Contest, part 2

After recovering from the unexpected uppercut to the face I reassured Satsuki that I was fine and she was quick to drop the subject. She mumbled something about blood, but I couldn’t quite hear what she said and I wasn’t bleeding, so I shrugged it off. She offered to make me lunch and I was actually quite hungry so I accepted her offer. She left the room looking kind of flustered, probably feeling guilty for almost giving me another concussion.

The clock says it’s almost one in the afternoon, so I got about two short hours of sleep. Obviously I still feel very tired, but I don’t want to mess up my sleeping schedule more than I already have, so I’ll bear with it until tonight. The more important thing right now is the novel I wrote and submitted in a fugue state. The text is still on the computer screen when I glance at it.

Strangely, I remember more about the story now than before I fell asleep. I only read fifty pages, but I remember much more than that now. The story is about a pirate captain named ‘Fortuna Hawkes’ as she searches for a lost treasure. She gets hold of a map that’s supposed to lead to an amazing treasure and sets out to find it. The story eventually ends on a cliffhanger with her almost finding it, only to be ambushed by the pirate crew whose clues she was following. It’s a bit heavy handed to end in the middle of a scene like that to set up a sequel, but I guess that’s why it has ‘part 1’ in the title.

It’s Tuesday now and the deadline is Thursday. After that I’ll have to wait and see how well it does in the public voting rounds. The magazine said the voting period starts at the same time as the submissions, but ends one week after they close and they’ll announce the winners right away. That means there’s only nine days left before the contest ends.

They say they'll announce the winners, but that’s a bit redundant, because apparently the site features a live vote counter. I can’t fight the urge to immediately go there and check my ranking. The submission at number one right now is titled ‘My Little Sister Came From the Future to Save Me and Confess Her Love!’, in second place is ‘Why Would It Be Wrong to Have a Harem of Cute Girls When I’m Also Saving the World?’ and in third place is ‘I Got Summoned to Another World to Defeat the Demon Lord, but I Decided to Marry Her Instead’.

I feel like the word ‘title’ has somewhat lost its meaning...

Scrolling down the surprisingly long list, eventually I find my own submission. Two hundred and seventy third place with seven votes, only one spot above last place. Maybe I should have called it something like ‘My Life as a Pirate Captain Searching for Lost Treasure in the Depths of Space’? No, I just posted it two hours ago, so only a handful of people have given it a try. I should be happy I got seven votes already.

A knock on the door pulls me away from the screen and back to the real world. Satsuki enters and puts a plate with two slices of bread covered in jam on the desk. It’s not quite the thing I had in mind when she said lunch, but I still thank her and she quickly leaves the room again. After taking a bite, my mind immediately goes back to the contest. Those nine days are going to feel like nine long years, but the only thing I can do now is wait.

The next morning Satsuki tells me I’m expected to go back to school as soon as possible. Apparently even though they’re aware that I’m suffering from amnesia, they still want me to attend classes to the best of my ability. Despite Satsuki’s lateness in informing me and the issues with the school’s attitude towards the wellbeing of its students, I actually welcome any and all distractions to get my mind off the contest.

I could barely find my way to the right classroom after Satsuki dropped me off in front of the school, but I somehow made it before the bell rang. My seat is all the way in the back of the middle row, so I put my crutches leaning against the wall. Some of the students asked if I was okay, but most of them ignored me. The lessons were surprisingly difficult to follow, but they were a welcome change of pace compared to a week of not being able to do anything in the hospital.

When it was time for the lunch break, some students from other classes came by to see me and my mummified leg. Apparently the word had somehow spread about my amnesia and they were curious to see if I had anything interesting to say. Not only first years like myself, but also some second and third years showed up. They were drawn to the unusual case of the hit and run victim that lost his memories and asked all sorts of questions. After a while the questions had little to do with my memory, like how many fingers one of them had behind his back, and I saw a few playing with my crutches. In the end they were just messing around to pass the time.

It was during that halfhearted interrogation that I saw her.

Time froze the moment I saw her walking past the door, briefly glancing in my direction. An elegant girl dressed in the uniform of a third year. She’s wearing a small necklace with a golden feather down her neck and her black hair is braided down her back. The name ‘Shizuka Morisaki’ announces itself with a grand fanfare inside of my head as a spotlight seemed to highlight her very existence.

When I blink in surprise at the fact that I knew her name, she disappears out of sight. My heart is beating so hard and fast that it feels like it might burst out of my chest and run after her. Despite only having average grades, Morisaki is known throughout the school as a refined beauty with a modest and gentle demeanor. I’d never spoken to her personally, but like many other boys and girls I dreamed of talking about the things we like or eating lunch together or just sitting next to her in class. Apart from her small group of friends, nobody dares to think about doing something like going to karaoke with her and I would be lynched by her fan club if the thought of studying alone with her in her room even crossed my mind.

Just when I start to wonder how I remember so much about her, the idea of a high school girl having a fan club makes me wonder if I’m imagining things. Or at least I would be, if I didn’t spot a group of three boys with cameras and shirts saying ‘Morisaki Fan Club’ walking past the door in the same direction as her. Some of the students in the classroom also walk up to the door and peak their heads into the hallway to look in that direction with a starstruck look in their eyes. Such was the power of Morisaki’s beauty, to draw in the gaze of innocent bystanders and ensnare them with her charm.

After that, the rest of the day went by much quicker, since I kept finding myself daydreaming about Morisaki. Not only her, but I also started remembering more about the life of Shotaro before the accident, before I became him. Shotaro didn’t have many friends and the ones he did make ended up going to different schools, so that explains why few people seemed to really care about my broken leg. The memories also confirmed a few things I had guessed based on his room, that we have the same tastes, preferences and hobbies. We were essentially the same person, besides the obvious differences in looks and age. However, even if we have so much in common, the question of why and how I ended up in this situation still remains unanswered.

Days flew by as I went through the motions, all the while sifting through Shotaro’s memories and trying to get my mind off Morisaki. Going to school felt like the natural thing to do and I even kind of enjoyed it. During my free time I looked through old photos to try to remember more about Shotaro’s past. The contest had completely disappeared from my consciousness until I received an email on Thursday the following week. Those familiar big red letters spelled out ‘Congratulations! You won!’ in english at the top of the message. Tempted to delete it based on that initial impression, I eventually decided to continue reading.

“Your submission has been voted the winner of our annual ‘This Story is Crazy’ contest and your series will be published by Kusachisha Inc. with breathtaking illustrations from our very own Tetsuko sensei! You will receive a letter with a time and place for a meeting with one of our editors where you will sign the necessary paperwork for this partnership to truly begin!”

While a bit overenthusiastic, there weren’t any suspicious links to click that would redirect me to some shady website and steal my credit card information. If I receive the letter and the meeting place isn’t a dark alleyway, but the actual office building of Kusachisha, then that would truly make it official. But there is one more way to see if this email is real or not. The rankings on the official site, where the votes are displayed live. The voting period ends today, so whatever it says is final. My curiosity overpowers my doubt and I navigate to the rankings page with sweat rolling down my forehead.

The few seconds it took for the page to load were agonizing, but then it finally appeared. The title that was number one the last time I checked, ‘My Little Sister Came From the Future to Save Me and Confess Her Love!’, is now in second place. In first place, with more than twice as many votes as second and third place combined, is ‘Wandering Stars of a Lost Era, The Endless Hunt for the Forgotten Crown, part 1’.