Once our food arrived, all trace of sentimentality evaporated. Nishikido inhaled his katsu bowl in a matter of seconds, complained that I was taking too long, then left the restaurant without me. He at least paid our bill, though. My rice soup was mostly broth, and it was delicious. For the first time in days, my stomach was happy to eat something.
My next filming wasn’t until later tonight, so I killed time in the newsroom, watching the evening news. There, I could see myself from a few hours ago, Nishikido’s magic touch in full effect. I looked like a real-life prince, and I loved it. For as much as I was struggling with work right now, at the same time, it offered me solace.
Ushio once said to me that when you create for a living, the only way to get over your mistakes is to make something new. That was back before I ever thought I’d fall for him. But now I finally understood what he meant.
“Oh, there you are! Kunieda-kuuun!”
Right as my mood was finally starting to lift, some shrilly voice came along and smacked it right back down. What do you want, pleb?
“I’m so glad I found you! Just so you know, the interview’s next Thursday.”
Oh, right, CineNight. Completely slipped my mind.
“I figured you’re probably too busy to make it to the film preview, so I got you a copy on DVD. Give it a watch sometime before the big day, okay?”
“Thank you so much.”
“And don’t forget the wall-slam!”
Ugh. “Of…of course.”
Just then, the department chief perked up. “Thursday? Can you shuffle that?”
“We can’t, sorry! The actors have tight schedules, so there’s really no wiggle room. Why do you ask?”
“We’ve been dumping too much work on Kunieda, and now we’re getting a ton of complaints from the Department of Labor,” he explained with a grimace. “He didn’t get a summer vacation last year, either, so I was gonna give him two weeks of paid leave starting that Thursday.”
“What if you start his vacation at noon? We’ll finish recording by then.”
“I guess that’s what I’ll have to do… You all right with that, Kunieda?”
“Yes, of course. Thank you.”
Oh, sure, now you want to clear it with me? It was hard to feel excited about a vacation that was dumped on me in the exact same fashion as the field work.
“I’ll tell Shitara and Asou myself. Those two will go hog-wild if you let them team up on you… You know, you should do some traveling for a nice change of pace. Get as far away as you can manage—that way, they can’t call you in.”
Thanks for the ominous advice, but I’m not going to all that effort. At most I’ll go to Mom’s house so she can take care of me.
That night, after filming, I went straight home and played the DVD from start to finish. Only then did I finally get around to reading the mountain of shoujo manga I had ordered a while back and left sitting on my living room coffee table.
What the…? Why do the panels look like geometric patterns? What order do I read them in? This was my first experience with female-targeted manga, so I didn’t know what was standard. After tentatively reading through the first two or three, however, I started to get a grasp on things, and at that point, I was able to follow the story beats. To study up for my wall-slam, I read out the male lead’s lines as I turned the pages:
“Would it kill you to open up a little?”
“Christ, you’re hard to like.”
“Eh, I don’t mind that about you.”
“Dude, shut the fuck up! Who put you in charge of nitpicking this random chick? Don’t act like hot shit when you don’t even have a job!” I ranted down at the ink on the pages.
Human beings don’t open up on command like a refrigerator door! If it was that easy, we’d all be open books—wait, but then no one would complain about it in the first place. Ugh, now I’m confused.
Now that I had acclimated to this googly-eyed art style, I was fully emotionally invested in the female lead. That’s the power of shoujo manga, I suppose. Plus, since the story was 95 percent romance, it made me reflect on my own love life.
“Ugh!”
I flopped down onto the sofa and flailed my legs. Time for my regularly scheduled anxiety! Why couldn’t I manage a calm, civil conversation with Ushio? To make matters worse, he always forgave me for lashing out at him. He was so open and accepting, he made me painfully aware of my own narrow limits. But I didn’t mind being inferior to someone, as long as it was him.
Just a little longer, I thought to myself as I returned to the manga. Once my vacation starts, I’ll go straight to your house and apologize. Wait for me.