The Phantom Sirius

The next day, at half past ten, Itsuki woke up in his own bed, in his own family’s house, for the first time in three and a half years.

The room was astonishingly clean for having been empty that long. Apparently Chihiro had kept it tidy so Itsuki could use it whenever he came back. When she said it was her “dream” to have the four of them eating dinner together, she couldn’t have been exaggerating.

…Let’s make coming back home a regular habit, he thought as he had breakfast by himself in the downstairs dining room. The meal consisted of fried eggs, white rice, and some leftover mackerel and salad from last night. It being Monday, Keisuke and Chihiro were both gone for the day, leaving Natsume relaxing in the living room.

“Okay, I’m gonna get going.”

The outfit he wore yesterday was hanging out to dry after Natsume washed it, so he changed into some clothes from his bedroom drawer, put on his coat, and prepared to leave.

“Come back anytime, okay?” Natsume said, smiling softly.

“You bet,” Itsuki said, giving a slightly bashful smile of his own.

Leaving home, he walked to a bus stop a few minutes away. Chihiro always took the bus to Itsuki’s place, he had heard, but Itsuki had only used this stop once—on the day he’d moved out.

The morning rush hour was over, so not too many people were around. He read a novel on his phone while he waited, getting on the bus that arrived about ten minutes later.

As he went down the aisle, figuring out where to sit:

“Hey, are you Itsuki Hashima?”

“Huh?”

A voice to his side surprised him. It belonged to a woman sitting windowside, maybe in her mid-twenties. She had an affable-looking face and a casual smile, and although she had matured, Itsuki instantly recognized her.

“…Ayane?”

“You got it!” she exclaimed.

This was Ayane Mitahora, daughter of the housekeeper Keisuke had hired before he remarried. She was two years older than Itsuki, and when his mother died, she came over to his place to cheer him up. They had started hanging regularly after that…and in his third year of middle school, he told her he loved her. She turned him down, though, and they hadn’t seen each other since.

Someone was audibly clearing their throat at them, so Itsuki quickly sat down next to Ayane.

“It’s sure been a while, Itsuki,” she said bashfully, although he could tell she wanted to say more.

“It sure has,” Itsuki replied, feeling just as awkward.

“Where are you going?”

“Just back home… Um, from my family’s home to my apartment.”

“Oh! Where do you live now?”

He gave the neighborhood name to her.

“Wow, that’s a pretty good place. I’m still living with my family.”

“Nah, there’s just some cheap student housing there, and I’ve been living in it ever since, so…”

If she lived at home and used this bus line, Itsuki realized she must’ve taken this route when she was visiting his childhood home, too. He knew Ayane’s house couldn’t be that far from the Hashima family’s, but he never heard the exact address.

“…Where are you going, Ayane?”

“To my office.”

The answer surprised Itsuki a little. He turned his eyes toward her. She was dressed well, but it wasn’t exactly business attire. Was she in fashion or something? He didn’t know anything about that industry, but her clothing and fairly late work commute seemed to indicate as much… Come to think of it, Itsuki had thought Ayane had huge breasts back when he was in middle school, but after another look, it wasn’t really the case. Around Miyako’s size at best. Maybe high school girls seemed bigger than they really were to him back then.

As his mind went off on this tangent, Ayane took a card out of her bag and handed it to Itsuki.

“Hee-hee-hee! Here’s what I do.”

“Branch Hill?!”

Ayane gave Itsuki’s shocked reply a shy smile. “Oh, you’ve heard of it? It’s still a brand-new company, pretty much…but I guess if you’re in the biz, you’d know it.”

Itsuki was surprised mainly because Miyako was about to join them, but he had known about Branch Hill since the beginning of his career. It was founded by a famed, charismatic editor from a well-known publisher, so it had already generated a lot of buzz around the publishing business. Certainly, no industry was more marked by casual dress codes and the total lack of a nine-to-five schedule than books—as a writer, that should’ve occurred to him first thing.

But something else stuck in his mind.

“If I’m ‘in the biz’?”

“Well, you’re a professional novelist, aren’t you? I’ve actually been keeping tabs on you ever since your debut.”

“Oh…”

Ayane’s mother had still been working in the Hashima residence when Itsuki published his first book. It’s natural that Ayane would’ve found out. But after he had severed ties with her, learning that she knew what he’d been up to for years since seemed so awkward.

“I knew you were into little-sister series, but I didn’t think you’d specialize in that yourself!” The teasing tone of Ayane’s voice didn’t make it any less awkward. “Oh, and I saw the pics from the Taiwan convention, too.”

“Wehhh?! You mean the…?!”

Ayane smiled at the panicking Itsuki. “That’s how I recognized you at the bus stop, Itsuki. You had on a mask and glasses in the photos, but your figure and hairstyle are the exact same.”

“Wow, really…?”

“But I gotta say,” she continued with a laugh, “that manga artist is incredible. Why did she decide to conceal her face with a pair of panties?”

“Oh, she wasn’t trying to hide it. She wraps panties over her head whenever she draws manga. I’m serious.”

“Ah-ha-ha!”

She must’ve thought he was joking. Itsuki took another look at her card.

“So…are you an editor, Ayane?”

“Yeah. I edited for this other publisher for about a year, but when my boss left and founded his own place, he invited me to join him.”

“Wow. That must’ve taken some resolve…”

Nobunaga Shirogamine, president of Branch Hill, had previously worked at a famous imprint for one of Japan’s largest publishers; apparently his starting salary there was way above what Kenjiro Toki earns even now (he bitched about this to Itsuki at some point long ago). Leaving that cushy job to found your own publishing company was certainly a bold challenge.

“Well, I really had to think about it. But it seemed like fun, so…” Ayane gave him a timid smile. “…And this hasn’t been announced yet, but we’re about to launch a new light novel imprint. I’m working on the launch right now, but it’s super fun.”

There was something impish about the smile. She might be a mature adult now, but that grin had changed a bit from when a preteen Itsuki fell in love with her.

“Did you always want to edit light novels, Ayane?”

When Itsuki knew her, at least, she never mentioned anything like that.

Ayane nodded—“Mm-hmm”—then averted her eyes a bit. “I think it was my next-to-last year in high school? My boyfriend loved light novels and tried writing them himself, too. Our idea was that he’d become a professional novelist, I’d become an editor, and then we could both work together. That was the promise we made.”

If that was her second year of high school, Itsuki would’ve been in his last year of middle school… In other words, the same year Ayane shot him down. He recalled how Ayane was down after being denied by another guy she loved—a light novel fan who wore glasses, Itsuki recalled.

“Um… This boyfriend you’re talking about… Did you mention him to me back then?”

“Yep. That guy.”

“I thought he turned you down the first time you asked him out.”

“He did. But I kept trying, and he finally said yes the fourth time.”

Shot down once, refusing to give up, continually challenging herself, and finally winning the attention of her beloved—it was Nayuta Kani’s story all over again. Itsuki found it deeply moving, but Ayane just smiled.

“But I knew I needed to get into a good university if I wanted to enter publishing, so I studied like a maniac in high school—but he gave up after he didn’t win a prize in the first contest he submitted to. I kept going with it anyway, but I wound up focusing on studying more than him and he started cheating on me, and that was it.”

“Oh… I guess it didn’t go too well for you, then.”

If middle school Itsuki heard that story, he probably would’ve been moved to tears.

“Right?” Ayane said, sighing as she smiled over it. “…But still, I always had dreams of being an editor.”

She no doubt understood what Itsuki wanted to ask—why did she keep going if she only started so she could work with her boyfriend?

“And, I mean, I already expended all that time and effort grinding it out for my exams and improving my grades. So it felt so stupid to give up on my dreams just because we split up. Besides…I just like light novels, you know? Whether I have a crush that goes nowhere, or I find a good guy, or it all falls apart—that part of me never changed. So in a way, the fact I’m here today is thanks to you, isn’t it? For introducing me to light novels.”

Seeing Ayane sitting there, bashfully confessing to all this—Itsuki could no longer blink back his tears.

“Ah…?! I-Itsuki?!”

“It—it’s okay,” Itsuki said, trying to assuage the concerned Ayane.

In another little bit, the bus arrived at the nearest stop to Itsuki’s place.

“You know, we might just offer you some work later on, so when we do, give it some real thought, okay?”

“I’ll certainly consider it,” he said as he stood up, deliberately taking a vague stance. He was the only one leaving at this stop, so the bus quickly trundled off again. Watching it go, Itsuki felt the tears returning.

The days had he spent with Ayane Mitahora; the happiness and fun and romance; even the pain and sadness of a love lost—none of it went to waste. His rage and despair at how small he was, how endlessly large the world was—none of it was meaningless. No matter how minuscule Itsuki Hashima’s story was as a middle schooler, it still connected to the tale of Ayane Mitahora.

He used to think of her as “like the heroine of a story”—but after he got dumped by her, and she got dumped by someone he didn’t even know, Itsuki felt so disillusioned. But he was wrong.

“I was in love with you…and you were a hero after all.”

A wintry wind sent the softly spoken words off to oblivion.

So maybe…a story like this is good enough for me.

Itsuki found his heart filled with salvation—a salvation that seemed rather close to emptiness.