Chapter 23: Not a Genius

Ma En and Asuka walked straight down the road. Asuka had been leading. When Ma En drew level with her, she quickened her pace slightly. Ma En instinctively quickened his to keep up. Asuka sped up a little more. Ma En followed. It repeated — and before either of them noticed, they'd escalated into something resembling a competitive race walk. Pedestrians on all sides stared. It took Asuka a moment to realize what was happening. She braked hard. Her face began to heat again, her gaze drifting toward the ground. She didn't want to replay the last few minutes, but her brain kept looping the image of the two of them charging down the sidewalk side by side.

At which point Ma En asked, from beside her: "Why'd you stop?"

The sentence hit like a hammer. Asuka felt the embarrassment double.

"Tired from walking?" Ma En asked.

Asuka wanted to collapse to her knees and never get up. She felt each question pierce her already-wounded heart like an arrow. Did this man have zero ability to read a situation? Why did he keep poking at the sore spot?

"Don't you think we were walking too fast?" Asuka said quietly. "Everyone was staring."

"Were they?" Ma En hadn't noticed at all. "I thought you were in a hurry."

"You're definitely messing with me, right?" Asuka muttered through clenched teeth. At this point she actually hoped he was messing with her — that would be preferable to the oblivious, innocent look on his face.

But Ma En was precisely wearing an oblivious, innocent look. He said nothing for a moment, wondering if he'd said something wrong. The two of them had been walking in silence the whole way, not exchanging a word. He'd assumed the girl was simply shy around strangers — didn't know how to talk without familiar faces nearby. Back in the shop, introverted as she was, she'd spoken up whenever it mattered.

Ma En had seen plenty of people. Asuka's personality was actually quite common.

He had no desire to argue with her. Arguing with girls, with grown women, with elderly women — all of it was thankless. If someone asked him what age of woman was most manageable when angry, he believed there was only one answer: kindergarten. Make her cry. Wait a few hours. Buy her something tasty. Grievances settled in full.

Girls these days, once they hit elementary school, weren't that easy anymore.

Ma En kept silent. Asuka held her breath, balled her fist, and thumped her own forehead. She was starting to regret this. Why had she rashly invited a man she barely knew to come out with her? She'd genuinely wanted to extract more about Room 4 from him, had even mentally prepared for frequent interaction — but compared to the suffocating awkwardness of this moment, none of that seemed very important. She was coming out behind.

"Are you just going to stand there and say nothing?" Asuka said. "You're definitely never getting a girlfriend like this. Hey — you don't have a girlfriend, do you?"

Ma En pressed his lips together. A moment ago it had been "Ma En-san" with every breath. Now it was just "hey."

"I'm actually quite popular with women," Ma En answered calmly. Because it was true, Asuka couldn't detect a trace of dishonesty — but that very realization caught her off guard.

She reassessed him. Looks alone: above average. The outfit was a bit odd, but acceptable — everything was so neatly put together that his whole person came across as clean and sharp. Above average on that count too. Her initial impression had been that he seemed reliable. But after what had just happened, she was revising that opinion. He wasn't as dependable as she'd assumed. She'd been reading by appearance — wishful thinking.

"Women actually like this personality of yours?" Asuka's skepticism was written plainly across her face.

"What's that expression supposed to mean? Looking down on me? Or calling every woman who's liked me an idiot?" Ma En pressed his hat brim lower, his voice dropping. "You're the strange one here. Suddenly stopping, interrogating me — what's going on in your head?"

"Because you have zero romantic awareness," Asuka said with perfect seriousness. "I was clearly walking ahead. Don't just catch up out of nowhere."

"How is that strange? Why should I walk half a step behind you? What's wrong with walking side by side?" Ma En shot back, equally serious.

"Ack — who wants to walk side by side with you!" Asuka exploded like a cat that had been stepped on.

"There it is — she's embarrassed." Ma En had figured it out. He grinned and pitched his voice high, imitating hers: "Ack — who wants to walk side by side with you!"

Asuka stared at him in disbelief. Then, mortified and furious, not caring that they weren't nearly familiar enough for this, she stepped forward and punched him in the shoulder. Ma En didn't dodge. He put on an exaggerated that really hurt face and shot her a teasing look. Asuka didn't know whether to laugh or scream. She raised her fist to hit him again but couldn't bring herself to follow through. And then she realized — all at once — that the embarrassment from before had vanished completely. The conversation had been infuriating, yes. But somehow, without her noticing, she'd ended up roughhousing with a man she'd only just met, and the fact of it felt impossible. People had always called her introverted. She knew her own defenses were thick. She was never the kind of girl who got comfortable quickly with someone new — and Ma En was the first. A man, at that.

How old is he? The question surfaced in her mind without prompting. She found herself caring, couldn't help looking at him again. The deep red hat was conspicuous, but his face was unexpectedly half-obscured by the hat brim and the shadow it cast. She wasn't sure if it was just her, but his features seemed somehow blurred — hard to describe, leaving only a general impression that his face was good-looking. She lowered herself slightly, angling her gaze upward, trying to catch the full picture of that face hidden beneath the hat.

Ma En shifted the hat toward the back of his head. "What are you looking at?"

This time, Asuka saw his face clearly. She reinforced the image in her mind several times over.

"How old are you?" she asked. Without knowing when it had happened, the natural address "Ma En-san" had grown awkward on her tongue. She didn't want to use honorifics anymore.

"Twenty-four."

"What — you're so young... Didn't you say you started working early? You didn't go to university?"

"I did. Graduated at twenty, then got recruited internally by the organization." Ma En had no dissatisfaction with his past and didn't think it was anything he needed to hide.

"Internally recruited?" Asuka didn't quite follow.

"I used to work at the Mainland's post office. I was selected by the organization before I even graduated," Ma En explained.

"Wait — you don't just submit a resume and apply?"

"No need. The post office recruited ten people directly from my university, across different disciplines: language, statistics, international relations, history, mechanical engineering, political thought, psychology, computer science, sports science, medical science." Ma En paused. "There are also people who apply on their own with resumes. But our job types and scopes are different from theirs."

"None of those disciplines sound related to a post office," Asuka said, more confused than before.

"Well, our operations span the North and South Poles, from space to the ocean floor, across over two hundred countries and their various industries. We need all kinds of talent to handle all kinds of matters." Ma En delivered this the way someone might describe their commute. His attitude was perfectly sincere, which only made Asuka find it harder to believe.

"What exactly does your post office do?"

"A bit of everything. Mostly logistics — delivering mail, safeguarding and transiting supplies, supporting official activities of certain international organizations. But my work doesn't require going abroad. I only handle the domestic segments." Ma En answered evenly. There were aspects that required confidentiality, but nothing in this answer touched on them.

"Domestic segments? So you don't do international work?"

"It's not like that. A lot of operations require cross-border coordination, but that doesn't mean everyone involved has to go abroad for the full process. It's division of labor — more efficient that way. In cross-border operations, I just handle the domestic links."

Asuka half-understood, half-didn't. It still sounded unbelievable — like bragging. What kind of post office in the world worked like this? Japan's post office certainly didn't handle this much.

But if it's true... doing that kind of work at twenty-four — you really can't judge by appearances.

The thought made her more interested in this man she'd only just met.

"Does that count as a civil service job?" she asked.

"Civil service, yes. The post office is a state institution."

"Isn't civil service really stable work? Why come to Japan?"

"The world's so big. I want to look around."

Ma En said it just like that, and Asuka burst out laughing — then immediately clapped a hand over her mouth, embarrassed. "Sorry, sorry. That was just really funny."

Ma En was baffled.

"Your post office's scope is that broad — couldn't you just transfer to a foreign operations position? You'd get to see other places the same way."

"It's not as simple as you think. For special recruits like us, transfers are actually hard to arrange. The people who apply on their own with credentials — those positions are easier to reassign."

"I still don't really understand what your job is."

"Just a national civil servant."

Asuka shook her head but let the question go. "Still — if you were specially recruited, and the work sounds that important, you must make good money, right?"

"Well... the salary's fixed. It's a public institution, after all. Benefits are decent. But as long as you do well, picking up commissions on the side is fairly easy." Ma En took off his hat and scratched his hair. He didn't particularly want to discuss this — it was an open secret within the industry — but as long as he kept it vague, it was harmless. "The people handling the foreign segments have wider networks, so they earn more. I'm on the domestic side. I just get to sip the broth."

Asuka had been absorbed in Ma En's story. When she realized she was walking shoulder to shoulder with him, she couldn't remember when she'd started moving. Maybe a few minutes ago? They were already far from the spot where she'd frozen in embarrassment. Even turning around, she couldn't see it anymore — just the bustle of the crowd. But compared to Ma En's story, the vague sense of having forgotten something didn't seem very important. He wasn't talking about urban legends, but in Asuka's mind, work like his was practically an urban legend of its own — brimming with the kind of appeal that pulled you in.

From Ma En's perspective, of course, it was just an ordinary job. Perhaps somewhat dangerous. The kind only outsiders found interesting.

"The post office only recruited ten people from your university. Were they all geniuses?" Asuka asked.

"Those ten included me. Are you saying I'm a genius too?" Ma En asked back.

"Graduating university at twenty and getting specially recruited — that's definitely a genius." Asuka said it as if it were self-evident, glanced at him, and added: "But you're so rigid. Zero ability to read the room. That's definitely why you got stuck on domestic duty. The ones who go abroad have to be sharp — perceptive."

"That's actually a fair point." Ma En felt no sting from the comment and agreed readily. "Compared to those people, I'm really nothing like a genius. I just got there first. Among those who joined after me, there are people younger than me who handle things more reliably, with broader knowledge. You know what the truly genius ones are like?" he asked.

"Hmm..." Asuka tapped her chin, thinking. "Literate by one, writing poetry by two, debuting and winning awards by three, something like that? You know quiz competition shows? They're huge in Japan. The contestants are amazing — they know so much that they have the answer before the question's even finished. The final winner, the Brain King, has to be a genius, right? Of course, even the ones who lose make you feel like they're geniuses. Universities on our side — Todai, Waseda, Keio — all send people to compete."

Ma En just smiled. He didn't know what Japan's quiz competition shows were. He'd never seen anything similar back home. But if the process boiled down to answering questions the fastest, winning only made the contestant look impressive. Real geniuses — he'd seen them. That was something no quiz competition could begin to measure. Their capacity to learn, to adapt, to apply what they knew — it existed at a height ordinary people simply couldn't reach. A gap effort could never bridge.