Pachinko

Goro promotes 20-year-old Mozasu so that he is now manager of his most important pachinko parlor, Seven. They go to Totoyama’s shop so that he can get new clothes for his new position. Mozasu worries that he is not ready to be a manager, but “as he pondered over which of the men he would shuffle around from the other shops, he realized that maybe he was ready after all to become a manager of a shop, and it made him smile a little” (284).

At the seamstress’s shop, he notices the new worker, Yumi. Yumi’s boss thinks she is “often too purposely aloof, taking lunch alone or reading during her breaks rather than talking” (286). When Mozasu returns to the shop for another fitting, he tries to talk to her, but she’s focused on her work. When he asks her to dinner, she says, “I go to school after work. I don’t have time for nonsense” (288). She is studying English and Mozasu impresses her with the English he’s learned when studying with Noa.