The Art of E-mailing Excuses

It took about five days to finish up the tricky Hilde love-confession scene. Overcoming that as well as a few other turning points in the story, Volume 5 of Sisterly Combat was finally approaching the endgame. It was trying for Itsuki, who was breaking into a cold sweat as he all but wrung every word of it out from his brain.

He was seated not at his desk, but in a private room in a karaoke place right now, two train stops away. He was alone with Miyako; she had shown up just when he was leaving his apartment. He’d said he was going to karaoke, and she agreed to come along.

Once they were guided to a room, Itsuki took out his notebook PC, plugged it in, set the karaoke sound system’s volume to zero, and started to write.

“Wait, we aren’t singing?”

Itsuki gave his surprised friend a disbelieving look.

“…What do you think I came here for?”

“Um, not for karaoke?!”

“For work. It’s got an electrical outlet, I can order food and drinks, it’s a private room so I don’t have to worry about other people, I can sing something if I need a distraction… It’s the perfect workplace.”

“Ohhh.” Miyako nodded. It made sense to her. “Well, now that I’m here, though, what should I be doing?”

“Mm? I dunno.”

“Itsuki…”

Itsuki rolled his eyes at the sullen Miyako and handed an iPad Mini over to her. “You can kill some time with this. I got a bunch of e-books in there.”

“Oh… Okay. Thanks.”

Miyako grabbed it, still a bit dubious, and opened the Kindle app on it. She was greeted with a barrage of novel and manga covers; more than enough to pass the time.

Not sure where to begin, she searched for titles with the word “sister” in it. It resulted in quite a number of comics and novels: Oreimo, Himouto! Umaru-chan, The Testament of Sister New Devil, Ani-Imo, A Sister Is a Wonderful Thing, Slippery Sister, Love Thy Sister!, My Sister Became a Hero, My Sister Is an American?!, Nakaimo—My Sister Is Among Them!, etc.

How much sister stuff does this guy buy? Miyako resignedly thought. In a way, it was even more of a shock that there was this whole world of little-sister media that went beyond Itsuki. Do that many people go for this stuff?

She closed the results page and searched with some non-sister-oriented keywords… Hmm. The Irregular at Magic High School was supposed to be really popular. The term “irregular” also caught her attention. She decided to start reading, and just as she tapped on the title:

Vrrrr!

Suddenly, the phone Itsuki had put on the table began to vibrate and play a blaring ringtone. Itsuki reared back a bit but kept looking at his PC, not bothering to pick it up.

“…You aren’t taking that? It says ‘Kenjiro Toki’ on the screen… That’s your editor, isn’t it?” Miyako asked over the clattering vibration.

“…It’s fine,” he said with a nod. It clearly wasn’t. A bead of sweat ran down one cheek.

“…Itsuki, are you trying to avoid your editor?”

Itsuki’s shoulders twitched violently. “Ha… Ha-ha-ha, d-don’t be silly! Whatever makes you think that…?”

“…Well, you usually work at home, but today we’re sitting in this karaoke room. There are at least a couple of karaoke joints closer to you that I know of, but you spent money on a train to one farther out. The publisher’s office is right by your place, right? You went here to keep your editor from visiting you at home, didn’t you?”

“…Ugh. Your detective skills are perfect.” Itsuki reluctantly nodded.

“Is your deadline that big of a deal?”

Itsuki brazenly snorted at her. “Listen, Miyako. There are two types of deadlines in this world.”

“Two?”

“There’s the pseudo-deadline, which you can get away with breaking. Then there’s the Real Deadline. If you break that, then the book launch gets delayed, they don’t publish serial excepts in the magazines, and you get in some serious shit.”

As Itsuki explained in his best I’m-so-smart voice, Miyako asked, “So which one are you about to break? The pseudo one, or the real one?”

“…The real one,” he groaned like a zombie.

“That’s…kind of bad, isn’t it?”

“Yep.”

Typically, the first deadline an editor gives to their writer is a placeholder of sorts, one that allows for plenty of schedule adjustment if need be. All writers, upon making their pro debuts, try their best to follow these pseudo-deadlines, but as they build experience, they learn over time that these “deadlines” are surprisingly elastic. Later, once they spend more time in the frontline trenches of novel writing and start interacting with other authors and people in the publishing business, they gain a grasp of the schedule leading up to actual publication, allowing them to calculate when the holy-shit, oh-my-god Real Deadline is.

With three years of professional writing under his belt, Itsuki Hashima had a vague but fairly decent grasp of when this Real Deadline was. He had the experience to predict how much more text he had to produce before his manuscript was done, as well as how much time that’d take assuming things proceeded well. And now, his instincts were telling him:

—This manuscript probably ain’t gonna make the Real Deadline.

He had broken five-ish pseudo-deadlines in a row, and yesterday was the last one of those. There was no more “pseudo-” in front of the next deadline. He breaks it, there’s no book. And unlike other publishers in the field, who could keep the money flowing in with weekly magazines and the like, Itsuki’s couldn’t make up for the time loss.

Toki had been calling his phone practically nonstop since last night, pressing him for the manuscript. Itsuki had pressed on with his writing, steadfastly ignoring the calls. But, realizing he was in an impossible situation, he had finally decided to flee his own home and disappear before Toki came to his doorstep.

“…Well, hang in there.”

With that little show of support, Miyako went back to reading.

The sweat poured down Itsuki’s head as his fingers slammed away at the keyboard for an hour or so. Suddenly:

“…All right!”

He stopped, turned his head upward, and gave Miyako a broad, refreshing smile.

“You’re done?!”

Itsuki kept smiling.

“Time to sing!”

“What?! You got time for that?”

He didn’t. He didn’t, but Itsuki sang—to switch gears for bit, and/or to escape reality. He went on for about an hour straight, jumping between anime themes and his favorite bands. After he had worked up a good sweat, his face suddenly turned dour again.

“Right… Time to start fighting again… Fighting reality…”

“Huh? Um, okay… That’d be good, I think.”

Miyako wasn’t exactly being helpful, delving back into her novel as the solo recital of utter desperation continued. She had her doubts about how “irregular” the hero of this story was, but she still liked it a lot.

Turning back toward his PC, Itsuki opened up a new e-mail window instead of his manuscript.

“Okay… What kind of excuse will my editor be okay with…?”

“Huh?! You aren’t writing the novel?”

“Bah-ha-ha! You fool! I would be, if I had any chance of making it in time! But there’s just no way, so I’m gonna send an e-mail with an excuse so good, he’ll have to accept that I couldn’t avoid this!”

“…Well, if you think that’s your best option, have at it, I guess.”

Ignoring the bile behind Miyako’s advice, Itsuki started thinking. The most orthodox approach would be to meekly apologize and beg for some way to make an extension.

Hello. This is Hashima. Thanks as always for your support.

I regret to inform you that, unfortunately, I am unable to see a way that I will be able to have Volume 5 of Sisterly Combat done by our agreed-upon date. Would it be possible for you to give me just two more days on this?

Again, I’m very sorry about this.

“That oughtta work, no?” said Miyako as she looked at the screen.

Itsuki shook his head. “Not at all.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I fully admit this is my fault, that asshole editor’s gonna ream me out for it and I’ll have no right to whine about it. I’d feel like crap sending this already, but then he’d just lay it on even more in person and make me feel worse. It’d be stupid.”

“…Well, it is kind of your fault, though, isn’t it?”

“No!”

He hit his fist on the table.

“Um, ‘no’ how?”

“Listen, the whole reason why I’m in so much trouble with Volume Five is because it’s packed with a bunch of hard-to-write scenes. Some of the most important stuff in the entire series; stuff that readers have been salivating for this whole time.”

“Mm-hmm…”

“Let’s say that I skip some of these scenes for the sake of my deadline. You think the readers would accept that once they’re done with this volume? Of course not.”

“…Yeah, maybe not.”

“Totally not. And those readers would be pissed off at me, of course, but they’d also be pissed off at my editor and the publisher for being so strict with their deadline policy. It’d wreck their confidence in the entire company. They’d stop buying Sisterly Combat, and the rest of my books, and even the rest of other people’s series. They’d lose money, their stock price would go down, the joint would go out of business, and the editors would be out on the street! Bah-ha-ha! Take that, bastards!”

“…Is your publisher listed in the stock market?”

There were other things Miyako could have pointed out, but she decided to go with that question first.

“No, but… Look, don’t nitpick.”

“Sorry.”

Itsuki cleared his throat, gathering his thoughts. “Anyway! Me being forced, against my will, to break this deadline is my way of protecting the honor of my publisher and the paychecks of my editors. So why should I have to apologize to my editor and be raked over the coals for that? It’s not fair! In fact, I should be praised for doing the right thing for everyone and busting through this deadline!”

“You think so…?”

Itsuki ignored his wholly unconvinced karaoke partner.

“So let’s try writing an e-mail based on that.”

Hello. This is Hashima. Thanks as always for your support.

Regarding Volume 5 of Sisterly Combat, which I was planning to send you yesterday, boosting the quality of the final manuscript is taking an unexpectedly long amount of time.

It was possible, of course, to prioritize my deadline and produce the final novel within the assigned period, but as you are aware, Volume 5 is one of the most important in the entire saga, a major turning point for the series. Publishing such a vital volume when the quality isn’t where it needs to be will almost certainly invite the ire of our readers—and it would also affect the reputation of the publisher, the tradition and achievements of the editorial team, and your very name as an erudite editor, Mr. Toki.

In order to avoid this impending disaster, it pains me to take two more days to brush up the manuscript, but I regrettably find that I must. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

“…Wow,” Miyako whispered to herself as she read it.

“Heh-heh-heh… Right?”

“…The way you totally brush off all responsibility and make it sound like it’s for their sake is honestly breathtaking, in a way.”

“Heh…”

“…If I was your editor, I’d probably kick your ass.”

Itsuki began to sweat a bit. “…So it’d kind of piss him off?”

“Not ‘kind of,’ I don’t think. You missed this deadline, but here you are, writing this like you’re Big King Novelist. Not only do you avoid apologizing at all; you go on to extend the deadline without even asking—‘it pains me to take two more days to brush up the manuscript’? I mean, who do you think you are…?”

“Um…”

“Also, it’s too long. He’ll probably think, like, ‘If you got time to write this, get back to work!’”

“Hmm… The length’s an issue, huh? I didn’t think about that.”

Miyako had a point. If you wanted a manuscript right this minute, being greeted instead with a long, overwrought excuse e-mail would probably make anyone say “Enough of that, give me my novel.”

In terms of making a case for himself, however, he did need a certain amount of length. That was an issue, and it meant Itsuki’s plan of explaining why he wasn’t at fault so he could escape responsibility quickly fell apart.

“Well, if that’s how it is…maybe I could fall into a situation where I simply can’t write anything?”

“Like?”

“…Like, I went to the bank, but then this robber came in and took everyone hostage, so I can’t leave?”

“That would be a good excuse, if it weren’t for the fact you could turn on the TV and immediately tell it was a lie.” Miyako instantly took the wind out of Itsuki’s delusional sails.

“Mmh… Well, let’s say they kidnapped my little sister for ransom. If I spread the word to the general public, they’ll kill her. I’m trying to cobble the money together behind the scenes, ’cause I’ve got to rescue my sister! Now’s no time to be writing stories!”

“Um, you don’t have a sister?”

“…Okay, my brother. I’ll explain the whole thing to Chihiro so he can back me up.”

“You’re gonna rope your own brother into pretending he’s kidnapped?”

“Mmm… That does kind of feel wrong, yeah.”

“Wow… And here I thought sisters were your main thing. So you care about Chihiro, too?”

As Miyako grinned, Itsuki blushed.

“That doesn’t matter! I need to think up a good excuse!”

“Hmmm…” Miyako gave it some thought, despite her lack of interest. “You know, I took some time off work back in January with the flu. The peak of the season is over, but I think it’s still going around.”

“The flu, huh? Mmmm… I’m already writing novels at home and e-mailing them over… I think that monster editor would just tell me to shut up and get to work.”

“Huh. Rough.”

“But illness ain’t a bad idea, no. Something serious enough to excuse me from work…or something that asshole can’t whine at me about…”

Itsuki thoughtfully tried again.

Hello. This is Hashima. Thankss for your support.

I have cott an STD.

Give m just 2 more dz fr the projeit

Thhgngax

“Why’re you writing it like that?” Miyako asked, wincing.

“I want it to feel like I’m in distress, delirious from my illness, but I’m still trying my best to contact my editor about it.”

“Ooh, clever…but you’re making too many spelling errors. It feels like you’re doing it on purpose.”

“…True. Let’s cut it in half.”

Accepting Miyako’s astute advice, Itsuki set out to correct his text.

“But why are you labeling this an STD in the first place?”

“Well, that asshole editor of mine, he acts all noble and serious, but I know he loves hittin’ up the sex clubs downtown. Whenever the publisher sends him somewhere on a trip, those are, like, the first places he looks up.”

“…Gross.”

She had never met Kenjiro Toki before, but her opinion of him had just taken a nosedive.

“But if it’s an STD, he definitely can’t bitch about that. He’ll feel for me, like ‘Welp, he’s got an STD, so that’s that…’”

“That’s even worse if he sympathizes with you over that…” Miyako blushed a little. “Itsuki, are you…um, leading the kind of social life that’ll make this STD story convincing for him?”

“…!”

Itsuki’s eyebrows shot up at the observation. It was fairly likely Toki assumed Itsuki was a virgin (correctly). He also knew that Itsuki had been spurning Nayuta’s advances every chance he got. The idea of Itsuki suddenly getting an STD would be a lot for him to swallow.

“…Mmph. So much for that,” he groaned in frustration. Then his face brightened again.

“Miyako!”

“Y-yeah?”

“Lemme take a picture of you doing an ahegao double peace!”

“An ahegao double… What?”

“What I’m talking about is, I want you look like you’ve had so much sex that your pleasure sensors have gone into overload. This facial expression is known as the ahegao. You roll your eyes back, keep your mouth open, stick out your tongue and drool a little, go into huge spasms, and then make the peace sign with both hands.”

“Huh?”

“You know, like you’re on a crazy trip? Umm, kinda like this.”

He showed off his best ahegao double peace.

“Agh! What’s with that face? And why do you want a picture of that?!”

Itsuki condescendingly explained to the startled Miyako.

“I’ll attach it to the e-mail and say ‘Here’s the slut who gave me the STD’! He’s got to believe me then—”

“I’m not doing that, you prick!!”

“Agh!”

She backed up the declaration with a slap to the cheek, breathing ragged as her face turned red. “This is ridiculous! I’m going home! Stop thinking up all these stupid-ass excuses and just focus on getting a few more words into your novel! All right?!”

“All right… (´▪ ω ▪`).” He despondently nodded.

Miyako sighed and muttered “I swear…” under her breath as she turned to open the door and leave—just as a man in a business suit walked into the room with a grim expression on his face.

“Huh?! Wh-why’re you in here?” Miyako yelped.

“Oh, pardon me,” the man said with a short bow. “My name is Toki, and I’m this idiot’s assigned editor.”

Miyako eyed Kenjiro Toki carefully. So this was the man. He looked like a perfectly decent member of society, not the kind of man who paid for quasi-legal sexcapades all the time. But she knew you couldn’t judge a book by its cover.

Ignoring her, Toki drilled his eyes into Itsuki, who gasped in fear and confusion.

“Wha… How?! How the hell did you find me here…?!”

“…The last time we met, I installed a location-tracker app on your phone, in case you decided to run on me.”

“Ah…?! You messed with my phone?! That’s against the law!” Itsuki protested.

“Sometimes I have to break the law if I want a book out on time. That’s what it means to be an editor.”

That’s really going too far, Miyako thought, although she was too polite to say it. This guy really is a weirdo…or maybe all editors are like this.

“Ngh… Well, congratulations on chasing me down this far…but too bad! I haven’t written up Volume Five yet!”

“…Don’t back-sass me, dumbass.” Toki steeled his gaze. “If you haven’t, then I’ll make you write it. Come with me.”

“Agh?! What’re you doing?!”

Grabbing Itsuki by the arm, Toki used his other hand to put his computer back in his bag as he pulled him closer.

“Wh-where’re you taking me?! You…you aren’t gonna stick me in a room until I’m done, are you…?!”

“Yep.”

Toki’s response struck terror into Itsuki’s face.

“W-well, you’re gonna give me a hotel room, at least, right? Like the one Kanikou’s staying at…”

“You crazy? In our company, the only authors who get hotels are Ms. Kani and anyone who’s had work adapted into anime. You know where we’re going; you were there two years ago. The Lockdown in the publisher’s basement.”

“Ah…?! N-nooooooo! You can’t lock me up in that dark room again! Nooooooo!”

Itsuki screamed like a nefarious abomination being sealed back into another dimension as Toki ruthlessly dragged him off.

“L-let me go, you vicious monster! You can take away my physical freedom, but you can’t take away my mind! S-stop! Quit dragging me around… Aghh!”

Despite being of medium build at best, Toki was pretty muscular—enough to easily keep Itsuki and his beanpole frame from mounting any resistance.

Just as they were about to struggle out of the room, Toki stopped and turned toward Miyako.

“…Sorry, are you Itsuki’s girlfriend?”

“N-no! Just a friend from college!”

Toki gave the red-faced Miyako a thoughtful look as she corrected him. He took a business card out from his pocket and offered it to her. “…This idiot might try to run on me again. If he does, contact me here.”

“O-okay,” Miyako said, nodding nervously.

“…I’ll take care of the bill here, so feel free to relax for a while longer.”

“Oh, um…thanks…”

With that, Toki whirled around.

“Let me go! Miyako! Help meeee!” Itsuki shouted as he was dragged off.

Left to herself, Miyako glanced at Toki’s card. Hmm. “Editor,” huh…? She didn’t know exactly what that entailed, but now she had the impression that it wasn’t too easy on a man. No wonder he was into the sex clubs. Now it made sense, sort of.