Come spring Nishioka would gone. If there was trouble, Majime would have to handle it. Sorry, he thought. Hang in there, buddy.
While mentally dodging responsibility for future consequences of his clash with the professor, Nishioka pledged to himself that he would choose substance over appearance. Araki often said, “A dictionary is the product of teamwork.” The meaning of that statement was now clear to him. He wouldn’t be like the professor—dash off any old thing and have his name on the dictionary as a matter of form. He’d do all he could to aid completion of The Great Passage, wherever in the company he was assigned. Getting his name on it wasn’t the point. Even if all trace of his time in the Dictionary Editorial Department vanished and Majime said, “Nishioka? I kind of remember somebody by that name,” it didn’t matter. All that mattered was putting together a fine dictionary. He would still be in the same company, and he would do his utmost to support the team going all out to make The Great Passage the best it could be.
Nishioka went down the stairs and out the door. The pale white light of a winter afternoon lit up the campus. Leafless branches of a gingko tree made cracks in the sky.
He would respond to the passion of others with passion of his own. Until now he had avoided doing so out of sheer embarrassment, but something had changed. Having made up his mind, he felt a thrill of excitement.
Back in the office, Nishioka gave Majime a full report on his run-in with the professor. Majime stopped what he’d been doing to listen and, when Nishioka was finished, looked at him with respect.
“Wow! You’re like an extortionist!”
The gap between his awed expression and his choice of words left Nishioka bewildered.
“That’s your response?”
“Absolutely. If it had been me, I’d have gotten down on all fours or eaten out of the palm of his hand.” The use of irony was not in Majime’s skill set. He apparently meant this as sincere praise.
“Listen, Majime.”
“What?”
Nishioka swiveled his chair to face Majime, sitting knee to knee with him. The chair cushion had slipped out of place, and he took time to set it to rights before going on. Majime waited. Finally Nishioka sat down again and said seriously, “What I’m saying is, because I bungled it he might come back and cause trouble.”
“I doubt it.” Majime said. “As you said, he’ll choose appearance over substance.”
“What if he quits?”
“Let him. I really couldn’t care less.”
The cold tone took Nishioka by surprise.
“Sorry,” said Majime, smiling wryly. “I can’t help it—I expect others to be at least as committed as I am.”
Nishioka nodded. The more you took a project to heart, the more your expectations of others on the team were bound to rise. The same way that if you loved someone, you wanted them to love you back.
At the same time, he found the depth and intensity of Majime’s commitment to the dictionary remarkable. Meeting his expectations and demands would be no easy task. Majime looked easygoing, but his soul was on fire. Nishioka let out a small sigh. Kaguya might find she had bitten off more than she could chew, getting involved with this guy. And if a new hire came to the Dictionary Editorial Department, that person would have their work cut out for them, too.
Ease up, Majime, he thought. Otherwise everyone around you is going to end up choking. Expectations and demands that weigh too heavy are poison. You’ll be worn down in the end, when you don’t get what you’re looking for. You’ll wind up exhausted, resigned, and alone, unable to trust anyone.
As Nishioka pondered, the late afternoon passed into evening, and soon it was quitting time. Majime, unusually for him, prepared to leave on the dot.
“Going home already?”
“Tonight Kaguya has sole charge of one item on the menu. I thought I’d go to Umenomi and try it out.” He cheerfully stuffed reference materials and a sheaf of manuscripts into his briefcase. “Want to come?”
“That’s okay,” Nishioka said, shooing him off.
Majime went around to each student worker and apologized for leaving first. Finally he was gone. Nishioka turned back to his desk and set to work. The details of his replacement were uncertain. Majime might be the only full-time employee in the department for some time. With the faint sound of the part-timers working in the background, Nishioka bestirred himself. If put upon by someone like the professor today, Majime would be hard pressed to deal with it. Somebody had to help him handle such scenarios. Nishioka wanted to leave a record of all he knew to help his successor.
He began typing up all the information he had gathered about the various contributors—their quirks, their likes and dislikes, their foibles, their academic stature, their private lives, trouble that was likely to occur and how to deal with it. He made it as detailed as possible. When he’d finished, he printed the document and put it in a file with a blue cover. Since the information was sensitive, he deleted the computer file and marked the blue file with a magic marker: TOP SECRET: VIEW ONLY IN DICTIONARY EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT OFFICE. It ended up being a pretty voluminous file, but something was missing.
Nishioka thought it over and then had an idea. He opened his drawer and took out the love letter Majime had written. When asked to critique it, he hadn’t missed the opportunity to make a copy. Fifteen sheets of paper. Made him laugh every time he read it.
One of the college students gave him a funny look as he sat laughing silently to himself. Nishioka hastily composed his expression and began hunting for a hiding place. A bookshelf would be ideal, but if he stuck it between two books, somebody was sure to find it right away. He pretended to examine the rows of books while carefully selecting a place to hide the love letter. In the end he stuck it under a bookend on the shelf holding miscellaneous titles like How to Write a Letter and All You Need to Know about Weddings and Funerals.
After concealing the love letter, Nishioka returned to his desk and added a new sheet of paper to a clear pocket in the blue file. On it were the words: “Worn out by dictionary editing? Ready to be cheered up? Drop Masashi Nishioka a line: [email protected].”
That would do it. He put the top-secret file in a conspicuous place on the bookshelf. Then he stretched and reached for his briefcase. It was after nine, and most of the student workers had gone home. He called out to the two remaining part-timers.
“Let’s call it a day and go get something to eat. My treat.”
“All right!” said one enthusiastically. “I vote for Chinese.”
“Korean barbecue sounds good to me,” said the other.
They punched their time cards, chattering with excitement.
“Whoa. You want me to go broke? Make it ramen or a beef bowl.”
“What?”
“No way!”
Despite their disappointment, they were laughing.