This is a new Feeling

“I’m not feeling the best, mother, I think I’ll go lie down.”

And did just that.

Knock

Knock

Knock…

“Makoto?” A voice came muffled through my door.

There’s no way I can’t respond. It’s not like I could’ve not been home or left… “What?”

“Can I come in…?”

The illusion of free choice really is something… If I didn’t stop to consider this, I’d have assumed I did have an option. “No stupid costumes?”

“None.”

“...Fine—Wait! Are you alone?”

“...—!!!” A few panicked whispers came through followed by a long line of feet shuffling. Part of me wanted to be upset that she’d assume it’s alright to bring the whole circus back in, but another part can’t be. She sent her little school away just for me… Accepting that as the bare minimum might be a bit pathetic though… “I’m alone… Now…”

“Come in.”

Enter Kaoru—”Sooo~ How’ya doin’?”

“...Fine. I just couldn’t focus.”

Kaoru, carefully placing each step, approached my bedside where I lay and sat on the edge. “Why’d you need to focus? We were just all hanging out?”

“Do you not get it? We need to be focused on our light novel.”

“Whaaa? Come on~ You’re always worried about that otaku stuff—you never just hangout.” She kicked her legs. It really is you that doesn’t understand! Plus this otaku stuff is more than hanging out! It’s a lifestyle! “Why not just like, take a day off?”

I rolled over to face her. “K-Kaoru… that’s the thing… We don’t have a day off at this stage.” She eyed me suspiciously, as if she still wasn’t grasping it yet. “Kaoru, we’re down to fifteen days until the deadline, and I just started revising. Even if we work ourselves to death we won’t make it.”

“For real?”

“For real-real.”

She slowly turned away from me, glancing over all the memorabilia populating my bedroom. “Ahhhhhh—” She fell back on top of my legs with a vocal Umpf. “Whyy does this have to be so difficult! Why is writing a book so hard! I thought it’d be fun!”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“We can’t get Fujioka-senpai to do it?”

“Of course we can’t! What kind of writers would that make us!”

“Hrnnn… I guess…”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Are you staying over?” I asked. “It’s Friday.”

“Of course! That’s what my plan already was.”

“You made that plan without asking me…?”

“I asked Sayuri-chan, thank you.”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Wanna play a game?” Kaoru asked. “Just hangout?”

“...Shouldn’t we write? Like I said, fifteen days.”

“Like I said, just hangout.”

I pulled my legs out from under Kaoru and swung them off the bed—standing up followed by Kaoru. “What game?”

***

THIRTEEN DAYS REMAIN

Monday…

***

Saturday and Sunday were less than uneventful, I wouldn’t want to bore anyone by continuously saying, “I wrote and revised, got some annoying messages from Kaoru.” Haven’t I been doing that this whole time though?

Something did strike me though. At first it came as a slow, suffocating welling feeling, spreading through my body and tightening around my heart… Then… the final squeeze—something feels off with the light novel.

Usually when Kaoru wants to waste time playing a game I quickly shut her down—unlike Friday. The only reason I can think I agreed that time is because I was avoiding this feeling of something being wrong. I made revisions, fixed grammar and whatnot, but the story isn’t… isn’t… I’m not connecting with it like I did at the beginning. I think?

“That’s why I dislike when Kaoru-senpai comes up with all those plans. Don’t get me wrong, they are very good, but that’s the issue.” My junior’s continued rant pulled from my stumbling thoughts. “What am I supposed to tell Takechi-senpai and I’s kids when they ask how we got together? A friend of mine came up with some scheme that caused him to fall for me as well? They would think I’m as pathetic as you.”

“Right…”

“You weren’t listening again, senpai…” She lowered her brow at me.

“R-remind me again why we’re walking to school together, again?”

We were forced to pause at a crosswalk by a flashing-red silhouette of a person. A few cars cruised past followed by the man turning green. “That’s easy, you were probably up really late doing nerd stuff, so you woke up at eleven, and I was uh… busy this morning. So naturally I was late as well. It just so happens we met on the same route.”

She’s wrong about the nerd stuff… I was catching up on homework… Because I’ve been doing too much nerd cool stuff. Even after homework, I was so stuck on that unsettling feeling of something not piecing together correctly with volume one, I couldn’t sleep. I tried every trick in the book! Like uh… laying down… So I didn’t try too hard, but it’s that feeling's fault! Not mine!

Yoshika stopped abruptly, causing me to walk straight into her back. “Ow h-hey, what’re you doing?” I regained my balance.

“A woman, up ahead, she’s waving us down I think.”

“What’re you talking—” Sure enough, up ahead was a cookie-cutter office-lady character, nonchalantly waving right at us. How did we know it was us? The streets were nearly void of all other people.