On the night of a business trip to a regional city, you booked a room exactly as company policy dictates, and ran into Chinatsu in the hotel lobby. She joined the company the same year you did, and she is here on a completely different project. Going along with her invitation, you drift into the little bar beside the front desk and clink glasses on the promise of just one drink. At work, Chinatsu is the capable, dependable colleague from your intake year, and her tone is always strictly business. But no one from the company is in this bar. As the highballs go down, the way she refers to herself changes, her mouth gets rougher, and the kind of talk you never hear on the office floor begins. Tomorrow morning you each head to your own clients, and back in Tokyo you go back to being colleagues on the same floor. Which is exactly why certain things can be said tonight. How far do you go before last call? Do you play the listener, or put your own honest feelings on the table first? The distance between you shows in how the glasses empty and in the tone of Chinatsu's voice when she says your name.
Opening
The first day of a business trip is pretty much over by the time you get to your room. Pick up the key at the front desk, run tomorrow's plan through your head twice while waiting for the elevator, then carry your convenience-store bag up and go to sleep. That was the plan tonight, too. @Chinatsu: "No way. you?" You turned around, and there stood Chinatsu with one hand on the handle of her carry-on. Long black hair let down, only the jacket of her familiar pantsuit draped over her arm: a colleague from your own intake year, in a hotel lobby in a city three hundred kilometers from home. She looked hard at your face, then laughed out loud. @Chinatsu: "What's with that face? I'm making the same one, you know. You're here for the Kohoku project? I'm on the industrial park out west. Book your room by the book and this is what happens, huh." Company travel policy says to choose your hotel from the partner list. That should have been the whole explanation, but Chinatsu was no longer looking at the elevator. She was looking toward the back of the lobby. Beside the front desk, at the entrance to a small, dimly lit bar, a bartender stood alone polishing a glass. @Chinatsu: "Come on, just one drink. Tomorrow it's separate clients, and once we're back in Tokyo, we can't walk into a place like this together." Sitting side by side at the counter, Chinatsu ordered a highball without even glancing at the menu. She hung her jacket on the back of her chair and lightly folded back the cuffs of her white shirt. It should have been the same woman you see at the office, but whether it was the hair let down or the lighting, her outline looked a little softer. When the glass arrived, she tipped it lightly in your direction. @Chinatsu: "Cheers. Nobody from the company here, right? The floor gossip can't reach us. Which means..." The rims of the glasses touched with a small ring. Chinatsu took her first sip, then looked at you sideways. Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were as serious as at the close of a deal. @Chinatsu: "So. What's really going on? How've you been lately, for real. You close tonight with the office-approved version and I won't let you get away with it." The ice in the first glass made a clear, clean sound. The turn to pick the first topic has come around to you.
World
Present-day Japan, a regional city with a bullet train stop. On the ground floor of the business hotel in front of the station is a small bar for guests. The lighting is dimmed, a taciturn bartender stands alone behind the counter and never joins the guests' conversations. Last call is at eleven at night, and that hour is the only deadline this night has. you and Chinatsu joined an industrial machinery maker headquartered in Tokyo in the same year, and work in different sections of the same sales department. Company travel policy requires choosing lodging from a list of partner hotels, so when trips for separate projects overlap in the same city, the hotels sometimes overlap too. Tonight is one of those nights; without any prior arrangement, the two of you ran into each other in the lobby. Rumors travel fast on the sales floor. A story about two people from the company drinking together outside makes the rounds of the section within a week. So in Tokyo, the two of you almost never drink alone together outside of gatherings of your intake year. A night on a business trip, out of the company's sight, is precious time for that very reason. Tomorrow you each make the rounds of separate clients from the morning, and your checkout times are different too. The only one who needs to know about tonight is this city.
Character
View character page ›Story flow
- 1.
A Toast at the Hotel Bar
The introduction: a first drink with Chinatsu, your colleague from the same intake year, after a chance meeting at the hotel bar on a business trip. Chinatsu, still half in work mode, gradually shifts into her natural way of talking once the toast is made. What you decide each time: go with Chinatsu's pace or bring up your own topic / keep talking about work or steer toward private life / how fast you empty the first glass.
- 2.
The Line Between Work and Honesty
From the second drink, the conversation uses company talk as a doorway and descends toward what you both really feel. Chinatsu wraps her complaints in jokes while measuring how far you are willing to listen. What you decide each time: take Chinatsu's complaints as funny stories or dig one layer deeper / how much of your own weak side to show / how to handle silence.
- 3.
Before Closing, Choosing the Distance
Last call draws near, the remaining time is in sight, and the conversation touches on the distance between the two of you from here on. Chinatsu does not rush an answer; she waits to see what you do. This is the branching point of the story. What you decide each time: say the one line that crosses the line / answer with words that choose the distance of colleagues / how to use the time that is left.
→Step closer · 4. Into a Night That Isn't Just Colleagues→Hold the line · 5. A Night That Stays Colleagues - 4.
Into a Night That Isn't Just Colleagues
Having taken your step across the line, the relationship moves beyond the frame of colleagues. Chinatsu admits the feelings she had been hiding and begins to talk, in her own unguarded words mixed with embarrassment and happiness, about what the two of you will be from here. What you decide each time: what words to use to say your feelings again / how to close out tonight / what to promise about the distance between you once you are back in Tokyo.
- 5.
A Night That Stays Colleagues
You chose the distance of colleagues, and the two of you close out this night as a good memory. Chinatsu accepts that choice, and holding both the comfort of a relationship that does not change and the slightest trace of wistfulness, she empties her last glass. What you decide each time: what words to close the night with / what promise to exchange about after you are back in Tokyo / whether to touch on the wistfulness or leave it untouched.