Male Friends

Haruto’s next visit to Itsuki’s place for dinner didn’t come until late September. The menu was all stuff Chihiro prepared the previous night—rice with mackerel pike and mountain herbs, boiled greens with eggplant, and fried bacon, spinach, and maitake mushrooms sautéed in butter. This was accompanied by a few cans of Japanese lager Haruto had purchased at a nearby convenience store—which Itsuki didn’t mind, but compared to the exotic beer he usually brought along, it was a bit of a disappointment. Given the hardcore autumn theme of the meal, a nice high-ABV ale would have hit the spot.

As they ate, they chatted about the usual topics—interesting new books and games, each other’s work, and so on.

“By the way…,” Haruto casually began.

“Hmm?” Itsuki grunted as he took a swig from his glass.

“…I asked out Miyako, and she said no.”

“Pfffftttt!!”

“Wow, nice reaction,” Haruto replied, grinning as he handed Itsuki a towel. Itsuki accepted it with a judgmental frown.

“…You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t resist. Sorry.”

The casual admission did nothing to lift Itsuki’s spirits.

“…Well, I’m sorry you got rejected, but I don’t appreciate you taking it out on me.”

“Ha-ha! Ah, give me a break. It’s not like it’s got nothing to do with you.”

“Oh? What do you mean?”

“You said no to Miyako, didn’t you?”

“Ugghh…” Itsuki greeted Haruto’s offhand observation with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “How did you know…?”

“Miyako told me.”

Itsuki rolled his eyes. “Why did she tell you…?”

“Well, if we’re gonna keep being friends, it’d be a lot more awkward if she didn’t, you know?”

“…Yeah, good point.”

Haruto sighed, refilled Itsuki’s glass, and took a long gulp from his own.

“…You know, I’m glad I know the results, but it’s still pretty crappy, huh?”

The conversation with Miyako had ended on a lighthearted note—let’s face up to reality no matter how much it messes with us, yadda yadda—but it would take time for their hearts and minds to make that transition. Things were a lot better now, but Haruto had spent several days afterward wandering around his house and sighing, much to the frustration of his sister.

“…You’re glad you know the results?” Itsuki asked, guessing at what he meant. “So wait, did you know that Miyako, like…had those thoughts about me?”

“Pretty much.” Haruto nodded with a chuckle.

Itsuki was about to ask since when before he stopped himself. Back in May, the two had gone to the amusement park with Nayuta and Miyako, a day trip where Itsuki had promised to provide whatever support was needed for Haruto’s and Miyako’s relationship. On the way back, though, Haruto started spouting off about how he would work things at his own pace and didn’t need Itsuki’s help after all.

“…Since the amusement park?” Itsuki whispered.

Haruto’s eyes widened. “You’re more observant than I thought.”

“Not really,” he replied with a frown, which earned him another chuckle.

“But you can’t be the protagonist of a romantic comedy if you’re too good at reading people, right?”

“Hmph.”

Itsuki recalled saying something similar to Chihiro a while back. He didn’t much like hearing it pointed at himself.

“Don’t be stupid. I don’t want to be that kind of hero. I want to be the ideal hero. In a supercool adventure tale.”

“Aiming high, huh?” Haruto laughed a bit, then sighed again. “Itsuki… Have you ever been turned down by a girl you liked?”

“……”

Itsuki greeted the question with silence for a few moments.

“……Yeah,” he bitterly muttered.

“Oh yeah? …How did you pick yourself up afterward?”

He wasn’t too interested in bringing up memories of past failures in love, but Haruto was acting oddly serious all of a sudden, so Itsuki leveled with him.

“I ran away from reality. Spent all my time with little-sister novels and manga and video games.”

“That’s pretty in character,” Haruto said, chuckling. “How long did it take you to recover time-wise?”

“I don’t know how you define ‘recover,’ but going from ‘piece of shit’ to ‘barely functioning human’ took around a year, I guess.”

“A year… That’s a long time. I kind of want to speed up the process a little.”

“Don’t ask me about that,” scowled Itsuki as he recalled Ayane Mitahora, the girl who walked out of his life in the third year of middle school and left him an absolute mess. He tried to recall how he finally snapped out of it.

“…Write a novel,” he blurted out.

“Hmm?”

“Write a novel. Take all that bitter heartbreak, all those fantasies about what you should or shouldn’t have done, all the twisted desires you have for Miyako, and throw them into your novel. Plus, you’ll be doing work. Two birds with one stone.”

“I don’t have any ‘twisted desires’ about Miyako…but yeah. That makes sense.” Haruto shook his head. “It makes sense, but I’m not too sure that’s right for me.”

Putting one’s personal experiences and emotions directly into one’s work was typically something seen in “real” literature—novels as an art form. There were lots of more lowbrow novels that had literary elements, of course, including work from Itsuki Hashima and Nayuta Kani…but unlike those artistes, Haruto Fuwa was more of an architect, cleanly shutting himself away from his books. If Chevalier of the New World, his heroic fantasy, contained any of the emotions Haruto felt from being jilted, the series would turn into a warped mess.

“Well, that’s all I got,” Itsuki bluntly stated.

Haruto let out a small sigh. “Guess I’ll just have to figure it out myself…”

Then the doorbell rang.

“The mailman,” Itsuki muttered as he got up. “Or maybe Kanikou…”

At the door, he was greeted by Setsuna Ena, a young man whose hair was dyed three different colors. The rest of him was just as unique.

“Heya, sir!”

“Hey. Rare to see you stop by this late.”

Setsuna wasn’t in the habit of carrying a phone around and always barged into Itsuki’s apartment without warning when he visited, but usually he showed up in the late afternoon or evening, not after nightfall.

“I thought KenKen and I were gonna go out for dinner tonight, but I guess that was actually supposed to be yesterday, because I went to the office today, and he was gone. He said he was gonna take me someplace fancy, too. I was looking forward to it so much, I haven’t had anything to eat since this morning.”

“That’s, uh, one hundred percent your fault. You wanna eat here?”

Setsuna nodded, smiling broadly. “Yeah, man!” Then he looked at the shoes lined up by the door. “You sure, though? Do you have someone here already?”

“Yeah, another writer. Haruto Fuwa. Have you met him?”

He thought for a bit. “Probably not, no.”

“Yeah, because you never attend the awards ceremonies.”

“I always just kinda forget, y’know?”

Apart from parties and doujinshi events, for writers and illustrators who didn’t work with one another, the only way to meet and mingle was at awards ceremonies, thank-you parties, and other publisher-held events. Setsuna had never been to any of them.

Itsuki looked at him. “Well, it’s fine. I think he said he wanted to meet Puriketsu anyway.”

Haruto was incredibly personable, and Setsuna was hardly shy himself, so the two hit it off immediately.

“I’ve never eaten mackerel with rice before. This is super good!”

“Yeah. This is probably better than grilling the fish in the first place.”

They talked at a rapid pace, Setsuna tearing through the food and Haruto racing through his beer.

“You got jilted, huh? Boy, that’s pretty rough!”

“Yeah… That ever happen to you, Setsuna?”

“Oh, I’ve been dumped lots of times, but never when I really, like, loved them. You know, if it blows up in your face, it’s time to move on to the next one!”

“Whoa,” Haruto marveled. “You’re an advanced-level lover.”

“Oh, this isn’t exactly love, but there’s this one girl that I absolutely refuse to give up on.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been searching for her because I gotta see her ass one more time, but I just can’t find her.”

“Huh? Her ass?”

“You still haven’t given up on that?” a peeved Itsuki interjected. Setsuna had encountered what he called the “girl with the ass of the millennium” back in late March, nearly half a year ago.

“The ‘ass of the millennium,’ huh…?”

Haruto, face reddened after a lot of alcohol in very little time, nodded deeply. “Maybe she’s your true love, Setsuna.”

Itsuki glared at his clearly inebriated friend. “Are you just talking shit, now?”

“Nooo! I’m way serious!”

Itsuki had to wonder if Haruto was projecting his feelings for Miyako on this tenacious quest for the perfect ass, but Setsuna seemed convinced.

“Love… You know, I think it kinda feels that way! The feelings I have for that ass… Love’s the only way to describe it!”

“Ahh. Unrequited love. That’s hard…”

“It is!”

“Can you please keep that to yourself,” Itsuki said coldly as Setsuna began to sniffle.

“Oh! Hey! I know, Fuwa! Let’s go on a trip!”

“Huh? A trip?” Haruto replied.

“Yeah, whenever you’re feeling down, the best thing to turn your mind around is a vacation!”

“A trip… No, I haven’t been on one lately. The anime’s over, in more ways than one, so maybe I’m overdue…” Haruto’s interest had been piqued.

Setsuna smiled at him and shot a glance Itsuki’s way. “Great! Let’s do it! Where are we gonna go?”

“Whoa, am I going, too?”

He nodded at the flustered Itsuki. “Of course!”

“A guys’ outing isn’t so bad every now and then,” added Haruto. “I’m all for it.”

“Well…that’s fine by me… Oh, but I can only do one or two nights. I’ve got anime script meetings to attend every week. Also, I can’t go anyplace with no Internet.”

When in the midst of an anime adaptation, the novelist would often be presented with a mound of assets to approve on regular occasions, usually on very short notice. This was a new experience for Itsuki, but sometimes authors like him might get a request late at night for approval by morning.

“Hmm, better keep it close, then,” Haruto remarked.

“Maybe a hot spring?” suggested Setsuna.

“Ooh, I like that!”

“A… A hot spring…”

The last hot spring Itsuki had visited with Setsuna was mixed genders, and despite the allure of the possibilities, it was a living hell. Itsuki felt his neck muscles tensing up. That journey provided the perfect atmosphere for a scene he had to write, but it was a legitimate trauma for him.

“What’s up, Itsuki?”

“…A hot spring’s good, but not mixed gender, okay?”

“Aww…”

Setsuna tilted his head to the side. He had every intention of going back to one, didn’t he? The thought unnerved Itsuki.

“Well, if we gotta keep it close…how about Hakone?”

“I like that!”

“Hakone…” Itsuki looked up. “Is that close?”

“There are lots of locations that were used in Evangelion, so I went there in high school. I think you can catch a direct train from Shinjuku that gets you there in around two hours.”

“Hoh! That’s nice and easy.”

It was decided. Haruto immediately began to search for lodging—and just like that, the three were off to Hakone the very next day.