May 17 - After Hours

Kenta wakes up in the subway station alone, groggy, and uneasy. He is still wearing his business suit from last night, and his drunkenness is quickly surrendering to a hangover.
He looks around himself and gradually becomes aware of the situation: It's 1:30 am. The station won't open again until 4:45 am. The massive steel security shutters are down and locked. He's in for the night.
As he's coming to grips with this, he sees a large floor tile down the hall shake a bit and then get pushed aside from underneath. A moment later, three bearded dwarfs emerge from the opening wearing miner's helmets, jumpsuits, and boots, and carrying ropes, equipment bags, and tool belts.
They look at him and then at each other. Then one of them approaches him and asks him in heavily accented Japanese, "Drunk?"
Kenta says nothing, just stares at the dwarf.
The dwarf rolls his eyes, and then rubs them wearily before adding, "You are drunk. Yes?" He has to concentrate to produce each sentence. "This place. Very dangerous. Don't staying here."
Kenta still doesn't answer.
"Here," says the dwarf, holding out a flashlight for him to take. "Taking this."
Kenta doesn't move.
The dwarf turns around and addresses the others in their guttural dwarf language. "Fucking big people, man. They're all so slow. Every Goddamn one of them. What the hell?"
"It's weird when we're the first thing they see when they wake up," answers one of them.
"Apparently, but still. Get over it. I'm trying to help this idiot." Then he returns to Kenta and switches back to Japanese. "Standing up." He helps Kenta to his feet and tries handing him the flashlight again. This time Kenta accepts it.
"Following me," says the dwarf as he climbs back through the opening in the floor. Before ducking under, he turns to the other dwarfs. "You guys go ahead," he tells them in their language. "I'll catch up."
The tunnel underneath the tiles is almost short enough for the dwarf to walk through without ducking. Kenta, however, has to bend over at a right angle, and even then he hits his head enough times to switch to his knees. And then to a crab walk. Finally, he sits down and scoots along on his butt.
"It's OK," says the dwarf, turning around. "Not far. What's your name?"
Kenta just looks at him, and then the dwarf opens his eyes extra wide as if to say, 'Seriously.'
"Kenta."
"I'm Felix," he says. "Don't worrying. Almost arrived."
Soon the tunnel opens up into a room that's big enough for Kenta to stand up in. Once Felix screws in a loose light bulb, Kenta can see that the room is filled with small pieces of furniture, cooking utensils, packaged foods, bed mats, and as he looks more closely, briefcases, purses, and boxes of cell phones, iPods, watches, wallets, and sunglasses.
"OK," says Felix. "You staying here." And he turns around to leave.
"Wait. Where are you going?"
"Out."
"Out where?"
And then Felix tells him: The dwarfs have the whole subway system tunneled, and they're able to surface through loose tiles in every shop and kiosk in just about every station in the city. In these shops, they have big people contacts they work with on the sly--an underground economy, as it were. The dwarfs take away expired perishable foods that are still edible, and help themselves to damaged/unsellable items and slow moving overflow stock that their contacts set aside for them. The dwarfs compensate their contacts with the cash, dropped watches, lost cell phones, misplaced iPods, and other items they find on their nightly runs through the empty stations.
"I want to go with you."
"Bad idea."
"Why?"
"You're too big. You make us go slow. Very dangerous."
"What's dangerous?"
Felix shakes his head, losing patience. "Other group. They hunt. Attack. If they see you, they attack you. Especially if they see you sleep. They attack. Steal everything. Not like us. We gather. Not attack. You are lucky we find you, not them. We gather. They hunt."
"Are they your size?"
"Yes, but very dangerous. You don't know the subway. We do. If you join, we are too slow. So please, staying here."
"Wait. Who are you guys?"
"No more questions. You already make me late. Just staying here." Felix hands him a couple of iPods. "Please listening to music if you become boring."
"Bored."
"Whatever. See you later."
And Felix turns on his headlamp and leaves through the tunnel. When he surfaces again, he sees that Kenta is with him. He mutters something in his language, and watches as Kenta hoists himself out of the tunnel.
"OK, fine. Following me," he says, removing a panel from the wall and ducking through it. When Kenta sticks his head through, Felix pinches the back of his neck, and he collapses. Then he calls to the other two dwarfs to help him move Kenta back to the bench where they'd originally found him before they continue on their way.
And it is on this bench that Kenta wakes up at 5 am, missing his wallet, keys, cell phone, and briefcase. As he rubs his eyes and looks around himself, he has vague memories of a strange dream about dwarfs.