Two Hands

Marcus had prepared for his first day at Fujimori Travel in every way he could think of. He'd ironed his shirt twice. He'd memorized three separate ways to introduce himself in Japanese. He'd even brought a fresh box of business cards, printed the week before at a shop near his university.

What he hadn't prepared for was the meishi koukan — the business card exchange — a small ritual that, as far as he could tell from the outside, looked simple enough. Cards changed hands. People bowed slightly. Everyone seemed to know exactly what to do without anyone explaining it.

He was led into a meeting room at exactly nine o'clock, where four senior staff members stood waiting, all in dark suits, all holding small stacks of business cards with what looked like practiced ease.

The most senior of them, a man introduced as Sato-buchou, stepped forward first, holding out his card with both hands and a small, respectful bow.

Marcus, a little nervous and mostly focused on not mispronouncing anyone's name, reached out and took the card with his right hand only, gave it a quick glance, and, without really thinking about it, slid it straight into his back trouser pocket to keep his hands free for the next introduction.

Nobody said anything. A few small, careful glances passed between the senior staff, quick enough that Marcus completely missed them.

The next card came from a woman named Kimura-san, held out with the same careful two-handed presentation. Marcus, now slightly rushed, took this one with one hand too, and reached for his own stack to offer one back.

That's when the real trouble started.

His cards, freshly printed and slightly too smooth, slipped out of his grip entirely. Nearly the whole box scattered across the meeting room floor, sliding under chairs, fluttering gently off the polished table.

"I'm so sorry — sorry, sorry," Marcus said, dropping to his knees immediately to gather them, while four Japanese business professionals in expensive suits watched, politely frozen, clearly unsure whether to help him or pretend not to notice.

He eventually recovered enough cards to continue, handing them out one by one, single-handed, a little breathless, while three more cards from three more colleagues went straight into various pockets around his suit — jacket pocket, trouser pocket, even, briefly, his shirt pocket, before that seemed like a bad idea too.

The meeting itself lasted nearly forty minutes, covering the company's tour packages, upcoming events, and Marcus's responsibilities for the next three months. He nodded along, took notes, and tried, quietly, to remember which name belonged to which face.

Eventually, needing to check a name, he reached into his back pocket for the card he'd received first — Sato-buchou's card, the most senior person in the room.

It came out significantly creased, folded sharply down the middle, exactly where he had been sitting on it for the entire meeting.

Marcus froze for half a second, then quickly tried to smooth it flat against the table, which somehow made it look worse, not better.

It got worse. Reaching for a second card to double-check another name, he found one with a small pen note scribbled in the corner — his own handwriting, from earlier, when he'd quickly written "tall, glasses" on the back to help himself remember. He hadn't thought, in the moment, about whose card he'd actually written on.

He looked up. Kimura-san, seated directly across from him, was looking, with polite but unmistakable interest, at the exact card in his hand — her own.

Marcus smiled weakly and slid it, very casually, back into his folder.

It was Daichi, a junior staff member who'd studied a year in Chicago, who found Marcus afterward by the coffee machine, looking somewhat shell-shocked.

"Rough first meeting?" Daichi asked, not unkindly.

"I think I sat on my boss's business card for forty minutes," Marcus admitted. "And wrote on someone else's."

Daichi laughed, though gently. "Yeah. We should have warned you. Meishi are kind of a big deal here — it's less about the paper, more about treating the person's name and title with respect. Two hands to give, two hands to receive, read it properly before you put it away, and never, ever put it in your back pocket. Never write on one, either."

"Where am I supposed to put it, then?"

Daichi pulled a slim leather case from his jacket. "Card holder. Everyone has one. I'll get you one this afternoon."

For the rest of the day, Marcus practiced. By his third attempt, he was bowing perhaps slightly more than necessary, holding each card reverently in both hands for several long seconds before carefully placing it into his brand-new card holder, as though it might otherwise combust.

"Little less bowing," Daichi suggested, grinning. "You've got the idea now."

Marcus, still holding an imaginary card with exaggerated care, decided that overcorrecting was probably a safer mistake to make than the one he'd made that morning.