she came by with her letters. Its sign was all but indecipherable, and the rust scabbing its shutter was painfully thick, but the structure was swathed in the warmth of an old man waiting for his granddaughter.

Harumi came to a stop, rolled down the passenger-side window, and looked out at the building. When she drove off, she drove off slowly. She thought she may as well have a look at the Tamura house, too.

After finishing work on September 12, Harumi stopped home and cracked open her laptop to draft her letter. She had meant to start sooner, but the last few days had been crazy, and she couldn’t find the time. That night, she was supposed to have dinner with a client, but she told them she needed to deal with an urgent matter and asked the most trusted member of her staff to go in her stead.

Rereading and rewriting the letter again and again, she didn’t finish until after nine. After that, she wrote out the text on stationery. She had a personal rule about handwriting all correspondence to important contacts.

She had a look over the final copy, checking for mistakes, and folded it into an envelope. She had purchased the stationery and the envelope especially for this occasion.

Packing took some time. It was getting to be ten when she left the house. Mindful of the speed limit, she kept her foot on the gas.

It took her just under two hours to reach the vicinity of the shop. Her plan had been to go straight there, but she had a little time left before midnight and decided to drop her bags off at the Tamura house, where she was going to spend the night.

After purchasing the house, Harumi had made good on her promise to let Hideo carry on with her life there, but Hideo hadn’t lived to see the start of the twenty-first century. With the passing of her Auntie, Harumi touched up a few things and began using the house as a suburban getaway. This was the closest she had to a childhood home. She loved how green it was around there.

The last few years, she had been going only once every month or two. The refrigerator was empty, save for condiments and whatever was in the freezer.

The area around the house had only a smattering of streetlights. It was usually too dark to see beyond the headlights of her car this late into the night. But in the moonlight, she spotted her old house from a distance.

There was nobody in sight. They had a garage, but she parked on the street. Shouldering a tote bag with her change of clothes and makeup, she stepped out into the night. The big round moon was beaming in the sky.

She walked under the gate and unlocked the front door, opening it to the smell of an air freshener. The fragrant pod was sitting on the shoe cabinet. She had put it there herself last time she came by. She set her keys beside it.

She felt her way along the wall until she found the light switch, then took off her shoes and stepped up into the house. There were slippers, but she rarely bothered wearing them. She went down the hall to the door at the end, leading into the bedroom.

She opened the door to the bedroom and again felt the wall for the switch, but she stopped before she found it. Something was out of place. No, it was more as if she smelled something out of place. A faint but foreign smell that did not belong in her bedroom.

Sensing danger, she motioned to turn, but something grabbed her hand before she could flick the lights on. It tugged her arm and pressed something over her mouth. She didn’t even have a chance to scream.

“Easy, now. Keep quiet, and we won’t hurt you.” The man was behind her. She couldn’t see his face.

Harumi’s mind went blank. Why was this man in her house? What was he doing here? Why did this have to happen to her? A flurry of questions spun around her.

She felt compelled to resist, but her body wouldn’t move. It was as if her nerves were paralyzed.

“Hey, I saw some towels in the bathroom. Grab me a few.” The man was yelling, but nobody responded. He repeated himself, clearly vexed. “I need those towels! Stat!”

She sensed another shadow tripping through the darkness. Someone else was here.

Harumi breathed fiercely through her nose. Her heartbeat was still violent, but gradually, her decision-making skills were returning. She realized what was pressed over her mouth was a hand in a latex glove.

“Aw, come on,” whispered yet another man, off to the side behind her.

“Too late now,” barked the man restraining her. “Come on, look through that bag. There’s probably a wallet in there or something.”

The bag was pulled away from her. She heard someone fishing through her things. “Got it,” a voice finally confirmed.

“How much?”

“Only twenty, thirty thousand, and a bunch of random point cards.”

The man sighed by Harumi’s ear. “That’s it? Whatever. Just pull out the cash. Those cards aren’t good for anything.”

“What about the wallet? It’s from a good brand.”

“It’s no good if it’s broken in. The bag’s pretty new; it’ll come with us.”

Footsteps approached them. “Are these okay?” The voice was young, like the others.

“All right. Use one as a blindfold. Tie it tight behind her head so that it won’t come loose.”

She felt him hesitate for an instant, but a second later, true to his word, a towel was pulled tight over her eyes. It smelled a little bit like laundry detergent. The one she always used.

The towel was tied tight at her neck. This was not a knot you could wiggle out of.

Next, they made her sit down at the dining room table and tied both of her wrists behind her to the backrest and bound her ankles to the legs of the chair. All the while, the gloved hand remained pressed into her face.

“We’d like to have a little talk with you,” said the leader, the one with his hand over her mouth. “I’m going to take my hand away, but you’d better not make a racket. Trust me, you don’t want to see our weapons. If you start yelling, we’ll kill you. But we don’t want it to come to that. Talk nice in a quiet voice, and you won’t be harmed. Nod if you promise you’ll behave.”

Having no reason to disobey, Harumi nodded. The hand let go of her face.

“So, as you have probably already guessed, we’re burglars. We thought the house was empty. We weren’t planning on you showing up, and we weren’t planning on tying you up like this, either. No hard feelings.”

Speechless, Harumi sighed. This late in the game, saying “no hard feelings” was an empty pleasantry. Meaningless.

And yet, she found it in her heart to see where they were coming from. Instinctively, she knew these guys weren’t true villains.

“Once we’ve gotten what we came for, we’re out. But we’re not ready to leave yet, ’cause we haven’t found anything worth taking. Which brings us here. We need your valuables. Where do you keep them? We’re not picky. Trinkets, honestly anything. Speak up.”

Harumi was catching her breath. “There’s nothing...here.”

She heard him snort.

“Yeah, right. We looked you up. Don’t try to fool us.”

“I mean it.” Harumi shook her head. “If you looked me up, you’d know that. I don’t stay here often. That’s why there’s no money, nothing valuable around.”

“You can say that, but there’s gotta be something.” His voice was strained. “Think harder. You’ll come up with something. We can wait until you do. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

He got that right, but Harumi had nothing to tell him. There was nothing valuable in the whole house. The few heirlooms she inherited from Hideo were at her apartment in the city.

“There’s an alcove in the next room, the room with the tatami. The bowl set up there came from a famous studio.”

“We got the bowl. And the calligraphy scroll on the wall behind it. What else you got?”

Hideo had told her the bowl was real, but the scroll was screen printed, a fake. Harumi figured she had better not tell them.

“Did you see the bedroom upstairs? The smaller one.”

“We poked around, didn’t see anything good.”

“Did you check the drawers in the dresser? The second one down has a false bottom, and the lower half is full of jewelry. Did you see that?”

The man didn’t answer her. He seemed to be gesturing to his friends.

“Go check,” he ordered. One of them ambled upstairs.

The dresser had belonged to Hideo, and its antique design had made it hard to part with. It was true that there was jewelry in the secret drawer, but it wasn’t Harumi’s. They were accessories that Hideo’s daughter, Kimiko, had bought herself when she was single. Harumi had never properly gone through them, but she suspected there was nothing valuable. If there had been, Kimiko would have taken it when she got married.

“Why did you pick me...my house to rob?” Harumi asked them.

The leader seemed to shrug. “Worked out that way.”

“Then why’d you bother to look me up? You must have had a reason.”

“Shut the hell up. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“No, it doesn’t. Zip it.”

Harumi listened to him. She knew not to provoke an adversary.

The awkward silence was finally broken by the words “Do you mind if I ask a question?” It wasn’t the leader who said it. She was not expecting something so polite.

“Dude,” spat the leader. “What are you saying?”

“Come on, man. I really want to see what she says.”

“Forget it.”

“What is it?” Harumi said. “Ask me anything.”

Someone clucked melodramatically. It sounded like the leader.

“Are you really gonna make it a hotel?”

“Make what?”

“I heard you’re going to tear down Marumitsuen and put up a love hotel.”

That was a name she wasn’t expecting to hear. She felt caught. Kariya must have sent them.

“I’ll do nothing of the sort. I’m hoping to renovate the building and take it over, as a children’s home.”

“Everybody knows that’s just a front,” the leader interrupted. “Your company makes its money by giving makeovers to dying businesses. Like the business hotel you turned into a love hotel.”

“We took that job, true, but it has nothing to do with this. I’m funding the Marumitsuen project myself.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying. I hesitate to add this, but I would never build a love hotel out there anyway. No one would come. I’m no idiot. Trust me. I’m a friend of the voiceless, the powerless.”

“Really?”

“Dude, she’s obviously lying. Don’t listen to her. Friend of the voiceless? Listen to that shit. She’d part with anything that doesn’t turn a profit.”

Footsteps thumped down the stairs.

“What took you so long? What were you doing up there?”

“I couldn’t figure out the false bottom. But then I got it. Look at all this stuff.”

The costume jewelry jingled. He’d apparently brought down the entire drawer.

The other two were quiet. They were probably calculating how much the hoard of trifles could possibly be worth. Not that they knew any better.

“All right, take it,” someone ordered. “It’s better than nothing. Let’s put it in the bag and scram.”

Harumi heard fabric against fabric and a zipper pulled open and shut. They were adding the accessories to the rest of their loot.

“What should we do about her?” asked the man who broached the question about Marumitsuen.

After a beat, the leader said, “Get the duct tape. We don’t want her causing a ruckus.”

She heard tape tearing, then felt it strapped across her face.

“We can’t just leave her like this. If no one comes and finds her, she’ll starve to death.”

There was another beat. The leader generally got the last word.

“Once we’re a safe distance away, we’ll call her company and say their president is bound and gagged. That solves things.”

“What if she has to go?”

“She can hold it.”

“Do you think you can hold it?” They were asking Harumi.

She nodded. As a matter of fact, she didn’t have to go yet. But even if they’d offered to bring her to the bathroom, she would have refused, if it meant having them out a second sooner.

“All right, let’s get out of here,” he commanded. “Don’t forget anything.”

She felt the three of them leave the room. Their footsteps plodded down the hall and out the front door.

A little later, she heard their voices again. She made out the words car keys.

Harumi remembered she’d left them on the shoe cabinet.

“Shit,” she mouthed through the tape and bit her lip. Her handbag was on the front seat of the car parked in the street. She’d pulled it from her tote bag on her way out of the car.

The wallet inside her tote bag was her backup. Her actual wallet was in her handbag. It had at least two hundred thousand yen in cash, not to mention all her credit cards and debit cards.

Thing is, the wallet wasn’t what was bothering her. She’d be happy if that was all they took. But she doubted they’d be so focused. They were in a rush and would probably make off with the handbag without even looking inside.

If they had, they would have found her letter to the Namiya General Store. This she could not let them take.

But what difference would it make? Even if they left behind the letter, she would still be stuck, until morning at the earliest. And the “One-Night Special” at the shop would be over at the crack of dawn.

She had only wanted to say thank you. To tell him that thanks to him, she had become a person of consequence, and that she planned to use her high position to make a difference in the world. The letter was her chance to say so.

But then this had to happen. Why her? What did she ever do wrong? She hardly felt like she deserved it. All she’d done was take this as far as she could, and in good conscience.

The leader’s words came back to her.

Friend of the voiceless? Listen to that shit. She’d part with anything that doesn’t turn a profit.

That had been a blow. When had she ever done anything like that?

But then she remembered the bawling face of the president of the manju company.

Harumi blew air through her nose. Blindfolded and bound to the chair as she was, she smiled ruefully.

She had tried so hard and gotten so far, but maybe she had been a little too pragmatic. This wasn’t comeuppance. No, it was a warning that she’d do well to open up her heart a little.

Maybe she would save the manju-head after all.

10

There was no way to tell, but dawn seemed to be getting close. Atsuya looked down at a blank sheet of stationery.

“You think it’s really possible?”

“What? Think what’s possible?” asked Shota.

“You know,” he huffed. “That this house could be connected to the past, and these letters could somehow make it here. And if we put a letter in the milk crate, it winds up traveling across time.”

“Did this only now occur to you?” Shota looked puzzled. “Yeah, it’s really happening. How else would we have gone back and forth with all these people?”

“It’s definitely weird, though,” concurred Kohei. “It’s gotta have something to do with the ‘One-Night Special’ being tonight.”

“Be right back.” Atsuya got up with the paper in his hand.

“Where are you going?” Shota called out.

“To check. I’m gonna try it out.”

Atsuya went out through the back door and closed it tight behind him. He proceeded down the alley and around to the front of the shop, whereupon he folded up the paper and slipped it through the mail slot. He came around back again and went through the house out into the storefront and looked into the cardboard box set up against the shutter. The piece of folded stationery wasn’t there.

“Just as I thought,” said Shota triumphantly. “If you put something in the mail slot now, it lands in the shop thirty-two years back. That’s what’s behind the ‘One-Night Special.’ All this time, we’ve been on the other side of it.”

“And once it’s morning here, thirty-two years back...?” asked Atsuya.

“The old man dies. The guy who used to own the store.”

“That’s gotta be it.” Atsuya let out a long, belabored breath. It was truly bizarre, but there was no other explanation.

“What happened to that kid?” wondered Kohei. Atsuya and Shota both looked at him. He flinched. “You know, Dubious Doggy. I wonder if our letter helped her.”

“Who knows?” said Atsuya. “She probably didn’t believe us.”

“It must have sounded shady, any way you slice it.” Shota scratched his head.

When the three guys read the third letter from her, they had to act — fast. Some dodgy guy was tricking her, trying to use her. And then they found out she had lived at Marumitsuen! They had to do something to save her — no, not just save her; they had to do something that would make her successful.

The three of them decided they would tip her off on the future. The Japanese price asset bubble was just around the corner, at the end of the ’80s. They could advise her on how to capitalize on what was coming.

They looked it up on their smartphones and crafted their letter to Dubious Doggy, making it like a prediction. They threw in a few hints on what to do after the bubble burst. It was hard not using the word Internet.

It was even harder deciding whether to warn her about accidents and disasters. There were some big ones coming — the Kobe earthquake in 1995 and the Tohoku earthquake in 2011.

But ultimately, they decided not mention them. Just like how they decided not to tell Floundering Musician about the fire. They knew better than to mess with matters of life and death.

“It’s so weird that there’s all these connections to Marumitsuen,” Shota commented. “What’s that all about? Could it be just a coincidence?”

Atsuya had been wondering about that, too. That would be a hell of a coincidence. After all, Marumitsuen was why the three of them were here tonight.

Shota was the one who broke the news that their childhood home was in dire straits at the beginning of last month. As usual, Shota and Atsuya and Kohei were sharing a few drinks, but not at the pub or anything. They bought cans of beer and chuhai, a mix of shochu and carbonated water, at the discount liquor store and cracked them open in the park.

“I heard some lady CEO is really gouging them. She says she’s gonna renovate it. I bet she’s full of shit.”

Shota had been laid off by a big-box electronics retailer, currently getting by with shifts at a convenience store. It wasn’t far from Marumitsuen, and he still went by to visit from time to time. As a side note, he lost his job only because of mass layoffs at the company.

“Shit, man, I was hoping if I wound up homeless, I could live there,” Kohei whined.

He was unemployed. His job as an auto mechanic fell through when the company went bankrupt. He was living in a company dorm, but he could be kicked out any day.

Atsuya was in between jobs, too. Up until a couple of months ago, he had been working at a parts factory. During his time there, they got an order for a new part from a new company. The dimensions were totally different from any other orders in the past. He checked and double-checked, but that was what it said, so he went along with the design. As it turned out, it was a mistake. Their contact, a new hire at the new company, had mixed up his units. The result was a useless batch of rejects, but somehow, they held Atsuya responsible. They said he didn’t check hard enough.

This sort of thing happened to them all the time: Their company can’t talk back to the parent company. Their boss doesn’t stick up for them. Whenever there’s trouble, the blame falls to the bottom of the ranks and lands on people like Atsuya.

He’d lost his temper. “I’m done,” he announced and turned his back on the job and the factory.

He had almost no savings. When he checked his balance, it was worse than he thought. He was already two months behind on rent.

No matter how much these three guys cared about Marumitsuen, they were in no position to help. The most they could do was badmouth and curse at the woman trying to buy the building.

Atsuya couldn’t remember whose idea it had been. Maybe it was his.

At the very least, he remembered clenching his fists, proclaiming, “Let’s get her. Even Mother Mary would forgive us for stealing money from that bitch.”

Shota and Kohei thrust their fists in the air. They were pumped.

They were all the same age, always together through middle school and high school. As students, they had done a whole slew of bad things. They’d shoplifted, stolen handbags, and broken into vending machines. They favored nonviolent acts of theft. They still thought it was a miracle that they were almost never caught. They had their theories — never hit the same spot twice, always change up your technique — and they didn’t do anything taboo.

Just once, they robbed somebody’s house while the owners were out of town. It was their third year of high school. They’d put a pause on their job hunt, but they really wanted new clothes. Their target was the richest kid in their school. They figured out the day that he was leaving with his family on vacation, thoroughly checked for security devices, and made their move. No part of them considered what would happen if they failed. They came out with about thirty thousand yen, just sitting in a random drawer. They were satisfied and split. The best part was that no one seemed to notice. This game was pretty fun.

They stopped messing around once they were out of high school and turned over a new leaf. In the eyes of the law, they were adults. If they got arrested, their names would wind up in the paper.

But this was different. No one spoke out against the plan. All of them were sick and tired of their circumstances and wanted to take it out on someone. To be honest, Atsuya wasn’t shaken up about what was happening to Marumitsuen. The old director was a good man, but this Kariya guy was an asshole. Once he took over, the whole operation went to shit.

Shota was the one who scouted out the house.

When they met up a few days after their first discussion, he started off with “Good news.” He had a twinkle in his eye. “I found the second home of the CEO. After I heard she was coming to Marumitsuen, I staked out nearby on my scooter. I followed her back and figured out the address of her house. It’s only, like, twenty minutes from the children’s home. It’s just a little cottage, a sitting duck. Should be simple getting in. According to her neighbors, she’s only there, like, once a month. Oh, don’t worry; it’s not like I actually asked someone in the neighborhood face-to-face.”

As long as Shota was right, this was great news. The only problem was whether there was anything worth stealing.

“There’s gotta be,” Shota argued. “This lady wears designer goods from head to toe. That second home is probably where she keeps her gems. I bet it’s full of expensive vases and paintings.”

“Damn right,” said Atsuya and Kohei.

In actuality, they had no clue what rich people had in their houses. They were going off the mansions of impossible millionaires in anime and dramas. All conjecture.

They planned to do the job on September 12. The date had no significance. Shota was off that day, but he had plenty of days off. It was just a coincidence.

Kohei had procured the getaway car. He used some tricks from his time as a mechanic, but he was embarrassed that he only knew how to steal the old ones.

A little past eleven, the three men made their entry. They busted the glass door on the garden side and spun open the latch, a classic move, although they first made a big star on the glass with duct tape to keep the breaking glass from shattering and going everywhere. Or worse, making a clamor.

As predicted, there was no one home, and the whole house was theirs for the taking. They were amped up and ready to grab anything and everything. But there was nothing to lay their hands on. They had swung — and missed.

They searched every corner of the house; no dice. For the second home of a CEO who supposedly decked herself out in designer goods, it was surprisingly plebian. That’s weird, thought Shota, cocking his head. There has to be something somewhere.

But there wasn’t.

That was when they heard a car stop right outside the house. They switched off their flashlights in a start. Then they heard the key turn at the front door. Atsuya’s balls ducked up into his stomach. That lady CEO, of all the nights she could have come. He was going to tell Shota that this wasn’t what he promised, but it was too late to complain.

Lights went on at the entrance and the front hall. Footsteps were coming closer. Atsuya braced himself.

11

“Hey, Shota,” said Atsuya. “How’d you find this dump anyway? You said you stumbled on it when you came to check things out. What were you doing all the way out here?”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t exactly an accident.”

“It wasn’t, huh? Then what was it?”

“Stop glaring at me. It wasn’t anything, okay? Remember how I said I followed her home on my scooter? On the way, she came and stopped out front of the store.”

“Stopped? For what?”

“How should I know? For some reason, she was staring up at the sign. She got me wondering, so after I followed her home, I swung back here to see for myself. I figured it would come in handy if we had to hide, so I made a mental note of where it was.”

“But your perfect hideout turned out to be a frigging time machine.”

Shota shrugged. “That pretty much sums it up.”

Atsuya crossed his arms and groaned. He turned his eyes on the bag against the wall.

“What’s up with that lady CEO? What’s her name again?”

“Something Muto. Haruko? Haruko Muto?” Shota couldn’t remember, either.

Atsuya reached for the bag, undid the zipper, and pulled out a handbag. If he hadn’t noticed the car key left on the shoe cabinet by the front door, they would have missed it. When he opened up the passenger-side door and saw the handbag sitting on the seat, he’d stuffed it in the duffel, without another thought.

He opened it. Just under the clasp was a slender navy wallet. At least two hundred thousand yen in cash. That alone redeemed the burglary. He couldn’t care less about the credit and debit cards.

He found her driver’s license, which said Harumi Muto. Based on her picture, she was pretty hot. Shota had said she was over fifty, but she certainly didn’t look it.

Now Shota was staring at Atsuya. His eyes were a little bloodshot, probably from lack of sleep.

“What’s wrong?” asked Atsuya.

“This... This was in the handbag.”

Shota was holding out an envelope.

“What’s that? What’s wrong?”

He showed Atsuya the face of the envelope. When Atsuya saw what it said, he looked like his heart was about to jump from his mouth.

To the Namiya General Store, it said.

Atsuya held his head in his hands. He felt as if his brains were curdling. He wanted to tell the others how he felt. No words would come out of his mouth.

The other two hugged their knees, equally perplexed. Shota was staring off into space.

How could this be? It was only a little while ago that they had steered the aspiring hostess on a different route, tipping her off on the future. By all accounts, she was successful. But thirty-two years after the fact, Atsuya and his friends busted into her house...

“Something’s up,” muttered Atsuya.

Shota looked up. “Up with what?”

“I mean...like, look. Something must be linking Marumitsuen to the Namiya General Store. An invisible thread, or something. It’s like someone in the sky is tugging on the strings.”

Shota looked at the ceiling. “Maybe, yeah.”

“Ack!” Kohei was looking at the back door.

The door was ajar. Morning light was filtering in. The night was over.

“Looks like this letter’s never gonna make it to the Namiya General Store.”

“That’s all right. I mean, this one’s for us. Right, Atsuya?” said Shota. “We’re the ones she’s thanking. She tells us she’s grateful to us. Us, of all people. This crew of scumbags.”

Atsuya looked into his eyes, rimmed red with tears.

“I believe her. You know? When I asked, ‘You gonna turn the building into a love hotel?’ She said no way. She wasn’t lying. Dubious Doggy would never lie to us.”

Atsuya felt the same. He nodded.

“So whatta we do now?” asked Kohei.

“We’re going back.” Atsuya stood up. “Back to her house. To put back what we stole.”

“We gotta untie her,” Shota continued. “And take off the blindfold, and the duct tape.”

“Yeah.”

“Then what? Run?” Kohei asked.

Atsuya shook his head. “We won’t run. We’ll wait for the police.”

Shota and Kohei showed no signs of protest.

Kohei muttered “We’re going to jail” and drooped his shoulders.

“Maybe they’ll give us parole for turning ourselves in,” said Shota, before turning to Atsuya. “But that’s only the beginning of it. You think it’s hard to find work now? Just wait. What’ll we do?”

Atsuya shook his head again. “I dunno. But I do know one thing. I’m done messing with other people’s stuff.”

Shota and Kohei nodded in silence.

They got their things together and went out the back door. The sun was bright. They could hear sparrows chirping.

The milk crate caught Atsuya’s eye. How many times had they opened and shut that thing that night? It made him sad to think he’d never handle it again.

He popped the lid open one more time. Inside, he found a letter.

Shota and Kohei were halfway down the alley.

“Hey! Look what I found,” he yelled, waving the letter.

The front of the letter said To John/Jane Doe in fountain pen. The handwriting was beautiful.

He opened the envelope and pulled out the pages inside.

Atsuya gulped. He had been the one who slipped the blank sheet of paper through the mail slot. This letter was for him. An answer. Written by none other than the real Mr. Namiya.

Here’s what it said:

Atsuya looked up from the page of paper. He met the gazes of the other two. Their eyes were twinkling.

He was certain his eyes were twinkling, too.