"Our first payment, a memorable occasion. We can't not celebrate."
Mikoshiba brought it up the night of the day Ohata Tofu Shop's invoice was paid. The three of them still had their belongings scattered across the floor of the coworking space. Even so, the fact that their bank balance had, for the first time, tipped toward going up was apparently an event worth celebrating, to him.
"Agreed. There's a place I've been wanting to go forever."
Aya's hand shot up at once.
"Good timing. Starting tomorrow, we won't be able to drink in peace for a while," Mikoshiba added, sounding somehow pleased. "The Makoto beta launch. As users increase, strange things get mixed in to match. —The calm before the storm, as they say."
Only Mio spoke without looking up from her screen.
"I don't see the necessity of celebrating. Whether Makoto's user count grows doesn't change with the presence or absence of alcohol."
"It doesn't. It doesn't, but—" Mikoshiba gently made her close her laptop. "If people don't put down markers, they keep running until they break. This is part of the employee benefits. Come on."
Employee benefits, Mio repeated to herself. In that case, she had no reason to refuse. Running the brain continuously did degrade performance, it was true. She stood up obediently.
"Where's the place?"
"A pretty nice Japanese restaurant in Gotanda. I've had my eye on it forever," Aya answered immediately.
"Just to be clear, this isn't going on expenses. It's my treat," Mikoshiba added.
"A business decision."
"No, just a treat."
They met in front of the restaurant. Mikoshiba had arrived first and was waiting.
When he caught sight of Mio coming around the corner, for an instant Mikoshiba doubted his eyes.
It wasn't Mio in a suit, or Mio in a hoodie after an all-nighter. A woman in a pale dress with a light cardigan over it—the kind you might see anywhere, and yet demure enough to draw the eye—was walking toward him down the darkening alley.
"Did I keep you waiting?"
Mio said it in a voice half a tone softer than usual. Even her manner was somehow ladylike.
Mikoshiba started to say something, and in the end it took him a full two seconds to get back to his usual cool salesman's face.
"...No. Right on time."
For Mio herself, this wasn't difficult. The clothes themselves she had chosen only for comfort, but the behavior was a product of calculation. If you chose the output that looked most harmless, the people around you didn't pry. The cheapest cost for minimizing the inefficiency of being pried into. The camouflage of demureness was, in short, energy-saving.
Aya, arriving late, saw Mio and her eyes went round.
"Wait, Mio, you own clothes like that?! And what is that demure aura? That's a scam."
"It's not a scam," Mio said with a straight face. "It's optimization."
They were shown to a tatami room, and Mikoshiba ordered, "Three draft beers to start."
Mio drained about half of the beer poured for her without pausing. Her color didn't change one millimeter.
"You can drink," Mikoshiba said, impressed.
"I'm good at metabolizing alcohol. It's a kind of processing too. My liver enzyme activity is just high."
"Processing," Aya laughed.
From there, Mio drank a lot. While Mikoshiba talked about the outlook for expanding the business—"A hundred people next month, a thousand in six months. As people grow, we'll start to see the flow of money too"—and Aya talked about preparing for Makoto's launch, Mio emptied cup after cup, unperturbed. And yet the precision of her conversation didn't drop at all; if anything, she seemed to grow sharper. "The flow of money," Mio murmured to no one in particular, tilting her sake cup. Wherever people gathered on a board, those who sniffed out the smell of money were sure to come. But for now, it was only a small murmur, small enough to be lost in the drinking.
"Mio, beer is basically water to you," Aya said, exasperated. "You can't get drunk like this. Let's raise the proof. Let's do sake."
"Hey, hey, don't make her drink too much." Mikoshiba tried to stop Aya, but Aya had already ordered a sake flask.
It was just as the third sake flask was emptied.
Mio set down her sake cup with a soft clack.
As if it were the sound of some threshold being crossed, the air changed.
"...Hey. Mikoshiba."
Mikoshiba looked up. The look in Mio's eyes was different from a moment ago. Hazy, and yet strangely steady. The camouflage of demureness had peeled away without a sound.
"Listen, you."
Mio propped an elbow on the table. Even her voice had dropped a step lower, collapsed into something rough.
"Listen up. You listen good. You put yourself last way too much."
"...Himuro?"
"Don't 'Himuro' me. I said listen." Mio thrust her sake cup toward Aya, demanding a pour. Aya poured, with a face that said this was too much fun. "You, you're always celebrating everybody else, first revenue this, that. You ever counted how many days you haven't slept?"
Mikoshiba flinched. The man who was usually the one winning people over was, unmistakably, flinching.
"No, I'm not, really..."
"Don't give me 'not really,'" Mio snapped, cutting him off. "You management types, you're always trying to make people run on guts. Deadline's in trouble? Guts. Not enough people? Grit. —Yeah. Same as the last place."
Here it comes, Aya thought. Mikoshiba's glass had stopped.
"The guy who pulled the all-nighter is the big man. There's a mountain of papers saying cut your sleep and your productivity drops, and nobody reads 'em." Mio's tone went even drier, from the bottom of her drunkenness. She gave a short snort through her nose. Not resentment. Just a face that said how stupid it all was. "So what the hell are you doing, of all people, repeating that unscientific crap? That kind of thing is exactly why you started a company, isn't it?"
Mikoshiba was at a loss for words. The president was getting beaten over the head with sound arguments by a drunk engineer, and had been put completely on the defensive.
Mind you—Aya added inwardly—that sound argument about not cutting your sleep applies right back at Mio, word for word. A habitual all-nighter who greets the morning without a care once she's in the zone, lecturing someone about productivity. But she didn't say it. She wasn't so tactless as to stop this supreme spectacle herself.
"...You're right," Mikoshiba finally managed. "I'll be careful."
"Don't just stop at 'I'll be careful.' Be specific," Mio showed no mercy. "Listen. People lock in their memories while they sleep. Cutting that is the same as throwing that day's work in the gutter yourself. You're a manager, right? Where's the manager who throws resources down the drain? Are you an idiot?"
"An id—"
"You're an idiot," Mio declared. "First-rate when it comes to talking, and sloppy on just that one thing."
Aya had reached her limit. She stifled her voice, and narrated, only in her heart, like a butler.
—If I may humbly observe. Master Mikoshiba is at this moment being thoroughly argued into the ground. A gentleman who is ordinarily so impeccably composed, pressed back by a drunken CTO armed with sound reasoning, and reduced to pure defense. What a delightful evening this is. I shall never, as long as I live, forget this sight.
Only her mouth gave way, unable to hold it in—pfft.
"Aya, don't laugh," Mikoshiba said, as though asking for help.
"Can't. Sorry. Can't."
And then Mikoshiba made a decisive mistake.
He tried to soothe the drunk Mio.
"Himuro. All right. All right, I get it. ...Here, drink some water. You should rest a bit too. I'm worried about you."
At the word worried, Mio's steady eyes narrowed sharply.
"Worried?"
Mio rolled the word over once at the bottom of her intoxication. And then—without any emotion, any flutter, any hesitation—she simply processed it as a point of argument.
"Listen, Mikoshiba. I don't need your worrying. Worry about your own sleep instead. Don't change the subject."
Something of Mikoshiba's, something that broke down only for Mio, was bounced back into a lecture before it could reach its addressee. As if his one humble remark had been judged a diversion from the issue, and rejected.
"...This," Mikoshiba said, pressing a hand to his forehead and laughing softly. It was a laugh of surrender. "This is a new side of her. Of the person called Mio Himuro."
"Huh?"
"Nothing. I mean I've learned something."
Mio snorted and drained her sake cup again.
That night, Mio's lecture went on until closing time. Management, sleep, management again. Mikoshiba never managed to get control back, and just kept answering, "Right," "You're absolutely right," "I'll be careful." Aya, with that as her snack, drank the best sake of her life.
Mio didn't pass out. She kept that rough tone to the very end, sitting bolt upright and ruling the tatami room. Neither the one being carried nor the one doing the carrying, she was simply the king of the room.
The next morning.
At the usual time, the usual Mio in her usual suit appeared on the floor of the coworking space. Back straight, voice half a tone lower and stiff, without a shred of the roughness from last night.
"Good morning."
Mikoshiba looked at her with wary eyes. Aya's shoulders shook as she failed to hold it in.
Mio felt a slight sense of something off about the two of them. The observed values were outside the usual distribution.
"...What is it? You're both acting strange."
"Nothing," Mikoshiba said. "Himuro, do you remember last night?"
Mio thought for a moment. She searched for the last point of her memory. The third sake flask—everything after that was cleanly missing.
"...I remember up to the third one. After that, there's no log left," Mio frowned. "Did I do something?"
Mikoshiba and Aya looked at each other.
"No." "Nothing."
Their voices were perfectly in unison. Far too much in unison.
Mio was slightly snagged on that suspicious correlation, but she had nothing to pursue it with. What had no log couldn't be verified. She put it on hold and opened her laptop.
"I'm starting today's preparations for the Makoto beta launch."
"Right," Mikoshiba said, in a voice of heartfelt relief. "Let's do that."
Only Aya, at an angle Mio couldn't see, burst out once more—pfft.
—If I may be so bold. Lady Mio Himuro. You shall forever remain unaware that last night you stood at the very summit of this company. And that is precisely what makes you our company's Ice Bayes. I pray with all my heart for your continued well-being this day as well.
Mio, not noticing that gaze either, had already begun to think about the next problem.