The kanji for “heartbreak” mean “losing love.” However, I think the reality of heartbreak is that it’s so painful because losing the feelings of love you felt is no simple matter, even though the love itself is over. There are lots of times when a person’s feelings linger even when they’ve been rejected or broken up with someone. Heartbreak is the loss of things like a future with and a relationship with another person, not a sudden loss of your feelings for them. Or perhaps it’s called “losing love” because the moment you break up you gradually begin the process of losing your love? It’s a lonely feeling, but I like to believe that something new can be gained through that process of that loss.
And with that, I am Kota Nozomi, and this is the sixth installment of the rom-com with an age gap. This time the story was about the three princes, Momo, Ura, and Kana (with Ura getting the most screen time). It was fun to get to write the story about the three of them that I’ve been hinting at since the first volume. It was a story about how even men want to become princes, just like how women of all ages want to be princesses.
This time there are a lot of pages in the afterword, so suddenly I’m going to explain all of the characters!
Momota: The main character. Tall. Really bad at sports. I wanted to make a sincere and manly main character who a twenty-seven-year-old could date without feeling embarrassed, but he turned out so mature that I wondered if he was really fifteen. I still remember how it was a bit of a miracle that when I was thinking that he would look good in a collared school uniform, Nanase-san made it so that the uniform for his high school had a collar without me giving her any instructions. His name comes from Momotaro.
Orihara Hime: The main heroine. She’s a miraculous character pushing thirty who looks good in a school uniform and is a mash-up of the author’s tastes. Before the first volume went on sale, people felt strongly that older heroines didn’t belong in light novels, so a heroine around thirty years old was out of the question; the editorial department would never let it come to pass. When I thought about how to persuade the editorial department, I came up with the devilish idea that I might be able to get away with it if I had her wear a school uniform on the cover. From there, I came up with the scene where they first meet... As a result, Orihara Hime, the heroine pushing thirty who wears a school uniform, was born. It could be said that the details of her character came about specifically because I conceived of her in an era where “older heroines don’t sell.” Since Momota-kun is too mature, she ended up being a bit of an airhead in the romance department. I touched on it briefly in the third volume, but her name doesn’t come from the legend of Orihime and Hikoboshi, but from the story of Uriko-hime and the Amanojaku.
Urano Izumi: Friend of the main character. The most introverted of introverts. He’s monstrously self conscious and paranoid. He’s a really fun character to write. In fact, I started writing my new GA light novel, You Like Me, Don’t You? because, as I was writing Urano, I thought it was really fun to write about an introverted character in love. He’s the true main character and heroine of volume six. His name is based on Urashima Taro.
Kanao Haruka: Friend of the main character. An extrovert among extroverts, and good looking. Part of his backstory is that he likes old music and is especially interested in the “27 Club” that’s famous for its members such as Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix. I thought that I’d have him mention it in some way to Orihara-san, who is currently twenty-seven years old... However, no matter how hard I tried, it felt like the story would become too dark, so I scrapped it. He’s the opposite of Momota, in that a collared school uniform seems like it wouldn’t look good on him. His name comes from Kintaro. After I decided to base these three childhood friends’ names on Momotaro, Urashima Taro, and Kintaro, I came up with their nicknames, and...while “Momo” and “Ura” are good nicknames, I felt like “Kin” didn’t really match the character, so I settled on the trendier “Kana.”
Shirai Yuki: Friend of the heroine and stay-at-home mother who has a child. I wanted someone who could give Orihara-san love advice—someone who was a rational and sensible person, aside from her taste in names for her child. Her name comes from Snow White. I also had plans to introduce another friend of Orihara-san with a Cinderella motif named Haimura, but Yuki-san was so capable that I was able to make do with just her.
Ibusuki Saki: She is both the foil heroine and Ura’s heroine. I wanted a girl whose dialogue with Ura would be fun and who would be a kind of natural enemy to introverts. Her breasts are pretty big, but because of a certain pair of sisters, she doesn’t really stand out in that department. Her name comes from Thumbelina.
Uomi Uta: She is both the out-there heroine and Kana’s heroine. She’s the kind of girl who you don’t really understand yet who isn’t an airhead or mysterious. As I was writing her, I had the image in my mind that she was like a grown-up version of the character Chifuyu-chan from another work of mine, When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace. She seems like a hard character to write, but it was surprisingly easy, because no matter what she did, you could just say “That’s just how she is.” Her name comes from The Little Mermaid.
Orihara Kisaki: The heroine’s big sister, and also, in the end, she’s the main character’s stepmom. As I wrote in previous afterwords, she is a woman who totally ignored the original plan and went wild. I had absolutely no plans to have her get remarried. This is why writing is so interesting. Her name comes from the character Orihime. As I mentioned above, Orihara-san’s name is based on “Uriko-hime and Amanojaku,” while her sister is based on the legend of Orihime and Hikoboshi. Also, her ex-husband’s name “Hoshino-san” was based on Hikoboshi.
So, those were the character introductions.
Now for a sudden announcement. The manga is currently being serialized in “Manga UP!” and the fourth volume will go on sale at the same time as this sixth volume of the light novel! Please look forward to it!
Now then, my thanks. To my supervisor, Nakamizo-sama, thank you again for your help. My progress on this book was the worst it’s ever been, but somehow it worked out... To Nanase-sama, thank you again for your wonderful illustrations. The illustrations of the three different couples were lovely. Also, I would like to give my deepest gratitude to you, the reader who picked up this book. May our paths cross again, if we have the chance.
—Kota Nozomi