He was right, of course. At this very moment, some small part of me was tempted to call the whole thing off to avoid the potential blowback. And yet, I…
Before I could find the right words, however, someone snatched the phone from my hand. “Asou, you pompous prick! Are you throwin’ yet another goddamn tantrum? Why am I not surprised?”
“Nishikido-san, don’t—!”
“Kunieda wants to do this thing, so just let ’em, would ya?”
For the first time, Nishikido actually said my name—but more than that, he made me realize something. Yes, I wanted to do this. Despite everything that could go wrong, I wanted to try to pull it off.
Then he handed the phone back, so I took it and raised it to my ear.
“Kunieda, what the hell kind of magic trick was that?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Nishikido-san! That old geezer’s never been the type to coddle the younger staff!”
“I’m not sure why myself…”
“Fine, whatever. Out of respect for the elderly, I’ll do your damn broadcast. But if it goes sideways, it’s your problem, Director. And we will have a lengthy chat after you get back from your vacation.”
“Yes, sir.” The implied threat made it clear that the argument had only been postponed, not resolved. Nevertheless, it was one more hurdle down. After the call, I turned to Nishikido. “Thank you for backing me up.”
“Eh, I can’t stand that guy. Massive egotist in sore need of an attitude adjustment. The world’s full of ’em…” His eyes grew distant for a moment.
“Two minutes,” Ushio called.
I wedged the IEM into my ear and walked over to Narayama, who was just standing there like a statue. “Are you all right?”
“I can’t,” he repeated, his complexion ghostly pale.
His quavering voice mingled with the detergent commercial playing in my ear. If only those enzymes could lift the stain of his failure from his brain, we wouldn’t be struggling right now. Alas, my only option was to scrub him myself.
“I just can’t do it…”
I understood exactly how he felt. I was in those shoes once, and if Ushio hadn’t given me the encouragement I needed, I wouldn’t have even tried. But right now, my job wasn’t to commiserate. “Then why did you want to be an anchor in the first place?”
“Huh?”
“You did want to be a news anchor, right?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered in a tiny voice.
“Ninety seconds!”
“I couldn’t get into any of the flagship stations or affiliates like my friends did… When I got the offer letter from Asabi TV Nagano, they all laughed, but…it honestly meant the world to me…”
I nodded in understanding. Then I put a hand over the lavalier mic pinned to his collar so the SCR wouldn’t hear my voice. “Well, I can’t relate to that shit.”
Shit, I said “shit”! Eh, fuck it. I donned a condescending sneer.
“Huh…?”
“Sixty seconds!”
“I got in without even trying. They begged me to be an anchor. So I can’t begin to fathom being over the moon about some no-name station out in the sticks.” One of his lapels was inside-out, so I fixed it for him. “How’s that make you feel? Bitter? Angry?”
“Thirty seconds! Hey, it’s starting!”
I glared into Narayama’s eyes, frozen with fear, and whispered, “If it pisses you off, then show me.”
“Sh-show you what…?”
“Show me someone who loves this job more than I ever could.”
Then I crouched down under the camera, set the stopwatch, and used my free hand to hold up my sketchbook.
“Ten seconds to title!”
It was my first time doing a countdown. “Starting now,” I announced in a loud voice, and it kicked my ass into gear.
Our only option was to make it happen. But more than that, I wanted to make it happen.
“Nine, eight, seven, six, five!” The rest I counted down on my fingers: four, three, two, one. Over the IEM, I could hear the familiar opening melody as the cameras panned to Asou in the studio.
“After Asou, they’ll cut to our footage,” Ushio reported.
“Good evening. Tonight on The News, we have footage of a fire taking place at a hot spring facility in Nagano Prefecture. The fire is ongoing, and our correspondent Narayama from Asabi TV Nagano is on the scene. Narayama-san?”
“Okay, broadcast is live!”
I held up the cue card.
“Narayama-san?”
Despite Asou’s tosses, Narayama stood stock-still. With my marker I tapped the cue card, where I’d written BRIEF SUMMARY, and silently ordered him to start talking.
“Narayama-san, can you tell us what’s going on out there?”
“Narayama-kun, read the cue and respond.”
It was like he couldn’t hear us. He just stood there, frozen in place, eyes locked on Nishikido’s camera lens. No brain activity.
“Narayama-san, can you hear us?” Again, no response. After three more seconds of dead air, Asou continued, “I apologize, folks, but it looks like our connection’s unstable out there. Can we switch to the footage from the helicopter?”
We were screwed. The broadcast was toast, and when I went back to work a few days from now, my career would be toast, too…or so I thought.
But just then, Ushio yelled from somewhere behind me: “Hey, dumbass! You’ve got a mouth, so use it! Say something! Don’t make a mockery of Kunieda Kei!”
Jesus, dude, are you trying to turn this into a news blooper? What are you mad about, anyway? It was the middle of summer, yet a cold shiver ran down my spine.
But somehow, inexplicably, this seemed to break Narayama’s hypnotic state because he suddenly started babbling.
“This peaceful hot spring village is in an uproar. I’m r-reporting to you live from the scene of the fire: a building which was once a traditional inn. The whole area smells like charcoal, and though it’s hard to see at night, thick black smoke is rising into the sky. Currently there are six fire trucks here on the scene, f-fighting hard to keep the blaze from spreading to the surrounding forest.”
His voice was loud and clear, if a little shaky in places. Not only that, he was reading my cue cards.
“Can you tell us if anyone’s been hurt?” Asou asked, as if nothing was amiss.
“According to locals, this inn closed for renovations at the start of the spring season, and luckily, the building was empty. As for the source of the fire, some say the hot spring pump may have malfunctioned, causing a boiler explosion.”
“That looks like one vicious blaze out there. How has it progressed since you first arrived?”
“Well, I’ve been here for about half an hour, and I’d say the fire’s slightly more contained than it was previously.”
“Wrapping up and cutting back to the studio,” Ushio reported.
“Thank you, Narayama-san.”
It’s over. Thank Christ.
But right before I could heave a sigh of relief, I caught a glimpse of someone on the other side of the caution tape—and they weren’t wearing a uniform.
“Nishikido-san! Over there! Zoom in!” I shouted, pointing, then looked over at Ushio. “Don’t cut the feed! Someone’s inside!”
“Still live!” Ushio reported back succinctly.
Then I heard Asou over the IEM: “It looks like we’re getting some new footage.”
We were still on the air. Excellent. The only problem was that I hadn’t scripted out any cue cards for this. Narayama would have to actually report on it, in the truest sense of the word. Right when he thought he could relax, he was now at maximum panic; his face was utterly blank.
“Narayama-kun, just talk,” I told him. “Tell them exactly what you see. It’s okay. You can get through this.”
Because I’m fighting like hell to make sure you can. Just keep talking until this thing is over—that’s how this job works, isn’t it?
“It appears there’s someone on the premises, beyond the caution tape. With assistance from two firefighters, he’s able to walk. They’re heading to the ambulance… Oh, there’s two more. All appear to be male, ages unknown… It’s unclear why these men were present at the scene.”
I pinched my fingers together over my head, signaling that he was done speaking. “The ambulance is passing by—let’s get some audio of that. Nishikido-san, tight on the ambulance, please.”
“You got it.”
“Tsuzuki-san, tell them to prepare the insert footage. Wipe transition away from Narayama-kun’s face. I want them to get another good look at the blaze.”
“Roger that.” Then, as the ambulance siren faded into the distance, Ushio announced, “Starting insert footage! Once Asou-san’s done talking, the broadcast is over!”
“As you can see here in this footage, it appears three male victims have been rescued from the burning building in Nagano Prefecture. All were able to walk with minimal assistance to the ambulance. There are no further details at this time.”
This unexpected twist didn’t even faze Asou-san, who neatly wrapped up the messy story without batting a lash. He was so calm, I started to wonder if my barometer for “shocking” was off or something. No wonder the guy was in love with himself—his sense of presence was so strong, surprises and slip-ups bounced right off of him.
“We’ll keep you up to date as we hear more. Now, our next news story…”
“Back to the studio. Broadcast over,” I reported. In response, Nishikido lowered his camera.
Then Narayama dropped to his knees. “It’s over… I did it… Thank god…”
Did what? You barely looked at the camera, your voice was all over the place, and you were talking too fast! You couldn’t even handle a five-minute broadcast! You get 20 points—out of 20,000!
But since he was crying, all I said to him was, “Good work.”
Then I got a call from Shitara. “Hey, great job! The beginning and ending had me sweating bullets there, but overall I’d say it was a pretty good broadcast, wouldn’t you?”
“I am so terribly sorry about that…”
“Nah, if anything, I should apologize for interrupting your vacation! You can all pack up and head home now. I’m sure Asabi TV Nagano will handle it from there.”
“Understood. Thank you, sir.” Then I turned to the crew. “Thanks for the broadcast, everyone.” And lastly, I addressed Ushio. “Shall we head back to the inn?”
“Sounds good,” he replied with a bright smile, and at last, it set in: we were done. It was a wild and crazy night, but at least it was over.
Or so I thought.
But on my way back to the place where we parked our bikes, I slipped in some mud, and my skull made a strange, metallic sound when I landed.