This happened when I was working a part-time job in a certain high-rise building. High-rise buildings usually have express elevators, right? In this particular building, there were express elevators for every floor divisible by eight. For example, if you were going anywhere from floors 1 to 16, the elevator would go directly from the 1st floor to the 8th floor, and then stop at every floor from the 8th to the 16th.
The floors up to the 7th were occupied by tenants, and business hours ended at 8:00 PM. For security reasons, after 8:00 PM, all elevators from the 1st floor would only go as far as the 8th floor. Everyone had to get off on the 8th floor, show their employee ID to the security guards, and then board a different elevator. Since the express section ran from the 8th to the 24th floors, it was a huge hassle for anyone working on the 15th floor and below. My company was on the 12th floor. There was actually a reason why such a troublesome system had been put in place.
That day, I went to pick up some printed materials along with another male part-time worker. We were made to wait for three hours, and by the time we finally made it back to the building, it was about three minutes past eight. We both sprinted, and somehow managed to catch the very last express elevator. Panting heavily, we set our packages down near the doors, and the guy pressed the button for the 12th floor. As he pushed it, he asked me, "What floor are you getting off at?"
Thinking we were the only ones there, we suddenly noticed a man standing in the back. He looked to be nearing retirement age, of petite and slender build, wearing black-rimmed glasses, with a serious yet very gentle expression on his face. "Excuse me. Could you press the 9th floor for me?" he asked, giving a slight bow. He was extremely polite. "Working late is tough, isn't it? Take it easy so you don't ruin your health," the man said with a warm smile directed at the other boy. He was like a living Buddha—the kind of person whose mere presence brought a sense of calm.
The elevator stopped. Since we were standing near the doors, we stepped aside to clear a path for him. At that moment, a voice called out: "Hey, what are you guys doing? The doors are gonna close!" The elevator lobby also served as a smoking area, and the section chief, who had requested the printed materials, was peering out while smoking a cigarette.
*What?* There was the familiar scenery, and right on the wall was the 12th-floor logo. We hurried out of the elevator and turned around, but there was no sign of the man. I clearly saw the other boy press the 9th-floor button after the man asked him to. Both of us had been completely out of breath, panting with our hands resting on the elevator doors. Because the indicator light above the buttons goes out as you approach each floor, I had kept my eyes on the 9th-floor button the entire time. The boy said he was watching it, too.
When we told the section chief about what happened, he casually replied, "Ah, that was Saeki-san." Back during the bubble economy when the section chief was still a junior employee, there was a man named Saeki-san who worked at a securities firm on the 9th floor. He was truly like a Buddha, always mindful of employees from other companies as well. It seemed that on that particular day, he had returned late from a client visit, and employees coming in the next morning found him collapsed and dead in the 9th-floor elevator lobby. It was death from overwork. Word of it spread so much that people from other companies in the building even attended his funeral. The security guards had reportedly been filled with deep regret, wishing they had properly checked to see if any employees were still left inside.
That incident was the reason why the building introduced the system where the elevator settings change at 8:00 PM to verify if anyone is still working late. According to the section chief, Saeki-san appears whenever someone gets on the elevator who is on the verge of collapsing from working too hard.
"Saeki-san came, after all," the section chief said. "You guys are working way too hard, too. Go home and rest today. You can take tomorrow off as well."
It might have been a coincidence, but the part-time boy who was with me reportedly had a slight fever on the day he met Saeki-san, and high fever set in on the day he took off. He said that if the section chief hadn't told him to rest, he would have pushed himself to come in anyway.
Even now, I remember his face vividly. He looked so solid and real that it was hard to believe anyone could call him a ghost; it felt like a living person was standing right there. But, even though it was the dead of winter, he was wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt.
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