Chapter 1:

Chapter 1

The Book I am Reading, Turns Out to be the Life I am Living.


Chapter 1

Our memories can sometimes be our allies or our friends, they are what make us identify ourselves, and sometimes these memories that hang in our heads become painful, to an extent that you wish they didn't exist, and yet at the same time you hold them dear.

In order to detach myself from these memories, I have tried to focus on reading novels and books, because that has been the only habit that has stayed with me over the years: I like to read because not only does it put our emotions into a state of excitement, happiness, or sadness, but it also gives me comfort.

Maybe I wanted to be in those stories, to escape the reality I had experienced. The ones I had read gave me new things to see, and also a sense of closeness to the characters I had met, the struggles and problems they had, the tragedy they had, which I also sympathize with, that keeps me going.

I love reading romance novels, especially ones that have happy endings. I really want them to be happy, and sometimes those romantic scenes can make me smile for a moment. I discovered the habit of reading light novels and set out to read some of the manga that had been published.

The person who made me read is that particular person in my memory, and most of the novels that person recommended to me were some of the cliché novels with a clumsy ending, which told me that reading some novels that start with a cliché and end with a confusing and disappointing ending can make my brain find a novel that has a better story. So I read and read to satisfy myself, found better books and better endings, agonized over the story and stressed over the problems in the story, and so reading became my focus and distraction until it became a habit I enjoyed.

It's been 3 years since then, I've already turned 17 this spring, and I'll probably start university when I get a passing grade for my college of interest. I wonder what life has in store for me when I turn 18 next year, probably the same thing everyone else can expect.

"Good morning." One of my new classmates greeted me at the door. It was none other than the guys who were always talking about the latest school trends or the gossip of school rumors, they watched the students pass by in class, those who already knew each other gathered to talk, and those who seemed to be new here looked for people to talk to, and for people like me, I started to find my own place.

My name was in the HS3-B class. The name 'Ito Haru' really stood out because of its meaning.

My father had given me the name 'Haru', which means 'to stretch' or 'born in spring', which matches our family name 'Ito', which means 'strings or threads'. My name 'Ito Haru', which means 'the threads stretch' or 'threads that stretch', or with another meaning 'thread born in spring', became a good combination.

It seems that most of my former classmates have gone to other classes, and most of the people in here are unknown to me now, but school is starting, so who knows what will happen.

Anyway, it was the beginning of the semester and my last year until I graduate from high school. Most years school was fun and involved a lot more emotions. I didn't spend my school life like an introvert, but I'm rather picky about friends, and sometimes I spent it going with the flow of others.

"Hey, that was Haru-san!" one of the guys called out to me. In retrospect, it was none other than Shimada Arata, the boy with the wavy hair and hazel eyes, and the rather fresh and bubbly build he always had, even though at 17 he was a bit shorter than all the other boys in the class.

"Arata-chan, are you lost?" I giggled in jest.

"Oi, don't play with my clan lineage, and I'm not an elementary school student."

"But I didn't say elementary school student, maybe you already admitted it?"

"Yo - you got me there, you smooth bastard."

"Haha"

We both chuckled and then high-fived each other.

"I didn't realize that most of our former classmates have already left or switched classes." He looked around at the new classroom of new faces and groaned out some air.

"Yes, that was a strange coincidence and a play of fate, I would say." I said that this might have been a new feeling for him, but I was used to it because during my junior years I had left my junior high school and gone to this new senior high school.

"I'm glad I saw you, Daichi, Hajime, Jiro, and Kane were the only people who stayed in this class." Arata started to point out my old classmates who are still in this class.

Daichi fixing his glasses at the front of his seat, Hajime talking to some new faces, and Jiro talking to the girls. I noticed that the Gyaru type girl, Kane, looked at Arata once again and immediately leaned back. I knew that this girl had hidden feelings for this guy, although she looked like a Gyaru with tanned skin, she was an active swimmer, and most of the time she can't resist the heat of the weather, so she always straps her jacket between her hips, the obvious reason, why she had chosen swimming, and Arata managed to capture Kane's feelings despite his size, I dare say this started last year, I don't know what happened, but Arata already had lingering feelings for Kane, but he still didn't dare admit it.

"Is that Kane over there? Hey Arata, look, it was Kane, Hey, Kane-san!". I teased the little man, to which he looked at me and tried to silence my big mouth, but it was too late because Kane had already arrived at our place and was looking at Arata.

"Is there something?" She asked.

"No, Haru's teasing me again." He buried his head on the desk.

"Calling Kane isn't annoying, dude, it can be annoying if there's a reason you don't want her name to be called." I tapped him on the shoulder and a little foot stomped.

"Ugh" This guy, despite his size, he really has power.

"Uhhh..." Kane immediately blushed and looked into the distance, Arata immediately saved the situation and started a conversation.

"We're just surprised to see you again." he murmured, and Kane immediately twirled her hair with her pinkie finger.

"Um, yeah ... I was the only girl left in that class, though." She stated sadly.

"That was pretty unlucky, but you can get acquainted with the new faces here." At that, Arata motivated her.

"Sure."

"Did you bring anything to eat today?" He asked.

"Yes, I plan to eat with you guys."

"I happen to have mine with me too, let's eat together, hey there Haru, you bought one didn't you?" He asked, of course I bought one too, but I know this guy wasn't very confident himself, and I know Kane was trying to get close to him. I immediately thought of a situation where we should leave them alone for once.

"Sorry buddy, but I forgot my lunch at my house, you two better go without me since you both agreed to have lunch today." I said and Arata realized what I was up to, he stomped his foot again and looked at me desperately.

"You can’t go back to your words." I said.

"I'll see you later, Arata-kun," Kane waved it off and turned to the rest of the class.

"Why did you do that? You brought your lunch, didn't you?" he asked, to which I remained silent.

"Hey Arata, we're graduating after this year. It was better to do it than never." I advised him.

"But what if it doesn't work out?"

"That's why I'm helping you get closer to her, that's enough for you to see if she likes you or not," even though I knew Kane felt the same way about him. "You're going to miss your chance if you don't do something, come on man, this isn't an anime where you come together by weird coincidences, you have to work your way."

"U-uh, you're right, maybe I should," he pondered for a while, then punched the air out hard. "For crying out loud! I'll do it!"

"That's my kid."

"Shut up, and don't call me your kid."

"I'm kidding, stop stomping your foot, it hurts and you look like a tsundere when you do that, wait, you are one!"

"You-you!!!"

The classroom teacher walked in the door, silencing the lively room.

"Hello dear students, my name is-"

The teacher introduced himself and explained what subject he will teach us: Science.

In his introduction, he asked everyone to introduce themselves, and the class began to introduce themselves one by one.

He started with the front row, where most of us were sitting. I sat in the middle, which was a convenient seat because not only does it blend in with the surroundings during the teacher's lecture, but it also makes me look like a student paying attention to the class.

"Nakano Keiko, it was a pleasure to meet you." A girl introduced herself to the class, everyone paid attention to her face, which looked beautiful and had short hair that matched her red eyes. But my attention was on her name, a name that bore a striking resemblance to a novel I had read before, it wasn't that I was wrong, but that name and that look were mentioned in the novel, it was a novel recommended to me by that person a long time ago, the novel that had a terrible ending, it was quite strange that such a person existed in real life, yet another coincidence.

The class introduced themselves, including me. But I just introduced myself normally and nicely by going into the river once again.

"Ito Haru, I'm glad to be in this class, nice to meet you all."

Some commented on my name or mood, but they still turned their attention to the next person.

"Kitagawa Kotone, nice to meet you." Another spoke, and a shiver rose in me, that feeling of déjà vu, a rather familiar and unfamiliar feeling at the same time. This girl with the strikingly glossy black hair and sky blue eyes matched the description from the novel.

"Fukuda Maria, it's a pleasure to meet you. Another person with the same beauty as the girl Nakano had introduced had fairly blonde hair that seemed to stand out, and her amethyst-colored eyes complemented her cold gaze. Another jolt went through my memories, another familiar name I had read in the novel, and another familiar description I am seeing now.

Three characters who had the name of a real person in real life? I guess it sounded nonsensical, but when I looked at them, it reminded me of the novel I had read a long time ago, the very first novel with the terrible ending.

'The book that binds our strings".


That was the name of the novel, it was a type of novel that had twists and turns that I came across when I started reading. From the premise, the novel had some of what I like, romance, action, drama, and a cliched harem added to the novel. Some of it was a bunch of nonsense, including the plot dealing with tragic events and how a boy starts poking his nose into the shady underbelly of society, with the help of the heroine, of course. and even the harem expanded and the book included 9 girls in this series alone, it was rather the story of a boy named 'Hirose Sora' who absurdly inherited his grandfather's shrine for no reason, despite being a favorite grandson, in which his grandfather made a will before his death to sell the property to the government and give the money to his grandson and let him experience what life is like in Tokyo.

The story begins when Sora was just 16 years old and moved into a newly rented apartment, when he first met two of the heroines and saved them from a rather ridiculous plot by people with a backstory.

As the story progresses, Sora meets 9 girls with whom he has a connection and at the same time they fall in love with him. I can say that the author was quite delusional but he executed the book well, it was about a story of light in the midst of the dark world and ignorance and how they managed to stand up to it and serve justice in the end, it's about the realism of people and rather the past they had and how an individual can get away from it, in the embodiment of Sora it's dealing with a lot of issues, by the end of the novel Sora had chosen a person he loved among the 9 girls.

This is the moment where the twist opened up for most readers, including me. The plot is fine but the ending doesn't do justice to the remaining heroines, they left the past behind and embraced reality because they love the protagonist and he influenced them, but the author made a quick ending and chose the one girl and didn't fix all of them, he made sure to fix everything when the protagonist decided to interfere with his own actions and the girls fell in love with him.

But the ending had one of the most heartbreaking moments of the novel, yes, the protagonist experienced a happy ending with a chosen girl from his harem, but in popularity, what happened to the other contestants, aside from a big time jump after they turned 30, most of the girls didn't move on, and most of them had tragic lives because of it. One of them married someone, not by her own will, some of them actually never entered into a relationship and lived such a loveless life that the protagonist's influence has some weight for the whole story. Not the fact, but most of them just disappeared from the book immediately, and the story focuses on the protagonist. In the end, the story was a sweet victory for the protagonist, but a tragic game of fate for the remaining candidate, because the book deals with the realism of people with a past, and that's one of the reasons I decided to read it, I also had one.


In the last chapter, the title was revealed by the protagonist's son finding a book with a string and deciding to read it, and what was in that book with a string was a pure confession of the girls that they had given to Sora in the past, in which most of the content was quite beautiful, and most of it was warming to read and it was being done with a nostalgic tone, and the protagonist's son decided to read it and tried to discover those women that his father never told him.

To make a long story short, that was a terrible ending for a harem in the book, if that were to happen in my current situation....

I can't ignore it, something inside me can't ignore it.

In the classroom, the names of my new classmates were still being introduced, and instinctively I immediately turned my head to the far side of the classroom next to the window where the story was in its halfway, Sora had already met four girls so far, Kitigawa Kotone had already met him, and the other two was in the other section, Kanemoto Michi and Sazama Sachi, and the last one will be Seki Yoko, who will be transferred in two days from now.

If the book is true, and the three characters exist in my sight, I need confirmation if my theory and my doubts are true.

And to confirm my suspicions, the man in the background decided to stand up and introduce himself, he himself had gray-black hair and blue eyes that resembled a bright sky, just like his name, his figure was the same as in the description of the novel.

'The boy named Hirose Sora decided to stand-up and gather confidence in himself, walking slowly towards the class. He recognized some of the people inside, including the three that were looking at him.

His sky blue eyes were looking at the people, his gray-black hair was blowing in disarray, and he calmly watched as he carried out his presentation very well, he had been in Tokyo for a year now, and his skin was now starting to be healthy, he looked like a fine man in front of his class, he introduced himself to them with a nice tone.

'It was a pleasure to be in this class, I hope we had a nice time together. I am Hirose Sora. '

"It was a pleasure to be in this class, I hope we had a nice time together. I am Hirose Sora."

That... confirms my doubts.