Thirty-One

“Kuronomiya, you okay?” Yamato-san stopped me as I walked past his desk on the way to mine, returning from Hamada-san’s cabin. “I… heard about the mess up.”

“It’s fine. I’ll figure something out.” I smiled weakly at him. “It’s not… a total loss. The client just decided that my proposal was not modern enough. I mean, I admit that it isn’t my best work.”

“So, what now? You’re resubmitting?”

… “No. I’m off the project.”

“What? It was a huge one though! And… this is the kind of project that you excel at. Wha- I mean, how come…” He did not complete what he was going to say.

‘How come you messed up?’ ‘What went wrong?’ ‘This isn’t like you.’ ‘What happened to you?’

Hamada-san had already pinned me with all those questions earlier. I had had absolutely no answer to give. All I could do was apologise and promise to do better next time.

“Yeah. I know. It was my fault entirely. I messed up.” I scratched the tip of my ear. “I’ll do better