Chapter 2
After Golden Week ended, I got an email from someone unexpected.
From: Kamonohashi-sensei
There’s a drinking party for people in the industry next week. Wanna come?
There won’t be any editors there other than my old one, but some famous manga artists and illustrators will be coming. It might be fun for an otaku.
I hadn’t seen Kamonohashi-sensei since that meeting at a restaurant with Fujinami-san. That day, he’d asked for my email so he could invite me to outings in the future, but I hadn’t thought he’d ever follow up on that.
I sent a reply, asking if he really wanted me to come. A response came right away.
From: Kamonohashi-sensei
Of course!
If I don’t bring someone young every now and then, they’re gonna see me as an old nuisance and stop inviting me lol
You can bring a friend if you want. Especially if it’s a girl lol
“Hmm...”
The email had come at the end of my shift at the editing department. Staring at the screen, I wondered what to do. I did have a mild interest in it, but honestly, it was scary to go alone. Though having said that...
“Is something wrong, Kashima-kun?” Kurose-san asked me.
I must’ve been looking glum.
“It’s nothing...” I replied, but then I realized this wasn’t something I needed to keep secret.
Kurose-san’s shift was over too. We left together, and I told her about the email.
At night, the road in front of Iidabashi Station was full of people on their way home from work. Kurose-san and I would sometimes have dinner together, but it was far from an everyday thing. Today, we were just heading to the station.
“Huh, that’s nice. Why not go?” she asked, eyes sparkling. “If you actually become an editor at some publisher, you might not get many opportunities to talk to people outside your company and the artists and writers you edit for. You should expand your network while you still can. That’s why I wish I could’ve gone to that meeting with Kamonohashi-sensei too...”
Fujinami-san had told her about the meeting I’d gone to a few days after the fact, and Kurose-san had been extremely bitter about it. I’d thought she was the shy type like me, if anything, but that had made me realize that when it came to work, she was ambitious. Perhaps that was how badly she wanted to become an editor.
“Then... Do you want to come too? He said I can bring a friend.”
“I do!” she immediately replied.
“I haven’t even told you when yet...”
“I said I’ll go. Even if I have plans, I’ll move them to another day.”
“O-Okay then... I’ll send you a copy of the mail later.”
Thus, it was decided that I’d go with Kurose-san to what would be my first industry meetup.
***
It was held in Shinjuku, on the fifth floor of a building within walking range of the station that was full of restaurants. Our meeting place was an ordinary chain izakaya. After I introduced myself as “Numata” at the entrance—whoever’s name that may have been—a waiter led me to a large room in the back.
The four long tables in the space already had about twenty people seated at them. At a glance, there were only thirty to forty seats in the room, so the scale of the event was smaller than expected. Since they’d even invited a nobody like me, I’d assumed there’d be hundreds of people here.
Kamonohashi-sensei had yet to arrive. Kurose-san and I stood next to the door, fidgeting.
“Nice to meet you. Here’s my card,” a man said as he presented his business card to us.
The card said he was a manga artist and an illustrator. I liked manga, but I couldn’t remember manga artists’ names if they weren’t as big as Kamonohashi-sensei.
I bowed several times while accepting it, saying, “Ah, I’m sorry, I’m just a university student working part-time at an editing department, so I don’t have my own business cards...”
The event started as pretty much a business card exchange party. Kurose-san and I felt embarrassed as we received one after another.
Once enough people had arrived and the card exchanges had ended, the person who appeared to be the organizer addressed everyone. He was the first person who’d given us their business card tonight.
“Everyone, please take a seat. I’d like to propose a toast,” he said.
Still fidgeting, Kurose-san and I sat next to each other in some nearby empty seats.
As for Kamonohashi-sensei, he showed up right after everyone had sat down and the toast was held.
“Sorry, everyone. Got stuck in traffic,” he said with a smile. He was calm and collected as he took one of the unoccupied seats. When he saw me, he raised his hand a bit.
So yeah—we were surrounded by complete strangers.
A man sitting across the table from us spoke up. “You said you work at an editing department? Which one?” he asked.
According to his business card, he was a manga artist by the name of Sato Naoki. He looked to be in his early thirties. He was good-looking with fair skin, and a shapely face. Sato-san came across as being a city-type. He seemed tall too, judging by how high he sat. I had kind of assumed most people here would more or less be introverts (not that I was one to talk), but the way he spoke with a constant smile on his face made him radiate an adultlike composure. This may have been my own prejudice, but his black, center-parted hairstyle—which was said to only suit good-looking guys—suggested that he had a lot of self-confidence.
It was safe to say I didn’t have any friends like him.
“We work for Crown Magazine at Iidabashi Publishing,” replied Kurose-san.
“Huh...” Sato-san widened his eyes. “There was this one Cromag editor back in the day; does ‘Kinoshita’ ring any bells?”
“No... I don’t think there is anybody by that name right now.”
“Oh, really? What about Utsumi-san? The assistant to the editor-in-chief.”
“I’m not sure... The current assistant is Suzuki-san.”
“Huh...” He tilted his head in confusion. “Has it really been that long? That was when my work got an anime, so that was only about five years ago...”
When Kurose-san heard him say that, she looked astonished. “A work of yours was adapted into an anime?”
“Yeah. Two of them—my first one and one from five years ago,” he explained.
“Wow, that’s amazing!”
“It really is,” I added.
Sato-san’s eyes didn’t stray from Kurose-san at this point, but as I had nothing else to do, I felt like saying something there.
“What were the titles?” asked Kurose-san.
“Well, there’s...”
I’d never heard of either of the titles he mentioned. They sounded like harem rom-coms with lots of girls.
“You don’t know them? My first work even got a second season...”
“I’m sorry for my ignorance. I’ll look into them sometime.”
Kurose-san gave a humble reply, but I didn’t like the guy’s self-important air. Then again, I supposed that a manga artist with two anime adaptations was much more important than a university student working part-time in an editing department.
Sato-san was smiling even more now—maybe the alcohol had kicked in. “You said your name’s Kurose-san, right? You’re really cute,” he said.
“Eh? O-Oh, thank you.”
“Like seriously cute. I do feel like you’re missing something, though.”
“Huh? What would that be?” Kurose-san asked in earnest.
Sato-san grinned. “Hmm... Sex appeal, I guess?”
“What...? How would I get that?”
“I dunno. Have your boyfriend bang you a lot, maybe?”
While Sato-san grinned, Kurose-san’s expression froze up.
Of course she’d recoil at that. What’s up with this guy, saying stuff like that to someone he’s only just met?
“I don’t have one...” Kurose-san replied stiffly.
“Really? How long’s it been?” asked Sato-san.
“I’ve never had one.”
“Whaaat, really? You’re not kidding?” he said, still grinning at her.
The person sitting directly across from Kurose-san got up, perhaps feeling they couldn’t be part of this conversation with how focused Sato-san was on her. Since Sato-san had been sitting directly across from me, he took this opportunity to move over to the freed-up seat.
“So anyway, Kurose-san,” he began.
“Y-Yes?” Looking a little put off, Kurose-san nonetheless maintained her composure in a way that wouldn’t be considered rude.
And as he kept grinning and talking to her while I drank my cola highball, staring at the empty seat across from me...
“Hey there. How’s the party?”
Kamonohashi-sensei sat in the aforementioned seat, bringing a beer mug with him. He was a big man, and his chair creaked under his weight.
“Kamonohashi-sensei... Thank you for inviting us today.”
“Sure. Having fun?” he asked.
“Yes...”
I still hadn’t really figured out how to have fun here, but that was the only way I could reply.
At that point, Sato-san noticed that Kamonohashi-sensei had sat next to him and broke off the conversation with Kurose-san.
Sato-san turned to face him. “It’s been a while, Kamonohashi-sensei,” he said.
Kamonohashi-sensei looked at him. “Ah, Sato-kun. When did we last see each other?”
“At this year’s New Year’s party at Otowa Publishing.”
“Right. Your editor’s Hayashida-kun, correct?”
“Yes.”
“So, how are sales?”
“I manage, thanks to everyone’s help.”
“Come on, what’s all the gloom for?!” Kamonohashi-sensei asked. “Say you’ve sold a hundred million copies or something!”
“Well, things aren’t that rosy...”
In a complete change of face from how Sato-san had been acting toward us, he sat with his knees together and behaved himself. He was forcing a smile. Maybe any young manga artist would act like this in front of Kamonohashi-sensei, but his swift change of attitude made me cringe.
Still talking to Sato-san, Kamonohashi-sensei looked at me and said, “This guy works part-time at Cromag’s editing department.”
“Yes, so these two said. Are you acquainted? I spoke with him a moment ago.”
Man... I don’t think I can come to like Sato-san after all.
“And this young lady must be your friend Kurose-san, right?” Kamonohashi-sensei asked.
“Yes, that’s her.” I nodded, and Kurose-san bowed slightly from next to me.
Staring intently at her, Kamonohashi-sensei took a swig from his mug. “I see, I see... Gotta say, she’s really pretty. At first, I thought you were a voice actress or an idol. But then again, I can’t get it up to anyone other than middle-aged women with big bellies these days. Gah hah hah!”
All of us—meaning Kurose-san, Sato-san, and I—could only smile politely at his open sexual harassment that was behind the times. Then again, this was the kind of man Kamonohashi-sensei was.
“Besides, my bladder’s gotten really small recently. Whoa...” He put down his mug and got up, but his legs wobbled—maybe because of the alcohol. “Ohh...”
“Are you okay?” I asked, standing up too. I lent him my shoulder and escorted him to the bathroom.
“Sorry about that. I’ve grown so weak to both the bottle and women. Can’t do anything at all these days.”
I recalled reading on Wikipedia the other day that he was sixty-two. Though he still looked plenty energetic, he must’ve felt weaker than he’d been in his youth.
When we returned from the bathroom, other people had taken our seats, so he and I sat down at a different table and ordered new drinks. Kurose-san and Sato-san were still sitting across from each other where we’d left them and were having a private conversation.
The party ended after roughly three hours. I never learned who’d organized it or what the criteria had been for attendees.
For the second half of the event, I’d sat next to Kamonohashi-sensei, saying hi to various manga artists every now and then. Compared to newcomers who’d only just had their debuts or those who focused on the doujin market, I’d found I had to be more careful with artists whose works I’d heard of but had never read. These people were famous in the industry—their works had anime adaptations, and they had many fans. It felt rude to make them talk to an ordinary university student who barely knew anything.
In the end, I’d found myself just sitting there, listening to Kamonohashi-sensei bragging about this and that with a mix of self-deprecation as he talked to young manga artists. He was acting the same way as he had during the previous meeting with him that I’d attended.
I reflected on the fact that I hadn’t read enough manga despite working in the industry—even if it was only a part-time job.
When everyone paid their dues and gathered at the door to start heading out, I noticed that Kurose-san was still talking to Sato-san.
He really was tall, now that I saw him standing up. He was near Sekiya-san’s height. With his light stoop and his lanky figure, he looked totally like the type of guy who women would be into, so seeing him having a fun conversation with Kurose-san kind of put me on guard every time.
Wondering what they were talking about, I mixed in with the crowd and nonchalantly approached them, trying to avoid being noticed. I strained my ears to listen in. They were holding their phones—it looked like they were exchanging contact information.
“Thanks. I’ll message you,” said Sato-san and put away his phone. His gaze fell to Kurose-san’s hands as she held on to her phone. “By the way, you don’t do your nails?”
“Huh?” Kurose-san looked a little surprised. Perhaps she’d rarely had guys ask her about something like that. “Well... My sister asks me the same thing, I guess.”
Runa did like flashy nails.
“I have weak nails and can’t use false ones. I feel like they’re not suited for regular nail care either.”
“Huh...”
Despite being the one who’d asked her, Sato-san didn’t sound very interested in Kurose-san’s reply. “Still, if you care for them more, I think it’ll make you even more attractive.” Suddenly, he bent down and brought his face close to her ear. “Don’t let your cuteness go to waste.”
As she watched him quietly say that with a smile on his handsome face, Kurose-san blushed.
What?! She was so put off by him until just a moment ago—when did the distance between them shrink so much?
While this made me confused, it also fueled my irritation at the man named Sato Naoki.
What’s with this guy?! Is he really a manga artist?! Aren’t all of those introverts?!
That thought might’ve been rude for someone working in a manga editing department, but the way he was acting was such a far cry from the mental image I’d had of male manga artists.
Still, the way he’d approached Kurose-san had hardly been slick and mature, so I suspected he was an otaku who’d had issues growing up.
“Sato-san is an interesting man, wouldn’t you say?” Kurose-san said all of a sudden.
We’d left the izakaya and were walking through the nighttime shopping district to the station together.
“Huh... You really think so...?” I asked.
“Yeah. He’s hot but a little weird. He said he was lame as a student and wasn’t popular with girls at all. So now, he draws rom-com manga for boys to vent all that.”
“I see...”
I supposed that somewhat explained the twisted vibe he’d given off.
“But his works were made into anime, and he’s popular too. He told me a lot about the industry.”
“Huh...”
So their conversation was unexpectedly serious?
When I thought about it, Kurose-san always ended up as a romantic object of interest for guys because of her looks—in ways both good and bad. They’d come on to her in pushy ways or keep their distance and spread rumors about her. Unlike Runa, who would go up and chat to anyone the same way, Kurose-san was the shy type—there’d been an overwhelmingly high number of guys in our class who could only act in either of those two ways toward her.
Perhaps guys like Sato-san, people who could talk to her normally and tell her about an industry she was interested in, were of great value to her.
“Thanks for inviting me today, Kashima-kun.” Kurose-san’s smile was so cute that it made my heart skip a beat for the first time in a good while. “I’m glad I could come.” She brought a hand to her mouth, smiling and looking absent-minded.
Seeing her like that, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was about to begin.
***
When I showed up to the editing department for work the next day and saw Kurose-san, her hair looked different. She’d had it tied up at the back of her head in a ponytail.
“You don’t change your hairstyle a lot,” I said. It was so different that even I noticed.
She smiled happily. “Sato-san said he likes ponytails.”
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