Turning toward the low, grating voice, they found a scary mobster looming over them…in the form of Satoshi Godo, head of GF Bunko. Behind him were Kenjiro Toki, Kirara Yamagata, and other faces from GF editorial that Miyako knew well.
“Ah… Mr. Godo! What’s up?”
“We’re having our end-of-year party,” Godo curtly replied to Miyako. Then he glared at Shirogamine.
“I didn’t expect to run into the Calico Jack of publishing in here, though.”
Godo’s glare would make most people pee their pants, but Shirogamine just smiled. “I’d prefer if people called me the Oda Nobunaga of publishing. I mean, I share a first name with the guy.”
“Hmph. Who’d ever call you the name of one of Japan’s greatest historical figures? The name of a dirty pirate who hid behind two women before he finally got dragged out and hanged suits you much more.”
Shirogamine frowned. “My, that’s a lot of trash talking for a supposed editor-in-chief. Don’t you think you’re more qualified for some other position? Maybe as a mobster or something?”
“Well, at least I’d be obliged to adhere to a code of honor, then. Not like you pirates.”
Godo looked like a yakuza enforcer; Shirogamine looked more like an intelligent territorial mob leader. Sparks flew as they stared each other down, the tension spreading across the GF and Branch Hill employees around them.
To Satoshi Godo, Nobunaga Shirogamine was an enemy whose existence he simply couldn’t abide. Miyako was someone he’d personally trained; seeing her perform in this industry was a delight for him. But it was also true that she had inflicted massive damage on GF, and all of that hate was directed straight at Shirogamine. Kenjiro Toki and the rest of the GF staff generally felt the same way, and the hostility was clear among them.
It was a tense moment, one where any false move could trigger a bloodbath. Then:
“Ugh, we’re trying to have an end-of-year party! Let’s have some fun here! We can’t cause trouble for the waitstaff, all right? Oh, I’ll have some mapo tofu and a highball, please!”
Ayane’s cheerful voice calmed the mood, even as she ordered some more for herself.
“…True. That woman is right.”
The malice melted from Godo’s face as tensions eased. Miyako breathed an internal sigh of relief.
“Oh, right! Since the whole GF group is here, would you guys like to drink together with us?”
Ayane’s suggestion—seemingly naive at first, but actually not at all—froze everyone in place all over again.
But when the offer was about to be turned down:
“I don’t mind at all. Assuming you don’t?” Shirogamine almost seemed to be challenging the other side.
“I have no reason to turn down the offer, no.” Godo smiled as he replied, a vein almost popping in his forehead. And with that, the hellish Branch Hill/GF joint end-of-year party was underway.
Neither side really seemed to know what to do at first, but they started by exchanging business cards with whoever happened to be nearby. Miyako tried her best to flee to a faraway seat.
“I’d love a chance to go in-depth with Miyako again. It’s been forever.”
“Oh, I know. You’ll be sitting here, right, Shirakawa?”
Godo and Shirogamine all but forced her to share a table with them. Toki sat next to Godo, his sympathetic eyes turned toward Miyako. Ayane, the one who had engineered all this in the first place, was already chatting and laughing with Yamagata and other GF staffers at another table.
Toki and Godo’s beers arrived, so the four of them began with a toast.
“Well, umm… I’m sorry if I’ve been acting ungrateful to you…” Miyako began by apologizing to Godo.
“There’s no need for that,” Shirogamine replied. “You haven’t done anything wrong at all. Any GF writer who came to our stable did so of their own volition.”
“…But even so, isn’t there a certain civic duty one should be adhering to?” Godo retorted.
Shirogamine shrugged. “You mean the unwritten three-year rule? If you’re bringing up conventions that aren’t part of any written contract with me, well, I don’t know what to tell you. But what does it say about you if that rule’s driving writers away from your company, even with all the risk that entails?”
“Yes, if we’ve failed to establish trusting relationships with our authors, we don’t have anyone else to blame for that. But still, if new authors find it that easy to jump ship to another publisher, then there’s no point spending the money to hold a yearly new writer award.”
“Well, with the advent of web novels, haven’t the economics behind those prizes collapsed anyway? If you want to turn pro at this point, it’s much faster to publish online than compete for a prize.”
It was a cold-hearted response from Shirogamine.