The book signing

"One day, the world's most famous candy house suddenly exploded because a worker made a mistake. Oh dear, you'd think it would taste spicy or bitter, but instead, all those sweet candies flew into the sky in the explosion and gathered among the clouds into rainbow-colored rain. Red strawberry candies, orange tangerine candies, yellow pineapple candies, green apple candies... The rainbow rain fell over a desert, where there stood an impoverished city. The children born there had never eaten candy, but when the rainbow rain fell, that city became the sweetest city in the world. And its children became the happiest children of all."

Given three words for a writing prompt-candy, explosion, and rain-Huo Lin filled an eight-hundred-character manuscript sheet in twenty or thirty minutes.

She wrote it in one go. A story like this hardly required any thought from her.

"Ah, such a sweet flavor. Like strawberry cake sprinkled with cinnamon. So rich."

"As long as you're happy with it." Huo Lin sipped her black tea.

Sugisaki had brewed a pot and poured a cup each for the club president, himself, and Amano, their senior.

To Amano, ordinary food tasted like cardboard, and black tea was no exception. It merely met her body's need for water.

Huo Lin was quite pleased with it, though. It was nearly dusk now, and the Literature Club room at that hour, coupled with the fragrance of black tea, had a charm all its own.

"Sugisaki, did you take lessons in brewing tea?"

"Nothing gets past you, President. I learned online."

Having someone notice the effort you put in behind the scenes and acknowledge it-that was what made the effort worthwhile.

But what concerned Sugisaki more was how the president had casually brushed aside her hair at the temple with her little finger while drinking tea. Her hair there wasn't long. Was that gesture necessary? It looked rather feminine.

In truth, "Huo Lin Yagami" didn't have long hair at the temples, but that was merely the visual illusion created by Magic Disguise. Over the three months from June to September, Huo Lin's actual hairstyle beneath the disguise had become the same as Hayate's, because Hayate was the one who took care of it for her.

Come to think of it, whenever he'd happened to run into the president in the restroom lately, she'd always gone into a stall. He didn't think he'd ever seen her use a urinal.

Actually, had the president ever used a urinal before?

Sugisaki tried hard to remember, only to realize that he genuinely couldn't. He had no recollection of it. After all, before he'd joined the Literature Club in third grade, the president had been a stranger to him. Naturally, he wouldn't have paid attention to a stranger.

Sugisaki Ken had played games featuring girls raised as boys for family reasons and the like. It was a fairly well-known premise in popular games-though, generally speaking, such a girl was one of the romance options for the male protagonist in a dating sim.

Right, wasn't there a trailer a while ago? Ouran High School Host Club, scheduled to air next spring-that was exactly what it was about, wasn't it?

Still, that was a story aimed at women, not a dating sim aimed at men.

To Sugisaki Ken, it didn't matter whether he was pursuing someone or they were pursuing him. He would discover the other person's identity by chance, and then they'd have a shared secret. After that...

"Sugisaki, are you thinking about something you shouldn't?"

"Huh?" With the president calling him out, Sugisaki panicked a little and tried to cover it up.

"Anyway, Amano is already in sixth grade. She'll graduate next year. How are we going to recruit enough members to keep the club going? That's what you should be thinking about, Sugisaki."

Huh? So that was what the president had been talking about? Lost in his dating-sim fantasies, Sugisaki hadn't heard a thing.

Still, she had a point. Even if it was only for the sake of his own easy, enjoyable school life, he absolutely couldn't let the Literature Club be disbanded!

This was the crucial period when new students signed up for clubs.

"Leave it to me, President! I'll definitely recruit some new members."

Huo Lin nodded in satisfaction. Sugisaki was pretty useful as an errand boy. As for his many other flaws, she could simply ignore them.

After all, she'd long since determined that Sugisaki was harmless. For all his smooth talk, he was actually a thoroughly decent, earnest fellow. If a girl really stood in front of him and confessed her feelings, he would be completely at a loss.

Several days passed quickly. Huo Lin didn't feel much about Sunday's book signing, except that her hand ached terribly from signing so many books.

And the name she was signing was "Yusaku Kudo." After writing the same name hundreds of times, the characters started looking so unfamiliar that she forgot how to write them. Several times, she'd nearly written Huo Lin Yagami instead.

"Thank you for all your hard work, Mr. Kudo!"

"You too, Editor Nohara."

Authors weren't entertainers and didn't have agents. Editor Nohara had personally accompanied her throughout the entire event, working without complaint like a model employee. A thirty-one-year mortgage was truly terrifying.

Still, if the magazine performed well, Nohara's bonus could also increase, since he was the editor who'd recognized Mr. Kudo's talent and signed him. Perhaps he could even pay off the mortgage before his son Shin-chan and daughter Himawari came of age.

In short, Mr. Kudo was his lucky star. He had to do his utmost to look after him and couldn't afford to slack off.

"Now that work's over, let me treat you to a meal."

"Oh, I couldn't possibly let you pay, sir! As your editor, I should be treating you."

"Where would you get the money? Don't you have a mortgage to pay? I only have myself to feed. My royalties are more than enough."

That hit Nohara right where it hurt, but Mr. Kudo's words also surprised him.

"Sir, are you still unmarried?"

"Hm? Yes, I am."

Nohara didn't know whether to envy him or pity him. After all, Mr. Kudo's registered age was over fifty. He wasn't bad-looking, though his height of one hundred and fifty centimeters was a little on the short side.

There was nothing Huo Lin could do about that. To appear as Yusaku Kudo, she was already wearing shoes that added more than ten centimeters to her height. Her actual height was still under one hundred and thirty-five centimeters.

Perhaps there was magic that could completely alter her build, but she hadn't learned it yet.

"Then thank you for treating me."

Even so, Nohara hadn't expected Mr. Kudo to choose somewhere that was neither an izakaya nor a barbecue restaurant.

It was McDonald's, of all places.

"Sir... what made you want to come here?"

"Don't you like hamburgers?"

"It's not that I dislike them." As a meal during work, Nohara could accept anything edible. Sour, spicy, meat, vegetables-he wasn't picky.

But the people around them were all students. Most were girls in middle or high school, or couples on dates. Nohara felt completely out of place.

He felt like a foreign object that didn't belong in the surrounding atmosphere.

Huo Lin, meanwhile, was entirely oblivious.

Barbecue wasn't suitable for lunch, and an izakaya had never even entered her mind. A Chinese restaurant or a pizza place was also an option, but since McDonald's was the first place she'd spotted, there was nothing wrong with choosing it.

"Don't hold back. Order whatever you want. Fried chicken, fries... how about a combo?"

Huo Lin herself didn't have much of an appetite. She'd never eaten very much. Last time, at the hot spring inn, she'd ordered a whole pile of food and thoroughly overestimated her capacity. Both she and Hayate had ended up stuffed.

For her appetite, one hamburger was enough. Or she could just order fries and a cola.

As for why she'd invited Editor Nohara to lunch, wasn't it perfectly natural for students and teachers to have a meal together after finishing a project or a performance at school?

Although Huo Lin had memories of her previous life, she had still been a student back then. She'd only just started her second year of college when someone killed her with a knife from behind.

Right, I wonder if they ever solved the case. In the last moments she remembered, the attacker seemed to have been smashing things in her rented room, probably trying to make it look like a burglary or something.

Though whether they caught the culprit no longer had anything to do with her.

In other words, she knew nothing about life as an office worker. She hadn't experienced even a single day of it, much less the so-called corporate culture of this island nation.

Mr. Kudo really is a peculiar person, Nohara thought.

He was clearly in his fifties, a full twelve years older than Nohara, yet he showed no trace of the wear and tear of time. Someone capable of writing such meticulous mysteries and devising scenes on such a grand scale had to be an elder with ample life experience. Yet Mr. Kudo gave the impression of being more like a young kid.

Even now, while Nohara was fidgeting uneasily in a setting that didn't suit his station in life, Mr. Kudo seemed completely at home, as though he really were one of the middle and high school students around them.

So am I just not composed enough?

Nohara took a bite of his hamburger. Actually, it tasted pretty good.

At any rate, he'd certainly saved himself the cost of lunch.