Everyone at the Department of Stairwell Documentation had grown accustomed to strange memos, but nothing prepared them for the arrival of Arai Ryo and his overwhelmingly affectionate subordinate energy.

He carried, at all times, an absurdly gigantic knitted accessory whose dimensions had to be recorded in Roman numerals because standard sizing conventions failed catastrophically in his presence. The inventory department attempted to classify it as industrial fabric. The fire marshal classified it as weather.

Ryo adored things with unstoppable intensity. Laminators made him emotional. He once spent an entire afternoon gently polishing a vending machine because he appreciated the symmetry of its beverage rows. During a blackout, he reportedly whispered encouraging remarks to a photocopier until electricity returned to the district.

Nobody could explain why every sentence concerning him became progressively more melodramatic after transcription. Office notes transformed on their own. A simple reminder such as bring stapler upstairs eventually mutated into declarations involving devotion, destiny, and strangely oversized garments.

Junior employees became nervous around him, not because he behaved improperly, but because his enthusiasm operated beyond socially measurable limits. He complimented ceiling tiles individually. He bowed respectfully to revolving doors. He referred to the break room microwave as our radiant companion.

Attempts to reduce the intensity of the situation failed repeatedly.

Human resources organized a seminar called Moderation and Practical Emotional Volume. Ryo attended enthusiastically, took nine hundred pages of notes, and afterward loved moderation so passionately that the seminar itself had to be discontinued.

By late autumn, the entire building had surrendered to the phenomenon.

Administrative reports became poetic. Elevator inspections contained metaphors. A forty-page procurement document devoted three pages to the spiritual dignity of paper clips.

And somewhere in the middle of all this, Arai Ryo continued wandering peacefully through the corridors beneath his monumental scarf-like structure, smiling with limitless admiration toward absolutely everything.