this is fiction. composite fiction, really, which is a polite way of saying i made two people up and then caught myself making them too useful.

the first version was too balanced. tokyo got belonging. chicago got freedom. both men woke up, commuted, worked, ate, wondered, slept. a little machine for producing a thesis.

people are worse than that, thankfully.

tokyo

the tokyo version wakes at 5:30 and hates it in the ordinary way. not in a civilizational way. just: the alarm is ugly, the room is cold, and his roommate has left one damp towel folded over the chair again.

he buys an egg sandwich from lawson because he has been lying to himself about cooking breakfast. the cashier has a bandage on her thumb. he notices this and then immediately forgets it.

the train is packed by 6:45. everyone is careful with their elbows. nobody has enough room to be themselves, which is maybe the point and maybe just the train.

at work, tanaka-san is already there. of course he is. the office has a grammar and the new people learn it faster than the handbook can explain it: who speaks first, who pretends not to be annoyed, who can leave while the manager's bag is still under his desk.

he is good at this grammar. sometimes he even likes it.

there is comfort in a script. the coffee machine is bad in the same way every morning. the team chat has the same little thanks and apologies. when someone misses a deadline, three people quietly rearrange themselves around the gap.

but he wants something selfish too.

for six months he has been watching videos of tiny camper vans. he knows the price of a roof rack he will not buy. he imagines calling in sick on a monday, driving north, eating convenience-store noodles in a parking lot with no one expecting anything from him.

then a message arrives from his mother. his father needs help with the cupboard door again.

he replies yes.

not because he is noble. because he is a son. because the cupboard door is real. because a life is sometimes less a choice than a set of people who know your number.

chicago

the chicago version does not wake to freedom. he wakes because the radiator clicks like someone tapping a spoon against a glass.

his apartment is bigger than it needs to be and somehow still full. shoes by the door. coffee filters. a stack of insurance letters he keeps moving from one surface to another as if geography might solve them.

he gets to work at 8:57, which is basically on time if you have the right personality. his manager says he crushed yesterday's client call. he enjoys this more than he wants to admit.

at lunch he eats at his desk and watches half a video about a man restoring a rusty knife. he doesn't know why. the knife becomes shiny. this is satisfying.

everyone tells him he has options. another job, another city, another person, another app. his phone is full of doors. the problem with doors is that you start judging your life by the ones you didn't open.

on thursday nights he coaches his sister's kid's football team because no one else volunteered. collective obligation, american edition: eight orange cones, twelve children ignoring him, one parent who always arrives late and says traffic like it is a legal defence.

he complains about it every week.

he also checks the weather beforehand and brings extra gloves.

later, at a bar, he says he likes having no one tell him what to do. this is funny because the whole evening has been arranged by notifications: calendar reminder, group chat, table booking, ride-share surge pricing, one little red badge after another.

he is not unhappy. that would be too tidy. he is just tired in a way his own language keeps misnaming as ambition.

when he gets home, the extra gloves are still in his coat pocket.

he leaves them there for next thursday.