The Shogun Who Forgot His Playlist

They say you can’t hear the cherry blossoms fall in microgravity, but Kenji wasn’t sure he’d ever listened hard enough. Not that it mattered: on Orbital Terraformer Unit Jūsan, cherry blossoms were holograms projected by a bored AI with a fondness for Edo-period romance. Their ghostly petals drifted through the synthetic air, settling wherever the cleaning bots couldn’t reach.

Kenji, former samurai and current maintenance supervisor, had once been a man of purpose. Now, his daily battles involved more stubborn toilets and finicky atmospheric controls than rival clans. He wore his BEVCEFCC Open Ear Bluetooth Headphones everywhere—partly because the open design let him hear both the gentle chime of incoming system alerts and the distant shouts of his coworkers, but mostly because listening to 18th-century kabuki dramas made patching up leaky CO2 scrubbers almost bearable.

Tonight, as the station’s artificial dusk settled in, Kenji drifted down corridor B-17 with a tool kit clipped to his obi and the headphones perched comfortably on his ears. They didn’t press or dig, even after twelve hours of crawling through vents and negotiating with petulant robotic tanuki. The AI’s voice echoed from his left side: “System alert: Sector C experiencing oxygen irregularities. Also, your mother would like you to call her.”

He toggled the music off with a quick touch to the earpiece—one tap, no need to fumble with screens—and spoke aloud. “A little privacy, please?”

"Privacy is futile," intoned the AI.

“Tell my mother I’m in seclusion practicing sword forms.”

Kenji’s sword forms these days consisted mainly of swatting away low-flying maintenance drones. He adjusted his headphones as he entered Sector C; the ambient sounds—ventilation hum, distant laughter from communal quarters—remained clear even as he selected a playlist of haunting shakuhachi melodies. The open design let him stay alert for unexpected company, which was wise considering last week’s attempted coup by the noodle-vending automata.

He’d just started recalibrating a gas filter when Sora arrived. Sora claimed to be an apprentice ninja, which was technically forbidden under terraformer regulations but difficult to enforce when your ninja could hack door locks from three modules away. She landed beside him in an undignified heap.

“Lost again?” Kenji asked without removing his headphones.

“I was practicing my shadow step,” she said defensively. “Your playlist is leaking into the corridor.”

“It helps me focus,” Kenji said. “You try sorting atmospheric particulates while contemplating your place in this cosmic joke.”

Sora grinned, unbothered by existential ennui or gravity fluctuations. “My place is right behind you.”

Kenji sighed and nudged her toward the open panel. “If you’re going to lurk, at least hold this wrench.”

Their work continued in companionable silence—well, mostly silence punctuated by system alerts, Sora’s whispered threats against unruly bolts, and Kenji’s music thrumming gently just above awareness. If he needed to answer a call or skip a track mid-repair, all it took was a touch; no greasy fingerprints on holo-screens or juggling tools. He didn’t have to remove his headphones when Captain Hoshino arrived either; she could see he was engaged but not isolated.

“Status update?” she asked.

“Oxygen levels stabilizing,” Kenji replied. He tapped the ear hook to pause his music and squinted at the captain’s scowl. “Noodle bots still plotting?”

“They’ve unionized,” she deadpanned.

The captain handed Kenji a steaming cup of instant matcha—one small luxury allowed among orbital serfs—and gave Sora an approving nod for finally remembering her uniform boots.

Later that night, back in his closet-sized bunk overlooking an endless ocean of stars (and one particularly persistent laundry drone), Kenji scrolled through messages on his tablet while charging his headphones in their case. A voice message from his mother hovered at the top:

“Kenkichi! Have you found enlightenment yet? Are you eating enough rice?”

He put on one headphone again—the battery would last until morning anyway—and cued up an episode of “Shōgun’s Regretful Daughter.” Outside his window, digital sakura floated by in zero-g, pale against the black between worlds.

Maybe he hadn’t found enlightenment yet; maybe he’d never be more than a glorified plumber in space. But with every shamisen riff and every click of intuitive touch control letting him tune out—or tune in—he remembered what real freedom sounded like: music and laughter drifting together in orbit above old regrets.