Chapter 1
It was 2:30am when Shizuko's cell phone went off. He wasn't in Japun because it wasn't near the end of the cycle, and they didn't need him to camp out and be right there in case he had to rescue Ijuuin's pages from the clutches of their deranged author.
The person on the other end didn't even wait for him to say hello before starting in. "You need to go over to Ijuuin's and get his concept art for the color pages."
"…why?" Shizuko rolled over and stared at his alarm clock just to confirm the time. He'd been sleeping for maybe an hour. The concept art was supposed to have been faxed over to them after Shizuko left, because he was only Ijuuin's sub-editor and he had his own authors to deal with, one of whom insisted on talking about his stories over drinks. He claimed his best ideas came to him when he was drunk.
Kirishima didn't sound all that pleased, but then, you could never tell. His working tones usually consisted of "bored" and "what the hell did you just tell me?" "I just got a call from Ijuuin saying his fax is broken, and that if we don't get someone to go in and get the pages, we're not getting them." A long sigh. "And Takahashi isn't answering his phone."
Of course. Even as Ijuuin's sub-editor, Shizuko was the second choice when it came to him.
His boss wasn't even an option at this time of night. Shizuko wouldn't be surprised if Kirishima was laying in bed as he called him. He liked to use the excuse that he didn't want to leave his daughter alone at night, but it was common knowledge that there was someone else in that apartment he didn't want to abandon, too. And it wasn't the cat.
With a sigh, Shizuko was up and out of bed. He knew what he was signing up for when he agreed to be Ijuuin's sub-editor. As much as everyone in Marukawa seemed to love the author of Za Kan, they also knew how hard he was to work with. Even if they'd been working in Japun for years, most everyone was too emotional to put up with the constant breakdowns.
"I'll go," Shizuko said, and then he closed his cell phone without waiting for a response.
xxx
The lights were on in Ijuuin's apartment as Shizuko approached it. He was hesitant to ring the doorbell, mostly because he wasn't sure what he was going to see. Ijuuin was an unpredictable worker; he might be completely sane, or he might have slowly stripped off his clothes as he worked (it happened more often than one would think). Of course, that wasn't worse than the mental breakdowns he had at the end of the month, but it was still disconcerting to answer the door and find an unshaven man in his underwear.
Not that it had ever startled him visibly.
He was standing outside the door so long that Ijuuin finally seemed to have noticed him on his own, because Shizuko was soon faced with the author, looking haggard and tired and a little unwashed, but sane. He gave Shizuko a crescent of a smile, his lips tipping up like he was just who Ijuuin had been waiting for all his life. "Kiwi!" he said, stepping back and ushering him in. Shizuko frowned at the nickname but followed him. "I've got the pages right here, although I think I spilled some coffee on the last one."
Sure enough, as Shizuko went through the pages of concept frames, he saw a brown stain over one. To Ijuuin's credit, it looked like he'd tried to clean it, and then redraw the lines it had obscured.
"…it's fine." Shizuko turned away from him, ready to head back out and break into Marukawa so he wouldn't have to worry about the pages when he woke up in the morning. Before he could get back to the door, though, he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Hm?"
"You're not even going to stop for tea?" Ijuuin grinned that crescent again, dappled with craters of peach fuzz. When he wasn't going insane, Ijuuin was a charmer. Or a creeper, if some of the stories were to be believed. Not that Shizuko cared about office gossip, unlike their equivalents over in Sapphire. "Come on, Kiwi, just one cup. My assistants left me about four hours ago. I'm lonely."
Lonely without a cute little newbie to chase after him and tell him how great his manga is, Shizuko was dying to say, but instead, he kept his mouth closed and nodded. One cup of tea wouldn't be so bad.
"What do you think, anyway?" Ijuuin asked from the kitchen as he put the water on to boil. Shizuko had to stare at him for a full minute before Ijuuin clarified with, "Of the pages, Kiwi. You're my editor just as much as Kirishima is. Your opinion matters."
"Oh." He stared vaguely down at his hands, where the coffee-stained final page was on top. When he lifted it, he frowned and put it aside, running his hands over the other five pages. They were sticky, and Shizuko wasn't sure if it was because he'd had the damp page on top, or because Ijuuin had lied to him about the extent of the damage. "I think some of these might need to be redrawn."
"Aw, don't be like that. Kirishima's seen worse." Ijuuin glanced in at him, tilting his head. It was true, Shizuko thought. And most of it had been from him. "One time," the man continued, moving to lean against the counter. "When Za Kan first started to really sell, some people came into Japun when we were doing pages in one of the meeting rooms. I started freaking out when they wanted my autograph, and while searching the table for one of my pens, I swiped the entire set right out the window. Pages were gone for." The tea kettle hissed, and he turned to pick it up.
Shizuko had heard this story before from Kirishima, but it had went that he went insane and did it on purpose just so he wouldn't have to work anymore. Judging on Ijuuin's attitude, he was more inclined to listen to Kirishima's side of the story.
He was staring at the pages in his hands again when Ijuuin approached him. The mug he held out had little kiwi slices all over it, and the crescent smile on Ijuuin's face told Shizuko that he was supposed to find it funny. He didn't.
"Thanks," he muttered, taking it without an eye twitch and sipping. Then he gently put the pages down and leaned over them, brushing some stray eraser shavings that had floated over from the rest of the desk. "I'll tell Kirishima-san to ignore the coffee stains. Unless you think you can work with it."
Ijuuin let out a loud laugh, one Shizuko knew the neighbors would be complaining about. "I told you, it's fine." He waved a hand. He didn't have a mug in either one, Shizuko noticed as he brought his eyes back up to Ijuuin's face. "You look tired, though. Didn't wake you with my demands, did I?"
There was a long pause, during which Shizuko considered all the things he could say. Finally, he shrugged. "Yes." What use was there in lying, anyway? It wasn't like he had reason to. "But it's fine."
"Go ahead and lay down, Kiwi." Ijuuin nodded towards a cot that he used in the depths of the month, for when he was too tired to make it to his bed. "I just need to shower and I'll be going to bed, too."
Ijuuin left him without another words, pulling his stained, white shirt off as he headed for the bathroom. Shizuko's eyes went down to his tea mug, a stain around the rim from the tea residue.
He put down the mug, with its half-finished drink, carefully placed the pages in his briefcase, and left.
xxx
"Ah, good morning, Ishi-san!" Takahashi Misaki was all smiles when they met in Japun around eleven AM. True to his thoughts, Shizuko had gone to Marukawa and immediately dropped off the pages. And then he'd passed out at his desk, greeting the janitor in the morning and assuring him that he hadn't slept there so early in the month. Kirishima hadn't been much longer getting in, always heading right over after his daughter went to school.
Shizuko frowned and pulled one of the sticky pages of Ijuuin's color concepts from his face, placing it back on the desk and pushing the pile away from himself. He squinted, realizing that he'd fallen asleep again. Maybe he should've taken Ijuuin up on his cot offer. At least he would've been able to wake up to someone he actually wanted to see.
"Morning," he muttered, his head bowed low and his bangs hiding his eyes. Takahashi seemed to take that as the signal to leave him alone because he scampered off without another word, talking to another editor about an errand he'd just gotten back from.
"Got 'em, huh?"
Well, Kirishima was better than Takahashi. Shizuko liked that kind, carefree smile of his better than the blinding one Takahashi showed in the office every morning.
"Yes. Here." He held up the pile. "Coffee stains. He said you wouldn't mind."
Kirishima had his own coffee right then, a can from one of the vending machines, and as he looked at the top page, he raised the can to his lips and arched an eyebrow. "'Give Kiwi a raise because he obviously needs it'?"
Shizuko frowned and took the pages, staring at them. In the corner was that little note, scrawled who-knew-when. It hadn't been there when he first glanced at the pages, and he'd been in a rush to leave Ijuuin's apartment so he hadn't looked at the pages again other than a cursory glance. He might've seen the text and assumed it was just a production note.
He let out a long sigh and stood up. "I'm going for lunch."