Phone Call

“Thank you for calling Sugawa Delivery Service. Please hold and we will be with you shortly.”

A premade, robotic voice speaks on the other line. She had easily been able to find a contact number for the company Kyo worked at before his passing while browsing for it online. She had been considering searching his room for any loose business cards but felt this would be the quickest option.

She was given a few service options by the automated voice, but she waited until they offered one that would lead to her speaking to a real person. Within a few minutes of attempted redirection for other potential issues and elevator music, she managed to connect with an employee.

“Good evening, this is Miyuki from the Sugawa Delivery front desk, how may I assist you today?” The clinical voice of the woman on the other side of the call rang through her ears. Her name made Asuka react, only one syllable off from Misaki. She had waited so long that when she had finally made contact with someone, she didn’t know what to say.

“I, uh,” she started slowly. “Hello, I am a family member of a previous employee, would it be possible for me to collect some information about him for…legal purposes?”

“Please wait a moment.” Asuka drummed on her knee with four fingers with no particular rhythm as she waited for Miyuki to come back. She was absently humming to the music when she heard a voice.

“Hello, sorry for the wait. I will now transfer you to HR services, will that be alright?”

“Ah, yes, thank you.”

This wait was shorter than before, and she was soon greeted by someone with a deeper, nasally voice. “Good evening, this is Yamada of the Sugawa Delivery HR department, how may I help you today?” Asuka was prepared this time, and she repeats the same line she gave to the front desk agent, but with more confidence.

“What is the name of the former employee?”

“His name was Tachibana Kyo.”

The person on the other end pauses for a moment. “Tachibana Kyo,” he repeats. Asuka has a feeling she knows the reason for his hesitation. “And what is your name and relation to Ky—Tachibana?”

“I’m his sister, Tachibana Asuka.” Somehow it feels weird for her to say.

“Ah…Tachibana Asuka-sama. Thank you for contacting us, we have been trying to reach you regarding some remaining possessions and documents left by Tachibana Kyo. Would you be available to make the trip to collect them at your earliest convenience?”

Asuka makes a confused expression. They’ve been trying to contact her? Asuka works her brain but she has no recollection of too much that happened after Kyo died. She also wasn’t expecting to be invited into the building by the company itself, but she’ll gladly seize the opportunity. “Yes of course. Is tomorrow at…12 pm an appropriate time for you?” She does her best to match his professional rhythm.

“Yes, that would be fine. The address for this Sugawa branch is…” the man from the HR department gave Asuka detailed instructions on where and how to reach the specific office Kyo used to work from. She’s never been there personally before, but she knows he used to commute by train to the next town over.

“We look forward to seeing you, please have a nice rest of your day.” Asuka says goodbye and hangs up the phone. She stares at the screen until it goes blank and her face stares back at her in the dark reflection. She let her hand fall with a sigh; the phone bounces out of her hand and onto the couch. The tense energy she had built up while talking leaves her body and she reclines back on the beat-up sofa.

It looks like she’s due for another outing. Until starting the bucket list, she had been out more times than she had within the past 6 weeks. The desire for traveling had been squeezed out of her back then and has never been the same since.

What the man said about trying to contact her gets her thinking and she tries to remember when that could have been. Most likely they tried to call her when her phone battery had been dead, and she’d let it stay that way for a long time before picking it up only to see missed calls from an unknown number. If that was from Sugawa she never bothered to check.

All of this is for the sake of finding Misaki. And Asuka doesn’t even know if they’ll answer her questions about his previous delivery route. She was told that she must bring some proof of her identity to the meeting in order to receive the things that Kyo left behind.

“I guess I’ll use my student card,” she said reluctantly. Despite getting expelled from high school, she kept the outdated piece of plastic with her on a whim. It sits in one of the miniature drawers she keeps stationery on her bedroom desk.

The next morning, Asuka wakes up to the alarm she set for 9 am so that she can make it to the office before 11:30. She already showered the night before to decrease morning prep time, so the first thing she does is wash her face and brush her teeth.

She gives up on attempting to brush her hair into a manageable style, wrangling her reddish-brown curls under a fruit print bandana instead. She put on clothes that she feels will give off the best impression to someone she’s never met before. She decided to go with an oversized yellow cable knit sweater and a long black skirt with a light brown grid pattern to give off a sweeter impression. It’s a far cry from her usual ensemble of a T-shirt, jacket, and jeans, but she doesn’t mind the change.

Downstairs she creates a mental checklist of all the things she needs to bring with her in her shoulder bag so that she was not met with any unpleasant surprises by the time she was already halfway out the door. “Student card, train pass, keys, notebook…” with everything in place she heads toward the door, backtracking to grab an unwrapped piece of bread from the fridge. The trash she left the other day is still there, so she makes sure to take it out with her.

It’s been a while since she’d ridden on the train. Everything she’d needed was restricted to the area around her home, so it wasn’t really necessary to travel any further. She’s been outside of Matsushige before, knowing this is probably the same train Kyo used to take every time to go to work makes her feel closer to him.

Asuka observes her surroundings. The train is quiet, as most people would have made it to school or work many hours before her. A boy in street clothes stands by a pole despite the large number of empty seats, listening to music with headphones on. She can tell by the way he bobs his head up and down. When she looks to her right, she sees an old woman in the priority seating area, reading a book through beaded glasses.

About a week had passed since the first announcement that the meteor on its way to Earth would be making its way here in 11 months. She becomes more aware of this every time she steps outside of the house. Like before, not many people appear to be reacting, at least not outwardly. For all she knows, they could be setting aside their own affairs, just as she is doing with her brother’s bucket list. Why is she anticipating something bad to happen? She thinks to herself that maybe she’s just watched too many apocalypse movies.

Her mind goes back to the time she was knocked down by that thief while he was running away from the cops. When he mentioned the end of the world, the reactions of the people around with that of incredulous scrutiny. It’s possible that as the months go by, things may get more chaotic as more people try to cope with the idea of losing everything, but for now she’ll do her own thing.

Asuka makes it to the Sugawa office about 10 minutes before her noon meeting with Terushima-san. She had spoken with someone else from HR on the phone yesterday, but was told she would be speaking to him. The train ride itself was around 30 minutes from where she was in Matsushige, and the office is 8 minutes away, basically right around the corner from the station.

She can imagine Kyo enjoying a quiet commute while he caught up on sleep, that is, at least until she remembers how packed and stuffy trains get first thing in the morning. Oh well, it was a nice thought while it lasted.

When she enters the building, she is greeted by a front desk agent whose voice she recognizes from over the phone. “Hello, good morning,” she beams professionally as Asuka approaches her. “Welcome to the Sugawa Delivery Takamatsu branch. How can I help you?”

Asuka feels like she recognizes her voice; her eyes automatically flit down to the woman’s name tag, and sure enough it is Miyuki.

“Good morning, I’m here for a meeting with Terushima-san from the HR department.” Miyuki types up something on her computer and pauses. She looks up to Asuka and asks for verification of identity. Asuka looks through her bag and rummages around until she finds the student ID. She hands it to Miyuki, who takes it professionally with two hands, bowing as she does so.

She stares at it for a bit longer than Asuka is used to. She begins to sweat, did they somehow know she no longer went to that school? Is it invalid somehow? But, before she can ask herself another question, Miyuki returns the card back to her. Asuka feels like she can notice a difference in Miyuki’s expression, her eyes take on a misty look as she tells Asuka to head to the waiting room on the second floor of the building.

Taking a red marker, she writes Asuka’s name on a printed card and hands it to her with a smile that seems to be trying to hide the conflicted look in her eyes. “Here is your visitor’s pass, please have a nice day.” Confused, but relieved, Asuka makes her way through the narrow hallway and enters a small elevator placed at the end.