Mikoshiba decided on the company name on the spot. Sigma Inc.
"Σ—the summation sign," he said. "You take scattered points, add them together, and make them mean something. That's exactly what you do, isn't it?"
"Sigma has one more meaning," Mio cut in, speaking up on her own for the first time. "The σ of standard deviation. The symbol that measures how far something strays from the mean. ...Looking at the outliers, in other words. Finding the strange things hidden among the normal ones."
"I like it," Mikoshiba laughed. "We'll take that too."
They had reached an agreement. Then the business here was done, and the rest could be worked out later, in documents and email. Having concluded as much, Mio shifted the laptop under her arm and started to walk off toward the station to go home. The train timetable had already been optimized in her head.
Mikoshiba suddenly caught her by the arm.
"This way."
"...?"
"I've called a taxi. You're not going home yet today. We're going to look at a property. There's a vacancy at a cheap coworking space in Gotanda. I'll walk you through the incorporation paperwork in the car. So you don't need to work out the timetable home."
Mio looked down at the arm he was holding.
The other party had taken over the optimization of her travel. Arranging the taxi, choosing the route, saving her cognitive resources. —Rational, Mio concluded. An efficient division of roles between co-managers. Very reasonable.
She classified the warmth of his palm as nothing more than a reduction in travel costs.
Not yet knowing that this classification was the first of what would be hundreds of repetitions to come.
In the back seat of the taxi, Mikoshiba was already talking about the next thing.
"The company starts running today. But you can't eat ideals. Starting tomorrow, we have to earn."
"Earn?"
"Contract work. The unsolvable problems other companies have given up on. We pick them up, you solve them, I sell. That's how we earn the rent on the lab."
Mikoshiba said it lightly, watching the city flow past the window.
"As it happens, I have one in mind. A tofu shop that's about to go under because of inventory trouble nobody can explain. —I'll bring in our first meal ticket."
Mio gazed absently at her own face reflected in the window glass.
Not even an hour had passed since she became unemployed. And yet, already, the next problem to solve was dangling right in front of her.
No title, no capital. All she had was the laptop on her knees and the man beside her talking about the future without asking.
And yet, strangely, she didn't feel the least bit lost.