Turn of the Century

Chapter 4 - Recess

The sun, as she always had, always did, and always would, shone. Through curtailed curtains strands of light flew through, light kept soft and ill-fittingly cool leaving the humble abode in no dark, but neither in any bright light. Seven forty-nine, the clocks all sang until they didn't anymore.

Miyashiro Kenshin dripped with sweat, dripped with gloom, and with every right and license to be doing so. His breathing was a raggedy sort, pants and weighty puffs of carbon dioxide mixed into a grand old mix of his shirt being far tighter than he'd remembered it to have been. He'd come at no moment's notice from the very instant he'd seen what the morning news had to announce, all still in his head. Those big, bolded letters which sent his eyes into bloodied frenzy and heart pulsing with a raging flame. He'd have burnt asunder were he not to have acted so quickly to that spew of Kanji and kana of both types—"State of Emergency Announced", "SDF Deployments Across Tokyo" and "Prime Minister replaced" amongst the headlines—words that which were oh-so sensational, oh-so terrific! That morning's rice, sole proprietor of that morning's meal, was promptly shoveled down in the most literal sense, barely any appreciation for the flavors no matter how tasteless, and none in effort at all left to wash the dishes—cold ceramic left to sit in the sink for that day. So much of a rush was he in that he'd thrown on the nearest suit so quickly crumples and wrinkles formed immediately. He'd very nearly forgotten to snatch his ID card from the grasps of that import-mahogany table before he'd left!

No wife had stopped him, nor had any children or anyone in relation. His neighbors too were unavailable, save a few who flew down the flight of stairs with him. Rather the problem came with the metro as for all the effort, it seemed as though he was too late—about two hundred already gathered by the time he'd joined the mass. And even then, after having clamored aboard at the very last second, squeezed and crushed as he made his way aboard with the station already unusually busy when he'd gotten on, only hundreds more piled on until it was like an ultra-compressed sardine can by the stops approaching the city center. It was enough to warn him of things to come, alarming enough that he'd practically sprinted from the station to the building as soon as the doors had opened at his stop and the cram-jam crowd tumbled out.

The light tapping of shoes on concrete echoed about, barely, no, never to make it past the noise of all the congestion and people wandering about in equally frayed appearance of half-assed combing and thrown-together costumes. Keshin wasn't so sure as to whether his briefcase had even come with him, as while he was sure that his right arm was held backward as he ran, up and down into and from the air like a dumbbell, it was also a feather to him. He made no attempt to look back to double-check.

But in record time, right there, right then, it was. The dual rotating doors of the building, enough of a chokepoint that a crowd had formed right outside through which he slipped into—far away from the sight of cameras, too deep to be recognizable amongst the waves of black-gray hair.

[~]

Sakura Bank Building 18th Floor, Marunouchi

9:03 AM

A room, wide and spacious. And yet despite this description, every space was filled—not by volume or physical being, no liquids or gasses past the usual suspects, but rather noise. By audio. One damned incessant noise at that, the constant bells and phones and all sorts sounding a 'tring tring' across that blanketed all else. A noise that sounded off such that no ears were unviolated by them. One from the left, then maybe from the right to the front or to the back—from everywhere, anywhere.

To Kenshin, such was life, with exception to his collar then one button undone so early. At that very moment right in the middle of conversation was he, one microphone, and two speakers shared amongst two handsets put to his head. Speaking into a phone held up by both his right hand and cranium, Kenshin spoke out once more into the microphone, "Yutaka-sama, by all means, please—," he cried, all part of what was at that point folly.