Chapter 7: Ashes

The last day of the week had arrived, and there were only two weeks left until Christmas.

On Fridays, Ren usually arrived later than the rest, almost close to noon. It wasn’t a privilege, the chief allowed it as long as he met his work hours, something everyone knew he exceeded by far.

That particular day, his coworkers arrived earlier and left sooner to make better use of the weekend.

That way, he spent less time socializing with them… and more time working in peace.

He entered the office with a wide smile on his face, walking upright. No one would have thought that, after what had happened the day before, he would show up as if nothing had happened.

He stopped in front of Yadav’s desk and immediately the rest of his coworkers turned their eyes toward him.

"If you came to apologize for yesterday, I'm all ears," Yadav said with irony, without even looking up from the monitor. "It's not a good idea to blame your superiors without proof."

He was right. Ren had no proof that any of them had placed the envelope in his drawer… twice.

"No, actually…" Ren replied calmly. "I came to bring you an early Christmas gift."

He placed something on the desk.

His coworker looked up with curiosity. In front of him was a handful of new lighters, still unopened.

His eyes returned to Ren, who was already walking away toward his own desk… though he stopped halfway.

"Ah. And one last thing."

His voice became more serious than usual.

He took his lighter out of his pocket and held it up for everyone to see.

"This lighter is pure gold, it's a family relic, i won’t bore you with its story, but it has been passed down from generation to generation."

Then he slowly turned, looking at his coworkers one by one.

"I don't mind if you mess with me, or with my work, or with the way I am."

Finally, he looked back at Yadav.

"But if anyone, for any reason, takes my lighter again without my permission… I'll report it to the police as stolen."

The silence that followed was total, no one had ever seen him speak with that kind of seriousness.

He turned on his computer like every day, but this time with renewed confidence.

He stretched his fingers like a composer and the office returned to its usual murmur of mechanical keyboards.

Some time later, at lunch time, Fujimoto approached as talkative as always, bringing a can of energy drink for Ren.

"Incredible speech. I think you put them in their place."

"I don’t like people touching my personal things, that’s all..." he replied.

"By the way… what happened to your hand?" he added when he saw the improvised bandage.

"A cut with the knife last night, I tried to ‘imitate’ those techniques cooks do on TV."

Fujimoto had always thought Ren was someone with few skills outside programming, so he didn’t doubt it.

"I see… you should go to the infirmary so they can bandage it better."

"Yeah, probably later, when I finish compiling this data…" he said, pointing to a large folder on his desk.

"Do you want something from the cafeteria? Today’s dish is curry."

"Don’t worry, I brought my bento."

"Suit yourself! Send me a message if you change your mind…" Fujimoto said, walking away.

At that moment, while he was walking away, Ren sensed a strange smell coming from his coworker.

It was a dry, rough smell that scratched his throat like dust.

Cigarette? No, it was something else. Yadav always reeked of cigarettes. This smell felt more like something burning.

Then he lowered his gaze to his CPU, the fan seemed to be running faster than usual.

He removed the computer’s side panel, trying to find the source of that smell, but there was only accumulated dust, nothing out of the ordinary.

Maybe it was just some smell that had slipped into the central heating, so he decided not to give it any more thought and turned his attention back to the monitor.

He kept typing without stopping, until he finished a couple lines of code.

Without realizing it, he spent so much time absorbed in his work that no one was left in the office anymore. The silence was almost absolute.

"I’d better take a break to eat…" he said while pulling a bento from his drawer.

He opened the lid of his lunch, nothing special… rice, a bit of meat, and a few vegetables.

He picked up his chopsticks and started with the rice, while his eyes followed the lines of code on the monitor, trying to find some error.

While chewing slowly, his expression began to change little by little, a bitter taste that grew with every bite, his tongue felt rough and it felt like the rice scraped his throat as it went down.

His face quickly turned confused.

He opened the energy drink can, hoping it would take that bitter taste out of his mouth, He took a small sip, but spat it out immediately into the trash.

He looked at the expiration date. There were still many months left, but what was causing that bad taste?

"Don’t tell me…"

Disgusted, he ran to the bathroom, pushed the door open hard, and poured the contents of the can into the toilet, afraid something might be wrong inside… remembering that years ago someone on a forum had found something unpleasant inside a can.

Something that shouldn’t be there.

He looked inside the can, but there was absolutely nothing.

It was just his imagination… or was the rice the cause of that bitterness in his throat…?

He threw the can into the trash and looked at himself in the mirror, maybe it was just accumulated exhaustion playing tricks on him.

He turned on the faucet and washed his face, the water was warm and comforting.

Again, that dry smell invaded him, but this time it felt more personal, closer, as if… he grabbed his shirt with his fingers and began smelling it more closely. His fingers turned a dull gray.

In disbelief, he rubbed his fingers and that gray substance began to come off.

Ash.