The Role Model

About a week had passed since Aoba Kasamatsu began cooking at Itsuki’s place. She was stopping by every other day, and just like she claimed, she really was about as good as Chihiro in the kitchen. Thanks to that, Itsuki could remain fed with tasty, healthful cuisine even without Chihiro, and that let him continue to focus on his work.

But tonight, as they ate together, the doorbell suddenly began to ring wildly.

“Dude! Stop jabbing the doorbell button!”

Itsuki opened the door in a huff to find Nayuta Kani standing there. She was breathing heavily, cheeks flush and beaded with sweat; she must have been running on her way here.

“Wh-what’s up, Kanikou? You look like you’re in a rush…”

Instead of answering, Nayuta turned her eyes to the ground. Spotting Aoba’s shoes there, her face instantly went blank.

“…………………”

“Uh…Kanikou…?”

“Hnnnnhh!”

Itsuki tried talking to her as she looked at those shoes, but Nayuta flew into a rage as she glared at Itsuki, kicked off her shoes, and stormed inside. Marching into the living room, she started screaming at the befuddled Aoba inside.

“You little thief!!”

“Huh?! What?! Wh-who are you?!”

Aoba looked utterly confused. Nayuta never let magazines or the like publish her photo, and she missed last year’s awards ceremony, so Aoba had no idea what she looked like.

“I’m Itsuki’s girlfriend!!”

…Nayuta was just at the editorial department, attending a meeting regarding the assorted Landscape tie-in projects she was involved in. After it wrapped up, Yamagata took her aside, citing “something I wanted to check on, just in case.” Basically, as she put it, the new author Aoba Kasamatsu was coming over to Itsuki Hashima’s place regularly as of late, but was she aware of that? Nayuta certainly wasn’t, so she promptly ran a footrace straight to Itsuki’s door.

“Girlfriend…?”

Thinking over what Nayuta said, Aoba put two and two together—and then shot to her feet, eyebrows arched upward.

“Are…? Are you Nayuta Kani?!”

“Yes,” Nayuta replied, openly hostile.

“Ah, ahh…ahhhh…”

Aoba wasn’t able to form a coherent response. After a few more moments, she was so overcome with emotion that she began to cry.

“Huh? Whoa… Huh?!” Nayuta, unsure what this reaction meant, began to panic.

“I…I wanted to meet you so much. Nayuta Kani…! I—I read your novels, and they meant so much to me…so I started writing… I won a prize…but hicc…nngh… Hyaahhhh!”

“W-wait! Seriously, what’re you doing?!”

Nayuta looked around, at the end of her rope. This girl was now bawling in front of her.

“Basically,” Itsuki said, “she’s a huge fan of yours, Kanikou.”

Nayuta’s lips trembled a bit, eyes darting between Itsuki and Aoba, as she fruitlessly thought about how to handle this.

Once Aoba settled down a little, she and Itsuki explained things to Nayuta, who seemed less than convinced.

“Hmm… Yes, I know it’ll be hard for you if Chihiro can’t come over for a while…but I’m really not sure about a girl who’s not your lover barging into a man’s place all the time…”

“You were barging into this place a good two years before we became a couple,” Itsuki calmly observed.

“I was fated to be your other half the moment I was born,” Nayuta shouted back, “so it’s fine!”

“Don’t worry!” Aoba squeaked out. “I really respect Big Bro Itsuki as a writer and all, but I don’t have any kind of feelings like that toward him! And even if something like that did develop between us, I’d never try to take your lover from you, Nayuta! I swear my life on it! I’ll give you a written pledge right now if you like! If I ever double-cross Nayuta Kani, I swear I’ll atone for it with my life!”

Nayuta edged a bit away from Aoba, who was completely serious about this. “Y-you don’t need to swear your life on it! And—and why are you calling him ‘Big Bro’?!”

The observation made Itsuki and Aoba exchange looks.

“Um… I made her do it once as a joke, but it actually felt kinda good, so…”

“And I’ve always wanted to call someone Big Bro, so I kind of got carried away. If you don’t like it, Nayuta, I’ll quit.”

“Please do, thank you!” Nayuta forcefully replied.

“Aw…”

“If you want to be called that,” she told the softly groaning Itsuki, “I’ll do it instead!”

This made him blush a bit. “Well… I mean, you’re my girlfriend, not my little sister… It wouldn’t feel quite right…”

“Oh really…? No, I suppose not… Ee-hee-hee…”

Itsuki’s reaction made Nayuta visibly blush. Aoba looked at them both in awe. Seeing two authors she deeply respected act so intimately filled her with a very pure sort of joy.

“You really do love each other…! You make such a great couple. I’m so jealous…”

Nayuta smiled at this. “Nya-ha! I’m glad you see that. All right. I’ll give you special permission to call Itsuki Big Bro if you want.”

“You will?!” Itsuki exclaimed.

“Nya-ha-ha! Just because you have one or two more little-sister characters around you, that’s not going to affect our love at all!”

“Thank you very much! Ahh, I wish I could find the kind of love you two have going…”

“Ee-hee-hee… Love isn’t the kind of thing you find. It’s the kind of thing you fall into…!”

She certainly didn’t invent that quote, but the way Nayuta declared it made Aoba’s eyes sparkle all the same.

“Wowww! That’s so deep, Nayuta! So deep!”

“Hee…hee-hee-hee…” Nayuta triumphantly twitched her nose. “Isn’t it?”

“Do—do you use your own love experiences in your work?!”

“Mmmm, I do in a way, but then again, I don’t in a way…”

“What’s that mean?!”

“I mean that you can’t write a good novel with experience alone…and you can’t do it solely with imagination, either.”

“Ahhhh… So deep…”

There was actually nothing deep at all about what Nayuta said, but Aoba was interpreting it far more generously than it deserved.

“Do you mind if I ask you some more about the Landscape series?!”

“Ohhh? I dunno… I guess I’m the type who says everything she needs to say in her work, you knowww?”

“That’s your stance?” chided Itsuki.

“Can you humor me a bit? Please?”

“Well, if you insist… You can go ahead and ask. But not too much, okay?”

“Th-thank you very much! Oh, this is so amazing!”

…Nayuta Kani had legions of passionate fans, constantly lauding her as a writing genius. But she never interacted directly with them in autograph sessions or the like, and regardless of what they thought, Itsuki and Yamagata never gave her tons of praise for her work. And even if the anime producer, voice cast, and other people involved with the franchise loved her work, they were all careful to respect her boundaries—it was business, after all.

Before her debut novel got slammed and she met Itsuki and had a change of heart, Aoba wouldn’t have given Nayuta all this honest praise. She saw herself as her equal, after all. Now, however, Nayuta Kani wasn’t a target to shoot down—she was just a novelist Aoba absolutely loved. And to Nayuta, this was virtually the first time she had ever interacted with a bona fide fan in person like this…and she found it intoxicating.

“Oh, right. Ao, do you want to come to my place after this? I’d like to ask you more about what life as a high school teen is like these days.”

Now Nayuta had fully let Aoba into her life, inviting her to visit as she enjoyed the food she made.

“Your place, Nayuta?! Y-yes! Yes, I’d love to!”

For the utterly grateful Aoba, the answer was obvious.

And so, an hour-ish later, Aoba was nude with Nayuta in her home, having every inch of her body examined. After all, Kaiko Mikuniyama happened to be looking for new models.