Chapter 1

It's my first work, yet I'm attempting the ambitious challenge of a serial. Please be gentle with me.

I am currently buried.

In what? In clouds.

Even as I say it, I don’t understand the meaning.

But I can only describe it as being buried in clouds.

Looking up, I see the sky; looking sideways, I see the sky.

The part where I am buried is pure white, but a bit further away, the gray parts occasionally flash and rumble.

It doesn’t hurt, but it tingles occasionally.

My head, shoulders, and arms are outside, but from my chest down, I am deeply buried in something white, soft, and smooth.

If I had to compare it, it would be like solid marshmallows.

I tried to get out by using my arms to lift my body, hit, and shake, but I couldn’t get out at all.

Eventually, I got tired and became limp.

Let me reflect on how this all started.

I, Keita Gokki, 42 years old, lost my parents 10 years ago.

I have a twin sister who is two years younger, and three younger brothers who are five years younger, each a year apart.

We lived in a very rural area, or rather, in the mountains.

Our family had a fairly large farm.

My grandparents passed away when I was in elementary school.

We lived a lively life with my grandparents, parents, and six siblings.

My parents and grandfather worked from morning till night in the fields, rice paddies, and mountains, while my grandmother took care of the children.

As the eldest son, I followed my grandfather around the mountains and was taught housework by my grandmother.

When I was in the upper grades of elementary school, the village where we lived became a candidate site for a dam.

The village, mostly elderly, had no way to resist and had to accept it.

The dam construction was a joint project with a private company, which included building some kind of research facility. We received a slightly higher amount of money than the usual land price and relocation compensation.

I didn’t know the details at the time, but this higher amount made it difficult for us to move to the town at the foot of the mountain, known as the lower town.

The landowners in the lower town raised the land prices because we received a higher amount.

The higher amount wasn’t several times more, and we had to find new jobs and start from scratch. It took time to prepare the soil for crops, plant seeds, and harvest.

Due to these circumstances, we decided to move to the suburbs of a local city and buy a house and land there.

After all the procedures were completed, just as we were about to start preparing for the move, my grandfather fell from a familiar cliff and died.

When my grandmother heard this, she had a heart attack and died shortly after.

The whole village mourned, saying that even though they were a close couple, it was unusual for both to pass away at the same time.

Despite the mourning, the moving date was set.

On the day of the move, with my parents' permission, I buried part of my grandparents' ashes at the roots of the largest tree in the mountains.

Compared to the mountains, the local city was quite urban, and at first, I was bewildered by everything.

But on the first day, I got into a serious fight with the school's top troublemaker.

I couldn’t just stand by when my sister was insulted.

Even though he was a troublemaker, he was just a city kid and no match for me, who had run around the mountains every day.

I beat him up until he cried, and for some reason, he became attached to me and became my friend.

After that, I had a very peaceful time.

My father, born and raised on a farm, had never done any other job but farming. However, for the sake of the family, he started working at a factory.

He made a small vegetable garden in the yard, which was less than a tenth of the size of our previous home, and seemed to be convincing himself that it was enough. But the level of a professional farmer's garden and an amateur's garden is different.

It became a topic of conversation among the neighborhood ladies, and several of them asked to learn from him. At my mother's suggestion, he became a teacher at a cultural school on his days off from the factory.

Perhaps it was the right time, but the home gardening class became very popular as a hobby and a way to help the household. He quit his factory job and, as a teacher, was able to support the family.

Though in a different form, my father was very happy to be able to live as a farmer.

My mother, who had worked at a company before marriage, didn’t take long to adapt.

However, she started as a part-time worker, then became a section chief, and eventually a department manager.

With fulfilling jobs, my parents neglected the family.

More than that, when my grandmother was alive, she and I did almost all the housework, so the awareness of doing housework themselves seemed to have completely disappeared.

But no matter how much the neighbors praised me as a reliable eldest son, I couldn’t take care of five children properly as a middle school student, and our life began to fall apart. Worried neighbors reported to the child welfare office, and while we weren’t suspected of abuse, we were almost classified as neglected children.

Finally, my parents realized that they had been leaving all the housework and childcare to their eldest son and apologized with tears.

My parents, who had reflected deeply, tried to participate actively in housework and childcare, but because they had been raised by my grandmother and I had been taking care of everything since then, they didn’t know how to approach their own children. This led to constant arguments between my overly indulgent parents and me.

Thanks to my grandmother's training, my housekeeping skills were far superior to my parents'.

Despite this, they took the housework from me and told me to do what I liked, giving me an amount of pocket money that was too much for a middle school student.

I almost went astray.

Well, my twin sister, who was overbearing, and my youngest brother, who developed a mysterious rash from my mother’s cooking, led to a family meeting. The result was that my parents would only help with housework when they had time, a ridiculous conclusion.

Despite being overwhelmed by taking care of my younger siblings and the so-called "help" from my parents, I spent my middle and high school years.

During my university entrance exams, my parents, apologizing for their past failures, encouraged me to go to a university in Tokyo.

Encouraged by my younger siblings, who said they would work hard this time, I decided to go to a university in Tokyo.

My housekeeping skills were very useful for part-time jobs.

Several times, I received calls for help from home, but when I checked with my sisters, they said it was just because they wanted to slack off and to ignore them.

Even my mother's calls for help were dismissed by my sisters.

At the end of my second year of university, my sister announced her marriage. It was a pregnancy marriage.

When I asked, "What about high school?"

She replied, "I'll do my best to hide it until graduation!"

She had a small wedding with family in April after graduation.

By the end of summer, I had twin nephews.

I was impressed by my sister's resilience.

My other sister went on to further education.

After graduating from university, I got a job at a food company in Tokyo.

During the rainy season of my first year of work, my sister announced her marriage. It was another pregnancy marriage.

She didn’t plan to have a wedding, but sent a photo of her in a wedding dress.

In early winter, I had more twin nephews.

After that, I moved to several departments, had a girlfriend, and broke up, but never got married.

When I complained to my sister, she said she didn’t like men who were better at housework than her.

In my tenth year of work, I received news of my parents' accident and rushed to the hospital.

With their grandchildren in elementary school and their work settled, my parents had taken up traveling as a hobby.

They had an accident on their way back from a trip. A drunk driver had crashed into them.

When I arrived at the hospital, my parents were conscious and smiled at their gathered children and grandchildren.

That night, they both passed away together. Their last words were "Thank you."

The funeral, greetings to relatives, and inheritance procedures were busy, and I could finally take a breath a month after their death. I cried for the first time alone.

In my fifteenth year of work, I received news of my brothers' marriages.

The three brothers, who had started dating around the same time, introduced each other to their girlfriends, and the girls got along well. They decided to have a joint wedding in the fall.

The following year, I had three more nephews, who looked identical like triplets.

In my eighteenth year of work, I was promoted to assistant manager.

It was a late promotion compared to my colleagues, but I was very happy to be congratulated by everyone.

I was surprised to find that my childhood friend, or rather, my childhood troublemaker, Sanrikuzawa Suke, had been newly assigned to my department, Planning 2.

He had joined the company as a mid-career hire.

Suke and I often went out for drinks, enjoyed various hobbies, and occasionally visited and doted on my nephews.

Looking back, those were the peak years of my life.

Five months ago, a very young manager came in.

He was the third son of the president.

He was a man who couldn’t do his job at all.

If he had been quiet, no one would have complained, but someone called him "Young Master Manager," and he fell in love with a section chief from the neighboring Planning 1 department, who was my contemporary.

She had a delusional view of herself, thinking she was incredibly beautiful.

She had long hair that reached her waist, wore heavy makeup, and walked with an unnecessary sway in a tight suit.

Last year's new employee called her "Boneless Ham," and the nickname spread, and she was called "Boneless Section Chief" behind her back.

Everyone wondered what she saw in him.

Young Master Manager tried various approaches to win Boneless Section Chief's affection, but she seemed to think that playing hard to get was a good strategy, and their relationship didn’t progress.

In the meantime, Boneless Section Chief noticed a proposal submitted by a young employee in our department.

Instead of submitting it to me, she submitted it to Young Master Manager.

Boneless Section Chief, who had found the proposal that had been ignored, begged Young Master Manager with a whiny voice to take it home and submit it as her own proposal at the meeting.

The young employee protested that it was his proposal, but since Young Master Manager hadn’t seen it and I didn’t even know it had been submitted, there was no way to defend him, and the matter was left unresolved.

In the end, the proposal didn’t pass.

Young Master Manager, who had been sweet-talked by Boneless Section Chief for the first time, decided to take on Boneless Section Chief's work.

Young Master Manager was a man who couldn’t do his job.

At first, he tried his best, but as the work didn’t progress, Boneless Section Chief became irritated, and Young Master Manager hastily dumped the work on us.

Of course, we had no intention of taking on such work, and when we pushed it back, Young Master Manager started using his father's authority.

The president was a capable and competent man, a man who, despite being a son-in-law, had been given full control of the company by the previous president.

I believed that such a capable president would reprimand the unreasonable dumping of work.

My expectations were shattered.

The president was a foolish parent who could only spoil his son.

The unreasonable work was dumped on us without even a proper explanation.

As sad as it is to be a salaryman, when told to do something by a superior, you can’t refuse. Despite being overwhelmed with our own work, we had to take on more, leading to daily overtime and weekend work.

To at least let the female employees go home, I took on the work, and Sanrikuzawa helped me.

Despite this, the overconfident Young Master Manager and Boneless Section Chief took on more work, and for the last three months, we worked 22 hours a day, had no time to go home, and took short naps in the nearby sauna.

Everyone was feeling their limits. At 9 PM,

"Ah, you're still here? Isn’t it too late to still be working?"

"Really, I'm so tired of these guys. They're slow at work, complain a lot, and are incompetent. They should just do what they're told. My dad is really great for paying these guys..."

Just then, Young Master Manager and Boneless Section Chief, who had been making out, appeared in their sleazy attire. No one knew who was the first to snap,

"Cut it out! This is all your work! You dumped it on us and now you're making fun of it. You're the ones who are slow and incompetent!"

"Right, right, you're just a useless guy who can only use your parents' power to get close to women. Complaining about others, how much of a scumbag are you? And your taste in women is the worst!!"

"Right, right, I don’t know how much you think you're a great woman, but when you take off that heavy makeup, you're ugly! You call yourself curvy, but you're just fat! When you complain about being called a bit overweight as sexual harassment, what you're doing is real power harassment!!"

The pent-up complaints poured out, and everyone was gasping for breath.

Suddenly, shocked by the outburst and unable to speak due to the content of the complaints, the two of them were told,

"Anyway, we feel that we have reached our limit with being used conveniently by you. We can’t take it anymore, so we will take a leave from the company until you sincerely apologize and change your attitude.

After our break, we will also file a complaint with the Labor Standards Bureau, so please look forward to it.

Well, thank you for your hard work!"

As I said this, I made eye contact with everyone, and they all smiled and stood up together, leaving the unfinished work and the company.

At the nearest station, we patted each other on the back and parted in silence.

The train wasn’t very crowded, so I took a nap in an empty seat.

I naturally woke up at my usual station, marveling at how my body remembered even when I was almost at my limit.

I walked slowly, swaying, as I headed home.

How many days had it been since I last went home? I wondered.

Probably about two and a half months.

Two minutes from home, as I slowly climbed the pedestrian bridge, I saw three people arguing.

According to the two men shouting, they were fighting over who was the woman's true love.

I wondered if she was so desirable that two men were fighting over her. The nap had given me a bit of a relaxed attitude.

But one look told me it was a bad situation.

She was 16 or 17 years old, wearing the uniform of a nearby high school known for its fools. Her face might have been cute, but her expression was terrible.

She was completely intoxicated by the idea of being fought over by two men.

Her mouth was twisted in a smug grin, and she made no effort to stop the two men.

I didn’t want to get involved and tried to pass by a bit away.

Just then, I felt someone grab my back. I turned to see what was happening, and the woman, who had been pushed by the two men who had started fighting, was clutching my backpack.

We were on a pedestrian bridge, right next to the stairs. I was already swaying, and there was no way I could support her. The two of us rolled down the stairs.

I didn’t feel pain.

I just felt a warm sensation leaving my body and was extremely cold.

I lost consciousness.