An editor's job could only be described in one word—hell. Corporate slave didn't even begin to cover it. From Monday to Friday, Sonoko barely had time to breathe. After regular office hours ended, she still had to clock in extra hours, her pen racing across documents until her wrist went numb.
Saturday and Sunday? Supposedly rest days. But if you really dared to rest, you'd be buried alive under deadlines by Monday. Even so, sneaking a little extra sleep on a weekend morning wasn't a crime. Or so Sonoko tried to tell herself.
…
She was sprawled comfortably across her soft, oversized bed, wrapped under a thin but fluffy air-conditioned quilt. Her gentle breathing filled the room, peaceful and steady. Until—
"Bzzz, bzzz—"
Her phone vibrated insistently on the bedside table. Sonoko frowned in annoyance, scrunching her brow like a child disturbed during a nap. A snow-pale hand slipped out from under the quilt, fumbling lazily until her fingers closed around the phone.
"Ughh…" She groaned, cracking one eye open at the caller ID. Then, with the energy of a true weekend warrior, she pressed answer. "Moshi moshi…"
"Is this Machida-san? I'm Sato Yoshiteru, head of the sales department."
A middle-aged man's voice came through. Sonoko sat up a little, still drowsy. "Hai…" she answered in a half-asleep drawl.
"It's like this," Director Sato began, his tone sharp and businesslike, "this morning our sales department received a flood of calls from bookstores. They're all requesting additional orders of the first volume of Love Metronome. As of right now, we have less than three hundred copies remaining in the warehouse. I thought you should know immediately."
Sonoko's brain finally caught up. She jolted upright in shock, her wide eyes snapping open. "What did you just say!?"
The sudden movement sent her chest bouncing wildly under the quilt, but she didn't even notice. Her mind was spinning too fast. "Less than three hundred copies left!?" Her voice rose, filled with disbelief.
Just two days ago, she had checked the inventory herself—there had been more than three thousand copies sitting comfortably in stock. How could nearly all of them have vanished overnight? What the heck happened?
"Yes." Director Sato's voice was calm, almost too calm, as if he'd been expecting her outburst. "Our staff called around to confirm. Store managers said that starting from last night, customers kept coming in to buy the first volume. The reason they gave was a new song called Kasumi Utako."
"Kasumi… Utako?" Sonoko blinked, still trying to process. Could it be? Had Kasumigaoka Utaha pulled some stunt? Maybe she'd asked someone to compose a song for her novel? But that didn't make sense. Even if she did, how could sales skyrocket overnight like this? It was completely irrational!
Still, Sonoko kept her composure enough to thank him. "I understand. Thank you, Director Sato, for notifying me so quickly."
"You're welcome, Machida-san. It's part of our duty to stay on top of things."
The call ended with a polite click. Sonoko exhaled heavily, running a hand through her messy hair. She immediately dialed the printing factory that handled Fushikawa Shoten Bunko's releases. As editor, she had the authority to push for emergency reprints—and right now, that was exactly what she needed to do.
Once she secured the reprint order, she dove into the next problem: finding out just what this Kasumi Utako song was. Opening her laptop, she quickly searched the name.
Her jaw nearly dropped when multiple trending news articles popped up on the screen.
[These high school siblings are truly outrageous! The older sister writes a light novel to express her feelings, while the otouto-kun composes a love song to confess!]
[Are Winter-sensei and Kasumi Utako-sensei really related by blood!?]
[Winter-sensei's new song Kasumi Utako has gone viral! A song so sweet it makes listeners long to fall in love with their own onee-san!]
…
…
"It's trending!?" "Siblings!?"
Could it really be connected to Kasumigaoka Touji?
Machida Sonoko's eyes widened as she hurriedly clicked the first trending topic. Her heart pounded as the article loaded, and then her jaw nearly dropped.
According to the news, last night a popular food-and-music blogger named Winter—with more than three million followers—had released an original track titled Kasumi Utako. The name alone was enough to make Sonoko's editor senses tingle. And when she saw the alias Winter, the first person she thought of was none other than Kasumigaoka Touji.
Scrolling down, her suspicions deepened. The song was described as a heartfelt confession to an older sister. Netizens immediately began connecting dots, digging through past posts until they found another shocking detail: Winter's supposed "older sister" had debuted as a light novel author just two months earlier, publishing a series called Love Metronome—a story steeped in blatant brother-complex themes.
The revelation blew fans' minds.
So you're both doing this back-and-forth dance!? one netizen wrote.
Not only that, you're both ridiculously talented! another chimed in.
The comments went wild—at their age, one sibling had become a massively popular blogger while the other had already debuted as a published author. It was the kind of setup that even the cheesiest late-night dramas wouldn't dare touch.
One writes a novel to confess, the other writes a song to reply—together, they flaunted their "relationship" for the whole world to see. It was absurdly outrageous, yet undeniably fascinating. No wonder the hot topic was exploding all over social media.
…
Machida Sonoko sat frozen on her bed, utterly speechless. "So Touji-kun is Winter… I completely underestimated him."
She had already thought Utaha's novel settings bleeding into reality was outrageous enough. But now reality was surpassing fiction itself. Who could've imagined the quiet otouto-kun had been pulling strings in the music world all this time?
Shaking her head in disbelief, Sonoko gave in to curiosity. She opened YouTube, searched up Winter's account, and clicked on the song he had dropped last night. The melody spilled into her room, sweet yet aching, and the lyrics were enough to make anyone blush. When she scrolled down, the comment section was a battlefield of chaos—thousands of fans screaming, crying, shipping, and demanding more.
"…Unbelievable," Sonoko muttered, snapping her laptop shut. In an instant, the editor in her took over. She threw off her covers and hopped out of bed, the shock giving way to urgency. The emergency reprint order she'd placed earlier suddenly seemed laughably small. If this frenzy kept up, even double or triple the stock wouldn't be enough to meet demand.
"Reprints, reprints! At least thirty thousand copies!" she declared to herself, already planning her morning. Not just volume one either—the upcoming volume two of Love Metronome needed a massive boost in printing as well.
Her instincts screamed at her: this was about to explode in ways she had never experienced before.
…
While Machida Sonoko was running around full of renewed energy, elsewhere Kasumigaoka Touji and Kasumigaoka Utaha found themselves in a slightly awkward situation. The two had been up late last night, discussing art until exhaustion finally won. Touji had ended up falling asleep in Utaha's room and hadn't woken yet. The sight would've been harmless enough—except that Utaha's phone suddenly lit up with an incoming video call.
"Mom's calling," Utaha said, glancing at the screen with wide eyes. She hesitated, then looked at Touji nervously. "Should I even answer like this?"
Touji propped himself up lazily, giving her a look that was equal parts confident and cheeky. "Why not? We haven't done anything wrong, right? So what's there to hide?"
Utaha blinked at him, stunned by how casually he said it. True, they hadn't technically done anything, but the fact that her otouto-kun was still lying on her bed while their mother was about to see them on camera was… undeniably awkward.
Yet Touji looked completely unfazed, as if the situation were nothing more than a minor detail. His relaxed attitude left her no room to argue. With her cheeks slightly pink, Utaha sighed softly and tapped the accept button.
The screen flickered, and their mother's face appeared. In that instant, the faint but undeniable tension between the siblings filled the room…