Vol 3 Chapter 6 (1/2)

CHAPTER 6

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The office after Yokozawa returned from his summer vacation was more deserted than usual, likely because many other employees had had the same idea and were in the midst of their own holidays right now.

“…Sure is quiet.” While it wasn’t exactly bustling with activity usually, the lack of people around meant there was hardly any noise whatsoever.

His vacation itself had been quite enjoyable—aside from the unpleasant run-in with the punk kids, he would’ve given their holiday full points. More than anything else, he was glad to have seen Hiyori really enjoying herself. He’d really worn himself out trying to keep up with an elementary school kid’s stamina, but he’d nevertheless been able to cleanly shake off all of the stress he’d acc.u.mulated on the job.

However, his one regret lay in the fact that he’d been unable to properly question Kiris.h.i.+ma, settling instead for a petty quarrel. Even during their vacation, Kiris.h.i.+ma’s cell phone had buzzed occasionally with incoming text messages and calls. Considering the frequency with which he typically received such attentions, it was clearly out of the ordinary. Given that Kiris.h.i.+ma had turned off his phone entirely partway through their trip, Yokozawa couldn’t draw any conclusions after that, but he hardly believed that they’d stopped entirely.

He’d attempted to broach the subject several times, but Kiris.h.i.+ma always just lightly brushed his concerns aside, and his stubborn att.i.tude in turn provoked a willful streak in Yokozawa as well, hardly ideal.

Thinking back on it, perhaps he hadn’t phrased his question well—the irritation he’d been unable to quash had led him to sound like he was cross-examining the guy.

“You’re hiding something from me, aren’t you?”

“If you want a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer…then I suppose it’d have to be ‘yes’. But you’ve got a few things you’re not telling me yourself, don’t you?”

“Don’t split hairs with me—you know that’s not what I’m talking about. But there’s something you’re struggling with right now, isn’t there?”

At Yokozawa’s comment, Kiris.h.i.+ma had offered a small smile for some reason—before responding shortly to a bewildered Yokozawa,“I appreciate the sentiment, but even if there were some problem, it has nothing to do with you.”

He stiffened at Kiris.h.i.+ma’s phrasing, and his voice took on an unintentionally severe tone. “Nothing to do with me? Are you serious?”

“I’m saying it’s my problem.”

“So what, I’m just annoying you with my concern?”

“I never said that—just, there’s no point in my telling you.”

“…Fine, suit yourself!” It was the only thing he could say after being so utterly and completely shut out like that.

He’d managed to hide their quarrel from Hiyori, but she was a sharp little thing and could easily have picked up on something.

“I’m not reliable enough—is that what he’s suggesting…?”

It hadn’t even been a full six months since they’d started seeing one another—but this was the first time Kiris.h.i.+ma had ever purposefully hid something from him like this. Of course, they both had their private lives and all; there was no need to be completely open about absolutely everything. But this time—for some reason, he just couldn’t shake this feeling that something was off, and that feeling gave way to worry and distrust, keeping Yokozawa from remaining calm.

He should probably just wait until Kiris.h.i.+ma came around to feeling up to discussing whatever was going on. It was his own d.a.m.n problem if he let himself be consumed with worrying 24-7 whenever something stuck in his mind, after all. Perhaps it was that immaturity in and of itself that Kiris.h.i.+ma deemed unreliable.

“………”

No matter how hard he tried, he’d never be able to make up for the difference in time they’d both walked this earth—and by the time he was Kiris.h.i.+ma’s age, Kiris.h.i.+ma himself would be even further down the line. Initially, he’d never thought that the day would come when he’d be so concerned with the difference in age between himself and Kiris.h.i.+ma. This intolerance of his was so d.a.m.n frustrating—why couldn’t he just mellow out?

While they were hardly on the outs right now, he really wanted to get rid of this awkward atmosphere between them as quickly as possible. But until they resolved the very reason they’d fought in the first place, they wouldn’t be able to reach a true resolution.

“Dammit…” He’d arrived on the shoujo manga floor in an irritated fit. Like most everywhere else, this floor was largely empty as well, and the only one left manning the Emerald desks at the moment was Hatori, it seemed.

“Hey—where’d Masamune go?”

“Ah, Yokozawa-san. If it’s Takano-san you’re after, he’s in a meeting at the moment. I’m sure he’ll be back just shortly, but would you like me to take a message for him?” The fact that he didn’t ask if Yokozawa would like to wait or not was likely because he understood Yokozawa’s impatient nature.

“No—I’ll text him myself. And, here—it’s a souvenir, so feel free to share it with the other editors.”

“You shouldn’t have.” He’d brought back an a.s.sortment of treats that could be found in most any tourist locale.

He was supposed to pick up Sorata this evening, after having had Takano take care of him while he was away, and had meant to inquire as to Takano’s convenience while he pa.s.sed out the souvenir treats when he dropped in at the Emerald editing department desks, but his timing was apparently off.

“Sorry for the disturbance, then.” He turned on his heel to head back to the sales floor—when Hatori called out to him.

“Excuse me, but—Yokozawa-san? Could you wait for just a moment?”

“What is it?” As he turned back, Hatori rifled through his bag at his feet, eventually pulling out something and offering it to Yokozawa.

“Would you like to use this?”

“Huh?”

“It’s one I used to use myself, but I figured it might be of some use to you as well, as it’s got quite a few simple, easy-to-use recipes.” He’d pa.s.sed over what appeared to be a cookbook. From the cover and t.i.tle, it looked to be aimed at beginners, and flipping through the pages, he found it to be just as easy-to-use as Hatori professed.

“This’ll be a huge help—when should I return it?” Yokozawa was grateful to his consideration for remembering such a nonchalant conversation and then bringing this all the way from his house. The accompanying images of the finished dishes were all beautifully colored with great sense—this would no doubt prove a wonderful reference. He could tell from binding that this book had seen a great deal of use over the years.

“Oh, no—you can keep it. I’ve memorized practically all of the recipes, after all. I’d wanted to offer you a new copy, but it seems to already be out of print, so while it’s admittedly not in the bestshape…”

“Are you sure? Thanks a load—and it’s in perfectly decent shape!” Sure, there were a few oil splatters here and there, but you really had to be looking for them to notice. This was Hatori, after all—there was no doubt he’d used it conscientiously.

“No thanks necessary—really, I should be thanking you for your help the other day. Consider it a sign of my grat.i.tude.”

“Grat.i.tude? Did I…do something?”

“Thanks to your advice, we’ve been able to put together a new development.”

“Advice? Ah—well, that was just me being an agony aunt.” Here, he recalled their conversation in the break room several days before. It hadn’t been much, but Hatori seemed to be feeling quite indebted to Yokozawa because of it.

“And I’m sure it must have been you who brought up the issue with the production company, correct?”

“Huh? I didn’t do anything—but whatever, if everything seems to be working out, then that’s all for the best.” All he’d done was chat up a colleague working as an anime producer, and naturally he hadn’t mentioned one word about any specific t.i.tles. But the guy was a sharp one, so he might have picked up on some links between the conversation and rumors he’d heard in his line of business. If there’d been any inquiries from that man, it was only a testament to the power Hatori’s works had to enthrall others.

However, having been able to be of some help to another left Yokozawa, who’d nearly lost all of his self-confidence, feeling as if he’d dispelled some of the haze that had draped itself over him.

“Hit me up again after you’ve started settling things. I won’t spare any efforts to help.”

“I hope we can work together well, then.”

As he headed back to the sales floor, he flipped through the recipe book he’d just received, spotting a good few that looked like they’d suit a child’s palate.

“…Geez, this guy has some unexpectedly childish tastes, huh…” The pages which bore marks of having been consulted most often were largely dishes such as demi-glace hamburg steak and meat gratin, ones typically found on children’s menus. Shaking his head in shock at Hatori’s surprising taste in food, he turned his thoughts instead to what to serve at Hiyori’s birthday party.

He’d need to start preparing now to ensure that he didn’t get fl.u.s.tered and mess up on the day itself. There were ingredients to purchase, after all, and he’d need to make sure to consult her friends on their likes and dislikes as well as any allergies.

He fully intended to have Kiris.h.i.+ma help him out—despite the fact that the guy couldn’t cook worth a d.a.m.n. Even if he couldn’t peel apples, he should at least be capable of watching over a cookpot. Working as waitstaff was his job, after all, as Hiyori’s father.

As he started dividing up the labor in his head, he caught Henmi’s disgruntled voice. “Ah, Yokozawa-san! Where have you been? If you’re going to step away from your desk, please let me know!”

“I came right back—did something happen?” He’d made his way back to the sales floor while lost in thought—and immediately braced himself for more potential trouble rearing its ugly head.

“Not ‘something’—but you said you’d check over my proposal, remember?”

“Oh right—that I did. You’re already finished?” He remembered now being asked for such a favor earlier that morning.

“Got it perfect this time! Oh—also, you got a phone call from one of the bookshops earlier. I took down the details for you, so please return the call.”

“Will do.” He took the materials, bound with a clip, from the br.i.m.m.i.n.g-with-confidence Henmi and checked the sticky note attached to his computer. Apparently they wanted to discuss a campaign for a comic series set to be released the month after next.

He moved to pull his planner from his bag—when he recalled he hadn’t yet pa.s.sed out the souvenir treats he’d bought for the sales department. “Oh right—Henmi.”

“Yes?”

“Here, souvenirs. Sorry, but would you mind pa.s.sing them out to everyone when you have the time?”

“Wow, thank you! We can have them as snacks when everyone’s back!” And despite the suggestion of sharing them later, the guy started peeking into the paper bag. “But still—you got really tan! Did you head down to the ocean?”

“…Yeah, I guess you could say that,” he returned vaguely. If it got out that he’d gone on a trip with Kiris.h.i.+ma, there was no telling what people would start saying.

“You’re pretty much pitch black! You could pa.s.s for a brown bear—or even a grizzly now! You’re even more intimidating now!”

“…’S that supposed to be a compliment?” He himself had thought he’d gone a bit overboard with the tanning—but he never would’ve thought he’d find himself compared to a grizzly bear.

As he questioned the insistent Henmi on this point, he was returned in all seriousness, “Of course it’s a compliment! Maybe I’ll head down to the beach for a tan myself…”

Yokozawa had intended his tone to communicate his irritation, but it seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. Sometimes he found himself gaping in awe at Henmi’s carefree density. “You airheads are all…”

“Did you say something?”

“Forget it. Just talking to myself.”

“Huh? Wait, these look a lot like the ones I got from the j.a.pun editing division…”

“What the h.e.l.l are you doing poking your nose around the j.a.pundesks?”

“The color proof for some campaign materials finally arrived, so I dropped by to have them look it over earlier—which happened to be just around the time that Kiris.h.i.+ma-san was pa.s.sing out some souvenir treats of his own, so I snagged one myself.”

Henmi might be thick as a brick wall when it came to picking up on people complaining about him, but he could be stupidly sharp in other strange respects, a fact which baffled Yokozawa.

Yokozawa had bought the souvenir he had based on price and number included in the package—treating everyone in all of the divisions required a certain base amount, after all—and this was likely the reason he and Kiris.h.i.+ma had wound up buying similar items. Thank goodness he’d taken the extra precaution of being sure he bought something that didn’t name the location he’d purchased it from.

He suppressed his agitation, returning casually, “Well—most souvenirs look the same regardless of where they’re from, right?” His acting had improved leaps and bounds compared to before. It was hardly easy guarding a secret, after all.

Thankfully, though, Henmi didn’t seem to notice any change in Yokozawa’s expression, and he sighed to himself in relief.

“True—there are some out there that look like they’re manufactured in tourist destinations from the packaging but are actually local goods, after all. I remember this one time I went to a theme park, and when I checked the back of the souvenir treats I bought, I found out they were made in a factory not too far from my own house! I was totally depressed!”

“What difference does it make where it was manufactured so long as it tastes good?”

“You can’t say that! Souvenirs are part of the memory of the trip! Your girlfriend’ll dump you if you keep being so insensitive, you know!”

Henmi’s insistence was a bit suspicious, and Yokozawa turned a question of his own on him: “Wait—did you by any chance get dumped by some chick because you fought over something like that?”

Henmi grew clearly fl.u.s.tered. “Ab—absolutely not! Please don’t make such ludicrous suggestions!”

“Ooh, I get it now—I thought you were pretty serious over this, but now I see you’re speaking from experience!”

“I told you—that’s not how it is! Just—please hurry up and check over my proposal!”

“Yeah yeah…”

The fact that the guy looked to be on the verge of tears suggested to Yokozawa that things hadn’t gone well, and deeming it pitiful to keep pressing him on the subject, Yokozawa finally relented.

The moment he showed his face in Takano’s apartment, Sorata had already deposited himself inside his carrier of his own volition. While he’d never been particularly averse to entering the carrier, this was the first time Yokozawa had ever seen him take the initiative like this. Maybe he was just that eager to see Hiyori again—indeed, she seemed just as excited to see Sorata, texting Yokozawa only a short while ago,“What time will you be back home?”

“—and so, I was fighting with my wife, and when I started getting choked up before it, the youngest one intervened, see?”

“Ah, did it, now?” The taxi driver had been regaling Yokozawa with tales of his own cat for a while now. It seemed he owned two—a black and a tortoise-sh.e.l.l patterned one—both of which had apparently been adopted by his daughter. The guy even flashed a picture of them for Yokozawa while stopped at a stoplight.

He’d called for the taxi home in advance, before going to pick up Sorata. Most of the time, it was little issue to get the driver to let him ride with a cat, so long as it was in a carrier, but there was always the chance he might get stuck with a driver with allergies or one who just flat-out didn’t like animals. He therefore always kept on hand the number for a taxi service that allowed pets to ride.

The driver this evening seemed to be a cat-lover to the bone and started up a conversation of his own accord. While this was better than landing a driver who hated animals, his machine-gun conversation style with no signs of stopping was really starting to wear on Yokozawa.

At a break in the conversation, he fired off a text that he was about to head back with Sorata in hand, to which Kiris.h.i.+ma returned the pithy text, /I’m about to head home, too./ They would likely find themselves arriving at his apartment at the same time.

This was the first text he’d received from the guy since they’d arrived back from their vacation. They’d been in a cold-war state of anger for a while now and hadn’t even had a proper conversation in the meantime, much less exchanged texts. The text he’d sent announcing his scheduled return time had been one sent after much thoughtful consideration, and while waiting for a response, his fingertips had frozen solid with nerves.

They likely wouldn’t be able to sit down and discuss anything until after Hiyori went to bed—and even then, Kiris.h.i.+ma might not be up to telling him anything. Still—Yokozawa could at least lay his own feelings bare.

Ideally, he would have liked to be able to support Kiris.h.i.+ma without asking him anything—to just calmly and collectedly back him up, offer casual advice, and watch over him until whatever problem plagued him solved itself.

But that was pretty well impossible with Yokozawa’s personality—he couldn’t not worry, couldn’t not open his mouth and meddle. Altering his policies like that and trying to do something that wasn’t in his nature would only wind up tearing everything to shreds.

“And me—I just keep spoiling them, so now they’re getting a little on the pudgy side, y’see. How about your kitty there?”

“It’s the same with mine. He’s on a diet right now.” Which made him recall how Takano had been shocked at how much lighter Sorata was now. It wasn’t all that obvious at first glance, but when he picked him up, he commented that he could really feel the difference in weight now.

Truthfully, though, Hiyori was the one most strict in ensuring Sorata adhered to his diet, hardening her heart and not offering him high-calorie treats. Whenever Hiyori took to fervently explaining the adverse effects of being overweight, even Sorata appeared to grow meek and quiet.

When he asked after Sorata’s demeanor while he’d been in Takano’s care, the conversation had led Takano to in turn inquire about where he’d gone on his trip, but he wound up only offering the vaguest of responses. He knew he really ought to mention his relations.h.i.+p with Kiris.h.i.+ma to Takano sooner rather than later, but he still hadn’t worked up the nerve yet to do so.

It sounded like Sorata had pretty much done his own thing while he’d been staying with Takano.

“But well—fat or thin, I think my kitty’s just the cutest thing ever!” The driver’s bout of bragging about his pet ended just as they drew to a stop at the traffic signal in front of the station. While Yokozawa could hardly blame the guy, it was tiring offering the occasional filler to indicate he was still interested when the driver never let up, so he was actually quite relieved.

However, just as he’d let himself relax, the driver spoke up in a wondering voice, as if he’d just noticed something. “Hmm…? What’s this? A fight?”

“Yes, it seems so…” His gaze immediately went to a man and a woman blocking the crowd attempting to enter and leave the subway entrance. Pa.s.sing it off as little more than a lovers’ quarrel in all likelihood, he let his gaze wander once more—then did a double-take.

“?!”

He couldn’t tell who the woman was—but the man was definitelyKiris.h.i.+ma. It was dark, but there was no mistaking Kiris.h.i.+ma’s tall figure. He gaped at the pair, emotions roiling within—when they grew even more brazen in their fighting. The woman tried to leave, shoving her way through Kiris.h.i.+ma and grabbing a him.

“Sorry—but could you drop me off here?!”

“Huh? Are you sure? We’re almost at your destination…”

“It’s fine! Keep the change!”