Disclaimer: I do not own Sekai-ichi hatsukoi and its characters.
Ritsu had been casually glancing at Takano all the way to the author's house. The man had been unusually quiet all the way to their destination, and Ritsu was trying to understand what the man was thinking.
His eyes followed Takano as the man made his way to their destination and pressed the buzzer. Within moments they were on the elevator. Ritsu still couldn't take his eyes off the man.
He watched as Takano leaned in towards him and slowly whispered, "Do I have something on my face?"
"Uh?" Quickly snapping out of his reverie, Ritsu jumped on the spot and spoke in broken sentences, "No- You-Uh… Nothing."
Takano brought his hands to his face and tried to hide a smile. Ritsu noticed that and looked away, the sense of relief that he felt made it a little easier to breathe. After the work days from hell ended, he would have to sit down and think about the whole Takano situation. The way he had been feeling recently reminded him a lot of his high school days. What did it matter if Takano looked sad? It was none of his business. He didn't want to push himself down another painful road of heart break and insecurity, even if it all stemmed from a misunderstanding.
Ping.
"We're here!" Ritsu couldn't wait for the door to open, and as soon as there was enough room for him to squeeze through he darted all the way to the designated apartment. He had to convince her to pull through; he wanted her to finish no matter what.
He was lying when he said that she couldn't still default, there were other drafts lying around that could easily be turned into a 'Christmas/New Year Special' in exchange for her story. But the bad reputation that came with being a defaulter was not something he wanted any of the people he worked with to face. That and he was being selfish. Maybe if this had happened at a time when he wasn't on the verge of giving up on his job he would have behaved differently. Maybe he still would have done what he was doing now. But for that moment, he felt that maybe if he got through to her, it would make up for his many mistakes.
Slowing down near the door, he collected himself and rang the doorbell. Takano came and stood at his side and the two of them waited.
"Hello." A voice sounded from the other side of the door.
"This is Onodera from Marukawa Publishing. I am sorry to intrude on you so late."
"No, thank you for coming." Came the same mellow voice as the door opened. The figure on the other side looked disheveled. Her eyes were puffy, her hair was messy and the large number of ink stains on her hands gave away how much she was working on her draft. She looked at the figure standing next to Ritsu and shrank back a bit, but she nodded at him.
"I'm sorry for intruding," said Takano before both men made their way inside the apartment.
The work station was messier than the Emerald Department during crunch time.
A large room at the back of the apartment was where she worked. The most prominent part of the room was the large table that took up most of the space in it. There were four chairs spaced at equal distances on the table, two on one side of the giant rectangle and two on the other. Four women sat there looking dead tired and looking at the two editors very curiously. The room was brightly lit, especially above the table. But what really caught Ritsu's attention was the floor, or lack thereof. There was so much paper lying on the floor that Ritsu had a hard time trying to figure out what the floor looked like.
"Discarded." The author pointed to the floor with one hand and the held a handkerchief to her face with the other.
Ritsu had seen meltdowns before, but this was on a whole new level.
Takano was looking around the room. "I'll get some chairs for us." He motioned to the woman seated nearest to him.
"Yes?" She replied.
"Could you show me what you have done so far?" He looked at Ritsu and back at the room.
Wait. Did Takano want him to get the chairs? He felt annoyed, and was about to say something snarky but stopped himself, "Okay." He started to leave the room, and just as Takano had anticipated, the author followed him.
"I'll show you where I keep my extra chairs," she said as she led him out of the room. Ritsu looked back at Takano one last time. The man was intently going through the unfinished drafts that were being brought to him, had Takano known she would follow him?
"Do you want something to drink?" asked the author, gesturing towards the kitchen.
"We're fine, there's no need for that." Ritsu brought his hands in front of him and waved his hands in a cross motion. What he wanted more than anything was to figure out what was happening there.
"I…" She brought the handkerchief to her face again, and Ritsu noticed that she had been crying.
"Do you want to sit down?" He asked and followed her to the couch in the centre of the room.
"Thank you." She sniffed, "I'm really sorry to trouble you so much. But every time I look at that story, well…" She looked to the floor, her sniffing was getting worse.
"If you're ill…"
"I'm not ill." She was beginning to look serious, "I…"
"You can tell me what's troubling you." Ritsu tried to be encouraging. The sense of déjà vu was back. If these words didn't work on him, he wasn't sure if they would work on her, "I'm your editor. We work on this manga together," he continued.
She was looking at him now, "I won't stop you if you want to give up, but you said you wanted me to come here, so doesn't that mean that you want to finish your story after all?" He hoped he was making sense.
She brought the handkerchief down from her face, "I do want to write." That was a good sign, "My… boyfriend…" Here she started to blush and looked away from Ritsu, "We got into a fight and he said… that my stories were unrealistic and that why they didn't sell well."
Didn't sell well? Ritsu could feel his insecurities slowly creeping back inside him, he had to keep talking. For his sake, he had to talk, "I'm sorry, but does he work at Marukawa?"
She looked surprised, "No. He works at an office."
"Then there's no way he would know how many copies you're selling." He tried to smile, "Maybe, next time something like this bothers you, you could call me?"
"He… he said that there were some people at his work that read my manga. They said I should stop writing so someone who is better at their job could replace me." She started sniffing again, "I'm sorry, for being unprofessional. I'm just proving them right."
"If the manga was doing as badly as you think, then it's Marukawa Publishing's fault as much as your own." Ritsu's hands were shaking, this was the absolute worst time to have this conversation, "If we want to keep publishing you instead of someone else, then it's our priority."
"Is it really that bad?" She asked, her voice sounded uncertain. Did she really want to know?
Ritsu was trying to look calm, but he could think of nothing to say. They were taking too long, and he had no doubt that Takano would come in soon and take over the whole situation. He wanted to do this by himself, "I think you're doing really well." He smiled.
"I know I'm a new editor, but if that's worrying you…" She quickly looked away from him. So it was bothering her. He had been working at Marukawa for almost a year, how long did he have to be a newbie, "… Takano-san always goes through the final drafts."
"Oh." She was sitting up straighter now, "That's good to know." Ritsu tried to smile, but he was annoyed.
"I'm sorry, I may have said some untoward things to you." She noticed his awkward smile, "Since we work on this manga together, I'm not the only one responsible for the outcome… you, my assistants, Marukawa Publishing…"
"We're all in this together." Ritsu finished.
She smiled at him and nodded, "Yes." She pointed towards the room where she worked, "Shall we get started?"
Onodera Ritsu loved his own bed more than anything else.
It had been almost midnight by the time they had left the author's apartment. She had seemed a lot more confident, and Ritsu was hopeful that she might be able to pull through with the draft in time. It had been a productive day, and he was ecstatic to have caught the last train leaving the station. He had stopped to pick up a bento on the way back, and since he had gone in so late, he also had the pleasure of being able to pick up food at 30% discount. Life was looking up.
Of course it would have been even better had Takano not followed him into the Convenience Store and commented on his food choices, "You could get a stomach ache from eating take out all the time." Ritsu begged to differ. The reason bentos were sold at convenience stores was because they were both nutritious and useful for people who worked all the time and had no time to make their own food. When did Takano cook at any rate? As if being a first rate editor wasn't enough, now he had to be a shining beacon of domestic life as well? How could someone be so irritating and endearing at the same time? Enamoring? Ritsu stuffed his head into his pillow. Nope, that was a mistake. He was irritating and annoying. Satisfied with that, he relaxed his face and turned his head towards the wall.
One day, he would be an editor as good as Takano. Until then, he couldn't give up on his job.
That night Ritsu suffered from a terrible stomach ache.
There was no way this had happened from the bento, the food hadn't tasted bad, at least not rotten anyway. All that stress from work must finally be getting to him. He cast away any thoughts of taking a day off from work, there was simply too much that had to be done. He could not spare even a moment to rest. Just two more weeks, he kept telling himself.
The next morning, after making sure he had grabbed everything, he slowly made his way out of the apartment. If he walked too fast, his stomach started to hurt more than he was comfortable with. He was used to these symptoms anyway, they came and went, and the doctor had said it wasn't an ulcer. As much as it pained him to admit to it, a part of him felt that eating cold take out available on discount might be at least somewhat responsible for his present predicament.
"Ah!" As soon as he got out of the apartment, he noticed the elevator door on the other side of the hallway was closing, "Please hold that!" He hoped someone had just gotten on.
After slowly wobbling all the way there, he got inside the elevator and turned to thank the person who had held the door, "Takano-san."
"Scowling first thing in the morning?" Takano started to yawn and covered his mouth
"This is what I look like." Ritsu stiffly replied, turning away.
"I couldn't get a wink of sleep last night." Takano continued, "Especially not with you loudly groaning."
"Ritsu snapped around, "Groaning?! I'll have you know I was in terrible pain because of my…" He unconsciously reached for his stomach and softly mumbled, "...stomach."
Takano's face was slowly breaking into a smirk. "If it bothered you so much you should have just gone to sleep somewhere else!" Ritsu finished, before turning back around.
"Huh? Why do I have to change the position of my bed because you can't sleep quietly?"
Wait. Their beds were next to each other? Ritsu hadn't known that. He felt flushed and he prayed that it didn't show on his cheeks. He was paying a lot to stay in this apartment complex, why were the walls so thin?
"And why don't you ever check your phone? I tried to call you last night."
"Call me?" Ritsu reached for his phone. The battery was almost dead. Between forgetting to charge it and generally not looking at it as much as he used to, he had simply stopped caring for the device recently. The dimly lit screen showed thirty missed calls. Exactly how many times did Takano think it was appropriate to call someone before giving up? Annoyed, he flipped open the list of missed calls. He would show it to Takano and tell him that three was the most number of times he could call Ritsu before realizing the man wasn't around to pick up.
He looked at the list and stopped dead in his tracks. Takano's name was at the top of his list and it only appeared two times. The rest were from his mother. His mother had been calling him almost all night and he had neglected to pick it up. He just hoped it wasn't serious. He waited impatiently for the elevator to reach the bottom floor and sprang out. He would call her right then, he had no way of telling how long the charge in his phone would last and given his track record, he had quite possibly left his charger back in his apartment.
He noticed that Takano had gotten out after him and was standing next to the gates. He signaled at his phone, hoping the man would get the hint and leave ahead. But it looked as if Takano preferred to wait. The man had found a nice spot where the sun was shining and was relaxing.
"Hello, mother?"
The loud voice that rang through from the other end hurt Ritsu's ears. "Ritsu! Where were you? Do you have any idea how worried I was?"
"I was working! Is everything okay?" He was used to his mother calling him at night, but almost thirty calls worried him.
"Everything's fine. I just wanted to confirm that you would be attending the New Year's celebration with us."
"Mother, I always attend the New Year's Celebration." He felt confused, had she called him up just for that?
"Good, this year we'll be hosting it in your grandfather's house."
"But that's in the countryside!" Ritsu felt the words escaping from his lips before he could stop them
He heard a disapproving 'tsk' coming from the other line, "That's why I'm telling you from before. Do you know how to get there?"
"More or less." Takano was now closing his eyes as he soaked in the sun's rays. It distracted Ritsu and he started paying less attention to what his mother was saying.
"I'll send you the details later," continued his mother, "and… call home more often."
"Huh?" That snapped him back, "Mother." But the line had gone dead. Maybe she had just wanted to hear his voice? Usually all she did was talk about him finding a new girl, but hearing her say those words made him happy. Life really was turning around. He flipped his phone shut and walked towards Takano, and it was then that his stomach pain came back. He had forgotten that he was supposed to wobble. Someone up there really hated him.
"Onodera!" Takano was standing next to him. The man reached out to hold his right hand to support him. With his other hand, Takano reached into his pocket and brought out a strip of medicine, "For your stomach. I wanted to give it to you last night."
Ritsu was surprised but he reached out for the medicine anyway, "You could have just given it to me in the elevator."
"You were busy staring at your phone."
So he was staring at his phone while Takano stood ready with the medicine behind him? It made Ritsu want to laugh, but he held it back. But did that mean that Takano had been waiting all this time while he finished talking to his mother so he could give him this? Ritsu looked at the ground, with his hair covering his eyes and Takano too distracted with supporting him to see what he was doing, Ritsu smiled.
Work was still fast paced, and Ritsu was glad for whatever force had sent Takano with his medicine that day. It worked better than the stuff he usually took, he was seriously considering switching medications.
"Richchan!" Kisa appeared behind Ritsu, handing him a stack of papers, "This came for you just now."
Ritsu lunged for the papers with one hand and the nearest marker he could find with the other. Yes! It was her, she had pulled through. Granted it was just a rough draft, there weren't even any characters or properly drawn backgrounds in it. He would okay it, pass it through Takano and send it right back. There shouldn't really be any problems with it, him and Takano had spent two hours discussing the concepts behind this piece with her.
"Kisa! Are you done?" Takano's voice bellowed across the room and Kisa frantically shouted an, "Almost!" before plunging back into work.
Ritsu definitely hated year end crunches.
By the time Ritsu had finished sending the rough draft back to the author, it was just before lunch break. That had taken a bit more time than he had expected. There were some minor problems he and Takano had disagreed with, and after arguing back forth for a few minutes, Takano had sent him back to change the draft. That man was really a tyrant sometimes.
"Could somebody pick up some more paper? The fax machine's run out." Ritsu looked around the room, but there was no response. Everyone seemed busy with what they were doing. He would have to do it himself, during this time of the Emerald Cycle, it would not do to have a fax machine with no paper.
Ritsu rushed towards the office storeroom, he had to get back as soon as possible. He was expecting at least one final draft that day. With that checked, he would have at least one manuscript ready and one less hassle to have a nightmare about.
"Takano-san?" Ritsu noticed Takano walking towards him as he neared the storeroom. Wasn't he just in the office?
Takano gave him a strange look but didn't say anything.
"I'm just here to pick up some papers." Ritsu nodded, acknowledging his presence and rushed inside the storeroom. Papers, papers, where were they? He finally noticed them on a pile just above his reach. He got on his tiptoes and tried to reach them. Who would carelessly put them up so high? Everyone needed them, and not everyone was blessed with Takano's height!
Just as he managed to touch the edges of the stack with his hands, a hand stretched out and grabbed them, "Huh?" He quickly turned around. Takano? What was he doing here?
"I knew they were too high for you to reach." Takano smirked as he held the stack of paper in his hands.
Was that man making fun of his height? "I could get it just fine!"
"Ah, is this how you treat someone who goes out of their way to help you?" Takano gave him a disapproving look, he reached out to touch Ritsu's hair but the younger man shoved his hands away.
"How did you know where they would be anyway?" He asked, still trying to swat at Takano's hands. That man was relentless.
"I came to get some before." Takano shrugged.
Ritsu glared at him before moving to grab the papers from Takano's grasp. Once he had collected them, he started to leave the room.
"Won't even thank me?" Takano whispered under his breath.
"Why should I thank you? You could've just told me you were going to get- what!?" Ritsu tried tugging at the doorknob again. But it wouldn't budge.
"I wasn't going to get what?" Takano's voice came from right behind him.
Ritsu turned around, a frightened look in his eyes, "The door…" He gestured towards it.
"The door?" Takano reached out past Ritsu to try to open the door, but to no avail, "It looks like we're locked in." He finished
"Don't look so casual about it!" Ritsu was getting aggravated. This was hardly the time to get locked inside the company storeroom with his boss!
"It's fine, I'll just…" Takano reached into his pants and looked surprised, "It must still be in my coat pocket."
"Your phone?" Ritsu felt a sinking feeling enter his stomach. He was so used to it by now, he had practically forgotten what it felt like to not be stressed. He placed the pile of paper on the nearest shelf and reached into his own pants. He prayed it still had some charge, and with trembling fingers he flipped it open. A screen as dark as his mood greeted him. He glanced at Takano, the man had figured out what was happening and was grinning.
"Takano-san! This isn't the time to laugh. What are we supposed to do about this?" Ritsu gestured at the door.
"Relax. During this time, everyone keeps coming to the storeroom. Someone is bound to notice that the door is locked and call for help."
Ritsu was not prepared to be locked in the same room as the man he had the most tumultuous feelings for. He started banging on the door and calling out for help. After five minutes, he gave up. How was it possible for no one to have heard him? He turned around to glare at Takano. That man was responsible for this, he knew it! He felt his irritation rising.
"With everyone yelling loudly and being obsessed with their work, I'm not surprised they couldn't hear you." Takano shrugged, "Ono-Onodera?" He felt the younger man push him back slightly.
Ritsu tried to reach Takano's pockets. He would not put it above the man to lock them in the same room as some kind of joke. Now was simply not the time! Ritsu felt around the man's back pockets, but he couldn't feel anything inside them. Right before he reached the front pockets of the man's pants, he felt Takano cupping his hands, "What are you doing?" He shouted as he fell back against the door.
"I could ask you the same thing." Takano had a glazed look in his eyes, "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to seduce me."
Seduce? What part of checking someone's pockets for hidden keys came off as seduction?
"I'm not!" He shouted back adamantly.
"No?" Takano moved closer to Ritsu. Before the younger man had any time to react, he felt lips on his own. He automatically closed his eyes and pressed his hands against Takano's chest. Not here! It wasn't safe. Ritsu tried to push the man back, but Takano leaned on him. Takano deepened the kiss and Ritsu could feel the older man's tongue enter his mouth.
The more Ritsu tried to resist, the more persistent Takano became. He felt the older man's hand move through his hair as the other hand rested on his hips. Ritsu tried to pull his head away, "Takano-san, please." He wanted the man to stop. This was dangerous.
Takano looked at him again, and his eyes showed that he wasn't ready to back off.
Takano moved his lips towards Ritsu's neck, and his trail of breath made Ritsu shiver. Ritsu tried to cover his mouth as he felt a soft kiss on the nape of his neck, "Takano-san, stop." The kisses trailed down from his neck to his collarbone and he felt his hands clutching on Takano's shirt. A soft moan escaped his lips as the man bit down on him.
It was that point that Ritsu felt something pushing on him. The door? He panicked and started to trip as the door pushed him against Takano. The older man became startled as well, and by the time the door opened the two men were lying in a heap on the floor.
A loud gasp made Ritsu turn around. It was a girl who worked in the same floor. She was staring at them with one hand covering her mouth, "I…" She quickly turned around and ran away.
This was the absolute worst thing that could have happened. Ritsu gave Takano one last look before grabbing the papers and leaping outside the room before the doors closed again. How dare that man!
AN: Well that's it for this chapter. Hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know what you think. :)