The Interview

Miyako Shirakawa was invited to join the team part-time at Gift Publishing’s GF Bunko label on a Sunday in early July, right when the first completed pages for the manga version of Itsuki’s All About My Little Sister were sent over. It all began with an offhand remark from Nayuta—“too bad you couldn’t be my editor”—and Miyako briskly replying “Yeah, yeah, if I ever get the chance.” That was all the impetus Toki needed to make the offer.

Hanging out with authors and editors like Itsuki and Nayuta and Haruto and Toki, as well as helping manga artist Kaiko Mikuniyama with modeling work for the All About My Little Sister comic, helped foster within Miyako an interest in the publishing business. It made it too easy to accept the invite; it wasn’t until she went home that she realized her only qualification was that she happened to know a few people in the industry. She knew next to nothing about the industry itself.

That made her nervous about the chances of it working at all, but she still saw it as an avenue to self-improvement. Itsuki and Nayuta were living off their writing as a profession and even becoming known for it, while she had just been going through the motions, day after day. In Miyako, that always gave her a sort of inferiority complex—or perhaps a less well-defined sense of gloom about her own life.

This was just part-time, of course, but she figured that if she could work in the same world as Itsuki and his friends and gain a glimpse of the things they got to deal with, maybe that would alter the path of her life a little, too. And it wasn’t all wrapped up in her feelings for Itsuki, either. She had had an interest in publishing for a while, and being involved with the manga project was eye-opening in how much joy it brought her. She was looking forward to a lot of it.

Thus, Miyako fell asleep that night, her heart racing with anticipation and anxiety.

Several days later, Miyako paid a visit to Gift Publishing for her interview. This was the publisher who ran the GF Bunko label her friends were involved with; they also published general literature, comics, and magazines on assorted topics. The building was less than a five-minute walk from Itsuki’s apartment. She had passed it countless times, but this was the first time she stopped in.

The entrance had one of those signs outlining what department was on which floor. GF Bunko was on the fifth floor of the ten-floor building.

“Um…”

Nervously, she told the secretary at the front desk that she was here for a GF Bunko job interview. She was instructed to report to the fourth floor, so she walked over to wait for the elevator. There were five men waiting with her, all wearing lanyards with company IDs on them, but none of them wearing what she’d call business attire. They must have been editors, too. She had only met Toki so far, and he was always either in a suit or a dress shirt and tie, so she assumed editors tended to go for the “company man” look a lot. Maybe Toki was the weird one, after all.

Toki himself was waiting for her on the fourth floor.

“Thanks for coming in, Ms. Shirakawa.”

“Oh, no, thank you for inviting me!” She bowed nervously.

“Right this way,” he replied as he used his ID to unlock the door to the hallway beyond. “Our editor in chief will be interviewing you. He might look kind of mean, but he’s totally normal, so don’t worry!”

“O-okay…”

He seemed to be joking a little, but that stilted reply was still the best Miyako could manage.

“Yeah,” Toki said, still trying to assuage her fears, “I called this an interview, but it’s really just a formality. You’re gonna be just fine…probably.”

As he put it, Toki’s recommendation had all but landed the job for Miyako already—connections can be powerful things, after all. They had already agreed on the job’s conditions and such via e-mail, so all that remained was this formality of an interview. Miyako knew that. But speaking directly to the editor in chief behind probably hundreds of published books still made her tense up.

“Here we are,” Toki said as he stopped and knocked on a door reading CONFERENCE ROOM 4. “Come in.”

“…Thanks.”

The room was about 150 square feet in all, with two long desks in the middle. The walls were decorated with posters advertising Gift Publishing releases, situated at evenly spaced intervals, including the house’s monthly release list and a promo picture for the Chevalier of the New World anime.

Sitting in the middle of one desk was a lone man, well-built and dressed in a borderline tacky suit made of what looked like gold lamé. He had a notably thick beard, wrinkles between his eyebrows, and the sharpened gaze of a predator on the savanna. The first phrase that popped into Miyako’s mind was Mafia boss. Toki warned her he looked “kind of mean,” but that was a bit of an understatement. He was terrifying.

She stood there, withering in her awkwardness, when the man addressed her in a deep, husky voice.

“…Sit down.”

“S-sure!” she squeaked as she followed his orders, while Toki took a seat next to the man.

“My name’s Satoshi Godo, editor in chief of GF Bunko.”

“Um, g-good to meet you!”

“Mm,” he replied, looking Miyako in the eye. “So can we get down to business?”

“C-certainly!” She nodded. This was starting to feel more like an inquisition than an interview.

“I heard that you were in the same year as Itsuki Hashima back when he attended college.”

“Oh, that’s right. Um, Itsu—er, Mr. Hashima left in his first year, but…yeah.”

“And you are acquainted with Kani and Fuwa as well?”

“I am. We hang out a lot together.”

“Hang out?”

“Um…like, board games, and RPGs, and stuff.”

“Mm. A lot of editors here like tabletop games, too. Maybe you’ll have something to talk about, huh?”

Godo’s voice was just as deep and growly as before, but he was speaking so casually that Miyako could feel the anxiety dissipate.

“By the way, Ms. Shirakawa, I heard that you helped out a great deal with the comic version of All About My Little Sister?”

The anxiety was back. Miyako’s face tensed up.

“Oh, um, it wasn’t anything that big, ha-ha-ha…”

“No need to be modest,” Godo said, drowning out her nervous laugh. “Her editor at Gifted magazine said that Mikuniyama sends her warmest thanks to you.”

“Oh, ohhh, okay, ha-ha…”

“How did you help her, exactly?”

Well, she had been stripped down, then poked and prodded across every inch of her body so her boobs could be rendered with a master artist’s careful precision in the comic pages Kaiko produced.

…Probably couldn’t say that. “Well, um…

“I mean, I don’t know anything at all about manga. I just gave her some advice here and there.”

“Ah. Well, that’s fine, then. By the way, what titles from our label do you like?”

“Um… Well, I have a thing for Itsu—for Mr. Hashima’s All About and Sisterly Combat.”

“Mm-hmm. What else?”

“Well… I read Ono’s Sister and Oregaimo [short for Is It Wrong That My Little Sister Is This Cute, As Expected?], too.”

Two more Itsuki Hashima books.

“You like any authors apart from Hashima?”

“Ah…”

Miyako thought for a moment. She had read all of Itsuki’s published books for starters, but there was no other GF Bunko title in particular she could point out as a favorite.

“…I’m sorry, I haven’t read a lot of GF Bunko titles.”

This made one of Godo’s eyebrows twitch. It seemed, in her mind at least, that he was scowling at her a little now. Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say…

“…How about Kani’s and Fuwa’s work?”

“…I’m sorry, I haven’t read it.”

“Aha. So which novels outside of the GF Bunko label do you like?”

“Well, I like Index [A Certain Magical Index] and Irregular [The Irregular at Magic High School] and Toradora! and—”

The interview continued with questions about her favorite novels and manga and anime, but since Miyako had only taken an interest in those after meeting Itsuki, her knowledge was limited to fairly recent titles, megahits anyone would know, and shows from her childhood. It wasn’t like she had become a very deep fan of any title she mentioned, so whenever she was asked what made her like a particular series, she had trouble piecing together a coherent reply.

Man… Someone like me, wanting to join an edit team? I’m totally blowing this…

“…All right. Can you start next month?”

The sudden question stunned Miyako into silence.

“Huh? You mean…I’m hired?”

“Of course,” Godo replied with a broad nod.

“I told you,” added Toki with a light smile, “this is a formality. The boss here just wanted a chance to talk to someone younger than him.”

“Oh… But I mean, seriously, I hardly know anything about the industry…”

“That’s not a problem. We don’t need our part-timers to know a lot of nerd stuff. We want sincerity. And talking with you, I know you’re a sincere woman.”

“Thank you very much…!” Miyako cried, visibly gladdened.

“You bet. See you next month.”

She smiled and nodded. “Absolutely! I’ll look forward to it!”

“You did good, KenKen,” Godo rumbled, still seated. “Hell of a woman you found.”

“Yeah, I think so,” replied Toki. “She’s really serious about this.”

“…What do you think’s the most important thing a part-timer needs, KenKen?”

“Sincerity, isn’t it?”

“You dumbass,” he breathed, wincing at Toki.

“…Didn’t you just say that, boss?”

“No, dumbass,” came the calm reply. “That was just for show.”

“So what’s most…important, then?”

“Looks.”

“Looks?!”

Godo gave Toki a reassuring nod. “You aren’t gonna give a part-timer any super-specialized stuff—or skilled work or whatever. You hire someone who keeps themselves looking good, and that helps boost morale among the authors and editors. I got no complaint at all about her on that front. Probably one of the best part-time hires I’ve made yet.”

Toki squinted at him. “…That’d count as harassment if you said that to any of our female staff, boss.”

“I know,” his boss replied.

But neither Godo nor Toki realized yet just how vastly, and how generously, Miyako Shirakawa, the woman hired on for her connections and her looks, would contribute to their company.