In the hall on my way back to the newsroom…
“What’d you think, Kunieda-san?” Tatsuki called out. “See, I kinda like shows with a more lighthearted tone to ’em. Feels more like a talk show than a news show, but I get the sense that they’re leaning into it, y’know?”
“Indeed…” I kept up the “friendly mentor” act as I nodded, then continued, “I was surprised by how skilled that Kizaki Ryou person was.”
“What?” Tatsuki stopped short, blinking at me.
“What’s the matter?”
“Kunieda-san, uh, c-can I borrow you?” He grabbed me by the arm and proceeded to drag me into the deserted, unlit promo department.
“Minagawa-kun…?”
“All right, you can switch back now.”
After carefully checking under every single desk, I hissed at him. “Don’t talk about me like I’m Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
“Wow, that was fast.”
“Cram it. So what is this about?”
“Uh, Kizaki Ryou, obviously? You do know he interviewed for an anchor position with us, right? Like, no shit he’s skilled.”
“Come again?”
“Is this seriously the first you’ve heard about it? Oh, but…I guess you did join the company under…unique circumstances…”
“Hey, don’t make it sound like I cheated.”
“Didja know he made it all the way to the final interview before they rejected him?”
“What?”
News anchor interview formats varied from station to station, but at Asabi TV, the so-called “final interview” was really just a formality. At that stage, candidates were all but hired as long as they confirmed their commitment to the job. If they dropped him, there must have been some anomaly…like a candidate who wasn’t originally going to be a newscaster at all until the CEO came along and changed his career path… I didn’t experience the news anchor interview for myself, so I never found out who else applied for my position…
“…Did it happen the year I was hired?” I asked hesitantly.
Tatsuki pointed at me with both hands. “Bzzzt! Steeee-rike out!”
“Hey, c’mon!”
“I hear he had offers from multiple different stations, but Asabi was his top choice, so he turned them all down. Of course, our hiring manager tried to offer him some other jobs as a consolation prize, like, ‘There’s a general staff position open,’ and ‘Reporters get plenty of screen time, too,’ stuff like that. But I guess it wasn’t good enough for him.”
“Either way, it has nothing to do with me.” I never asked to be a newscaster in the first place.
“Yeah, but he doesn’t know that. And he mentioned your show right from his first episode. If you ask me, he seems motivated to get revenge on Asabi for dropping him.”
“I don’t care about some sore loser and his grudge.”
“To be fair, I’ve never met the guy, so I don’t have a clue what he’s like. Oh, yeah, and the newsroom’s having a little get-together next month.”
Long after Tatsuki walked away, I kept standing there in that dark corner, thinking to myself. When he first told me that Kizaki had applied to be a news anchor, part of me was relieved. I was scared that he had some kind of natural-born talent for the job. But in spite of everything I’d said to Tatsuki, now that I knew I’d played a part in crushing Kizaki’s dreams, it left a bad taste in my mouth.
During my interview, the CEO told me none of the anchor candidates had what they were looking for. At that point, they had already narrowed it down to one guy. Despite that, they chose to break with tradition in order to hire me instead. There were multiple positions open, so they could have easily hired both of us; instead, they dropped Kizaki because he just didn’t appeal to them. That was all it was…and yet I couldn’t shrug it off.
I had accepted this job with the same sort of “sure, why not?” that I gave whenever the fast food employee tried to upsell me on their new menu items. I wanted a job already and didn’t care what it was. I did my best to excel, of course, but I would have put just as much effort into any other position. I wasn’t extra-motivated to be a newscaster in particular.
But on the other hand, this really, really wasn’t my fault. I had no idea! Apparently this guy had known about me for years now, and when I thought about his potential motives for appearing on a competing program during my timeslot, it made my stomach turn. Not that I cared much about other people, but being outright hated made me antsy… Then again, if it turned out Kizaki was a good sport who wanted to have a fair competition, I’d probably just roll my eyes and call him a boy scout…
Ugh, now my mind is thinking of a million different scenarios. I never asked for this information! Minagawa, you ass!
And so I proceeded to shoot the messenger all the way home, whereupon I noticed a notification from Ushio on my phone: “Filming’s almost over. Good to go next week.”
I typed a reply. “How was Kizaki Ryou?”
“Just your average young guy.”
This was not a very descriptive answer, but whatever. I’ll just ask again in person, I decided, and instantly felt a lot better. Unlike last year, this year I had someone I could truly confide in.
“Be there next weekend,” I wrote back, then took a shower. Normally at this point I would review the recording of myself, but that night I chose to watch Newsment again. Once again, Kizaki struck me as talented.