The Occasional Guy Friend

“Hellooo! It’s your hot friend.”

This evening, Itsuki was hard at work in his apartment, as he always was, when the sound of both a doorbell and an unfortunate comment reached his ears.

Frowning, Itsuki went to greet his visitor. And unpleasant though the comment was, the person standing outside his apartment was indeed a hottie.

He was in his early twenties, with sharp eyes, distinctly graceful features, narrow-rimmed glasses, and a crop of bleached light brown hair to complete his artless charm. Despite his wiry frame, nothing about his physique seemed unhealthy, and his legs spoke for around half his stature.

He was smiling warmly, and everything about him made you feel right at home.

Itsuki hated it when a truly attractive young man acknowledged his own looks, since he had no idea how to respond. That said, modest protests of “But I’m nooot” to accusations of hotness were equally irritating. Thus: “Hot guys should all drop dead. QED.”

“What was the argument?”

Even after being told to go eff himself, the handsome young man just gave a wry grin. There was something oddly invigorating about that smile he had.

Itsuki didn’t know his real name, but he wrote under the name Haruto Fuwa. He was another writer, working for the same publisher as Itsuki, and he had made his pro debut at around the same time as Itsuki after winning a prize in the same contest.

“Hey, Itsuki. Doing okay?”

“Hmph. Yeah, pretty much.”

“Keepin’ your dick clean?”

“D-don’t say that outside!”

Haruto laughed as Itsuki visibly reddened. “Aw, come on—it’s fine! You know your neighbors and the people above and below us are college students, right? They’re all in class right now.”

“…Why do you know more about who lives in this building than I do?” Itsuki said with a groan, squinting. “Come on in.”

“Thanks. Here, I got a present for you. Lemme put ’em in the fridge.”

“Sure.”

Haruto opened the refrigerator door as if it were his own and put in a few bottles of imported beer that he’d brought along in a tote bag. Once he did, he removed two bottles from the fridge that had already been in there—two Belgian beers, the Tripel and Christmas from Gouden Carolus. Despite living alone, Itsuki had a fridge large enough for a nuclear family; it was about a fifth full of leftovers from Chihiro’s meals and three-fifths full of alcohol. The rest was occupied by plastic bottles of water, tea, or sports drinks, as well as ham, cheese, sausages, chocolate, dried fruit, and other snacky things to pair with beer.

As close as Itsuki’s place was to the publishing house, Haruto almost always stopped by before hitting the Editorial Department.

“Hey, I’m gonna borrow a dish, okay?”

Without waiting for confirmation, Haruto grabbed a large platter from the kitchen, opened the bag of ham he’d taken out with the beer, lined up a few slices along the outer edges, and filled the center with a neatly arranged assortment of cheese and dried fruit. This he placed in the center of the kotatsu before grabbing two name-brand Gouden Carolus chalices from the shelf, giving them a quick rinse, and placing them next to the desk, along with a bottle opener.

“Here ya go,” he said as he sat by the kotatsu, completing the work as neatly and cleanly as Chihiro.

“Mm-hmm,” Itsuki replied, giving him a composed nod. He had been reading manga at the kotatsu while his guest, Haruto, prepared the food and drink.

“Pick your poison.” Haruto said, both beers in hand.

Itsuki pointed at the Christmas beer. “That one.”

“Right.” Haruto opened the bottle and poured out the deep-brown contents. The scent of herbs and spices filled the room as the beer formed a head in the glass.

“Well, another day down.”

“Yep.”

With a light clinking of glasses, Itsuki accepted his drink. He was just about to bring it to his lips when Haruto stopped him.

“Hang on.”

“Mm?”

“Can you give me the peace sign over the dish for a sec?”

“…Like this?” a quizzical Itsuki asked as he put his glass down and made a pair of scissors with his index and middle fingers over the somewhat attractively laid-out snack spread. Haruto did the same close by with his left hand, then shot a pic with the smartphone in his right.

“All right, thanks. Let’s see… ‘Eating with my co–prize winner Itsuki Hashima at his joint! ^^ I’ve been here like three times a week lately, guess it’s about time to get married~~’”

“…What are you doing?”

“Oh, just actin’ gay on Twitter,” Haruto said as he punched away at his screen.

“…?” Itsuki raised an eyebrow.

“Well, y’know, I’m starting to get my name known lately, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Chevalier of the Absolute World, Haruto’s launch series, wasn’t quite as much a phenomenon as The Silvery Landscape, but it was still among their publisher’s five best-performing titles. The anime adaptation was slated to premiere on TV this coming April, and that meant a lot more exposure for Haruto, thanks to autograph sessions and coverage in anime mags, on Internet news portals, and on video sites. His attractive features had already earned him the semiofficial nickname “the Heartthrob Novelist.”

Haruto’s work was mainly read by younger males, an audience that wouldn’t generally care much what the author looked like. Some of them, however, expressed open hostility at how handsome his headshots were, a few voicing non-ironic concern that he might try making a pass or two at some of the anime’s voice cast.

“So that’s why I’m gaying up my persona a little,” he explained. “If people think I like screwin’ around with the dudes more than the girls, that means voice-actress fanboys won’t start hating on me…and ladies who dig that sort of thing will start flocking to me. Two birds with one stone.”

“…What a life,” a half-exasperated but still sympathetic Itsuki commented. “But wait. What about me? Am I your unwilling partner now, or…?”

“Mm? Sure. Wanna be gay buds?”

“Hell no!” shouted Itsuki at the careless pitch. “Why do I have to change sexual identities just to cover your ass?”

“Aw, what’s the big deal? Maybe you’ll earn some new fans that way.”

“I don’t need fans like that! I want my books to sell based off my characters, not what kind of character I am!”

“…Ooh,” Haruto exclaimed, face suddenly serious. “Man, you sure get all hung up over the weirdest stuff sometimes,” he said with a grin. “Why do you care if the world thinks you’re batting for the other team?”

“Are you seriously that stupid? When I marry the ultimate little-sister voice actress who’s playing the ultimate little-sister heroine in the anime version of my magnum opus, what am I gonna do if people think it’s a cover or something?”

“Whoa, you want to marry a voice actress, Itsuki?”

“Ha-ha-ha! Don’t be an idiot! I’ve got zero desire to get married, but don’t you like how that sounds? The idea of voice actresses fawning over you? ’Cause I sure do, hee-hee-hee-heeee!”

“…Are you getting enough sleep?” Haruto asked, looking honestly worried.

“…Um, yeah… I just kinda hit a wall in my work.” Itsuki nodded, face in a ω-style pout.

“…Oh? Maybe you better not drink today, then?”

“No, I will. Maybe getting wasted will give me some new ideas!”

Itsuki brought the beer to his lips. The brilliant mix of spices tickled his nostrils, the heavy sweetness spreading in his mouth, only to give way to a complex but comfortable bitterness. Gouden Carolus Christmas clocked in at 10.5 percent alcohol by volume, about twice what you saw in mainstream Japanese beer, and the flavor hid the alcohol so well that glugging it down was dangerously easy. “Ooh… That’s good.” Itsuki exhaled, his eyelids already becoming heavy.

“Hey, don’t keep that pace up.” Haruto grinned as he took a sip, rolling it around on his tongue. “You got writer’s block, huh? Is it that Demon Hunter thing? The first non-sister heroine in the Hashima oeuvre?”

“…Nah, I shit-canned that,” Itsuki said, a tad apologetic.

Haruto kept a close eye on recent trends in novels and anime. Itsuki had had a few discussions with him along those lines while devising Demon Hunter in Scarlet (tent.). He had even gone over the opening with him.

“Shit-canned? Seriously? Why?”

“Because my heroines have to be little-sister characters, man! I’m just tryin’ to think up the ultimate in sisters in my new project. Something nobody’s come up with before!”

“…You’re sure taking that mania of yours to the deep end,” Haruto said with an exasperated grin, grabbing a piece of dried fruit between sips. “…I got a younger sister myself, but—real talk for one second—there’s nothing that great about them, you know? She whines constantly at every little thing I do; she starts beating on me at the slightest provocation; she calls my books ‘disgusting’ or ‘boring’; she reads interviews done with me and calls them ‘horrible’ or ‘gross’… She drives me crazy.”

“You dumbass! Don’t lump my sister in with that piece of garbage disguised as your sister!”

“Garbage…?! Geez, she’s not that bad! I mean, she was pretty cute when she was younger, and she bought snacks for me whenever I came down with a cold… Also, you don’t even have a sister!”

“Sure I do!”

“Huh?”

“Right here, inside my heart!”

“Oh… Right…” Haruto flashed him a look of pure pity. “…But, again, straight talk for a sec: I know I don’t have the ‘little sister’ bug that you have, but your novels lately… Like, I think they’re veering way off the highway, you know? I’ve been seeing people on the Net say the same thing, too, like, ‘I can’t identify with the hero anymore’ and stuff.”

“Why’re you reading reviews of my books online…?”

“Oh, no reason. I just like reading impressions of other people’s stuff.”

“Hmph…”

A little peeved, Itsuki refilled his empty glass and downed it in one drink. “Well, I know. I know there’re takes like that going around, in certain circles. I dismissed most of them as the demented ravings of idiots who don’t understand the difference between Amazon reviews and their personal journal or the stupid trolls who lurk around the anonymous boards. But my editor said the teen readers sending survey forms back are starting to say the same thing more and more, and I’d like to think there’s some value to that feedback, at least…”

He took another big gulp from his glass, eyes starting to glaze over.

“But!” he shouted, slamming a palm against the kotatsu. “I’m not going to succumb to the bleatings of that low-minded rabble! If I let people who say I’m ‘going too far’ dull my blade at this point, I’ll never reach the ultimate in little sisters! I’ve got to keep pushing it, all the way to the edge—create a world with my own hands, drenched in originality like none seen before with the ultimate, undefeatable, absolute god of a sister that’ll make ’em all bow for forgiveness! She’ll take those idiotic haters and tear their very souls to shreds!”

He chugged the rest to hammer the point home.

Itsuki’s speech, covering his passion for the little-sister ideal and his sheer distaste for his editor, continued for a while, and Haruto interjected a little “Yeah” or “Right, totally” now and again as he listened. Before long, however, Itsuki’s drunkenness had proceeded to the point where he began to reply “Nyanpasu” to everything.

“Yeesh… Don’t say I didn’t warn you about your pace, man…”

“Nyanpasu,” the semiconscious Itsuki warbled, waving a hand distractedly in the air as he kept his eyes closed.

“…Do you know your name?”

“Nyanpasu!”

“…Do you remember your address, maybe?”

“Nyanpasu!”

“Nyanpasuuuuuu?”

“Nyan…pasu…?”

Itsuki sprawled back, and that was it. A look of abject bliss was on his face as he slept. Haruto grinned at it.

“…Bet Nayu would love to see this,” he said as he took a close-up shot of him, although he simply put his phone back in his pocket instead of sending it to her.

“Fnnhh… Nyan…pasu…”

Haruto filled up his own glass as he watched Itsuki talk in his sleep.

“Well, hang in there, man… It just gives me a chance to get an even bigger leg up on you, while geniuses like you trap yourselves in pointless nonsense…”

The smile on Haruto’s face was just as attractive and refreshing as always, but the color in his eyes seemed to almost burn with passion.

After taking a couple of hours to wrap up the beer and snacks and do all the washing up, Haruto pulled the still-blacked-out Itsuki out from the kotatsu, laid him on his bed, and left. He shuddered as he stepped outside, the frigid wind robbing the heat from his alcohol-warmed body.

To Haruto Fuwa, Itsuki Hashima was his friend, drinking partner, industry war buddy fighting for the same publisher, troublesome little-brother-like presence, and enemy, one he hoped he could beat someday.

They had both earned nods in the same new-author contest, but the written evaluations of their submitted work couldn’t have been more different. Haruto still couldn’t forget the judges’ commentary for the two of them.

“The unrefined content plays host to a wealth of issues, and we’re honestly unsure if releasing this to the public would be the right thing, but it also carries unfathomable impact. It’s something only this author could ever have written, and we’re extremely curious to see how he grows and matures as a creative talent going forward.”

“A very expertly put-together piece, obviously from someone well versed in current trends. Its quality makes it easily publishable as is—and hey, maybe it’d sell pretty decently, too [he says, idly picking his nose].”

Which review applied to which author should be obvious.

He had wanted to punch out several of the judges after reading that evaluation, but when he actually read Itsuki’s published work, it was suddenly clear to Haruto: He was beaten.

Yes, maybe Haruto’s series clearly outsold Itsuki’s, scoring that anime version and all that, but this in no way meant he himself felt victorious. Fame, royalties, reader reviews—all those external standards meant nothing against the supreme sense of defeat he felt. That feeling only deepened a year ago when he first ran into Nayuta Kani, a girl who became an author after reading Itsuki’s work—a girl whose life Itsuki literally changed forever with his writing.

There are, generally speaking, two types of novelists: the artist, who wields their personal emotions as their mightiest weapon, and the craftsman, who analyzes what the market wants and hones their work to match. These aren’t hard categories; most people fall in between somewhere, from the artist with a few craftsmanlike qualities to the middle-of-the-roader who leans a bit craftsman. But Itsuki and Nayuta were textbook artists, while Haruto was the pinnacle of the craftsman ideal.

These two archetypes, of course, were hardly in competition with each other. One wasn’t necessarily better than the other at writing compelling novels. As long as you produced results, there was no reason to beat yourself up about where you fell. If anything, publishers tended to cherish craftsmen and their steady pace and quality over artists, whose emotional states could greatly affect their quality or pace, or even make it impossible for them to write at all.

Haruto knew that, of course. But still…

“…Too bad I couldn’t have been a genius, too…,” he whispered to himself as he disappeared into the night.