—Friday, March 2015.
Due to a strong, moist, large-scale cold air mass over the Japanese archipelago, temperatures dropped to the level of early January, and snow began to fall from around noon.
The regions that suffered from heavy snow were not only the Hokkaido and Tohoku, as it also spread all over the Kanto and Chubu regions, as well as from San-in to Kitakyushu.
Even in the plains of the Tokyo metropolitan area, 25 to 50 cm of snow was recorded, forcing railroad and other transportation services to be suspended or severely delayed, and giving rise to a havoc during the weekend evening rush hour. —
◇ ◇ ◇
Around 6:30 the next morning.
A certain town in the southern part of Saitama Prefecture.
In the town, which was fully covered with snow and turned into a snowscape, there was a middle-aged man walking up a hill.
He was wearing a dark gray suit, and the reason he had his shoulder bag slung over his shoulder was probably to keep his hands free.
As for the reason he had been walking with a precarious gait since a while ago, that was because the road surface had been frozen solid overnight.
「Huff, huff, hii, phew… Gwah! That was close!」
As the man's right leg, with which he made a step on the ground, slipped, he lost the balance of his body.
As soon as he did, he fell forward and put one hand on the ground.
It was a terribly disgraceful appearance, but it was better than falling over.
In the first place, it was rare to see people out and about this early on a Saturday morning, so there was no need to worry about being seen.
No one seemed to have gone out to shovel the snow in the neighborhood yet, either.
The reason why ice scraping-like crunching sounds could be heard from time to time was probably because cars with chains attached were passing by. Aside from those instances, the area was shrouded in silence.
To begin with, snowy day and the leather shoes, which were worn by the man, was the worst combination possible.
However, it was probably the nature of office workers that they could not forgo the combination of a suit and leather shoes when going to work, even if the weather forecast called for heavy snow.
With much hardships, most white-collar workers made their way home amidst the great chaos of last night's traffic, but he had to work overtime until late anyway, so while he was at it, he decided to stay overnight at the office.
Therefore, now that the next morning had come, he was coming back home in the morning in such a manner, one with much hardships.
His name was Hirose Yuu.
He was 40 years old and single, once divorced.
His height was around a little over 170cm.
His weight, which was settling within the standard range until about 10 years ago, had ended up stepping into the low 80kg range since three years ago, and although it was not conspicuous when he was putting on a suit, excess fat was certainly piling up around his belly.
Every time the results of the medical checkup he received at work come out, a lifestyle warning envelope was attached, so he could be said to be at a risk of lifestyle diseases.
「Finally, I'm almost to the bridge… Huff, huff, so harsh….」
At the end of his gaze was an uphill, and the bridge was over the hill.
It was the halfway point between the station and the apartment where he lived.
Normally it would take six or seven minutes to walk from the station, but at the moment it was taking about twice as long.
No, it taking longer was fine and all.
Rather, him having to brace his legs and keep his balance as he walked to avoid falling down was causing pain and fatigue to his legs and loins, which lacked exercise in his daily life.
It was all due to the frozen road.
For residents of the Tokyo metropolitan area, where snow rarely piled up, this kind of snowfall occurred only once or twice a year.
They never got used to it, so when it did pile up, they were in for some great suffering.
It was especially horrible on slopes where there was no place to hold on.
As he slipped over and over again, Yuu, almost on an all-fours posture, creeped uphill from the foot of the bridge and finally reached the top of the bridge.
The snow on the bridge, which sported no center line and just enough space for cars to pass each other, was firmly treaded down and hardened, covered with ruts made by cars that had passed by last night.
Although the snow surface, which had been pushed aside to the sides of the bridge, would cover his entire shoes, he knew it was slip-proof. Even so, there were still slippery spots in some places, so he could not be too careful, though.
Yuu took a breather on the bridge and looked down at the town.
The town seemed to have been applied with pure white makeup and was glistening as it basked in the dawn light.
For the duration he lived in the Tokyo metropolitan area, it was a scene he rarely saw, so now that he gazed at it in such a manner, it was a perfect scenery.
As long as he omitted the circumstance where he had to walk through that scenery.
「Haa~」
Unintentionally, a sigh leaked out.
The breath leaking from his mouth was white.
When he stepped out of the station, the chilly morning air made him shiver, but while he was walking up to this point, he had ended up breaking a sweat.
As he made a stop at the bridge and was exposed to the breeze that blew along the river with a swish, he could feel his body rapidly cooling down.
However, Yuu could not move there for a while.
In the company, where there was no nap room, he tried sleeping in a row of chairs, but it was so cold that he could not get a good night's sleep.
Despite the fact that fatigue had piled up from daily plus long overtime works every day.
If anything, his joints creaked here and there due to how uncomfortable the sleep was, and he could hear them cracking when he stretched out.
Walking on the frozen road in the state of lack of sleep was draining, so Yuu brushed off the snow that had accumulated on the bridge parapet and put his hands there.
The concrete parapet was wet and very cold, but he no longer paid any mind to it and gazed at the scenery from there.
「Forty years old is, following the right course, was it?」
He recalled that there was such a phrase in the Chinese literature he had studied in school long ago, which said it was the age when one followed the proper, right course.
「Let alone following the right course, I'm always at a loss here.」
Unintentionally, a soliloquy slipped out of his mouth.
He said 40 years old, but he would be 41 in three months.
Somehow, he could not help but feel that the days were passing by faster and faster.
He wondered if he would simply go on aging in vain as he was.
When he was a child, he had an image of someone at the age of forty as a respectable adult, but when he reflected on himself, he had no faintest confidence to say that he was right.
Looking back, his life had been full of regrets.
Especially around the time when him turning forty was just around the corner, there was no mistaking that he began to look back on the past, and the number of times he thought 「if only at that time, I had done this」 increased.
When one graduated from university, it was known as the employment ice age, and although he had visited dozens of companies since April of his senior year, he was unable to receive any job offers.
About six months into his job hunting, the job offer he finally received was from a mid-sized publishing company. It was an industry he had not even considered at first.
Even so, he worked hard in his own way to learn the job and did his best for the company.