This is Another Way to Go About it

I hate serious conversations like those… You never know what to say after the main part of it is over. Luckily we parted ways naturally at an intersection, but imagine we lived next to each other!

Knowing her though, she’ll probably have moved on already. And more importantly, it’s the weekend, well technically Friday, meaning writing city: population me.

I plan on cramming all my studying this evening so I’m completely free Saturday and Sunday. Yep. That’s how studying works. You can charge it up all in one day instead of spreading it out over multiple days.

More-MORE importantly, I’m tired. Probably from a long week of writing, but most likely from the conversation with Akimoto.

Her and I have had “serious” conversations before, but they’ve either been me listening to her, or me hyping her up to write. Never a direct confrontation about her… mental state or something?

In a few swift steps I opened my bedroom door and flopped on my mattress.

“Dealing with real girls is too draining…”

“Mako, you sound like an incel right now.”

I don’t have the energy to pretend to be surprised at Sayuri being in my room… As usual she was sitting at my PC with her legs up on the chair.

“What’re you playin’?” I asked.

“Person Three: Low on Ammo.”

“You mean Perso—”

“Ah—! Hey! We don’t have the budget for that.” Sayuri thankfully caught me before I got us a massive fine.

“Isn’t it nice… In that game it’s just that, a game. All the interactions have a formula and a reason. It’s easy to predict.”

Sayuri paused her game—I couldn’t see this but I knew because the jazz music stopped playing. She moved to sit on the edge of my bed near my head.

“Mako, you usually don’t talk like this much of a light novel character. What happened?”

“It’s nothing serious… I’m just tired.”

“Long week?”

“...Yeah.”

She set her hand on the back of my head—her fingers sliding through my hair. Usually I feel I’d freakout from this, but not today.

“Akimoto finally came back to the clubroom today.” I said after some silence.

“Wasn’t she gone for almost a week?”

“Mhm…”

“Why’d she return suddenly?”

“Ahhhhh~ That’s the exact thing I don’t wanna think about.”

I heard Sayuri open her mouth as if she was going to push further, but she quickly shut it.

Another serious conversation isn’t what I wanted when I got home.

My sister got up and soon after the jazz music resumed.

***

“AHhuHUha—”

The weight of a bad-night’s sleep crushed me in an instant when I sat up. It was a combination of a dry but sticky throat, a heavy head, dizziness, and a possible iron deficiency…?

I don’t understand it at all. I fell asleep all snug under my blankets with a smile on my face, and I woke up feeling like this? How is this fair? What time is it even?

I felt around for my glasses and struggled for a moment to set them on my face.

5:07 AM

“Haaa—” I’m awake now... No helping it I guess.

I tiptoe across my room, where my PC is frozen on a random frame from Person Three. The light from the screen illuminates Sayuri's sleeping face. Another night she fell asleep at the keyboard…

I’m starting to feel a bit better, but honestly, I could fall back asleep standing up.

I slide the filter into the coffee machine, followed by the hazelnut-scented grounds. Every time I have to fill the pot and pour water into the machine, it feels like an eternity. Just standing there by the sink, watching the pot slowly drink up a few liters of water.

In reality, it doesn’t even take a full minute.

I add the water and press the large button. It glows a faint blue as the machine begins to gurgle to life.

I naturally wander to the two small rectangular windows on the far-side of the living room. Sunlight had just begun to peek around the buildings and into our apartment. Activity on the street usually doesn’t pick up until around seven—so what I saw surprised me quite a bit.

A tall, black-haired woman in dress pants and shirt stood in front of an easel. You have to be a very special person to instantly recognize this woman.

What was weird was she was standing in the middle of the street painting. I mean, I guess there’ll be no traffic for a few more hours so why not, right? But why?

The subject of Fujioka’s painting was a woman in a sundress standing under an arbor in the median of the street.

If I remember correctly, the woman she’s painting lives in the apartment building adjacent to mine? I don’t know her name though. Still, I have to hand it to Fujioka, she always has some sort of vision or idea of what she wants to do and how to move forward. It’s impressive.

Gradually, I became almost entranced by her painting. If she can create something so vividly spectacular out of a grey city, she’s capable of anything!

Even if my writing is bad, which is impossible, if I had someone like her illustrating everyone would want to check out my series… It won’t happen though… She’s firmly said no before.

"I don’t blame her. The last time she agreed to help with one of my projects, I had her do nine illustrations—and they were incredible. All the characters looked cute and friendly, with designs and a style that were unique compared to other light novel characters, yet still gave off a familiar feeling, like you’d seen the style before and naturally were supposed to like it.”

And after I finished the first volume, she spent so much time fixing my writing... but it just wasn’t good enough.

The woman Fujioka was painting broke her position and gestured a little—it looked like she was kindly suggesting something to the artist.

Fujioka shook her head and approached the woman.

“Why wasn’t the story good enough?”

I feel like I never fully thought it through… Something just felt off.

Fujioka rolled up a newspaper and smacked the woman on the head. The latter ducked a little and covered her head with her hands, however, Fujioka kept smacking her. It also looked like she was shouting something.

This time will be different though… I’ve changed a little since then, right? Of course I have. I’m a great writer now! And I have Akimoto! She really knows what she’s doing when she’s around! There’s no way I’ll give up like last time!

Fujioka, the mad artist, was still repeatedly smacking the woman with the newspaper.

I’m not going to convince Fujioka to work with me… but Fuchi. We’ll work together as partners, not friends.

Are we friends?

Naturally, the amount of time we spend together should make us such, but is that what we have? It’s more like she breaks and enters, and I’m forced to deal with it… PSA: If you’re someone’s friend, don’t break and enter into their house please!

Okay I gotta stop Fujioka from hitting that poor woman, I’m going out there.