Reverse Harem 3

"And here's the room." Akiba opened the door to direct him to the destination they agreed upon. It was a massive room mainly covered with multiple desks with people working through on their assignments. The jobs done here were mainly looking for and correcting mistakes, then providing the proper formats needed to convey the artistic intent of the stories.

Most of the people in here at the moment were intently working, as they had deadlines to meet. So respectfully, the pair kept their distance and tried to speak quietly to not distract anyone. Instead, they looked over their shoulders to grab a peek of the efforts that went into making the form of entertainment they loved the most. At least until they reached ones that they actually read. Because spoilers were terrible and they weren't about to do that to themselves.

"You weren't kidding when you said I'd love this." Said Arata. "This is great." He was overjoyed to watch the editors take care of business. The only way for something like this to get better would be to run into one of the actual authors to any of these stories. "There's so many people here."

"Yeah, it looks like they have a lot of things to get published." She responded. With so many copies, it was impressive this company was able to run through dozens of stories while also being able to print them in the thousands. That required not only a lot of unappreciated effort, but also focus, determination, and teamwork in order to ensure nothing was missed.

"And there's still a lot left to be worked on too." He pointed over to a table stacked with multiple drafts where no one was currently at. Arata was walking over there while she seemed hesitant to follow.

"Maybe we shouldn't fool around with those." She told him, trying to keep her distance and hoping he would do the same. "We wouldn't want to mess up anything for them.

"Relax, I'm just eyeing over them." He responded with little worry. All he was planning on doing was to just peer over them to see the titles and author names. Since the copies were appeared to be low priority. They were either drafts for future chapters currently being worked on, or possible pilots attempting to get picked up.

Since they were drafts, most of them either didn't have cover images, or those images were just rough sketches. However, as he looked at each and every one of them, while he was still standing in the back nervously looking at him, there was one that caught his eye. "How come your name is on one of them?" He asked.

"There isn't one that has my name on it." She replied, though her tone made it abundantly clear she was lying. "You must be misreading it or maybe I just have the same name as a real artist.

"Really? But it says Akiba Shinshiro." He responded by reaching over for it. This prompted her to rush over where she initially was hesitant to move towards and slap her hand atop it.

"I already said it isn't mine!" She was filled with fright as she yelled at him.

"Technically, I didn't say it was yours." After all, he had only mentioned it seemed to have her name on it.

"Okay, fine." She sighed, keeping her hand on top of the pages so that he wouldn't be able to check it out. "I submitted that one." It now made a lot more sense as to why her mother mentioned her desire to enter the industry. That wasn't just something for a future goal, she was already attempting with works to this company.

"Wow, I never knew I was friends with a real manga artist." He was seriously impressed with the idea of her creating her own manga. "How come you've never told any of us?" Even him, whom she shared a ton of secrets with didn't know about this.

"It's nothing really serious." She replied, picking up her draft. "I mean, I'm not a great artist, and I only did it because they have a small promotion right now for indie artists." Akiba was embarrassed to let the others know about her small dream. She felt a bit silly for even trying it out, but by the time it was sent off, it was too late to back out.

"Sometimes you worry too much about what we'll think." He tried to encourage her to show him what she had created. "It's not like any of us are going to hate or make fun of you. In fact, we would love to support you whenever we can."

"You really mean it?" She stared at him as they maintained eye contact for a while. "Then, you can take a short peek. But don't read the entire thing. I mean, there's probably misspellings, or a weirdly drawn picture, or some mistake I can't think of."

"Relax, it's just a first attempt." Plus, he was more excited at possibly reading the next popular manga right here. So Arata opened up the draft to take a look at what she had drawn. "Oh wow…"

"It's awful, isn't it?" She spoke through her hands as they were up to cover her face.

"It's awfully good, that's for sure." Probably not the best joke to be making with someone who was scared of being made fun of. "I never knew you could draw so well, and this character is real pretty. Is she the protagonist?"

"S-she is." After his positive reception, Akiba began to warm up to talking about her work. "I mean, she's not that pretty…" It was also embarrassing, and perhaps a sign of bad writing that the girl was based on herself.

"You don't need to be so hard on yourself." He responded. "This is looking really good." Arata turned to the next page, which showed off some other characters and a funny little joke with the girl tripping as she ran out of the house. "I think I'd consider following this if it got published."

"Well, you don't have to be that nice." She was feeling better about herself hearing his praises. "And let's not pretend I'm published just yet."

"I certainly hope it does." He said as he turned another page. There, it seemed the story was introducing the male lead. "Ha, is this supposed to be based on Yogi?" Arata laughed as it would make for a funny idea to self insert yourself and have your crush be the opposite lead in a romcom. Well, it would make for a terrible story idea, but it would be funny if something like that got published.

"Actually, he's based on all of you." So apparently this boy also had aspects of Akaki and Arata as well. "He's a little shorter than everyone else and they make fun of him for it. So it's kind of like how you're short and cu… Um, I mean."

"And what?" He turned his head to ask what she hesitated on saying. Though only now he realized that while they were reading, the pair had gotten rather close physically now. Their faces were mere centimeters apart, and their lips had even nearly touched when he turned his head. "Um, never mind." Out of a nervous reaction, he turned his gaze from her and closed the draft. "Maybe we should meet with the others now."

"Y-yeah, it's about time." She also felt the effects of their close encounter as they had lost all the chemistry going about. At this point, she had already been questioning her feelings for him, but that moment certainly gave her a new look at him in a different light.

In Arata's mind, there was something much worse going on. As they walked side-by-side, he was filled with thoughts of concern. What was he thinking feeling this way about her as he couldn't get his hear to stop racing. The boy already knew about her feelings for someone else. And more importantly, he was well aware of another person having a crush on her.

Akaki was a dear friend to him, they had been through a fair bit together. Maybe it wasn't anything like the stuff he did with the girls, but that boy was still one of his best friends. And yet here he was, spending time with that boy's crush and feeling the way he was.

To be fair, maybe it was just temporary lust that teens feel sometimes. Akiba was a real cute girl, one of the cutest at school even. It was a challenge to resist her charm, and certainly there were plenty of boys who were interested in her just based on appearance alone. But to Arata, it was more than just mere looks with her. With their chatting and conversing, he actually enjoyed being around her. Even with their rocky start and learning of her hidden terrible feelings towards people like him encroaching on her territory.

Even that wasn't enough to hold back this feeling growing in his heart. It had only grown stronger as they hung out in his type of environment. There was no way, he couldn't, he shouldn't. That would be a betrayal of what he considered to be the trust of Akaki.

But then, wouldn't that trust already have been broken after the day she kissed him? That was right as he remembered, Akiba really did kiss Arata on the cheek when they arranged that one… Totally a non-date… No, he thought. That kiss didn't mean anything other than a playful thanks coming from a pretty girl. That day they spent alone together wasn't a date, but his mind was entering some kind of wishful thinking.

"You know." She spoke up, breaking him out of a dangerous line of thought. "With everything going on with all of us, that would make for an interesting manga." Akiba was trying to break the ice once more by making light of their current situation. "Having a lot of girls liking you does make for a popular idea."

"Yeah, you're right." She brought up a good point for him. Arata did have a fair few girls who had crushes on him. There were so many choices for him, that was nearly a good problem to have… Then, as she continued to walk, he stopped. "If only you were one of them…"

"Hmm?" She didn't hear what he had muttered under his breath. "Is something wrong?"

"Oh, um, nothing." He put on the best face he could for her. As Arata walked up to catch up, there was now one painful thing on his mind…

He had fallen for Akiba.