Fiction: Salaryman
Yumiko Yoshida sped through Shin Kiba station, walking quickly in the leftmost part of the underground path. Hundreds of thousands of people passed through this station every day, most with their heads down, looking at their phones like he was. He walked up a flight of stairs to avoid the long line for the escalator and sped off towards the Keiyo line, only to wait in line for the train after he arrived. Yumiko paused and looked up briefly to make sure that he was waiting in the right place. The train station was a crowded mess of people and signs, but everything had their place, and everyone knew where they were going. Despite the teeming mass of people, the ground was clean, even in the clear spring sun. Everyone was wearing business attire or a school uniform.
The train arrived two minutes later, right on schedule. The throngs of people waited respectfully at either side of the train doors for people to exit, then crowded on most disrespectfully. But it was important to get on quickly, or the train would never leave on time. Yumiko arrived at his usual spot. He took the train every day, and waited at the same spot on every train: closest to the doors that were closest to his exit, in this case car one. He stood because he was able to, but at a good spot deeper in the car where he wouldn’t be brushed and bumped, and could hold his phone out unfettered above the seated person in front of him.
Despite the hustle, Yumiko enjoyed the time he spent on the train. It was the only time that was truly his, protected from the necessities of life and the demands of work. He was watching last night’s stream highlights of Meiko-neko, one of his favourite v-tubers. The premise of the stream was that she was a catgirl playing rhythm games while responding to comments from her subscribers. Doing both simultaneously would inevitably lead to poor video game performance, so she would mope around, only to be cheered on by her viewers. She had cute fluffy ears and almost looked like a ragdoll. Yumiko had no idea who the person behind the screen really looked like: Meiko’s facial expressions and body actions were motion captured and then mapped onto her animated face. But again, only her animated face mattered.
A set of white cat ears suddenly bumped into his face. Yumiko looked away from the screen to see a large cat with a pink ribbon looking at him right in the eyes. Then, the cat tilted back impossibly far to reveal the head of a girl who apologized, and he realized that he was looking at a hat that looked like a cat, perched on a girl’s head. The train was now full of people wearing furry hats with characters on them: Monsters Inc, Minions, Mickey, and of course, the Aristocats. Yumiko sighed and turned back to his phone. This was a common occurrence for him on his way to work. Not that there were that many Harajuku girls in Tokyo, but the train he took to work was terminated at Tokyo Disneyland. So every day on the way to work he was surrounded by people who were visiting the happiest place in the world. Not just families and couples, but groups of young adults of both genders would also visit Disney together.
Yumiko tried to ignore the other passengers on the train as much as possible. It wasn’t that he felt awkward as a briefcase toting salaryman amongst all the people looking to spend time with their loved ones. He felt out of place at a more fundamental level, a middle-age between idyllic childhood and blissful family life. Perhaps being surrounded by the world’s happiest people every morning would make other people happy, but not Yumiko. No, the assembled melange of life was too much for him to bear if he thought about it, so he turned back to Meiko-neko. She would help him reclaim his time, and keep his thoughts from wandering.
Soon, the train stopped at the terminal station, and everyone rushed off. Yumiko trudged off as well, descending a set of ordinary-coloured stairs, and heading down an ordinary-looking road. Around him, he could see several other people without silly hats on, walking in the same direction as he was. It was a brisk five-minute walk, and then they all made the same right turn to end up at the offices of Oriental Land Company.
The Oriental Land Company was a spinoff of Keisei Electric Railway, now owned by conglomerate mix. Originally founded in 1909, it started as a local train service in Eastern Tokyo, from where it slowly expanded into a large rail operator. In 1960, at the height of Japan’s economic miracle, the Oriental Land Company found its humble beginnings as a land reclamation company, extended the mainland of Tokyo where there was previously only sea. Twenty years and many negotiations later, Oriental Land Company was the proud owner of Tokyo Disneyland, the only Disneyland to this day that wasn’t owned by Disney itself. Tokyo Disney led to the creation of the economically unsuccessful Euro Disney, and the mediocre rival Disneyland Hong Kong. It outperformed the market’s speculations, and continues to operate today as an independent park with licensing from Disney. That was the corporate Kool-Aid anyways.
This of course, had no bearing whatsoever on Yumiko’s work as he walked into the office building. There were no characters to greet him, no gaudily painted walls. Instead, everything was a sanitized grey as he scanned his keycard and then took the narrow stairs up to the second floor. He worked in accounts receivable, and while his department concerned themselves with credit cycles, supplier contracts, and deferred payments, Yumiko oversaw partner risk and credit health. Whenever there was a new contract, he would check their credit history and calculate how much confidence they had in this partner, and what sort of terms they were able to extend to them. It was meticulous work, and Yumiko found a certain sense of pride in it.
He walked over to his desk: not a slow trudge, but not energetic strides either. Just an ordinary walk for an ordinary salaryman. He sat down: not a tired plop, but not with a perfect posture. Just like everyone else. Twenty of the sixty desks in the room were already filled, and he was twenty-seven, joining the faceless masses.
