A/N: Hi. I'm back.
I asked a friend of mine to beta my story, and to my surprise, she said yes.
She didn't specify what she wanted to be called, so I'm calling her Rosie Posie. Thanks Rosie-tan. :)

Thank you all for the reviews, now I really want to write more. ^.^

A sudden jolt woke me up, and my head snapped up. A voice rang through the intercom, "the next stop is..."

Oh crap! My stop was almost here. I cringed. Why was I dreaming about high school? I threw the strap of my satchel over my overcoat and walked off the train, annoyed with myself. I definitely could not be thinking about that kind of stuff right now. I unconsciously stormed out of the station, my scarf dragged along because of my fast walking pace. I got a few funny looks, then I realised I was literally stomping. Haha...I hoped nobody I knew noticed. I checked my phone; one new message. I opened it. The LED man on the pedestrian crossing light turned green. I walked among a bustle of people. However I walked too fast and got a faceful of back.
"Ahh, I'm so sorry!" I apologised. He turned around and I swear he looked half dead. There were bags under his dark, coffee-coloured eyes. He didn't really seem to notice me. I mean, he saw me, but he barely even acknowledged me. How rude.

He disappeared into the crowd.

The doors opened automatically, revealing a front desk with two girls sitting there. A buzz of chatter could be heard and the girls automatically straightened up when they noticed I was there. I walked up to the desk and placed a sheet of paper on it.

"Um, I'm Onodera Ritsu. I'm her-"

"Oh yes!" cried one of the girls, suddenly standing up.

"Aaah, where are the papers!" the other girl murmured while looking through a thick stack of paper. "Ah, found it!" She seemed quite excited at the event of finding them. She led me to a room, not far from the front door. I was seated directly across her. The other girl was staring daggers in her back, most likely unhappy at the prospect of going through all that paperwork.

"So, Onodera Ritsu, a new editor for shojo manga, Emerald department?" she asked, cheerfully.

Eh? Shojo manga?

"No, I'm sure I discussed in the interview that I was an editor for literature in my previous company and I wanted to stay in that field.." I said, fading out after she pulled out a piece of paper.

"No, it says right here: Mid Career Recruitment of Onodera Ritsu into the Shojo manga department."

I sunk back into my seat, defeated. She stood up and motioned for me to follow her. I did and entered an elevator. On the walls of the elevator there were posters of their published works, framed and in glass cases, possibly plastic.

"Um, wouldn't it be weird?"

She looked at me as if she was asking 'what do you mean?'

"I mean, a guy editing shojo manga?" I questioned.

"Oh no, you'll fit right in. All of our editors are male," she told me, flashing a quick, reassuring smile at me.

Male? All of them?

The girl walked out of the elevator and I followed her. I thought I smelled something bad, but it was probably just my imagination creeping up.

"So this is the Emerald editing team at Maru-"

She was cut short. What was it? I walked past her as one of the dividers was blocking my view. What I saw was probably something similar to a dump.
Papers were strewn everywhere, mixing in with pieces of trash. Things resembling dead bodies were lying on chairs. One of them was even smiling, which was slightly unsettling. The stench emanating from the place wasn't pleasant either.
I turned around to look for the girl for some help, but she had disappeared. Or run off, most likely. I wouldn't want to be here either.
I tried to get help from someone else, not sure what to ask though. They quickly brushed past me as if they regarded the people at Emerald as freaks. Or they didn't want to approach them when they were like this.

I had no choice. I had to approach them. I slowly tread through the trash as if I would awaken some kind of monster, or if somebody was buried under the mess. I decided to walk to the front, where a man had a book over his face. He seemed conscious, for the most part. I think I heard about him, Takano or something.

"Er, I'm the new guy who is starting today. I'm Onodera Ritsu," I stated, not sure about whether the guy was conscious anymore.

I was about to turn away when he groaned and slid the book from his face. He suddenly straightened up and then I got a clear look at his face.

Oh. It's the half-dead zombie guy. Except he had glasses on. He glanced at me and immediately began typing on his computer.

"So what kind of manga did you work on in your last company?"

"Ah, I've always worked on literature."

He seemed like he wanted to say something, but he held it back. "I suppose we'll get someone to show you the ropes," he said, somewhat indifferent to the situation.

I stood there for a few seconds, unsure of what to do. He shut the lid of his laptop and bundled up some papers. He signalled for me to follow him. We entered an elevator, which thankfully, was empty.

"Where exactly are we going?"

"Meeting an author."

And so we did. We were seated in a booth with seats connected to each other, leaving only one side of the table exposed. Of course I was sitting in the middle. Takano-san and the author were directly opposite each other. This manuscript is four days late. The hell are you doing, making her re-write it?
The rest of the day consisted of me going 'what the hell?' at the methods the editing team produce manga, but the methods seemed to work, so I couldn't really question them.

It was around nine or ten when we had completed everything. Being an editor was so tiring. You ran around all day, screaming at your authors to finish their manuscript, yelled into phones trying to extend deadlines. I'd been reading a few volumes of shojo manga and my brain began turning pink. I hadn't noticed that everybody had left. I gathered my crap and went down to the first floor so I wouldn't miss the last train.

Hm? Takano-san's still here? He wore a coat - probably leaving soon. He was talking to a woman. I overheard their conversation as I went out.

"Hey, Mizuno. I can't go over tonight."

"Eh? Why not?" she pouted. "and call me Nana!"

"I have other stuff to do." he said, nonchalantly. The woman groaned.

Mizuno... Nana.
The girls with the pigtails. She still looked similar to her high school self. Now she was possibly dating my boss. Why did she have to date him if they broke up some day?
Feelings of jealousy and hatred bubbled up, but I toned them down.
'It's none of my business who she dates, I don't really care,' I lied to myself.
I spent the night reminiscing of high school. I felt old. I wondered where senpai is now.

A/N: I hope you somewhat enjoyed this chapter. I'm gonna try and update at least once a week (but that's never gonna happen because I procrastinate too much).
But really, thank you guys so much.
See you sometime soon. Hopefully in a week.