Katawa Shoujo - Akira Satou Route

Act 4-5 Imbalance

At any rate, my only job here is to load everything onto a cart, carry it down for cleaning, and take a ten-fifteen minute break while the autoclave is running. Nothing challenging or ethically ambiguous in the slightest.

Despite that, I've still got all my work cut out for me: it takes a while just to get the cart loaded without risk of breaking anything, and even then I'll still have to make another two or three trips to get everything taken care of. And that's not accounting for the time it takes to get all the tools and glassware sorted into cabinets, shelves, and other storage areas.

Well, no use griping about it when it's only the second day. I haven't been through enough of this to hate my job just yet.

Once I stack as much as I can onto the trolley without chancing a piece of shattered glassware, I wheel it into the elevator and move down to the third floor. From there it's only a short push to the cleaning room.

First I rinse the weak residue away from the inside of each glass, then I stack it alongside the walls of the metal box beside me, a deep sigh sauntering out of my throat each time I take another look back to the overloaded cart. It takes a short while to fill the chamber of the autoclave and my efforts don't even appear to have lightened up the trolley.

It's a time-consuming process, but one so laughably simple that I pay no mind to how long it takes to fill each chamber on the wall. With a few simple inputs, the pre-sterilization cycle begins and grants me a pretty lengthy break.

As I consider what I'll be spending that time on, however, my ears are assaulted with a frustrated complaint rebounding through the hallways. "This machine is always out of canned coffee! Does it all sell before I can get to it? We need to get the company to..."

The complaint fades to unintelligible grumbling, but I still recognize the voice.

I step into the hallway to find none other than Tetsuo Shuugetsu, one hand in his pocket as he stands in front of a drink vending machine, foot tapping as he tries to decide what works best as an alternative to coffee.

He wears half of a pressed business suit, keeping the black slacks but choosing to discard his coat. The white dress shirt underneath covers his torso in an unkempt fashion with his tie hanging loose, the top button undone, and his sleeves rolled up.

Should I go out and talk to him? Would it be appropriate? He is my boss, but on the other hand I feel a little two-faced thinking about going out and giving a friendly greeting to someone whose existence annoys me to no end.

Eventually I decide to peep my head out around the corner and call out to him. "Hey Mr. Shuugetsu."

He meets my voice with a "hm?" before a small smile emerges on his face. "Hey Nakai. How's your day been?"

"Eh, nothing exciting. I haven't had to focus on anything besides the exams coming up." I call back, bowing my head as I step up to greet him.

"Treasure it while you still can, kid. Someday you'll be a manager of a big company and you'd give anything for a quiet day." He says with a stark laugh, his finger still hovering between the inputs for a soda and a can of tea. "I think 'hellacious' is a good way to describe things around here today. I'm about three hours overdue for lunch."

"Or would it be dinner at this point?" He adds with heavy sarcasm, another exaggerated chuckle slipping out of his mouth.

I stand beside him at the machine, taking note of the fact that black coffee is still in stock. "Ah, yeah, that experiment seemed pretty major. Is that why you're here today, if I may ask?"

"Well, I'm here every Tuesday and on some Thursdays. It's just part of my job; I'm head of employee relations for the entire company, not just this one building." He explains, jerking back and yelling at the machine as his finger presses the button for orange soda by accident.