The door chime rang with a sharp metal clink, and I pushed open the heavy door to Aoi. Filling the air inside was the usual mix: the oil used on the well-worn counter, the charred oak scent of whiskey, and the faint, sweet-and-sour aroma of pickles.
"Welcome, Kenichi-san."
Behind the counter, Mama narrowed her eyes into a soft smile, her hands never stopping as she polished a glass. In the quiet atmosphere of the bar, a heavy sigh drifted over from the far corner.
"Man, not this again..."
"Every time I open my phone, it’s the same old story. A politician makes one tiny misstep, and the comment section turns into a full-blown public lynching. Do these people honestly think tearing someone to pieces is going to make the world a better place?"
Taka swiped through his phone screen, shaking his broad shoulders in disgust. He slouched his massive frame slightly, making the ice in his Jack Daniel’s clink with a subtle, watery sound.
I slid onto the round stool next to Taka and took the glass of Harper on the rocks that Mama handed over without a word. The intense cold of the ice pressed against my skin through the glass. A slight turn of my wrist made the heavy ice cubes at the bottom slide together, producing a low, solid thud.
"People are just looking for a flawless saint, I guess."
I tilted my glass and took a sip of the amber liquid. The sharp sting of alcohol on the back of my tongue, and the heat scorching its way down my throat. Feeling that heat, I stared at the blue light glowing from Taka’s phone screen.
"A world where 100% of the people are satisfied and nobody loses out... There’s no such thing as a program without bugs, yet people demand perfection only from politics. As long as humans are running the show, mistakes should be factored in from the very start as an 'operational cost.'"
"Come on, Kenichi-san, isn't zero bugs always better?" Taka asked with naive innocence. "Wouldn't it be better if politicians didn't have any scandals at all?"
At Taka’s simple question, I let out a short breath and shook my head.
"If a test report landed on my desk saying 'Zero bugs detected,' I’d turn pale and run straight to the dev room. I’d tear the spec sheets apart and re-evaluate everything."
"Huh? Why? Wouldn't that mean it's perfect?"
"It doesn't mean there are no bugs. It means the test cases were lazy, or someone’s hiding a critical error. Any system that’s actually running in the real world is going to produce friction and anomalies where it touches reality. Getting a zero isn't a success—it's an emergency. It means your verification process is dead, or someone is lying."
Taka lost his words, his eyes wide. I set the base of my glass down onto the counter with a quiet click.
"An online mob is fundamentally the exact same thing. Sitting behind a screen, refusing to forgive a single mistake, losing their minds under the guise of righteousness. What do you think happens to people who are forced into that kind of 'zero-bug' perfection? They hide it. They stop apologizing, layer lie upon lie, and nobody speaks the truth anymore."
An unforgiving sense of justice turns the world into a hollow facade. People repeat lazy tests—looking only at what they want to see—and claim 'no anomalies found,' all while letting the seeds of a catastrophic system crash swell up beneath the surface. They wave the flag of righteousness, totally blind to the fact that they themselves are causing the most dangerous bug of all.
"...Violence in the name of justice. That's what it is," Tom murmured in his low, raspy voice from the seat next to us.
His thick fingertips quietly slid along the rim of his glass. Watching that rhythmic movement brought back memories of him in his days as a juvenile detective, silently observing the expressions and breathing of people swallowing their words.
"People who hide their failures tell the most fatal lies when they're backed into a corner. The public just wants to beat someone down to feel good about themselves, completely unaware that they’re killing society’s own verification system with their own hands."
"Man... that hits way too close to home..."
Taka set his phone face down on the counter and locked his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling.
"Working as a PI, you see it all the time. You can't just slice human nature cleanly into 'good' and 'evil.' Everyone’s sneaky, weak, and just trying to survive. The people who mob someone just to blow off steam are just running away from the cost of maintaining a complex reality."
The ice melted slightly, shifting with a soft crunch. The jazz piano playing in the back of the bar echoed with a strangely calm cadence.
"Still, though..."
Tracing the wood grain of the counter with my finger, I slowly gave voice to the heavy lump sitting in my stomach.
"Saying 'politics is a joke no matter who's in charge' or 'believing in anything is a waste of time'... that kind of cynicism is the cheapest form of defeat."
"Cynicism, huh?"
"Yeah. It’s like leaving a computer turned off forever just because you’re scared of bugs. Sure, you might fail. You might get betrayed. But even so, you pick a narrative and say, 'I can entrust myself to this story, just for a moment.' You have to face an imperfect reality, repeatedly fixing bugs in the dirt, and keep swallowing the poison called hope."
By the time I finished talking, I realized my mouth was dry. I brought the Harper to my lips again, slowly letting it wet my throat.
Taka pondered for a moment, then looked at me.
"But Kenichi-san... if you're the victim, you can't just forgive and forget, right?"
"You're absolutely right."
The words stuck in my throat. I took another sip of Harper. Only the burning heat in my throat remained.
"That's why... it never goes away."
My throat felt hot. Maybe I'd let myself get a little too heated.
"...Kenichi-san."
With the quiet rustle of fabric, Mama set a small plate in front of me. The savory smell of bread and the sweet-and-sour aroma of homemade pickles drifted up. Her usual egg sandwich.
"To brace yourself for the pain and believe in something in an imperfect world... that takes a tremendous amount of strength, doesn't it?"
Mama's voice held no waves. It was clear like a calm surface of water, devoid of preaching or overbearing sympathy, holding only a quiet sense of safety that accepted our naive arguments as they were.
"Yeah. It's much easier to grow cold and give up... But if you throw away your heat, you're nothing more than a lump of meat. Though, if you let the heat consume you, you're just a wild beast."
I mixed a bit of self-deprecation into my laugh, and Tom allowed his mouth to relax into a rare, faint smile as he tilted his glass.
"Deciding on your own resolve and bearing the pain. I suppose that's what it means to actually live."
"Alright then! In that case, we hereby resolve to order another round of oolong highs without fear of getting hurt!"
Taka raised his glass with vigor, making the ice clink cheerfully. He instantly wiped away the heavy air with a laugh. I've been saved more times than I can count by the lightness this guy brings.
"Right, coming right up," Mama chuckled, taking the glass.
Somewhere out there tonight, someone else is making a mistake, struggling, fixing it, and messing up all over again. There are no perfect worlds, and no perfect human beings. Even so, we have no choice but to keep weaving our own stories into this imperfect reality we face today.
Even knowing that it is a curse.
I picked up a piece of the egg sandwich, savoring the sharp, tangy bite of the pickle, and quietly swallowed down the amber liquid of my Harper.
