Job Offer

Dear Matsumoto-sama,

Thank you very much for attending the interview last Tuesday. We are delighted to inform you about our decision to offer you the position as Research Assistant to Kyourin-sensei, starting next week. We were impressed by your technical knowledge and professional attitude, as well as your personal motivation to contribute to the future of the field of medicine and hope you will accept our offer.

Please let us know of your decision at your earliest convenience.

With best regards,
K. Fukuhara, HR Department

Kyourin Laboratories
Our Future, Naturally Together

——

Shohei received the email in the middle of cooking lunch, covering his whole phone in flour while reading the result of his interview. In his defense, the device had been covered in flour before. There was no possible world in which it wouldn’t have been as it served as the screen for the recipe Shohei was working on. Even though he liked cooking, he was never the most coordinated while doing it—as opposed to working in the lab.

Kyourin Laboratories was named after Eisaku Kyourin, a luminary in the field of drug research based on natural substances. His experiments were often controversial, his approaches untested, but the results were unmistakable. Still, the actual laboratory only employed about ten people on site, and five more out in the field.

With measured movements, Shohei turned his phone off and concentrated on separating the noodles left on the bench, dusting everything with even more flour. He lowered them into the boiling water and stared as they danced in the bubbles.

Kyourin Laboratories had not been his first choice. Not even his second or his third, but after applying to jobs for months, he had no other option left. It wasn’t like it was a disreputable place, but… Well, working directly with the man himself would earn him some professional credits, at least. He didn’t have to stay there forever.

After his dinner, he picked up the phone again and sent his acceptance message. There. Done.

He had yet to meet the man he was supposed to assist, but it didn’t matter in the long run. Kyourin-sensei couldn’t be worse than his overbearing PhD supervisor, who had stuck his nose and opinion into everything, to the point that Shohei had preferred working at home whenever he could. If he’d gotten through years and years of that, working in a lab would be easy. His supervisor had been the main reason he’d refused the Post-Doc position at university in the first place.

No. No bad thoughts now. There were four days until his first job. Shohei vaguely remembered someone saying something about comfortable shoes being the most important thing in a lab job and settled in to look up shops to visit over the weekend.

——

Kyourin Laboratories
Our Future, Naturally Together

He had to give it to them… the sign on the building looked quite nice. For that matter, the whole front made out of glass and lights like that one brand store with the fruit name, was very futuristic. But it was also overgrown—vines, flowers, ferns and moss growing all around the structure like a hanging garden, which gave the interior a perpetual smell of fresh forest ground. Shohei had loved it when he first interviewed, and he still loved it when he walked into the building as a fresh employee.

Not even twenty people in the company, but their image could rival the big pharmaceutical companies of Japan any day. Situated on an artificial island in the Tokyo Bay, the surrounding park was light and airy, with salt on the breeze. Shohei took a big breath and stepped up to the counter.

“Good morning, my name is Matsumoto Shohei.”

“Ah, Kyourin-sensei’s new assistant. I’ve been expecting you. Could you provide identification and then sign a few documents for me, so I can hand over your badge?”

“Of course.”

While Shouhei signed the papers, the woman at the counter called up someone from the lab, who turned out to be a lab tech called Ito with a bubbly personality, who took Shohei into the building. He had seen little of the actual facility during the interview process, so Ito took it upon himself to take the long round to Kyourin-sensei’s office. And just when they turned the corner into a well lit hallway, a voice called out to them.

“Matsumoto… Shohei-san?”

He turned around to see a man sitting in a corner, where a seating group was arranged to provide a space to take a coffee amidst the busy workday.

“Kyourin-sensei! We were just on our way to your office.”

“I’ll take it from here, Ito-kun.”

Ito bowed and patted Shohei on the shoulder. “Have fun on your first day.”

“Thank you,” he said and exchanged a smile with Ito.

Kyourin looked different from his photos. Well, not his features, but… there was a certain elegance, an energy that could never be captured in a still picture. He wasn’t just handsome. There was something about him that caught you as soon as you locked eyes with him. Shohei swallowed nervously, but was immediately disarmed by a brilliant smile, which made what could have been a dark and broody face, light up. Kyourin offered his hand and Shohei took it automatically.

“Welcome to my lab. I’m sorry I couldn’t be at your interview, but I trust my team completely, and they were smitten with you.”

“Thank you, Sensei,” Shohei said.

“I was too, especially with your thesis.”

“Ah. Have you read it?”

“Of course. I’ve been experimenting with termite mushrooms for years and you explored some very interesting angles I’ve not considered before.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“Come on, I’ll show you your office.”

He followed the man like a faithful dog. Eisaku Kyourin carried himself like a prince as he walked in front, straight back, measured steps, real aura. Even though he was wearing a simple lab coat over a dark shirt and cream-coloured trousers, he was elevating the clothes instead of them pulling him down.

“Walk next to me,” he said and Shohei complied.

There might have been few people, but the grounds were large. Kyourin led Shohei past rooms and rooms of storage, distilleries and other processing machinery. Then, all of a sudden, the space opened up and they stepped into a greenhouse stacked up to the ceiling with flowering plants. This was what Kyourin Laboratories were famous for: Growing many of the plants they were researching right on site.

“This is the temperate section,” Kyourin explained. “Through that door, we have a humid environment and several dark rooms for mushrooms. On the other side we’re working on a space that simulates high altitude, though we haven’t got it right quite yet.”

Kyourin turned to walk towards the humid section, and Shohei followed him into the jungle-like atmosphere. An artificial breeze was blowing in the greenhouse, making the transition less harsh.

“I have something extraordinary to show you.”

“Huh?”

In a corner of the space, between a few tree roots in a simulated rainforest floor, Shohei spotted a mound of red earth, piled high.

“No… You didn’t… You did?”

Kyourin smirked. “We couldn’t tell you before you signed the NDA that comes with the contract.”

Shohei walked as close as he dared… and there it was. A termite mound in this artificial space in the middle of Japan. And on top of it a cluster of still growing mushrooms. Termite mushrooms.

“But that’s impossible. I had to import all my material from the Philippines and could only get it dried…”

He smiled like a child at Christmas. This was incredible. No one in the world had managed to grow termite mushrooms artificially yet. But here they were.

“It’s one of our best kept secrets, but I needed to show you, because it’s exactly what you’ll be working on, expanding on your thesis.”

Shohei stared at Kyourin, who was laying everything he had ever wanted at his feet, his heart racing, mind confused and breath catching.

This was too good to be true.