Chapter 48: Jealousy
Hiroshi Nohara was not some naive college student. He saw through that kind of recruitment clearly.
It was just a probing recruitment.
If he defected, he might indeed gain some resources at the start. But who said that, as a betrayer, he could earn the other’s appreciation?
One had to know that in neon culture, betrayers were quite looked down on.
Such verbal promises had no legal effect whatsoever.
In the end, he could be used up completely, everything in his brain emptied out, then replaced with someone else’s name, making a wedding dress for others—it was all very likely to happen.
So Hiroshi Nohara scoffed at that kind of recruitment.
Returning to the Production Bureau Headquarters Building at Tokyo Television Station, Hiroshi Nohara continued working on《An Shizhi Season 2》.
He kept at it until the afternoon.
“Phew!”
Hiroshi Nohara stretched, feeling thirsty, so he left the classroom and headed to the Production Bureau’s public pantry.
This was a rare oasis in the body of this high-speed steel behemoth where one could catch a slight breath. There were no rigid hierarchical titles, no tense performance pressure, only steaming water vapor and the warm aroma of black tea.
Crucially, the black tea was all free.
It was an employee benefit.
Hiroshi Nohara skillfully took a clean bone china cup from the cabinet, tore open a packet of black tea, poured hot water over it, and amber tea soup rippled in the cup like a small, warm sunset.
He was just preparing to find a corner to stay quietly for a while when a somewhat familiar voice, whose name he couldn’t recall, sounded from behind.
“Nohara-kun, right?”
Hiroshi Nohara turned around.
A middle-aged man wearing a plaid shirt and black-rimmed glasses was holding a cup of coffee, his face bearing a quite sincere smile mixed with curiosity and appreciation.
He recognized that face; it seemed to be a third-class director from the neighboring classroom, someone he’d nodded to a few times in the corridor.
“Hello, Section Chief Sato.” Hiroshi Nohara nodded lightly, his memory proving useful at that moment.
“Haha, you remember me.” The director called Sato was clearly a bit surprised, his smile growing even warmer: “Sorry to bother you, I just wanted to say, your《An Shizhi》—my whole family is hooked. Especially my daughter in middle school; she’s now your loyal fan and says… says she no longer dares to go alone to the school music room at night.”
As soon as he said that, it was like flipping some wondrous switch.
The several staff members who had been chatting quietly in their respective corners all gathered over, like iron filings drawn to a magnet.
“Section Chief Sato is right! Nohara-kun, that《paper》 concept is pure genius! The female assistants in our classroom now get scared and walk around whenever the copier jams!”
“I think the《contradiction》 episode is the best—pure logic terror, that’s the real advanced play. I thought about it all last night and still couldn’t figure it out: which one was the real ghost, the one at the door or the one on the phone?”
“Teacher Nohara, how do you come up with these stories? Have you really… seen those things?”
In an instant, the small pantry turned into Hiroshi Nohara’s personal fan meet-and-greet.
These directors and planners who usually held their own in their fields now looked like a group of curious students surrounding him, probing the mysteries of that enigmatic world called “fear.”
Hiroshi Nohara just listened quietly, a mild and polite smile on his face, occasionally responding to the questions with modest remarks like “just some half-baked ideas” or “you’re all too kind.”
He was like the eye of the storm he himself had stirred up, unmoved no matter how noisy the world around him got.
That poise and composure beyond his years gradually brought a hint of genuine respect into the eyes of those seniors who had only been curious at first.
No one disliked a young person who was so humble yet so capable.
But amid this lively crowd, Ichiro Hashishita and Hoshi Minamimura walked in holding their cups.
Seeing Hiroshi Nohara at the center, surrounded like the moon among stars, Hoshi Minamimura’s young face instantly filled with undisguised envy and worship.
“Wow… Teacher Nohara is really the big star of our station now.” He lowered his voice and sighed to Ichiro Hashishita beside him: “I really envy his talent. If only I could make work like that someday.”
His words were casual.
But they were like an invisible fine needle, lightly yet precisely pricking Ichiro Hashishita’s heart.
The knuckles of Ichiro Hashishita’s hand holding the tea cup turned slightly white from the force.
He looked at that figure nearly ten years younger than him, surrounded by the crowd, looked at the unstinting praise on those seniors’ faces, and a nameless fire called jealousy quietly burned in his chest.
He thought of himself.
He recalled following Section Chief Suzuki from Kanto Stage to this Tokyo Television Station headquarters, working diligently and conscientiously, enduring countless sleepless nights, drawing countless storyboard drafts without rest.
But what was the result?
His third-class director promotion application was ruthlessly rejected. In the classroom, he was still just a line producer, just… an assistant.
And this young man named Hiroshi Nohara—how long had he been here?
With just a opportunistic, roughly drawn “slideshow” like a child’s scribble, with a few sensational ghost stories, he shot straight to the top, becoming the “genius” on everyone’s lips, the hotshot that even Deputy Director Asumi specifically wanted to see.
Even Section Chief Suzuki, whom he had followed for so many years, now looked at that young man with admiration and reliance he’d never seen before.
Why?
In Ichiro Hashishita’s heart, that nameless fire burned ever more fiercely.
He didn’t think《An Shizhi》 was all that impressive.
It was just somewhat novel in concept; in terms of production and visuals, it was practically amateur level.
He had participated in the production too—the coloring, the editing, which part didn’t have his effort? Yet in the end, all the credit, all the glory, fell on that young man alone.
He himself, along with the entire classroom, had become stepping stones for him to reach the peak.
Ichiro Hashishita clenched his teeth.
This realization was like a poison-quenched dull knife, slowly sawing back and forth in his heart, bringing sharp stabs of pain.
He picked up his tea cup, hoping the warm liquid would douse that evil fire, but as the tea went down his throat, it turned into even deeper bitterness.
At that moment, his peripheral vision caught a familiar figure.
It was Kojima, the assistant from the neighboring Iwata’s Classroom.
Kojima was standing at the pantry doorway, not coming in, just giving him a subtle glance, then nodding his chin toward the quiet corridor nearby.
Ichiro Hashishita’s brow furrowed imperceptibly.
He and Kojima got along okay—not friends, but since their classrooms were adjacent, they occasionally ate bento boxes together at the convenience store downstairs and chatted idly.
He thought for a moment, then set down his tea cup.
Perhaps he wanted to temporarily escape that lively circle that was suffocating him.
He said to Hoshi Minamimura, who was still looking at Hiroshi Nohara with envy, “I’m stepping out for a smoke,” then quietly left the pantry.
He followed Kojima and turned into that seldom-visited fire escape corridor.
At the end of the corridor was a meeting room that was chronically vacant and used as a storage room.
The door was ajar.
“What do you want with me?” Ichiro Hashishita looked at Kojima, his tone flat.
Kojima didn’t answer, just showed a somewhat odd smile on his face, then pushed open the door and gestured “please” to him.
“What’s with all the secrecy?” A trace of inexplicable unease flashed in Ichiro Hashishita’s heart.
But he still went in.
The room lights were off, the light dim, the air floating with the smell of aged dust.
Then, he saw it.
In the deepest shadows of the room, a figure was slowly rising from a chair.
The man wore a well-tailored suit, a sinister smile like a viper flicking its tongue on his face.
It was Masao Iwata.
“Hashishita-kun.”
Masao Iwata’s voice rang out in the sealed, dim room, carrying a creepy stickiness.
“Let’s… have a chat.”
Ichiro Hashishita looked at that face, increasingly distorted in the shadows, and felt his back instantly soaked in icy cold sweat.
He instinctively wanted to turn and leave, but discovered that the door behind him had, unbeknownst when, been quietly closed by Kojima.
A “click,” crisp and final.
Like a cage dropping its final bolt.
