Ran seemed miffed at Eizo’s hesitance. “Drunk already? What a wimp.”

  That was all it took for Eizo to wash down half the can in one gulp, his eyes fixed on the editor. Ran mirrored Eizo and downed a huge swig from his third can, the two men vying in a drinking competition that no one asked for.

  “You said you used to play. Why did you stop?”

  “It wasn’t fun anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve played since elementary school. First in outfield, then catcher, and then infield, cycling through all three bases until they found the perfect position for me at shortstop.”

  “You played everywhere except pitcher.”

  Eizo wagged a finger. “I pitched a few times during practice.” He finished the rest of his beer, trying not to gurgle from the hops coursing down his gullet. A most curious sensation, since he hardly drank.

  “The Swiss Army knife of baseball,” Ran concluded.

  They finished the beer—Ran drank four compared to Eizo’s measly two. He also ate more than Eizo, polishing off most of the snacks. He used Eizo as an excuse to buy a mountain of food, probably embarrassed to be seen eating junk for supper at his age.

  “I just kept going because there wasn’t really anything else I wanted to do,” Eizo continued. “There wasn’t anything else I could do.”

  “What’s your major?”

  “Finance.”

  “That’s surely something you can do.”

  “I’m not a suit and tie guy.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “I don’t want to get used to it.”

  By now, he would have clammed shut, had anyone else engaged him on this topic. But once he started, he couldn’t stop. Was it the beer that loosened his lips? Or was it the way Ran was looking at him throughout their conversation, the usual intensity in his gaze fading into something less severe?

  How strange—he had known Ran for less than three months, and he had spent most of that time plotting to get even with him. Eizo felt warm under the collar once more. An illusion, surely. The lights were bright, after all, and the interior temperature was a few degrees higher than the night outside. An illusion indeed. Just as he couldn’t have imagined the two of them sitting here together, drinking beer and eating fried crap on a Saturday night.

  This was the Miyamoto of Unit 525 he’d pictured before he knew it was Ran. Miyamoto, who was supposed to be in his forties or fifties. He looked at Ran and tried to imagine him as an old man with a receding hairline. Suddenly, he felt like laughing.

  “Are you drunk?” Ran asked.

  Laughter bubbled inside Eizo, and his shoulders shook uncontrollably.

  “You know what this feels like?” he choked out between giggling spurts. “This is how our blind date should have been.”

  Annoyance crept into Ran’s voice. “Still talking about that?”

  “I will talk about it until the day I die. And then I will carve it on my epitaph: On August 20, 2025, the person laid to rest had the most memorable time of his life.”

  A snort escaped Ran’s lips.

  “You really hurt my pride that night,” Eizo muttered. “My pride and my ass.”

  Then he burst into another round of giggles before it dwindled into hiccups that stopped him from talking entirely. He felt a paper cup being pushed into his hands, and soon after, fingers gripping his chin to part his lips, followed by the cool rush of water gushing down his throat. The hiccups stopped. Lifting his head, he saw Ran split into two silhouettes from the feet.

  “How funny. Now that I think about it, if I hadn’t stopped playing, the blind date was the only way we could have met.”

  Eizo shook his head at the two Rans, who threatened to cleave into more copies. The thought of several Rans circling him in the middle of Family Mart made him snort through his nose.

  “If we had met for the first time then, would we be here today?”

  “You are drunk.”

  “If I hadn’t busted my knee, I would have kept playing. I would have kept going. It stopped being fun, but I’d have kept playing.”

  He reached out to Ran, wanting to push the two silhouettes back into one.

  “If I hadn’t busted my knee, I wouldn’t have written anything.”

  Ran was still two people who hinged from one pair of feet.

  “If I hadn’t busted my knee, I wouldn’t have written a word.”

  He wobbled, arms flailing at his sides.

  “If I hadn’t busted my knee,” he repeated, “I wouldn’t need to write a word again.”

  The fatigue he had fended off earlier returned in full force. His head weighed a hundred pounds, threatening to tip his balance if he stood up. It would be nice if he had a futon here so he could lie on it and fall asleep straight away.

  “Really funny, right?”

  Eizo felt the ground moving closer and closer to him until a pair of arms wrapped around his waist, pulling him to his feet.

  His vision blurred into a circle, rapidly decreasing until it became a dot. In the distance, he heard someone calling his name. Then his mind went completely blank, as he had wished.

  27

  Eizo woke up feeling as though someone had carved open his head.

  He opened his eyes and saw not the soft yellow of his studio ceiling, nor the austere white of his room back in the penthouse, but a cool gray he was seeing for the first time. In the center of the ceiling was a dome light with ornate brass fittings that looked like it belonged to the Taisho period a hundred years ago.

  The voice of a man, a deep timbre, called out to him. He’d heard this voice before. Many times, actually. Used to piss him off a great deal, but recently, it wasn’t too bad. Maybe. Something soft rested under his head. A whiff of cypress. Someone was next to him. He turned to his side, wanting to bury his face in the cushy object, when a hand forcefully yanked it out from under him.

  “It’s already June 2026.”

  Eizo bolted upright at once. “June 2026?”

  “You missed your deadline, and we published nothing. You must now return the advances paid to Suigetsu, along with the damages and my wages. Pay me first.”

  Panic flashed through his mind before he realized it was just Sunday, and he was the butt of a devious joke cracked by an equally insidious person.

  “Even a toddler can do better than you,” Ran continued. “Just two cans and you’re knocked out.”

  “I was exhausted.” Eizo narrowed his eyes at the editor. “Why am I here?”

  “You mean, thank you for letting me stay the night.”

  Last night’s events resurfaced in his mind. Eizo hoped he hadn’t done or said anything foolish in front of Ran. He scanned his surroundings, his eyes still adjusting to the light streaming in through the bamboo blinds. He was in the living room, sitting on a sand-colored sofa that had been unfolded into a bed.

  Panic rose in him again.

  “Where did you sleep?”

  Ran stared at him as if he had sprouted two heads. “In my room.”

  “You have two beds?”

  “Disappointed?”

  “How do I know if you’re telling the truth?”

  “Your filthy story is your daydream, not mine.”

  “I—”

  Eizo glared at Ran, his retort stuck in his throat. There was something different about the editor. He stared at Ran for the longest time, inspecting him from head to toe, and back up again. Then he found it.

  His hair.

  Ran’s hair was not styled. The low pompadour resembling a helmet plonked onto a Lego head in a shade of black so dark it absorbed light and everything else in the universe, its shape so stiff and unstirred by the strongest gales, was nowhere to be seen. In its place was hair that fell softly around his face, subtracting the edges from his eyes.

  If Eizo hadn’t known, he would have thought Ran was still in college, perhaps a postgraduate student on his way to the gym. His navy pullover might hang slightly loose on his frame, but from the way the fabric clung to his shoulders and arms, Eizo suspected Ran could certainly hold his own in an arm-wrestling challenge. Either that, or he would cheat by kicking Eizo under the chair again.

  At once, Eizo’s hands flew to his ass, earning a look of bewilderment from Ran.

  “No one touched your precious derriere,” Ran groused, holding up the cushion that Eizo had earlier rubbed his face into. He unzipped the cotton cover and placed it on the table. “I’m going to get groceries. Time for you to get the fuck out of my house.”

  “I wanted to scratch an itch, alright? My ass got itchy wondering if your hair is real.”

  Ran threw the cushion back at Eizo, who caught it deftly with his left hand, holding the corner like a four-seam fastball.

  “I should have left your ass outside with the trash.”

  “My ass is too good for that.”

  “Your ass is only good for the toilet.” Ran gave him a meaningful once-over. “To be flushed down with everyone’s shit.”

  Eizo stood up from the sofa, immediately towering over Ran. “How could I ever repay you for your kindness, Mr. Miyamoto?”

  Ran pinched his nose. “Your breath smells like sewage.”

  Offended, Eizo clamped his mouth shut and brushed past Ran as he strode to the door. Before he slipped on his shoes, he turned around and looked askance at Ran. “Can I open my mouth now?” he grumbled. “Or should I move⁠—”

  “Did you come by Kichijoji the day you signed the contract?” Ran cut in.

  Eizo paused.

  “Nope,” he replied.

  “Strange, I saw someone who looked like you from the back.”

  “Really?”

  Ran pointed at his clothes. “He was wearing the same t-shirt as you.”

  “This is from a past Uniqlo collection. I remember it being quite popular. Many of my teammates have it too. Bit of an inside joke.”

  “Must be a coincidence then,” said Ran.

  “Yeah, it must be,” Eizo echoed. He placed his hand on the door handle. Before he could push it down, Ran spoke again.

  “I’m making lunch. Come back at twelve if you want to join me.”

  * * *

  Eizo didn’t return. Probably had a luxurious meal prepared for him by Yasuda back in Azabudai.

  Ran knew the chances of Eizo accepting his invitation were close to none. The two meals they had together, cordially at least, meant nothing given what had happened between them. He threw out the invite only to test the younger man, because it had been him outside the convenience store that night. Ran had his suspicions for a while—the timing of Eizo’s move to Oakwood and, most obviously, the faded yellow of a well-worn t-shirt hanging on broad shoulders.

  A simple question warranted a simple answer. Even then, Kamada Eizo chose to lie about it. Ran’s question should have made him realize that someone had seen him. A question to verify and reset the date of their thorny first encounter with each other. A chance to mark a fresh start in their relationship, as neighbors and at work. But Eizo refused to tell the truth, choosing to muddy the issue further by adding inconsequential details. Didn’t he know lies formed a web that stuck to your lips and ensnared you from within?

  Far from his Stupid Seaweed moniker, Eizo was smart. Cunning. With a nose for danger and how to avoid it. Someone who wrote Wizard must know a thing or two about planting red herrings and stage cues meant to misdirect. He did it on the page, closing in on three hundred chapters that amounted to nearly a million words. He pulled these tricks into a story and used them to enact the pettiest revenge on Ran. By shamelessly denying the fact that he was at Kichijoji on July 12th, it was as if he sensed that in the space of one night, everything about him could unravel at the first trial.

  The more Ran thought about it, the more incensed he grew. He should have dumped Eizo by the roadside last night. While his frame was lean and athletic, muscle weighed more than fat. Ran had never struggled so badly to stay on his feet as Eizo rested all six foot two inches of bone and muscle on him while Ran hoisted him by the waist and practically dragged him back to his home. He lost count of the number of times he had wanted to give up and leave. But rationality prevailed, and Eizo was tucked into bed before midnight.

  Ran recalled how Eizo kept rubbing his face in the crook of his neck, making him squirm. Eizo seemed to enjoy doing that—getting close to him, planting his nose near his ear, his neck, his face. Crossing the space Ran held in one long stride. Maybe it was best to see Eizo as a large, slobbering dog. But dogs were loyal. Eizo, with his penchant for deception, certainly wasn’t.

  Choices and consequences, he chanted like a mantra.

  If he had left Eizo behind, the drunk writer might have attempted to rise to his feet. He might wobble and slip. Break his fall with his hands and sprain his wrists. A writer’s hands were their livelihood. An injured Eizo wouldn’t be able to write. An Eizo who couldn’t write was of no use to him. He needed a top-notch manuscript, one that outdid Wizard many times over. To nab editorial control of Ido, New World must soar to the top of web fiction rankings upon release.

  In a week, Eizo would submit his first pages. Other editors might have their preferences, but Ran was the type who wanted to be involved in the process as early as possible. If there were problems, he’d nip it in the bud before the author blundered their way through a sea of words that failed to make the final cut, wasting time and feeling discouraged before giving up on themselves and their writing altogether. It wasn’t his job to console authors when that happened.

  Some of his colleagues, like Misaki, handled their authors with a firm grace. Ran knew himself best—he lacked finesse in dealing with people. He called a spade a spade, and when spades tried to fit into circles or squares, he would slice them out without mercy. He received his fair share of criticism from authors who disliked his approach. Would he change? Even if he had wanted to, he couldn’t.

  Authors were paid to produce content that met market demand. Likewise, editors like him received monthly wages to polish their clients’ manuscripts into a market-ready format. Readers paid for books they enjoyed. The facts of the case were clear, simple and unbreachable, like the laws of the material world.

  This translated into a straightforward equation for Ran to solve.

  Eizo was now entwined with him. Not Eizo the person, but Eizo the writer.

  Entwined with Ran the editor, and Ran the person.

  It didn’t matter if Eizo was lying. He didn’t need to know why Eizo had lied, or what he was doing in Kichijoji that night. He didn’t need to trust Eizo. Their relationship was strictly business, their demands of each other named and sealed by a contract. He must not be distracted by unnecessary variables that did not solve the equation. Those were red herrings, obstacles in his path that threatened to halt his progress.

  Only what Eizo wrote mattered. Eizo’s words held potential, and above all, they promised the one thing Ran had wanted since he was twenty-four—Onodera Shiho’s unpublished manuscript.

  28

  The last time Ran had been at Inokashira Park, it was still green, the color of a summer that lasted longer than usual and bore down more hotly than ever. Now, the red and gold of fall were taking over. He strode across the park to the east of the pond, where a two-story teahouse had recently opened. Maple, ginkgo, and zelkova trees swayed gently in the early morning breeze as the days began to cool.

  Touted by magazines as the latest fall dating spot, Ran had been unsure about visiting the teahouse when jogging past it last month. Their tea collection, which promised a fresh autumnal blend of Darjeeling, persimmon, and chestnuts, intrigued him, but he was wary of sticking out in a flock of couples.

  He wasn’t allergic to people dating. After all, he’d watched Aiko and Shin grow from young love to a steadfast couple approaching the altar. Yet, he couldn’t make sense of two people expressing affection for each other, their feelings reaching the point where they felt so sure that whatever they had in the present would carry forward unchanged into the future.

  Ran entered the teahouse once it opened at seven-thirty, before the crowds stirred awake on a Saturday. Everything looked and smelled new. High ceilings with cream-colored walls wrapped in vertical timber louvers spanned the interior, reminding him of a typical Kuma Kengo design.

  He sat by the window with a pot of tea, poached eggs with sautéed mushrooms and tomatoes on brioche toast, and a slice of chestnut sponge cake. A splurge compared with his weekday fare of granola, fruits, and milk. He had a premonition that he’d need all the energy he could gather to handle the burgeoning task ahead of him: Eizo’s opening chapters for New World.

  Ran finished his food and made himself comfortable as he opened the document on his tablet. Early drafts were usually rough. Though he rarely worked outside of the office, he was curious about Eizo’s writing and wanted to read it immediately. He knew that staying home with the manuscript would taint his judgment, since the writer himself lived next door, so he chose to work from a teahouse as a compromise. He must consciously assess New World as Ran the editor, not Ran the person, conflated as the two identities already were.

  Eizo wrote long chapters, each one between 6,000 and 8,000 words, structured like self-contained short stories, complete with their own hook, climax, denouement, and cliffhanger. He had coughed up some 30,000 words for just four chapters in two weeks. That was a remarkable writing speed, expected of a writer accustomed to publishing episodic stories in the LitRPG genre, known for its large word counts and rapid release schedules.

  Impressive as it sounded, this was the bare minimum for Eizo. Once Suigetsu’s digital platform went live, Eizo would have to work seven days a week to keep the content coming, a punishing schedule that almost guaranteed burnout and deteriorating story quality if the writer failed to pace themselves. Ran couldn’t let that happen, so he buffered for ten weeks of story backlog. If Eizo needed a break, he could take weekends off. The next six months would stretch the limits of Eizo’s ability and leave him with no time to do anything else outside of writing and sleeping. Such was the effort needed to develop a successful online serial.