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Saga had come to love the color green.
If you had asked Saga a few months ago, he wouldn’t have been able to tell you what his favorite color was. He probably would have just defaulted to black like he usually did–that’s what the bulk of the clothes in his wardrobe were after all.
Black was a safe color to him; it was neutral, and it matched how he felt most of the time. And above all else, when he wore black, he didn’t draw unnecessary attention to himself.
He had thought he was beyond the desire to be acknowledged by anyone around him at this point in his life, so he might as well wear what would pull the fewest looks in his direction.
But despite showing up to school every day in the proper uniform, a black gakuran jacket and black slacks, doing the absolute most to not draw any attention to himself, he still always found himself on the receiving end of one particular underclassman’s gaze.
Saga had no idea what he had done to so completely capture the guy’s attentions, and for the longest time he found the whole thing annoying–trying to convince himself that he was beyond desiring the acknowledgement of some scrawny teenager who’d barely gone through puberty yet; that he would be perfectly fine going on with his life never learning this kid’s name.
But as his stalker’s efforts (to what end-goal, he wasn’t quite sure) continued, Saga found himself almost…comfortable. Despite the slow but sure collapse of his parents’ marriage going on at home and having little to no positive relationships in his life, there was one constant, and it was that lanky brunet always being right around the corner, watching his every move.
But even though he had such feelings deep down, his rationality leaned more on the side of ‘this is a stalker, this is stupid, this kid is nuts,’ and so on.
Things stayed that way, until one day during his third year of high school, he was looking for a novel to check out from the school library–the next in a long line of books that he would always use as an excuse to hang around at school and be away from the heavy weight that he associated with home, if you could even call it one.
He had very clearly seen who he was certain was his stalker (named Oda Ritsu, as he had recently discovered from looking at some old book checkout slips) eyeing the same bookshelves, but he didn’t care to let that get in his way. He hadn’t been noticed yet anyways, so he could probably just grab the book he wanted and get out of there without Oda seeing him.
But of course, it wasn’t so simple.
Right as Saga reached up to grab the book, it became very clear that Oda had also been reaching for the exact same one, still unaware he had company.
When he turned to look at Saga to see just who had been attempting to grab the same book, recognition quickly bloomed on his face and he gasped.
Saga had never gotten this close of a look at Oda Ritsu’s face until now, so he took in his stalker’s features as he looked up at him with shimmering green eyes.
“Saga-senpai…” He breathed out, obviously shocked to see him so close.
In that brief moment, the same eyes that had followed him around for the past three years were boring into him, before flickering in every possible direction other than directly at Saga’s face.
“O-oh, um!” He stuttered out, gesturing towards Saga. “I’m sorry, you can have the book.”
Somehow even his voice sounded exactly like Saga had expected it to, albeit a bit more nasally at the moment from the obvious stress of the situation.
There had been plenty of options for Saga at that moment.
He could have done as Oda had told him to, taken the book, and just gone about the rest of his day as planned.
He could have gone easy on Oda, given him the book, and then left to find another book to read.
He could’ve confronted him for three year’s worth of stalking and gotten him to finally leave him alone.
But he did none of those, his curiosity winning out.
“Why do you know my name?” Saga asked, despite the answer having been obvious. It would’ve had to have been the checkout slips, the same way he had figured out Oda’s name.
Saga hadn’t thought that it had been that hard of a question to answer, but Oda just kept staring at him quietly, his face getting more and more red as a bright red blush overtook his face. Until he finally spoke, saying the last thing that Saga had been expecting.
“I’m in love with you.” Oda said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Saga had been on the receiving end of love confessions before, but at the very least he had directly interacted with those girls beforehand. With Oda, he had no idea just what had set off this whole ordeal to begin with, as he definitely hadn’t spoken with him before. He had no idea what exactly Oda saw in him. And they were both men. It was confusing.
But he seemed far too earnest for it to have been some sort of joke or confusion on his part. This was something gentle and genuine and innocent, and that made Saga feel like he was confronting the most ugly parts of himself by even just looking.
So he asked Ritsu out with the intention of shattering whatever illusions he had.
But that decision quickly backfired, as Saga found himself falling in love for the very first time in his life.
There were so many little eccentricities and idiosyncrasies that made up Oda Ritsu. With every little thing he learned about him, Saga came to care about him even more, even if he wasn’t exactly the best at showing it.
He hadn’t really had a basis of a loving relationship to work off of between his parents and his own past girlfriend. There were the relationships that he’d read about in books, but those weren’t of much help either when not even any of the most out-there books that he had read had characters even close to Ritsu.
It was all worth it though when Ritsu would smile brightly at him and look at him with eyes full of joy, so much brighter and happier than anything Saga had been accustomed to being directed towards himself.
Ritsu’s eyes always shone so beautifully when his head was tilted up enough for Saga to see them. Unfortunately, they were a fairly rare sight because he was constantly looking down or screwing his eyes shut when the two of them were in close proximity.
If Saga were to compare them to anything, he’d liken them to gems–emeralds with small specks of yellow scattered throughout.
If only Ritsu were comfortable enough to make eye contact with him more, he’d get to see them more often.
Takano had come to hate the color green.
Ever since Ritsu had roundhouse kicked him and ran out on him a couple of years ago, Takano had developed bitter feelings towards their whole relationship.
He finally had felt as if he could open himself up to someone, that someone would love him for who he was without wanting him to change, only for Ritsu to just up and leave before they were even together for a month.
Maybe it was stupid to let one high school relationship affect him this much even after years had gone by, but he had really and truly fallen in love with Ritsu.
He poured weeks upon weeks into search efforts, asking people if they knew Ritsu’s whereabouts, describing his physical features when the name didn’t ring any bells, and hoping that mentioning which first year class he had been in might help.
He came up short over and over again, until he finally found someone who seemed to know who he had been talking about. Those few moments before Ritsu’s old classmate elaborated on what he knew, Takano had a spark of hope that maybe he would find Ritsu again–that all his efforts would finally be rewarded, and maybe they could finally be together again.
But no.
Ritsu had a fiancée the entire time that they had been dating, and had left the country to complete high school.
He hadn’t even been in Japan.
Months upon months of efforts were suddenly revealed to have been useless, and what little hope that he’d had that he could repair the one truly happy relationship that he’d ever had got stomped out instantly.
He didn’t know how to deal with his feelings, so he skipped out on all his university lectures, and eventually ended up resorting to alcohol to numb his pain.
Now that he had no reason to hold back anymore under the assumption that he might get to be with Ritsu again, he started sleeping with anyone willing, and there was no shortage of such people out there.
The worst nights were the ones where there were brunettes–it was already bad enough when someone with brown hair would be looking at him and blushing. But every now and then, a brown haired, green eyed person would come along.
They’d get to his apartment and go through the usual motions, but by the end he always felt bile ready to spill from his throat. The worst ones were the younger girls from college that fit that bill that called him ‘Senpai’. On more than one occasion he had to stop before anyone was finished just because it became too painful.
At times he had dreams where Ritsu looked just as he’d remembered him, his gakuran jacket buttoned up all the way, holding a book or literary magazine, smiling at him so brightly, blush decorating his cheeks, and his green eyes sparkling. He’d wake up crying about how he couldn’t have that anymore, yearning to go back to that point in time and do things differently, change whatever had made everything go so incredibly wrong.
It was honestly pathetic, letting the dumb little first year who he’d been planning on crushing the spirit of affect him so deeply this long after they’d gone their separate ways.
But despite everything, he still had trouble looking back on their time together in a negative light. It was just so difficult to believe that Ritsu had been anything but genuine in his actions or his love. And that’s what made it all hurt so much more.
It took a long time for things to get better, for Takano to feel somewhat normal again. Yokozawa did a lot of the heavy lifting on that front, but Takano was the one who had to truly dedicate himself to staying out of the rut he had gotten himself so deeply entrenched in.
He started going to class again and was able to finish out his degree on a high note. He started working at a publishing company, Shuudansha, as part of their shounen manga department.
He’d gotten better at processing the emotions that came with the reminders of Ritsu–the brown hair, the green eyes–those were features that he just had to accept that some people had. He couldn’t just get wound up every time he saw those.
But then there were challenges, like when a coworker at Shuudansha just approached him completely out of the blue and confessed to him. While it had obviously been something she had planned, he hadn’t exactly received a spontaneous confession like that since…Ritsu.
They would break up due to unrelated circumstances a few days later without anything having happened, but he couldn’t say that it hadn’t at least shaken him up a little bit.
Any attempt at dating anyone went absolutely nowhere. Things would always circle back to Ritsu in his mind. He could never fully bring himself to hate him or the time that they spent together despite how much pain it had ended up causing him.
Even though years had passed and certain memories had faded somewhat, he would still hold onto their time together for the rest of his life. Even if Ritsu had a fiancée at the time, the two of them had something back then, if only for a short while.
Now when he dreamt of green eyes, he didn’t cry anymore.
Takano dreamt of the color green.
After bouncing around a few odd jobs here and there after things went to shit at Shuudansha, Yokozawa was able to get Takano an interview at Marukawa Publishing. From there, after answering the senior managing director’s questions honestly, he got placed as the new editor-in-chief of the shoujo manga department.
It was in a awful state when he first showed up, and he hadn’t worked specifically in shoujo manga before, but it was fairly easy for him to adapt. It was still manga editing after all, just like he worked with before. The only difference was the target demographic.
Of course, it wasn’t like he was able to do it all perfectly overnight. He poured hours of hard work into compiling what would go on to become his “Complete Training Manual for Shoujo Manga Editors,” an effort to improve himself as well as others.
Despite his new subordinates having been around the genre for longer than he had been, over time he was able to help improve on the skills of three particular editors, Hatori (who quickly became the designated second in command), Kisa, and Mino. The four of them were able to form a tight knit team and weed out anyone not pulling their weight. The higher ups would keep trying to hire more editors for the department to help out with the workload, but none of them could stand it for long, leaving in less than a month time and time again from the way Takano ran things.
There was a definite improvement with the magazine's output over what it had been before Takano came on board, but despite the work and editing for the magazine improving, it still wasn’t reflecting well in the sales numbers. They had to think of something to change things up, something big to change how people viewed the magazine–they ended up settling on doing a rebrand.
More than anything else, it came down to separating it from the current image that came to mind when you thought up the magazine in its current state.
The very first thing that they decided to change was the magazine's title.
Over time, the four of them deliberated on all sorts of aspects that went into the rebranding process. But the night before they were to decide on a new title, Takano had an idea come to him.
Perhaps all the shoujo romance manga he was editing now that had high school settings were to blame, but he’d been dreaming of Ritsu quite a bit lately.
The rest of Ritsu’s facial features had begun to fade from his memories, but the one thing that refused to let go were those piercing emerald eyes.
Emerald.
That was the name they’d go with.
Takano loved the color green.
“Takano-san, the next magazine sample is here.” Ritsu called as he approached the head desk.
“Oh, thanks.” Takano accepted the book as it was handed to him.
“I was wondering…” Ritsu began, eyeing the magazine that Takano had just placed down on his desk. “Takano-san, you were the one that came up with the name Emerald, weren’t you?”
“Ah, yeah.” Takano caught his gaze, now also eyeing the magazine logo. “We did a rebrand not that long after I took over the department.”
“Is there any particular reason why you chose the name Emerald?” Ritsu asked, his eyes catching the overhead lights in just the right way that Takano felt like he was ten years younger.
Takano just stared at him silently for a moment, to the point where Ritsu almost wondered if he had said something wrong.
“You’re a shoujo manga editor, you should be able to figure something like that out on your own.” Was what Takano had eventually settled on.
“Huh?” Ritsu just stared at him, cocking his head slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Takano stared right back, looking right into his eyes. “You really want to know?”
“Yes…?” Ritsu, now less sure of himself, blinked when Takano stood up from his chair, exiting the cubicle. He beckoned Ritsu over, and he followed closely behind in silence, quite curious as to why he couldn’t just say something like that in the office.
Eventually, Takano kicked the mens' bathroom door open, and Ritsu reluctantly followed him inside until they stopped in front of the sinks.
“Why did you bring me here?” Ritsu asked, briefly concerned they were about to do something less than appropriate for the workplace.
Takano nudged his head towards the mirrors, and Ritsu looked curiously. There was nothing out of the ordinary.
“I don’t get what you’re trying to…” Ritsu suddenly caught his own reflection, focusing in on his green eyes. “No. You didn’t.”
“And if I did?” Takano asked, quite content with the way a familiar blush was starting to overtake Ritsu’s face. “What are you going to do about it?”
“That’s-” Ritsu started, voice getting caught in his throat from embarrassment. “You hadn’t seen me in nearly a decade by that point. A-and Sapphire was already a thing, wasn’t it? Changing the name to Emerald wasn’t just to match them?”
“Nah, they rebranded to match us as our sister magazine. When Emerald started doing better, we took it as an opportunity to spread that further. Not that Sapphire has ever been suffering too much since they have Akikawa Yayoi-sensei bolstering their sales.”
“I can’t believe you.” Ritsu held his head in his hands, heat radiating off of him. “You’re absolutely ridiculous.”
“No,” Takano corrected him. “I’m in love.”
“That might as well be the same thing.” Ritsu shook his head, unsure of whether he should be flattered or creeped out that Takano clung to his eye color of all things for the better part of a decade.
“Maybe it is.” Takano took a step closer and slowly guided Ritsu’s chin up so that he’d be looking at him. “But you really do have beautiful eyes.”
Ritsu looked anywhere but at Takano, the ceiling, the toilet stalls, the mirror–oh God, not the mirror, he can see Takano still looking at him–he just could not for the life of him maintain eye contact right now.
He probably wouldn’t be able to maintain eye contact with Takano ever again knowing what he did now.
“Ritsu.” Takano called, his other hand now resting on Ritsu’s lower back.
He stiffened. Using his first name at the workplace was a big no no.
“Could you look at me please?” Unfortunately for Ritsu, he had a difficult time saying no under these circumstances, slowly turning back up until they were making eye contact again.
Takano relished in the way Ritsu’s eyes seemed to be getting warm from how hot his blush was, adding a shine to his irises that he usually only got to see when they were doing other activities.
“You’re thinking about something embarrassing, aren’t you?” Ritsu asked, brows furrowing slightly.
“When your face looks like this, how can I not be?” Takano’s lips curved into a small smile before he leaned forward to give Ritsu a kiss.