Writer's Shock

I yelp, fall, and almost hit my head on the edge of the table as you do when you hear a fricking gunshot.

I look up to see Anton with that same gun, the silencer/slower off along with the handle that had the bullets.

“Why is there a bullet missing?!” Anton yells, clutching his head from the hangover.

“I don’t know anything” I lie.

He, inserted of saying anything, just glared at me.

“What the frick was that Anton?” Daitan asks as you do when you hear a gunshot at 7 AM.

“Nothing” Anton lies, puts the handle/bullets back onto the gun, and walks out to probably do his job.

She looks at me and I just shrug.

I notice that she looks a bit malnourished, but she probably hasn't been taking vitamins for a while, it has happened to me after all.

She goes back into her room to record something.

I see that Reina is also out of her room, doing the “come over here” motion with her hand.

I decide why not and go “She probably just wants to vent a little bit,” I say correctly.

Before she says anything I say “First take off that cosplay, I can’t take you seriously with that”.

She is still wearing that same thing from yesterday, that “Asuka” costume from “Evangelion”.

“Right after this I need to go to that panel” Reina snaps back “I mean it’s a big event and Ado is apparently rumored to make an appearance there”.

“Alright fine,” I say “So what do you want to vent”.

“You know this thing called honey feed?” she asks.

“Um no?” I say

“Well in a nutshell, it was a site where you could write web novels for people to read,” Reina says “And one day they partnered with MyAnimeList for a contest”.

“And I’m assuming that you entered this contest?” I ask.

“Yeah I did, you know what's infuriating?” She says “Two things”.

“First” Reina continues “I didn't know how to draw so I asked one of my online friends to do it but they just didn't, I had to just go for no image for a while”.

“And second,” she said “One cover with fricking stick figure beat me by almost 2 times the views,” she says angrily.

“I mean I was expecting that pigeon thing to win but it didn't even make it to the finals,” Reina says.

“After they announced the finalists, I just removed it from the contest, not caring anymore” she adds.

“That must be rough,” I say.

“Yea people think that writing is just an animation without all of the hard parts but no it’s not,” She says “It's the hardest part, made harder!”

“For example, if I want a character to have any emotion, I would have to make them say something like instead of just a face I have to say she says agitatedly,” she says agitatedly.

“Yea you know that's why I don't want to be a psychologist. I can't imagine writing a paper about a study.” I say “Like what if I’m wrong?”.

“You know what also infuriates me?” Reina says “Isekai titles, like I don’t want the name of the show to be the fricking synopsis, I want something creative.”.

“Like I even lost to one with an isekai title and it also had no cover image!” She continues to be very agitated.

“I mean I’m not doing it for any money but I mean to be fair my first one was a contest that gave out money but that was 4 years ago,”.

“So back in 2023,” I ask “What place did you get?”.

“Oh um, I don’t remember,” she says “I’ll tell you I went nowhere close to 1st, there was a prize for second but I didn't get that thing either.”.

She continues “But I wasn't going for the money, I mean someone who only started writing gets 1st place? Yeah right, I just wanted experience, so I continued”.

We pause for a second and I ask “Could I read one of yours”.

She recoils like I just made a death threat to her.

“It can’t be that bad,” I say.

She sighs and shows her computer, saying “It is that bad”.

I speed-read it (It is like 8 pages so I’ll only give a quick summary).

It’s titled “(not decided)” but I assume that is just temporary and not the actual title.

It is about 5 teens named Sam, Kaguya, Lucero, Aaron, and Jonah going through high school, a slice of life if you will. It seems to focus on Lucero throughout it.

I finish reading it and she says “See, awful”.

“Hey,” I say “Even if it is bad, so what?”.

She goes “Huh?” So I continue.

“Look if you are really passionate about this story, then do it, it doesn't matter whether it's quote-on-quote good or not because that depends on who's looking at it”.

“You know what you’re right, I should post it,” she says as she opens a tab, pulls up a tab called <HoneyFeed>, and is about to publish it when she pauses.

“Right, need a name,” she says as she pulls up <ChatGPT> and asks it for a name.

“As an AI language model I-” Is what it typed out before Reina punched the computer.

Luckily it didn't break but it now has a crack on the screen.

At that moment I remembered the question I was going to ask 2 days ago.

“How did Atsuo fail?”I ask.

“What?” She says.

“How did Atsuo fail that test, you know that test you did which is just telling people you’re pansexual” I explain.

“Oh um uh” She stutters.

“Omg. Are you the 2nd person in this group who has a crush on Atsuo?” I ask, not interested, more annoyed.

“What?!” She exclaims “How did you know?”.

“I didn’t, I was joking,” I say.

“Oh un, yea” she tries “I was also joking, haha”.

I just look at her, not saying anything, letting her know “telepathically” that I knew that it wasn't a joke.

“Anyways, you know what also annoyed me?” Reina continues trying to get away from the question “The fact that the theme wasn't anything interesting, just romance story,”.

“At least they said it had to be wholesome,” she adds.

I look at her for a bit and she gives in.

“I just think she’s a great girl, but I’m pretty sure she’s cis so I’m not gonna do anything about it so let's just end it,” Reina says reluctantly.

“Fair enough,” I say.

“Could I ask one thing?” I continue, “Do you guys want me to be here?”

She then recoils, but not as much, only like I just insulted her mother.

After waiting a bit for a laugh (I think) she says “Yeah we want you here, and I mean you’ve already helped me and Jiro out.”

“How do you-” I try to ask but before I can Reina says, “He told me yesterday”

We just stare for a bit, both probably realizing it’s over now.

I start to walk to the door, reaching for the handle, when bang! Or- wait, what is the sound of a door hitting you? For the future, I'll just say it hits me.

“Oh yeah, Anton and Daitan got that fixed yesterday” Reina comments.

Out of the door comes Atsuo in outdoor attire as if she is about to go to a fair.

I note that it keeps on alternating between Reina and Atsuo on who hits me with a door.

“Do you two want to go with me?” Atsuo says “Daitan gave me two tickets to a fair but she, Anton, or Jiro didn’t want to go”.

“Oh right!” Reina says, remembering the anime convention, and scurries outside saying “I’m getting that signature”

I realize that Daitan set up a “date” with Atsuo and I’m not complaining, I just wanted you to know.

“I guess,” I say, making sure not to be barking with excitement (not in a weird way).

Atsuo, thank god, didn't catch on to it, instead thinking for a second and saying “Well let's go!” in a cherry tone.

As we're going out, Daitan stops me, gives me her number, and whispers to me “Call me if you have any problems”.

“Why are you so interested in this?” I ask, not complaining, just wondering.

“Oh- um uh, it’s nothing,” She says, basically saying “I have a secret that I’m hiding but I’m also so bad at lying so I just stutter instead of giving a real answer because all of the people I usually talk to are dumb asses”.

What, you didn't get that? Fair I guess, the only reason I knew was that I was exactly like that at the time.

I sigh, “I’ll just deal with that later, I have a quote on quote date with Atsuo!” I think to myself.

We get into her car and Atsuo asks “You want any music?”.

“Sure,” I say, relieved that I'm not in that hamburger-odored car that Anton owned.

She puts on a station that is at the moment playing the song “Tokyo Flash” by Vaundy (Great song listen to it sometimes).

She pulls out her phone starts to type the address onto the car and starts to drive.

The place where the fair is happening is the Arakawa Todabashi Green Space.

As we are exiting the car, we see a sign that says “Celebrating Marine Day 2027!”.

“Wasn't that yesterday?” I ask.

“It was delayed to today because of some cultural festival that was happening here yesterday.” She says as if it is just on a sign right next to us.

I look around and, in fact, there is a sign that says “It was delayed to today because of some cultural festival that was happening here yesterday.”

We go into the fair entrance, give the tickets to the tired teen there, and enter to find food stalls everywhere.

Takoyaki, omakase, ramen, udon, and yuzu ice cream were only a few foods there.

We both decided to get some Takoyaki and sit down to have a nice chat.

“Who’s your favorite music artist?” I ask.

“You know, I can’t decide between, KANA-BOON or Vauny,” She says “But it’s definitely one of those two”.

“Yeah, it’s around the same for me,” I say ‘Except replace Vauny with Reol”.

I pause for a second and ask another question “You know those people who say they can’t tell if the inside of takoyaki is hot or not?”.

“Yeah, Jiro is one of them,” Atsuo says.

“Next time they burn their tongue on Takoyaki, just say skill issue,” I say, somewhat jokingly.

Atsuo chuckles a little bit.

When Jrio was saying that Atsuo was a conversational drunk, he was saying it like Atsuo is very shy when talking but she’s more reactive than shy.

Kinda like how some Americans on Twitter call other people an NPC (I am not fricking calling it “X”.

Atsuo is now looking somewhere else so I look as well.

It looks like 2 brothers, one younger and one older racing, the younger one lagging, I guess Atsuo just was looking at the results.

I start to have a panic attack and collapse onto the floor.

Atsuo looks at me as if her brain just shuts down and is frozen.

I feel the embers inside of me that were already revived twice, die once again.