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Somehow, Matsuoka Rin finds himself inside a tiny local bookstore, lining up in a queue that consists mostly of women in the age range of between thirteen to late 20’s. By the entrance of the bookstore, there’s a sandwich board decorated in complimentary pastel purple and white that helpfully informs passersby about an autograph session held by one of the nation’s most sought-after shoujo manga artists – Yamazaki Souka.
If anyone’s interested to know, this is not how Rin would ideally choose to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon, but then there’s Gou, his sister one year his junior but fully capable of manipulating her beloved brother and roping him into her plans with a measured amount of pleading puppy-dog eyes and saccharine reminder that she still has those adorable photos of him in the maid outfit.
She insists that, unlike a high-school senior like herself burdened with the pressure of midterm exams and responsibilities of being the manager of the school’s swim team, Rin, being a college student who’s currently on vacation, can spare a couple of hours waiting in line in her place to get her favourite manga artist’s autograph.
Unbeknownst to Gou, however, Rin has actually been following Yamazaki Souka’s work for quite some time. He isn’t an avid manga reader by nature, being someone who’s more into general non-fiction and whatnot, but it’s kind of hard to avoid the genre when his sister constantly has a volume of manga in her hands at home and she’d occasionally persuade him to come along to the bookstore during certain release dates for mangas she’s especially passionate about.
Yamazaki Souka’s works – including her newest series Draconic Origins – are of top-notched quality, and even for someone who doesn’t read comic books often, Rin can still appreciate the delicate art style as well as the meticulous and elegant story-telling and world-building. The mangaka does a pretty good job conveying a convincing romantic plot in between exciting aerial battles fought by dragons and humans, combined with a cast of diverse and vibrant characters fixed in a fantasy historical setting that’s rich with interesting cultural backstories.
Yes, fine, so maybe Rin is a bit of a closet fan beneath his cold façade of indifference; obviously, no one would need to know this. Ever. He’s got a reputation to maintain after all.
The line-up is beginning to shuffle forward, and Rin follows the teenage girl in front of him who sports a full head of shocking pink hair and lips painted in a bright shade of red. When Rin first started lining up about an hour ago, the girl – winged eyeliner and all – had been eyeing him up and down with suspicion, and Rin supposes he can’t blame her seeing as he’s maybe only one of the very few male audiences in the queue.
There has been some whispering behind him, too, and Rin catches curious stares aiming his way and not-so-subtle murmurs of, “Oh look, is that man a fan of Yamazaki-sensei too?” and “Maybe he’s here for his girlfriend?”
Rin has to force himself to stare straight at the ground, cheeks burning so much it may as well be matching the colour of his hair; the newest volume of Draconic Origins he has just purchased is being held so tightly in his hands that the cover is starting to crinkle under the pressure of his gripping fingers.
And so one humiliating minute turns into five, which gradually extends to almost an hour as the queue continues to advance slowly forward, Rin dragging his feet and only armed with a flimsy volume of manga while the hype around him increases as they get closer to the table where the star artist is sitting at.
“Next please.”
What is he supposed to say when he meets the manga artist anyway? Rin has never attended anything like this before, but he can’t possibly go wrong with common courtesy, right? Actually the more he thinks about this, the more nervous he’s becoming; what if he fucks this up so royally that he’ll end up getting kicked out and Gou will forever judge him for failing such a simple task as getting Yamazaki Souka’s autograph?
“Excuse me, sir, please move along. You’re next.” The young man, assumedly to be one of the staff from the pale blue uniform he’s donning, wearily signals him forward.
“Shit, sorry.”
Rin jogs the few steps until he reaches the table, mutters a timid hello and a sincere but probably the most unoriginal compliment without as much as lifting his head up, and places the book gingerly down, sliding it towards the artist for him to sign.
“A male fan – how rare,” a decidedly warm, deep, and not-at-all female voice startles Rin out of his flustered daze, and he looks up, brows drawn in perplexed confusion, to see amused teal irises glancing back at him, the corner of his lips lifted into a small, teasing smile.
“Oh! This is not for me,” Rin finds his throat inconveniently stuffed up with cotton balls all of a sudden, and he clears his throat, cheeks heating up as he averts his gaze so that he’s staring at the poster board behind the manga artist instead. “My younger sister is a huge fan of yours, but she couldn’t make it today, so I’m just here in her place.” Rin realizes belatedly that he may have sounded unpleasant, like he’s only here because he didn’t have a choice.
“What a considerate brother you are, then,” the mangaka replies with an easy grin – not that Rin can see it or anything because he’s too busy trying not to stare at the talented artist whom he’s always thought all this time to be a woman.
‘It doesn’t make that much of a difference, really,’ Rin thinks. Man, woman… The important thing here is that he is able to tell a compelling story with his beautiful art, right? His heart, threatening to beat out of his ribcage when he chances another glance at the dark-haired mangaka, suggests otherwise.
“N-not really.”
“And what about you?” Yamazaki-sensei is twirling a black marker around with his nimble fingers, thin brows slightly arching in question.
“What about me?”
“Have you read this yourself?” The mangaka waves Rin’s copy of Draconic Origins to emphasize.
“Kind of hard not to when all my sister had been talking about these days is how much she wants Anfroy and Galienne to get together already after all they’ve been through,” Rin chuckles when he fondly remembers how zealous Gou becomes once she gets going on one of her manga-related rants. “She also mentions how there were dragons and brilliantly-drawn action scenes – that’s how I kind of got into the series, I guess.”
“I’m so glad,” Yamazaki-sensei breathes out a laugh, deep and reverberant, sea-green eyes glimmering with renewed enthusiasm. “So, what do you think –– ”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Yamazaki-sensei,” a staff standing off to the side rushes in with an apologetic bow, “but we really need to keep this queue going since we’re running on a rather tight schedule…”
“Looks like I’m holding up the line,” the mangaka smiles remorsefully at Rin, and flips to the title page of the manga before asking, “Who should I make this out to?”
“Gou,” Rin replies, and adds, “please.”
“Of course,” Yamazaki-sensei nods and begins to write a brief note on the page.
“Threw in an extra postcard for the indulgent brother,” the dark-haired mangaka hands Rin back the book with a playful grin, the aforementioned art card tucked securely in between the pages.
“You didn’t have to –– ”
This is not happening; he’s not blushing like a goddamn teenager talking to his crush; he’s not.
“I insist,” he assures the red-haired man, offering his hand in parting; it looks welcoming – skin stained with ink marks old and new – a sign of his diligent work – and fingers warm and calloused, long and strong enough to wrap around Rin’s smaller hand.
For a torturously long second, Rin has forgotten how to function, and when he finally notices that Yamazaki-sensei is waiting for some sort of reaction on his part, he quickly grasps the mangaka’s hand, gives it a brief shake, and let go without seeming to be too weird about it. Rin’s not sure what he’ll do if he’s allowed to keep touching, and that urge in itself is strange enough.
“Then, thanks,” Rin murmurs, head lowered to allow the few stray locks of his fiery hair to fall into his eyes, giving him an excuse to avoid staring like a star-struck fool.
“Any time,” Yamazaki-sensei gives him a small wave as Rin moves out of the way for the next fan in line. “And please relay to your sister my most sincere gratitude for her constant support.”
“I will.”
It isn’t until he’s well out of the stifling bookstore and two blocks away on the sidewalk when Rin can feel his heartbeat finally slowing down to a more moderate pace. As he waits for the bus, his gaze once again catches on the corner of the postcard that the mangaka has given him; a hint of guilt swims across his mind for only a second when he tugs out the card carefully from its confines, and then he remembers that Yamazaki-sensei has specifically asks for him to take it.
When he went in to line up for Yamazaki Souka’s autograph session that afternoon, he definitely wasn’t expecting the mangaka to be a male; in fact, if he were to be honest, he wasn’t expecting the artist to be such an attractive and charming individual, either. Rin may not know much about the manga industry, but he’s certain that not all manga artists look half as good as Yamazaki-sensei did in a grey-green plaid button-down shirt, the top two buttons undone and sleeves rolled up to reveal some finely-shaped forearms.
The postcard is a hand-drawn watercolour painting of Draconic Origins’ two protagonists: Anfroy, a black-haired, golden-eyed aviator who’s the captain of one of the fastest-flying dragons in the German troops, is posing with his love interest, the princess-turned-aviator Galienne, a red-haired woman donned in a steampunk-inspired uniform, with a baby Winchester, its scales shining pink-purple, settled on her shoulder. The lines flow smooth on paper, and the shading, composition, and colours are deftly balanced to bring out the characters’ intricate designs.
Gou would probably pay him a fortune just for this, Rin muses with a soft chuckle, and when he flips the card over, he’s surprised to find the familiar handwriting in black ink.
I would very much like to hear your opinion on my work, perhaps over a cup of
coffee? – Yamazaki Sousuke
And underneath what must be the mangaka’s real name is a hastily scrawled phone number.
Well.
Shit.
Now he’s done it.
Rin stuffs the card into his messenger bag with utmost care, mind pleasantly blank as a small grin pulls at the corner of his lips. If Gou catches sight of the message on the postcard, he’ll never hear the end of it.