Technical Difficulties (Brother's Conflict)

Chapter 17!

In my gorgeous older sister's infinite boredom she did my nails and now I type like some sort of insane person with either the first joint of my finger bent slightly outward or just constantly hitting number keys with these long blue claws everytime I go to use a letter of the top row of keys, don't even get me started on texting with these things  

Mei drifted off to sleep, having finally heard about the circumstances of Nageki's childhood, about the woman who had taught him a very twisted version of love, she couldn't help but dream about the first few times the two had met.

Mei was sitting in the office of an editing and publishing company. She had won an award for her manga submission at their recent contest and part of the prize was getting the chance for your manga to be serialized. She'd just finished talking with the head of editing and the head of publishing had come first. It seemed that her plan for the plot of her school time boy's love manga was attractive enough without any tweaking, meaning they were pushing her forward to start getting acquainted with an editor before they serialized the first chapter of her series for next month's issue of their magazine.

A man walked in, Takahashi was his name from their previous introduction. He was the secretary to the head of the department and usually handled the organizing of the new talent. Behind him entered a tall man, messy dark hair with pale grey eyes and an apathetic expression. He was lean but from what she could see of the muscles of his arms, he was fit rather than slim. Her first impression of him was that he would be a perfect base template for a cool 'senpai' top character in a boy's love manga based in a company setting, but otherwise she was just as disinterested in him as he seemed to be in her.

"Miss Hinata, this will be your editor going forward, Fujiwara Nageki. Fujiwara this is is Hinata Mei, the new author from the recent contest." The two both bowed respectfully-ish to each other, it seemed that both were not only cold on the outside but equally didn't really have a respect for ceremonies.

"I look forward to working with you."

"I'll be in your care." Both spoke with flat tones as though they were using rehearsed lines from a script. With that, Takahashi excused himself and allowed the two to 'get acquainted', although for them all it really entailed was sitting in a room staring at each other from across the table assessing the other person through looking and the few details they had about them alone.

"You're young." Their eyes met properly as he spoke, neither backing down from the challenge in the eyes of the other. For a few moments, though, he was enamored by the mismatched color of her eyes. It was close to that time of year, at least it had dawned on him that it was from looking into her eyes. He hadn't thought about his mother for quite a long time, yet her eyes somehow perfectly drudged up those memories. For a second, he thought he could feel his heart again rather than the numbness that had settled there, but just as soon as he felt it the feeling disappeared into wisps of pain in his chest, then nothing.

"You're not much older." He let out some sort of grumble in response as he became the first to break eye contact. She wasn't wrong, he was only 21, but she was only 15 and barely had space to talk for herself in that situation. He wondered if her parents even knew she was here, if they knew she could draw.

He turned his attention to her manga and the planned plot that she'd submitted. They went over the details continually in that monotone drawl and after a while of the run-of-the-mill questions and answers, they were exchanging were completely on autopilot as the person across from them kept trying to study the other more.

"Ah, it's already been an hour. I have to get back home to cook dinner." She mentioned the last bit off-handedly, as though her brain was already mulling over the ingredients she had in the fridge at home rather than paying Fujiwara any mind.

"You cook for yourself?"

"No my sister and I take turns cooking dinner for each other and occasionally Rintaro if he's home...Ah, that probably sounded strange, Rintaro is my foster-parent which is why I call him by his first name rather than dad or anything like that." Nageki made a sound as though he was disinterestedly listening, but he found himself more attentive than ever to get any sort of hints at what this girl was like. He found it strange of himself, but it was in human nature to be curious about things you don't understand, to be attracted to mysteries.

"Well, my work day is over soon anyway so I'd better start heading home too. Look forward to working with you, kid."

"You too, Mr. Fujiwara."

------

They didn't really grow close over the months that followed, their only exchanges really being the work that they did. The occasional messages about revisions, the occasional home calls if her manuscript was a bit late, the tiny bits of information that naturally came out in their fake friendly conversations-things like, 'oh his father is a sore topic ' or ' oh, she doesn't seem to like talking about her art experience outside of being a mangaka '

Mei still remembered clearly how embarrassingly apathetic she used to be back then, like the numbness that spread in her nerves when she didn't take proper care of herself had spread and festered into her heart and mind. There was one instance where she had been dead tired and walked into Nageki's office without knocking, only to find him sitting at his desk with a blank expression bridging almost on annoyance as one of the girls from the department next door was leaning on his chair with a nearly completely unbuttoned blouse and a seductive smirk. From the looks of things Nageki was trying to look over a manuscript and wasn't enjoying the distraction, but Mei hadn't even batted an eye as the woman reeled away from him with a squeal of embarrassment.

The woman had turned away from the teenager, trying to quickly button up her blouse and rush out of the room, but she didn't even get the chance to get out before the teenager did. Instead Mei just casually walked over to his desk, placing her finished, edited copy of her manuscript and with a quick bow she'd turned and left. Maybe Nageki was odd at that time too, because all he really remembered from that incident was being distantly disappointed that she was wearing her contacts so that he couldn't see her mismatched eyes he'd come to take interest in.

---

About nine months into working together was the first time Mei had to resort to making a house call to get the revisions done properly for the manga. She'd called his office but he wasn't in and he hadn't answered her questions through her multiple emails either. One of his coworkers didn't think anything of giving the girl his address when she came to the office, as though he'd seen Nageki's authors go through the same things a hundred times already.