The Marui department store in Nakano opened in 1944, in the middle of the war, with the linen department on the fourth floor. In the linen department, on the morning of April 16, 2026, at nine thirty, Yoshida Sayoko, seventy-two years old, name pin above the pocket of her grey uniform, takes the first white cotton blouse from the pile forty-four centimeters high on the display counter. Beside her is Mieko, forty-nine years old, a colleague of fifteen years, who has not yet spoken this morning. The young director, Akira-san, forty-one years old, walked through the department twenty minutes ago with a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums and told Yoshida: Sayoko-san, tomorrow everyone on the ground floor gets a bouquet. Yoshida replied with a slight bow. Akira-san went down to the management office on the second floor.

The pile of white cotton blouses has been there unchanged for thirty years. Marui linen — blouses, slips, summer pajamas — has always been folded by hand by Yoshida and the other veterans of the department. The new girls on the ground floor have learned to fold in four: half vertical, half horizontal. Yoshida folds in three. The older colleagues fold in three. They learned it from Mrs. Tsuji, who died in 2002, and who had taught them that cotton folded in three breathes. Folding in four presses the fabric against itself, and cotton, over time, takes the fold. Folding in three leaves a slight wave that flattens when the blouse is opened.

First customer, ten twelve: a woman in her sixties buys two blouses, pays with the Marui credit card. Yoshida takes the first blouse from the pile. Spreads it on the counter. Folds the right sleeve toward the center of the bodice. Folds the left sleeve toward the center of the bodice. Then folds the bodice into three equal parts: the top third down, the bottom third up. The nail of her right thumb pulls the lower edge, presses the corner. Seventeen seconds. She sets it inside the grey paper bag with the Marui logo. The second blouse, seventeen seconds, into the same bag. The woman thanks her, leaves.

Second customer, ten forty-seven: four blouses. Seventeen seconds times four: sixty-eight seconds of folding, plus the bow and the bag. Yoshida does not talk to the customers except to greet them. Mieko takes care of the register. The linen department closes at nineteen today, an hour before the normal time. On the sign at the entrance of the floor, in large black characters: Last day. Thank you for eighty-two years.

At eleven twenty Yoshida goes to the staff room behind the department. Opens her metal locker, number one hundred sixty-three. Takes the bottle of cold green tea, drinks three sips, puts it back. Closes the locker. Returns to the counter. Mieko is with a customer buying a satin dressing gown. Yoshida stays on her feet beside the pile. The pile has gone down from forty-four to thirty-six centimeters.

At twelve thirty it is the lunch hour. Yoshida eats the bentō she brought from home, standing in the staff room: a salmon onigiri, two slices of takuan, a marbled egg. She has done this for twenty-three years. At one she starts again. From the lunch break to seventeen the flow is steady. Twelve customers, twenty-three blouses folded, four slips, two summer pajamas. The pile of linen drops to eleven centimeters. Mieko still has not spoken.

At seventeen forty the last customer walks in. Tanaka-san, seventy-six years old, has been coming to Marui for twenty-five years. She lives in Arai, three stations away, and comes by subway. She has a brown cloth bag. She opens the bag in front of the counter. Pulls out a white cotton blouse, badly folded. Not new. She bought it here seven years ago, it is the blouse she wears for hospital visits, it was washed and folded at home by her husband while Tanaka-san was in hospital in Saitama with bronchitis, and Tanaka-san's husband folded it in four. Tanaka-san lays the blouse on the counter. Rests her hand on it, lightly. Looks Yoshida in the eyes. Says nothing.

Yoshida could have said: madam, I do not fold blouses already sold. She could have said: I will call the director, we can give you a symbolic refund. Mieko, at the register, sees. Tanaka-san waits. Yoshida takes Tanaka-san's blouse. Opens it on the counter with both hands, as she opens all the blouses. The right sleeve is badly folded, it has a horizontal crease in the middle that Tanaka-san's husband made. Yoshida smooths the sleeve with her right palm. Then folds the right sleeve toward the center of the bodice. Folds the left sleeve toward the center of the bodice. Folds the bodice into three parts. The nail of her right thumb pulls the edges. Seventeen seconds. She does not put it in the grey Marui paper bag, because it is not a sale. She places it in Tanaka-san's hands, and Tanaka-san takes it, presses it against her chest, bows twice. Yoshida bows once. Tanaka-san walks out of the department, toward the elevator. Mieko at the register has seen. Says nothing.

At nineteen Akira-san speaks over the microphone from the ground floor. The sound reaches the fourth through the internal system. He thanks the customers, thanks the clerks, recalls the eighty-two years. Yoshida does not listen. She is stacking the last seven blouses remaining on the counter into the brown logistics box, which the warehouse will come to collect tonight. She folds all seven. Seventeen seconds each. One hundred nineteen seconds. The final pile is eight centimeters. Yoshida closes the box. Moves it to the edge of the counter. Takes her grey coat from the staff room. Greets Mieko with a nod. Mieko nods back. Yoshida leaves by the stairs, not the escalator, which is already off. On the ground floor the bouquet sits on the table. She does not take it. At the Nakano stop, at nineteen fifty-two, she boards the Chūō line train to her station. The train is half full. Yoshida finds a seat. Sets the bag on her knees. Keeps her hands on the bag. Her fingers are still folded as if they were gripping the hem of a blouse.