At 6:15 every morning, a man named Hayashi delivers tofu to six restaurants in Gion by bicycle. The wooden box on his back rack holds about forty blocks. He has been doing this for twenty-three years.
The bicycle is a single-speed steel frame from the 1980s. The box is held on with rope that he replaces every six months. He does not use a phone for orders. The restaurants leave a wooden tag on their door handle the night before.
The sound is what you notice. The wooden wheels of the delivery cart he sometimes use on wet days. The creak of the rope. The soft thud of the box being set down on stone. Gion at this hour is almost silent. These sounds carry.
Hayashi knows every crack in the pavement. He can make the full round in forty-two minutes if no one stops him to talk. Usually someone does. He is always late by the end of the route, and always calm about it.