Author's Note - Remember Haruki

Harmonic Distortions! was my first attempt to write a full-length light novel. It was written over the course of a month and submitted to the MyAnimeList x Honeyfeed Writing Contest 2025 – NOVELOUS Worlds.

The Idea: the boundary within you.

The story is loosely inspired by The Egg by Andy Weir—the idea that every person, everywhere, is actually just one person living different lives, completely unaware of it. 

Haruki Amane and Tsukasa Kurayami live very different lives in (literally) different realities. However, unbeknownst to Tsukasa, he's really the “main character” of the universe. He is everyone. He has lived every life, in every place, alive and dead. He is unaware of it, but it is the truth.

An unexplainable distortion in the fabric of the universe causes Haruki’s consciousness to unknowingly “attach” itself to Tsukasa’s, and their lives, memories, realities, progressively begin to merge… and in the end it's revealed that only Tsukasa had the power to stop it.

As their identities intertwine, he faces a choice: erase Haruki. Or fight for her, even when the world tells him she was never supposed to exist. 

He chose to save her.

Haruki and Tsukasa are not two different people.

Haruki is the part of Tsukasa that dared to live freely. The part that laughed, that sang, that chose joy even when everything felt hopeless. She is the version of him that existed when he wasn’t buried under fear and expectations.

Saving Haruki isn’t just saving another person from fading away—it was an act of radical self-acceptance. It’s Tsukasa’s first real act of defiance against a world that tried to decide who he had to become. 

It’s about the choice to believe: that even if you’re broken, even if you’re scared, even if you feel like you don’t deserve to exist, you still matter. 

Because you were here. Because you felt joy. Because you made people laugh. Because you didn’t want to fade away.

*

When I began this project, I had taken an extended time off from college and fell into a deep depression. My friends had moved on and I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself or if I even wanted to return to engineering school. I struggled to confront my identity and my purpose in this life. I didn’t know who I was anymore.

I began to watch a lot of anime. Though, because of my struggles at the time—with belonging, with identity, with friendships and futures—many stories began leaving a huge emotional impact on me that didn't before.

Shows such as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and K-On! sparked inspiration, while works like Your Name, Serial Experiments Lain, and Your Lie In April deeply touched me at my core.

It reignited a creative side of myself that I had ignored for so long. Then the idea came. 

I wasn't a writer, nor was I particularly good at writing. But I knew I wanted to tell a story. It became the process of finding and accepting what I had forgotten about myself so long ago.

Tsukasa and Haruki both share a similar internal struggle: they’re both unsure about who they are. They may lead very different lives, but in the end their struggles are not too different from each other.

I believe there’s a bit of Tsukasa and Haruki in everyone. There are times when you’ll feel unsure about yourself, about your life, about where things are headed, but know that, that’s okay. Embrace the person you are. The person you’re in danger of losing. Embrace the feeling of uncertainty. The mystery of the unknown. The absurdity of the future. That's what makes life worth living. 

Don’t forget about Haruki, even if people expect you to. 

She existed, and that’s enough.

Thank you for reading my story!

And goodbye—for now.

P.S. the girl in the cover is Natsuki! 😁