Dead Hours — The Handover, Page 5

About this chapter

3 A.M., rain on the dead-hours store. Between tasks Kaito is marking tonight's night in the strip's round-book when Rin says the flat thing that will not let him go: the delivery driver who brings the dawn crate is the same man every single morning, and has been for two years — and Kaito has never once seen his face. The dramatic question, set by page two: can you meet the person you only ever see at goodbye? Because the crate landing on the counter has always meant the same thing — the night is over, go home — Kaito has met this man five hundred dawns in a row and every time he was already clocking out, coat half on, mind already gone; the one constant person in his life after Rin is a stranger he has structurally never been able to meet. Kaito declares quiet war on a single resolution — to still be THERE, present and awake, when the crate lands this once — and spends the whole dead shift failing to catch the arrival. All night the running beat repeats identically: a set of headlights sweeps across the wet street, Kaito straightens behind the counter, certain 'that's him,' half-rises to be ready — and it is a passing taxi, a scooter, an ordinary car, never the van, and he sinks back dead-eyed and mutters '...not him.' He tries to reconstruct the driver's face from memory and finds nothing but a blur of dawns; he phones head office to ask the man's name and is put on hold; he stages himself by the sliding doors with his coat deliberately OFF so he cannot reflexively leave, rehearsing a greeting. A ladder of night regulars deliver flatly contradictory, unverifiable verdicts on the man who brings the morning: the tracksuit regular says it's a different driver every night, they rotate, no use learning them; a drunk salaryman swears there is no delivery at all, the crates just appear and the store restocks itself; a cheerful jogger insists she chats with him every morning, lovely man, how do you not know him — three verdicts nobody can verify. Rin films almost none of it and has one flicker of near-sincerity late on, phone down: he says good morning to a thousand strangers, and this is the one man who says goodnight to him, every day, and he has never once looked up. Near dawn, hollow and out of methods, Kaito finally stops engineering it, stops watching the kerb, and simply goes back to work — refilling the coffee filters, facing a shelf, tired and present and not waiting for anyone. That is exactly when the running beat inverts: the sliding doors go, the grey crate lands on the counter, dawn light fills the glass — and this time Kaito is right there, hands still, and he looks up and actually sees him. There is no viral reveal and no trick. The driver — Tetsu, big and iron-grey and mild — knows Kaito perfectly well: 'You're the one that's always still here. Most shops are dark by now, or the kid's already gone. Your light's always on, and you're always at the counter.' He has been Kaito's dawn counterpart for two years, seen from the road, and thinks a lit shop on a dark street is a good thing to bring the morning to. He rests a gloved hand on the round-book and says his marks are already in it, years back — same run as Kaito's, just the far end of it, the dawn end — and it's the shop's turn to keep it now: another night handed on. Kaito asks the one real question, why the same run every dawn, and Tetsu answers, plainly, that someone has to bring the morning, and he likes bringing it to the places that stayed lit. He shoulders back toward the kerb — 'See you tomorrow' — and for once Kaito, who has always left at exactly this moment, stays at the counter and watches him go, the daily goodbye become a meeting at last. Rin films that one small thing and, for once, does not post it. Kaito, who gets nothing every night, gets to be present for the one goodbye that happens every dawn, and to keep the face of the man who ends his nights. The final page mirrors page one's exact counter angle in flat grey dawn, the one thing changed: the crate that always meant 'Kaito's gone' now sits on the counter with Kaito still there beside it, and out through the glazing the plain white van pulls away from the kerb, Tetsu's hand raised through the glass — and Kaito, who always walked out the instant the crate arrived, lifts a hand back. A standalone deadpan Dead Hours comedy that advances the round-book fellowship arc and plants a fresh recurring night-worker — Tetsu the dawn delivery driver, the man who brings the morning to the whole night-strip — for a coming arc to gather with the watchman, the florist, the vending man, the courier and the clerk across the street.