Only a Game Could Raise Him
The iron door did not look particularly sturdy. No answer came, and still the editor-in-chief stood where he was. He did not knock again. He simply held his ground.
When Kazuhiro first joined the publisher, he had carried a dream swollen fit to burst. As an editor he would stand beside writers and bring a magnificent magazine into the world. In practice, his real work was tramping every corner of Japan to collect manuscripts. Couldn't the pages simply come by mail? Not a chance. Writers who went to ground the moment a deadline loomed were hardly a rarity—one or two would have been a mercy. Just a few more days... no, even a single day... and then, truly, a wonderful manuscript... And then they cut the line. There was no counting them. His years at the very bottom were spent, almost entire, playing hide-and-seek with artists.
Strangely enough, after some five years of the same labor, a sense for it settled in. The way a veteran detective knows a culprit on sight, he could look at a dark window and tell, roughly, whether a writer was home. This was one of those windows. Beyond the old security bars, not a silhouette showed. And yet—why did he seem to hear, right against his ear, a breath held too carefully to be let all the way out, lest it carry past the door?
How many minutes had he been standing there, blank, when something rattled. A small stir of life inside the house. Then a window eased open a crack, and through the gap Kazuhiro saw a pair of brown eyes.
"So you were in, Suzuki."
"Nnngh."
"You knew I was out here, didn't you?"
A nod. Another nod.
"And you opened the window anyway?"
"I heard someone come in. I never heard the footsteps leave..."
"Thought I might have collapsed out here?"
"Not exactly..."
A little worried, if one had to guess. Trust a writer to have imagination to spare.
"I've come a long way. Could we talk?"
"If this is about handing me background work..."
"It isn't about backgrounds."
"Then what?"
"I want to give you a serialization, Suzuki."
"A solo serial... for me?"
"Rather than doing it like this, wouldn't it be better to talk inside?"
This was not a prison visit. There was no reason to hold a conversation through iron bars.
"If that's uncomfortable, we could find a café nearby."
"I prefer the house. I can't stand walking."
Suzuki did not so much as offer a glass of water. It wasn't malice so much as a social sense that had never quite come in. What he offered instead was something else entirely. Kazuhiro let it pass with a mental shrug; this was simply the man. Jo Sudeok, from the look of him, was nowhere near so used to a welcome of this kind. Well—he would never have met the type.
How hard do you have to scrub a place before there isn't a single speck of dust?
Nor was that the end of it. Packs he rarely used were sealed in zipper bags and stored apart. Kazuhiro soon fixed his eyes on Suzuki. It wore the easy look an editor learns to put on, but study it and it was a beast's eye on prey. That unreadability had a way of leaving writers ill at ease, and Kazuhiro had always counted it among his strengths.
"......"
Whatever those eyes were doing, Suzuki's face said he could not have cared less.
"Let's finish what I started to say. I'd like to offer you a solo serialization."
"A short?"
"Short or long, it hardly matters."
"True enough. It wouldn't matter."
"...?"
"Whatever it is, I can't do it."
"I'm sorry?"
"A serial is absolutely impossible for a lazybones like me."
The plea he was used to ran the other way—even a tiny little feature, please, just let me serialize something. And now this?
"You can't, because you're lazy?"
"If I'm going to blow the deadline every other day, better not to start at all."
"......"
"Don't you have rent to pay?"
"I cleared everything I owed with what I made last time. I'll be fine for a few months."
"And dates?"
"I bring the train fare. My girlfriend covers the rest."
"Tuition, then..."
"I'm dropping out soon."
By this point it was starting to sound as if he were inventing the lies in the order they occurred to him.
"So you mean to drift through life as a background man?"
"Drawing's a hobby. My dream is something else."
"With skill like yours, why on earth would you—"
"Haaahm."
Suzuki yawned, bored of the whole subject.
"If it isn't rude, may I make myself comfortable? My back hurts a little."
"I'm the one who barged in. Of course you should be comfortable..."
The words had barely left his mouth before Suzuki spread a cushion and flopped facedown on top of it. One could guess how the rest of this was going to go.
"Even a one-off would do. Isn't there a story you want to write?"
"......"
"Whatever you bring me, I can develop it. Into the shape readers love best..."
"Doesn't matter. I still can't keep a serial's pace."
Ha!
"D-don't you want to make a lot of money?"
"Sure I want to make it."
"Good. Then all you have to do is what I tell you—"
"Oh, please. And here I thought you had something."
Suzuki shook his head hard, finished with it. Hand the money over for free and he would take it. Work to earn it? He had no such intention.
I ask you.
Nearly twenty years an editor. He had thought he'd survived every battle there was, war on the ground and war in the air. A newcomer who had not even debuted, and this utterly without hunger—that was a first.
What am I supposed to do with a case like this?
In the instant the dead end closed Kazuhiro's mouth, a sound came from beside him.
"Hm."
Jo Sudeok, seated at his shoulder, had quietly opened his own.
"Suzuki, wasn't it?"
Nod, nod. The face of a man for whom saying a thing twice would only tire his mouth.
"Whose work is it?"
"Say the name and you still wouldn't know it. Still an amateur."
At that, Suzuki lost interest on the spot. Jo Sudeok did not let the silence stand.
"From what I hear, Miyamoto Hideo—the father of Super Orlando—is taking the director's chair."
"What? You said it was an amateur's work."
"The planner is an amateur, yes. The idea, though, is so good that Mr. Hideo seems to have taken an interest."
Here Suzuki's eyes gave a thin, unsettled flicker. Even then, Kazuhiro thought it hopeless. That was the shape of the thought.
And then—
"Is that true?"
Was this what people meant by dilated pupils? Suzuki asked again, eyes blown wide.
"Mr. Hideo is... making an RPG?"
"If I go now, I can play it right away?"
"You can. There's a prototype Mr. Hideo admired. That one, you can play immediately."
He was on his feet. Not a moment spent weighing it; he simply launched himself up out of the spot. A moment ago—hadn't he said his back hurt? Look at his eyes now, and a midair somersault did not seem out of the question.
...Haah.
And with the sigh came a sudden, flying sense of futility. What was this artist(?) who could wear out an editor of twenty years' standing, and what was this professor, running some custom build(?) on the man?
While Kazuhiro was still turning the questions over—
"What are you doing in someone else's house?"
"You planning to keep sitting there?"
The two of them were already on their way out.
Jo Sudeok, back again, tipped me a wink.
I had told him to give Kazuhiro the first chance, and if the man couldn't land a blow, to recite the lines I had fed him. I hadn't thought it would take much force.
That face... it landed.
Sure enough, a stranger followed Jo Sudeok in. A shut-in who never left the house, perhaps—the face looked younger than the age. Yes. This was Suzuki. Behind him stood Kazuhiro, expression blank with loss.
"A-as you commanded... I have brought Author Suzuki."
"Already?"
"Eh? Ah—yes. Yes."
And why the eyes so emptied of confidence? I asked even though I knew, and Kazuhiro produced the answer with the strained groan of a constipated man.
"I only got the door open. Everything after that was the professor..."
"Is that modesty?"
"It's the truth."
I looked at Kazuhiro and said nothing. Hard to be certain.
I will remember today for a long time.
Wasn't that the message pouring off my eyes? It must have arrived exactly, because his head sank. For a while, if I told him to drop dead, he would at least go through the motions. Good. Enough traffic-directing for now. I turned to Jo Sudeok, and the report came in at once.
"There was a little time on the way over, you see. So I told him the story from America—how you and Mr. Hideo came to meet, Director. The behind-the-scenes of it. You should have seen how hard he listened..."
Well. A game fanatic had no choice but to prick up his ears at Mr. Hideo's early days.
So he's heard the explanation, more or less.
All that remained was writing a contract. But there was no need to rush. Promise a fee if he wrote the story, hang terms on the deal, and the only result would be the opposite of the one you wanted. A lazy genius works when his own heart moves, and not before. So, then? First you give the heart a reason to move.
"Thank you for coming all this way."
"......"
"No need for a long speech. Let's play it."
Fortunately, Kazuhiro's room had a personal computer. I slid a 5.25-inch diskette into the drive. My brother had brought a second copy for backup; I had never imagined it would earn its keep like this. While I typed the commands, Suzuki asked a question, a thread of disappointment in his voice.
"This one's a prototype. Mr. Hideo and I are preparing the port to the Family now."
The title screen came up. His eyes were already going dull. If home had been close, he might have turned around and left then and there. Ten minutes, though, was all it took to change Suzuki's mind.
Clack-clack-clack. Clack-clack-clack-clack.
Right about then, Jo Sudeok drifted over to my side and said something quietly in Korean, low enough that only the two of us would catch it. The moment the words were out, he seemed to wish them back.
"...No, no. How could I harbor a doubt? In anything you undertake, Director, I have—unconditionally—in-fi-nite trust. Heh heh."
"You came over this quietly just to say that?"
"My resolve is simply that firm... ahem."
A grin. I understood Jo Sudeok's worry well enough.
As if I wouldn't have already thought it through.
Instead of an answer, I gave him a small smile.