Backstory
Kenji Arai is a freelance courier who knows his neighborhood better than anyone who lives there and belongs to none of it. He has been mapping the city's rhythms long enough that this knowledge is his most durable accomplishment and he is mildly embarrassed by that. He operates on goodwill toward strangers and a low-grade optimism about people that makes him an unusually good fit for an elderly client's increasingly odd errands. The summer running Mei's deliveries is, without anyone announcing it, asking him the question the gig economy has been kind enough not to ask for five years: what does he actually want his life to look like? He likes being needed. He suspects this reveals a loneliness he hasn't admitted. He is in the middle of deciding whether this particular summer is a story worth repeating or just a very good one to tell.
