As he put it, Izumi had had a bad relationship with his editor at GF Bunko because he fostered a habit of barking orders and ignoring constructive feedback. Looking back at that meeting, he had been bringing up illustrator requests without any prompting—and now this e-mail.
Could it be that Izumi is…“difficult” after all…?
She had thought—with no real evidence—that she could get along with him. Now that feeling was sorely shaken.
The book adaptation has already been announced, and Hebomeshi has begun on his work as well. I think this goes without saying, but pretending this offer never happened is not a possibility at this point, and I question how fair it is to try to force your own demands while being aware of that. It’s going to be difficult to build a trusting relationship like this. Would you please reconsider revising the manuscript?
Just as she was about to press the “Send” button, doing her level best to hold back her rising frustration:
“Whoa, hang on there one second.”
Ayane gently grabbed Miyako’s wrist before she could move the mouse another pixel.
“Ayane? Weren’t you at the party?”
“I came to check on you because you were running late. That’s a pretty harsh e-mail, isn’t it?” She had her eyes on Miyako’s computer screen. “Is this for Mr. Tsukemono? What happened?”
“Um…”
Miyako explained matters to Ayane, showing their e-mail exchange so far. Ayane mulled this over for a moment.
“Well, let’s not send this, okay? I don’t want you talking about your feelings or making demands for revisions. It’s important to be as amiable as possible in e-mail communication, so for now, how about we propose an in-person meeting to talk this over?”
Her instructions left Miyako a little nonplussed. It was clearly Izumi acting out of line here, so she didn’t see much need to meet him if he’d just sing the same song in person instead. Ayane, perhaps sensing this, smiled a bit.
“In e-mails, you know, a lot of people say way too much—or too little. Why don’t you calm down a bit and reread what you wrote?”
“Ah…”
At Ayane’s suggestion, she looked back at the e-mail she was about to send. She thought she was holding back her emotions with it—but yes, her word choices definitely had a lot of venom to them.
“And sure, some people find it easiest to say what they really think over e-mail because they have trouble with that in person, so it’s not that real life is always better than online that way. With e-mail, there’s a permanent record of everything, so at least you won’t have conflict later over what was said or unsaid. But from what I can see, Mr. Tsukemono here gets a bit of a rebellious streak over e-mail, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah…”
So Miyako deleted her draft and asked Izumi for another meeting.
One week later, Miyako was back at the coffee shop near Izumi’s high school, waiting for him to show up. This time, Ayane was there with her.
“Hello there. My name’s Mitahora, and I’m the assistant editor in chief of Branch Hill Bunko.”
Ayane handed Izumi her card. The editor in chief was President Shirogamine, but since he was giving Ayane virtual free rein over this project, Ayane was the de facto leader.
“G-good to meet you… My name’s Izumi.”
Izumi had a nervous look on his face as he greeted her. There was no sign of the aggressive tone from his e-mails—he seemed like the same introverted young man Miyako knew from before.
“Now, first off, I understand that you and Shirakawa have had a misunderstanding or two over e-mail, so I’d like to apologize for the trouble before anything else.”
Ayane bowed her head as she spoke. Miyako wondered if she really needed to go that far, but since her boss was bowing, she had no choice but to follow suit.
“N-no, it wasn’t any trouble…or anything…”
Izumi was almost whispering, eyes drifting away. He looked terribly out of his depth, but Ayane gave him a smile anyway.
“So for today, I wanted to give you a chance to say whatever you liked to us, Mr. Izumi.”
“Anything? Um…”
“You know, about your disagreement with Shirakawa, your concerns about the editorial team, or anything else you like.”
“…”
Izumi shot a glance at Ayane, then Miyako. Then he turned his eyes downward. “It’s not a disagreement,” he mumbled. “But…I dunno, it’s like all editors are the same in the end.”
“Oh…? What do you mean?”
This bewildered Miyako. Izumi gave her a pouty look.
“…Well, you don’t listen to anything I say, and you’re just making me do whatever you want instead…”
“That—”
That’s what you do!
Miyako was about to counter him, but Ayane gently grabbed her hand to stop her. “What do you mean by that, Mr. Izumi?” she softly asked.
“…When we were deciding on an illustrator,” he timidly began, “you didn’t listen to any of my suggestions and just went with your own instead, didn’t you?”
“Huh?! You told me that Hebomeshi was fine!” Miyako was surprised.
Izumi seemed equally baffled. “Well, yeah, out of the three you offered me…but I really would have preferred or .”
He brought up the names of the two game company employees he’d wanted earlier.
“Like I said, those two aren’t possible…”
“Why not?”
“I told you that—”
“Shirakawa,” Ayane interjected before she could continue, “did you maybe not explain to him why those two weren’t available?”
“…! Actually…no.”
Looking back, all she’d written in her e-mail to Izumi was, I apologize, but neither of those is possible.
“Mr. Izumi, and are—”
Ayane then explained in detail why they couldn’t be recruited. Izumi still didn’t seem fully satisfied with this, but he gave them a neutral “so that’s what it was…”
“Yes,” said Ayane. “That being said, it’s true that we could have at least tried to give them an offer. I apologize that it didn’t happen.”
“And I’m sorry I didn’t explain myself well enough,” Miyako said.
“By the way, Mr. Izumi, when you say that all editors are the same, did you have something similar happen before?”
Izumi’s eyes widened at Ayane’s question. “Yes,” he resentfully said.
“Like…at GF Bunko?” Miyako asked.
Izumi nodded.
They then discussed Izumi’s former editor at GF for a bit. According to Izumi, the first time he’d had an issue with that editor was when they met for the first time. Before they had really gotten to know each other, they went straight into edit discussions, and he was given a stapled handout filled with all the points that needed to be revised, along with a publishing schedule and a notice that they had contracted to handle illustrations.
Some (not all) of these revisions were understandable, and he could accept the schedule well enough, since he didn’t know any better, but having an illustrator picked with no input from him was more than Izumi could handle. Apparently, the art style wasn’t at all to Izumi’s liking—a big minus in his mind. So he agreed to the revisions and schedule, but upon asking his editor to reconsider the artist, the reply he received was an argument: “This one’s rising up in popularity, and he definitely matches the content of this work.” Izumi kept pleading his case, but in the end, he was told, “It’s the editor’s job to pick an illustrator,” and that was that.
So Izumi’s beef with his editor began from their very first meeting. But he tried to stay optimistic. He was still a newcomer to this industry, and his editor was undoubtedly a pro, so he decided to just trust him. But the result of all that—Maken Wars, the debut work of Soma Misaka, revised as instructed and illustrated and packaged according to the editor’s wishes—bombed in the market.
Two weeks after the release, he got an e-mail from his editor stating that a Volume 2 would not be possible, along with a little blurb saying, “Don’t let this discourage you; let’s try again next time.” That was when Izumi’s irritation and distrust with his editor reached the boiling point. So he tried selling himself to another company without the permission of his editor, and that earned him a ban from GF.
“So why do I have to do the editor’s bidding all the time…?! This…this is my work…!”
Izumi now had tears in his eyes as he vented his feelings, the raw emotions of the time perhaps coming back to him.
Miyako, learning of the circumstances that had led to their crumbled relationship, couldn’t find anything to respond with. If he had a falling out with his editor because of a disagreement over who’d illustrate his debut work, then maybe he would see Miyako’s behavior as “all editors being the same.” But she had no intention of neglecting Izumi’s feedback, and she definitely didn’t mean to force her own decisions on him. Besides, Miyako knew Izumi’s old editor, a veteran at GF Bunko since its launch and a man who oversaw lots of authors and lots of hits. He was an honest man, one who never cut corners no matter his workload, and people respected him at his job. Maken Wars didn’t work out well, but she never doubted for a moment that he gave this work serious dedication.
Writers and editors are supposed to both want their work to succeed. So why do they wind up at loggerheads so much?
Both Miyako and Izumi fell silent, a pall coming over the table. Ayane’s cheerful voice banished it.
“Well! How about some cake?”
“Huh?”
“What?”
Ayane smiled at her confused companions. “You gotta have something good to eat during an editorial meeting! Do you always stick with coffee, Miyako?”
“Um, yeah…”
“The company reimburses you for meals with writers, so you can splurge if you like! We don’t have a defined upper limit or anything, but accounting yelled at us when we went to a sushi place that cost twenty thousand yen per person, so maybe stay on the south end of that.”
Ayane looked at the menu. “All right, I’ll have the special fruit mille crepe, I think. How about you two?”
Miyako really wasn’t in the mood for cake, but she played along and said, “I’ll have the cheesecake.”
“I’ll have…the muscat tart,” added Izumi, sounding pretty reluctant himself.
“By the way,” Ayane said after grabbing a waitress and making the order, “what kind of works do you like, Mr. Izumi? Light novels, anime, games, whatever.”
Izumi was visibly startled by the sudden friendly tone of voice. “Well…I guess Fate is number one for me…”
Figures, Miyako thought. She recalled how Haruto had criticized his submission to the New Writers Contest as “too obviously influenced” by Fate. Makai Wars’ premise, involving heroes from history and legend coming together for a battle royale, was a bald-faced knockoff of Fate. Dark Knight, meanwhile, was more of an adventure tale, but even here, you could see some homages in the setting, the names, and the narrative style during battle action.