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yumeisha · 3 years

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Love In Print [Masaru] - Episode 1

“But Mari, I don’t WANT to go read this on Wattpad, I want to stay here on Tumblr!” Listen, my friend. Let me help you. Here’s all of Episode 1! (But the rest is over here if you decide you want to read it!)

— SATURDAY NIGHT —

She’s started to think of it as the summer of weddings. Like purgatory, but with more flowers.

Reiko sighs. Another Saturday, another charming garden venue. Soft, flickering tea lights float in shallow porcelain bowls. It looks like something lifted straight out of Pinterest, and it’s pretty in all the right ways, hitting every obligatory aesthetic beat. The music is loud and many of the guests are amiably drunk, swaying in slow circles on the dance floor or queuing up for one more lap around the buffet.

Alone at her table, Reiko hides behind the towering lily centerpiece, nursing a headache. She fishes her phone out of the tiny, mostly useless evening bag she’s bought to go with this dress and takes refuge in her work inbox.

She’d love to go home, but it’s too early to make her retreat. Another two hours, she coaches herself. You can make it for two more.

“Come on,” says Ren, prodding her in the shoulder. Reiko jumps half a mile and nearly drops her phone, not that her cousin notices. “We’re missing a cake opportunity,” he whines.

As usual, Ren resembles a figure pulled directly off some runway in Milan. Impeccably attired, hair artfully tousled, a Rolex gleaming from his left wrist. Reiko plucks at a tuft of fur caught on the cuff of his tuxedo.

“You know, there is such a thing as a lint roller. You have one somewhere in your apartment.”

Ren peers down at the wad of cat hair slowly drifting down to the grass beneath their table. “Lint roller? What lint roller?” And then his face lights up. “Oh! You mean that tape-on-a-stick thing from the last time you came over?”

“Yes,” Reiko answers patiently. “That tape-on-a-stick thing. You use it to make sure you aren’t leaving the house dressed in cat fluff.”

Suzu pops up behind Ren. “He likes for everyone to know that he’s more complex than he appears. An insufferable playboy and a sophisticated cat bachelor.” She loops her arm through his and makes a show of sniffing at his clothes. “Ah,” she breathes. “The smell of too much money, layered over eau de too many cats.”

“I have three. How is that too many? And why aren’t either of you interested in getting some cake? This is a wedding. You go to weddings for cake.”

“That’s definitely the primary reason for attending weddings.”

“It’s from Fujiwara’s, you know. They never do weddings anymore. You’re missing the dessert event of your lives.”

Suzu straightens his boutonniere. “You accosted the Fujiwara grannies for these people?” A low whistle. “Wow. Dad must really like them.”

Reiko follows her twin’s gaze. Their father, Ryuuki, is busy holding court at a neighboring table. He laughs raucously at someone’s cheesy anecdote and is having the most fun out of all of them. “It’s all business, I suppose,” she says, unable to keep from smiling despite how little she’s enjoying herself.

Suzu snorts. “Of course it’s all business. Isn’t it always?” To Ren, she says, “Hey, how long before we’ve done our duty for the family market stall? I still have ten pages left to write on a research paper and it’s…” She grabs his arm in order to check the time on his fancy watch. “… 9:34. With half an hour’s drive back to my apartment.”

“You can spare ten minutes to have a slice of legendary cake, Tachibana Suzuna.”

“God, okay. But it better not be weird like that sheet cake you ordered for the charity auction last month.”

“Not weird. Avant-garde.”

“Uh-huh. Also, it tasted like beets and had radioactive magenta icing. So gross.”

“You and Reiko just really have no appreciation for the finer things in life. Let’s go, the line’s only getting longer.”

“Don’t want any,” Reiko pipes up. “I’ll have a slice vicariously, through Suzu.”

“Twin powers,” Suzu concurs, initiating the special handshake they invented when they were six. Almost twenty years later, they’re still augmenting the sequence with new moves. “Anything I ate, Reiko also ate. And vice versa. Page 2, Line 21 in the Twin Manual.”

“The worst plus-ones anybody ever brought to a wedding,” complains Ren. He pours Reiko a fresh glass of water from the pitcher on the table and gives her a pat on the head, a gesture of silent sympathy.

She watches Ren and Suzu as they stop to tease Ryuuki along the way. And then she blinks back the onslaught of unwanted tears, reaches for her phone again, and taps the newest e-mail notification. Three unread messages beckon through Reiko’s blurred vision. She scans the subject lines, head bowed over the glowing screen. Slipping into the steps of a familiar dance, she starts at the bottom with the oldest message first, because that’s easier than confronting her emotions.

PRE-ORDER CAMPAIGN - SPS OMNIBUS EDITION. A reply from the manufacturer about a shipment of Star Princess Sanna enamel pins she asked about on Friday afternoon. Delayed for another two weeks. Not ideal, but better than never getting them in at all. Reiko marks it for a response later.

TENJOU DELIVERY WEDNESDAY. Timestamped a mere ten minutes ago. She isn’t the only one working on a day off. Reiko notices right away that the message has been flagged as important, which is odd. This e-mail appears, without fail, every Monday of her life. Throughout the long history of this exchange, the message has never been flagged as important. At least, not that Reiko can remember.

She almost opens it, curiosity triggered, but then she sees the subject of the next e-mail and momentarily forgets everything else.

ALL DEPTS: QUARTERLY MEETING — MON @ 10AM

A thrill dances through her, momentarily displacing the throbbing ache in her skull. The sounds of the reception fade away. She taps the message and it unfurls into a calendar invite. Representatives from every department at her publishing house will be expected to attend, including Reiko and the other senior marketing staff.

Most meetings are a dreary prospect, especially when scheduled for first thing on a Monday. At these quarterly gatherings, it takes hours to discuss things like sales figures and future business plans. But this one is special, because they’ll finally present the twentieth anniversary plans for DUCHESS Magazine’s most iconic franchise to date: Red Thread. The first manga she ever read all the way through, start to finish. The reason why she applied at Yumeisha in the first place, as soon as she’d graduated.

Reiko accepts the invite and adds it to her burgeoning, meticulously color-coded calendar. She can’t keep from breaking into a smile. She’s still beaming at her phone when she hears the grass crunching softly under someone’s feet and looks up to find that she is no longer alone.

The someone is tall, just about as impeccably turned out as Ren, and wearing a pair of dress shoes so highly polished that Reiko can see her reflection in them. He’s shed the jacket and rolled up the sleeves of the crisp white shirt underneath.

There is only a bowl of tealights to see him by, so it takes a moment for Reiko to recognize the man now seating himself across from her. But if the head of blond hair hadn’t given it away, the green eyes and trademark smirk would have made it very clear within the next two seconds, anyway.

She blinks at him. “Oshiro?”

“Hi.”

“Um, hi. What are you doing here?”

He leans back into the chair and stretches his long legs under the table, instantly making himself at home. “Attending a wedding,” he replies. “Chatting with the bride’s aunties. Waiting for you to pay attention to me.”

“And sending e-mails?”

“No rest for the wicked, as they say.”

Reiko puts her phone down. “It’s weird seeing you outside of work. This is the last place I’d expect to run into you.”

“Why? Because you figured that I live at the office and camp out under my desk on days off?”

She laughs. “I mean, yeah.”

“To be fair, I’d expect the same of you.”

Well, that really is fair. Sometimes Reiko looks up from the endless loop between work and her apartment, her apartment and then work, and realizes that her entire existence can be summed up in three boring sentences or less. And then she’ll go back to her computer screen, her half empty coffee mug, the pathetic little granola bar that will have to serve as her lunch. But that’s just the way of things, isn’t it? At least she genuinely loves her job. It would be much harder to bear, otherwise.

“I’ve considered just packing myself a bag and living in my cubicle,” Reiko admits, without any real shame. In the background, the band segues into their much livelier cover of a depressing breakup anthem. Over the noise, she adds, “At least it would save me a commute.”

“So dedicated.”

She shrugs. “So lazy.”

“Anyone truly lazy wouldn’t be checking her inbox at a wedding reception,” Oshiro points out.

“Guilty as charged. Have you come to scold me for not participating in wedding activities?”

“No, I’ve come to ask you why you haven’t opened my e-mail.” He waves his own phone at her. “I checked three seconds ago. It definitely still says unread.”

“It’s flagged important and with a read receipt? Seriously?”

“Seriously. It’s high priority. Read it right now.” He angles a covert glance over her shoulder, in the direction he came from earlier. “Oh, and if you don’t mind, don’t reply until I’m back over there.”

“Wait, you want a reply, too? What am I supposed to say? You send me the same four lines every week. I have the thing memorized by now.” To prove this point, she clasps her hands behind her back and recites, “Heading to Tenjou on Wednesday. They need endcaps, window decals, sticker packs, blah blah blah, for insert-manga-title-here. I’ll stop by and grab them on my way out. Thanks. Oshiro Masaru, DUCHESS Sales, 81-4-8914-1111, extension 822.”

His demeanor shifts, now part bemusement and part blatant self-satisfaction. “Look, Tachibana, I’m beyond flattered that you hang onto my every word like this. Not surprising. I’m extremely eloquent in my digital correspondence.”

She rolls her eyes. “There it is. I knew it was coming.”

“You even know my extension by heart,” Oshiro continues blithely. “It’s like my wildest dreams coming true. But what I really need right now is for you to open that e-mail and write me a timely reply. By timely, I mean don’t hit send until I’m at my table again. And then I’ll read your response and write you back. So on, so forth, rinse and repeat, until this torture is over and we can both leave.”

“Ah.” Reiko crosses her arms. “You want a prolonged reason to be on your phone.”

“Correct.”

“Because you don’t want to be here.”

“Also correct, but needs clarification. I don’t want to be at this wedding. I do want to be at this table with you.”

He tips his head towards his original seating arrangements. Reiko risks a covert glance and notes that Oshiro’s vacated chair is surrounded by chattering ladies ranging from middle-aged to elderly. Somehow, without ever speaking to a single one of them, Reiko can tell that they’re the problematic aunties who don’t get along with any of the other aunties. Consequently, they’ve been placed where they can ostensibly do the least damage. From the looks of it, they’re having a fabulous time.

Reiko bites her lip, smothering a surge of laughter. “Wow. How did you end up with the best seat in the house? Like, who did you offend?”

“Ha ha. I owed the groom a favor and he cashed in, majorly.” Oshiro leans forward. “They’re a nice bunch, don’t get me wrong, but if they set me up with another of their nieces, I’ll be double booked from today until Christmas.”

“You’re welcome to sit here instead,” she offers. “We have an extra chair. My dad prefers to migrate between friend groups.”

“Thanks, but I can’t just abandon my post. I wouldn’t put it past them to follow me over here, or else I’d take you up on that suggestion. I figure random texts to my brothers will seem rude, unlike important work e-mails. So play along, won’t you? And keep in mind at least one of them will be reading over my shoulder the whole time.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? What on earth do you think I’d be putting in that e-mail?”

“I’m just saying, don’t use this as an opportunity to confess your undying love or anything. Maintain professionalism and all that.”

“Gosh, what a tall order. How will I ever comply?”

“Dig deep, Tachibana. Find that inner strength.”

Reiko pulls a face. “You came all the way here just to make me do this?”

“Yes,” says Oshiro. “You’re welcome. I’ll look for your thank you note in the mail. I also like gift baskets. The ones with baked goods are okay, but no edible fruit bouquets or artisan cheeses. Nobody wants those.”

“But why me?” she persists. “Don’t you have anyone else you can trade fake work e-mails with? What about Ueda? Or your boss?”

“Hey, take it easy. I’m not used to outright rejection.”

“I’m not rejecting you, I’m just confused.”

“What’s there to be confused about? I don’t want to be here. Neither do you. Let’s help each other out.”

Neither do you. Reiko feels very, very obvious, now.

He watches her expectantly. She can tell that he’s fighting hard not to break into one of his insouciant grins. Reiko can’t decide if she wants to smack him or bask in the infectious warmth of his attention, like a deprived houseplant straining to soak up every drop of sunshine it can get.

This conflicted reaction is more embarrassing than being caught on her phone. For God’s sake, it’s just Oshiro.

Their departments — Sales for him, Marketing for her — are often flung together, which means running into him at Yumeisha is pretty normal. They take the same elevator from the lobby and frequent the same break room on the tenth floor. He stops at her desk most Wednesday afternoons, as promised in his e-mails. Once in a while, if she stays even later than usual, Reiko might see him striding ahead of her through the lobby’s sliding glass doors, crossing the street to catch the same train. They never talk much, though, unless it’s about work.

Still true, she concludes, as Oshiro stands up and pushes the chair into place, preparing to return to the Island of Matchmaking Aunties. He walks backwards away from her, hands in his pockets. “Talk soon,” he tells Reiko, smiling as if he’s guessed all her secrets. And then he’s gone, threading his way through the crowd while she stares after him, utterly bewildered.