Rom-Com (Title TBD)

It was the middle of April, and in a certain diner in the middle of Akihabara, Itsuki Hashima and Haruto Fuwa were talking.

They were both novelists, and they both had new books out on that day, so they had gone to this neighborhood and visited a few of its bookstores to see how things were going. The results were fairly obvious. Thanks to the debut of its anime version on TV a few days earlier, Haruto’s Chevalier of the Absolute World was selling like hotcakes—both the new volume and the previous ones in the series. Itsuki’s Sisterly Combat, on the other hand, was doing as well as it always did—decently enough, but the difference in popularity from Haruto’s series was painfully obvious.

It threw Itsuki off a bit, of course. He had invited Haruto over to Akihabara in part to help him get out of his funk, but now it was Haruto trying to smooth things over for Itsuki. It took the promise of a free lunch to cheer Itsuki up somewhat, and in the course of their idle chatter, Haruto slipped in a question, making it seem as chill and banal a query as possible.

“Is Miyako, like, seeing anyone right now?”

Itsuki blinked several times in response. He wasn’t expecting this.

“Um…? Well, who knows?” he replied with a quizzical look.

Miyako Shirakawa was their common friend, a girl currently attending college. She had once been Itsuki’s classmate at the place, and even after Itsuki dropped out, she still routinely invited herself over to his apartment, using it to write reports, study for exams, play games, and read books to kill time. She also occasionally gave women’s fashion and trend advice to Itsuki, along with feedback about his current works in progress. Haruto had come to know her after an RPG session a couple of months ago.

“You got a thing for her or something?”

Haruto tried to act as calm and unaffected as possible by this direct strike. He still couldn’t keep himself from blushing.

“Ahh… Um, you know, I was just kinda wondering.”

Ten days ago, the two of them, along with Miyako and their novelist friend Nayuta Kani, had watched the premiere of the anime adaptation of Haruto’s Chevalier of the Absolute World. The production of it was so god-awful, it literally reduced Haruto to tears as Itsuki and Nayuta watched, wishing they were anywhere else. As novelists themselves, they had learned about the potential tragedy waiting for any work that gets the anime treatment, and that such tragedy had broken the heart of more than one author in the past.

It was impossible to explain without personal experience, even though they could imagine it well enough. That was why they refrained from offering him canned sympathy—they couldn’t, if they didn’t know what happened behind the scenes.

But Miyako did. She looked at the blubbering Haruto and didn’t hesitate to offer her condolences, sobbing right alongside him as if she were the victim. When a friend was feeling sad, she was sad with them.

It sounds easy, but it’s not a feat that just anyone can pull off. In her words:

I know it’s sad when…when you try really hard at something, and it blows up on you!

Haruto had spent the past ten days depressed in his bedroom, but every time he felt like his heart was about to be swallowed up by the darkness, the memory of Miyako’s tearstained face flashed in his mind. By now, when he was finally able to regain a little optimism for the future, he thought those tears were really what had kept him that one step away from the edge of utter despair. There was someone willing to cry with him, and that just barely kept the wound from being fatal.

“Like, she’s really great, y’know?” Haruto blurted out, still red.

“Yeah,” Itsuki nodded. He had no objection to this. “But a boyfriend, huh? I haven’t heard of any…”

He and Miyako were casual friends. They had never really discussed anything in the realm of their private lives. But:

“…But Kanikou did say something to me once, like ‘Myaa’s such a grown-up woman! And so incredibly experienced, too!’ She had, like, stars in her eyes when she said it, too…” (“I want to be like her,” she had continued to Itsuki, “so let’s start screwing right now!”)

“…An ‘incredibly experienced,’ ‘grown-up’ woman, huh…?”

Haruto imagined it. It made him swallow.

“Apparently?” Itsuki bluntly stated. To be honest, he didn’t really want to think about his friends that way.

“How incredibly experienced do you think…?”

“How should I know?! …Like, I don’t know if there’s a guy in her life right now, but I’d certainly believe it if there was.”

Itsuki didn’t know much about Miyako’s current social life in college, but she was always hanging out with smiling, cheerful, socially well-adjusted women (the sort that Itsuki tended to have trouble dealing with), so it seemed a given that she had some male friends as well.

“Yeah… Yeah, I’d assume so. She’s so cute and kind to people. No way other guys would leave her alone…”

Haruto exhaled a soft sigh, as Itsuki took out his phone and began tapping at it.

“Whatcha doin’?”

“…Oh, I figured I could just ask her, so…”

He showed the screen to Haruto. It was open to the LINE social-network app, with the first message in the on-screen history reading:

Hey, do you have a boyfriend right now?

“Whoa, um, hey, don’t you think that’s a little too direct?!”

Itsuki’s eyebrow quirked upward as Haruto panicked. “How? Isn’t this the fastest way to find out?”

“Well, yeah, but…! C’mon, you have to work up to that first! I need to mentally prepare myself some more!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Itsuki grumbled as he pressed the “Send” button.

“Ahhhh…?!”

Haruto was in shock. He gaped at the screen, as “Read” popped up next to the message almost immediately.

“Ooh, she’s got it.”

“…Itsuki… You’ve got guts, you know that?”

Itsuki sighed at the peeved Haruto. “Well, you’re acting like a huge chicken over this. What happened to Prince Manwhore?”

“I’m not that kind of guy in real life!”

With a weird sort of whooshing sound, Miyako’s reply popped on-screen. The two of them read it.

No, why?

“Whoa… She doesn’t…”

Haruto breathed a visible sigh of relief, much to Itsuki’s semicontrived concern.

“‘Why?’ …What should I tell her? I’m getting tired of tiptoeing around with you on this, so how ’bout I just type in ‘Haruto said he likes you’ and get it over with?”

“How ’bout let’s not, okay? I mean, anyone would wonder why you’re asking them if they have a boyfriend out of nowhere, you dumbass!”

“…I’m not a dumbass,” Itsuki groused as he typed in Oh, just wondering. Don’t worry about it and sent it off.

“…Do you really think telling her ‘don’t worry about it’ is gonna make her do anything besides worry about it?” a still-dissatisfied Haruto observed. “Besides, like… Just from these messages alone, it’s gonna look a lot like you have a thing for her, won’t it?”

“What…?!”

Itsuki’s eyes were wide open. He pondered the thought for several seconds.

“Well shit, you might be on to something.”

“You really are a dumbass…”

Haruto stared straight at Itsuki’s face. Itsuki responded by averting his eyes.

“…Hmm… If that’s the impression she got, maybe I oughtta just be honest and say you were asking about her—”

“Don’t! Seriously!”

“Hmmm…”

After a few more seconds’ worth of agonizing, Itsuki finally sent Miyako an additional message.

Don’t get the wrong idea! It’s not like I have feelings for you or anything!

“Perfect! This oughtta take care of it.”

“Um, you think?” Haruto asked doubtfully as Itsuki gave him a triumphant smile.

“Oh, totally. I used the emoji exclamation points and everything. It’s perfect.”

“Yeah? With that hot-and-cold act, isn’t it starting to look like you’re going all tsundere on her for no reason?”

“Tsun…dere…?” Itsuki gave the screen another glance as he considered this accusation. “Whoa, you’re right!”

“Geez, man…”

“Hrrmmm… How am I supposed to set the record straight now…? If I keep texting her, it’s just gonna look like I’m needling her even more, I think…”

Haruto sighed at the wavering Itsuki. “Ugh… Just act the way you always do around Miyako, all right? Message her the same dumb way you normally do.”

“Hmm…”

“Yeah. And…I’ll just bring it up to her sometime soon.”

“Whoa.”

Despite his crimson cheeks, Haruto clearly meant that as a bold declaration. It astonished his friend.

“I’m gonna do it,” he continued, voice growing more passionate. “I’m gonna confess my love for Miyako…and I swear I’ll make her a happy woman!”

“Um, yeah…” Itsuki gave him a funny look. “Man, you’re really wearing your emotions on your sleeve these days, huh, Haruto?”

“Well, my anime turned out like shit, so…”

Haruto’s countenance suddenly darkened.

“…This is probably one of the lowest points of my life. I gotta believe that, or I don’t know how I’m gonna go on. And if this is rock bottom, then there’s nowhere to go from here but up, right?”

“Yeah,” Itsuki said, nodding and halfheartedly laughing as Haruto forced a smile onto his face. Inside, though, he was recalling the words of a veteran novelist he knew in the business:

If your stuff starts to sell, you gotta do whatever it takes to be happy.

You know what happens when you think you’ve succeeded? You get treated like a human punching bag by people who haven’t even read your book. You get treated to a public stoning, and you’re not allowed to fire back at them one single bit. If you let that get to you, it’s gonna break your heart, and you’ll fall out of the scene. You can’t let that happen.

Who would ever want to get involved in a business where, the moment you claw your way to the top, you lose every right you ever had to happiness? Who’s gonna bother even trying to give it a shot?

So that’s your duty, all right? To be happy. You can buy a house, a fancy car, and designer clothing. You can blow a ton of money on food or cocktails or whatever. You can get married to a pop singer. You can go to signings or events and have your fans fawn all over you. You can pretend to be some kinda literary giant in interviews and lectures. That last one’s pretty risky, so I wouldn’t recommend it, but you could even try to mouth back at your editor a little bit. Hell, give up writing and just goof off all day. Anything.

As long as it makes you happy, feel free to satisfy any kind of deviant desire you can think of. Doesn’t matter if you’re a writer, a manga artist, a singer, an actor, a pro athlete—if you’ve made it all the way to the top of your scene, then you’ve got an obligation to show everybody who comes after you that you’re happy.

…Not that that particular writer ever found happiness, of course.

Itsuki knew exactly how much effort Haruto had expended on this. He had never missed a deadline; he had offered full supervision and advice to the manga adaptation; he went to every brainstorming session for the anime; he expended untold amounts of time holding interviews and doing PR for it; he even wrote a special-edition novel to give away as a freebie with the Blu-ray version. All without a single complaint (in front of Itsuki, at least).

And Itsuki knew this was an ideal. Setting aside concerns about the future of the scene or whatnot, he truly believed that people who worked hard deserved to be rewarded. Besides, he knew that his own series was an obvious choice for an impending anime treatment, so he was planning to be at the top himself soon enough. He wanted Haruto to remain both his friend and close rival, and for that to happen, Haruto needed to keep his spirits up.

So he opened his mouth and said:

“Well, hang in there. I’m rootin’ for you, too.”

It was about 90 percent kindness and 10 percent an attempt to hide his embarrassment—and in some ways, nothing crueler could have been said.

Meanwhile:

Hey, do you have a boyfriend right now?

“Huhhh?!”

Miyako, reading Itsuki’s message on the train back home from college, audibly squawked in response.

Do I have a boyfriend? What could have possibly driven Itsuki to ask that, out of the blue? It threw her for a terrible loop, but she still tapped out a hurried reply.

No, why?

Her heart accelerated as she awaited the reply. After a bit of a delay, it arrived.

Oh, just wondering. Don’t worry about it

*   *   *

What do you mean, don’t worry about it?!

Miyako tried her hardest not to shout it out loud as she chided him. Of course she was going to worry about it. What would make Itsuki wonder all of a sudden if she had a boyfriend? Was he really “just wondering”?

She and Itsuki had never discussed matters of the heart very much. He never had a taste for tales of the kind of raw, unbridled romance her college friends had experienced, and neither did Miyako, really. Whenever such topics came up, she’d usually just smile, nod, and wait for it to pass.

The idea of Itsuki asking about her relationship status out of nowhere was bizarre, no matter how you thought about it.

Is there a reason for this…? Does Itsuki, maybe, have a thing for…? She tried to stave off the No way, girl that crossed her mind.

I don’t think nothing about her, no. And that’s what makes this so shitty.

A while back, one night while the three of them stayed in Okinawa, Itsuki went red in the face and offered her an explanation of his relationship with Nayuta. Miyako’s chest twinged with loneliness as she recalled his expression then.

She really thought that Itsuki liked Nayuta. He liked her, but it was much more complicated than that, so he was unable to reciprocate the feelings Nayuta broadcast to the world every day. For someone like Miyako, still finding her place in the world, it was hard to figure out whether her own take was accurate or not, but she was pretty sure Itsuki had something much more important than merely love in his heart.

So maybe… Maybe he can’t be a couple with Nayu, so he wants me as a girlfriend instead…?!

Given Itsuki’s personality, it hardly made sense, but you saw couples like that all the time. Not really loving each other but hanging out with a handy member of the opposite sex because they liked the idea of having a lover.

Itsuki was a little-sister-obsessed , but he was also a grown man. He had a not-so-small collection of 18+ books and video games, and he had the same kind of thoughts any man his age did. Being propositioned on a daily basis by someone as obstinate (and buxom) as Nayuta would fill anyone with anguish.

S-so… So he wants me as an outlet for all those anguished emotions he’s feeling…?!

Just as Miyako went red in the face at the mental image, another message came in.

Don’t get the wrong idea! It’s not like I have feelings for you or anything!

Uh…uhhhhh…?

Now Miyako was even more confused.

If she was supposed to take that at face value, Itsuki said “don’t get the wrong idea” because he realized his previous message meant something he didn’t intend it to. But Miyako had seen lines like these in countless manga and light novels by now. The old tsundere—playing her hot and cold. Pretty-girl characters (and some guys, too), unable to accept their feelings, would blush and blurt out a sentence just like this for the readers to smirk at.

Itsuki Hashima was a professional novelist. There was no way he wouldn’t realize he was typing out this well-trodden character trope. This had to be deliberate. Which meant he was tsundering on purpose.

Okay, so…does that mean Itsuki really does want to go out with me…?!

Miyako’s face grew even redder. Going out with him? That’d be so mean to Nayu, and besides, if you don’t really have a thing for someone, then it’s not nice to string them along for no reason… I—I definitely don’t wanna become an outlet for Itsuki’s raging hormones… I don’t… I kind of don’t, maybe… B-but, maybe not as much as Nayu, but maybe I kinda have a little thing for him, too…?

A few of the nearby passengers gave Miyako funny looks as a cavalcade of emotions swept across her face. She didn’t notice them.

So how should I respond to this?

“Let me think about it”? “OK”? “I’m sorry”? …No. That would all be weird. He didn’t ask her point-blank to be his girl.

Maybe I should get angrier, like “Why’d you think I’d think that, you dummy?” or “You don’t think anything about me?!” or something? Or how about I take the high road and type “Lollll tsundere much?” instead?

She began to get the feeling that no response would be correct. Human language felt like such a clumsy, unwieldy tool to her now. And as she pondered over it, the train reached her stop, so she had to be satisfied with sending him a sticker of a cartoon character smiling but also looking vaguely concerned.