Vol 1 Chapter 1 (1/2)

“It’s unfair,” Takeshi+ fukuda corilled chicken off the skeith his front teeth It was eight in the evening The izakaya near the station was tee hite and pinstriped short-sleeved shi+rts

The air conditioning was supposed to be on, but the restaurant was so dense with people that it felt like the huh, had dragged on into evening Sweat coated the brows of people there, and alcohol flowed freely

The restaurant’s interior was barren, as if to reflect the owner’s equal lack of friendliness It clearly lacked the ambiance for a date, for none of the men there were accompanied by women Apart from them, one could only spot the odd university student here and there

fukuda clicked his tongue in front of Yosuke Matsuoka’s face, and waved his bare skewer back and forth like a conductor waving his baton A Gucci watch bobbed at the mouth of his suit sleeve

“Just the sight of that guy stresses me out, and he has no idea about it I feel like it’s unfair, you knohen I’m the only one who feels irritated”

The dew had accuht it to his lips, and drained it down to the last drop of ht before seven in the evening, as he was on his way ho sales visits It was his co-worker, fukuda, inviting hi

“Sure, I can go,” Matsuoka had answered lightly There was no soccer ga alone He had no idea fukuda would seize the chance to go on such a wearisome tirade

“When I got prouy says? ‘Congratulations’ with a ser than hi me At least I’d know he has so like that? Does this guy even care about his job?”

“Yeah, totally I knohat you et people like that soave an order to a server passing the counter, then turned back to face fukuda

“Don’t let it get to you so et promoted: you end up with more incompetent older subordinates to deal with”

“You know, you just ht’ve hit a philosophical point,” fukuda hed “With those sidekick-types, you just have to ignore theuys are just rinned at fukuda

“Yeah, I guess,” fukuda said, shrugging He was a h the ranks to becoht His clumsy older subordinate by comparison seemed to irritate him to no end

“Don’t you find it hard to deal with guys when they have, like, a half-decent personality?” fukuda asked

“Are you talking about your assistant? If he’s a good guy, what’s the problem?”

fukudain exasperation

“You don’t get it, do you? Personality doesn’t uy can be a total ass, but I won’t coets all of his work done properly What’s io to work to work, not to make friends, you knohat I mean?”

fukuda’s pedantic tone made Matsuoka bristle Why the hell do I have to be lectured by you? he thought But fukuda didn’t stop there

“You’re so lucky, you know,” he went so far as to et to step outside Not like us general affairs, where we’re chained to our desks all day No one would be able to tell if you guys slacked off a bit And you guys get to step out and refresh yourselves”

“Yeah, I guess,” Matsuoka agreed a Refresh ruelling journey that we take every month to meet our quota They had to walk endlessly fros were stiff Skipping lunch breaks was the norarner a single new contract The frustration was indescribable They waged regular battles with seniors who co your quota, by the end of the month your business smile was plastered to your face, and medication was an absolute necessity for your stomach, which churned with the stress of it all Some people even vomited blood and collapsed

“Besides, you’re good-looking If the coirl, I’ up those contracts, right?”

I’d be living the high life if I could get contracts with rinned nevertheless

“Well, let’s just say I make full use of my arsenal Woill you look at the ti soon”

“What? It’s still nine,” fukuda said, pouting in dissatisfaction

“My girlfriend called ot here,” Matsuoka explained “She said she’d come over to my house once she’s finished with her co-worker’s farewell party I’m really sorry”

Matsuoka ushered a reluctant fukuda along and exited the restaurant Outside, the hu to their skin

“I dunno if it’s because we’re the sa to you,” fukuda admitted

It was a flattering way to say it, but in reality he probably had no one else in general affairs that he could coht alcoholic buzz

“You’re a pretty good listener, you know”

Good listening was a technique Matsuoka had honed in his sales career The rule of thumb was to respond consistently There was also a trick to how to give those responses: you never disagreed You nodded and agreed to his opinions, no in to think, ‘Oh, he understands me He kno I feel’

“We should go drinking again,” fukuda said

They parted at the stairs of the subway station Matsuoka and fukuda each entered platforms for trains bound in opposite directions The moment Matsuoka was left by hiht on his shoulders If I knew I had to put up with his coht in regret

Venting felt good for the person as venting, but in turn, accu positive, and it was clear they were anything but beneficial to mental health

“Ugh, I’m exhausted”

Matsuoka diset that; to What should I wear? What kind of ht of it filled Matsuoka with exciterinned to himself

Matsuoka’s favourite part about putting onthe colour of his lipstick Fro on his mood that day If he wanted to play the sexy woo for the modest look of a well-bred wo a wo around, so he picked a deep shade of red

He filled in his lips over the neat coat of foundation on his face, being careful to draw the ona picture It was iood overall balance

His lips, vivid like freshly-picked cherries, azed intently at his reflection, drawing close to thehimself to inspect his job Matsuoka smiled It was perfect He looked irls at his workplace

Once hisout a bra from the back of his closet He padded it and put it on He slid his arh the sleeves of a patterned shi+rt, and wore a black skirt with dark stockings A long ith tresses tu hihtly flashy office worker on her way home from work, he posed in the mirror with a purse in hand He was absolutely dreamy, if he could say so himself From the top of his head to the tips of his toes, he was a perfect wohtly with perfu touch, then walked out the door

The passersby turned to stare He’d been picked up on more than a couple occasions These facts lent him even more confidence

It was a year ago when Matsuoka had started dressing in drag At the ti home late for irlfriend of three years walked out on hiether by then, so when his girlfriend left, Matsuoka felt like she had left a gaping hole in his heart

After a tier bothered hiirlfriend had left behind Inside the bags she had told him to throere heaps of old clothes and cosazed at theht―hey, I think I’d fit into this When he tried it on, it was a little tight around the waist, but not unwearable

The simple sleeveless black dress looked ined This surprised Matsuoka Just for fun, he put on a little lipstick This, too, suited his pale complexion well, and he looked like a doll It was alood, so he tried out some foundation and mascara while he was at it When he finished, he was left with a self he could barely recognize One would be hard-pressed to find a woman who looked as beautiful as Yosuke Matsuoka did now

Matsuoka was so quickly and so fiercely sucked into this alternate world and his beautiful self that he even surprised hierie, and cosure out makeup tricks Unfortunately, his job in sales did not allow hi for that When Matsuoka stepped into his role as a woot all about his everyday self It was exhilarating transforood stress relief

Matsuoka are that his hobby was not exactly nor day” would only be on Fridays Lihtened the desire he felt for it as well as the pleasure he derived from it

On Friday nights, Matsuoka carefully and roomed himself to become a woradually he began to want to go outside His desire mounted so much it was irrepressible; one day, he finally ended up stepping out of the house

Everyone turned their heads as he walked down the street He found the attention pleasantly dizzying He basked in the feeling of superiority at being hed with contempt at the cocky stares of the men around him

On the sparsely-populated train bound for the city, Matsuoka was filled with excite how ht

―Now it had started to rain Matsuoka was curled up in a corner of an alley in the outskirts of the shopping district, vo nausea he couldn’t hold back The s hiain His stomach felt a little ered a few steps forward He had barely walked a couple dozen round

He’d been repeating this routine for quite some time now His brand-new shi+rt and black skirt were dirty, and his perfectly-finished makeup was now a mess from his tears He felt horrible; his mood orse than orst could describe I district, Matsuoka had been approached by a nored this one along with hi his sales visits This company representative in particular always tried to take advantage of Matsuoka’s weaknesses, but was unusually yielding to this man This bothered Matsuoka

“Who is that guy?” asked a close co-worker later

“The sales er of Takeshi+ma Products,” his co-worker had told him

Matsuoka was eager, to say the least, at any chance to netith Takashi+ma Products He had visited a number of times to pitch a sale at theh he knew he couldn’t talk about hile he was dressed in drag, he had an ulterior motive anyway: if he could find out the ured it would beco a new client

Matsuoka was taken by the man to a cocktail bar on the top floor of a luxury hotel Matsuoka drank whatever that was offered to him and made harmless small talk with the man

“You’ve got a pretty low, husky voice”

The man’s coed to s a cold Nohe could do about his voice His anxiety at the possibility of being discovered made Matsuoka say less and less, and to fill the aard air between them, he drank nonstop Since he only usually drank beer or chuhai, it didn’t take long for hi unfamiliar cocktails

“Aghhhh!”

He oken by aOnce he ca on a twin-sized bed Feeling more room around his crotch area than usual, he looked down to see that his skirt had been hiked up and his lace boy shorts had been pulled down to his thighs

“Y―You’re a man?!”

Matsuoka felt all the blood in his body rush to his feet He hastily pulled up his boy shorts and got off the bed His feet were unsteady from intoxication, and his knees buckled as he crumpled to the floor

“You trickedpervert!”

The rabbed him by the front of his shi+rt and slapped hi come off When he paused in astonishment, Matsuoka took the chance to shove him off

He picked the wig off the floor and tore out of the room He fell twice on his way to the elevator His shoulders rose and fell as he gained his breath, relieved that he had not been followed Just then, a ed wo wig that Matsuoka was holding and gave hi back on on the spot, but since he didn’t have a mirror, he wasn’t sure if he’d been able to put it on properly

He exited the hotel and walked the best he could with staggering steps He started feeling ill partway through, squatted, and vomited several times A shudder went down his spine every ti wasn’t norh such et home as soon as possible to take these clothes off I’ll never dress in drag again for the rest of ht

He had forgotten his heels and his purse, which contained his wallet, at the hotel Thankfully, he had left his apartment key in the mailbox, which used a co his apartment But without cash, he would not be able to take the taxi hoone He would have asked a friend to bring cash, but today of all days, he had forgotten his cell phone at homeEven before that, Matsuoka se to see a friend looking like this? He would rather have died if he was going to be condemned and called a pervert as he had with that man

No one approached hi jauntily down the street, so to catch up to him But in the end, he was just a fake―reality came as a blow

He felt the presence of a group passing by in front of hi theroup of seven or eight men and woone drinking on the way ho a short-sleeved shi+rt and a navy blue tie He glanced at Matsuoka for a aze away They passed Matsuoka completely

Although he would have been disnized, Matsuoka also felt a little hurt that he had been ignored But he couldn’t bring himself to blame fukuda If Matsuoka had been placed in the saround, he felt like he would have ignored her instead of approaching her

It’s a good thing you were ignored, he told hinized, he would have been met with scorn Even worse, if fukuda went on to tell other co-workers of his age, ruh Matsuoka sometimes went for drinks with fukuda and was relatively close to him compared to other people at work, he still didn’t trust the man wholeheartedly

After a while, the rain suddenly lessened to a drizzle Matsuoka heard the rapping of raindrops hitting an u an umbrella over him He looked about thirty-four or thirty-five, with an uninteresting haircut and a generally unfashi+onable look; his tie was coht He looked familiar―perhaps he had been with fukuda earlier

“Are you alright?”

I’ht better of it If revealed through his voice that he was a ain Matsuoka nodded silently instead

“I saw you earlier, and, um… would you like me to take you to your house?”

Matsuoka nodded enthusiastically at the unbelievable offer The ht hand, and Matsuoka took it It arm, yet at the same ti to take a drunk woman home and have his ith her

“What happened to your shoes?”

The man was quick to notice Matsuoka’s bare feet Matsuoka had forgotten his shoes at the hotel but couldn’t go back to get them―but he could never say that So he simply shook his head The man took his own shoes off on the spot

“It ht look dorky and you probably won’t like it, but at least it’s better than stepping on so socks, so… please”

Matsuoka shook his head in a panic and declined, but theoodwill and put the shoes on They nestled close together under the s in shoes that were too large for his feet He never lifted his face once throughout

When they reached the taxi stand, Matsuoka was faced with a predicament He had no money to take a taxi No et on,” Matsuoka couldn’t bring himself to Finally, a customer complained from behind them

“If you’re not going to get on, can you get out of the way?”

They shuffled off to the side

“You don’t want to go home?” the man asked him with a concerned expression Matsuoka shook his head

“You haven’t said a word up ‘til now…”

Matsuoka took the man’s hand The clear plastic umbrella fell to the asphalt On the man’s open palm, he slorote each letter out

‘I can’t talk’

The man looked at Matsuoka in surprise

‘I don’t have money to ride the taxi’

The ht hand He went to the very end of the taxi line

“Can you write down the general area where your house is?”

Matsuoka was offered a notebook and ballpoint pen, where he wrote his address down When their turn came, the man made Matsuoka climb into the taxi, and passed the memo to the driver

“How o here?”

“About 5,000, I think,” murmured the driver The man took out his wallet and handed the contents―all of six thousand yen and soe―to Matsuoka

“She can’t talk,” theyou need to tell her, please write it down on paper,” Then, he turned to Matsuoka and smiled

“I’ in the opposite direction Be careful on your way home”

The man backed away from the taxi Matsuoka wanted to say thanks, but couldn’t talk; the door shut on him before he could write it on the man’s hand The car lurched into htly and continued to gaze at thesmaller and smaller into the distance

On Monday, Matsuoka forcibly made time in his schedule to come back to the office froeneral affairs departet to the end of lunch break, when any workers who had gone out for lunch would be back in the office

“Hey, what’s up?” fukuda was quick to notice him

“I’ an errand for the section chief,” Matsuoka lied as he took a sweeping glance of the roo for the man from Friday Since he had been with fukuda, it was very likely he was froeneral affairs department as well ―Found himThere he was At the desk at the furthest end of the room was the man who had lent him fare for the taxi

“Who’s that sitting at the desk in the far end?” Matsuoka asked

fukuda peered in the direction that Matsuoka pointed “Oh, him? What do you ith hie in attitude bothered Matsuoka

“Nothing in particular, really, it’s just…”

fukuda pulled at Matsuoka’s suit and drew him closer

“That’s hiether froeneral vibe He was probably the older subordinate that fukuda had been endlessly griping to him about

“That guy’s him?”

fukuda wrinkled his brow and nodded vehemently

“Yeah He’s called Hirosue Just the sight of him pisses me off, so I moved him to a desk at the very end of the room”

One o’clock came and went as they chatted The afternoon portion of the work day began Hirosue suddenly got out of his seat and came this way A cold sweat broke out on Matsuoka’s forehead He wondered if Hirosue had recognized hiave not so lance to Matsuoka as he stood before fukuda

“I finished preparing the materials you told me about”

fukuda snatched the this ?”

“I’ his head in a bow

“This isn’t the first time, is it? It’s a problem, you knohen you can’t keep your deadlines If you can’t finish soive you, can you at least let me know beforehand? I have issues to work out on my end as well, you know”

“I’m sorry”

“You don’t have to apologize But if I’ve pointed out a ain Please”

Without etically before returning to his desk It was painful, to say the least, to watch him endure one-sided abuse

“I know he’s your subordinate and everything, but he’s older than you Don’t you think you’re being a bit harsh?” Matsuoka warned in a whisper, but fukuda appeared unfazed

“This is just the right aot his head in the clouds, so anything I say takes a while ‘til it gets to his brain, you know,” he said, clearly not open to second opinions

Since he couldn’t stay and chat in general affairs forever, Matsuoka returned to sales and went out again He visited and checked up with i pamphlets to take to a new business partner It hadn’t yet struck six in the evening when he returned to the office

Matsuoka figured it would be unnatural for hieneral affairs so uess that Hirosue was still in the office at this hour, and sat by the hedges of the building next door to the office and pretended to text someone on his cell phone while he waited for Hirosue to come out

Past seven in the evening, Hirosue came out of the main entrance of the office by himself He walked in the opposite direction fro Matsuoka followed a distance behind, being careful not to be noticed It

Hirosue got off the train after a fifteen-minute ride on a line that ran in the opposite direction of where Matsuoka lived He then walked about five minutes from the station to the third storey of a four-storey apart, and entered room 306 Matsuoka hadn’t needed to find out where Hirosue lived, but he’d gotten carried away and ended up tailing him the whole way home

On the train ride back to his own place, one thought occupied Matsuoka’s one hoiven Matsuoka all the bills he had in his wallet, and with no trains running to take him home?

Matsuoka mulled considerably over whether he should , or just as himself If he were to see Hirosue as hi, whichself He wondered if he should lie and say he had a little sister, but his lie would be exposed instantly if Hirosue were to talk to fukuda about him fukuda knew that Matsuoka only had a little brother

After thinking long and hard, Matsuoka decided to see the ain” at the station, and would return the money and shoes Since he had already told Hirosue he couldn’t talk, he figured the man wouldn’t try to pry into his personal life all that much

The next day, Matsuoka took a roo containing women’s clothes and cosmetics with the front desk before he went to work When his work finished, he ran straight into the hotel, got changed, and put makeup on He wore a navy scarf around his neck to hide his Adam’s apple Today, he went for the modest, well-bred-woman look His summery white suit made him look like a fresh, youthful beauty

Matsuoka went out, perfectly co-ordinated from head to toe On the side of the platform where Hirosue boarded the train, he waited for the man to appear

Yesterday he had appeared around seven Today, there was no sign of hione for drinks on his way ho home, the man finally showed himself

The lided into the station, and he made to board frorab his ar on

“Yes?” Hirosue turned around and tilted his head curiously His hair was a little overgrown, his figure iry, and he had a se, and he had thin lips Despite having looks that weren’t bad to begin with, he still ed to look incredibly tacky He was the picture of a man as unconcerned about his appearance

“Um… can I help you?”

Matsuoka was astonished that Hirosue didn’t instantly recognize him as the woman in the rain from the other day He hastily took out a pen and memo pad from his purse and scribbled a note

‘Thank you very much for Friday’

The man read the memo and took a second look at Matsuoka’s face

“Oh, you’re from that time”

When Matsuoka flashed a smile at him, the man blushed sheepishly and looked at his feet

“Were your feet alright?”

At first, Matsuoka had no idea what heabout hi barefoot

‘They were fine Thank you How did you get home after that?’ he wrote in the next note

The man peered into the pad in Matsuoka’s hands and smiled wryly

“I tried phoning et a hold of any of the I could do, so I walked home”

It took at least twentydistrict On foot, it would probably have taken at least one or two hours