Apartment building with rooms corner rooms 9 sometimes have stories behind them.

The company in Shizuoka was very profitable after World War 2. They were tailors and clothes were very much in demand. Although materials were hard to come by, they somehow managed to secure a supply and soon had a loyal following of customers.

Department stores rising up from the rubble of destruction needed merchandise and their high quality products were snapped up. Soon, they could not keep up with the demand and hired people to help them produce their merchandise. The bought new equipment and rented a warehouse and setup their company.

Business was booming, they even had inquires from overseas since their products were less costly than the goods available in Western countries. Their business grew quickly. They prided themselves in the quality of the work they put into their products but they basically were an OEM manufacturer. Famous department stores would use their products in their brand of clothing because of the quality.

After a long while, the economy took a downturn and although quality was still very much in demand, lower prices were the key to selling products. They could not compete with newly developing countries that had access to cheaper materials and labor. Japan was now a “developed” nation and the costs of labor and materials has risen to the point where they could no longer supply products to the department stores at the prices demanded by them.

The founders of the company tried various ways to cut costs while maintaining quality. As a Japanese company, they had demanded company loyalty from their employees and the employees had a reciprocal expectation of lifetime employment from their company. Employees expected that should anything happen to them, their company would take care of their family. This was the Japanese way.

The company could not keep up with the cheaper foreign imports. When they tried to import goods from overseas, they found the materials inferior to what they were used to. When they imported higher quality materials, they found that it would not allow them to be cheaper than what was produced overseas.

They were soon running in the red and this continued until the banks would not lend them any more money, all their homes were owned by the bank and every member of their family had loaned them all the money that  they could.

They felt they had failed their employees and as the management, their pride prevented them from asking for help from the employees.

They left for Tokyo and decided to see the big city for a change of air. They went to a liquor shop and bought a 2 liter bottle of shochu, the cheapest distilled spirit they could find.

In room 9, in the corner of the business hotel on the first floor, they found four old men.

Each was wearing formal business suits.

They found an empty 2 liter bottle of liquor in the room.

The four had hung themselves with their neckties from the door knobs and window handles of the room.

In a certain business hotel in Tokyo, it is said that around 2:00AM, you can smell shochu in the room and hear faint singing.