Sleepless Nights

Chapter Four: Dinner for Three

"Arrow, did you make any proposals for Mr. Hirose yet?" Chief sprang towards my desk about the same time I sat down in my chair the very next morning. I looked up at him and smiled nervously.

"Well yes, but I could only think of... one."

He looked surprised. "Only one? Well, actually I kind of expected that." He scratched the back of his head with light laughter. Should I be insulted? "Well whatever, take it with you. We're going out."

"Going out where, sir?" I got to my feet and reached for my messenger bag, which I had just taken off, and slung it back over my shoulder. I had nothing better to do or work on anyway.

"I made an appointment with Mr. Hirose. He's free from one to two so we need to get there now." I lifted my phone from my desk to check the time. It was ten till one. Why did he wait till now to tell me this? Chief could have called me in earlier or something. Wait, what am I saying, I wouldn't want to come to work earlier then I had to.

Hurriedly, I printed out my edited proposal from the computer and stuffed it in a folder Chief handed to me. It had a few other papers in there, which I assumed were the proposals he wrote. Together we left the building and got into Chief's little car. I found it funny that such a tall guy had a tiny vehicle, but I kept my amusement to myself.

"Look over the proposals I made before we get there if you could." Chief said from the driver's side. I nodded and opened up the folder, fishing out the ones Chief made.

The first one I saw was for a romantic comedy. Well Hirose does have a sick sort of humor so that could possibly work.

The next one was an interview style, but I didn't exactly see how that could work. Taking a real life experience from a random person and turning that into a story? How odd...

The final one was a masquerade romance. My thoughts quickly drifted to the image of myself in a large princess dress with a beautiful mask covering my eyes and nose, concealing my identity. A tall man walked up to me in a flattering suit, a black mask covering his face. He bowed in front of me, and when he brought up his head his amber eyes twinkled...

"What do you think?"

"Eh? Oh, uhm..."

Chief glanced at me sideways. "I want your honest thoughts, Arrow," he warned.

I closed the folders and cleared my head. "Well... I don't think they fit Mr. Hirose's image."

"I'm aware of that, but Ryoichi Hirose's world view doesn't really coincide with our magazine's colorful image."

"Then why do we want a serial story from him in the first place?" I asked, feeling a little guilty after doing so.

He shrugged and stopped at a red light. "To attract a new audience of course," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. I thought back to my last conversation with Hirose. That's exactly what he predicted we wanted from him. And still there is no real benefit for him to gain from all this. "Besides, he asked for benefits, didn't he? These proposals could inspire him to try something new."

I still remained silent. It didn't feel right. "Did you want to hear mine?" I asked him since he couldn't really read it right now. He nodded and I read off what I had written last night shyly. When I finished Chief had a weird look on his face. "...Oh come on Arrow."

"What?"

"This is a fashion magazine. Who would ask him to write something like that?"

Defeated, I looked down at my proposal. "I thought it'd be interesting, and a change of pace for once..." I muttered dejectedly.