Work Text:
Mimi placed another star sticker on her bulletin board.
Another one had bit the dust.
-
“You’re known for assisting authors in a manner that expedites the process of completing their manuscripts,” said Sora. "I would like to hire you for my company, specifically for one of my writers. I’ve heard you’re quite tenacious, I think you would make a great assistant and editor for her." She leaned forward in her chair, the sweetest of smiles on her face as she slid a piece of paper across the dinner table. "Please consider my offer carefully, won't you?"
Jou opened the piece of paper and nearly fell to the floor. He stammered, "This is...this is very generous."
Sora smiled, "I see we've piqued your interest."
-
Paper.
White. Yellow. Pink. Cyan.
They litter her bedroom floor like a tapestry of failure.
-
“Let me be the first to officially welcome you to SkyHeart Publishing Company, Jou Kido,” said Sora. She grinned at him like a cat that had just made a kill.
"Thanks again for having me,” said Jou earnestly. Inwardly, the morbidly curious part of himself wondered what she would have done if he had not accepted her, admittedly gracious, offer.
“Of course,” replied Sora. “Now then, let’s get down to business. .”
-
Mimi deleted the email she received from her new assistant.
He’d be gone before she knew it, just like the rest.
-
Jou knocked again. Silence.
-
Mimi sat on her couch. She had a pen in hand, her thumb clicking the top of her pen.
The sheet of paper, white and unwritten, silently stared back at her.
-
Jou was already familiar with Mimi’s work. It was one of the main reasons why he took the proffered job offer.
“She’s brilliant,” Sora had said when handing him Mimi Tachikawa’s portfolio. “And SkyHeart’s most successful writer." Her eyes briefly darted to the side before she added, "She has a reputation for being a little quirky.”
Her name was notorious in the publishing world.
Brilliant was the fact that her young adult adventure novels were critically acclaimed and consistently ranked as best sellers.
Quirky was the fact her doorbell rang showtunes. She also fervently enjoyed interacting with her fanbase, so much so that it was not uncommon to see her dressed as one of her characters or her fellow writer's characters at conventions.
Crazy came when Mimi refused to open the door for him. He knew she was in there. Sora said she was a recluse when writing, and every morning, her newspaper was gone.
Jou knocked on her door to no response for a week.
-
"He's still out there," said Mimi, resting on the wall adjacent to her apartment entrance window. "I thought we were friends, why would you sic him on me?"
Sora's smiling, she could tell. Not her business lady smile, but a genuinely fond smile. "I am. We are. The best of friends, as a matter of fact."
"Then you wouldn't have brought this guy," sighed Mimi. "I'm writing, I promise."
"Mimi..."
"I just - I just need time," said Mimi. Desperation creeped into her voice.
"Take all the time you need," quickly replied Sora. "Really, screw the movie people. I just wanted someone to help you since you locked yourself in your apartment. I worry about you."
"Thank you," said Mimi after a moment of silence. "And I'm sorry for being a brat."
She hung up before Sora could answer.
-
“Excuse me,” said Jou as he knocked on the building manager’s door. “I’m a friend with one of your tenants. I can’t seem to contact her. I’m getting worried about her.”
“Nope,” replied the bald man. Tama was the name listed on his work shirt. “The little missy says no visitors,” he eyed Jou critically, “’Specially no editors.”
“I – I never mentioned – “
“Don’ need to,” said Tama. “All you book edit folks look the same: clean pants and loafers.” He picked up his toolbox, “Now if you’ll ‘scuse me, I gotta repair a leaking roof.”
Jou resumed sitting outside of her apartment. A thermos of coffee was on his lap.
It had been two weeks since he started ‘working’ with Mimi. Her neighbors would tell him nothing and she must have had the delivery people on payroll or something because they would conveniently deliver her goods during the time when he had to pee. They would walk by, their clipboard already signed, just as he was walking back to her apartment.
He mulled about breaking into her apartment through her window.
-
Mimi Tachikawa was the charismatic and beautiful writer known for her young adult novels. Her latest novels, a sci-fi themed trilogy with a trio of adventurous young girls in outer space, had been so popular, there was even word that movie studios were hoping to turn her novels into a film series once she finished her third and final book.
He had read her first book on a mere whim.
He had been third in line for her second book.
It had almost been two years since she released her second book. It was a year longer than movie executives were comfortable with because the longer she held off releasing her final book, the less momentum they could extort to make her films a blockbuster.
After a week with no replies to his knocking, Jou brought a sleeping bag from home. She had to leave sooner or later.
-
Mimi's neighbors greeted him by name as they sympathetically walked past him as he camped outside her door, waiting for her to open it.
She often sat on the other side, her back pressed against the unforgiving material of the door.
-
He opened his eyes with a gasp. He was lying on a couch. He must have fallen asleep while waiting for her.
“So the jerk is finally awake.” There was clear irritation in that voice.
“Where - ?” Jou fumbled for his glasses, nearly blind without them. He placed them on and stared. “Oh.”
Mimi had dark circles underneath her hazel eyes, her hair in a disarray bun, wearing a sweater with a cat eating a sandwich, and a scowl on her face as she stared at him.
She was the most beautiful person Jou had ever had the opportunity to meet.
“Leave. Now.”
And she threw him out of her apartment at five in the morning.
-
It was raining.
Mimi peered out of her window, staring at the huddled figure outside of her door. Her neighbors have started feeding him, giving him coffee and tea and occasionally a sandwich.
Dang it, once you feed them, they never goes away.
-
Mimi opened the door a little after ten in the evening. Jou was munching on a protein bar and reading a manuscript for one of editor friends on the small screen of his phone.
She leaned against her doorway, an exasperated expression on her face. In her hand was a carafe of coffee. “You’re not going to leave, are you?”
“Absolutely not,” replied Jou. “That, and Sora scares me.”
“She is scary when she wants to be,” Mimi slowly nodded, a fond smile on her face. “But she makes the best cookies.”
Jou stared down at his thermos. "I doubt she thinks highly of me at the moment."
“You’re still here, aren’t you?”
“I…yes, yes, I am.” Jou blushed; he didn’t know why.
“This is how you got the other writers, huh?” Mimi asked, squatting down to his level to top off his thermos with more coffee. “You camp outside their door like a sad sack of potatoes and guilted them into writing?"
“This is a first, to be honest.” Jou sipped the coffee, scrunching his nose. It was decaf. “But you’ve boarded yourself up pretty well.” He nodded at her windows, “You even reinforced your windows, so I couldn’t break in.”
“Money well spent,” grinned Mimi.
“I can see why Sora warned me that you were a tough one."
“Well you got me out of the apartment,” Mimi stood back up. “Or rather, forced me. I ran out of cereal and rice today. Congratulations, I’m sure you’re worth every penny.”
“I have extra protein bars,” offered Jou.
“I decline,” replied Mimi. “Although you’re coming with me to go grocery shopping.”
“You’re supposed to be writing a book,” stated Jou.
“I can’t write if I starve to death,” Mimi said as she ducked back inside and grabbed her purse. “That, and you can expect me to go shopping alone in the middle of the night?” She reiterated, “By. Myself. At night.”
Jou groaned. He really couldn’t leave her to go shopping by herself in the middle of the night. He was about to pack his sleeping bag except Mimi picked it up and threw it into her apartment. “Come on, let’s go. I’m starving!”
-
Mimi breathed in the cold night air deeply, her arms outstretched above her head.
She looked upward and saw no stars.
The city lights obscured them, but she still remembered what they look like.
-
There were still dark circles underneath her eyes, Jou observed.
The smile on her face though, he paused as she smiled mischievously at him, passing the 24-hour grocery store, and pushed him toward the karaoke bar, was breathtaking.
She made him pay for the karaoke room rental fee, but she paid for the food and endless beer.
He was a terrible singer. Among his brothers, Jou was sadly actually considered the good singer.
Mimi, on the hand, was a shocker. Her voice filling the room with energy and power, just like her writing.
Twelve top forty songs later, they were laying on couches, their bellies full of junk food, voices hoarse, and a little more than drunk.
"I have writer's block," Mimi finally admitted, her face pressed against the seat of the cushion.
"We'll figure something out," slurred Jou before he fell of the couch and fell asleep.
-
"Figures that this jerk would be a lightweight," groaned Mimi as she lugged his heavy body out of the taxi. She handed the driver some cash, told him to keep the change, and made the long trek back to her apartment with her nearly unconscious assistant on her back. Thank god, she decided to wear flats this evening.
Mimi dropped him on her couch, placed a large pot beside his head for vomit, and a bottled water and aspirin on the table beside him.
She paused stood in the doorway of her room, staring at the slumbering man on her couch.
"Thanks," Mimi finally said out loud before turning on her heel and entering her room. She sat down in front of her typewriter. She stared at it, listening to the steady tick-tick-tick of her clock beside the door.
“You can do this, Mimi,” she mumbled. She slowly raised her hands, poising them above the keys and - and.
She wrote a sentence. It was only one sentence, and she was still pretty drunk and it probably had nothing to do with the story but...
It was a start.
-
He slept for fourteen hours.
-
After checking for a pulse after hour six of his alcohol-induced sleep, Mimi finally left the apartment for groceries now that there wasn’t an obnoxiously stubborn jerk waiting outside of her apartment door.
She could’ve kicked him out - made him wait outside her apartment for weeks again. She had made sure to load up on her favorite cereal to last her a good month.
Mimi looked at him from the peripheral of her eyes, sprawled against her couch. She remembered looking outside of her window, seeing the man huddled in a sleeping back, fighting sleep.
She laid a blanket on his shoulders.
-
Jou woke up to the smell of fried rice.
He abruptly vomited into the waiting pot beside him.
"You're up," exclaimed Mimi cheerfully from the kitchen. The dark circles underneath her eyes had lessened. "Do you prefer mustard or mayonnaise in your fried rice?"
He didn't even try to run to the bathroom; he just stuck his head back into the pot and prayed.
-
“Lightweight,” Mimi muttered to him as she passed him a glass of water and saltines.
-
He felt his stomach churning watching Mimi devour her plate of fried rice.
"Maybe a change of scenery will help with your writer's block," suggested Jou as he took a sip of tea. He cringed - he had been asleep for nearly thirteen hours. Then again, he had been getting little sleep outside of her apartment door.
He expected her to decline his suggestion.
"The zoo," Mimi said after a minute of silence. "I haven't been there since elementary school."
Jou was stunned but quickly answered, "Sounds like a plan."
-
Mimi loved the penguins.
She cooed at the little hatchlings, some still tucked warily underneath their parent's as they observed their surroundings.
Jou somehow endeared himself to a sea lion. There was even an attempt by aforementioned sea lion to break out of its exhibit and follow Jou home.
Mimi bought him an enormous stuffed seal that looked like the zoo's seal, and despite his complaints, Jou smiled when carrying it out of the gift shop. In return, he made her dinner.
There were four different vegetables on her plate, she observed.
He abruptly turned his head away when she looked up.
-
Jou set up camp in her living room.
He cleaned - aggressively scrubbing the floors and dusting the near hundreds of books that litter her apartment.
Also, he cooked.
-
Mimi's only dish, aside from cereal and toast, was fried rice.
She looks skeptically at his vegetable stir-fry.
She had eaten more vegetables in these twenty-four hours than she has in a typical week.
She still ate his dishes though - rather voraciously.
Later that evening, for the first time in a long, long time, she gained a restful sleep.
-
Unexpectedly, rather than locking herself in her room after she let him in to actually do his job as her assistant, Mimi could be found in odd spaces in her little apartment as if he wasn’t even in there.
Jou once found her lying in the bathtub, her head resting on her pillow and the bottom of her feet pressed against the cold tile of the bathroom - reading a book.
There were books everywhere. She had an odd system.
Cookbooks and non-fiction were in the foyer. Mystery and sci-fi novels in the living room. Romance books overflowed the dining area and bled into the living room. Everything in-between was located in the hallway.
Jou passed by her room on the way to scrub the hallway floor, her bedroom door was open. Against the noticeable avalanche of books that resided in the rest of the apartment, her room, while a luminescent shade of pink, was noticeably book free. There was a small mountain of crumbled multicolor paper in the corner.
"You shouldn't snoop, you jerk."
Jou squeaked.
Mimi rolled her eyes and walked into her room, a mug of tea in her hand.
Dinner was awkward and quiet.
-
"What's the occasion?" Mimi eagerly grabbed the bag from out of his hands.
He waited in line for two hours at the absurdly popular bakery in downtown. It was a deluxe strawberry cheesecake.
"Sorry," he said.
Mimi shrugged, "Don't mention it. Although," she turned away, cake in hand. "You're not getting any."
"I earned that," admitted Jou. Finally, she was looking at him in the eyes again.
After dinner, Mimi made tea and slid a slice of cheesecake towards him. "You may be a jerk, but denying you cheesecake would make me one as well."
It was delicious.
-
Jou found her on the roof.
Mimi had been lying on the rooftop for almost half an hour, basking in the sun; her eyes were closed and there was a faint smile on her face.
"You could have left me a note," said Jou wryly.
"It's more fun this way," Mimi replied. She patted the spot beside her.
He sat down and pulled out a binder. It had been resting on the kitchen table.
"It's good," Jou said. "I can't wait to read the rest."
"I don't know how to end it," admitted Mimi. "I know I want the heroines to be happy. I mean, after all the sacrifice and loss... they deserves it."
"Well, write towards it," replied Jou.
"How?"
"That's for you to find out."
Mimi smacked him in the thigh.
-
They were walking home from a book signing. One of her friends, Miyako had just released a book and was conducting a book tour to sign her book and mingle with fans. Fortunately, one of her book signings was in the city.
As they walked back to her apartment, he kept sneaking glances at Mimi. She was dressed casually, just a sweater dress and tights, her hair loosely falling around her shoulders in a cascade of pink, but the energy she exuded, her flushed cheeks and bright eyes as she raved over Miyako's book, it was difficult for him to notice anyone else but her.
"You're staring again, Jou," said Mimi teasingly.
"S-sorry," stammered Jou before abruptly bumping into someone.
"Ouch," sneered the man. "You should be sorry, sorry for bumping into me!"
"Hey, he didn't mean to run into you," Mimi frowned.
"I apologize for colliding into you, it was my mistake." Jou moved so that he was in front of Mimi. He didn't like the way that guy was looking at her nor was he getting good vibes from the other men that edging closer.
"I expect compensation," said the man.
Mimi shrieked. One of the men had grabbed her from behind, his hand trying to grasp her purse.
"Hey!" Jou attempted to run towards her only to be tackled from behind
He heard a scream, and several more, as he attempted to wrestle with the other man that was on top of him.
-
Mimi aimed a kick, the pointy part of her heel, towards her assailants’ groin.
Three down.
Jou groggily stood up, his hand reaching for her's.
"You're okay," he breathed in relief.
Mimi abruptly pulled him towards her, stepping in front of him as the man from earlier, the initial one, attempted to throw a large rock at him.
Jou pushed her out of the way.
-
Jou fell to the ground.
-
Mimi screamed.
-
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
She wrote.
She wrote in tune to his heart monitor.
-
“I suppose I earned this. Making you wait for me all those weeks.”
-
Mimi held his hand. "I'll be gone for a little while, just one of those stupid meetings with executives and their hundred dollar neckties and way too shiny shoes, well, I guess I'm describing you at some point, minus the hundred dollar tie. You seem to like a good casual tie.” She closed her mouth abruptly, realizing she was rambling. “Anyway," she squeezed his hand, "I'll be back soon."
Mimi sighed. Sleep deprivation must have finally set in - she almost thought he had squeezed her hand back.
-
Jou woke up.
He heard a sweet voice.
"Hello, my name is Hikaru, Mr. Kido. You've been in a coma for nearly a month."
Mimi?
-
He wasn't allowed on his feet. Not for a while. The hospital had to run more tests - they had already run almost a hundred by now, he mused.
After speaking to his parents, brothers, Sora, and countless friends, the one person he hoped would come, never did.
Instead, there was a manuscript.
It had been days after he had woken up before he realized it was there.
According to the date written on the first page, she had completed it just days before he woke up.
He had plenty of time to himself, so Jou read.
-
He remembered.
"Was there..." Jou hesitated for a moment, staring at the manuscript on his lap, before he gulped and continued. Hikaru stared at him patiently. "Was there someone else with me while I was in a coma?"
"Ah," Hikaru grinned. "Mimi." Her eyes softened when Jou eagerly leaned closer to her at the mention of Mimi's name. "She visited you quite often. She would often sit beside you and talk to you." She chuckled, "One day, she brought her typewriter and just kept on typing while she was sitting with you. It lasted for almost two weeks, all throughout the day. The nurses were almost driven crazy by the noise!"
Hikaru motioned toward the book, "Last time I saw you before you woke up, she was reading to you from that book."
"Oh," Jou said.
-
He read it in a night.
While he was in a coma, he remembered dreaming.
Of blood and fire, of blue and purple skies and space - vast and empty and specked with planets and asteroids and planetary belts brimming with life, and beautiful heroines defeating the villain and saving worlds.
Jou begged Hikari to discharge him from the hospital a day earlier.
She reluctantly signed the paperwork, only to stop him from hurting himself from running laps around the hospital in order to prove his physical vitality.
-
Jou knocked on her door.
No one.
"Huh," the building manager Tama passed by. "I was wonderin' where ya were hidin'. Did the two of ya have a fallin' out?"
"No," Jou shook his head. "Nothing like that. I was... preoccupied."
Tama snorted.
"Can you tell me where Mimi is, please?"
"I can tell you," said Sora as she turned the corner. She was breathing heavily, she must have gotten word that Jou had left, and run to find him. He had left his phone in the hospital.
-
Her flight was delayed by an hour.
Airport food was almost as tasteless as hospital food.
-
Mimi was already dialing a taxi company on her phone, ready to head back to the hospital when she abruptly dropped her phone.
-
"You jerk!" Mimi sobbed as she dropped her bags and flung herself at him.
Tears streamed down cheeks, her eyeliner was smudged, and she looked like she hadn't gotten any sleep for days. She was still the most beautiful person he has ever laid eyes on.
"Yeah, I am sort of a jerk," Jou agreed as he held her tightly.
-
Mimi's final book of her trilogy was a number one bestseller for nearly two months.
A half year later, the trailer for the first book of her trilogy was released.
"Shouldn't we be practicing what you'll be saying for your televised interview?" Jou asked as he followed Mimi.
"I deserve a break," Mimi retorts, laughing as she pulls him along towards the seal enclosure, her hand grasped tightly around his.