He found it on a tiny indie label's SoundCloud. The track was called "Conbini Lullaby." It was three minutes and eleven seconds of a slightly out-of-tune guitar, Yumi's unpolished voice, and a melody that felt like remembering a dream you didn't know you had. The chorus was simple: "The fluorescent light hums / And so do I / Counting change at 3 AM / Learning how to say goodbye."

He called his supervisor, a chain-smoking woman named Mrs. Saito who had survived three recessions and the transition from CD-only to digital charts. She arrived in twelve minutes, still in her bedroom slippers.

"Play the song."

Yumi probably worked the morning shift at 7-Eleven that day. She never quit. But she did start writing more songs.

Every Tuesday, Japan held its breath. The Oricon Singles Chart wasn't just a ranking—it was a heartbeat. Idol groups lived or died by its Monday reveal. Producers scheduled tours, variety show appearances, and even album B-sides based on the cold, unblinking data Kenji helped maintain.

But tonight, the numbers were lying.

Mrs. Saito listened in silence. When it ended, she said: "Call the night duty reporter at Nikkei. And Kenji?"

Yet here they were: #4 on the combined daily ranking. Ahead of Johnny's latest boy band. Ahead of the AKB48 sister group's "graduation" single. Ahead of a Yoasobi track that had been engineered in a million-dollar studio to do exactly what this scrappy, lo-fi recording was now doing by accident.

It was 11:47 PM in the Shibuya data center, and Kenji Tanaka, a junior analyst at Oricon, was watching the numbers dance.

Track #7 from an obscure indie band called The Broken Cassette Tape was climbing. Fast.