Time passed and the afternoon finally arrived. The other members of his executive team had arrived but went straight to work on verifying the contents of Mikomi’s letter. Ryunosuke paced in his office as Alice stood by waiting to offer her assistance if needed.
“This wait is killing me, Alice. I guess I could go down there and see it for myself but I’m just afraid that if the CEO of the company walks in while they’re doing work, it’ll cause unnecessary nerves and tension. I’m only here because I want them to work in peace. I know how some of the best minds can thrive so this is for the best… at least, that’s what I keep telling myself.”
Ryunosuke wasn’t going to have to wait much longer. Michael was running down the halls with a piece of paper in hand at top speed. He barely dodged other employees as he made a beeline for Ryunosuke’s office. The door suddenly burst open and Michael came charging through. Alice was a bit startled when he made his grand entrance, huffing, and puffing. Ryunosuke immediately turned and looked at Michael with the most anticipating eyes one could have. Michael, in between trying to catch his breath, looked up and cracked a favorable smile.
“The code…. it checks out!”
“How sure are we?”
“A hundred percent. We shared the code with every programmer that we had. It was a unanimous agreement that the code is not only solid but it looked bug-free. This is the real deal!”
Ryunosuke’s eyes widened with amazement. All of the gut feelings he experienced up until this moment had suddenly become justified. The look on his face was priceless as he seemed like a child on Christmas morning staring in wonder at the number of gifts that were sitting under the tree. Even in his later years, Ryunosuke was filled with child-like energy upon hearing the wonderful news. He opened his mouth to give his next order almost immediately.
“Let’s get-”
Michael raised his hand and cut Ryunosuke off.
“Implementation is already underway. They estimate we should have an alpha demo compiled by morning if they pull an all-nighter. The programmers were so excited that they requested to work through the night. They want your permiss-”
“Permission granted. If it’s not in the budget, I’ll pay them out of my own pocket. I don’t care… let us see this through!”
“I can still go home at five o’clock, right?”
“What do you think, Michael?”
“Guess I should have brought my PJs.”
Michael cracked a smile and took his leave from the office, heading back to the programming lab. Ryunosuke trembled with excitement as he walked back over to his seat. He had to place his hand on his desk to keep himself upright as he felt that he could just collapse at any moment. It wasn’t fatigue but the overwhelming sense of accomplishment that made him weak in the knees. Nevertheless, he made it back to his chair and sat back down.
“Sir?” asked Alice, with a concerned tone in her voice. “Are you okay, sir?”
“I’m just anxious, that’s all. I want to see the results so badly, I can barely contain myself but at the same time, patience is a virtue that we must all possess. The results will come in due time. Waiting is just the toughest part. It is what truly tests great men.”
“If I can be forward for a moment, sir… I haven’t seen you leave the office in over a week. Perhaps you should go home and get some rest, sir. Perhaps being away from here will help you relax a bit.”
“I appreciate your concern but this is nothing. Besides, I can’t leave now. Not when we’re this close. I’ll rest plenty when I’m dead.”
Ryunosuke shot Alice a smile and a wink before he got up from his seat. He placed his hand on Alice’s shoulder as if to say “There is nothing to worry about” and headed toward the door. He grabbed the handle and gave it a turn before looking back at Alice.
“I’m going to go see the implementation for myself. I can’t contain my curiosity any longer. I’ll call if I need anything.”
Alice could only nod as she knew that there was no stopping him. Ryunosuke was the kind of man that when he set his mind to something, he was going to see it through until the very end. Once the door closed, Alice let out a heavy sigh that she had been keeping inside of her all this time. It represented her frustration because she was concerned about Ryunosuke’s health. She didn’t know his work ethic as she hadn’t been with the company long enough to trust him in that regard. To her, he was just someone who might just be putting his health and well-being in jeopardy.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“You’ll rest when you’re dead, huh? At this pace…”
Alice shook her head to free herself from such thoughts. She turned and grabbed the door handle and opened it. She took a look over her shoulder and the empty office and shook her head once again. Alice closed the door behind her and went back to her own office where she would remain on standby.
The day passed quickly and five o’clock had arrived. All of the employees went home for the evening except for the higher-ups and the programming team. They were determined to see the project through and worked diligently hour after hour. By the time they had made any major progress, it was nearly two in the morning on Sunday. Ryunosuke sat in a chair in the programming room, drinking a cup of coffee, fighting to stay awake. With each sip, the look on his face showed that he wished he were drinking Alice’s coffee instead of this cheap freeze-dried instant stuff. Even with coffee in his system, he was about to nod off right then and there when one of the programmers shouted.
“It’s done! The code has been fully implemented!”
Ryunosuke snapped awake. He got up out of his chair and rushed over to the terminal and watched as the code compiled on the computer. Ryunosuke gazed on in wonder as the completion bar got closer and closer to 100%. When the bar filled, his face sank when it returned 137 errors.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Saigo,” said the programmer. “This is quite normal on a first compile. I’m pretty shocked it’s only this many. We’ll comb through every error and have it corrected. If the whole team works on it, we should be finished by lunchtime tomorrow.”
Ryunosuke placed his hand on the programmer’s shoulder and shook his head. He may not have limits, but he knew his employees did.
“No... you’ve done enough. You don’t need to do any more today. Go home, get some rest and we’ll worry about debugging the code when we’re all well-rested and freshened up.”
There was a collective internal sigh of relief. Even though they didn’t verbally express it, the look of sweet release was written on all of their faces. Ryunosuke knew he made the right decision by sending them all home to rest. All of the programmers filed out of the room one by one, looking like a conga line of zombies. Michael, who didn’t look fresh himself, approached Ryunosuke but before he could say a word…
“Yes, Mike. You can go home as well.”
Michael gave him the two-finger salute and a smile before walking off with the rest of the staff. Jared and Colin gave their farewells to Ryunosuke and left for the evening as well. Ryunosuke walked back to his office where he sat in his chair. His eyes were heavy as he rested his head on his desk and fell asleep. Being Sunday, the normal staff wasn’t in. Ryunosuke liked having his company open on Saturdays as not a lot of American businesses adopted that practice. In Japan, even children would go to school six days a week and with his background and heritage, he wanted to implement that in his company. His workers were given the option of having the weekend off or having Sunday plus a different day off in the middle of the week as fair compensation.
It was surprising just how many people chose to have a day off in the middle of the week. Perhaps they had families and didn’t get a chance to do some of the things they wanted to because they weren’t available on the weekend. Some, perhaps, needed to deal with issues such as doctor appointments or home repairs and scheduling those on a weekday proved to be more advantageous than having a full weekend off. Whatever the case may be, his staff adopted his work policy willingly, which made him happy.
Despite being closed, the programming team did return later that day as they said they would. Alice wasn’t there to wake him up so that honor belonged to Colin who knocked on Ryunosuke’s door. Upon hearing the knock, he slowly lifted his head off his desk and glanced at his clock. He noticed it was nearly four-thirty in the afternoon and was in total shock it was that late. All of the stress and anxiety had washed away and because of such, he slept like a log despite his surroundings.
“I stopped by a couple of hours ago but you were still sleeping, so I quietly shut the door and let you rest. I figured you could use the sleep. I decided to disturb you because Michael, Jared, and myself pitched in with the debugging process and we’re down to the last few errors. I came to get you because we can start simulation testing probably within the next thirty minutes or so.”
Ryunosuke almost shot out of his chair. He briskly made his way to the door and when he was about to step out of his office, the phone rang. He contemplated ignoring the call but he knew that not many people had the direct number to his office. Realizing that the call may be important, he excused himself and picked up the phone.
“This is Ryunosuke…. Karoline? … He’s WHAT!? … I’m on my way!”
Ryunosuke slammed down the phone and grabbed his suit jacket in a panic.
“I have to go. That was my wife. She says that my son is in the hospital and he won’t wake up. This project is extremely important to me but nothing is more important to me than my son. I trust you’ll give me a full report when I get back.”
Colin nodded with a worried look on his face.
“I pray that Mikomi is okay.”
“Thank you.”
With that, Ryunosuke made a mad dash for his car. He zipped right through the front doors and past the security guard. He ran for his car, fumbling his keys in his hands, nervously trying to find the one that unlocked his door. When he got to his car, he realized that fidgeting wasn’t going to get him anywhere so he took a couple of deep breaths and calmed himself down. He found the right key and unlocked the car door. He climbed inside and sped off in the direction of the hospital.