「CHAPTER 4」
“……How does that sound?”
Even when Yos.h.i.+no finished speaking, both Yanase and the female a.s.sistants
remained silent. Some of the girls" shoulders were slightly shaking as they hung their
heads.
Oh, huh…? What"s wrong……?
He didn"t think that what he had just read was anything to be so moved by. The
silence was probably because the story was surprisingly on key, but then somebody broke
the silence with a small laugh. Then one by one all the people in the room burst out
laughing as if they couldn"t sustain it any longer.
“No way! That"s so weird. You"re actually serious about that?”
“Ahahahaha! That would never happen in real life! I would puke if my boyfriend
said that to me!”
“This sucks even for a shoujo manga. If anything, it will draw away the readers.”
Apparently their shoulders were shaking because they were trying to sustain their urge to
laugh. He certainly thought it was on key, but they were laughing and they were not
moved.
“We- well, this is just an example!”
“Even if it"s just an example, it"s something you thought of, right? Oh, wow is this
funny.”
“Wha-! It"s not that funny, okay!?” Yos.h.i.+no angrily defended himself, but the
a.s.sistants paid no attention to him and rolled with laughter. When he brought up an idea
for his next plot, he was received with such a reaction.
Stupid Tori! I"m being laughed at because of you!
He didn"t realize how foolish his own personal experiences had been, so putting
that into a story was a bad idea and just when he silently cursed at Hatori, he heard his
voice in the room.
“What"s all this excitement?”
“T- Tori!?” He accidentally squeaked, surprised at his arrival. What a time to
show up! Did he have a secret camera hidden somewhere in this room?
“I brought you something to eat. I thought I"d let you take your break now, but
looks like you"re already taking it.”
“Tha- thank you. Okay, everyone, get to work! We"re taking a break at 3 o"clock.”
Hatori hadn"t heard what they had just been talking about. He had been too busy
paying attention to the a.s.sistants, but someone among them happily informed Hatori,
“Please listen to this, Hatori-san.”
“What is it?”
Yos.h.i.+no"s panic grew because Hatori was showing interest. He couldn"t very well
cover the girl"s mouth, so he jumped up from his seat and put his hands on Hatori"s ears,
trying to cover them up.
“Woah! You don"t need to hear that!!”
“Yos.h.i.+no, you"re in the way. Well, that is it?” Hatori was the one who restrained
Yos.h.i.+no instead by simply grabbing Yos.h.i.+no"s hands. Like this, not only did Yos.h.i.+no fail
to cover Hatori"s ears, but also now he couldn"t even escape. He grew more fl.u.s.tered and
suppressing her laughter, the a.s.sistant revealed Yos.h.i.+no"s idea for his future story plot
that he had told them about.
“Yos.h.i.+no-san has this idea about a future story plot. He said, ‘What do you think
about a situation where a man says ‘I"ll give you myself” to someone on their birthday?’
That would never happen, right!?”
“……….”
Hatori"s expression didn"t change on the outside, but Yos.h.i.+no saw that his lip
slightly twitched.
He"s angry…He"s definitely angry…
He had to follow up with something, so he desperately searched for some sort of
an excuse.
“Well, this is just one idea! I thought this was kind of far-fetched, too!”
“Far-fetched…?”
“Ah! No! I mean…!”
Not only did he have to explain himself to Hatori, but now he had to explain
himself to his a.s.sistants. Yos.h.i.+no was digging his own grave, and Yanase"s remark was
the final blow. 
“Seriously, that would never happen! Just imagine the look on the guy"s face
when he says something like that!”
“……!”
On top of that, for some reason Yanase was laughing while looking at Hatori
who"s expression was growing stiff.
Could it be that he knows…? No, no way, that can"t be it!
For a moment, his mind filled with anxiety, but he told himself to stop thinking
about such unnecessary things. With that, Yos.h.i.+no gave up trying to explain himself and
instead made up excuses in his head.
I just got a little carried away and thought that I could use that…
Because he had been a manga artist for a long time, he thought that he could use
any material that he happened to come across. This was almost like an occupational
disease. When Yos.h.i.+no unintentionally looked down at the desk, he remembered what
had happened the following morning of that night. Casually resting on top of the desk
was the wrist.w.a.tch that Hatori had given him as a present. Sometime ago, when they had
been in a meeting, he had happened to see this wrist.w.a.tch in a magazine when he was
looking for ideas for his story, but at that time, Yos.h.i.+no casually had said “This is nice”,
and it seemed that Hatori had remembered that.
“This will help you stick to your deadlines”, Hatori had said as he gave him that
wrist.w.a.tch. Hatori was shyer than Yos.h.i.+no had thought.
As Yos.h.i.+no absentmindedly thought back to that event, Hatori said in his usual
tone of voice, “That"s true. This is sour for story material. I expect better material next
time.”
“Ye- yes! We"ll do our best!”
Yos.h.i.+no was relieved that Hatori wasn"t angry about that being potentially used as
story material, but he was startled when he looked at the smile that rarely appeared on
Hatori"s face.
He…he"s not smiling with his eyes…Somehow, I have a bad feeling about this…
And indeed, Yos.h.i.+no had a reason to be scared, because something definitely
happened to him that night.