After a grueling day of work, Tsukiyuki Kyoichi was utterly exhausted. As the head of J-Country’s premier financial conglomerate and the patriarch of the Tsukiyuki Clan, he commanded wealth that rivaled nations. Yet in his personal life, Kyoichi had no taste for extravagance. He rarely bought luxury goods, and his daily meals were simple, home-style fare.
Sprawled across the sofa, his aging body left him feeling powerless. This was an era of relentless change, and he constantly learned new things, terrified of being left behind by the times—and, through poor leadership, dragging the Tsukiyuki Clan into an abyss of ruin.
For now, however, Kyoichi’s thinking remained anything but outdated. His clan strategy was fiercely aggressive, and he had even raked in a fortune from the internet industry of the new age, earning the reverence of his people.
“Kyoichi, you must make the Tsukiyuki Family great.”
His memories of his father were already thoroughly hazy, little more than a vague impression of a stern man.
He remembered that era, when so many had been feverish, the entire country as if possessed. He loathed that time, loathed the war. When the fighting finally ended, he had feigned grief, but inside, he had been laughing so hard he could barely contain it.
Not long after the war, he met his wife.
Kyoichi pulled out a thick photo album. Riko had been truly young then. Both his daughter, Senju, and his granddaughter, Rio, took after her so much.
“Riko, perhaps it won’t be long before I can come and keep you company.”
A withered hand brushed over the photograph, as though gently stroking a maiden’s skin.
Once Tsukiyuki Rio succeeded him as the new head of the Tsukiyuki Family, he would have more time to spend thinking of his late wife.
Ring, ring, ring…
The telephone rang. Kyoichi rose, and a sharp pain shot through his back as he straightened up.
His body’s various functions were nearing their limits. When he was buried in work, he paid little attention to his physical condition. But whenever he rested, pain swarmed him, leaving him restless and ill at ease.
“This is Tsukiyuki Kyoichi.” He picked up the phone.
“Kyoichi, you old fossil, you’re still alive?” An equally aged voice came from the other end. “This year’s class reunion—are you still able to make it?”
“Class reunion?” Kyoichi was momentarily stunned.
“I’m asking you: are you coming or not?”
“I’ll attend.”
“How rare. I thought you’d use work as an excuse to brush it off again.”
“When you get on in years, you start to feel nostalgic.”
“I’ll send you the location later. How about holding the reunion tomorrow?”
“Fine.” Kyoichi hesitated. “Minase, just how many years has it been since we last met?”
“Who can remember something like that? And anyway, I’m not Minase. That old codger Minase passed away the year before last. I’m Shimizu.”
“Right, right, just look at my memory. It’s been so long since we saw each other, I’ve clean forgot.”
“Then we’ll see each other tomorrow. Don’t stand me up.”
“Agreed.”
He set down the phone, and Kyoichi fell silent.
A moment later, his mobile phone vibrated.
Shimizu had sent over the address for tomorrow’s class reunion.
In the past, you’d have to rely on a map to find any place. Without geographic knowledge, you’d run around like a headless fly. Now it was completely different. Smartphones came with electronic navigation systems that even an old-timer with Alzheimer’s could handle easily.
The times truly were nothing like the past.
“Have the car ready for eight tomorrow morning,” Kyoichi said to his personal driver.
“Yes, Master!”
Kyoichi didn’t tell anyone in the Tsukiyuki Family about his plan to attend the reunion. After all, it was a private matter, and attending a class reunion was no great affair. Besides, his personal driver was also a competent bodyguard, so there was no need to fear any danger while out and about.
The sedan cruised along a winding mountain road without the slightest jolt, yet Kyoichi still felt that familiar ache in his waist. Before outsiders, he always straightened his back. He was, after all, the patriarch of the Tsukiyuki Clan and had to maintain a leader’s dignity.
But in private, the sensation of pain left Kyoichi’s forehead beaded with sweat, like a dull knife sawing at flesh. He even began to think he’d simply brought this suffering on himself. Why had he agreed to go to this class reunion?
White mist swirled through the mountains, and visibility on the road ahead was so poor you couldn’t see a thing. One careless move, and the car would plummet off a cliff, killing everyone inside in a fiery wreck.
He couldn’t guess which old codger had arranged to meet at a place like this.
Perhaps to pass the time, Kyoichi asked slowly:
“Yoshida, how many years have you been my personal driver now?”
“I’ve been driving for you for ten years now, Master.”
“Ten years in the blink of an eye. How time flies. Back then, you were just a young lad, and now you’ve got wrinkles of your own. A man’s life shouldn’t just be about work. You need to look after your family, too.”
The car drove on through the fog. Then, all at once, the road ahead opened up wide and clear, completely unobstructed. The pain in Kyoichi’s waist vanished.
At the mountain peak stood a towering hotel, so tall you could barely see the top, at least eighty floors high. It soared into the clouds, vast and majestic, its facilities rivaling a five-star establishment. Yet Kyoichi had no memory of such a hotel. He knew every luxury hotel in all J-Country, but he had never once set foot here.
Skirting a fountain, the driver pulled up at the hotel entrance. A bellhop opened the door for Kyoichi and took his luggage.
“I can’t figure this place out.”
Kyoichi stepped inside the hotel and was immediately struck by a complete lack of reality. The place was bizarre and absurd. Who had designed a high-rise hotel on a mountaintop? The interior décor was the height of extravagance, yet the building stood completely empty, unsettling and a little sinister.
Kyoichi walked to the front desk to check in.
“Sir, our rooms are fully booked. Do you have a prior reservation?”
“Fully booked?”
“Yes.”
“I should have a reservation. I’m here for a class reunion. My name is Tsukiyuki Kyoichi.”
“You are Sir Tsukiyuki Kyoichi. Your room is on the 82nd floor.”
“The 82nd floor?”
“Yes. The top floor.”
“I see. Thank you.”
Kyoichi had the vague sense that the front desk clerk resembled someone, but for a moment he could not recall who. Yet he felt certain that the person was deeply important to him. He had only forgotten for a moment.
“Lord Kyoichi, I’ve parked the car.”
By the time he had finished checking in, his personal driver had caught up.
“Good work.”
“Where to now?”
“The 82nd floor.”
“Master, you are eighty-two years old this year yourself.”
“What a coincidence.”
Stepping into the spacious elevator, the scenery outside was laid out below them in full view. So many things had happened over the course of his eighty-two-year life. At the seventeenth floor, the elevator stopped, and a woman stepped inside. Her attire carried a hint of Shōwa-era charm. She was young and beautiful, and bore a faint resemblance to both Senju and Rio. And like so many women, she moved with careful, guarded steps.
Upon entering the elevator, she even made a point of nodding and greeting Kyoichi.
He recalled that when he first met Riko, he, too, had been seventeen. The news of defeat had spread through every street and alley. And the events of yesterday—how they drifted past like smoke before the eyes.
