Nayuta’s Landscape

As the trio of men were thinking about dicks and being blown away by cubism, Gift Publishing was working at full speed on a top-secret project to get Nayuta Kani’s Landscape series in as many media formats as possible.

About a week after she expressed interest in branching out to her editor, Yamagata, Nayuta was showing up at the office on a daily basis, poring through a massive pile of offers with Yamagata, editor in chief Satoshi Godo, and assorted higher-ups in the manga and product-development department. This was all strictly confidential, so part-timers like Miyako weren’t allowed to join in.

“I’m seeing you a lot at the editorial office lately, Nayu. What are you up to?”

“Hee-hee-hee! It’s a secret.”

Nayuta never bothered making up excuses whenever Miyako asked her about it. And why would she? The motivation for everything she did was one hundred percent driven by her love for Itsuki, and it was that love, of course, that changed her mind after saying no to every multimedia offer that crossed her in-box.

As Itsuki put it, he wasn’t going to respond to Nayuta’s feelings until he deemed himself worthy. It was a difficult concept for her to grasp. Her novel, something she wrote after letting her emotions flow freely, won a prize out of nowhere and gave her a professional career. Her debut publication became a huge hit, and everything released since earned broad, dedicated support from her audience. But Nayuta’s personal writing style and work ethic didn’t change at all. She just wrote whatever she wanted, when she wanted, at the pace she wanted.

As a novelist, Nayuta Kani had never suffered. That was why she couldn’t understand Itsuki’s drive to claw his way to the top of the business.

Overseeing both a manga and anime adaptation at the same time, Itsuki looked overwhelmed with work—but in her eyes, he was radiant. And Miyako’s work in the editorial office, her struggle over her love life and friendships, made her far more attractive than Nayuta herself. She wanted to shine like Itsuki and Miyako. She wanted to see what they were seeing—their landscape.

The reason she now agreed to the media launch was, to put it simply, to polish herself up.

After considerable deliberation, the first series of Landscape licensing would involve an animated motion picture, a live-action film, and a manga adaptation.

There were many, many people in the industry who’d gladly cancel their current jobs for a chance to be involved with a Landscape movie. In almost no time at all, they had the best of the best assembled—famous film directors with lots of awards under their belts, talented screenwriters involved with tons of popular anime, young actors with broad name-brand appeal. All first-class, sparkling talent. The sponsors came along just as easily, allowing the project to maintain an eye-popping budget. For the manga, they lined up an artist even more popular than Nayuta right now, one whose original works had sold in the millions.

And in the midst of all this, countless projects had their staffs and cast lists suddenly shaken up, their sponsors abruptly abandoning them, their launches delayed or slimmed down or canceled entirely.

Huge numbers of people, and huge amounts of money, were being moved around at the cost of swarms of unknown, hopeless, dreamless other projects, as this genius woman began to polish herself.

All for the sake of love.