A Very Editorial Christmas

It was Christmas Eve, and while novelists Itsuki Hashima and Nayuta Kani were engaged in an intense lovemaking session, the team at their publisher’s GF Bunko label was still hard at work. The time was well past eleven in the evening, but every editor on the team—even those with lovers or families to go home to—was skipping the festivities to stay on the job, all looking gaunt. Christmas never came for editors, because between wrapping up work before the New Year’s holiday and preparing for the upcoming winter Comic Market event—better known as Comiket—it was their busiest time of year.

At the desk next to editor Kenjiro Toki, Kirara Yamagata had just spent the past half hour negotiating with the printer for a deadline extension. Meanwhile, behind him, another editor was calling an illustrator every fifteen minutes, begging for completed pages. Several others around them were locked in similar struggles, toeing the line between making the Real Deadline and watching it sail on by. Even their boss, editor in chief Satoshi Godo, looked even more sinister than he usually did as he scowled at them all.

Fortunately for Toki, all the January releases he oversaw as editor had already been submitted, meaning the heat was off him compared with his coworkers. But he still had around seventy or so e-mails to send before the end of tonight, to both writers and people involved with anime and merchandising issues.

“Phew… Well, here we go.”

Chugging his fifth energy drink of the day, Toki focused on the task at hand. But then:

“Mr. Toki, the PR team wanted you to check this. They said they need it by tomorrow.”

Part-time assistant Miyako Shirakawa came along to pass him a large envelope. She had been working as a temp for editorial since mid-December, helping out with their Comiket planning as well.

“Ah, yeah, got it,” Toki replied, looking tired as he took on yet more work.

“You look exhausted. Should I make some coffee?”

“No, I’m fine,” he told the concerned Miyako. “Thanks for all your help today, Ms. Shirakawa. Hmm… Are you sure it’s okay for you to be working this late?”

Miyako’s face froze for a moment, but she quickly recovered her smile. “Oh, it’s just fine!” she quickly assured him. “All my university friends—and my nonuniversity ones, too—they all had plans tonight, so I was the only one free anyway. If anything, the work helps keep me distracted.”

He could’ve told that smile was fake from a mile away. By “nonuniversity friends,” she must have meant Nayuta Kani. Although he had never confirmed it directly, Toki had the vague idea that Miyako had feelings for Itsuki Hashima.

“Ah,” he replied, not pushing the subject any further. “Well, the trains are about to stop running, so you can head home, all right?”

“Oh, um, sure. Good luck with the rest of tonight.”

Miyako sounded a little apologetic. Toki wanted to apologize instead, for making her stay this late. She was serious about her work, had an eye for detail, looked out for others, and never grumbled about the work she was given, no matter how trivial it was. Having Miyako around brought noticeable improvement to the atmosphere throughout the entire editorial office, serving as a breath of fresh air in this hellscape.

Satoshi Godo had already offered her an official job in editorial, and as much as everyone had hoped that would pan out, at least a few worried about whether it was really okay to have a woman like her take a permanent position in a place like this. The hours were beyond odd (sometimes you would be away from home for days at a time); all sorts of unexpected issues popped up constantly; and dealing with your writers, illustrators, and everyone else involved with your job was stressful, to say the least. Plus, Gift Publishing wasn’t a big name like Shogakukan, so the pay wasn’t that great, either.

Toki didn’t want to freely admit it, but if someone asked whether his company was a good or hostile environment to work in, he’d absolutely have to say the latter. It was work worth doing, and it gave him a real sense of achievement, but the fact that he had to appeal to abstract concepts like “work worth doing” and “sense of achievement” was itself a classic sign of an unhealthy workplace.

It just wasn’t the kind of career he could recommend for other people. He actually couldn’t count the number of times he’d thought, I’m gonna quit this shitty job! But somehow, he had stuck with it for nearly five years—over seven, if you counted his part-time period. It must’ve reflected on how much he liked his job, the products the company produced, and the creators and other people he worked with. And while his salary and benefits were steadier for him than they were for the writers, the way Toki saw it, this was the classic example of a job you could never survive in if you disliked it.

If Miyako became an editor, would she come to enjoy this work? He wasn’t even sure if he would continue to enjoy it. There was no way he could look into someone else’s future. For now, all he could do was wrap up the work in front of him.

Toki sighed, opened the envelope Miyako had given him, and took out the papers inside.