“Do you have a moment, Itsuki?”
Chihiro was speaking to Itsuki, fresh from the family dinner and watching Shiori and Sora play with each other. A can of chuhai malt liquor was in her hand. Her alcohol tolerance was pretty low, so even after reaching adulthood, she almost never drank.
“What’s up?”
“The GF Bunko awards were a bit ago, weren’t they?”
Itsuki scowled. “Yeah… I didn’t get to go.”
“Oh? Why not?” Chihiro looked surprised. There were a lot of industry friends he only got to meet once a year at that event. Even back four years ago, when he had the all-time mother of writer’s blocks, Itsuki didn’t dare miss it.
“My new volume was so behind, Branch Hill kidnapped me…” Itsuki seemed reluctant to even bring up the memory in his mind.
“Oh…”
“Yeah… But what about the awards?”
“Um…I was just wondering how things were.”
“How things were?”
Chihiro blushed a little. “With Haruhiko…”
“Oh, Haruto? You see him more often than I do, don’t you?”
Itsuki raised an eyebrow. After pretending to be her boyfriend in college that one time, Haruto had enjoyed assistance from a few engineering students at Chihiro’s college for Leviathan Revive’s story setting and scientific background. Even Chihiro, who was a freshman at the time and unable to help much, was now a core member of the Leviathan support team, frequently meeting up with Haruto to discuss this or that story detail.
“I’ve been too busy with my own research to see him lately…”
“Oh…” Itsuki looked up, a tad exasperated. “Well, we talked on the phone a bit while I was kidnapped, but he sounded the same as usual. He and Miyako both seemed normal to me.”
“They really were, huh…?”
Chihiro sighed at Itsuki’s words—not out of relief, but out of concern. It made him feel anxious. For over four years now, Chihiro had fostered a one-sided crush for Haruto, so the continued lack of progress on his and Miyako’s relationship should have been good news for her. But after falling silent and looking all conflicted for a few moments, Chihiro downed her drink. Then she looked Itsuki straight in the eye, full of resolve.
“…Chihiro?”
“Listen, Itsuki, there’s something I’d like your help on.”
“My help? What’s that?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I want Haruhiko and Miyako to make some progress.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Huh?!” Itsuki exclaimed loudly, carefully studying Chihiro’s face. “Make some progress…? But don’t you love Haruto?”
“Yeah. I still do.” Her words were sharp, even as they seemed to sadden her.
“So why, then…?”
“I think…I want to give up.”
Ever since she’d gotten involved with Haruto’s work, Chihiro had used that as an excuse to play RPGs and board games with him. Sometimes it was just the two of them. She had even tried tempting him once in a locked college lab, wearing nothing but a white lab coat and a smile, but she had never been successful. She knew long before that the feeling wasn’t at all mutual, but she kept on attacking, never giving up—and that was because Haruto and Miyako still weren’t a couple.
“I really just want to strike the final blow already.”
“The final blow…?” Itsuki laughed at the rather ominous phrase. “You’re really okay with Haruto and Miyako pairing up?”
“Yeah… I mean, I think I’ll cry and be depressed and full of regret and stuff for a while…but if I don’t overcome this, I’m never going to move on, so…” Chihiro smiled, looking ready to cry right now.
“Ah. Boy, you sure gave yourself a lot of hardship, didn’t you?”
Itsuki looked at her with pity in his eyes. Meddling with someone else’s love just so you can work out your own feelings might not be the most virtuous thing to do, no. But as her big brother, it pained Itsuki to see Chihiro go on with this unrequited love for years on end, and the will-they, won’t-they aspect of Haruto and Miyako’s relationship was honestly starting to grate on his nerves.
“All right. I’ll try to figure out a way to couple them up.”
“Okay. Thanks a lot, Itsuki.”
“So what should I do, exactly?”
“Umm…maybe lock them in a room where they can’t leave until they have sex or something?”
The way she blushed a little as she said it only made Itsuki laugh harder.
“You’re actually capable of telling dirty jokes now, huh?”
“If you spend four years in otaku-oriented clubs, you can’t help but learn a thing or two… But I really think that’s the only direction that’s gonna work.”
Itsuki nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure a lot of the reason nothing’s happened with their relationship is because they don’t get to meet very often in the first place. But both of them really are crazy busy, so…”
“I think the main reason Miyako’s crazy busy is you, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely not,” claimed Itsuki as Chihiro gave him some serious side-eye. “Like…okay, maybe I’m responsible for a few percentage points of it, but saying it’s the main reason is going too far. She’s got a lot of other troublemaker writers, too, you know—Steak Tsukemono, Hikari Kairo, and them. She literally told me that I’m easier to deal with because I’ll always give up if she takes my family hostage, goddammit! Thanks to me signing that stupid agent contract, I’ll lose all my work if Miyako forsakes me, so I can’t ever fully escape from her, either.”
“Miyako’s really become a full-fledged editor, hasn’t she?”
“You mean she’s become a fully demonic editor,” Itsuki replied, dull-eyed. “Any ‘full-fledged’ editor… They’re all horrible monsters. But anyway, if we try to respect their schedules, they’ll be stuck in ‘going out to eat every now and then’ mode the rest of their lives. We gotta get ’em on a date, or else.”
“Yeah. So how will we make it so it’s just the two of them?”
“They’re both so serious-minded. We could call both of them over and pretend it’s about work.”
“I’m a little reluctant to just trick them like that…but all right. This is for my future, after all.”
“You’ve gotten pretty devious, too, haven’t you…? But we need someplace where they’re obliged to be alone for a long time. We can’t have them leaving the moment they realize they’ve been tricked.”
“So it’s back to the room where they have to have sex before they can leave…”
“And how are we gonna set that up? Also, I think we should try to avoid confining them in a locked room or whatever. I’ve been subjected to that often enough that I know you’re never gonna feel like loving anyone in that situation. Your stress just goes off the charts. They’ll start resenting each other.”
“Ohh, you think? Well, that wouldn’t be so bad, either…”
“Since when are you so twisted?”
“J-just kidding.”
So as they chatted with each other, the Hashima siblings began to work out their plan…