“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…”