Starting from Their Seventeen Years Old

After the banquet in Ginza broke up, Kobayashi Tomoaki - thoroughly pleased with how the evening had gone - drove Tsushima Kagami home and pulled up in front of his apartment building.

"Kagami-kun, get some rest once you're inside," Kobayashi Tomoaki said with a smile, watching him in the rearview mirror as he gathered his things to get out.

"You too."

"Sorry to have troubled you again tonight."

Tsushima Kagami dipped his head toward the man in the driver's seat.

"Ha ha ha, don't be ridiculous."

"Even my daughter - the one who married off to Nagoya - brought the grandkids home to visit recently, and she said I've been looking younger ever since I started spending time with you."

"Oh? Is that so?" Tsushima Kagami laughed, surprised.

"It's true. And not just her. Even Ai says I'm not as stern as I used to be."

Tsushima Kagami had been to dinner at the Kobayashi household several times by now, enough to know that Kobayashi Tomoaki's wife was named Ai.

So he smiled back, and meant it. "Then the honor is mine."

"Changing a person is no small thing, after all."

"So please keep troubling yourself with my manuscript when you get home, Editor-in-Chief Kobayashi."

Kobayashi Tomoaki only smiled and nodded, committing to nothing.

Tsushima Kagami pushed the door open and stepped out. A gust of cold air hit him and he shivered.

"Oh, right."

Something had occurred to Kobayashi Tomoaki, and he called him back.

"Kagami-kun, are you planning to make a run at the Naoki Prize this first half of the year with The White Tower?"

He glanced, as if idly, at the second photocopy of The White Tower sitting on the passenger seat.

"A double winner of both the Akutagawa Prize and the Naoki Prize - there aren't many names in the whole history of Japanese literature who've managed that."

"Seems you're quite the ambitious one, Kagami-kun."

Standing outside the car, Tsushima Kagami bent down to look in at him.

"Mr. Kobayashi."

"Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I'm not chasing these prizes to prove anything at all?"

"Then what for?" Kobayashi Tomoaki asked, puzzled.

Tsushima Kagami thought about it, and in the end only smiled.

"Good night, Mr. Kobayashi."

He shut the door and turned toward the building.

Watching him go, Kobayashi Tomoaki shook his head, still smiling.

"Young people these days. Harder and harder to read."

…

Winter break came to a definitive end, and the third term arrived before Tsushima Kagami knew it.

He'd expected to slip back into the leisurely rhythm of school life. Instead, within a few days, an invitation arrived from Tanabe Takashi at Fuji TV.

The gist of it: after several days of internal discussion, they had decided to adapt Tsushima Kagami's The White Tower into a script.

And they wanted to bring him on separately as the production department's temporary series composition - in other words, head writer.

The role was usually optional on a television drama, and was sometimes doubled up by the enshutsu - the episode director - or by one of the staff writers.

The job itself was to oversee the story architecture of the whole work: how the plot was parceled out across episodes, and keeping the tone consistent throughout.

Tsushima Kagami only had to steer the broad direction, handling the crucial first and final episodes himself.

For the rest, he'd hand out outlines and let the other writers take it from there.

They were all veterans, after all - every one of them with a few widely loved drama scripts already to their name.

Given his outlines to work from, the quality of what they produced wasn't something he needed to worry about.

Sunday. Odaiba, Minato Ward.

Tsushima Kagami sat in the back seat of the car Fuji TV had sent for him, watching the building through the window.

The network's new headquarters, completed two years ago, stood along the Odaiba waterfront, its enormous spherical observation deck - the Hachitama - glowing a silvery gray in the morning light.

Seagulls wheeled between the buildings, letting out the occasional shrill cry.

This building had probably lodged itself in a lot of people's memories.

It was the one Wizardmon had gazed up at when Tai and the others returned to the real world in the first season of Digimon - and that sphere was the one that got blown apart at the end…

Today was his first time entering Fuji TV as a "temporary scriptwriter."

For the occasion he'd put on the dark navy double-breasted suit Yukinoshita Shizuku had bought him.

The wind off the bay was strong, carrying the briny tang of seawater, and it kept flipping his freshly knotted tie up over his shoulder.

He was still bent over it, straightening the knot, when a voice rang out.

"Tsushima-sensei!"

Tanabe Takashi came striding out through the main entrance.

He wore a charcoal gray suit today, more formal than the one from their last meeting.

"Come, come, this way - there's a private elevator."

"Sorry to put you out, Chief Tanabe." Tsushima Kagami bowed slightly.

"No trouble at all. I'm the host today, so of course I come collect you myself."

Tanabe Takashi laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Let's go. Everyone in the Programming Division is waiting for you."

"Everyone's waiting for me?"

Tanabe Takashi smiled.

"Have you braced yourself?"

Something cold ticked in Tsushima Kagami's chest. He had a fair idea of what that meant.

Those career writers in the Programming Division weren't all going to be delighted about an outsider parachuting in over their heads.

Tanabe Takashi led him through the underground parking garage and swiped a card to summon a private elevator.

"The First Production Division is on the seventh floor."

He pressed the button, and the car rose smoothly.

It stopped at seven. The doors opened.

The corridor was long, laid with gray carpet, white walls on both sides.

Every few meters there was a frosted glass door with a metal nameplate.

First Production Division, Programming Division.

Section One.

Section Two.

Planning and Development Room…

Tanabe Takashi walked ahead, Tsushima Kagami half a step behind.

They crossed the corridor and pushed open the doors to the Programming Division's main floor.

The instant the doors swung wide, Tsushima Kagami stopped short.

The entire open-plan office was full of people, standing.

Men and women, from their twenties to their fifties.

All in formal dress today, lined up in two rows along the aisle between the desks.

Arranged in neat ranks, like a reception for some visiting dignitary.

The moment he appeared in the doorway, every one of them bowed.

"Good morning, Tsushima-sensei!"

He froze for a beat, then bowed low in return.

"Good morning. I'm Tsushima Kagami."

"It's a pleasure to meet you all. I look forward to working together."

When he straightened up, he saw them straightening too - but their eyes stayed on him.

Dozens of pairs of eyes, all fixed his way, sizing him up.

Curiosity. Anticipation. Appraisal.

A few of the looks stood out to him.

A man in his forties in the corner of the third row, whose gaze carried a faint, barely perceptible chill.

A woman writer by the window, the corners of her mouth turned slightly down.

As if to say: this kid? Really?

And in the front row, a young male writer whose eyes were lit up with excitement, discreetly elbowing the colleague beside him.

Tanabe Takashi acted as though he'd seen none of it, and clapped his hands.

"All right, everyone, no need to stand around."

"Reconvene in the main conference room."

"Yes, sir!"

The crowd dispersed in a mix of footsteps, chairs dragging, and murmured conversation.

Tsushima Kagami followed Tanabe Takashi across the office floor toward the conference room at the far end of the corridor.

Passing the writers' desks, he caught glimpses of the material piled on them.

Novels, manga, project proposals, storyboard sheets, half-eaten sandwiches, and coffee cups still giving off steam.

On one desk, a sticky note beside the monitor bore a deadline scrawled in red pen, with a little skull drawn next to it.

The corner of Tsushima Kagami's mouth twitched.

Television writers really were a different species from novelists.

Dramas at Japanese networks all ran on the producer-centric system.

The producer held final decision-making authority.

Everything started with the producer: what got made, and who got assembled to make it.

The core team was locked in by the producer - hiring the writers, choosing the directors (the enshutsu), casting the leads.

That extended to how the budget was spent and who held final cut in post.

Apart from the producer, though, within the Programming Division's whole structure, the writer wielded more power than anyone else.

You could see it in the credits.

On most dramas, the first name in the end credits was the writer's, not the director's.

The directors - the enshutsu - and the producer usually came at the very end.

Which meant that landing a writer's job at a network after graduation was respectable, socially prestigious, and reasonably well paid.

Directors at a network, by contrast, didn't enjoy anything like the standing that a kantoku held in film or animation.

Strictly speaking, the director of a television drama was called the enshutsu.

While the director of a live-action film or an animated feature was called the kantoku.

There was a bit of history behind how those titles diverged.

In the Japanese film world, calling someone kantoku meant that person held an extremely high degree of creative authority over the picture - something close to "author."

In the 1930s, Mori Iwao, a producer at the Toho film company, pushed the producer-centric system in order to weaken directors' power.

He even tried to swap the title from kantoku, with its connotations of absolute authority, to enshutsu, which sounded more like a technical implementer.

The film industry ultimately kept kantoku.

But the word enshutsu was inherited by the television industry.

On dramas, which required large collaborative teams and shot episode by episode, enshutsu came to designate the director of each individual episode, and the usage stuck.

You could think of it as a title born out of divided authority.

In TV anime, too, alongside the kantoku you'd find a different enshutsu credited on each episode.

The responsibilities mirrored those of a drama's enshutsu - essentially the acting director for that installment.

Film may have hung on to the title kantoku, but live-action cinema wasn't in its glory days anymore.

Animated features were taking its place, more of them every year.

And whether TV or film, most animation studios operated under the production committee system.

So while an anime director was still called kantoku…

In practice, apart from independent studios like Miyazaki Hayao's or Shinkai Makoto's, most animation companies were fundamentally producer-centric, not director-centric.

Which was to say: there was no future in being a director.

Better to be a producer at some giant like Toei, Toho, or Sony - pointing fingers and barking orders was far more satisfying.

While Tsushima Kagami's thoughts wandered, the conference room had filled up.

Tanabe Takashi took the head of the long table and left the seat beside him open.

"Tsushima-sensei, please, sit here."

Tsushima Kagami didn't demur. He walked over and sat.

He set down his bag and pulled out a thick stack of documents.

Three sleepless days of work.

The room went quiet.

Every eye converged on him again.

Tsushima Kagami drew a breath and stood.

"Good morning, everyone. I'm Tsushima Kagami. My pen name is Master of Dassai-ya."

"I imagine you all know that already."

"At Chief Tanabe's invitation, I'll be serving as series composition on Fuji TV's fortieth anniversary drama."

He paused, glancing around the room.

"Everyone here is a senior to me in this industry. I only write novels. I have no real experience with drama production."

"If I say something wrong or handle something badly, please tell me directly. There's no need to be polite about it."

His tone was neither servile nor arrogant - the proper deference owed to seniors, paired with the reserve his own position called for.

He noticed several writers nodding slightly, their expressions easing.

"That said!"

His tone shifted.

"When it comes to the scripts, I intend to be extremely serious."

"Not because I think I understand television better than any of you. Because the source novel is mine."

"As both the original author and the series composition, it's my responsibility to make sure it's presented in the best possible form."

As he said it, his gaze swept over the middle-aged writer whose face had been so cold earlier.

The man tilted his head slightly away, avoiding eye contact.

Tanabe Takashi rapped the tabletop beside him.

"Tsushima-sensei, why don't you distribute the materials you prepared."

Tsushima Kagami split the stack into several piles, and Tanabe Takashi's assistant helped hand them around the room.

The contents were as follows.

A complete script for episode one, storyboards included.

A complete script for the final episode, storyboards included.

Outlines for episodes one through twenty-one, roughly three pages each.

A character reference dossier.

Storyboard sketches for the key scenes.

The rustle of turning pages filled the conference room.

Tsushima Kagami sat down and took a sip from the glass in front of him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched their faces.

Third seat to his right was a man in his fifties.

Graying hair, black-framed glasses.

The badge on his chest read "Group One Leader - Yamamoto Takashi."

He read slowly, lingering a long time on each page.

Brow furrowed, lips moving faintly, as if reciting the lines under his breath.

Across from him sat a woman writer just past thirty, her badge reading "Group Two Leader - Nakazawa Kaori."

She flipped through quickly - then stopped dead when she reached the episode one storyboards.

Her eyes widened a little, and she looked up at Tsushima Kagami.

Most of that earlier coolness was gone, replaced by astonishment.

The most interesting of all was the middle-aged writer with the cold face.

He sat at the midpoint of the long table. His badge read "Group Five Leader - Kuroda Kazuya."

His expression was still tight when he accepted the packet. But when he reached the opening of episode one - the storyboard describing Zaizen conducting with his fingers in the shadows…

Tsushima Kagami saw it clearly: the man's fingers paused on the page.

Then he turned to the next page.

And the next.

His expression went from tight to thoughtful, and from thoughtful to something very finely shaded - a kind of reluctant, unwilling admiration.

The room stayed silent for nearly twenty minutes.

Nobody spoke. There was only the sound of paper turning.

The first to break it was Yamamoto Takashi, the Group One leader.

He set the script down and looked at Tsushima Kagami.

"Tsushima-sensei."

"I have a question."

"Please, go ahead."

"That opening scene in episode one."

"Zaizen Goro, alone in his office, sitting in shadow, fingers moving gently through the air."

"Like he's conducting an orchestra no one can see."

Yamamoto Takashi paused.

"How did you arrive at that shot?"

Every head in the room came up.

Tsushima Kagami smiled, sipped his tea, and answered unhurriedly.

"Mr. Yamamoto, have you ever conducted an orchestra?"

"No."

"Neither have I."

"But I've watched a great many documentaries about conductors."

"A good conductor has already played the entire piece through in his head before the concert begins."

"What his hands are moving through isn't air. It's the music inside his mind."

He paused.

"Zaizen Goro is a surgeon. His baton is the scalpel."

"Before he ever walks into the operating room, he's already rehearsed the whole procedure in his head, countless times."

"That gesture in the shadows isn't posturing. It's a man who has already reached the summit - inside his own world."

Nakazawa Kaori spoke up suddenly.

"So that shot is foreshadowing Zaizen's tragedy? That it was sealed the moment he reached the top?"

Tsushima Kagami looked at her and nodded slightly.

"That's right."

Yamamoto Takashi was quiet for a few seconds, then nodded slowly himself.

"It never occurred to me that a medical drama could be expressed through the image of a conductor leading a classical piece."

"It's art, plain and simple."

"No - wrong way round. A precision surgery genuinely can be called art."

"An opening like that is saikou!"

He'd used that word - saikou - rather than "not bad" or "interesting."

Coming from a writer who'd been grinding away in this industry for thirty years, the word spoke for itself.

Kuroda Kazuya hadn't said anything at all.

He was still reading.

The end of the final episode: Zaizen Goro in a hospital bed, late-stage cancer.

His hand rising slowly into the air, as though performing one last operation.

His fingers curling faintly, tips trembling, until at last they fell limp.

That shot answered the conductor of the first episode's opening with perfect symmetry.

Kuroda Kazuya stared at that page for a long time, then closed the script, leaned back in his chair, and shut his eyes.

It was a good while before he opened them again and looked at Tsushima Kagami.

"Tsushima-sensei."

"I've been writing scripts for twenty years. I'd like to think I know a thing or two about socially conscious material."

"But…"

He paused.

"An opening and an ending like yours - I know I couldn't write them."

Kuroda Kazuya went on.

"That grasp of human nature, of life and death - technique alone doesn't get you there."

A slightly bitter smile pulled at his mouth.

"Before this, I'll admit I was thinking: sure, a high schooler who can write pure literature like The Setting Sun and No Longer Human is impressive. Genuinely impressive."

"But literary fiction and television are two different animals. What could a kid like that possibly know about drama?"

"Now that I've read your scripts - I was the shallow one."

With that, he inclined his head.

Tsushima Kagami hurried to bow back.

"Mr. Kuroda, you're far too kind."

"I'm only applying what I've just learned."

"Those two episodes alone nearly cost me my hairline."

"For the rest of them, I'll be relying heavily on all of you."

A few soft laughs went around the room, and the atmosphere loosened all at once.

With the group leaders' endorsement in hand, the writers who'd still been skeptical read what they were holding and came around.

What had started as deference owed to a celebrated Akutagawa Prize-winning literary author turned into the genuine, wholehearted respect of one professional for another.

Watching from the side, Tanabe Takashi let the corners of his mouth lift - then quickly pressed them back down.

"All right, then."

He clapped his hands.

"If nobody has objections to the scripts, let's talk about assignments."

Tsushima Kagami picked up the thread.

"What you're all holding covers everything except episodes one and twenty-one."

"For the outlines of episodes two through ten, I've written in the core plot of each installment, the key lines, the turning points, and the shifts in the character relationships."

He stood, walked to the whiteboard, and picked up a marker.

"Here's how I'd suggest we divide it."

He wrote out the theme of each episode on the board.

"The outlines for episodes two through twenty-one are already quite detailed. I'd like each of you to choose based on your own strengths."

Tsushima Kagami turned to face them.

"Episode two covers the money changing hands in the medical election. Episode three plants the seeds of the malpractice incident. Episode four opens the lawsuit… who here has experience with medical litigation?"

Nakazawa Kaori raised her hand.

"I wrote a drama about a malpractice case before. I did a huge amount of research on the litigation side."

"Give me episodes four and five."

"Done."

Tsushima Kagami wrote "Ep. 4, 5" after Nakazawa's name.

"And two and three?"

Yamamoto Takashi pushed his glasses up.

"I've done some study of hospital internal politics. I'll take episode two. As for episode three…"

He looked over at a young male writer beside him.

"Kinoshita, didn't you say your uncle is a doctor? Take a crack at episode three. I'll check your work."

The young writer named Kinoshita lit up.

"Yes! Thank you, Group Leader!"

Kuroda Kazuya was silent a moment, then said, "Give me six through eight. I've got some ideas for that stretch."

Tsushima Kagami glanced at him and nodded.

Episode nine… episode ten…

One by one, based on the outlines, each episode was claimed by a writer suited to it.

With the assignments settled, the discussion turned to casting.

Tanabe Takashi switched on the projector, and a list of actors appeared on the screen.

Next came the selection of the leads.

Normally this was the producer's call.

But Tsushima Kagami was the series composition, and the original author besides.

Out of respect, his opinion ought to be heard first.

Naturally, what Tsushima Kagami wanted was to assemble the same lineup as the 2003 version of The White Tower - Karasawa Toshiaki and the rest of them.

The original broth made the original dish, after all.

Honestly, he'd have happily done the producer's job too, and picked the directors while he was at it.

So once Tsushima Kagami had named his choices for the principal roles and explained his reasoning…

It was all noted down for reference in the decisions to come.

The meeting ran nearly three hours.

By the time it broke up, it was past noon.

The writers drifted out in twos and threes.

Some were still discussing script details in low voices, some yawned and stretched, and some made straight for the vending machines and coffee.

Tsushima Kagami stayed in his seat and let out a long breath.

Tanabe Takashi came over and handed him a bottle of green tea.

"Good work today, Tsushima-sensei."

"You as well."

"That meeting went better than I expected."

Tanabe Takashi cracked open his own bottle and took a long pull.

"Kuroda has a reputation for being impossible to deal with."

"And you didn't warn me beforehand? Were you waiting to enjoy the show?" Tsushima Kagami said, joking back.

"You're here because I invited you, Tsushima-sensei. If you'd lost face, it would have been my face."

"I already had a way to smooth things over. I just never had to use it."

"You didn't disappoint, Tsushima-sensei. Not one bit."

He clapped Tsushima Kagami on the shoulder, and his tone turned serious.

"By the way."

"Starting next week - casting, location scouting, storyboard meetings, rehearsals, and once we're shooting, coordinating with the enshutsu and the writers. None of it works without you."

"Are you ready?"

Tsushima Kagami twisted the cap off the green tea and drank.

Faintly bitter, with a sweetness that lingered afterward.

He looked up at Tanabe Takashi, smiling.

"I still have classes, you know. All I can promise is to come by after school and on weekends when I can."

"Ideally, don't call me unless something's actually wrong…"

And so Tsushima Kagami got a head start on the corporate-drudge life: school, Fuji TV, home, around and around.

Time flew. Mid-January became the thirteenth of February before he knew it.

Which was to say, the day before Valentine's.

____

👻🔥Walnut-chan on Pa+reon for more!🔥👻

🔥 New history: Zenless Zone Zero: Rewriting Fate in New Eridu — over on The_Mikudayo

📚 Walnut-chan = +40 chapters of early access, and every bit of it funds the translation work

Help us unlock these community rewards:

🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!