Valentine’s Day

A week after North-Meets-South Spring Rolls were invented, the calendar read February 14—Valentine’s Day. Haruto Fuwa, the Heartthrob Novelist, was at Itsuki’s front door.

“Hey. I got some chocolate.”

“…Why do I have to take chocolate from you?”

Haruto breezed past the peeved-looking Itsuki, opening the fridge and sticking several bottles of dark-colored beer inside.

“More Belgians?”

“Nah, these are Japanese.”

“Wow…that’s rare for you.”

Haruto generally brought nothing but imported beer (mostly from Belgium), almost never a domestic choice.

“It’s kind of like Valentine’s Day beer, y’know? It’s a big Japanese tradition to give chocolate on Valentine’s, and I guess this brewery’s trying it with beer, too.”

“Huh,” Itsuki said, picking up a bottle out of curiosity. It was the Imperial Chocolate Stout from the Sankt Gallen Brewery, southwest of Tokyo.

“…This has chocolate in it?”

“No, it’s got roasted malt in it, which gives it a chocolate kind of flavor,” Haruto explained. “It’s a darker beer, and they only make it around this time of year. It’s gooood. You want some?”

“…Y-yeah,” Itsuki replied, swallowing in anticipation. Haruto gave him a sadistic smile.

“Heh-heh-heh… Someone’s sure being greedy today, huh?”

“Pfft, come on…! I am not…”

“Yeah? Then why are you holding on to it so tightly?”

“…! Ngh, argh, just lemme drink it!”

“Whoa, whoa, don’t you know you’re supposed to ask nicely? Come on. Beg for it.”

“Why would I have to beg you for this…?”

“Oh, quit hiding it. You want this so bad right now, don’t you? This big black bottle? You can’t wait to fill your mouth with the thick, viscous liquid inside, right?”

“I… No, I…!”

“…What are you people doing?”

The two of them froze, then turned around. Nayuta was there by the front door.

“Practicing my sadism,” Haruto cheerfully explained. “I figured girls would like a character like that.”

“Really…?” a shocked Itsuki said. He’d had no idea.

“…I have no interest in whatever kind of act you’re pulling, Prince Manwhore, but it was neat seeing Itsuki cower before you like that… Maybe I should act a lot more aggressive with him, too.”

“Look, don’t start coming up with any stupid ideas, Kanikou…”

Nayuta’s face was serene as she went inside, ignoring Itsuki’s obvious alarm. In another moment, all three were at the kotatsu, Haruto popping open a bottle and pouring the beer out into glasses for him and Itsuki. The chocolate-brown liquid built an attractive head in the glass, filling the air with seductive fragrances.

“Hey, that smells good. I wish I could have some.”

“You can have some root beer.”

“I think I will,” Nayuta sharply replied as she took a can of exactly that out of her backpack and poured it out. It looked a bit like the chocolate beer at first sight, letting out a uniquely medicinal smell in its glass that made Haruto and Itsuki wince.

“Damn, it smells like a wet washcloth…”

“…You actually brought that with you?” Itsuki asked.

“Mm-hmm. I bought a whole box off of Amazon.”

Root beer like this, naturally carbonated and made with a mix of real herbs and spices, was uncommon in Japan outside of Okinawa, where the local A&W chain had made it a regional favorite. Its singular taste and smell meant you forever loved it or hated it, with some people comparing it to a drinkable menthol pain-relief patch. Miyako had made it through only half her drink at A&W, saying it tasted as if someone had poured maple syrup on a box of pain-relief patches. Itsuki had made it all the way; he’d said, “It’s kind of like Dr Pepper with a bunch of medicine in it—I don’t mind it, but I’d rather just have a Dr Pepper.” Nayuta, meanwhile, had helped herself to four free refills—“What is this stuff? It’s awesome!”—and completely destroyed her stomach.

“Oh, lemme take a pic before you drink it.”

Haruto lined up his and Itsuki’s glasses, with the beer bottle in front of his drinking partner, making the peace sign with his right hand and framing the shot so as not to include Itsuki’s face. He then tweeted it with the comment “It’s Valentine’s Day, so I’m enjoying some chocolate beer with Itsuki! (*^_^*)  ”

“…Still going with that gay persona, huh?” a stunned Itsuki asked.

“Yeah, it’s working a lot more than I thought it would. I think I’m gonna stick with it until the anime’s first run wraps up. See? I’m already getting replies.”

His smartphone’s screen was alive with messages like “You guys sure are in love, huh?” and “Have a blast!” and “ ,” a Japanese emoticon that, in this context, was akin to tweeting “GAAAAAAAAAY” back at him.

“…I really couldn’t care less about Prince Manwhore’s attempt to play LGBT for his own ends, but aren’t these fans gonna harass the hell out of Itsuki once him ’n’ me get married?”

“Ahh, I think it’s fine. All these people know it’s just a fun little act, probably.”

As Haruto addressed Nayuta’s concerns, Itsuki said “You don’t have to worry about that happening” with a groan and squinted as he took a drink.

“Ooh…?”

Despite having “chocolate” on the label, it wasn’t very sweet at all. A vivid bitterness spread across his mouth, reminiscent of cacao. It surprised him.

“This is… I think something sweet would go great with it.”

“You’re right. It feels kind of like coffee to me, so I think it’d work well,” Haruto said after sampling it for himself.

“I picked up some chocolate truffles in Hokkaido. Let’s do that,” Itsuki said, standing up before Nayuta stopped him.

“W-wait a minute, Itsuki! Why do you have chocolate for yourself at a time like this?”

“…What’s the big deal? Not like having chocolate around is a bad thing.”

Writing a novel was a tremendous mental challenge. Ensuring your brain retained proper glucose levels was vital, and an empty stomach was a fiendish villain when it came to maintaining concentration. Chocolate was the perfect drug for both maladies. Itsuki always kept a supply on hand.

“Did you bring some for him, Nayu?”

“Of course… I was just waiting for the right opportunity to present it. So much for that,” Nayuta sniffed.

“All right. Why don’t you have hers, Itsuki? I’ll take the truffles.”

“…Kanikou’s chocolate…?” A look of genuine concern arose on his face. “Hopefully you didn’t spike it with anything.”

“I bought it from a store,” Nayuta snapped back, removing two gift-wrapped boxes from her pack and offering them to Itsuki.

“…Two?”

“Myaa got you some, too, just to be nice.”

“Oh.”

“…I really wanted to make my own and infuse it with my love nectar, but Myaa said that’d be a bad idea, so I went with store-bought instead.”

“…You did good, Miyako.” Itsuki thanked her from the bottom of his heart.

Both packages were from Godiva—Nayuta’s a special Valentine’s edition in a heart-shaped box, Miyako’s a regular old bar. Itsuki popped a piece into his mouth after taking another swig of chocolate beer. A pleasant sort of sweetness swelled across his mouth, buoyed by the remaining bitterness on his tongue. It didn’t banish the umami from the beer—if anything, it expanded upon it. A perfect pairing. Haruto did the same with his own, not forgetting to tweet a pic with the caption “I got chocolate from Itsuki >///>” first.

The first bottle didn’t last long after that. The second one was another Sankt Gallen special, a Sweet Vanilla Stout. The vanilla made this one notably sweeter, but it still worked just as well with the chocolate. The three of them enjoyed a round of the card game Dominion as Itsuki and Haruto polished it off; they then turned to Godiva’s homeland of Belgium for further inspiration—Gouden Carolus Christmas and Winterkoninkske, two very sweet beers—and the drinking session formally began in earnest.

It was just about time for dinner, and they decided to enjoy it with a mac-and-cheese gratin and some beef stew Chihiro had made yesterday. The meat in the stew was still nice and soft after a day, providing a deep, creamy sort of taste.

“Whoa! Your brother rocks at cooking, doesn’t he? He could seriously run a restaurant.” Haruto’s high praise was 100 percent sincere.

“Hff… I like it,” Nayuta added as she blew on the soup. “Just what I’d expect from my future brother-in-law.”

Itsuki ignored Nayuta’s flight of fancy. “…You know, I think he used some chocolate in this as a seasoning. He said something about polyphenols affecting the taste of the meat, I think.”

And I’m sure he’s getting crap-tons of chocolate from all the girls today, he added silently.

The doorbell rang as they ate. Itsuki grumpily got up and looked through the peephole. Outside was Kenjiro Toki, his editor.

“Oh, crap! It’s the editor! Run!” Itsuki called over his shoulder.

Haruto kept drinking his beer, unaffected. Nayuta promptly dived under the table. Just as Itsuki was reaching out to lock the door, it opened.

“…Well. Looks like someone’s having fun.”

Toki’s face was expressionless, his cheeks hollow. The rings under his eyes were remarkably deep, completely hiding his usual tough-guy visage.

“Wh-what did you need…? I don’t have any new proposal yet,” Itsuki ventured.

Toki wearily sighed. “…I don’t wanna talk about work for the rest of the night.”

“…No? So what brings you here, then?”

“I got your Valentine’s Day chocolate. Haruto said he was with you on Twitter, so I’m dropping his off, too.”

“Ooh! I’ve been waiting for that!” Itsuki’s face grew notably brighter.

“…Well, here I am,” Toki replied as he stepped in.

“Good to see you, sir!” Haruto said with a smile.

“Yeah, thanks… And I know you’re here, Nayuta—I saw your shoes by the front door.”

“You must have the wrong person,” Nayuta said, wriggling out from under the kotatsu. “My name is Kanikou Hashima. I’m Itsuki’s wife. Thanks for taking such good care of my husband all the time.”

Toki rolled his eyes. “I’m not gonna tell on you. I’m not even your editor.”

“Ooh, nice! You’re always so understanding!” Nayuta picked up Haruto’s freshly emptied glass, refilled it with beer, and offered it to Toki. “Here!”

“…All right. Just one, though.”

Toki slugged it down like a can of juice.

“Pfahhh!”

“…That beer didn’t come cheap…,” Haruto complained, too quietly for Toki to hear.

“Right. Your chocolate. And here’s Haruto’s.”

He handed them a pair of boxes wrapped in paper. Itsuki’s was much larger and heavier than his friend’s.

“Thank you very much!”

“Heh-heh-heh… More gifts from my fans, huh?”

They both opened the boxes and laid out the contents on the table. Haruto had received about ten different packages, but Itsuki had too many to fit on the small surface.

“Hah-hah-hah! You see that, Haruto? This is a sign of my true strength! I’m so popular, I feel like I could save the world right now! Heh-heh-heh… Ahh-ha-ha-ha-ha, cough, cough!”

Haruto kept his usual smile painted on his face as Itsuki choked on his own laughter. A little crestfallen, he commented, “…It’s not exactly for you. It’s chocolate for the characters in your work.”

“Exactly! It’s not like you’re popular yourself, Itsuki. I’m the only one who truly loves you.”

“Hah-hah-hah! Say whatever you will, losers! How’s it feel, huh?! How’s it feel for the Heartthrob Novelist to lose out so badly to the likes of me?!”

“Ugh,” Haruto replied, beginning to highly resent this.

Every year around Valentine’s, readers would send great heaps of chocolate and other snacks to the editorial office. Some of it, a very small amount, would be addressed to the writers themselves, but most of it had the names of their fictional characters written on the gift tags.

Surprisingly enough, despite the difference in sales numbers, Itsuki’s fictional creations always received far more of these treats than Nayuta’s or Haruto’s. This was understandable in Haruto’s case, Chevalier of the Absolute World’s audience being around 95 percent male. Nayuta’s Landscape series featured a large cast of realistic, flawed young men and women, many of whom were in relationships with each other, and Nayuta herself was female, so she had a lot of women fans. However, her work just wasn’t the kind that drove people to send real-life chocolate to their favorite characters.

Itsuki, meanwhile—although recently plumbing the boundaries of sanity with his devotion to the little-sister stereotype—still had a remarkably robust female audience, thanks to the plethora of studly, beyond-reality male characters that populated his novels. It helped that Genesis Sisters of the New World, his second work, reined the sister worship in a little—this was back when Itsuki mostly listened to what his editor told him. The adjustment worked perfectly with Puriketsu’s art; it turned out he did just as expert a job on macho male characters as he did on young girls and their asses. The series was over, yes, but its characters still had their die-hard fans.

All this meant that, while Itsuki often fostered an inferiority complex over the handsome Haruto and the utterly perfect Chihiro, Valentine’s was the one day of the year when he got to lord his victory over them with utter abandon.

“Heh-heh-heh… Time to chow down on these offerings from my teeming millions!”

Despite his imperious tone, he took pains to neatly unwrap each box and try a piece from them all, clearly savoring them more than the high-grade chocolate Nayuta and Miyako had provided. Nayuta attempted to kill him with the power of her stare as he did.

In due time, Toki got tanked, completely forgot about his “just one” promise, and started haranguing Haruto and Nayuta.

“Harutoooo, how come yer always so goddamn smoooooth with yer work, huhh? So on tiiiiime?”

“Er, yes, um… Thank you.”

“I wish summa the other asshole writers and illustrators we got would learn a lesson ’r two from ya!”

“Well, that’s kind of…”

“Nayuduhhh!!”

“Y-yes?”

“You gotta do some work for us, lady! You gotta stick to yer deadlines! ’Cause you’re, like, one’a our headlining authors! You and Puriketsu, too… How come it’s, like, the more creative you are, the less you work?!”

“…I will be sure to think about that,” Nayuta deadpanned, “and do my best to bring into consideration what I can and cannot do about the feedback.”

“Yeah, we probably better get home, Itsuki…”

“…Right. Keep up the good work.”

“Whoa, wait! Don’t abandon me here!”

With Nayuta and Haruto gone, Itsuki was now the sole recipient of Toki’s whining.

A week ago, once Toki had finally figured out that Setsuna “Puriketsu” Ena was in Hokkaido, he’d traveled up there himself, computer and tablet setup in hand. He’d successfully accosted him in the middle of the Snow Festival and locked him up in a Sapporo hotel room until he finished his assigned artwork. He had finally made it back to Tokyo this morning, and he looked deeply exhausted, body and soul.

“So how d’you like that? I go all the way up to freakin’ Hokkaido, and I’m stuck in the goddamn hotel the whole time. No sightseein’, nothin’ good to eat, no hittin’ the red-light district… Nothin’! I mean…fuuuuuuck…”

“…Yeah, that does sound pretty rough. Y’know, I just happen to have some Royce’ chocolate here. You want some?”

“Ooh… Thank you… This is so, so great… Mm, chocolate…”

Toki cried as he savored the treat, fell backward, and conked out on the floor, snoring. He didn’t move again until morning, when he staggered off to his office with a blistering headache. His boss didn’t take him to task for it. This sort of thing happened to editors all the time.