The Memoirs of That Literature Club

Erithemaeus · Feb 19, 2018

What did I want to be?

As my fingers continuously moved over the keyboard like some kind of a cold inefficient machine, my eyes stared at the screen blankly, watching it be filled with words that slowly took over half of the screen.

I blinked, realizing that I needed a break, and sighed, leaning back on my seat as I felt the plastic monoblock chair behind me groan as my weight and some others bore down on it like a mountain on a titan. A few seconds later, I relaxed, going back to my former position as I once again blinked and resumed typing.

Seriously, what did I want to be?

At first, I went into this school because I was interested in science. The beauty, the complexity, the simplicity of everything around me that I couldn't understand attracted me, hooked me like I was baited fish, and at a mere age of twelve, I was already on a prestigious academy's payroll, and the trap was closed.

We couldn't quit – not when our families are going to be forced to pay every last piece of money that this school gave us. We could only go on, watch as the others who didn't make the cut struggle helplessly against the overbearing tide of competition, and sink under the waves, leaving only their bloated bodies on the shore.

And so I typed, not knowing what I was doing. And so I wrote, not knowing what I was thinking. What did I came here for? For the knowledge? For the experience? For the wisdom? Five years had already passed since I started studying at this school, and only now I realize that I was nothing more than an idealistic little boy who's real reason for living is any place other than this damn school. I can't do anything. I can only type my feelings out.

I sighed, finishing off my essay as I reached into my pant pockets, bringing out a sleek yet small black flash drive, and plugged it inside the side of my laptop. As a folder popped into existence out of nowhere, I saved my document, moving it towards the flash drive's storage as I waited for the transfer bar to reach to full.

Once the window showing the bar disappeared, I quickly pulled out the flash drive, and rose out of my seat with a grunt, making my way towards the printer on the other side of the wing with my flash drive in tow. As I exited the classroom that I was in, I looked back, seeing a single desk housing a laptop, a mouse, a keyboard, some files, a folder, and a rugged bag. Looking up, I saw the signboard for the room, snorting at myself as a smirk formed on my face, fishing into my pockets and pulled out an unremarkable silver key.

Without much effort, I slid the door to the classroom closed, locking it with the key as I placed the silver little thing back into my pocket, sighing at the extra twenty seconds that I had wasted as my gaze quickly left the room and started walking towards the photocopier.

'Literature Club', the signboard said, the memory flashing into my mind once again as I couldn't help but smirk. Five years in this goddamn school and I finally found my way, and all I get for it was a club that was already on its last legs.

...How wonderful, if I do say so myself.

"Tanaka", a voice called out to me as I slid the door open, stepping inside the classroom as a cold breeze of air washed over my face. Closing the door after me, I once again locked it with the key before turning towards the speaker behind me.

"Oh, Ayame-senpai huh", I said, a thin smile on my face as I quickly made my way towards my desk, stuffing my hands into my pockets as I constantly squirmed them around, "How long has it been since you last visited me here? Two weeks? Two months?"

"Three weeks and four days to be precise, Tanaka", my senior said as she quickly glanced at the back of the room and went into action, the sound of moving furniture echoing across the empty space as I simply sat down in front of my laptop, and laid my hands on the keyboard, closing the current window of my current processor as another one was hidden behind it, an epic load of words immediately hitting me right in the face as I smiled.

Almost one hundred thousand words, with almost five hundred thousand characters, with exactly two-hundred and fifty pages. It was the first volume of my magnum opus, the – "...Ayame-senpai. Why are you sitting across me?"

"Just wanted to see how far you've gone with whatever you were talking about the last time I came here", she said with a thin smile on her face as she plopped down on her seat, bringing out her own laptop and quickly affixing its charger towards one of the outlets embedded onto the wall, "So, how's it going?"

"Volume one is finished; I'll be sending it to you when its done", I said as I closed the window of my word processor, bringing me to another window filled with its navigation tabs only half-filled, "...And currently at a standstill on the second volume."

I quickly tossed the black flash drive towards her when the transfer was done, and she immediately caught it with a quick grab as she plugged it into her laptop in one swift movement, tucking a tuft of her dark brown hair behind her ear as she raised her glasses by the bridge of her nose, "Author's block at it again? Ah, I can understand. Here I am with six months of doing nothing, and look what I have added to my newest work – only a single chapter."

"That's...a problem", I said, finally finding the right words to say as my senior sighed, slumping forward as her hair and glasses once again moved out of place. Why doesn't she change them, exactly?

"We're going to need a compilation that consists of at least 20 works if we want this club to keep going", my senior said with a tired smile on her face, "And I'm currently stuck on my fifth one. How about you?"

"That first volume was already my sixth one", I replied curtly, "We're currently going about the same pace, if you ask me."

"So he says, but one of my junior's works was the first volume of an entire light novel series", my senior said with a glum tone, "...One of my junior's works was an entire freaking novel, but I'm currently struggling with my fifth short story. Is it because of talent, I wonder?"

I couldn't help but shake my head with a snort, "It's not due to talent. The difference might be due to having more experience to use as basis for events in a story."

"So a hopeless introvert like you is telling me that I actually have less life experience? Don't push your luck Tanaka, or else you'll be receiving a drop kick from under the table", my senior said with a dangerous smile and glint in her eyes as I couldn't help but stiffen at the sight of it.

"G-Glad you're motivated, senpai", I replied with a smile, causing my senior to frown at me, kicking me under the table as I let out a yelp. My right leg moved up in reflex as it slammed against the table's underside, causing my set-up to rattle violently as I widened my eyes in horror...

...And eventually turned into a sigh of relief, noting that the laptop, keyboard, and mouse were fine from the sudden rattle of the table. As quickly as I showed relief however, I glared at my senior, "Ayame-senpai, you're going to have to pay for my stuff if any single one of them gets broken, alright?"

"Alright, I'll pay for it all~" She said, trying to emulate a kindergartener's tone as I couldn't help but scowl at her. After the mini heart attack that she gave me, this is how she responds? I don't care if you're my senior or a girl or whatever, but bring it on! Give me a stick and I'll personally pave your path on the way to Hell!

"Please just review the novel for me please", I pleaded in my usual tone as my senior adjusted her glasses, beaming a smile in my direction as I couldn't help but glance back down at my laptop screen, pretending to type random keys on my keyboard as my senior giggled at me.

"I see you're just as susceptible to girls as ever, Tanaka", she said in a teasing tone as I couldn't help but scowl at her, "Fine, I'll do it. Not just because I'm still stuck on my fifth story or something, but only because my dashing, handsome kouhai asked me to."

"...Are you mocking me?"

"Have you ever seen yourself in glasses?" My senior said with an enthusiastic tone to her voice, taking off her glasses and handing it over to me, "Here, wear these! Just look at a mirror and watch how you look!"

Taking her glasses, I gave her a scrutinizing expression as I tried them on, my whole world suddenly taking on a fuzzy outline as I couldn't help but yelp, closing my eyes for an instant before slowly opening them up again–

Click.

I widened my eyes, the sound of a camera's shutter echoing all throughout the still air of the clubroom as I stared at the black circular lens for a second, my thoughts stopping all conscious activity before laughter came from the other side of the lens.

And my brain clicked into full-gear, "Wa-wa- wait, A-A-A-Ayame-senpai, d-did you just–"

"And, set!" My senior said, a bright grin on her face as she held her phone out towards me, catching me at my moment of weakness, staring at the camera with wide eyes as my lips were slightly open, as if I were staring at the camera with a curious look on my face. It was almost the splitting image of me back then, when I was still an idealistic young boy–

"Hey!" I screamed, trying to snatch the phone away from my senior's grip, but she proved too fast for me to simply just hook onto it and let my strength do the rest. As I thought about how to erase that vile photo from the depths of my senior's phone before she uses it for something weird, she quickly placed her phone on top of her skirt, denying me any chance to take it back from her.

"Tanaka, I'll delete this photo, but only under one condition", she said, a dangerous smile forming on her face as she once again tucked a lock of her hair over her ear, "...Let's go and get yourself a pair of glasses this weekend."

"Hah?"

...As I silently loomed over my closet like some kind of slasher villain, I could only cross my arms with a scowl on my face as I stared at my pitifully sparse wardrobe. Even though the clothes inside are a mess, I could only see a few usable ones, which I use on a daily or weekly basis. The other clothes that were currently gathering dust at the bottom of the closet were just one-time hand-me-downs from my father, but I wouldn't dare use them now in fear of being infected by my father's enthusiasm for clothing. Seriously, he's more like a nagging mother than a stereotypical man when inside a clothing store.

In any case, all I have on me right now are my uniforms, home clothes, and five sets of outdoor clothing, easily pushing the total count of my regular clothing to about 50. Now that I think about it in hindsight, I don't have anything that I could actually use when going out with someone.

Usually, my outdoor clothes are just simple T-shirts, jackets, and jeans – boring, but ruthlessly simple and efficient. I don't even need to worry about picking what kind of color I would use or any stuff like that. My usual color scheme is white, gray, and black, and I intend on keeping it that way.

"Do you think I got anything useable here?" I asked towards the person beside me, a girl who shares the same height as me, along with our mutual black hair and gray eyes. Needless to say, she was my older sister, a college student currently working part-time at a famous fast-food chain.

And she was staring at me with daggers in her eyes, "Tanaka, I'm going to ask you just this once, but are you an idiot?"

"No, I do think pretty calmly", I replied, much to my sister's chagrin as she smacked me on the head. Ow. Hey, just because you're a woman doesn't mean that you get to smack around guys like that, you know? Double standards? I'm accusing you of breaking one of my rights.

"You know what? Let me see what you got", my older sister said, frowning at me as she pointed at my sparse wardrobe, "Try your own clothes on, and let me see if I could somehow fix your warped sense of style."

"It's not even warped, though", I calmly pointed out as I stared at the wardrobe, and to my sister, and then back again towards my wardrobe, "...Wait. Are you just going to stand there while I strip myself over here?"

"Oh? Here I thought that my little brother's been so innocent, but you're actually growing up", she said with a teasing smile as she looked at my unmoved face, "Well, I guess that's enough teasing for the moment. Then if you excuse me, I'll be waiting outside. Hope you don't entangle yourself, Tanaka."

As the wooden floorboards underneath her creaked in response to her weight, the latch of the door being closed signified that she was already out of the room, making me sigh as I stared at the mirror that was strapped onto the inside of the closet door.

...Why am I even doing this anyway? To get rid of that damn photo that looked like my past self, currently stuck as my senior's wallpaper. If a family member sees that image I wonder, how would she react? Most probably, she'd just laugh it off while saying the borderline sadistic things that she has done to her own junior, and the rest of her family would probably laugh, because there is no way in all of reality that a person such as her would have a normal family.

Stripping off my clothes, I didn't even bother to check the mirror as I started putting on a combination of clothes. I was the type that looks thinner when wearing clothes, so I might as well utilize that to my advantage.

A few moments of rustling clothes later, my sister came back in and watched me with a mute expression of shock on her face, staring at me as if she was staring at something that would normally break the laws of physics – "Are you trying to mock me or something, Ayu-nee?"

"Woah", my sister could only reply, scratching her cheek as she stared at me wide-eyed, "You have a talent for this, Tanaka. Why not become a fashion designer in the future?"

"I'll think of it as a side-job, then", I asked, a thin smile on my face as I internally nodded in success at my sister's evaluation of my clothing choice. At least I won't look like a damn idiot while going outside...Wait.

"Haa...To think that my little brother would grow up all of a sudden..." My sister said, shooting me a glance as if I was already far on the horizon, "...Who would've ever thought that my anti-social little brother out of all people would be going on a date?"

"It's not a date", I said calmly as another part of my mind began reassign the information that Ayame-senpai had given me earlier, "Senpai just blackmailed me into going out with her for tomorrow. Apparently for some glasses or something."

"Well, I guess that she's sort of considerate for you, huh? You do look good in glasses after all", my sister said as she blinked at me, "...Yeah. I remember mother and father telling me that you're nearsighted. I guess you kind of need those glasses do you?"

"My vision's fine though", I said as my sister laughed and repeatedly slapped my shoulder. No, please stop. It hurts. It seriously hurts.

"Just take the damn chance and be done with it!" She said towards me with a big grin plastered on her face. Seriously, you're misunderstanding things right now, "It's not every day that you have the rare chance to go out with a girl after all, so just take that chance!"

"I go out with you to buy food from time to time, though", I pointed out as my sister sighed, taking a step back and looking at me with eyes of disappointment in her face.

"This and that are different", she said, "As of the moment, you are currently going through a complicated stage known as puberty, which means that you are more likely inclined to do things that are normally outside your own comfort zone–"

"Thanks for the advice", I said with a sigh, "I'll keep that in mind. Now please step away from my room. I need to change."

"Alright, alright, I got it", my sister said with a knowing smile on her face, "I need to check up on my cooking anyway. I know you hate it when you eat my cooking and find it not to your expectations or something."

"Why aren't you still out yet?" I complained as my sister smirked, the sound of wooden floorboards creaking once again echoing throughout my room as I sighed, the door closing a second later as I immediately made a beeline for my bed.

Feeling the softness of the bed slowly take me in, I could only sigh in relief at the heavenly feeling as I closed my eyes and smiled. Nothing more comforting than knowing that you're alone in your own damn room.

Turning around, I stared at the ceiling, the harsh light of the fluorescent lamp immediately filling my eyes as I inadvertently closed my eyes, slowly opening them a second later as I sighed. I really should get that lamp changed for a dimmer.

I blinked, my eyes moving towards my bag as I immediately lunged towards it, pulling out my laptop and carefully laying it on top of my desk, opening it carefully as I pushed the power button. The screen blinked to life, and showed my desktop, littered with various icons of numerous folders and documents that would normally drive a person with OCD mad with rage.

Watching the laptop buzz to life and connect to the house's wifi, I could only cringe in horror as tons of system messages emerged themselves on the screen, their wild pings ringing inside my ears as I could only narrow my eyes, with the messages' contents being different, all being sent by a same name.

...And one that I knew very well.

Sighing at the tactless idiot that sent all those messages at me, I opened up the latest message, reading the damn thing for about ten seconds before I widened my eyes, immediately hitting the power button to force the laptop to sleep as I immediately reached into my bag, taking everything out of it as my face paled.

Snapping my head back towards the laptop, my pale face turned into one of horror, my mind internally screaming in chaos as I cursed under my breath, wondering why my horrible senior never kept an extra copy just in case.

Groaning at myself as I scratched the back of my head, I could only sigh exasperatedly as I typed my reply and sent it to my senior, hoping against all odds that everything would sort itself out in the future as I opened up a word processor and resumed my latest work, albeit in a more irritated mood.

The compilation was missing.

"Ah, how should I say this..." My senior said, strolling alongside me with a look of regret on her face as she scratched her cheek, the nervous glint of her dark eyes appearing to be scared, "...Sorry. I should've kept it in a safer place."

"I don't what went through your head when you thought about placing the compilation on top of the bath, but whatever", I said, sighing, "...It's fine. We'll just have to start over again from square one. We still have four more days to finish the compilation, after all."

"Making ten ready-to-go, inspiring stories within four days is probably too much of a stretch for me..." my senior said as she sighed in a forlorn tone, psyching herself up a second later by slapping her cheeks once. I could still see the faint red outline of her hands as she smiled at me, "Well, we might as well make the most of it! It's a sunny weather after all, so we need to get your glasses as soon as possible in order for us to have fun!"

...Wait, "I thought you said that we would only shop for glasses? Not that I needed them anyway, but–"

"You're joining me on my own search for inspiration today", my senior said, a smile on her face as she pushed her glasses up, "...Didn't I tell you that?"

This girl, "No, you didn't. And you never said anything like that."

"Well, you might as well just sit back and enjoy my treat for being such an obedient kouhai", she said with a smirk as she reached into her sling bag and pulled out a bunch of strips of paper – Oi, I just saw something incredible there. Are you seriously forcing me to go on a – "We're going to do the full package!"

I slouched. I knew it. She was going to drag me around like her own boyfriend just so that she could have some fun. Can't she even consider other's feelings into this? "Why can't you just drag other people into your version of fun? I'd like to be stuck in my room just quietly filling our works back up into what it was, since you just let the whole damn thing sink into your bath."

After a beat, my senior frowned at me, "...I said I'm treating you. Now shut up and just follow me obediently for the rest of the damn day, you cheeky bastard."

"I'm not even cheeky in the slightest ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" I screamed, my right hand being crushed by my senior's grip as I looked towards her with a wry smile on my face, "A-Ayame-senpai, could you please let go of my hand right this instant – Ow!"

"Punishment", my senior coldly said as she started walking, leaving me with no choice but to keep up with her while making sure that the pain doesn't show on my face. It was hard, but at least it meant that I'm not giving my senior the satisfaction of seeing my pained face.

While trying to keep a smile on my pained face, we abruptly stopped at a large building, making me twitch my eyes as I slowly read the title coming across the LED screen, "...Are you serious, Ayame-senpai? The damn movies? And a romance one too?"

The grip on my right hand tightened as I yelped in pain, seeing my senior glance at me with a look of happiness on her face, as if my suffering brought her joy. Hello? Ayame-senpai? Just in case I didn't ask before when we introduced ourselves in the middle of the trimester, you aren't a sadist, right? If so, then stop with that happy look on your face. I don't want to acknowledge such a senior as my club president, thank you very much.

"Tanaka, let me give you a lecture on your current behavior right now", my senior said, strengthening her grip on my right hand as I was suddenly overcome by the urge to break free, "It's not that I particularly hate your style of thinking things through before saying them, and I'm proud of that since that basically makes you one of the most dependable people that I know. However, you also have to take account of other people's thoughts and feelings and apply them to your own. Even if it does and looks the same to you, it probably looks like a lot different through other people's perspectives. I'd be fine with it since we've been at the same club for two years, but even I have some limits too. Don't just coldly turn away other people's gratitude and goodwill – what if you need it for the future, and they won't give it to you since they already see you as a cold, anti-social, and ungrateful bastard?"

"The first two are correct, but is it really fine to add 'ungrateful bastard' to my list of characteristics?" I asked while raising my eyebrow at my senior, "I mean, I'm pretty grateful to you for letting me into the club even though you just probably saw me as a pain in the ass."

My senior sighed, "...To be honest Tanaka, you still are. Still, you're welcome. If it was your plan to appease my rage by appealing to my good traits, then it worked well, you damn cold, manipulative, anti-social bastard. I'm going to let go of your hand, so don't run, alright? It's just going to make things worse."

...Somehow, I want to.

Breathing a sigh of relief as my senior let go of my right hand, I flinched, the blood that was cut off to my hand suddenly pouring in as I shook it a few more times, trying to shake off the tingly feeling that my hand felt as I glanced towards my senior, who had a thin smile on her face as she pushed her glasses up and swept a lock of her dark brown hair away from her face, "Come, my irritating kouhai. Let us go towards the last place that you would ever dream of going to."

"You could leave the 'irritating' part behind", I retorted back as I lightly snorted, a thin smile forming on my face, "Fine, let's go, then."

...I'm sorry, romance movies. It seems that I stereotyped all of you into the trash bin, but after watching 'Memories of Day's Past', I was convinced that some romance movies are made of diamond behind their trashy exterior. Truly, it was one of the movies that changed my perspective, and molded my taste into something better.

I would like to thank Ayame-senpai for showing this movie to me...but my supposed thanks were cancelled out due to the fact that she was already asleep even before the climax. Seriously, if you're going to just sleep through the movie, then you shouldn't have gone there in the first place. Although, if you did, then I won't be able to expand my horizons...

...What a weird situation that I'm in.

"And so", my senior said, taking a bite out of her ridiculously large steak as she continued speaking, and I couldn't help but cringe as she stared at me with wide eyes, "During that scene wherein Miyazaki and Haruno made up–"

"Swallow first before you eat, Ayame-senpai", I said, cutting her words short as I stared at her with a disgruntled look on my face, "And Miyazaki and Haruno didn't make up. They went their separate ways after their fight, and – Ow!"

I yelped, immediately bringing my right foot towards me as I glanced at my senior, who was glaring at me with hot-blooded eyes, "Tanaka. What did I say about trying to understand other's feelings first before you speak?"

"I was just trying to correct your wrong perception of the movie", I said, holding my hands up in the air as the pressure around me seemed to double by the second. What is this, her special ability? How does this even work? "Besides, you fell asleep even before halfway through the movie – Ayame-senpai don't just take a stab at me with your damn steak knife! I'm a human, not beef!"

"Your thinking process is as inconsiderate as the animal that provided this meat to our table", she calmly retorted back as she glared at me, a mixture of anger and anticipation in her gaze – Wait, anticipation? What the hell? "So, did you do something like I was asleep? Like taking a picture of me and saving it as your wallpaper, or trying to feel me up while I was sleeptalking–"

"Wait", I interrupted, "Just what kind of person do you think I am and stop trying to hack at me with your damn knife! Pour some steak sauce on me first before you do that!"

"Then, let me do that", she replied with a bright smile on her face as she picked up the bowl containing the sauce, and aimed it towards me, making me widen my eyes in horror as to what she was doing.

"Don't play around with your food, senpai!" I screamed at her, making her frown at me as she slowly placed the bowl containing the steak sauce back where it belonged, continuing on eating in little bites as she glanced at me with anger in her eyes from time to time. I say, is this a new form of torture or something? Seriously, her eyes are scaring me.

" Seriously, you're such a tactless guy, Tanaka", my senior said, sighing at me in disappointment after swallowing a bite of her steak, "This is the reason why you can't find any girlfriends, even though you're a healthy second-year high school student."

"Well, in any case, I'm not a pervert. I didn't do anything to you when you were asleep", I said as I crossed my arms and nodded. I also thought about pointing out that my senior also didn't have any luck with boyfriends, but I'm afraid that she might throw the steak sauce at me and use me as substitute for her food. Wait, is this what my senior called thinking things first before saying them? Woah, it got me out of a particularly nasty case of stab wounds.

My senior narrowed her dark brown eyes at me before she sighed, pushing up her glasses and twirling a lock of her hair, "Well, I believe you. Somehow, I'm getting the feeling that you don't even have a sex drive with you. Is that it? Are you impotent?"

"I have never met a girl that says things like 'sex drive' in public like it was nothing", I fired back as she narrowed her eyes at me, my left foot immediately moving in reflex as I avoided being stomped by one of her feet if I was an instant later. Scary. My senior is scary.

"...Well, I guess I could let you off for now", she said with a sigh as she once again took a bite out of her steak, before glancing towards me and my seemingly empty side of the table, the remains of a glass of iced tea now melting into a puddle of condensed water, "Still, you're not getting anything aside from that iced tea? What if you pass out while we're in the arcade?"

"Really going for all of the clichéd date locations, are we?" I said as I sighed, "Just what story are you making exactly that you need to drag me along to all of this? Another one of your short stories?"

"No, it's a compilation of short stories", my senior said as a glint lighted up in her eyes, "It's about a guy and a girl from the same club going on dates with one another. Pretty innovative don't you think?"

I shrugged, "I don't know. It reminds me of something from somewhere, but I can't just place my tongue on it. Still, how do you stretch out one date to include other potential date spots? Just going on one date wouldn't be enough for a compilation of short stories, right?"

"That's why I'm scouting all of them out", my senior said, flashing another grin as she brought out more tickets and coupons and the like, "And you'll be accompanying me to each and every one of them. I won't take no for an answer, alright?"

"Just not today, please", I said, drawling out a sigh as I leaned forward, splaying my arms out on the table, "...I'm tired already. I just want to go home at this point in time, you know? But I'm afraid of saying it out loud since you'll just try to stab me with your knife, anyway."

"Hm...Aside from that last statement where you're mixing up your thoughts with what you speak, you're actually taking this pretty lightly", my senior said with a slight purse of her lips, "What's wrong? Usually you'd try and escape from this potentially dangerous situation just like all the other times. Did you catch a fever or something? I told you that you should eat more than just a glass of iced tea."

"No, I didn't catch a fever or anything like that; I'm fine, thank you very much", I replied, "But, since you're going to just drag me into your ideas for fun, I'd rather just give up right at the start. Though, I'm still human, so please keep that in mind when you're planning something that might potentially kill a cold anti-social second-year high school student that likes to stay in his room and write stories on his laptop. And as for food, I brought a bento that I made myself, but you just single-handedly brought me here, so I had no choice. Besides, I only keep a minimum amount of money with me at all times, so I'm technically broke right now..."

"Ah, is that so", my senior said in a somewhat weird tone as I couldn't help but glance at her, finding my senior to be looking at me with a gaze filled with both curiosity and hunger, "Then, let's head to a nearby park after I'm done with this, alright?"

...Just how much are you planning to eat, my gluttonous senior? As of this moment, I would refrain from offering such goodwill ever again. I'm afraid you might get addicted to my homemade food, and demand it from me every day like a zombie. No, actually, a thug's better suited to that kind of situation from a zombie and now I'm starting to stray away from the original topic. I nodded, "Sure, senpai. Though, this is the only time that I'm sharing my bento with you, so please take note of that."

"How could I even have a reaction even if I've never tasted it before?" She asked while frowning as I simply told her the answer with a straight face.

"Because you're drooling right now, Ayame-senpai."

Four o'clock in the afternoon, and I was spending the time sitting on the far side of a bench, quietly nursing the bruise on my left cheek with a cold compress as I scowled, seeing my senior come up to me with a box of sweetened milk as she tossed it towards me. I quickly caught it with my other hand, and leaning my head to one side to make sure that the compress was still in contact with my cheek, I quickly opened the box as I took a slurp out of the straw, savoring the sugar rush as I glanced towards my senior, who sat on the other side of the bench, "Thanks, senpai."

"Don't mention it", she said in a gruff tone, glancing at me for an instant before averting my gaze, staring at the fountain to our right with a wistful look on her face, "Just be lucky that I didn't knock your lights out."

"You were that close, though", I replied with a scowl, taking note of her new ways to attack me. First was the foot stomp, second was the steak knife, and the third was a devastating left hook. Just thinking about that pattern made me smile while shuddering. Even though they were just simple enough actions, a single one of those actions even grazing me would result to death, "Couldn't you have just eaten the damn thing and be done with it? You just had to punch me in the face."

"If I just berated you, then you wouldn't have stopped for a single second. Am I right?" She asked, staring at me with cold fury as I slowly nodded. It is just as she had thought, "That's why making you learn through positive and negative feedback was the only way to mold you into a proper human being."

"I'm fine enough, thank you", I said, "I can cook food, do the housework, and work a living. That's already enough for me to become a proper human being, isn't it?"

"...Seriously?" My senior said, looking at me with a look of exasperation on her face, "Tanaka, is that what you thought that a human being should be? Are you seriously telling me that you only need those three in order to survive in society?"

I nodded, her face frowning as she clenched her fists, "...Sure, that might be enough to make you survive in this society. You could take care of yourself by just cooking your own food and doing your own housework, and support yourself by working a job. But is that what you want? Is that what you seek? Is going on an endless cycle of work and sustenance enough for you to live?"

I blinked, getting her idea as I gave her a thumbs-up, "Don't worry. I'll be sure to put in a day-off once or twice a week if I'm able to–"

Pain coursed through my whole body as I blinked, finding my right foot being stomped on by my senior's left foot as she glowered at me with her eyes, seething with uncontrollable rage, "Is this what you want, Tanaka? To be a damn machine!? To live everyday stuck inside a loop, never seeing the light of your individuality, the spark that makes you, you!? Where's that spark, that glimmering ember in a vein of stone that tries to wreak itself free from its burdens!? Where's that passion, the heart, the hidden lines that screamed and tugged at one's heart through all of your damn stories!? Was it all just a lie!? Was it all just a trick!? Was all that effort for naught, throwing it all away just for a monotone life!?"

I immediately answered, "If the readers desire the heart, then I shall give it to them. If they desire the mind, then I shall do so as well. If they desire the spark that makes my stories, then I'll gladly give it to them–"

My head suddenly jerked towards the left, the impact causing me to widen my eyes as I gingerly touched my right cheek, finding it hot. I stared at my senior with a surprised look on my face, suddenly vaulting forward as she grabbed my collar, forcing me to look at her eyes. Eyes that glimmered with rage, sorrow, and anger.

"Tanaka", she said, her voice shaking as she gnashed her teeth, "...Say it to my face. Say that you're willing to give everything to your readers just so you could live a life in peace. I damn dare you to say that."

I sighed, "...I just want to live my life in peace. With no other factors to disrupt my everyday living, I could–"

Once again, my head jerked to the side, my right cheek now hurting twice as much as before as my senior glared at me for one final time before pulling away, "What was that, Ayame-senpai?"

"Just a farewell gift", she said in a bitter tone as she reached into her bag, pulling out a brown folder and a small pill-shaped case, tossing them out towards me as I couldn't help but toss away the cold compress, catching both objects at the same time as she frowned at me, "That's your damn draft, you damn idiot. Along with that are the glasses that I picked out for you while you were gawking like a damn idiot around the arcade. I snuck out and got those for you before you even realized I was missing. Now, farewell, you damn idiot."

Without saying a word after that, she walked away, leaving me with nothing but a (probably) broken foot, a bruise on my left cheek, and two slaps to my right cheek. That, and the draft to my volume with her editing, along with the glasses that she apparently bought for me.

Seeing her waning figure on the horizon, I could only sigh at her, opening up the brown envelope that contained my edited draft as I widened my eyes in surprise. Nothing. There was nothing on it. No red ink for marking out grammatical errors, no red ink for restructuring sentences, no red ink for unresolved plot threads, no red ink for rearranging events in order to better fit the story...Nothing. There was nothing but pure, unadulterated text that filled up the paper except through its margins.

The oddity irked at me, and so I began to read from page one. From the prologue, to the chapter wherein the five meet, to the chapter wherein the five face their first challenge, to the chapter wherein all five fall into despair due to their inability to resolve the situation, to the chapter wherein the five once again find inspiration with one another, to the climax wherein they finally overcome their difficulties as a group, to the epilogue wherein they share a nice good drink at the tavern for they trouble...Nothing.

Except. On the very last page – the moment where they raise their mugs of ale in cheer – there was a single sentence written in red ink. The only one that I have found so far in the entire story.

Upon reading it, my eyes widened even further, my head jerking upwards from my reading as I glanced around, only to see nothing but a glimmering skyline filled with skyscrapers, the incessant buzzing of insects being attracted to the lampposts, and the flickering of the lamppost behind me. The stars were already up in the sky, shining brightly in their multitudes of colors. their starlight bathing me in muted color as I could only smile at the sight.

But it was not at the stars, nor was at the sheer beauty of the cityscape at night. Thinking about that single sentence written in red ink over and over again, I slowly stood up, a sigh of relief coming over me as I realized that the bruise on my left cheek was already mostly healed, save for a blue splotch of skin that I was sure would only recede if I were to walk back home. My right cheek still stung, but it didn't hurt as much as it did before. My right foot was hurting, making me limp as I started to walk into the direction of my home – the apartment that my sister and I shared.

When I realized it, I was in a train heading in the opposite direction – far away from the place where I wanted to go. As the train went onto its final stop for the night, I stepped out, finding myself in an unfamiliar rural town as I couldn't help but gawk.

Stepping out of the train station, all I saw was greenery, with the occasional house appearing out of nowhere with the light from its windows already turned off. As I sighed, I could only trudge up the steps towards one particular house, not caring whether dogs barked at me, or could see figures moving in the dark. The latter are merely figments of imagination; they don't exist.

As I reached the front door of the house that I was eyeing a while ago ever since I stepped out from the train station, I hesitated for a moment. Would I bother these people for just a place to stay, in the middle of the night?

...Yes I would. I knocked on the door.

When that didn't work, I knocked twice, a voice suddenly waking up from its snoring slumber as I heard wooden floorboards creak, then a sound of someone hitting the floor as I could hear a curse on the other side of the door. A few seconds later, the lights in the house turned on, followed by a groaning as the door in front of me slowly slid open, the sound of old wood against rotting wood grating my ears as I came face to face with a man by his thirties, his breath stinking like alcohol as he gazed at me with an exasperated look on his face.

"Hello", I said in my normal tone as the man raised an eyebrow at me, "Can you please let me stay for the night?"

A look of relief came over the man's face as he smiled at me, the kind of warm-hearted smile that was responsible for a sigh of relief to escape from my lips, "Sure. Don't mind the alcohol, though – I was just celebrating my promotion."

I smiled, trying to hide the vestiges of anger that welled up inside of me as my mind flashed back to that single sentence written in red ink:

Redo. If you can't, maybe you should quit being an author.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Tanaka Yuzuru?" A bald man with glasses said in a sharp tone, an archetype of a variety of irritating characters that always show up in one form or another, "Here you are, coming in half a day late for no reason at all, and you're not even apologizing."

"I acknowledge that, and I duly apologize for any misconduct that I had inadvertently caused", I said, bowing towards the man as the latter scoffed at me.

"Somehow, I can't even believe that a miscreant like you passed the entrance exam to this prestigious school", the bald man said as I imagined a sneer on his face. Somehow, that seemed to tick me off, "Or is it that, huh? That woman who's trying to seduce you into her ways?"

I sighed, simply turning my back towards him as I could imagine the bastard putting on a smirk of victory. Stay calm. Don't let your emotions run wild. He's deliberately using them in order to force you to fight and bring out more violations against you.

I glanced back, seeing a knowing sneer plastered onto that bastard's face as I could only give an impassive stare back, seeing the sneer distort into an unpleasant scowl as I looked back towards the door, suppressing a snort as I exited the room.

Seeing the afternoon light filter in through the windows of the hallway, my instincts immediately made me move towards the building that I called as my workplace, weaving through hallways, stairwells, and aisles with relative ease as muscle memory kept on guiding me towards the path to my goal.

Moments later, I arrived at a relatively ordinary door, the signboard above signifying the unimportant name of the club that I was currently in as a thin smile formed on my face, with memories of the last two years surfacing in my mind as I grasped the door's handle, my mind steeling itself as it slowly switched to work mode.

Then, an unimportant memory rose up in an important time. Redo. If you can't, maybe you should quit being an author.

My free hand clenched as I slammed the door open, finding nothing but a single solitary desk put to the side, a chair neatly put under it with my bag and tools ready at the desk's top. Moving towards it, I glanced at the table, my gaze immediately moving towards the brown envelope beside my laptop as I frowned, snatching it in a single swipe as I considered tearing it apart.

Redo. If you can't, maybe you should quit being an author.

With that sentence in red ink once again appearing in my mind, I screamed, throwing the envelope at the stack of desks in the back, a smile forming on my face as I watched the chaos unfold in the back of the room. As my stress relief was done, I seated myself at the usual seat – the right-most seat in the room, right next to an outlet. It enabled me to keep at my laptop for hours on end, and kept me safe from the occasional cold breeze that came in through the windows, which won't close due to neglect.

I seated myself at the laptop, bringing up the soft copy of the light novel that I had sent to my senior as a frown appeared on my face, selecting all words and deleting them all with a single push of a button.

A blank slate. An ideal state wherein one could focus on the work at hand. As my eyes narrowed at the harsh blue light that came out of the laptop screen, I cracked my knuckles, placing my hands over the keyboard and hesitating for an instant.

Then I started to type.

Words filled the screen at an incredible pace, the story being ingrained into my memory as I tried to wrack my mind apart, trying to figure out what was wrong with the entire damn thing as my thoughts soon clouded my vision, all saying the same thing: Redo. If you can't, maybe you should quit being an author.

I growled, typing harder on the keyboard as I vented my anger out on the electronic device in front of me, the clacking of keys filling the room in an erratic but entrancing tone as I tried focusing my thoughts back into the work that I was making.

Redo. If you can't, maybe you should quit being an author.

My eyes flared, my anger now manifesting as a fire in my eyes as the furious clacking of the keyboard now devolved into dissonant noise as I bit my lip, gnashing my teeth at the noise as I forcefully pressed the power button on the damn laptop.

Redo. If you can't, maybe you should quit being an author–

I screamed, grabbing my temples out of frustration as I glared at the noise outside the windows, the merry sounds of the athletic clubs wafting through the windows as I bit my lip, standing up from my seat and stormed towards the windows on the left side of the room, slamming them closed with sheer willpower as I drew the curtains over them. The sounds immediately stopped.

I slammed the door closed, locking the latch in place as I frowned. To hell with Ayame-senpai – she has her own key, she could get in. It doesn't matter as to what I do to keep her out, she'll just find a new way to barge in and wreck my already bad day.

Finding all sources to the outside world blocked, I finally nodded in relief, going back to my chair and pressing the power button, the laptop screen blinking to life as I once again came face-to-face with the end of a sentence. The end of a paragraph, seeking to connect with the opening line of the next one, providing a smooth transition between events.

Sitting at my chair a little bit more forceful than normal, I glared at the cursor, now hovered over the start of the next paragraph as I waited for an idea to come to mind. Seconds passed by, turning into minutes by the annoying tick of the clock's second hand. Then minutes turned into hours, and before I knew it, the electronic bell rang throughout the whole campus, signifying that all of us had to go home.

I could only stare at my laptop screen in mute shock, my eyes wide at the realization that after all this time; I was unable to do anything. Not even a single word, not even a single phrase, and not even a single sentence. Not a damn thing.

...The compilation is due four days from now. And the number of works that the club has completed overall is zero.

"I'm home", I said, my voice echoing throughout the apartment as I quickly removed my shoes, placing the pair neatly by the side as I quickly dropped my bag onto the living room couch, seating myself next to it. Feeling myself sink into the couch, I could only sigh as I leaned back, placing an arm over both of my eyes as I gritted my teeth.

"...I can't write like this now, can I?" I asked in a hollow tone, with silence being the only reply that the room gave me as I gave another wistful sigh, my free arm digging into my pockets as it fished out a small pill-shaped case, a dark gray to go with my preference for colors. How perceptive. Did my senior somehow realize that I like gray just because I showed up wearing just that? How assuming of her.

Redo. If you can't, maybe you should quit being an author.

Her words once again rang in my mind, causing me to grit my teeth at the absentee. What do you mean 'redo'? What's there to redo? The premise? The story? The theme? The characters? I can't understand, revise, and redo without telling me what to damn redo, you damn idiot!

I grasped the case in my hand tighter as I reared back, ready to toss it against the wall as my emotions took over, my mind and heart filling with nothing but rage and anger as I – "I'm home."

My eyes widened, that familiar voice resounding in my head as I quickly placed the case back into my pockets, leaping out of the couch as I immediately went towards the front door, "Ayu-nee, you're already back."

The person currently standing in the doorway jerked her head upwards when she heard my voice, her gray eyes slowly widening as she didn't even try to take off her shoes, immediately making a beeline for me as I was frozen in a combination of both surprise, shock, and fear. An instant later, she was on me, hugging my body with the strength of a bear as all the air immediately went out of my lungs, forcing me to gasp and cough.

"Ah!" The person said, immediately letting go as I crumpled to the floor, a tearful smile on her face as she tried to wipe the traces of tears from her eyes, "Tanaka..."

"Ayu-nee, please don't kill me when you're hugging me. Please", I replied, trying to keep my body from falling out altogether as I glanced at my sister, who was now just staring at me with tears freely flowing from her eyes. Somehow, I want to tease her right now, "And stop crying like a child. You're the older sister, remember?"

"You damn idiot!" She screamed, once again coming upon me like a damn storm as I tried my best to get away from it, but to no avail, "You disappear for one whole day without contacting anyone, and then here I am worried about you for the whole day, then I come back here, and find you pretending like nothing happened...! Do you know how worried I was about you, damn idiot!?"

I widened my eyes, blinking at the figure of my sister as she hugged me close, her tears wetting my left shoulder as I could do nothing but sigh and hug her back. I'll let her be for now, "A kind person took me in for the night when I overslept at the last train stop."

My sister pulled me back, her wide eyes staring into mine as she blinked, "Wait. You overslept at the last train's stop?"

I nodded, a chuckle instinctively escaping my sister's lips as I could only frown at her in displeasure, "Ayu-nee. Even I make stupid mistakes from time to time, you know? What if I just overworked myself to death last afternoon, making me dead tired when I got on the train?"

"Oho, so that's how you explain it", my sister said, a cat-like smile on her face as I immediately put my guard against her. Somehow, I could feel nothing but malice behind that smile of hers for some reason. Did I tick her off somehow, somewhere? "...A friend of mine saw you yesterday afternoon. With a girl. On a date."

I blinked once, giving her all the information she needed as her lips curled into a suspicious smile, "So that's the reason why you were trying out your own clothes. Hm? What's this? Cat got your tongue? Nothing to reply in response? Nothing to say in your defense? So you did went to a date, after all?"

Memories of supposed date flashed before my eyes as my gaze moved towards the floorboards unconsciously, "It wasn't a date. We just watched a movie, went to the arcade, bought myself a pair of glasses...And argued over the most trivial thing imaginable. We haven't seen one another since."

My sister frowned at me, "Are you sure that it's really that insignificant? Knowing you and your insensitive personality for a long time now, I'm pretty sure that you said something that might be taken the wrong way, am I right?"

The last conversation with my senior at that damnable park flashed in my mind, "...I have no idea why she would be so irked at my thinking, though. I respect her opinion and all, but I believe that I still have my own right to be entitled to my own opinions. Why would she try to force her own view onto me?"

My sister sighed, "...Who's the unlucky girl that had to put up with you for the rest of your date?"

"Like I already said earlier, it wasn't a date", I said sternly as I noticed my sister trying to stifle a smirk. The nerve of this woman, "...It's my senior at the club that I'm in. Her name's Ayame Kobayashi."

"Hm? Kobayashi?" My sister said, putting a finger on her cheek as if a switch had flipped on somewhere in her mind, "Conglomerate...Heir...School...Club...Senior? Ah, I see. What a lucky man you are, my little brother, to be acquainted and be attracted to such a person."

Wait. Something's off here. My sister isn't ordinarily this sharp. Does it run in the family? "Ayu-nee, I need details. More concrete and defined, not the weird, one-liner shots that masterminds usually use."

"Hm? What do you mean?"

"Ayu-nee. I just saw that switch in personality for an instant right there", I said, narrowing my eyes at her as she met my gaze head-on. I knew it; something's off here, "Do you think you can fool your little brother for over 16 years? I can read someone like a record, Ayu-nee."

A few seconds passed between us as my older sister sighed, averting her gaze as she scratched the back of her head. Looks like I got through her first, "...Alright, fine, I'll tell you. But the consequences might just break your heart."

"I don't care", I said, frowning at my sister as I stared at her unflinchingly, "Shoot."

Three days left before the compilation was due.

Walking into my classroom in a disgruntled mood, I quickly strode towards my seat, ignoring the stares of my classmates as I sat down and began arranging the books that I brought, quietly sliding them under the table as I – wait. Stares?

I perked up, taking note to make sure that my classmates don't notice me gawk at them as I continued on arranging the book that I brought with me. What brought this sudden interest on? I always prided myself on my inability to stand out, to make sure that I stay under the radar in order to go through this excuse of a school system, but as of the moment, it seems that it has all crumbled away into nothing but a paper-thin sheet.

Why? What did I do? Did I somehow mess up somewhere? I wracked my mind for anything that might be in some way connected to the current situation, until a short cough immediately garnered my attention.

Looking towards the direction of the voice, I met gazes with a man in a sharp business suit, his dark brown eyes emitting a cold intimidating aura as my first thought was to cower away from this man's gaze.

However, reason fought back, and I found myself staring back into the man's eyes with the same ferocity as his own as the man could only smirk at me, a cold smirk that seemed so familiar that it began tugging at my unconscious in order to find any kind of parallel with all of the people that I have seen so far in my life, "Tanaka Yuzuru?"

I nod, noting his voice to be a baritone deeper than a man his age, thus making my evaluation of his age rise up. At first I thought that he was in his mid-20s due to his looks, but I now surmised that he must be somewhere in his 40s. Which made him look really young for his damn age.

"Come with me", the man said before swiftly turning around and walking off into the hallway, not even hearing my reply. It was supposed to be a command; an order that I needed to follow unless I desired some kind of unfortunate punishment due to my disobedience.

Needless to say, I followed behind him after a few beats of silence – not out of curiosity, but just merely to escape from the disturbing stares that my classmates heaped upon me. Somehow, those stares seemed probing, trying to unmask my intentions...The kind of stares that I hated the most.

Even as the morning bell rang, the two of us kept on moving. When I faltered for a single step as I glanced back towards the classrooms, the suit opened his mouth, urging me to keep on walking forward, "Keep on going. I already talked to the faculty about your...unnatural absence from class."

I narrowed my eyes at the suit, who now went down a stairwell. No matter how one looks at it, suspicion could only be garnered from the suit's actions. Though I was expecting things to mellow out first before they call me over during one of my most unexpected moments, it seems that they're planning to strike while the iron was hot.

When I snapped back to reality, I find myself already standing in the school courtyard, facing a familiar figure as a thin scowl immediately escaped my lips, "...I never thought I'd see you again in this kind of situation, Ayame-senpai."

"...Wait", my senior said with wide eyes, blinking at me as she let out a surprised sound from her face, "Eh? Wait a minute, you already knew what was going to happen? I was just dragged out here by – Tanaka, what are you doing? Why are you glancing away from me and sighing like it's the end of the world?"

That's it, she's hopeless. I'm just going to go back to class and pretend nothing happened so far – "Wait."

"What?" Damn woman! Can't you see that I'm trying to spare you the public humiliation that's about to happen!? Look behind you and think first before you try and grab my shoulder! "If you have any words left to say after that, then turn around and say them towards that person."

"How perceptive", the suit said as I only raised an eyebrow in his direction, with the baritone causing my senior to widen her eyes as she quickly whirled around and froze, "If you seem to have gotten this all figured out, then why don't you spell it out for my daughter, Tanaka Yuzuru?"

My senior froze, her worst nightmare coalescing before her very eyes as I smirked, the very same kind of smirk that I saw on the suit earlier, "If you may permit to do so, Hisami Kobayashi, then I might very well surmise that me and your daughter are currently serving as defendants in an unfair trial, with the entire jury and judge on your payroll."

"In other words...This is a public execution, isn't it?"

The suit clapped, a cold flame in the glint of his eyes as he narrowed his gaze towards me, "Brilliant. One wouldn't expect that mind of yours to be hidden under multiple layers of lock-and-key, and given your performance in this school."

"I try not to stand out", I said with a shrug, "It's one of my main priorities in this school right now."

"Tanaka?"

"Your grades are already going towards the other side of the spectrum", the suit said with a cold smirk on his face, "And yet you say you're not trying to stand out. Are you sure that you have time to work on your little 'compilation' while you're trying not to strangle yourself off into dismissal?"

"Father..."

"I did say that trying not to stand out was one of my main priorities", I said with a scowl, "One of the other priorities is to keep that club afloat."

"Which has been going on a downhill streak ever since you two had your little 'outing' or 'inspirational trip', as my daughter called it", the suit said, sending a frost glare at my senior as I couldn't help but twitch an eye. Is he seriously pressing on my buttons here, out of all places? Because it's working, and I don't feel good about what's going to come up next, "How many days are left before you have to turn in that compilation of yours? Four? Two? Three? And how many works have you done yet, my daughter? Go on, tell him."

"...None", came the reply from her senior, who suddenly went silent as she lowered her head, biting her lip as I could only stare at her with a puzzled expression on my face.

"Well, should've thought so", I said, scratching the back of my head as my senior jerked her head upwards, staring at me with wide eyes as another surprised sound escaped from her lips.

"Huh?"

"That reaction should've done it", her father said as he looked towards me with a kind smile that was equivalent to poison, "What about you, junior? How many works have you also accomplished ever since this ditz dropped your compilation into the bath?"

My senior looked crestfallen as she glanced at me, her eyes looking at me with hope, "None as well. What's your point?"

"The point is, you're going to be dismissed, and your little club's going to be shut down", the suit said in a cold, mocking tone, "There's nothing – I repeat, nothing – that you could do in order to accomplish your goals. You think you can get smart with me, try to lead my nose around in circles so that I accomplish nothing? I already saw through that, you little twat. Now there's no other plan for you than to just get unceremoniously kicked out, and be the first and only student to be dishonorably discharged from this school."

"Father, that's going too far!" My senior yelled, only to be met by a scoff from the suit.

"Going too far?" The suit said, crossing his arms with a knowing smirk on his face, "There's no such thing as 'going too far' in weeding out potential troublemakers. Do you seriously think of him as someone of your level? Someone with the inborn talent and abilities that enable him to stand up to one of the daughters of the prefectural committee?"

My senior clenched her fists as she glared at her father, "Don't you give me that damn look, Ayame. I already set up that damn club of yours so you can hold on to your fragile little dreams for a little bit longer, but even princesses don't get what they want even when they beg."

"Father..."

"What? Did you really think that such an idea would go well with those damn old fools currently managing the school?" The suit said with a sneer, "Seriously, a club for literature, out of all things? Damn literature!? Do you really think that the Kobayashi family has need for authors, huh!? What we need right now are lawyers, politicians – people who can lead this prefecture and continue our legacy! Do you really think that an author out of all people can – Agh!?"

A kick to the groin. A sweep to his right leg. Don't catch him when he falls down – let him feel the shock. Grab his throat, position fingers so that they're ready to rip it out at any time. Slowly tighten my grip.

"Do you really think that's all your daughter's for?" I said in a cold tone, ignoring my senior in a daze behind me along with her father's chortled gasps. I had leverage; he didn't – no matter how he moves, he couldn't reach me, "All of her work – all of our work – all of it was done through sheer hard work, determination, spirit, and heart. To think that you'd dismiss them on a fluke just because you planned out her entire life based on your own selfish desires...Somehow, it really just ticks me off."

I glared, finally getting a reaction out of the suit as I smirked back at him, relishing the fear that came out of this scum's eyes, "You think of your daughter as nothing more than a pawn to be used to further your own goals. You think of her as if she were a doll, not a person – unchanging, always willing to follow your commands, always getting your thoughts. Better think twice, suit. Better think twice about pressing my buttons unless you want this to happen again."

I let go, leaving him gasping for air as as I turned towards the person behind me, my senior who was simply staring at me with shock written all over her face, her mouth opening and closing at regular intervals as if trying to tell me something, her eyes trying to convey so many emotions at one that I just stopped caring.

Sighing, I walked past her, walking towards my classroom and getting my belongings, ready to receive my letter of dismissal from this school, before uttering a single word to her in return:

"Sorry."

I was dismissed almost immediately after. If I was expelled, it would mean that they have to dig up evidence that I did it, and prides and egos would be hurt irreversibly if the investigation uncovered that a member of the prefectural committee was almost killed by a single second-year high schooler in front of his daughter.

Placing the gray case that contained my (supposed) glasses on my desk, I simply sighed and unloaded my luggage onto my bed, finding the blinking lights of my laptop bothering me as I placed it on the desk and turned it on. A single message was sent to me by a familiar figure, and I couldn't help but frown at its contents as a scowl formed on my face.

I'm already dismissed from that school, and all of my connections to it are gone. What does she out of all people want now? Dismiss me for my actions? Try to reconcile with the school for my actions? Welcome me back into the club?

...Like I care.

Despite my best reason, my instinct was to immediately move and check that damn mail, opening it with a single tap on the touchpad as it expanded into a window, a single sentence containing its message as a file was attached to it.

Good luck in your next adventure! the entire message said, making me blink at it as a wry smile formed on my face. This senior of mine is too optimistic about my current situation. She does know that I can only enroll in another prefecture, right? She does know that I have to leave this prefecture in order to make sure that she wouldn't be hassled by her father, right? What was she thinking, leaving a message like this? She does know that I hated that damn school with all of my vigor, right?

"Tanaka?" My sister said, opening the door to my room as she glanced at my bed, then onto my desk, where a single letter with a huge red stamp was covered by the case for my glasses. She immediately rushed towards me with wide eyes, covering me in her arms as she gritted her teeth, "Tanaka...It's alright, it's alright. There's no need for you to cry about it..."

I blinked. I was crying? Moving a hand up my eyes, I could feel a faint, but warm line of clear liquid moving down my cheeks. I breathed, the mucus inside of my nose turning it into a sniffle, as I widened my eyes, and finally realized that after all that has happened, after all that I've been through, there were still people who believed in me, who knew me, who chose to support me with all their hearts.

My sister was one. Now, there was another.

Unknown feelings burst out from me as I began to broke down, my speech disintegrating into a horrible mess of grunts and sniffles as tears flowed down my cheeks freely, seeking my sister's warmth in embrace as I bunched up into a ball, nothing more than a crumbling wet sack of meat and flesh.

Why was I crying? It should've been obvious from an outsider's perspective – I was dismissed from my school after all, so naturally I would be breaking down in tears. But that wasn't it. For someone close to me, they knew the truth. They know the reason why. With that reason in her mind, my sister simply stroked my hair, knowing that she couldn't do anything more than that, "It's alright, Tanaka. It's alright..."

I held my sister tighter, crying out my fears, my dreams, my hopes against her, the feeling of finally losing someone important being ingrained into my mind for the rest of the years that I would live as I screamed.

Was it really alright? Were my convictions wrong? Were my decisions incorrect? Is regret the only way ahead? What did I want to be? What did I want to accomplish? What did I want to accomplish in that hellhole of a school, beside my ever-supported senior?

...I wanted to be a writer. To expose these feelings of mine in paper, in print, to spread throughout every sentient being who could hear it. For them to peer into my mind, grasp its inner workings or leave trying, coming out with a new perspective on what they all see. I wanted to be the giver – the giver of thoughts – the giver of minds – the giver of concepts.

But what should I write? Where should I start? Is there something for me to hold onto – a place to start anew?

My tears waned as I slowly left my sister's embrace, her eyes watching me dutifully as I clicked on the attachment file on the e-mail and watch its download progress. A few seconds was all it took, and it was done. It was a compressed file, and I dumped its contents on a new folder that I had created on my desktop. It was composed of pictures – a lot of pictures – and a single document. Naturally, my hands moved towards the first picture and clicked on it, bringing up the file as I felt like I was lurching forward, vomiting out whatever I had inside.

My sister naturally caught me, and stared at the image in front of her, gray eyes widening as a bitter smile crossed her face, with tears forming in her eyes as I once again broke down in tears.

It was a picture of me, in a desolate classroom in the middle of an unrecognizable school building. A desk made out of wood and metal stood solemnly in front of me, my laptop, keyboard, mouse, charger, some notebooks, pencils, ballpens, and erasers all splayed out in a disorganized manner as I stared at the camera with a scowl on my face, my gray eyes emitting nothing but coldness, but with a flicker of an ember inside them.

My senior was to my right, her smile as beaming as the afternoon light that came in through the window on the other side of the room, where golden brown leaves wafted through the air and landed somewhere on the floor. It was fall back then, and it was cold, but I had nothing except for a parka that I currently wore. Meanwhile, my senior's eyes with the same color as that of chocolate were ablaze, burned with searing passion and a desire for learning. She looked so different to me – we were foils, equal opposites. Junior and senior, both were clubmates in the same classroom. As for coping with the cold, she simply wore a white sweater where her usual shirt should've been.

Twin opposites, yet here they were, so close in the picture. My senior's glasses shone like polished onyx, framing her eyes in such a way that one would be entranced by the boundless happiness lurking beneath those frames. But I knew better. People known as opposites, are mostly the same on the inside.

My sister pressed an arrow key, moving onto a next picture, a picture of me with a thoughtful look on my face staring at the words on my laptop, trying to pick apart my senior's work. She must've took it without me knowing, and most importantly, without my permission. But somehow, in this moment, who cares? I was dismissed from that school already, so she could take all the pictures that she wanted. My sister hit the arrow key once again.

Once again, more pictures of our club, pictures that she took at my expense, where my senior always had a beaming smile on her face. Pictures wherein we did nothing except stare at the camera; pictures wherein I was the one doing the picture-taking for once and was photographing her, where I was so fussy with the details that we had a fight over it; pictures where I was actually in a good mood and had a smile on my face; and pictures where I stared at the camera with my senior, both with genuine smiles on our faces. Somehow, those last pictures were more common than I thought. Did I really smile like that while I was with her? I couldn't remember. I was dismissed after all.

"Tanaka..." My sister said, hugging me close as I could only stare at the pictures with a dazed look on my face. My senior just took these photos willy-nilly, but she had some talent for this, "...Those were good times at your club, aren't they?"

Somehow, before I knew it, I already nodded in return, closing the photo viewer as my hands moved over the touchpad, tapping on it once as the document that was in along those mounds of pictures opened before my very eyes, remembering what my senior had said about her current piece – a compilation of short stories where a boy and a girl from the same club go on dates. It was incomplete, its ending undetermined. It seemed that she wanted me to add it.

I glanced at the title, with something once again breaking inside of me as I broke down again for the third time today. Somehow, it seemed to resonate within me, it seemed to connect with me. And because it connected, I can't help but cry at the sight of it:

"The Memoirs of That Literature Club."

After hours of being an emotional wreck, my sister finally took off, saying light-heartedly that we needed to eat dinner. I let her be, wiping off the traces of tears in my eyes and going to the washroom to wash them off.

Minutes later, I'm back to my seat, facing the desk, housing a laptop that currently had a single document opened up within it. An end to a compilation of short stories connected loosely together by some sort of string. Red, I presume, was the color.

Redo. If you can't, then maybe you should quit being an author.

Hypocrite. Says the same person that can't even finish her own piece. Just what are you going to do without me in the club, Ayame-senpai?

A smile formed on my face, my fingers gingerly pressing on the keyboard as they began to type out of my own subconscious will, the clacking of the keys doing nothing more but illuminate my room with the notes of a soft melody as I smiled, finding myself sway from time to time as I continued on finishing my senior's work.

Before, I can't understand her words behind that sentence. Redo. What was I supposed to redo? Now, I understand. It wasn't the plot, the setting, the characters, nor the story development that I needed to redo – it was how I wrote the story. How I portrayed the scene towards the readers, how every single word manages to evoke an overall meaning into one's imagination. It was a writer's greatest playground, the human mind, and my senior told me to redo because I was using so little of it, so little imagination that I might as well ground it in reality and call myself a news reporter.

That was why I had to redo. I needed to instill that sense of message, that sense of wonder – the sense of knowing how to wrap up your readers into the damn thing, able to immerse them in a world so real, but also imaginary.

And so I typed. Typed my feelings, typed my soul into the words. Let out all my feelings in one big crescendo, to say thanks to the only other one who had stood by me – even though it was only for a short while – and taught me a very important lesson.

Few words remain, and somehow, I could hear her voice in my mind, chastising me for my unnatural outlook in life, "Do you really want to just be a cog in the machine?"

Upon inspection, no. Your father was enough to pull me out of that kind of thinking. I guess as miserable and pathetic he is, he still deserves some thanks. Not exactly for him though, but for his actions. No matter what he does, I'm pretty sure he'll still be an asshole to anyone he meets and picks on. Not that he knows what to do when they start to fight back.

"Good, good. Looks like you're learning the Ayame way of life!"

...Let me respectfully decline. One would never want to be forced into another's way of life, after all. They just take a fragment and move on, leaving a fragment of theirs in the process. I'm pretty sure it's a give-and-take relationship, or else you'd have been drained empty.

"Somehow, I'm getting the feeling that you're mocking me right now. Are you?"

Why would I? There are only demerits for me if I do so. And I do not want to be sucked into your stomp-steak knife-punch-double slap combo of yours again, that's for sure. I'm a rational person; rational people don't try and approach death if given a choice.

"After all you've been through, you still consider yourself rational? During the time wherein you almost tried to kill my father, was that due to your 'rationality'? You knew that if you do so much as touch him, you were as good as dismissed, right?"

...He pissed me off.

"Hm? And why? Just because he badmouthed me? Is that it? You can't stand someone badmouthing your beloved senior, is that it? Ah, Tanaka, you're more of a child than I thought~"

Shut up already, would you? I'm already getting more annoyed here by the second you keep on pestering me about badmouth this, badmouth that – all that happened was he pushed my buttons, and I nearly went over the edge because of it.

"So I'm one of your buttons?"

I think I don't need to answer that question of yours for you to know what I'm thinking right now. You're sharp, even if you're blunt. You're like a baseball bat that's covered in nails. Really scary when it comes down to it.

"You don't just compare a girl to a baseball bat with nails."

Sorry about that, it was the only thing that clicked up with my mind at the moment. You really should give me some slack when it comes to these kinds of things. You always were such a damn hard taskmaster.

"Hey, at least I get the job done."

What a pair we are, huh.

"What a pair we make."

I stopped, my hands finally creaking in pain, my breath out of sync, my whole body feeling as if five hundred thousand volts of electricity were running through it. Slowly, my hands moved away from the keyboard as my eyes began to read what I had written. Four pages all in all, four pages in a span of three hours. Somehow, it looked like a step backwards at first, but now that I finished reading it, I could smile, pat myself on the back, and finally admit to myself that I had taken a step forward.

I originally planned to make things realistic, to make sure that the two characters never met again. But that would piss Ayame-senpai off, so I changed the ending. Plus, being too realistic never worked for anyone's favor. We all desire some form of gratification, some form of happiness, however slight, in the final moments of a work.

Like Miyazaki and Haruno from 'Memories of Day's Past'. How my senior wanted those two to make up, how she wanted to watch them grow closer together once again, how she wanted to change the melancholic ending wherein the two drift apart without telling each other how they really felt.

Was this ending what she wanted, I wonder? A quick fix, a forced fix, trying to put parallel lines onto a collision course with one another just by changing one of their slopes for a little single instant – but still, a fix. Was this what she wanted, I wonder? An ending mirroring the two of us, with pairs being broken, and ending up with fragments of each other?

Somehow, I am full of doubts. I am full of worry. But nevertheless, this worry was a part of being an author too. One can never know your reader's reactions, but one can cope with it.

I sigh, chastising myself for being an idiot as I shook my head with a stupid smile on my face, saving the document and sending it as a reply to her message. But just an attachment would be rude to her. I wonder what I should write first?

I laughed upon reading my first sentence out loud, "And I wish you good luck as well, Ayame-senpai."

Spring came, and I was now repeating my second-year for the second time in another prefecture. The plums were in full bloom, sending wave after wave of pink petals into my clubroom as I could only shake my head and smile at it. I was too lazy to clean it up, and it made for a nice backdrop anyway, so I let the windows open and the curtains tied, watching them sway wildly against a gust or two as I smiled, letting the cold air rush against my cheeks as I slowly sipped cold, sweet tea.

At least the teachers in this school weren't so conceited unlike in my last school. They let me establish a club under the premise that we produce something with at least a hundred pages every month, and the club should've at least two members. The first part I could take care of. The second part I couldn't. No matter how much my perspective changes, I'm still an anti-social guy at heart, and I'm sure that my classmates never bothered me about it.

Overall, it was an improvement. At least I could take it easy here, where I could simply just watch the plum petals flutter in through the window. The only effort that I made to actively recruit members was a single story, the same one that I had ended a few months ago, a compilation of short stories that ended with a bittersweet taste, posted on the school's bulletin board. I was actually amazed that the pins holding it didn't fall off.

...Well, there's another effort: a moveable blackboard on wheels standing vigil behind the door, with a simple sign that says "Literature Club – Now Recruiting Members" written on it in chalk. I was always such a practical man, Simple, and direct to the point. My two most memorable traits, said my senior. My former senior.

This is my third day of waiting ever since the school year had started. Two more days before the club is disbanded due to lack of members. I could only sigh when I think of it. I'm pretty sure my sister would scream at me again or something. Though, I've been seeing her move happily for quite some time now, more energetic and the like. I have no idea as to why.

I sighed, finishing the rest of my tea with a single gulp as I quickly moved to the other side of the classroom, where my familiar set-up sat in a position of nostalgia: a laptop, a keyboard, a mouse, a charger, some notebooks, a few pencils, and a few erasers. A document was already open on the laptop screen, with half of the page already filled with words describing the current tribulations that the characters were currently facing right now. I smiled, my hands hovering over the keyboard as I wondered which words to place next.

And then, I started typing. A sonata of clacking keys filled the air, and I could only smile at it as I hummed in tune to the sound. The humming wasn't great; I wasn't really that good at singing anyway, but it helped me clear my mind, letting me pick my words in a single uncompromised stream as words soon filled up the page.

I saved the document, the sound of knocking on the door immediately snapping me out of my trance as I slowly closed the screen, calling out to whoever was on the other side, "Come in."

"Excuse me", a girl's voice said as the door slowly slid open, revealing a girl with a braided ponytail that reached up until her waist. Her dark brown eyes darted all around the room, as if looking for something, and judging by the color of her shoes, she seemed to be a freshman. And I'm getting a weird feeling of nostalgia from her. Better keep my distance, "Is this the literature club?"

"It is", I replied, the voice immediately registering in her mind as she perked up and whirled towards my direction. Somehow, her movements were exaggerated. Or is this how she usually acts? "Are you looking to join?"

"Are you Tanaka Yuzuru-senpai?" She asked with a tilt of her head as I could only blink and stare at her with a blank face. Who the hell told you my name, woman? "The man rumored to have almost beaten up a member of the prefectural committee, and was forced to travel to another prefecture?"

The rumors are true. Yet who the hell was spouting all of this stuff about my personal history? Have they got a beef with me or something? "It's me. Why?"

Her dark brown eyes met with my light gray, and I could hear a sound of surprise escaping from the freshman's lips. Hm. From that reaction, I could get that I'm not what you expected me to be, am I right? "Uh, no, nothing...It's just..."

All of a sudden, she bowed, her eyes closed while presenting me a gray pill-like case that looked very damn familiar, "...Thank you for helping my sister out back then! Thank you for standing up to my father! Thank you very much, Tanaka-senpai!"

Somehow, being called by my first name with "senior" attached to the end of it sounded wrong, especially coming from this girl who wanted to thank me for helping her sister and standing up to her father for some reason – Wait, "...I'm sorry. Your name is...?"

"Ah, I'm so sorry to not give you my name first!" The freshman said while still not changing her position, "I'm Arisa Kobayashi, Ayame Kobayashi's younger sister! Thank you very much for helping my sister!"

...Ah. So that was why she looked familiar. I see, so my former senior's sister is studying at this school. Which seemed very suspicious to me, "Wait, shouldn't you be in another prefecture, then?"

"I'm so sorry, but Aya-nee asked me for a favor!" The freshman, Arisa said as she still kept her bowing posture. Seriously, stop. It feels weird to be behind a desk and watching a freshman bow in front of me. What if this causes a scene? Do interviewers feel embarrassed like this whenever an interviewee bows in front of them? Why am I even thinking about this? "She said that she wanted me to watch over Tanaka-senpai to make sure that he was alright after being separated from Aya-nee!"

Aya-nee? Was my former senior worried about me that much? And did she just force her own little sister to attend the same school as me? What a scary person. Isn't she turning out just like her father? "Wait, and you're fine with this?"

"At first I didn't want to go to some far-off place by myself, but Aya-nee changed my mind when she let me read the story that you wrote!" The freshman said, bowing even lower as – Hey, stop that already! "Please, Tanaka-senpai, teach me the ways of writing! After that story touched my heart, my path has been decided! Please teach me how to write!"

"...Uh, yeah..." I said, a smile somehow forming on my face as I tried my best not to look at the freshman in front of me. Somehow, this feels weird. Mentoring my senior's little sister is kind of weird. Do writers somehow run in their family? Somehow, I feel bad for their father, "But...Are you sure about this? I'm pretty harsh when I'm grading works, you know? You might cry–"

"I don't care!" The freshman screamed, "Sacrifices must be made in order for the future to shine brighter than ever!"

I sighed. Somehow, I feel tired, "Then, you could go to the faculty office and get a club application form, fill it out, and give it to them in the next five minutes. When you come back, let's get started immediately."

"Thank you very much, Tanaka-senpai!" Arisa said, trying to hold back tears of joy as she finally stood straight, "Then, I'll be going!"

Watching her slam the door in her eagerness to get her club application form filled, I could only lean back into my chair, drawling out a long and tired sigh as I glanced outside, still seeing more than half of the plum petals in full bloom.

Spring. The season of beginnings. The season of growth. The time where everything repeats the same thing over and over again, all in a same cyclical loop that extends until the end of time. But little things, those insignificant little things that seemed so unimportant when looking back into the past, always bring out the best smiles out of all of them.

As of spring, I had become the senior, mentoring a junior that was my former senior's sister. Somehow, I could only foresee troublesome times ahead, yet I could also see a form of happiness within it as well.

...Ayame-senpai. How should I handle your hyper-energetic little sister? I have no idea as to what to do. Please give me a hint.

Sighing, I took out a framed picture of the old Literature Club, placing it near the chaotic mess of things that I called my desk. I guess I have another thing to set up first before I could start working.

Reaching into my bag, I found a gray pill-like case, its contents unknown, its exterior already gathering an enormous amount of dust. I smiled, finally taking the time to open the damn thing as I looked at it, the memories of nostalgia immediately resurfacing in an instant as I could do nothing but let it run its course. Ah well, I might as well try them on now.

...Somehow, it was an ashen gray, and it fitted perfectly. Ayame-senpai, you're scary, I tell you. Just when did you get my face measurements? And once again, it's a gray color. Like I told you before, gray is easier to wash so it's the main color of my wardrobe. It's not reflecting my personality.

My former senior's little sister came in with a big grin on her face, showing me her stamped application form as I could only nod and smile, accepting it and placing it inside a folder as Arisa blinked at me, as if finding something weird.

"What's wrong?" I asked, finding the freshman furrowing her brows as she asked me a question.

"Tanaka-senpai, did you always wear glasses?" She said, making me shrug as I moved towards the back of the cleared classroom and got her a desk and a chair.

"No. Your sister gave these to me, so I might as well just wear them for the sake of it", I replied, watching her suspicious gaze as she took a seat beside me.

"...You don't look good in those glasses, Tanaka-senpai", she said bluntly, making me scowl at her in response as Arisa immediately followed up with a laugh. I swear, Ayame-senpai...

...Your little sister is way too much for me to handle.

Erithemaeus · Feb 24, 2018

Our club is called the Literature Club.

There are only two of us in there – me, and my senpai, who's only a year older than me. Though in truth, he should've already been in his third year. He was forced to repeat his second year due to a certain incident in his old prefecture, and had to go here in order to escape the potential backlash. Well, one could call it waiting for the perfect time.

In any case, said senpai was known as Tanaka Yuzuru. The rumor mill stated that he beat up a member of his prefectural committee in broad daylight, in the courtyard of his school for all to see. This rumor was fact. After all, I was a daughter of that prefectural committee member.

"Arisa, come over here for a minute", Tanaka-senpai said, beckoning me out of my trance with his eyes glued to the laptop screen in front of him. Somehow, he always brings his laptop with him, wherever he goes. Was it from someone important or something? Surely he must've had better mediums to write his wonderful stories in. Why that laptop then? "...Is there something on my face?"

"Nothing! I'm coming over this very instant!" I said, immediately standing up from my chair in the room as I quickly ran over towards my senior's seat, located on the other side of the room where he camps the classroom's outlets. I wanted to charge my phone there sometime, "Is there something wrong with my work?"

He smirked, one that reminded me of my father, but it was laced with warmth, pride, accomplishment – a far cry from my father's calculating and cold smirks. I could tell. I've been observing Tanaka-senpai for almost a month now, "No, in fact, it's brilliant. Want to celebrate at a nearby café later? We could publish this for the school paper, you know."

I widened my eyes. It took me three weeks to finally crank out an output that Tanaka-senpai accepted. Somehow, I feel both accomplished, and a cold sense of disappointment. On one hand, my story was going to be published on the school paper. On the other, it took me this long in order to produce a workable output. My sister could've done this in less than five days, stat.

"Comparing yourself with your sister again?" My senior said, raising an eyebrow at me as I widened my eyes at him. How could he read my thoughts? "It's written all over your face. It's like 'my sister could've done this in less than five days' or something like that."

...The amount of accuracy in his statement was enough to make me suspicious of him. Is he a mind reader? "Well, I won't offer any words of consolation, since that's the last thing that anyone wants when faced with failure. What I could tell you, is that I'm also just an ordinary person compared to your sister. There's nothing I can do to reach her level."

"Liar", I said, making my senior frown at me for some reason. What? It's true, though; Tanaka-senpai's stories have some sort of flair, some sort of code or notice that immediately tells someone that he wrote that piece. Meanwhile, I've got none. I'm just using templates and mixing them in different ways. I can't create something original like what my senior did.

"I can't change your mindset, can I?" Tanaka-senpai said with a bitter smile on his face as he sighed, "So? Still going on to that free treat later?"

"Of course I'm going! How could I resist free food when it's offered to me!?" I screamed at my senior as I saw him flinch. Ugh, was my voice really that loud, or he just has low noise tolerance? "...Senpai, was it too loud? Besides, I thought you were going to ask me to foot the bill or something. You know, something totally insincere and un-gentleman-like that I have no choice but to chew you out for doing so?"

"Just what kind of person do you think I am?" Tanaka-senpai said with a scowl as I smiled at him. A cold, anti-social second-year high schooler who really should be focusing on what's in front of him instead of being stuck-up by nostalgia so that he can move on in life and in his work and did I just give him an entire deconstruction?

"A miser", I simply replied, his scowl deepening further as I laughed at him. At least his reactions are nice. I'm sure it must be one of the reasons why Aya-nee likes picking on him. Ah right, I almost forgot something about his deconstruction: he doesn't look good in glasses.

"Well, I'm sorry that I have to work in order to get some pocket change", my senior said as he drawled out a long sigh, "Juggling two part-time jobs is extremely difficult while you're in school, you know? Just having one is enough to put some stress on your schedule, as relaxed as this school is about homework and the like."

"Wait, Tanaka-senpai. You said you had two part-time jobs?" I asked in a surprised tone, "I thought you only had one?"

"Aside from the one at the fast-food chain, I became a part-time editor at the publishing house where my sister works", my senior said, "...All of a sudden, my workload increased. Not only do I have to keep on making stories here, I also have to review and edit these...pieces of ragged junk that would be better off in a trash bin."

I had an inkling as to what kind of editor Tanaka-senpai's currently working at, "You're a content reviewer for a fan fiction site, aren't you, senpai?"

He slammed his head on his desk. Looks like I was right. Hooray, sharp me! I'm learning a thing or two from Tanaka-senpai! "Hah...All those damn content...I now know the reason why writing's such a hard job these days..."

"Because you have to struggle with original content while the majority of readers constantly gorge out on the fan shipping, poorly-threaded, excuse of a story plot that only exists to give an author self-justification for prolonging shipping wars?"

"You just summed up the state of authors in this new world, Arisa", my senior said, using my name for once instead of 'you' or 'kouhai' or 'little sister'. Somehow, I could feel the sincerity in his voice when he said that, "Is it me, or can you read people better than your sister?"

"I take pride in it, thank you very much", I said, puffing out my chest in pride as Tanaka-senpai smirked at me, a glint of something in his eyes as he sat back up and stretched his arms, a yawn escaping his face.

"Alright, let's end club for the day", he said, packing up his stuff on the table, which included a picture of him and my sister standing side-by-side in one of the rooms with a wide grin on his face. Somehow, I haven't seen Tanaka-senpai smile like that ever since school started. Is there a specific trigger for that smile somewhere? I'd like to know, "I'll treat you to something nice today, alright? Whatever you want on the menu."

"Then–"

"But watch your weight", my senior said with a knowing smirk on his face as I frowned and threw his own eraser at him, causing him to yelp as the eraser hit him dead center on the forehead, "Ow! What was that for, Arisa!?"

"Damn idiot Tanaka-senpai!" I screamed at him as I got ready to throw another eraser at him, prompting him to fix his stuff faster, "What kind of insensitive bastard would just easily mention a girl's weight in public!? Scum, bastard, prick! I hope you drown yourself in your own saliva and die!"

He dodged the throw. Damn, "What the hell!? I'm amazed that you could already use colorful language within a month, but don't use it to pick on me! And sure, I'm insensitive and I know it, but do you really need the 'scum, bastard, prick'!? And I didn't even mention your weight not even once in this conversation! Agh, is that it!? Do you want me to say it!? Fine, you're gaining – Ow! Hey, stop throwing erasers! They're mine anyway, so technically you're stealing my stuff!"

"Then would it be fine if I use my erasers!?"

"Just stop throwing anything at me!" He screamed, now huddling under the desk for cover as I pelted him with erasers, pencils, and notepads. A stray thought of throwing a chair flashed in my mind, but I disregarded it. He'd get more than a simple bruise from that, and I'm not as violent as Aya-nee.

After a few seconds, I finally ran out of ammunition, my breath out of sync as I tried to gain it back, with sweat forming on my forehead as I grinned, a small laugh escaping from me as I laughed at my senior, who was currently cowering under his desk as if afraid that something would be thrown at him.

Moments later, a small chuckle escaped from under the desk, and I could only give him a smile in return as both of us began laughing, growing longer and louder by the second as our laughter could now be heard from the hallway.

Tanaka-senpai came out of his hiding place a moment later, a smile plastered on his face, my eyes widening at him as I realized one fact during my first month in the club:

My senior's smile is mesmerizing.

Which is the main reason why he doesn't show it often. How popular would he actually be if he had that smile plastered on his face all the time? Given his personality, he wouldn't want that kind of hectic life, so he sealed that smile of his away in order to gain a measure of peace.

"Somehow I'm seeing that thoughtful face of yours lately", Tanaka-senpai said, snapping me out of my reverie as I blinked, watching him sip his coffee. His coffee with three packs of creamer and six teaspoons of sugar. Somehow, sweet tooth didn't seem enough with this insensitive blockhead, "Something on your mind?"

"Nothing", I said, stabbing a fork into one of the cakes that I had ordered at the cost of my senior's wallet, finding the sweetness almost too infuriating for me to bear. Seriously, what is it with Tanaka-senpai's broken taste buds!? Do I need to fix it!? Do I need to cut off his tongue myself!? "...Senpai, should I cut your tongue off myself?"

My senior stared at me blankly for a second as he placed his teaspoon on a saucer, an audible clink ringing across our table as I met his stare, "...If you have any problems with my sweet tooth, then say it."

"Are you trying to kill me with this amount of sugar inside my food!?" I screamed, slamming on the table as I mentally cursed myself for attracting attention, "Tanaka-senpai, a sweet tooth is good and all, but your sweet tooth already has cavities in it, you know!"

"Oh come on, at least you could eat just one", my senior whined like a damn child. Well, not that I didn't help in the situation, so I guess it could also be chalked up to my fault, but still – It's his fault that I'm burning out from the sugar rush! "You said you wanted to taste my favorites, so I gave you my favorites. What's the matter, then?"

"I didn't expect it to be so damn sweet though!" I screamed at him as he simply averted my gaze, slurping his over-sweetened coffee in order to buy some time for his argument. He already lost; he's just waiting for a chance to withdraw without more screaming from me. Tanaka-senpai's considerate sometimes, huh...?

"...Fine", he said, slumping forward with an expression that says that he won't like what he'd say next, "...Just order one damn thing from the menu, and we'll call it quits. I'll even eat that half-finished cake of yours. How does that sound?"

I immediately nod, a light disappearing from my senior's eyes as I couldn't help but giggle at him. I pressed a button, and eagerly told a passing waiter my new order as I watched my senior widen his eyes at my order, with me making sure to drawl out the syllables so that I could see Tanaka-senpai's face grow pale. Ah, I guess I do have a bit of a sadistic streak in me, after all. Does it run in the family? Let's just hope that it runs in the family.

"Ugh..." Tanaka-senpai said, clutching his head as he stared at me with dead eyes, "...To think that you could blow all my savings on a single purchase...And I needed that money to buy myself a new laptop as well..."

"Your laptop's working fine, though", I pointed out as Tanaka-senpai blinked at me, "So why do you need another one? Vanity? Showing off? You know that there's other important stuff to get first before things like laptops, right?"

"Don't yak at me like you're my financial consultant; you're not", my senior snapped at me as he averted my gaze, "...It's just that my sister's birthday is coming up, and since she's working at a publishing house, I guess it's kind of fitting that she get a laptop so she could resume her work at home."

"...Won't she just start getting colder and colder because she can't manage her time with family?" I asked as Tanaka-senpai leveled me a cold stare.

"Ayu-nee would never do such a thing", he said with such a strong conviction that I can't help but immediately nod at his statement. Still, Ayu-nee, huh? I'd like to meet such a person soon. They share similar names with Aya-nee, so I might as well check and see if their personalities really are similar.

"Say, senpai", I said, catching his attention as a gigantic order of a parfait arrived, "Can we go to your house after this?"

A guarded expression immediately crossed his face, done subtly, but noticeable enough to the trained eye. Well, I should've expected so; it's not like you hear someone ask you to go visit your house little more than a month after meeting them, and it's not like we're dating or something. Of course it would sound suspicious, "Why?"

"You said your older sister's name was Aya-nee, right? I want to meet her", I said, causing Tanaka-senpai to widen his eyes, most likely out of the realization of the fact that he's doing such a thing for such an idiotic reason. Well, it's not that he's not doing it yet, though.

A few seconds passed between us as I stuck a spoon into the parfait and ate a bite out of it. It was sweet, but not as sickeningly sweet as one of Tanaka-senpai's twisted sense of sweetness. Just perfect, and what I exactly wanted, "...Alright."

I blinked. What? I'm sorry. Did I just mishear what he said? "Ta-Tanaka-senpai, did you just say–"

"I said yes", he said with a tired sigh, "Fine. Do what you want. Go to my house or something, who cares. Just...don't pick a fight with my sister at all times, alright? I want some peace when I get back and ponder about my losses for today."

...Somehow, I'm getting the feeling that I stepped on a landmine that shouldn't have been stepped today. Just by seeing Tanaka-senpai's face, I could already see that he was imagining what would happen if I met his sister...And I could swear I could saw a chuckle of despair back there. Why would it turn out to be so disastrous if I met your damn sister!?

Taking more bites than I could spare from the parfait, I perked up, finding the dessert to be almost as good as empty. A scowl on my face, I glanced towards my senior, who stared at me with a tired smirk on his face, "What?"

"...No, I never thought that you'd be able to eat that monster, out of all things. Are you sure you won't gain weight?" He said in a tired tone, as if buried within unending working hours. But somehow, somewhere, I saw a jab. No, I knew somewhere in my mind that it was a jab.

It was the first time that I ever hit a guy in rage.

"Ow..." My senior said, pressing a cold compress against his cheek as he slowly trudged forward, not minding the curious stares that were shot our way, "Ugh...Just when I thought that the physical abuse would finally stop...Here I am with a brand-new bruise on my cheek..."

"S-Sorry..." I said, scratching the back of I head as I glanced away from Tanaka-senpai's gaze. It hurts. Does he want to kill me with guilt or something? "...But, I still won't stand for it if you keep on pushing on matters of delicacy. I'll try not to hit you as much as Aya-nee did."

"Thanks", Tanaka-senpai said with a small smile on his face, forcing me to look towards the nearby surroundings again in order to escape the mood. Keep yourself calm, Arisa. He's nothing but a mere droplet of water in your ocean of stillness...Then I caught myself with the realization that a single droplet could cause the ocean to descend into chaos. Damn it.

Sooner or later, we arrived at a slightly-familiar door, widening my eyes at it as I was nudged from the side by my senior, now with a smirk on his face, "What? Getting cold feet this far into it?"

"I'm not", I said coolly, my eyes flicking towards the design of the door as I pursed my lips together. Somehow, I feel like I'm forgetting something from somewhere... "Well, just knock already."

Tanaka-senpai sighed, rapping against the hard wood of the door as a voice came from inside, "Wait a minute, Tanaka! I'm still changing, so just wait a damn minute, alright?"

My senior shrugged, not giving a reply as I could hear clothes rustling inside, before the latch responsible for leaving us outside slowly unbolted, and the door swung inward to reveal a young woman somewhere in her mid-20s, her gray hair and eyes exactly matching the ones on my senior. I guess they prided themselves on their heritage? "Yo, Tanaka! How's your new high school going?"

"Pretty fine, banal in fact", my senior answered in a matter-of-fact tone as a wry smile formed on his sister's face. Oh no, I'm starting to interpose the sibling's faces together. Keep it together, me!

"Hm? Who's the charmer that you brought with you?" Tanaka-senpai's sister said as she glanced towards me for a second, turning back towards her own little brother with a sly smirk on her face, "Tanaka, it's not that it's bad to get a girlfriend at your age, but just because you're dating one month in doesn't mean that it's time to meet the family, right? Have you even gone on dates yet? Even had your first–"

"Aya-nee. She's my junior at the club", Tanaka-senpai harshly cut in, causing his sister to double over as she once again stared at me with wide, blinking eyes. She looks energetic, that's for sure.

"A-Ah, I see. Sorry about that", she said, her voice shaking as she scratched the back of her head, "I mean, the two of you looked perfect together, so I was thinking that...Haha...Sorry. What was your name?"

I guess it was my turn to speak, given that the siblings now turned towards me, "...I'm Arisa Kobayashi. Ayame Kobayashi's younger sister. Please take care of me."

"O-Oh..." The sister said, glancing towards her little brother with furrowed brows, "Ta-Tanaka, you know of this? Since when?"

He shrugged, "Ever since the start of the school year. She barged in and wanted me to teach her writing, so I did. She already got her first piece down in three weeks, just in time for editing and for the first output."

"Are you somehow showing me off to your sister?" I said as I glanced at my senior, "Senpai, it feels weird. You're honestly creeping me out here. Is this it? Is this your true personality? Are you actually a damn lolicon who can't take his eyes off of freshmen like me!?"

His sister laughed, while Tanaka-senpai simply stared at me with a look of blank shock written all over his face. After a second he snapped back, his brain apparently figuring out where the reset button was as he cleared his throat, "...I prefer older women, thank you very much."

...I blinked. Did he just admit his death sentence right in front of his own sister? "Ta-Tanaka, you..."

"Like hell!" He screamed, causing his sister to flinch in response to his words, "We're siblings, Ayu-nee! I was talking about– No, nothing. Well, can we get in? It's still cold here, you know?"

"Alright", her sister replied, opening the door wide and ushering us in as she glanced back towards my senior, "Tanaka, about what you said earlier, were you talking about her sister? Uh, what was her name again...Ayame, right?"

I nod, with both of our gazes turning towards my senior, but he was already gone, having ducked into an accompanying room as his sister could only sigh at his disappearance. I removed my shoes, placing them by the side of the door as I could feel his sister's gaze on me.

...Somehow, this is weird, "U-Um, is there a problem or something?"

"Hm? Ah, nothing", my senior's sister said, her gaze softening as she glanced off towards the place that my senior disappeared to – the bath. Of course. In order to escape the banality of conversation, he chose the one place where we couldn't just barge in and drag him out. Given his usual hijinks, I could never expect that he was this sharp when he came down to it. Good job, senpai, "It's just...How is he doing?"

Ah, I see. So she's concerned for her little brother. Well, being separated from the one person that truly understood you after punching her father in the face was one thing, but what he does next while in another prefecture was another, "He's still the same incorrigible, cold, anti-social bastard that my sister told him to be. It's like nothing changed."

I perked up, remembering some few odd details during the quiet times in the club where we did nothing but write, "Ah, but sometimes he stares at a framed picture with a melancholic look on his face. I caught a glance once, and found it to be of both my sister and Tanaka-senpai."

Her sister stared at me with wide-eyed, "I'm surprised that he lets you call him by that name. Usually he gets irked about it, saying that 'we're still not close friends, so just call me Yuzuru for now' or something like that. Did you do something?"

"Nothing of note that I can remember", I said, glancing towards the door to the bathroom before glancing back at my senior's sister. Was Tanaka-senpai listening on this?

His sister caught the glance that I made, "...Hm. Yeah, it is bad if that blockhead would snoop in on us while we're talking here in the foyer. Want to go towards the living room?"

I nod, letting her lead the way through the apartment as I could do nothing but inwardly grumble in all of this. The Yuzuru family is dangerous. I thought that only Tanaka-senpai was oddly sharp at times, but who knew his sister shared the same trait as well?

...Now this feels more like an interrogation than anything.

Glancing around as I sat down in front of my senior's sister, I could see that the walls were bare, devoid of any decorations whatsoever. The furniture was sitting dust, but they looked so out-of-place in the room that I couldn't help but try and move my gaze away from it, the dark glint of inconspicuous boxes catching my eyes as a conclusion formed in my head, "Uh..."

"Ayumi. Call me Ayumi", she said with a smile on her face as she glanced to the side, "Yeah, I know. It's been a month already, but it's hard getting all the stuff out when both of you in the household are busy, after all."

"It is, isn't it?" I replied with a smile on my face. It's hard to surrender your day offs to just clean up your apartment and arrange all the stuff on it, "All I've got at the moment is a working kitchen and a bed to sleep on, but that's just it."

"You also just moved in around here, huh?" Ayumi-san said as she blinked at me, "Wait a minute, did you just come here just for–"

"Yes and no", I quickly replied, cutting Ayumi-san off before she could say whatever she was supposed to say. It would cause a lot of unwanted misunderstandings if she said it out loud and Tanaka-senpai heard, after all, "Yes because I was asked by my sister to keep a watch on him, and no, because I was asked by my sister to keep a watch on him."

"Everyone's worried, huh..." Ayumi-san said as a sigh escaped from her lips, "...How about you. Are you worried about him too?"

"Well, senpai's strong so I guess he's fine", I said, garnering a thin smile from my senior's sister as I continued, "Though, given how much he verbally abuses me to no end I can only assume that he's taking out whatever he's feeling inside on me."

"You're perceptive", Ayumi-san noted with a smirk as I scowled at her.

"Who wouldn't be, when you're in a club with that senior?" I said as a grumble managed to leak out of me. Ah well whatever; she's his sister; she knows what her brother's like, so I might as well just unload everything onto her, "He's insensitive, tactless, a blockhead, a moron, an idiot, a bastard! The only reason that I came to the clubroom was because my sister wanted to watch over him and see that he's fine! I'm barely putting up with him because his writing is good, but I'm nearly close to losing my top! Actually, I just did!"

Ayumi-san blinked at me after my outburst, a tired smile and a sigh escaping her lips as I suddenly felt a cold, overbearing presence right behind me as I froze. Slowly craning my head to look, I saw my senior in his home wear, wearing nothing more than a gray T-shirt and shorts, a pair of thin frame gray glasses nestling themselves at home at the bridge of his nose. An earthly charm came from out of him, no doubt aided by the fact that he had just taken a bath.

...No good. I'm getting side-tracked. Slowly turning back towards Ayumi-san, I half-expected her to continue the conversation like nothing happened. Ayumi-san, you're his older sister, right? You could do that much, right? "Ayu-nee, your turn."

"Ah, then I'll do so right away. Entertain your junior like a reliable senpai for once, alright?" Ayumi-san, I trusted you! How could you betray my fragile trust like it was nothing!? Is that it!? Is that all our friendship amounted to – Ah. There's something cold on my cheek.

"Tanaka-senpai?" I ask more out of confusion as I yelped, the cold thing now numbing my cheeks as I shrieked away from it. It turns out that it was just canned coffee. I reach an arm out to hold it, "Ah, senpai, thank you–"

I stopped, narrowing my eyes at him as he coldly stared me back with his gray eyes, our gazes holding for a single second as I opened my mouth to speak, "...Tanaka-senpai. It's sweetened to your sick tastes, isn't it?"

"How rude", came the immediate reply, "It's store bought. I could only get some sugar into it when it's already opened. Sadly, this one's still closed, and I'm giving it to you. So take it; engorge yourself in other's goodwill and fatten up even more – Ow. Arisa, step away from my foot please."

I dig my heel into his foot for added measure as he yelped in pain, "What did I tell you at the café before we went here, senpai? Never to talk about that again, right?"

"A-Ah...I'm sorry already, so could you please let go of your foot?" Tanaka-senpai said in a beseeching tone as I stood up and put all my weight on his foot, and I could see him trying to stifle a cry of pain as he smiled at me, "...I'm serious, Arisa. Don't make me move your damn foot by myself."

"Say your damn apology first", I said as I glared at my senior, "We're not going to end if you keep on insinuating that it wasn't your damn fault–!?"

My balance faltered, a sound of surprise escaping my lips as my feet met dead air, with gravity immediately going to town as I started to fall. A shrill scream began to form on my face as my senior grunted, stepping towards me and trying to bring my balance back to normal by grabbing onto my arm. It was a good call; as expected of Tanaka-senpai.

However, momentum still took over, my body started falling like a damn plank as I was now fully screaming, dragging down my senior with me as we me the ground with a loud thud a second later.

Slowly opening my eyes after confirming that I was fine, I suddenly felt my body stiffen, my gaze moving downwards as I saw my senior slowly regaining consciousness, his glasses skewed way off from his nose, his gray eyes lazing around, unfocused. As of the moment, he was nothing more than dead weight...Wait.

He was dead weight. And he was currently on top of me. Due to the weight difference, it's impossible to push him off. I widened my eyes, quickly glancing around for signs of his older sister, but she wasn't here – she was probably already enjoying her me-time in the bath.

...Still. This is bad. Very, very, bad. Like a cliché in romance manga everywhere. And I'm currently stuck in the very middle of it.

Oh no. What should I do? Should I slither out and let Tanaka-senpai drop to the floor like a dead man? Or should I just try and push him off to the side, since it uses less force that trying to push him directly off me? Either way, my decision needs to be done quick. As time passes by, either Ayumi-san would go out from her bath, or Tanaka-senpai would wake up. Either way, not good.

"Urgh..." My senior, said, his consciousness slowly returning as I widened my eyes at him in panic, trying in vain to push him off me with a forceful shove as blood began to rush to my face, "What just...happened...?"

"Tanaka-senpai! Get off me right this very instant!" I screamed at him, my arms beginning to grow tired as he blinked, his gaze moving towards me as they widened for a single instant. Then his face immediately flushed red.

...Oh no. Please get off of me before this turns into a huge misunderstanding, "I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I–"

"I know it's not your fault, so get up already!" I screamed at him, his body being shaken into action as he immediately pulled away from me, his back slamming against the table as he yelped in pain for a second, before adjusting his position and quickly got off me, adjusting his glasses and looking at me with a look of concern on his face before he froze and quickly whirled around me.

"...Sorry. Hit me please", was all he said as I blinked at him in confusion. What was he talking about? I have no idea what he meant – That is, until I glanced downward, finding my school uniform soaked in cold, canned coffee, the moisture allowing the clothes inside to–

–I immediately knocked him on the back of his knee, "Ow! I know that I asked you to hit me, but that was too hard, wasn't it!?"

"Shut up!" I said, straddling the perverted senior who was lying on the floor, grasping his collar as I pulled them close and glared at him, "Not only did you knock that canned coffee into me, you actually had the gall to peek, you damn pervert."

"You're forcing me to look, you damn cheeky kouhai!" He seethed as he averted his eyes towards my front, which was still wet. You damn...! "Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, stop that already, you damn idiot! It hurts!"

"You're treating me", I said in a cold tone as a fire blazed to life in my eyes, "Tomorrow, you're going to treat me before we go home. Again."

"I get it, so get off me!" He said as I grunted, letting go of his collars as he unceremoniously slammed his head onto the floor, a yelp coming out of him as he glared at me a second later, "You bastard, that hurt – Ah."

"What are you looking at, you damn pervert?" I said, noticing a figure on the couch as I widened my eyes, "Ah."

...This is bad. I forgot that I was still straddling my senior. This looks very bad. A lot of misunderstandings could rise from this. As I slowly craned my head to explain things to my senior's sister, she beat me to the punch first – "You know, I was going to ask Tanaka where did he place the new bath salts, but I was too mesmerized by the show that you two put on in the living room. Are you two exhibitionists, perhaps?"

""No.""

"Then, based upon your conversation a while back, are you masochists?"

""No!""

An ordinary day at the Literature Club consisted of the two of us – both junior and senior – writing. Tanaka-senpai wrote on his laptop, and I wrote on the steno pad that I always bring with me without fail every day. I always preferred the chicken scratch that came with ordinary paper and binder – the kind of chicken scratch that a laptop wouldn't be able to provide. Unless it's a tablet. Then one has to ask why the hell they would bring a tablet in the first place. It's the unholy fusion of both options, and both me and Tanaka-senpai are traditionalists – just on opposite sides of the time periods.

Today was not one of those ordinary days. It was an editing day.

"Review the ones in red ink: notes, corrections, suggested changes, all the package", Tanaka-senpai said as he handed me the draft to my short story, encoded in one of his usual mediums of art: sheets of that damnable coupon bond paper, with red ink scattered generously over all of the pages, "Now, sit."

His demeanor was impassive, his gaze cool and calculating. He didn't bring his laptop with him, but instead came with sheets of paper that he generously stacked upon his desk. His gesture pointed to the seat in front of him, and I could do nothing but follow his order as I kept on staring at him, his gray eyes following my every move as I slowly sat on the seat in front of him. Seriously, being bombarded with that stare is nerve-wracking.

...And it looked like he didn't go through hell after all that happened yesterday. Maybe I should try prodding him about it a bit, "Senpai."

"Yeah?" Tanaka-senpai replied with a calm tone as he seems to have been rummaging through his bag. Why was he always such a busy-body? Is he always so itching to do something? I don't know if that's the sign of a workaholic, but it's bound to do some bad things later on.

"What did Ayumi-san say after that?" I said, glancing towards my senior as I saw that small yet faintly perceptible freeze for an instant before he went back to his work. I see he remembers clearly.

...Well, work comes first over teasing my senior. My priorities aren't quite like the same as my older sister, who would rather just do both at the same time. Seriously, what a jerk she was. Just what does Tanaka-senpai see in her?

I glanced towards the paper that my senior gave me, and I could help but bite my lip at it, since the paper was covered in red ink, formed into coherent blobs that a person in junior high can understand. I've heard from my sister a few times that the editing process is hard, but seeing the density of the red ink in the pages was enough to make me blank out and start barfing.

Luckily, it didn't come to that, "Hey Arisa, bring yourself down to this planet please. We need you to edit your own piece right now, and we need to get it done within four days, you know."

I blinked, regaining my consciousness as I once again stared at the draft, a slight dizziness buzzing in my head as I drawled out a long sigh. A second later, I felt a weight on my head, and as I glanced upward I could see my senior reaching out from across the desk and patting my head, "...Tanaka-senpai, watch what you do next, or I'm filing for sexual harassment."

"Geez, you can't even spare your damn senpai a break..." Tanaka-senpai said with a sigh as he stared straight at me, his gray eyes emitting a kind of sincerity that one wouldn't ordinarily see from a cold anti-social like him, and a smile that seemed to be coming from the bottom of his heart. Somehow, the gray thin frames that he wore made him seem more charming – Hey wait a minute, Arisa, focus!

...I can't! He's just too powerful! Why isn't he always like this!? "...Well, it always comes as a shock for first-timers upon seeing their drafts for editing, but I assure you that you can do this. You already did a brilliant piece, but all we need to do is some fine polishing in order to make it perfect. Everybody likes a brilliant diamond, right?"

I quickly nodded. What the hell!? What is this switch in personality!? Is this his 'cool guy' persona!? How come my sister never told me about this!? I have no antibodies against this, you know!? His ordinary personality I can tolerate since I already experienced it first-hand, but this...! Agh, he's so cool – Ow, "Good, that got you back from dreamland. In any case, I'll be right here, so just ask me if you need something. As for rations...Hey, are you listening to me?"

I nod, following my senior's instructions as I looked downward, finding a sleek gray rectangle standing vigil on my side of the desk. I blinked. What is this? This is too unexpected. Wait a minute, is this a–!? "Here. Eat this when you're feeling hungry. I made it myself."

"...Sorry senpai, could you please hurry up and marry me?"

Tanaka-senpai blinked as he stared straight at me with wide eyes, "...What? Wait, are you saying that...Huh? Wait? Just what did I do in order to deserve this? Where's this coming from? Are you seriously joking me right now? I can't just accept such a thing without–"

"Senpai, it's just a joke", I replied with a smile on my face as his face froze in an expression that brought me ultimate bliss, forcing me to laugh at him as he kept on staring, "I'm sorry, just seeing that face of yours is just...!"

I cleared my throat, "In any case, thanks Tanaka-senpai. But why'd you make this lunch in the first place, anyway? You know that we're stuck here for the rest of the day off, right?"

"Yeah, I did", Tanaka-senpai said with a smile on his face as he beamed at me, "That's why that bento's delicious, but eating it won't put on too many calories. You need to diet, after all."

I stared at my senior with a wistful expression on my face, a thin smile forming like a veneer on my true thoughts as I apologized towards him in my mind. I was about to smash a person's head in while he was emitting nothing but pure goodwill.

"Sorry, Tanaka-senpai."

For the rest of the day, my senior was in a bad mood. Probably because he mentioned my weight in front of me. Again. For the eighth time in the month that I've been in this club.

But, at least the editing was going along a good way. As for the moment, our agenda for the first day was to simply elaborate on the notes in red ink written in the draft of the piece that I had written.

It was already about four-thirty in the afternoon, and we were just finished with our agenda, my mind being filled with possible ways in order to edit the work in order to polish it even more, as Tanaka-senpai put it. As I was packing up my belongings, I stared at the desk, finding that I hadn't touched the bento that Tanaka-senpai had made for me once in the whole day.

"You still haven't eaten that yet?" My senior asked as he finished packing up, moving over to my side of the desk in order to help me pack up my stuff. I mean, I'm grateful that he's acting considerate, but please? "Well, it's kind of troubling that you haven't eaten it yet, but I guess it couldn't be helped since you're busy on editing your piece. If you're that passionate, then everything else just falls flat. Am I right?"

I blinked at him, "...Senpai. Now that I think about this, that cool and considerate personality of yours doesn't suit you well. Please return back to the original Tanaka Yuzuru that I knew when I came here to this classroom for the first time."

The perpetual thin smile on his face disappeared, being replaced with the impassive frown that I was accustomed with over the course of the first month of school, "Ah well, I tried. You saw it. I could finally tell Ayu-nee to lay off me already."

"You were faking it?" I asked, half-awed and half-betrayed. Why is it that when he hides his emotions, it actually looks damn seamless?

"Well, after that incident last night happened, Ayu-nee rambled on about such things as 'delicacy' and 'tact' and 'consideration for other people', and at the end of it all she pleaded me to try it out, even if it was for a single day", he said in an irritated voice, as if he hated faking his own emotions. I can't even tell whether it was real, or it was genuine now that I had that information, "...Still, were you fooled?"

"...I hate to admit it, but I was", I said begrudgingly as my senior simply replied with an 'Oh, is that so?' as he finished packing my stuff. Somehow, I just simply stood beside him while he was doing that. Well, at least free labor's fine by me at all times, "Senpai."

"Yeah?"

"Do you still have more comments on the piece?" I asked as he put a hand on his chin, his lips pursing up as he glanced at me a second later, as if wondering whether or not he should tell me. No, by all means, please do. I beseech you, o dear – no wait, scratch that 'dear' part – esteemed senior, tell me what I should do to make my piece perfect.

"...Yeah I do. Why?" He said after a long silence, causing me to glance at the bento that he made as I gingerly touched it, feeling its smooth gray exterior as I gathered myself with a deep breath.

"I'd rather finish the entire thing as fast as possible", I said, my mind brushing over to that kind of plan as I glanced towards my senior. I guess I better pay up for my continued physical abuse of him during Ayumi-san's birthday...Which was also on the same day that we needed to pass an output, both as the club's requirement and as a way of donating another work of literature to the already impressively huge archives of the library. That, and to serve as advertisement for the club apparently, which nets us more club funds. Which was nice, since we currently have none, "I still have some things to take care of two days before we pass the piece."

"Are you meeting with your sister?" Tanaka-senpai asked in an inquisitive tone as I simply shrugged in response. No point telling him what I was doing, and it would actually be better for me to let him jump to his own conclusions and leave me out of it.

My senior realized that I wasn't going to reply, so he just sighed in resignation. Sorry, but you'll just have to figure it out by yourself, "So, are you coming to the apartment again?"

He said that with a look that tries to edge me away from doing so. Most of the time, I'd agree; dealing with Ayumi-san was so exhausting on the mind that sometimes I even wonder how Tanaka-senpai manages to do it every day, "No, come over to my place instead."

I stopped. My senior stopped. The world around us froze, with me cursing myself for blurting out such a line that could cause a lot of misunderstandings. As both of our faces began turning red due to the implications of that line, I immediately began to clear it up, "N-No, it's not like that! W-What I meant is that we could just keep on editing the piece over at my apartment, since I'm not really keen on dealing with Ayumi-san...?"

That's it. I'm just giving up, "Actually, just scrap that–"

"Alright, I'll go", Tanaka-senpai said with a tired sigh on his face as I perked up and stared at him in disbelief. Are you sure? That's literally synonymous to a – And I'm not going to say anything further! Senpai, are you sure that you can still live in society like this!? What if that woman was a scammer who then tries to take away all your money the moment the two of you go down in an alleyway!? Are you sure that you should be doing this!? "What's with that face? Look, I know the implications, and they aren't pretty for both of our reputations, that's for sure. But I'm not a blood-crazed pervert that your sister – damn her, by the way – believes I am, so rest assured that I'll be fine when we start our work."

"...I-I see. T-Thanks", I managed to blurt out as Tanaka-senpai handed my bag to me, taking it with a single arm as I winced, the weight in my arm weighing far more that it ordinarily should as my senior sighed, taking the bag away from me and slinging it around his back in one smooth movement, along with his bag and the large sling bag that he used to store his laptop.

"Don't mention it", he said with a thin smirk on his face, just as I was about to say thanks towards him, making me frown as I grabbed the bento that he had made for me and followed him out the classroom's door.

...Seriously. Even though he's so considerate today, I want to sock him again just to make sure that I'm in a dream. Even though I know for a fact that it's not.

We stand in the door leading to my apartment, ignoring my senior's gaze as I unlocked the door with a key from my fob, immediately placing it inside of my skirt after I was done with it, opening the door as I ushered my senior inside, "Well, it contains the barest of essentials, so please don't nitpick on it."

"I feel like I've seen this place before..." Tanaka-senpai said sarcastically as he stepped into the foyer, setting both of our bags to the side as he removed his shoes and placed them towards the side of the door, "...Seriously, I think this place is familiar...I'm having the feeling of deja-vu here, you know..."

"This is one floor above your apartment, so just get it through your damn head already!" I screamed at him as he turned towards me, a smirk plastered on his face as I could do nothing but just glare at him. That was the only thing that I could do at this juncture.

"Well, I guess I could see why this place looks so familiar", he said, "Actually, you could've just told us yesterday that you were living one floor above us. That could've meant that we could have edited the piece sooner rather than later. Mind if I take a look around?"

"No."

The snap rejection immediately caused Tanaka-senpai to look at me with a blank expression filled with suspicion on his face, "What is it with you girls and your innate dissatisfaction at male guests taking a look around you homes? Are you afraid that we might reveal some kind of important clue that fills us in on the details of your love interest or something?"

"What's with that clichéd analysis?" I said with a blank stare, "No, we're just here to continue on editing that piece, so I'd like it if you don't get any weird ideas."

"Yes, yes", my senior said as he casually waltzed into the apartment and immediately made a beeline for the living room. I could only stare at him in shock – I didn't know whether I should be impressed or worried that the man had the gall to just enter into a girl's apartment without any care in the world.

...At least, he was back to his usual, unreadable self. How I liked that part of him – enigmatic, unpredictable. Removing my shoes as well and leaving them in the foyer, I followed Tanaka-senpai towards my living room, finding him sitting on the couch while leaning to the coffee table as he began to set-up his laptop. I sighed, sitting right next to him as he finished booting the laptop up, opening a word processor as I fished out the piece that I was supposed to edit out of my bag, the thing slamming on the coffee table with a weak thud as my senior cracked his knuckles, something he always did when he was ready to type.

But he didn't. Instead, he moved the laptop over to me, where I simply stared at him with a confused look on my face as he gave me a thin smirk back a a reply, "Your piece. You know how it goes. You edit it yourself."

Ah, the old writer-editor maxim. After mentally slapping myself on the head for forgetting such a basic lesson that my senior had taught me during my first week in the club, I immediately placed my hands over the keyboard, glancing towards the draft of the piece that I was writing and the red ink that served as annotations from my usually-reliable senior.

Then I started to type, putting myself in the mindset that 'red ink = suggestions on how to improve my work' as the keys on the keyboards made their all-too familiar clacking sound, a sound that I had heard ever since day one as I saw my senior type on his own laptop.

Another difference between me and him was that the clacking was almost continuous, with few short breaks in between as he tried to figure out his next words. On other occasions, the sound was beautiful, almost entrancing, the clacking of the keyboard sending out a beautiful music that was sure to touch anyone that heard it. As long as they were fellow authors, of course.

As for me... "You would suck if you were playing an RPG, you know."

"I know", I retorted in reflex in response to my senior's statement, "I know my typing pace is as slow as a snail, but please give me some space to think? It's kind of annoying to respond to your jabs all the time. And it breaks my focus."

He shrugged, keeping silent as I glanced back to my own work and once again resumed typing. Of course, my typing was slow as hell. I always preferred paper over the new things, so it should've been natural that I wasn't very good at typing so fast.

Words slowly filled up a page by two, three words at a time, not like the continuous stream of words that my senior always seems to have on ready. Though, it's not like I could blame him on that, though. He just types fast, that's all.

Time passes by, and I could feel my senior leave the couch, the wooden floorboards signifying his movement towards the direction of the refrigerator as I quickly returned back towards my work. It was only half-finished, and I needed it to be done as soon as possible.

...I yawned, finished by the time that the alarm on my watch informed me that it was already one in the morning. Slowly standing up and taking note of my surroundings, I could see my senior taking up most of the couch, the slow rise and fall of his chest, coupled with his closed eyelids, was enough to make me realize that he was already asleep.

Once again, not that I could blame him. It was already later after all, and I was basically forcing him to do this. I knelt beside him, trying to wake him up, causing him to grumble as he turned around to face me, his gray eyes still glazed over as if he were still dreaming.

"Tanaka-senpai, wake up already", I said, once again shaking him as he closed his eyes and the grumbling came louder, "Wake up – you're supposed to check the first edit after I was done encoding, right?"

The half-asleep senior groaned as he turned his back towards me, my eyes twitching at his actions in response as I shook him harder, "Damn it, senpai, wake the hell up already."

"No", came the soft reply as I finally sighed in exasperation, forcing him to look towards me and oh I just realized that I was currently looking at his half-asleep face, "What?"

Even though his gaze was already focused, his gray eyes still held a hint of wide-eyed enthusiasm, as if trying to ascertain what I was doing and was going along with it. Given the way that he said that last word, he was still drowsy, his need to sleep was currently in a hopeless fight against his consciousness, and it was only a matter of time until he was awake.

...No good. I'm getting mixed feelings about this. I should wake him up now. Given that reasoning, the only way to wake him was to subject him to pain. A lot of it. So I slap him awake. His gray eyes immediately focused as he yelped in pain, immediately sitting up as he placed a hand gingerly on his cheek, "Ow! What in the–!? Arisa!? What the hell!?"

"Sorry, you were too innocent for me not to take advantage of, so I slapped you awake just before my instincts could take over. You should be thanking my rational side at this very moment, or else you might've woken up in a bit more embarrassing position that you already are right now–"

"Wait!" He screamed, holding a hand up towards me as if trying to silence me while his cheeks flushed a deep red, "Arisa, just what the hell are you saying right now!?"

"I finished encoding the edited version, so it's your turn to do your part of the job now", I said in a matter-of-fact tone, immediately bringing him up to speed as he blinked at me with renewed vigor in his mind. A switch probably flipped inside there, no problem.

"Alright", he said, nodding once as he shakily got up from the couch and moved towards the laptop that was on for at least five hours already, "I'm sorry, but my head's still a bit fuzzy. Could you please make me some coffee?"

I recall having a premade coffee mix somewhere stored in the cupboard, but I couldn't help but release a scowl as I recalled my senior's twisted tastes – especially when it came to drinks, "Senpai. Are you having the incredibly sweetened one?"

"No, just an ordinary one", he said in a curt tone as I widened my eyes out of him. What had gotten into him to ignore his usual tendencies to dive for high-sugar drink and instead opt for a bitter one?

Since I was dazed, I could only sigh and acquiesce, moving towards the kitchen as I glanced at my senior, seeing him hunched over the laptop and reading the edited piece with a speed that was almost blindingly fast. When I came back with the coffee ready, he was already done reading, all with a thin grin on his face.

"Good", he says, "Just a few minor tweaks left, and we'll be good to go."

"Here", I said, placing his cup of coffee beside the laptop as I held it steady, not unlike the klutzy grip of my senior, "Your coffee. Ordinary, as you said so. Don't know why you would intentionally make your coffee taste bitter, though. I thought you liked sickeningly sweet things?"

"I reserve those on special occasions", my senior replied with a smirk as he took a sip of his coffee, immediately recoiling back in shock as he looked at the mug with a horrified expression on his face, "What the hell...It's hot."

I blankly stared at him. Just how much traits does he want to have, this embarrassment of a senpai? "Do you have a cat's tongue?"

He blinked at me in response, "Is that what it was called? Sorry, but I don't remember the term."

...He has cat's tongue. Seriously, I can't believe his preferences for drinks. Somehow, I can't say that I'm all too glad that I'm sympathizing with Ayumi-san out of all people when it comes to taking care of this idiotic blockhead.

"Well, since you're done for the day anyway, you could just go back to your apartment", I said curtly as Tanaka-senpai once again took another sip of the coffee and winced. Seriously, he's too sensitive when it comes to his drinks.

"Alright, then", he said, a smirk on his face as he got up and picked up his belongings sans the laptop on my table, "I'll leave the laptop in your care for the moment, so just take it back when you're done doing whatever you're supposed to do. Then, I'll be leaving."

The sound of the latch on the door closing made me sigh in relief as I finally thought that it would be Ayumi-san's job to babysit that idiot. Though, knowing her personality from yesterday, I could also say that she was worried sick that her little brother never came back until two in the morning.

...My hands were warmed from the cup of coffee that I sipped in my hands, so the cold couldn't lock them in place as I sat myself in front of the laptop and once again started reading my edited piece. It was as Tanaka-senpai said: faultless, perfect. A masterpiece of art.

But...I clenched my hands for some reason. Somehow, this story didn't seem correct. Somehow, this story didn't seem right – didn't seem to connect with me on the fundamental level. It wasn't a piece that I could call my own – for there was still something quite alien about it, something that I can't even point out. But no matter what I say, there was still the fact that I was disgruntled about it. Something about the piece didn't click right.

It was still missing something.

"...So that's what you think of it, huh?" Tanaka-senpai said, doing something unusual for once as he placed a bookmark and slammed the covers of his book closed, staring at me with slight curiosity in his eyes as he glanced outside, "Well, nothing I can do to help you if that's the case, then. You'll have to discover the answer on your own."

"Aren't you uncharacteristically blasé today?" I immediately retorted back as my senior sighed and returned to reading his book, "I mean, ordinarily you'd all be like 'Let's solve that problem as quickly as possible so we could return back to our original work', right?"

"Look, if you're the one that stated that your piece has problems, who am I to interject?" My senior said in an annoyed tone as I blinked at him. He had a point, "The only thing that I could recommend you to do now is to take a walk outside and try to understand why you're feeling that way."

"You're not coming with me?" I ask out of reflex as Tanaka-senpai blinked at me.

"Unless you want the whole school to come up with some kind of misunderstanding, then go ahead, be my guest", he said dryly before returning back to his book, making me roll my eyes at him as I stood up from my seat and walked towards the door.

"Take care of my stuff for me, then", I said as I walked through the doorway, emerging through a hallway as the afternoon light filtered through the school, my footsteps ringing through the hallway as I began to wander around the school, trying to find some kind of reason as to why I still wasn't satisfied with my piece.

'The Tankards of Madness' was already a perfect story, if one were to look at it objectively, from an editor's perspective. Smooth transitions, with a great story and characterization, and a plot that would have one genuinely interested in the story.

But why wasn't I still satisfied with it? The simple answer was that I was still missing something. But what exactly was I missing? A spark of originality – a style that would make one recognize that I was the author of this piece just by looking at a single sentence.

...As for the question of where can I find that spark, I was already at a standstill. And before I knew it, I was already standing in front of my classroom, watching a single person pack up their bags and make their way out of the room. Coincidentally, our gazes met, "Ah, Arisa!"

"Oh, Yume huh! It's been a long time!" I greet with a smile on my face, greeting one of my friends as she returned my greeting with a smile on her own, "Want to walk together for a bit?"

"Sure!" Yume said as she quickly went out of the room, matching my pace as we went around the hallways bathed in red-orange light, "...Still, who would've thought that you out of all people would join that Literature Club? You shocked all of us when you said that in front of the class, you know!"

"Was it that weird?" I asked my friend with an eyebrow raised, "I was always interested in reading, so I figured that I might as well create the things that I read while I'm at it."

"I could get where you're coming from, but the senpai from that club has some bad rumors flying about him, you know?" Yume said as I couldn't help but frown at the bias against Tanaka-senpai, "They said that he beat someone up in his old high school, you know."

"I know", I said, causing Yume to widen her eyes as I continued speaking, "And he said it himself – he beat someone up in his old school, and he got dismissed because of it, so he transferred here."

"Then–"

"But", I said, cutting her off before she could stab my senior in the back any further, "He's a good guy. After joining the club for a month, that's what I'm sure of. Sure, he's annoying, he's got quirks that would make you wonder whether he should be in a school or in a mental hospital, but he's a good guy."

Yume stared at me with wide eyes, "Wow. You mean that you never saw his bad side at least once? He must be some kind of manipulative bastard in order for him to do such a thing to you."

"What's with that bias?" I said with a scowl, "I mean, Tanaka-senpai's personality leaves me questioning whether I should just forcibly change it with a few right taps to the brain, but just like I told you – he's a good guy. And whoever wants to show their bad side to someone else?"

"Point", Yume acknowledge as her gaze held strong. She's not backing on this, isn't she? "But I'm still not backing on this. I can't believe that you'd actually gun for a club with such a morally dubious senpai at its core."

"Fine, I'll show you that rumors are rumors, and I'm not taking no for an answer", I snapped at her as Yume sighed at me in response, as if she had already given in to whatever I was currently planning as I grabbed her arm, "Let's go to the clubroom right now."

"Directly!?" Yume screamed at me as she dug her feet in the ground and wouldn't budge an inch, no matter how I tried to make her move, "Arisa, I know that you always make sound judgments based on the current situation, but directly going to your clubroom is tantamount to suicide, you know!? Do you want to kill your friend here!?"

"You won't die, don't worry."

"That just triggered a flag just now!" She screamed as she was slowly dragged towards the school building wherein the Literature Club's clubroom was situated, "You definitely just triggered a flag just now! Ah, this is it, my fleeting life is already over~"

I blinked, immediately dashing with my back towards the wall as I dragged Yume with me, who was now looking at me with a weird expression on her face as if trying to ask me what I was doing, "Shhh, quiet. He'll notice us if you don't."

I just saw a glimpse of Tanaka-senpai, after all. Seriously, what is that guy doing? I did tell him to take care of my stuff at the clubroom, right? So what's he doing currently lounging around like a damn freeloader when he's supposed to be watching all of our stuff!? "We're trailing him."

"Eh!?" Yume screamed at me as she glanced around the corner, but the figure was already gone, "A-Arisa, that was your senpai just now, right!? S-Scary! He looked so scary! Are you sure that your description of him was correct!?"

"Yes I am", I said, tugging on Yume's arm as she whimpered in resistance, "Come on, let's go! We're going to lose him at this rate, you know!?"

We moved forward at a slow pace until we arrived at another corner. Leaning around to take a look, I could see him hunched over by a vending machine, deciding on a drink after he had inserted his coins. Another annoying character trait of his that somehow irks me for some reason.

"You know", Yume's voice whispered as she looked at my senior, "Now that I see him like this, he's actually quite a deadbeat, huh?"

"He is", I replied through clenched teeth, watching him finally pick a damn drink as he waited for the machine to do its job, "Not only is he benignly incompetent in almost all matters, but the level of insensitivity and tactlessness that he had achieved would be enough to cement his name in a certain book for a hundred years. Last but definitely not the least, he actually had the damn gall to call me–"

"Not to butt in your current biased and prejudiced judgment of me, but you are gaining weight", a voice said behind us as both Yume and I quickly turned around, seeing the familiar gray gaze on me as I couldn't help but freeze, immediately looking around the corner to see a guy finish his business with the vending machine and walk off somewhere. He was not my senior.

"But you're supposed to–"

"Be watching our belongings in the clubroom", he said with a blank gaze aimed at me as he threw my bag at me, "Catch. It was about time to go home anyway, so I was planning to find you and give you your damn bag. Though, it got a bit more interesting when I found out that you were stalking a completely random guy with your friend over there."

Yume froze up. Seriously, he's not that intimidating as you expected. I mean, he's literally gazing at you with curiosity, you know? If Tanaka-senpai stares at you like that, that means that he'll act like an ordinary person. I was also hit by that gaze for a record time of two days. Two damn days, before he started jabbing me with the matter about my damn weight.

"U-Um, I-I'm Yume Hinohara, n-nice to meet you, senpai!" She screamed in a higher octave as I couldn't help but look at her with wide eyes. What went into her mind now?

"Well, at least you have some decent friends, Arisa", he said off-handedly as I couldn't help but twitch my eyes at him in annoyance. Actually, it's you who has no decent friends, with your connection to my sister and your own sister, along with...Wait, was I going to insult myself back there? That was close, "My name's Tanaka Yuzuru, your friend's senior in her club. Nice to meet you, Yume."

The look in my friend's eyes seemed that she was about to squeal in delight. What the hell? "Then, I'm going home. Stay safe out there, you two."

With a single wave, he walked away from us, towards the school gates that were quite a ways away from where we currently are right now. Glancing towards Yume, I could see her gaze being fixed on Tanaka-senpai's back, her brown eyes already glazed over as I sighed and snapped my fingers in front of her face, "Yume? Yume. Yume, snap out of it, Yume. Are you alright?"

The lights in her brown eyes suddenly came on as she stared at me with a huge smile on her face, "Arisa, I never meant to say this before, but you're actually quite blessed, aren't you?"

"My chest?" I stared, glancing down at my chest as I blinked at it. Not too big but not too small. Though I'm pretty sure that Yume was referring to someone else.

"I was talking about your senior, though", she said. Yeah, I was pretty sure I expected that. Who wouldn't anyway, in that kind of situation? "Hey Arisa, can I meet him next time you go to your club? I'll even skip my club's practice just for one chance to meet him!"

"No. Focus on your drama club", I curtly said, "And besides, we just do nothing but sit on the opposite sides of the room and type. Well, we're currently editing our piece for the moment so we're kind of occupied, and that means that no outsiders are allowed inside the club."

Or so I say, but I just really want to keep Yume away from him. If she gets attached, then I'll just be scolded again by that insensitive brick as to why I hadn't kept her out of the club's matters. But looking at Yume's face right now, I could see a flash of jealousy in her eyes, "Liar. You just want some alone time with him, don't you?"

What the hell? Alone time? "Wait, you're misunderstanding something here."

"I see, I understand. So you don't want to admit it then", Yume said in a somber tone as she looked at me with sad eyes, "Then, you don't mind if I take him for myself first, right?"

After saying her piece, Yume smiled and turned around, making her way towards the school gates as I could only sigh at the situation, which had somehow spiraled out of control with just a simple appearance from that insensitive brick. Grasping my bag and hefting it onto me, I could only sigh as the weight registered through my body, twirling a lock of my hair as I also made a beeline for the school gates a moment later.

"...Seriously. She's misunderstanding something."

And I still haven't found where I should get that spark of creativity.

...No choice. I'll have to turn towards my last resort. My fingers thumbing over the keys of my flip phone, I could only sigh as I heard the familiar tone of the phone trying to connect with someone far away. As seconds turned to tens of seconds, I could only do nothing except tap my foot impatiently against the foot of my bed. Somehow, just the simple act of calling was enough to make me jittery.

Moments passed, and after three missed calls later, the phone clicked, the other line finally picking up as I sighed in relief, "Hm? Arisa? I'm sorry that I could only call you now since I was taking a bath, but I guess you were that worried that you continued to call me continuously. What's up?"

The cheery voice on the other side made it looked like she hadn't lost an important person in her life just a month ago. Somehow, I'd like to hear her voice when she finally meets him, "Everything's fine, Aya-nee. Just wanted to ask you a little bit about something–"

"Is Tanaka doing fine?"

"Yes, he's doing fine, thank you very much", I replied, slightly annoyed by the fact that she ignored me in favor of her junior. She's more cheeky that what I recalled, "Aya-nee, like I said before, I needed to ask you something."

"What?" Her airy voice on the other end wafted through my ears, but I caught a hint of apprehension in her voice. Good, it seems that she's focused now. Just what I needed right at this time.

I told her everything. I told her everything from the moment that I joined the club, to the moment wherein me and Tanaka-senpai started to work on the monthly piece, the moment wherein he smiled wholeheartedly at me for making a flawless piece, and the moments wherein I tried to find that last piece – that last burst of creativity that I needed, and I told her that I had come to a standstill. As I told her everything, she kept quiet, as if sensing that what I was saying was important to me. She was observant sometimes, my sister. I guess the traits run in the family.

"...I see", she said, a sigh escaping the phone's speakers as I waited for her response. Somehow, just the act of waiting itself was enough to make me nervous, "Arisa."

"Yes?"

"Are you adjusting into your school?" She asked, a question completely catching me off-guard as I widened my eyes at it. Seriously? After all I told you, you answer my question with another one completely off-topic? Wow. Are you and Tanaka-senpai somehow both insensitive pricks when it came down to it? No wonder he took after you.

"What's the point?" I snapped, a sigh coming from the other line as a reply as I could only twitch my eye at the sound of it.

"You need comfort for that spark of creativity of yours to glow", she said, her voice as loud and clear as I have ever heard her, "Comfortable as in you feel at ease, at home. Comfortable where you could just lay your feelings out in the open and you wouldn't even care. Comfortable as in that time where I went out with and I'm going off topic. The point is that–"

"Aya-nee, I heard you say that you went out with someone", I said, my tone sharpening to a point as I could picture my older sister flinching on the other line, probably cursing herself due to her slip of the tongue. Not that I cared, though; the damage was already done, "Who was it?"

I didn't care if my voice grated against the phone. I just cared about my sister for the time being, "Who. Was. It. Aya-nee."

A moment later, she eked out a single name, my eyes widening upon recognition of that name as rage immediately built up and burst inside of me all within less than a second. After saying a singular word of goodbye towards my sister, I immediately snapped my phone shut as I slammed the door leading out to my apartment open, racing down the flight of stairs until I arrived at a familiar door. Slamming the buzzer repeatedly until Ayumi-san opened the door with a smile on her face, she asked me what I was doing here, and I simply asked in return as to where Tanaka-senpai currently was.

He was in the bath, Ayumi-san told me as she tried to dissuade me from whatever I was doing as I simply ignored her suggestions and marched straight towards the restroom where my senior was currently bathing.

I slammed the first door open, making the figure inside immediately stand up in surprise. But it was already too late, since I had also slammed the second door opened as a burst of steam immediately came out from the bath.

My eyes were ablaze, my glare enough to freeze my senior in his tracks, who had nothing save for a rapidly disintegrating soap suds right over his nether regions, "Tanaka-senpai, you actually had the damn gall to force my sister out on a date."

"You damn pervert!" He screamed, immediately ducking towards the bathtub as he glared at me, "Just what the hell do you think you're doing, Arisa!? A-Ayu-nee!? Ayu-nee, I know you're somewhere around there, right!? Why'd you let her in!?"

"What I should be asking you is why you took my sister out on a date!" I screamed as I lunged towards him, my clothes getting soaked due to the bath water as I tried to pry out my senior's eyes, but he met my arms with his, and soon we were stuck in a stalemate as we tried to overpower each other with brute strength, our will never degrading by the second as our glare was continuously strengthened by the other.

Then, a flash immediately took away all our focus as I could hear a laugh from somewhere to my right, with me and my senior's gaze moving towards Ayumi-san as she was now on the ground, rolling in laughter as she held a digital camera in her hands, a single photo plastered on its LCD as me and my senior glanced towards each other, both with resolute looks on our faces.

"Get her."

" Understood."

Why? My cheek hurts.

As I glance towards my senior – now fully clothed while I was currently huddled around in his gym uniform with a bruise on my cheek – I could only feel a frosty stare coming from him, "You damn pervert. You should've been lucky that was the only thing you got from me."

"You two kids, trying to become adults like that..." Ayumi-san said with a sad smile on her face as she sat down from across us, setting down two cups of tea for us to drink, "Are you so blinded by your lust that you would go so far as to do it right in the middle of his bath?"

"That wasn't it!" I screamed at her, feeling my cheeks flush in an instant as I sent a glare my senior's way, "He was the one that – Yeah, he was the one who–!"

"Who was the one who barged into the bath while my cute little brother was taking a bath again?" Ayumi-san said while shooting a knowing smirk my way, watching me crumple under embarrassment as I curled myself up into a ball. Alright, it was true, but he – Tanaka-senpai, he–!

Ayumi-san laughed, patting me on the head as I widened my eyes at her out of curiosity and surprise. Did she always do this? I'm pretty sure she didn't – this was her first time patting me on the head. If that was the case...

...Why am I feeling so warm right now? "So, what did your sister say?"

I blinked, whirling around to my side to see my senior smiling at me with a wide smirk plastered onto his face, "Well, I figured it was about time you called Ayame-senpai into this. So, what did she say?"

"You need comfort for that spark of creativity of yours to glow."

"Well, I guess it doesn't really matter no matter what she says", my senior said, leaning back on the couch as the back gave in to accommodate his weight, "...You'll find it out in due time. No matter how many hardships you go through, no matter how many times you stomp my foot at me mentioning your weight – Ow. Stop that please, I'm trying to inspire you here."

"It's not helping", I barked at him as Ayumi-san snickered, making me glance towards her as she winked at me. What now? "No matter what you do senpai, you can't help with my problems in any way that you can think of."

"Obviously, I can't", he retorted back as he sighed, "I was never much of a problem solver, anyway. If you want to talk about running away from your problems, or trying to go away from my problems, then talk to me."

"You're not even going to try and change that?"

"People are good at some things, others are bad at some", my senior said as he leaned forward and took a sip of his tea, "...I was never good at changing myself for the better. Isn't that right, Ayu-nee?"

"You bet", Ayumi-san said with a sad sigh as she leaned back on her chair, taking her hand off my head as she crossed her arms and frowned at my senior, "That's the problem with you, Tanaka. People have to conform to your personality if they so much as have a chance of talking to you. And considering how sickening and repulsive your true personality is, most people can't even do it."

"You heard her", Tanaka-senpai said, a smile on his face as he stared at me with his gray eyes, which seemed wistful for some reason, "I'm beyond help. You still aren't. That's why I want you to think this out, feel what's best for you by yourself."

With a clink, he slammed his teacup towards the table, glancing at me with a frosty tone to his voice, "...But don't barge on my bath in order for you to find it."

Amidst the clamor caused by me and my senior once again quarreling at the most insignificant of reasons, Ayumi-san could only lean back and watch the events unfolding in front of her, a cat-like smile on her face.

Once again, I find myself staring at my senior's laptop, the cursor blinking once or twice a second as it stood at the end of the piece, the word processor responsible for it saying nothing as I placed my hands on the keyboard, trying not to wake my senior up, who was currently dozing off beside me.

Damn Tanaka-senpai. Using the club period as an excuse for napping.

"Seriously, at least help me out here, you know", I mutter out loud, a finger now impatiently tapping at the desk that both me and my senior shared as the sound rang throughout the still air of the clubroom, doing nothing but reverberate through the walls and back into my ears.

It was a perfect time. The air was standing still, everything was right where it should be. The loud shouts and grunts of the sports club people were not here – today was their day off. All of it was just me, this clubroom, and my senior.

Glancing towards him to find some kind of inspiration from his stupid face, I found him still silently dozing, his head slumped forward and his hair haphazardly leaning forward as well. His gray hair had a glossy sheen in the afternoon light that currently bathed half of the room, making it seem that his hair was a darker shade of brown. If one could look closely, a tiny cloud of breath escaped from his mouth every now and then. Even though it was nearing the end of spring, we still get the occasional chills that wafted in through the window, after all – we could only wait until the start of summer to get that heat that we always wanted. Not that we would welcome it with open arms, of course.

The curtains swayed ever-so lightly, reminding me that a slight breeze was currently blowing through the window, lightly ruffling Tanaka-senpai's hair.

...Weird. Just weird. Judging from what Ayumi-san said a night ago, he was a person that had a hard time getting along with others, mainly because they had to adjust to his personality. And I was pretty sure that was the case for me too – in order for me to at least talk to him without sparking an argument every single time, I had to forcibly change my view for him. But that wasn't enough – there were still some parts that I couldn't see, obscured by his quirks and actions that seem as random and inspired as him. Then all of a sudden, I could read him like a book, predict his reactions, and figure out his thoughts from his expressions. What happened then?

...Did he change? Somewhere? Sometime? Was it during the time wherein he almost killed my father last school year? Or was it the time wherein he protected my sister's dream, insisted that she was doing what she was meant to do? I don't know. But it was impossible – he was still exactly as Aya-nee described him when I met him for the first time. So that must've meant that he changed sometime, somewhere.

...Was it for me? Was it for the annoying kouhai who won't just shut up yapping about her enthusiasm for writing? Was it for the kouhai who gets triggered whenever the matter of her weight is brought up, even though she could've handled that matter more maturely? Was it for the indecisive kouhai who he can't help but gawk at when she shows him her work? When she was editing her own work, was his standing by her side during those stressful times for her? When she appeared melancholic after she found out that her piece required something more, did he shut up about it when he figured it out earlier than she did just so she could sort her own feelings out? Did he show me the side of a cool and reliable senpai to help me realize that just seeing what I wanted to see was worthless and not worth my time?

Blinking at him, a bitter smile rose up from within me, a tear rolling down my cheek as I brought up my arms to my face, curling up into a ball as my tears soon flowed, streaking my face in lines of clear fluid as I sniffed, trying to keep myself from shuddering or screaming in order to avoid waking Tanaka-senpai up.

Moments pass with me silently venting my feelings out, and it ended with me perking up, a weight on my head manifesting as I brought my face out from the ball as I blinked, my eyes glancing towards my senior, who was now currently staring outside the window, his hand on my head while not meeting my gaze.

...Since when did he wake up? "You're too loud even when you're crying, you know."

I forced a smile. He was trying to make me laugh, but who am I to do that while I'm currently in shambles? "Senpai, one day or another, that tactlessness is going to get you killed by a bunch of very angry women."

A thin smirk formed on his face, but his eyes still gazed outward, towards the empty school grounds where one would normally see members of numerous sports clubs practicing, "I don't ever think I'll be popular in the near or far future."

"Liar", I said, frowning at him as he grumbled in response. He still thinks of himself as unpopular until now? "Smile in front of any girl and she''ll fall in love with you in an instant."

He frowned, "You didn't when I smiled at you."

I blinked, widening my eyes at his statement as he stared straight at me, his gray eyes rooting me in place as I couldn't do anything as I simply stared. Wait. Was he being serious when he smiled all those times before? "W-Wait, were you implying that–"

"No", he said bluntly, causing any kind of possible, hypothetical hope inside of me to blink out of existence in that instant as I smiled at him, ever-so slightly, but found him to be grinning at me, "See? You're not. That just explains my point a moment ago."

...I take it back. He's a lot more idiotic than I had expected.

"All the time that you wasted thinking can be solved using only one mindset", he said, taking his hand off my head and using it to poke me on the forehead, "Though, it's typically impossible for most to pull it off. And the deadline's today. Do you remember that?"

"I-I know", I said, with a spark of enthusiasm in my tone of voice as I stared at my senior, "S-So?"

"Hm? So what?"

"Tell me already", I said, finding myself curling into a tighter ball as I found myself to be slowly inching away from the laptop, "About that mindset. About the way to end all this moping – this melancholy that's been hitting at me like a train non-stop ever since I read that edited draft."

"Well, moping and melancholy doesn't fit you well, so I guess I'll give it to you", he said with a grin on his face, his usually cold gray eyes shining with a newfound flame, "The moping and melancholy is already my trait, after all; we can't have two in the same clubroom."

"...You're not making any sense."

"I read that once, and by the first word, I already noticed what's wrong with it", he said as he pointed at the laptop with a solemn look on his face, "...Who are you writing that for, Arisa?"

I widened my eyes in realization, but my senior wasn't about to let me off the hook, "Everyone writes for someone. Every writer always has someone to write for – whether it be the writer's family, friends, or the author itself, every word always has its worth for the recipient. This piece doesn't. All it needs is the person who the author wants to dedicate this piece to."

"...Then, that ending–"

"Obviously", Tanaka-senpai said with a bitter smile on his face as he placed his hands in his pockets and stared out the window, "...That ending was for your sister. She always hated those damn downer endings, after all. Can't she just realize that just for one bit – just for one instant in her life – that happy endings can't exist?"

"But you still did it for her", I said, the most obvious question wrenching itself free from my thoughts, "Why?"

"Don't know why. I just did it", he said, his bitter smile turning into a genuine one as he glanced towards me, his eyes simultaneously gazing far-off into the distance and at the same time gazing towards me. Somehow, with his face framed with the afternoon light, his eyes seemed glittering. Beautiful – sad even, "...Sometimes, you've got to do these things for reasons you don't understand. Sometimes, you were just compelled to do it, a rush of emotions completely abandoning all thought as you – Arisa? Arisa, are you listening?"

I wiped the tears from her eyes and stared at him resolutely, my face unflinching against the confused gaze that my senior gave me, "How many hours is it until the deadline?"

Tanaka-senpai quickly glanced at his watch, "About two hours left. Why?"

"Watch me", I said, my senior blinking in confusion as I turned to face the laptop, deleting the current edited draft on the word processor as I opened a new document, a blank sheet of paper now staring back at me as I smiled, "Watch me, Tanaka-senpai. Watch me work to death as you cheer me on."

"Arisa, did you just–" Tanaka-senpai said, his voice worried until he glanced at my eyes, a smile instead slowly forming on his face as he leaned back and sighed good-naturedly, "...Geez. You're a tough one to handle, you know that?"

"Me and my sister aren't the same person, after all", I said as my hands hovered over the keyboard, "...Make sure you don't forget that, Tanaka-senpai."

"Got it...Arisa Kobayashi."

For the first time in my life, my typing speed became as fast as my senior's. It would definitely not be my last.

Immediately after I submitted the monthly piece to the faculty in charge of handling our club, Tanaka-senpai immediately ended club time. I stood by the door, waiting for Tanaka-senpai to finish packing his belongings as I peered inside, seeing him just finish stuffing a whole stack of papers into his bag, "Damn it senpai, you're such a slowpoke. We're supposed to be getting out of here ten minutes from now, right?"

"Who's the one that has to deal with that sudden decision to change the monthly piece on the day of the damn deadline again?" He said as I quickly shifted my gaze away to the window, seeing the hints of stars appear on the horizon as I smiled. Twilight, "Arisa, are you sure you aren't a handful more than your sister?"

"Much more, I reckon", I said, a bright smile on my face as Tanaka-senpai finished packing up and joined me by the doorway, making our way throughout the school hallways now filled with twilight as we quickly passed through the labyrinthine hallways and stairs that made up the building for cultural clubs, and we found ourselves exiting the school gates just before the guard on duty slammed it closed.

"That, that was close", Tanaka-senpai said, who was panting heavily as he drawled out a tired sigh, "Let's rest on a nearby convenience store until we can catch our breaths. Oh damn, that was close. Just a moment later and we would've been locked inside the school for all I know."

"I'd rather like to head straight home, though", I said, a bright smile on my face as I watched Tanaka-senpai's face twist into displeasure, "You're cooking, after all."

"Wait", he said, immediately switching to his chastising voice, "Who told you that I was cooking today? And since when did I allow you to eat at our apartment? There are too many things to put a name on and can we please just rest at a nearby convenience store? It's just a for a little while, after all."

"Ayu-nee–"

"Ayu-nee?"

"–Told me that you were cooking today", I said with a smile on my face as I patted Tanaka-senpai's back, softly urging him to continue onwards as my action was only met by a cold stare, "Tanaka-senpai, stop giving me the cold shoulder now. Come on, it's just a short trip to the train station, after all~"

"Like hell you're treating me like a kid today!" He screamed at me as he renewed his vigor and glared, "And what's with calling Ayu-nee 'Ayu-nee'!? She's not even part of your family, you know!"

"I feel like calling your sister 'Ayumi-san' would be too harsh on her", I said in a solemn tone, "I'm already as close to her as her little brother after all, so shouldn't I be calling her the same name as well?"

"Like hell you are!" He seethed. Somehow, seeing this side of him brought me comfort. Comfort? "There is no way in the near or far future that you're calling my sister 'Ayu-nee'–"

"Senpai", I said, slowly urging him to go forward as I glanced at him with questioning eyes, "...What do you think about my piece?"

Albeit ever so slowly, he began trudging along, being helped by the sudden change in the mood as he slowly took a step towards the train station, "Aside from being hopelessly rushed, filled with grammatical errors, and generally giving the impression that it was nothing much than an excuse for a plot that didn't make sense? A literary masterpiece."

I widened my eyes, finding a smile forming on my face before I knew it as I blurted out the next words in a daze, "So, do you know what made it one?"

"Obviously", he said, turning towards me with a wide smirk on his face, "You found someone to dedicate that work of yours to. That made the rushed effort all worth it. Plus not to mention, the feeling that the work was rushed also makes the reader think that the story was something that the author was pressed to convey, which made the words and the general storyline seem more fast-paced and–"

"Senpai", I said, once again cutting him off as he stared at me with an inquisitive gaze, "Do you know who I dedicated that work to?"

He scowled. As expected of him, "Why would I? And why should I care? Why are you even asking me this? Are you trying to gain something from this line of questioning? If that's the case, then just walk. We'll reach the train station soon, and I'd rather just cook than answer your questions. Also, after you eat, don't come back to our apartment again."

Saying so, he stared in front of him, his eyes shifting for anything out of place as I blinked. It was only for a second when a moving car illuminated his face, but I swore that I saw his ears were flushed.

...Ah, he knows.

Quickening my pace so I catch up towards him, I stared at his face, noticing that his eyes wouldn't stare at me head-on, "Tanaka-senpai, it seems that you know who it is, though."

"...I might have a hypothesis, but it's too stupid to even think about it", he said, shifting his gaze again as I realized he was doing it so that he would avoid my gaze, "...Ugh. Why are we in this conversation again?"

"You need comfort for that spark of creativity of yours to glow."

My sister's words once again rang through my mind as I laughed, catching my senior's scowl as he urged me to go faster, quickening his pace as he spent the rest of the short walk to the train station in a bad mood, but I didn't care.

Comfort. A place where I could let my feelings be free, and no one would care. A place where I could vent out my inner thoughts, and they would support me without any kind of words in between that would cause misunderstandings. But comfort wasn't found in just a simple place – it was the people within it, the bonds that one forms with the people within it, that keeps your heart warm and comfortable throughout the rest of your stay in it.

...All my life, living under that house, I wasn't able to find comfort. Not even with my sister I was able to find comfort, for I always resented her for having more freedom, ever since she entered that school. It was hammered into me that she was in another place that I couldn't reach – an unapproachable person that I couldn't associate with.

Yet, from that school, here comes another person more ridiculous than my sister. At first, I grouped him into the same category as my sister – an unapproachable figure to be compared to once again. But as I spent time with him, I realized that there was much more to the surface than his cold demeanor towards others. He was unapproachable, his personality is as rotten as his meagerness to get anything done, but he was human. A human that I could relate with – a human, though in a position that was much farther from me, still a human, with faults, quirks, and personality that makes him alive. At first I found him annoying, yet I developed a fondness for our banter, my mind always thinking of a quick comeback to say in reply to his jabs as we continued to work in that room.

I wasn't sure if he had opened up to me. I was sure that humans always keep their deepest secrets locked within their heart, which they never open up except for when they are alone. But the heart still lies secrets, secrets that could be uncovered by bonds between others, and that was the most important.

The burden wasn't just mine anymore.

"Come on senpai, you can do it", I said, cheering him on, "Guess it correctly right now and I'll treat you to your usual disgusting taste for sweet things tomorrow. Who did I write that piece for?"

He still wouldn't reply. Well, it's fine. He already figured it out anyway, so there was no sense pushing the issue with this insensitive blockhead. It'd just make things worse, especially with this tactless brick in mind.

...But who cares. I finally realized what comfort is.

Looking up towards the sky now dominated by the lights of the city, I spot a singular star that was still shining brightly in the midst of these streetlights. Swearing to it with a smile on my face, I'll make sure that this piece of comfort that I found would never go away, so that I have someone to turn to whenever things go wrong.

That I swore, that I uphold. With a smile now plastered on my face, I joined my senior on the train platform after paying for our tickets, seeing him impatiently tap his foot against the tiled floor, "What's wrong, senpai?"

"...The train's coming in any moment now", he curtly replied as he stared straight ahead.

"I know", I said, nodding once as my senior turned towards me with a puzzled look on his face, "What? I can tell the time. It's about six, and the next train's going to arrive five minutes after. Do you want me to spell things out for you? Just how dumb are you, Tanaka-senpai?"

"Somehow I could tell that I didn't deserve that", he barked at me as he once again stared straight ahead, this time fiddling with the straps of his bag as he glanced uneasily at me, "...But what if the train comes in late?"

...Ah. I see what he meant. I'm a damn idiot aren't I? I smile, turning towards him with the glitter of newfound comfort in my eyes, and said, "Then I'll wait. For as long as it takes."

Less than five minutes later, the train came in with horns blaring, one of the doors in its cabin stopping right in front of us as we stepped in, towards our homes.

The Memoirs of That Literature Club

Recent threadmarks

Recent threadmarks

Erithemaeus

GWS Recipient

Erithemaeus

GWS Recipient

Recent threadmarks

Recent threadmarks