Chapter Text
Yamazaki Sousuke was in a restaurant,
alone.
He was staring into his drink, using his straw to spin the melting ice around,
alone.
He was sending the waiter off yet again, ignoring the sweet tantalizing scent of pork rolling out of the kitchen as he waited at the table, alone. He was checking his watch, alone. He was rearranging the papers he brought with him for this specific interview.
That he was sitting alone for.
Being an editor meant that he had to deal with a bunch of odd people, and he had been warned that his new mangaka would be...difficult to deal with. Sousuke had been ready for it, if they ranted about their own work, if they did nothing but draw, he'd deal with it.
But to deal with something that person had to actually show up.
Sousuke began to jab at the napkin with his fork, clicking his tongue as he tried to keep his patience from wearing thin. It was a losing battle though, and he was peering through his documents at the name written neatly on top, underneath was all the information on this person. This name was quickly becoming an irritated chant in his mind as the clock ticked on and on. His grip on the fork becoming tighter and tighter as he sat there.
Alone.
He stood up, pushing his chair back and causing some poor waitress to squeak in fear as she looked up at him. Sousuke took a deep breath and put down his now bent fork.
“I must step out for a little bit, when I come back I will pay for that.” He said before stomping out of the restaurant. People began to glance over and murmur. He ignored them and pulled out Nanase’s address, along with some helpful instructions given to him by Tachibana. He had even chosen the restaurant based on how close it was to that address. His mind shook with his steps, as he got onto the subway, the angry growl of Haruka Nanase on the tip of his tongue.
Haruka Nanase was a new mangaka very well known for her beautiful and detailed art (mostly of the ocean and marine life), but almost all her manga got canceled or stopped early due to their ‘weird subject matter’. Sousuke had attempted to read her works in preparation for this meeting, ‘The curse of Iwatobi-chan’ and ‘Lockjaw-kun’s great swim’ had left him slightly confused and afraid.
Nanase’s old editor Tachibana was a nice enough guy, always greeted Sousuke whenever he passed him by, helped him out whenever he got lost at the office. But he had never stopped Nanase from writing these weird as hell stories. Sousuke could understand why their bosses got sick of this behavior and had had Tachibana switched out for him. Tachibana had warned him that Nanase was slightly difficult to deal with but he’d thought the man was exaggerating.
Sousuke sighed as he got off the train, only an hour in and he’d already been proven wrong. He hoped this wasn't a premonition of things to come.
-
The banging on the door had already led to neighbors in the apartment complex glaring at him as they walked by and one old lady huffing at him muttering about children and their 'relationship problems'. Sousuke wanted to scream.
He had scheduled this meeting a week in advance, and from his experience mangakas didn't go out much. If there had been an emergency why had he not been contacted? That was the least that this woman could do after he had ridden all the way down here from his own apartment on the other side of town.
Something that Tachibana told him stuck out in his mind. That Nanase didn't really like to bother with meetings and was prone to skipping out on them. He'd said that he would usually just go to their apartment for their meetings so he wouldn't inconvenience them by forcing them to leave.
Makoto Tachibana was an effective worker yes, but Sousuke's own private opinion about the man was that he was a complete and utter pushover, and there was no way in hell he was going to let Nanase skip out on their meetings. He didn’t care if it was a bother, they could at least wait until at least the third meeting to force Sousuke to come over her house to accommodate to their lazy ass.
So instead Sousuke thought over another tip Tachibana had given him, where the spare key was hidden. He looked down at the generic and dull brown welcome mat he was standing on and lifted it, finding the little piece of metal just where his coworker had said it would be. He grinned, pretty sure he was looking like a mad man about to get his kill. He couldn’t bring himself to care.
He unlocked the door that squeaked loudly upon his entrance, the room itself was a neat and rather small place. A bookshelf was on the side of the living room, a small couch and a table in the center with two pillows placed at its sides, the standard art things were placed neatly onto a desk that was shoved into the corner right next to the window.
Sousuke was about to call out when out of a hallway a young man stepped out, he had a towel around his shoulders and for whatever reason was wearing a black swimsuit and nothing else. His dark hair was damp with water that he was rubbing out with the towel. Very little in his expression changed when he spotted the intruder, except maybe his eyes widening just a fraction. And that was just a maybe. Sousuke himself would be slightly more alarmed and angry if he had found some stranger in his living room. Was this a normal thing for this guy?
“You're a man…” He narrowed his eyes.
“Yes I am.”
“Are you Nanase Haruka?” He asked.
Nanase nodded slightly as he looked him over “...Yes. Who are you?”
“I am Yamazaki Sousuke, your new editor. We were supposed to meet today”
Haruka blinked “Oh, Makoto mentioned you...I think he said something about a meeting...”
Sousuke clicked his tongue.“Get dressed.” He’d give Tachibana an earful on this when he saw him again.
“What? No.”
“Go get dressed.”
“I’m making mackerel.”
“No you aren’t, we scheduled a meeting today, which you are over an hour late for and that’s what’s going to happen. Now go get dressed.”
Nanase scowled and began to head to what Sousuke could only assume was the kitchen. Luckily despite his size Sousuke had always been fast, he stood in front of the door. “Go get dressed.” “You’re already here, so why can’t we just have the meeting here?”
“I am here to pick you up, I have a tab to pay back at the restaurant. Now go get dressed.”
Nanase tried to squeeze in around Sousuke, who didn’t budge an inch. Being built like a brick wall had it’s advantages, and there was no way in hell he was going to accommodate to this asshole after he had left Sousuke at a restaurant for an hour waiting for him. Sousuke was able to push him back and held him at an arms length. They glared at each other till Haruka finally turned away pouting. Sousuke counted this as a victory when he saw the man stepping back and heading for the hallway on the other side of the room.
“I’m going to take a bath.”
“.....Wait what?!” Sousuke ran after him and could feel his headache growing worse.
Why was he always given the difficult ones? Had he angered some deity? Letting out a growl he chased after Nanase before he could get into the bathroom.
-
Finally they were at the restaurant sitting across from another, surprisingly that waitress had listened to him and kept the table open for them. She was going to get a big tip afterwards for sure.
This was all after a half an hour of pushing the annoying man into his room and the two of them glaring at each other until Sousuke threatened to throw out the mackerel that the man kept bringing up. That seemed to motivate him into actually listening to the editor and putting on a white sweater with some jeans.
After such a long and difficult fight Sousuke felt exhausted and annoyed but he still was more than determined to get this entire meeting over and done with. So he looked across the table, took a deep breath and held out his hand.
“My name is Yamazaki Sousuke. I am your new editor.” The man blinked and then narrowed his eyes as he looked down at his hand, obviously still not over the entire ‘threaten to throw out all of his mackerel’ thing. But after a moment he took it.
“I am Nanase Haruka, please take care of me.” His voice was so flat that Sousuke had to wonder if that statement had been sarcastic and immediately felt irritated. Their grips on each other tightened as they shook hands, glaring at one another.
“Um....” They both turned to look at the waitress who was biting her lips as she glanced between them.
“Thank you for waiting, we’re ready to order.”
“Oh, great! What would you like?”
“Pork chops” He said, having decided almost an hour ago.
“Mackerel.” Sousuke felt exhausted again.
“Oh um..we don’t have mackerel, but we do have a salmon dish though!” She smiled tightly as Haruka huffed.
“Fine.” He went back to glaring at Sousuke, as if it was his fault that the restaurant didn’t serve the fish he had no idea he was so obsessed with. Tachibana hadn’t given him any indication of just how weird his new mangaka would be.
“And to drin-”
“Water.” Nanase said this with all the urgency in the world. Sousuke rubbed his forehead, his coworker Nitori warned him that too much stress would drain his life. He believed him; this one meeting with Nanase felt like he had lost three years already.
‘How many more will I lose working with this man’ he wondered briefly.
“And you sir?” The waitress asked him.
“Just some coke is fine.” He said.
She nodded and wrote it all down on a little hello kitty themed notepad before walking off. Sousuke returns his focus to the artist in front of him who was currently staring out the window, his bright blue eyes as hazy as the cloudy sky above. He seemed bored enough to fade right out of existence.
“Nanase.” Sousuke says firmly, keeping his patience with him when it takes two more promptings of Nanase’s name to catch the guy’s attention.
“Yes?”
“About your new manga-”
“New?” Haruka tilted his head “I’m already drawing one.”
“No you aren’t?”
“Yes I am, ‘The curse of Iwatobi-Chan’ has another issue.”
Sousuke finally did facepalm, cursing under his breath.“No it doesn’t, didn’t Tachibana tell you that it got canceled?” He asked desperately.
Haruka glanced up as he tried to remember. “No, Makoto said my new editor would handle it.”
Apparently his coworker not only avoided mentioning people’s gender, but also about cancellations. Sousuke was on the verge of calling the soft hearted coward just to have him explain this instead.“Well it was a huge flop, so we aren’t going to continue with that.”
“But why? Iwatobi-chan is cute so-”
“He freaked children out and multiple parents sent complaints. And besides that not many people bought it even with your name attached”
“But-”
“No. I am very sorry but it’s final and there is nothing I can do about it.” Sousuke said firmly. Haruka pouted and turned his head away.
“We need to come up with a new manga for you to produce.”
“How about Iwatobi-chan’s cooking-”
“One without weird demonic bird creatures.” Sousuke stopped him in his tracks. Haruka looked slightly offended.
“Maybe since you’re still new, start with something easy? Our magazine features slice of life, so try that? Or a shoujo?” Anything would be better than whatever the hell Nanase had been trying to go for with his last pieces.
“Hmm...” Haruka pulled out a sketchbook that he had brought along with him, and began to draw. Sousuke nearly let out a sigh of relief, at least he wasn’t being stubborn about starting a new project so soon after his last had been canceled. And he looked fairly focused on the matter too, at least more focused than he had been on Sousuke for the past twenty minutes. Sousuke felt as if he had won some sort of long battle.
He watched Haruka as he drew, since meeting the artist had been rather...hectic he never really had a chance to take in the others appearance. He had rather pretty blue eyes that looked down at the paper with an intensity that was lost when he was doing anything else. His dark hair looked soft, and moved with him as he shifted slightly to get a better look at whatever it was he was drawing. Pale skin made him look rather flawless and even the old white sweater he had thrown on failed to detract from his overall handsomeness. Like this Nanase actually seemed like a decent enough guy.
“So what do you have in mind?” Sousuke asked after it seemed like Haruka was done with drawing. For once during this entire mess dread did not fill his heart. He was so naive as to ever hope. When Nanase turned the sketchbook around it took Sousuke a full minute to comprehend what was on the page.
It was five fish (mackerel of course), seated around a table. The tallest was wearing a business suit, the one standing next to it wearing what seemed to be lipstick, a bow, and was also carrying a dish around...somehow. And there were two much smaller ones, one with bows and pigtails, and the other was wearing a baseball cap.
“What...is that?”
“Mackerel family. You said slice of life.” Haruka’s face was stoic, and Sousuke wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, but the need to bang his head upon the table was very real.
“No.”
“But-”
“No you are not making a slice of life story about mackerel!”
“What about a love story?”
“NO. THERE WILL BE NO MACKEREL DAMN IT!”
“Eep!” The waitress had made her way back to the table and had let out a little jump and shout at Sousuke’s shouting. In the middle of Sousuke’s attempt to apologize Haruka glanced over at her and eagerly took the water from her, downing most of it in one long drink. He then turned to look up at Sousuke.
“What about dolphins then?”
Sousuke felt another year of his life leave him.