The Promotion (part 1 of 2)

Miho walked into the station, eyes cast down and with her right hand shoved into her purse. She tapped her ICOCA card on the sensor, and kept walking. 

Her heart was beating strangely fast. She tried to slow her breathing, but the air just felt trapped within her face mask. She wanted to take it off, but she couldn’t.

She nervously adjusted her long hair around her face as she waited in the first station. 

The train would be arriving any minute. She looked around slowly. 

Hinata-chan was sitting on a bench next to the vending machine, sipping on a coffee. Miho wanted to talk to her so badly, but if she did she would run late. It was important to be timely. 

Miho adjusted her dress, conscious of the wrinkles that were doubtless going to form from sitting. The well-ironed hem looked nice now, but later…

The chime went off in the speakers above, and Miho could feel the rumbling of the train under her feet. 

She rubbed the omamori in her pocket for luck as the train pulled up to the platform. 

The doors dinged and slid open, presenting her with a mostly empty carriage. 

Miho took a deep breath in, steeling herself, and stepped in. She walked across the carriage to the other side and sat down. 

Out the window, she saw Hinata smile and wave. 

She didn’t have the nerves to wave back right now. So she just smiled. 

One down. 

Miho consulted the writing on her arm yet again. 4 stops. 

She restrained an involuntary shudder. Unlucky numbers always made her nervous. 

The train rambled on, and she counted the stops. 

Nobody got on or left during the first stop. On the second one, a gaggle of young men in worn business clothing shuffled on, smelling of stale beer and sweat. 

Miho’s nose wrinkled, but luckily it was hidden under her mask. She kept her eyes averted, not wanting to make any personal contact.

An older lady got out of the priority seat at stop number three. As she stood waiting for the doors to open, she looked around. 

Her eyes settled on Miho. Miho stared down at her sneakers. They were tied carefully and tightly. She noted that at some point, something had been spilled on them. 

She’d have to clean that up, later. Maybe when she got back home. 

The woman continued to look at her for what felt like too long- and then focused on the hungover salarymen. 

They were all half-passed out. One was slumping closer and closer to the floor. 

The door dinged, and the old lady left. 

She swayed as the train ran along the tracks, acutely feeling every bump. 

Stop number four. The electronic lady voice announced it with a lack of any emotion, as well as the fact that the doors on the right side of the car would open. 

Miho stood- a bit early. She steadied herself as she walked across the still-moving car, and grabbed the pole. She clung to it with both hands, feeling a little exposed. She wanted to shove her hands back into her pockets for safety and comfort. 

The door bell dinged, the doors opened. No one seemed to be waiting to get on. 

Miho walked out cautiously. But she wasn’t sure what she was expecting. 

Yui-chan was waiting, leaning against a pole. 

Miho walked past her, and they made brief eye contact. Yui-chan nodded, and walked off. 

Miho felt a knot begin to wind up in her stomach. They were really doing this- she was really doing this. 

She waited. A train coming back the other way would be here in three minutes, according to the schedule. 

It felt like an eternity. People begin to drift down onto the platform and wait around her. 

The number seven was painted in front of her feet. The paint looked to be peeling a little- the edges were cracked and a little curled up.

The seconds ticked by. Her eyes itched- but scratching wouldn’t do any good. She blinked slowly, twice. The itch eased slightly. 

Miho fondled the omamori in her sweater pocket. Her other hand went to check her other pockets- the distinctive feel of paper reassured her. The ofuda were still there. 

She pulled out the omamori to look at it. The face of Bishamonten stared back at her- fierce and formidable. It was slightly reassuring, but she wondered if he’d really bless the mission she was on today. The little, blessed metal spear attached to it felt somehow more… real, than it had when she’d bought it at the shrine this morning. 

That was probably a good sign, but Miho didn’t really feel that great about it. 

She put it back into her pocket carefully. It wouldn’t do to piss Bishamonten off, not when she needed his help. 

The train arrived, and Miho took a big step into the carriage. She quickly took a seat and pressed herself as close to the wall as possible. 

Seven stops. She checked her arm, sat back, and checked her arm again. 

She closed her eyes to count. 

Stop number one sounded off, reminding passengers that this stop contained an important historical site. But the message garbled in the middle, static disrupting the usual message. 

A shiver rolled down her spine. The talisman in her hand seemed to vibrate- but that had to be her imagination. 

The stops rolled by, and she was increasingly sure it wasn’t. People only left the carriage after the stop. No one got on. 

Out the window, the skyscrapers seemed to be bathed in a sickly light, like right before a typhoon. But there wasn’t one forecasted- it was early January, way out of typhoon season. 

At the seventh stop, she walked out of the carriage. There was no one on the platform to greet her, which was not the deal.

She panicked. Had she made a fatal mistake?

Her heart raced. Miho was going to vomit all over this platform in between the human world and the spirit world. 

Why, oh why, had she been the one to lose at janken?

She whirled around- she checked the sign. She checked her arm. The doors to the train were still open, but she appeared to be at the right platform. 

All that panic for nothing. She rubbed the omamori again. It responded with some warmth. 

And she still had four stops left, and the return trip. 

No wonder this was forbidden. 

Or maybe Miho was just a coward. 

She turned again, slowly. She shouldn’t have visibly panicked so much. It would make her a target as she got closer to the world of the spirits. 

Was that movement, over by the benches? Miho squinted. A shape came into form, hunched over a smartphone. 

It seemed to be Akari-chan. Or someone that looked like her. 

Miho walked closer. 

An alarm went off on Akari-chan’s phone, and she looked up. She looked over to the train that was still stopped at the platform, and scanned the area. 

She saw the moment Akari-chan panicked, even though she was looking right at her. Miho reached out- but her hands went right through Akari’s like they were made of air. 

They had known this would happen, but not at what stop. Oddly enough, information on this ritual was secret. Miho wasn’t sure that many people who had tried it had survived. 

She swallowed the bile that had risen in her throat, and waited for the next train. Six stops, backwards. Get out on the platform, and turn around into the same train. Then, seven more stops the same way. Four back. Then seven again. All around on the circle line. 

She followed the instructions to the letter, and steeled herself. No more panicking. It could cost her everything, if she was found out. 

Miho noted as the stops went past that there were less and less humanoid people. Human beings had faded and then disappeared. In their place were what Miho could only describe as yokai- humanoids and not, with horns and teeth and feathers. What looked like a woman with luminous black hair was elegantly seated by herself- but Miho didn’t want to know what she really was. 

She adjusted her mask- slightly uncovering the ghoulish false gashes they had adhered and painted on her face. Her colored contacts were so itchy. 

But it was important to not look like a human. Humans got eaten right up in here. 

What looked shockingly like a Tengu in a business suit sat only a few feet away from Miho. She continued to look down. 

The omamori in her pocket was increasingly warm- if it got much hotter, she wouldn’t be able to bear to touch it. 

She closed her eyes to rehydrate them, slowly. No panicked movements. 

On the sixth platform stop, she noted there were yokai milling about everywhere. One was getting a soda from the machine. Another was smoking. 

If she squinted, she could see the very faint lines of real human beings. 

She was obviously very, very close to her destination. 

Miho’s body had evidently hit a brick wall with panic and burst through, which had the odd effect of making her feel almost confident. She took clear strides onto the last train and took her seat, disregarding the literal demons around her. 

A woman in a mask like hers caught her eye- and she averted hers immediately. She didn’t want to meet a real kuchionna. 

Her heart was strumming along. Evidently this was what the fight in ‘fight or flight’ felt like. There was a constant ringing in her ears. She ignored it. 

The train was oddly the same, even though she was definitely somewhere else. Or, more accurately, somewhere in between two somewhere elses. 

All of this for a promotion. 

She felt mildly sick when she thought of it that way. This was dangerous, so dangerous. 

But she and her friends could never get promoted otherwise. Mr. Kondo had made sure of that. 

Just thinking about his name made her squeamish. 

She knew he wasn’t around to hurt her, but she had to look anyway. Slowly and cautiously, just as she had had to do in her office ever since graduation from university.

He wasn’t there, but several oni were- evidently in the same situation as the businessmen from earlier. They were slumped over, holding their heads. One was snoring. 

The bell dinged. Her final destination. 

She rose from the seat and walked out, onto the platform. She walked past demons and monsters buying tickets, past the gates, and out into a place that was and wasn’t Tokyo. The displays in the ramen stand included human ears, eyes, and what she guessed was “flank of human”. 

Miho kept walking and found the nearest omiyage shop. It was where the other one was, where she was from. 

The displays were brightly lit and mildly glowing themselves. Cookies, things she didn’t care to contemplate, and things that looked so brightly colored and magical she nearly wanted to try them for herself. 

But that wasn’t why she was here. 

She went along the displays to find her target- a large and gleaming stand, separate from everything else. 

The little yellow cakes looked so soft and like they might melt in your mouth. Miho looked at the displays. 

Just as the rumors had said, they were labeled like a fortune drawn at a temple. Great good luck, good luck, so-so luck, mild bad luck, and great bad luck. 

She was here at the behest of her employer. It wouldn’t do to go for half-measures. 

A year ago over the New Year, she had come to Tokyo to visit her mother. She had brought in her omiyage as normal- except it wasn’t normal at all. 

“You really went cheap on these.” Mr. Kondo had sneered, throwing the entire box back at her face. She had stood stock still. “Cookies? Do we not pay you enough, while you waste your time until you go to get fucked and have babies?”

The graphic movements he had made had made her mouth dry. She wanted to cry. 

No one in the office said a damn thing. 

The truth was, they didn’t pay her enough. She’d been working here for six years, with no raise. No promotion. And no overtime pay, when she was required to work at least sixty hours a week. 

She wasn’t sleeping at night anymore. She was afraid of nightmares that might be worse than her reality.

Mr. Kondo followed her from room to room in the office sometimes, touching and groping her. He’d purposefully dumped scalding hot water on her when she was too slow making tea (which wasn’t her job).

Yet every day, she came back. What else was there to do? All her friends at other top companies said their bosses were much the same. And changing companies just wasn’t done. 

The women in the office were terrified. At mandatory work parties, they wouldn’t drink a single thing. They moved in a herd, to and from the bathrooms. They took each other home. 

He took the omiyage meant for the office and ate it himself, calling it a ‘perk of seniority’, when really it was just boorish. He leaned on even the male employees, forcing others through pressure to pay for his drinks. He screamed relentlessly as they worked through piles of paperwork, getting within inches of their faces. 

Mr. Kondo would never ever get in trouble, she knew that much. Once, a woman- a friend- had tried to report him to the higher ups. Yuki been fired instead, accused of bad work ethic. 

She’d died by suicide less than six months later. 

The company had buried it- and life had gone on. Miho and her reduced group of friends had banded tighter together than ever. No one went anywhere in the office alone. They each kept extra work clothes in their lockers, so as not to provide Mr. Kondo an excuse. 

Sometimes, when he got overly riled up, they’d janken or draw cut conbini chopsticks to see who would make him angry on purpose. If they let him blow up on his own, they couldn’t control it. Maybe they would be alone in an empty office. Maybe whoever he blew up on wouldn’t make it out of the office in time. 

Miho carefully selected the correct box of eight little cakes, took it to the counter, and paid the oni woman in a pink apron. 

She walked back to the station with her prize, feeling cold. What was done, was done. Now to get home before demons murdered her and ate her face.