Chapter Text
“I what.” Ronald said. “No. What? No. No! What!?”
“I fail to see the source of your confusion, Ronald-san.” Fukuma-san murmured very gently, adjusting his glasses with obvious murderous intent. “The market research speaks a very clear language. Must I get out the thumbscrew graphs?”
“No, that’s not what-” Ronald pressed himself more firmly against the back of his chair, sweat trickling down his neck. Despite the ominous cold winds always whistling through the Autumn Shoten building, sounding almost like the screams of the damned, Ronald felt like he was going to boil under the flickering neon light of Fukuma-san’s office. “I just. What is it that you want me to do, exactly...?”
“Well, Ronald-san,” Fukuma began again, in the voice one would use on a particularly stupid child about to be drawn and quartered. “The bi-monthly reports have indicated that romance sells particularly well in recent times, and especially so among young and middle-aged women, with whom Ronasen has generally been popular. So I highly suggest that you incorporate a romantic plotline into your next volume.”
“B-but there’s nothing there to incorporate!” Ronald tried, with increasing desperation. “How am I supposed to write romance into my autobiography if I don’t have any in my real life?”
“No girlfriend?” Fukuma-san pressed. “Partner? Lover? Ex? Past infatuation you could flesh out?”
Ronald shook his head, and then kept on shaking it, feeling increasingly more humbled. In his editor’s presence, he never felt very much like Ronald the Great, and rather more like Ronald the Very Very Small And Pathetic One.
“Nothing at all? How very sad and pitiful.” Fukuma concluded, smiling placidly. Bosatsu jumped up into his lap, and he began idly stroking the cat’s back, only adding to his overall villainous air. “But no matter.”
Fukuma-san’s free, non-cat-petting hand moved to rest idly on the hilt of his axe, and Ronald involuntarily crossed his legs. He still didn’t trust that thing in a room together with Ronald Junior.
“You will write a romantic plotline. I’m sure your vivid imagination will carry you through, and I look forward to seeing the end result. Soon, since your deadline is in three weeks.”
“...Fukuma-san.” Ronald frowned. “Are you… are you suggesting I just make something up? Lie to my readers?”
“Of course I am not, that would be terribly unethical and morally dubious, not to mention potentially illegal,” Fukuma-san smiled. “I am not suggesting any such thing. If you were to do that, it would be your own idea and decision. Choose wisely, Ronald-san.”
Ronald swallowed.
“I understand,” he whispered meekly, and resigned himself to his fate as an aspiring romance novelist.
“Are you quite finished,” Ronald bit out, petting John more fiercely to overcome the impulse to take Draluc by the back of his neck and slam his face into the floor a couple times.
Draluc, the bastard, just started laughing harder, half-sliding down the kitchen counter and clearly having given up on further preparing the omurice he’d promised to make Ronald to cheer him up after his meeting at the publishing house, which really just added insult to injury.
“It’s not even that funny!” Ronald snapped. “Stop laughing, asshole!”
“O-on the contrary it’s- it’s very funny!” Draluc gasped, eyes shining with tears of laughter. “You- and romance- oh, I’m going to die!”
He then proceeded to do exactly that, dissolving into a pile of still-hysterically-giggling sand, which Ronald promptly kicked, despite John nu-ing loudly in protest.
“And do you know what the best part is?” Draluc picked himself off of the kitchen floor, still grinning with so much delight one would think a number of holidays had come early and coincided with his birthday. “The best part is undoubtedly the fact that you agreed despite having no practical experience whatsoever! Oh, how will your poor virginal soul handle the excitement?”
“My poor virginal soul will be just fine, thank you.” Ronald forced out, biting down a reflexive ‘I’ll kill you!’. He still wanted that omurice, and Draluc tended to decorate his meals with celery if Ronald antagonised him while he was cooking. “You think I can’t do it, huh? You think I’m a bad writer!?”
“Now now, Ronald-kun, don’t be so touchy, I said nothing of the sort.” Draluc gave him a reassuring smile that rather made Ronald want to punch his stupid vampire fangs in. “But honestly, why didn’t you just refuse?”
“Fukuma-san’s battle axe made some convincing arguments.” Ronald shuddered, and John nudged his nose against his jaw to comfort him. “I didn’t dare.”
“Understandable,” Draluc hummed, and went back to cracking eggs. “So, what will you do now? Gather some experience? I can only recommend online dating platforms, I put them to good use back in the day, when I still lived in my castle.”
“You what.” Ronald blinked. Draluc going out and dating? The thought left a sour aftertaste in his mouth. Presumably just because he was lowkey disgusted at the merest implication of the vampire in a romantic context. Very likely.
“Sure, my account got suspended two weeks in because I was accused of vampfishing, but until then I was flirting quite successfully with a number of charming individuals,” Draluc continued conversationally, oblivious to Ronald’s sudden discomfort, “and only received a very limited amount of unsolicited erotic photography. Who knows, it might work even better for you.”
“We’ll never find out, because I’m not doing that,” Ronald scowled. “I’ll just make something up from scratch. Tell the story of a past fling that’s already long over in an extended flashback. Nobody’ll ever know it didn’t actually happen like that.”
“You’d lie to your readers? Oh, Ronald-kun.” Draluc shook his head mock-sadly. “Where’s your authorial integrity?”
“Nu,” John agreed, giving Ronald a look of quiet disappointment, which stung quite a lot worse than anything Draluc could have said.
“S-shut up!” Ronald muttered defensively. “I’m doing what I can to survive in the harsh world of commercial publishing.”
“I’ve lost all the respect I ever had for you,” Draluc informed him, which would’ve been a lot more devastating if he hadn’t said it while still grinning and bouncing slightly on his heels with glee at Ronald’s misfortune.
Ronald set John down on the counter, gave him a little kiss on the forehead, and then went up to Draluc to very calmly say “fuck you” and punch him in the face.
He had to spend half of mealtime picking suspiciously green and celery-like bits out of his omurice, but honestly, still worth it.
Okay.
Romance. Love.
He could do this.
Yeah he could.
Totally.
Ronald stared at the empty white page on the screen, and seriously considered faking his death to run away with John (and mmmmmaybe Draluc, too) to the Bahamas and start a new life there as a professional surfer.
But no. No. Draluc (that asshole!) had quite literally laughed himself to death because he believed Ronald’s writerly skills would fail to rise to the occasion - his pride was on the line, now, along with his life and Ronald Junior, should Fukuma-san ever find him, so he really had no choice but to at least try.
Ronald gritted his teeth. It was important for an author to branch out, wasn’t it? Try their hands at something new on occasion? Everyone knew he could write gripping action, thrilling mystery, and touching tales of heroism, all the while cleverly weaving in his impressive expertise about vampire hunting - now to demonstrate that he could write heartwrenching romance just as well.
Right then.
A love interest. He would need a love interest. Someone worthy of stealing Ronald the Great’s heart, who would make for a compelling romantic partner…
…
...how about a vampire?
Human/vampire romance novels were all the rage, lately, Ronald had seen them at the bookstore, and wasn’t romance all the more compelling if there was some reason or other that made it taste of an illicit affair, a forbidden love? To write about a hunter and a vampire falling for each other would be just the thing to make reader hearts race: a surprising alliance between sworn enemies, full of yearning passion and bitter denial, choosing love over their respective natures - and ultimately ending in tragedy and loss, of course, because Ronald did not presently have a vampire girlfriend, only a pesky vampire roommate, and that absence would surely be noted by attentive Ronasen readers.
And as for how he and this mysterious vampiric beauty met… well…
Ronald tapped his fingers on the table. Leaned back. Thought.
A romantic first meeting - but thrilling, too, he might as well play to his strengths here. Romantic, romantic... what would make Ronald’s heart beat faster, personally?
Well. Now that he thought about it that way… he did have a few ideas.
With a satisfied smile spreading over his face, Ronald put his fingers to the keyboard. This wasn’t so difficult, after all.
He could, in fact, actually do this - and Draluc (that obnoxious idiot!!!) could choke on his mocking laughter and die. Again.