YNoMH? (BL)

Off Air 5.2

Off Air – Story 5.2

Part 2: Imitation Gold

Translator Note: This side story takes place around the end of Volume 2.

Nishikido headed to the lounge area for news cameramen and checked the memo from the camera desk. There were two camera crews covering an emergency bomb squad response. The bomb squad would finish their work rendering safe an explosive device that day, but one of the crews would remain on site for continuing news coverage. People could take a taxi over if there was no room in the news van. A location was chosen for tomorrow night's interview about an expiration date scandal with K Seafoods, and a crew would head over to Araki at 1 pm for an overnight stay... As for his own schedule, Nishikido was assigned to cover an incident for the daytime news. Someone had strung fishing line between some trees at a park, and an elderly man had come across it on his bicycle in the early morning, fell, and hurt himself. The reporter would be... Minagawa from the announcer department. Shit, it was that loud, annoying brat, wasn't he? They would be teaming up for the first time, and Nishikido wasn't looking forward to it. It was gonna be a real pain in the ass, he could tell.

Just as Nishikido started to head to the smoking room for a cigarette, he ran into Kunieda walking towards him in the hallway.

"Nishikido-san, good morning."

"Hey."

Kunieda held up a paper gift bag. "Um, I received a box of sweets from Narayama-kun from Nagano Asahi as a thank-you for the live report that we did together. I was thinking of bringing them to the camera desk."

"You can leave them on a table somewhere. People will help themselves to it."

"I will do that. It seems that he is able to do his TV job normally now."

"Heh. Well, it doesn't change that he's still useless."

"He has his whole career in front of him."

Kunieda gently covered for him, but who knew what he actually thought. There was too much of a difference between the two of them even after accounting for their ages—Narayama could never compare to him no matter how hard he tried or how many chances he was given. Anyway, there was no rule saying he couldn't do his job if he wasn't spectacular at it. Nishikido had seen plenty of lackluster announcers over the course of his career, and Narayama was another drop in the bucket.

"Hey, what's that Minagawa kid like, Kunieda?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Gonna cover a live report with him today. He's on The News with you, right?"

"...I believe it would be better to see for yourself rather than asking me. You'll understand in about 30 seconds once you meet him," Kunieda replied with a vague smile. He wasn't the type to put on airs, so why was he dancing around the question?

Nishikido was smoking a cigarette in the smoking room when the door opened and he saw a face that would never usually show itself in this place.

"Nishikido-san, long time no see."

There were 3 or 4 other people smoking in the room, but when they saw Asou, they immediately put out their cigarettes and excused themselves. Asou hadn't said a word to them, but it was ridiculous to yield their right to smoke in the few places where it was allowed. Nishikido blew a puff of smoke at him, clearly declaring that he didn't give a damn about the guy's throat.

"What do you want?"

"It looked like Kunieda was in your care in Nagano, and I wanted to say thank you very much."