My eyes darted over the pages in the thick packet in search of something useful. I probably could’ve found what I was looking for by now, but I was kind of… distracted.

“Lay one finger on my wife, and I will rip your throat out, pal!” the man behind me shouted. I felt a puff of hot air from his nostrils on my neck.

“Don’t worry sir, I’m just here to fix your oven,” I replied. “If you’d let me concentrate.” That last part came out as a whisper.

As much as I wanted to, I really couldn’t blame this guy’s attitude. He’d just caught his wife cheating on him after all. Sure, it looked like they’d made up, but he was obviously still feeling raw, at least judging by how he acted.

Hiroi, the apartment complex’s manager, stood next to him. The asian man looked over my shoulder and groaned as I turned the page of the oven manual. He lifted his finger and opened his mouth as I turned it again, but stayed silent.

When everyone’s stares felt like they were just finished drilling through my skull, I figured it out.

“Hey, I think I found something here,” I said. “So the problem is that the oven isn’t getting hot enough, right?”

“Yeah,” grumbled the husband.

“Looks like it could be caused by a loose contact between the heating coil and the socket. Let me take a look.”

I opened up the oven door and slid my head inside. The flashlight Hiori had given me lit up the tiny space, and gave me a good view of everything there. The racks were already moved outside, leaving just the clean oven floor and the heating coils on the ceiling. They were crooked.

Taking a closer look, I could see that one of the connectors wasn’t properly inserted into its socket. It was pulled out and had one of its pins bent. This definitely wasn’t something explicitly written in the book, but I could still understand the problem easily enough.

“Hey, could someone pass me the pliers?” I asked, my voice echoing through tight space.

Someone handed them to me, and I looked back to say thank you. I was met with Harold’s bloodshot eyes. I let out a yelp as the sudden shock made me slam my head against the ceiling.

“Are you alright?” asked the landlord, bending over to take Harold’s place. Thankfully, his gaze was blocked by the white hair completely covering his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied, rubbing my head. I turned back to the ceiling and began to work.

I started by pulling the heating coil all the way out of the socket and looking at the damage. The bent pin was twisted at multiple spots, as if someone slammed a hammer into it to make some kind of a copper lightning bolt.

With a quick twist of the pliers, the pin was mostly back into shape. Enough so that it would at least fit back in place. And with a forceful push, the coil was back on the socket.

“There we go, that should fix it!” I exclaimed as I slowly exited the oven. I couldn’t help but brightly smile at my handiwork. “One of the connector pins was bent out of shape, like someone purposefully bent it at multiple spots. Any idea what could’ve caused it?”

“Well, my step-sister was visiting right before the problem started, and she got stuck inside.”

“Wait, stuck inside?” I asked.

“Yeah, her hair got caught or something, I don’t know. It must’ve happened when I tried to get her out.”

“Yeah, alright,” I nodded along. I wasn’t stupid enough to ask for any more details. “So how should we test it?”

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“I’ve got a roast in the freezer that we could cook,” slowly replied the husband. “If it comes out undercooked, you’re eating it.”

As far as threats went, it wasn’t exactly scary. But I still gulped.

----------------------------------------

“Hey, it looks like it works! Thanks!” Exclaimed the man, showing the first bit of happiness I’d seen out of him today.

“No problem, only doing my job,” I said with a nod, followed by a wink to Hiroi.

The manager smiled back.

“You two can go now, I’ve got a looong dinner with my wife now.”

“You two have fun,” the old Asian man replied. “And I’ll add the bill for your broken window to next month’s rent. They can be expensive to replace.”

I could’ve sworn I saw a vein bulge on the husband’s forehead. But his widening eyes and deep frown were a bit more telling.

Hiroi finally got a clue and hastily led us out of the apartment, back to his office.

He slammed the door shut, locked it, and when he finally regained his composure, gave me a massive smile. “You did it, Mike! You passed!”

“Huh? For real?!” I stuttered in response. My thoughts were still on the rabid gorilla back at the apartment; the fact that I was being interviewed completely slipped my mind.

“That’s right! You solved a problem that wasn’t even written in the book! So now you’ve got the job! Come over to my desk, I’ll give you details and employment contract.”

Hiroi took a seat at his chair and laid out several sheets of paper.

I took my place on the other side of the desk and followed the older man’s lead.

“So your base pay will be $15 an hour, with all of the standard benefits like insurance,” Hiroi began. “On top of that, you’ll also get a place to stay, in Building A’s managerial apartment.”

“Managerial apartment?” I asked. “How big is that compared to the place we saw?”

“About three times as big, when it comes to square footage.”

“Wait, three?! With a name like that, I thought you were going to throw me in a supply closet or something!”

“Oh no, I could never do that to someone with such an important job!” the old man let out a small chuckle. He looked up at me and his eyes seemingly twinkled behind his hair.

“Haha, yeah,” I replied with my own awkward smile.

“Right, so just sign here and the job is yours! You’ll be working Monday through Friday during standard working hours, but you might be called in to help out on weekends if nobody is available.”

I nodded along. Wait, what did he mean by nobody available? “Hold on, do you mean somebody else would be working on weekends? Why wouldn’t I have to work then?”

“Some of the younger men take weekend overtime to impress their bosses, but it rarely works out that way. You’ll need to be working when they aren’t available.”

“Hold on, you expect the residents to fix their own problems? Then why did I fix that guy’s oven? Couldn’t he have taken care of it him-” I stopped before I completed my sentence. The weird hours, the insane benefits, how didn’t I see it sooner? “This isn’t for the handyman job, is it?”

Hiroi scratched the back of his head. “I guess you caught me! You’re really sharp, and that’s a skill that you’ll need for this particular career.”

I glared at the old man. “You didn’t even tell me this was for a different job. I was about to sign.”

“I wanted to know you were interested in all of the benefits first before I told you the responsibilities!” Hiroi gave me a weak smile. “It’s not like you’re holding a pen, I would’ve given you the details before you wrote anything.”

I let out an angry sigh. “Fine, so what job is this?”

“Do you remember the man who ran out of that apartment earlier?”

“Yeah, he got caught screwing that guy’s wife, what about it?”

“He was in the middle of his job.”

“He was pretty bad at it then. At least you don’t have to go through the trouble of firing him. So what was his actual job?”

Hiroi looked back up at me. His mouth was curled into a frown and I could feel a hardened expression behind his white hair. “That was his actual job. And he was damn good at it.”

I just stared at the old man, trying to put his words together. The pieces began to fit together and my jaw began to drop. “You mean, his job was-”

“Satisfying lonely housewives, yes.” Hiroi gave me a solemn nod. “It’s an important duty that many of the women here can’t live without. And I want to offer this job to you.”

I leaned back into my seat. What did I just get myself into?