Magical Girl Overtime

1.02 The Demon of MagiColle Publishing and the Crimson Angel

1

A man was lying in his bed at a terribly advanced time of day, snoring peacefully without a care in the world.
But suddenly a loud bang shattered his peaceful sleep. At first it was dismissed as a hallucination – maybe something in his dream caused this noise, which left him in a groggy, disoriented state, about to slip right back into pleasant dreams within minutes.
Then a second bang sealed the deal and had him jolt wide awake. A third followed, then a fifth and finally it became a rhythmic cacophony of low, thudding noises. The point of origin was right down the hallway, past a few tied-up plastic bags filled with month-old garbage and a clutter of aluminum cans where his front door was located, neatly visible from his cheap bed.
He squinted his eyes as a ray of light hit his face from the sloppily closed curtains. It was around noon. Way too early for him to be awake. In fact, one could argue that being required to be awake and lucid before two in the afternoon was a human rights violation that every nation in the world was guilty of.
But enough of that. For now, he had to figure out what that infernal noise coming from his door meant. Was it a neighbor visiting to complain about the stench of garbage? Unlikely. All his neighbors were loathsome beings, commonly referred to as 'normies'.
It being a Wednesday meant they would be at work at this time. Or, if they were those who worked afternoon or night shifts, would be asleep like him or out in Kabukichō to be given false compliments by pretty girls who pretend to like them for money.
Those who were even higher on the dreadful 'normie' totem pole might even be out there in Shinjuku on a date with their girlfriends. They should die.
The next possibility was a delivery, though that was also not very likely. He didn't remember ordering something recently and if a pre-ordered figurine from one of his favorite anime had been delivered after he placed an order half a year ago, he would at least get an email notification about it. Alas, there were none of those on his phone. And come to think about it, he had never met a delivery person passionate enough about their job that they would keep banging on his door until he woke up.
He crossed his arms in front of his chest and took a deep breath as he contemplated the implications of the thought that had just crossed his mind:
With all the other options exhausted the only thing that was left was-
"Yoshida! I know you're in there. You NEVER leave that stinking apartment! Your manuscript was due this morning!"
-exactly that one. His editor was paying him a visit.
Oh.
Toya Yoshida was a 20-year-old professional writer. And he was in big trouble.

He immediately jumped off the bed and towards the low table in the middle of his room. His laptop was still there, and with only a single push of a button it woke up from sleep mode. He frantically checked his progress on 'The Demon Lord's Right Hand Woman is my Sister Volume 6', which he had to finish and send to his editor this morning.
Okay, that was not the whole truth. He had to send it to her two months ago but since that was a so-called 'soft deadline' he didn't care much about it. He apologized to an appropriate degree and promised to finish it before the true deadline. Needless to say, he just passed that one, too, resulting in his editor banging on his door in this very moment.
If his progress was far enough, he could try to quickly write whatever was left and simply pretend that he overslept for the turn-in deadline.
Ah...
That single word pierced his mind as he witnessed the fruits of his lack of labor. He was three whole chapters off from finishing the volume. There was no chance in hell he would be able to write that much before his editor broke down his door and dragged him to the publishing house to have him court-martialed or whatever publishers do with lazy writers.
Ignoring his judgment of the situation he started typing. He wrote, and wrote, and wrote. His focus was impeccable! He actually couldn't hear the banging on his door anymore, only the soothing 'clack-clack' of his fingers hitting the keyboard, that's how focused he was! He continued writing, not even knowing himself for how long until suddenly it got harder to see what was on his screen. A ray of sunlight fell on the device and the weak backlight stood no chance against the radiance of a million grains of dust lighting up like a sea of stars, obscuring the words on his dirty machine. He really should invest the one minute it would take to wipe the screen. Maybe tomorrow.
Must have left the balcony door open and the wind is pushing the curtains away. He contemplated before turning around.