“How did you feel when they told you they wanted you to be a newscaster? Can I ask what made you decide to accept?”
“Wh—”
“PEEPEE!” Tatsuki bellowed out of nowhere. “Bathroom! Kunieda-san, I gotta peepee!”
“Er, Minagawa-kun?”
“What’s wrong with you, Tatsuki?”
“Are you drunk or what?”
“Hurry, hurry! I’m gonna pee my pants!”
“Don’t you dare. Come on, stand up.”
I wanted to smash my beer mug over his skull, but instead I dutifully put an arm around his shoulders and guided him to the gentlemen’s room at the back of the pub. When I opened the door for him, however, he suddenly grabbed me, dragged me in, and locked the door behind us. This single-occupancy washroom was large enough for a full-sized sink, so two adult men could fit inside with room to spare.
“The fuck is this?” I stammered.
“Look, senpai, you need to pull yourself together.” He leaned back against the wall and folded his arms, all semblance of drunkenness gone.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re really cowering to Kizaki Ryou? He sees us as the competition to beat, so for all we know, he might’ve come here to spy on our get-together and gather intel. Don’t cave to the pressure—that’s just giving him what he wants.”
“So what exactly do you expect me to do here?”
“Quit playing nice and clap back already! Put on your winning smile and tell him, ‘Yeah, I’m so talented, I got in without even trying!’ Dunk him like Serena Williams!”
“Wrong sport, genius…”
“It just feels like you’re being an even bigger doormat than usual, and I hate to see it, man.”
“Well, I don’t exist to please you, all right? I just…can’t stand that stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Sad backstories.” I was fine with horror and gore, but grounded human suffering made my skin crawl. “He had his teeth pulled and his tongue surgically modified? I’d rather cut my ears off than have to listen to that.”
“What? That stuff’s hardly more painful than losing your virginity was, right?”
“I need you to die, ASAP.”
“Wanna hear about the time I scratched my back on the faucet at my grandpa’s house and stained the bathtub red?”
“Stop! Wait, that was basically the whole story!”
“That reminds me, I was dating this bikini model trainee once, and she had a whole rib removed just to have a smaller waist.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Sometimes you have to take drastic measures to make your dreams come true or else you’ll regret not committing all the way. She never made it as a model, but she got a job as a receptionist at a luxury members-only gym and married a rich guy, and I hear she’s happy with her life. Likewise, I’m sure Kizaki Ryou’s satisfied with his popularity as a TV personality. Didn’t you literally say it has nothing to do with you? I don’t get why you feel so guilty about it.”
Because I can’t just shrug it off like you can. Loath as I was to admit it, when he told me “you don’t have the guts to be the bad guy,” he was right.
“That reminds me, you said you only applied because your friend did, right? Are you still friends?” I asked him.
“Yep, still the same old friends. He wasn’t set on being a news anchor specifically. But honestly, even if he resented me, I wouldn’t care. Like it or not, passion and effort don’t always lead to results. You learn that after you’ve been to a few mixers. Speaking of which, you should come with me to one sometime! They’re full of life lessons.”
“Hell no.”
After Tatsuki walked out, I gazed into the mirror on the wall. I wasn’t so vapid as to become entranced by my own reflection, but I liked my appearance well enough. Anyone with conventional tastes would surely find me attractive. And my teeth were indeed perfect, whether Kizaki meant it or not. But these things were merely given to me on a whim by my DNA. I hadn’t earned them outright. Sure, my sperm cell won the fertilization race, but anybody could say that.
Most people would probably agree that Tatsuki was right. If every job was predicated on working hard and caring a lot, the economy would cease to function. And if some guy showed up and told me he’d been in love with Ushio for twenty years, I wouldn’t just step back and let him have him—I’d tell him to fuck off.
But the look in Kizaki’s eyes when he asked me how it felt… His expression and tone were both soft, but the question itself was pointed. How does it feel to stand in the very spot I spent years working my ass off to reach?
To be clear, I had never once taken my job for granted. In several aspects, I’d invested five times the effort anyone else would have. The fact remained that I was at least partially forced into the job, but surely no one at the station could say it was a mistake. I worked wholeheartedly and got results because I didn’t want anyone to look down on me, whether it was those who wanted the job and got it, or the vast majority who wanted the job and failed.
But no matter how hard I tried to convince myself, my heart still felt heavy. I pulled out my personal phone and placed a call to my mother. She answered right away. “Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“What is it? Want me to send you something?”
“No, not that.”
“Then what?”
“Uhhh…”
“Look, if it’s not urgent, can we do this later? My show’s on.”
Apparently I ranked lower on her list of priorities than Saturday Night at the Mysteries. “Mom!”
“Fine, fine…”
“…Th-thank you for giving me such great teeth,” I mumbled awkwardly. The other end of the line went quiet for a second, and then I heard a crunch. What was she eating?
“Ah, so that was the culprit’s motive…”
“Hey!”
“I’m listening, okay? I’m just confused! Look, I don’t know if you ate some funny mushrooms or what, but you’re very welcome, dear. Need some Pepto-Bismol?”
“Mom, I’m not on shrooms!”
“Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a better personality.”
What’s that supposed to mean? God, I never should have called you.