Anxious and Tired

Hmm…maybe it would better if the knight met the princess after his second encounter with the corrupt church…or maybe I should keep it before, since dealing with the church really helps him grow as a character…

Sitting at her desk at home after a long day of school and club, Natsuki pondered these thoughts since it would be much more enjoyable to ponder over her story than to ponder over her chemistry notes.

Chemistry! Pardon my language, but what the *heck* is a phosphate?! What do all these symbols mean?

July started off with the bright summer sun continuing to shine down upon the people of Miyazawa. The storm clouds of the past rainy season were long gone, but an intangible gray darkness soon crept over the minds of Miyazawa’s students - the dreadful, inevitable finals to end their first semester of school.

While on their way to their clubs one day after classes let out, Natsuki and Mitsuko came across a large bulletin board at the back of the lobby. Posters for various summertime events during the upcoming school vacation - August firework festivals and sales at shopping malls - currently covered the board. When the students returned in September, they would find their finals rankings up there.

Natsuki frowned at the thought and gently touched the rightmost space on the board while Mitsuko remained stoic next to her.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to make it in the top fifty of the rankings?” Natsuki wondered aloud. She glanced leftwards, toward the middle spot of the board where her name usually was.

Mitsuko shrugged. “Middle’s not so bad.”

Natsuki crossed her arms. “That’s because you’re always top fifty.”

Mitsuko adjusted her glasses. “Top twenty-five, to be more accurate.”

Natsuki shooed her away. “Yeah, yeah. How do you do it, though?”

“...have you tried being smart?”

Natsuki just pouted. Mitsuko gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder. “There, there. If I really had to guess, I do well on my exams because I spend a lot of time studying.”

“Time?” Natsuki repeated.

“You have your daily writing time, right?” Mitsuko asked. “And your daily homework time when you get home, too. That’s a good start. When finals come around, all you have to do is increase the time you spend studying. Most people don’t want to study. But sometimes, you just have to do it.”

Natsuki remembered Yumiko whining about studying in a manner that reminded Natsuki of herself.

“You get home from club around six, right?” Mitsuko continued. “Then you do homework for another two to three hours. Since we all neglect to get a proper amount of sleep, I would assume you get around six hours of sleep a night - that gives you about two to three hours of free time. Instead of using that as free time, treat it as studying time.”

Natsuki rubbed her head. “But when do I have fun?”

Mitsuko shrugged. “You don’t.”

“I don’t?”

“You don’t,” Mitsuko confirmed. She saw Natsuki pout even harder at that. “It'll only be for a few weeks."

“But what if I miss out on stuff?”

“Like what? Watching television?”

Earnestly, Natsuki answered, “Being alive.”

That made Mitsuko pause. Not sure what to say, she leaned her back against the bulletin board, rubbing her chin in thought. “Once again, you’ve proven yourself to be amazingly difficult. I can’t say that I dislike that about you, though.”

As usual, Natsuki was easily swayed by Mitsuko’s words. Forgetting all about her pouting, she rubbed the back of her head and smiled at the compliment.

“Some people can understand school just like that,” Mitsuko said. “But for the vast majority of people, including me and you, we just have to put in more time. Most people have to make sacrifices in life.”

As usual, Natsuki’s anxieties easily returned to her. She joined Mitsuko in leaning her back against the bulletin board. “It’s funny. Being in the middle of the rankings never used to bother me. But now…I don’t know. Now that I’m improving in writing, I want to improve in other areas, too.”

She tapped the bulletin board gently with the back of her head. “But I don’t want to study. I don’t want to do something I don’t want to do. Well, that’s obvious, I guess, but you know what I mean. I don’t mind studying for the usual amount of time, but…I want to spend my life the way I want to spend it. Wouldn’t that be the definition of being alive? There are some things I want to do, so I want my time to be my own. I want to write my next book. I want to hang out with my sister and my friends.”

“What about during the August break?”

Natsuki shook her head. “That’s true. But I want to start now. And I want to see you more during the break!”

Mitsuko chuckled and kept her stoic composure. “Yeah…me too…” Her eyes looked off into the distance at that, towards the other side of the lobby, but she kept talking before Natsuki could realize.

“I guess you could try doing both,” Mitsuko supposed. “They say you can always sleep when you’re dead.”

Natsuki pondered that. “You know what…maybe you’re onto something. I don’t want to wait for August - so maybe I’ll just cut back on sleep a little to give myself more time in the day. I can always make it up during the break.”

Natsuki stepped away from the bulletin board and held Mitsuko’s hands in her own. “Thanks, Mitsuko! We have a few weeks until finals - I’ll try to do it! I’ll try to study more and write more!”

“Best of luck,” Mitsuko encouraged. But then she went to warn her. “But nothing we talked about is universal, you know. When you try something like that, results may vary-”

But Natsuki was already bounding down the hallway toward her grand ambitions.

….......

The first week of July on the new schedule went pretty well, all things considered. She could knock out five hundred words during club time; then, by sacrificing a couple hours of sleep (which occasionally turned into more than a few hours) she could get her daily number up to eight hundred. That meant a few chapters a week. She’d be able to reach her desired backlog of around twenty chapters before publishing before the end of July.

As she sat at her desk each night, translating Japanese words into English and pounding out more writing, her right leg always moved restlessly and the midnight oil burned relentlessly.

Time. It used to drift away peacefully, unnoticed, but more and more each day, Natsuki took notice of the clock. Not the days of the week - just the clock as it steadily ticked away. She broke her life down into smaller bits and bits. Every part of the day was planned out to match her schedule.

But there never seemed to be enough time. Watching a baseball game with her sister became a rare luxury. Watching the newest episode of Fudge Sundae? Forget about it. Being alive? Well, pursuing her goals was living, right?

Keep moving forward. That’s all there was to it. Keep moving forward.

But it turns out, there was another element to the schedule Natsuki had completely neglected - her other responsibilities. There was a life outside of dreams, for better or worse.

Fuyuki had helped, of course. But even she had her limits.

“Natsuki, could you make dinner tonight? I made it every night for the past two weeks.”

“Natsuki, could you sweep the apartment today? It’s been your turn for days now.”

“Natsuki, could you take out the trash? It’s overflowing.”

Natsuki groaned at each request. All that mattered was fulfilling her endgame. Her side of their bedroom steadily grew messier and messier; her chores and Fuyuki’s pleas were increasingly forgotten about.

Finally, Fuyuki had enough. When she came home one night to a mound of dirty dishes on the sink and counter, she put her foot down.

“Natsuki!” she cried out, slamming open the door to their room.

Natsuki, of course, was knee-deep in a 24/7 lofi hip-hop beats to chill/study/sleep to stream and didn’t hear her sister's pleas until Fuyuki removed her headphones.

“Hey!” Natsuki exclaimed. “I was in the middle of writing!”

“You haven’t done your chores in days!” Fuyuki complained, crossing her arms. “Mom and Dad will still be gone for a while. I’ve been helping you, but you need to help me!”

Natsuki frowned. “With what?”

Fuyuki waved her arms around. “I have a life, too! I have finals coming up as well, and I’ve been getting busier with softball. You’re supposed to make dinner on nights I have games, but I always come back to nothing. I started buying tv dinners those nights since I know there’ll be nothing when I come home. What do you eat when I can’t make dinner?”

Natsuki tried to think about it, but she had trouble concentrating. Math equations and plot points did a mad dance inside her head. “I…I don’t know. I guess I don’t eat.”

Fuyuki tugged her on the arm, pulling her out of her chair. “C’mon!”

“H-hey!” Natsuki said as Fuyuki dragged her to the kitchen. “I can’t mess up my schedule. I have to finish studying by 11 PM so I’ll have three hours to write after!”

Fuyuki presented the pile dirty dishes to her.

Natsuki sighed. “Alright, fair enough.” Reluctantly, with constant glances to the clock, she grabbed soap and sponge and went to work, her mind racing. She talked to Fuyuki while she worked, but with her thoughts so scattered, she wasn’t really paying attention.

“...Natsuki?”

Natsuki blinked. “Hmm. Oh yeah, softball practice is going good, that’s great.”

Fuyuki shook her head. “I was saying you missed my game last Sunday.”

“Your game? Oh, your game. It’s this Sunday, isn’t it? Isn’t this the first week of July?”

“We’re halfway through the month!” Fuyuki groaned.

“Really?” Natsuki washed the dishes a bit more somberly now. “So that means finals and my writing deadline are getting close. My friend at club told me about not letting the days blur together. I guess I haven’t been on top of that.”

“You’re all over the place,” Fuyuki said, her voice gentler now, full of concern. “Can’t you push back your writing until after finals finish?”

Natsuki violently shook her head. “I want to write now. I can handle it.”

Fuyuki eyed the bags growing under her older sister’s eyes and her messy hair. “School’s important, Natsuki. It’s something you have to do.”

Natsuki rubbed a stain out of a dish. “That’s not really being alive, though. Being alive means pursuing your dreams. What’s so important about finals? Who says they’re something I have to do?”

Despite being the younger sister, Fuyuki possessed an air of maturity to her. “Being alive means dealing with stuff you don’t want to do. You’re not alive in a vacuum - you’re alive in reality. And sometimes, reality just throws stuff your way that you have to do, even if it means putting your dreams on hold for a little bit.”

Natsuki sighed, knowing her sister had a point. “You’re wise beyond your years, Fuyuki. How do you know all this?”

“If it was entirely up to me, I’d practice and play softball all day,” Fuyuki answered. She looked around an apartment that needed sweeping and dusting. “But it’s not entirely up to me. Reality’s always there.”

Natsuki cleaned another dish; despite getting halfway through the pile, the stack of dirty dishes still seemed as tall as a mountain. “When’s your next game? I’ll try to attend that one.”

“We have a home game next Saturday.”

Natsuki nodded and went back to work, trying to fit the game into her already-tight schedule. Mitsuko asked her to hang out that night; she’d have to wake up even earlier on Sunday to fit more studying and writing in.

Silence settled into the apartment; Natsuki washed the dishes while Fuyuki watched her, afraid of the fraying edges to Natsuki’s voice. She stepped beside her sister and started drying off the cleaned dishes and putting them away.

“I’m just concerned about you,” Fuyuki finally said quietly.

Natsuki paused to ruffle her sister’s hair. “It’s alright, Fuyuki. I know what I’m doing.”