Chapter 208

Thank you very much for picking up a copy of this book. My name is Saeki, and I am your author. I trust you enjoyed Volume 9 of The Angel Next Door? I never expected to write about their birthdays in two consecutive volumes, but this became a story about Amane, who was the one getting things ready this time, frantically running about and trying this thing and that. Amane really puts his back into it when he’s doing something for Mahiru. Fundamentally, if it’s for Mahiru’s sake, Amane will generally put in the work without any hesitation, but this time, he got help from all sorts of different people to prepare Mahiru’s celebration. I can’t suppress my emotions over how Amane has done a complete one-eighty from a year ago, how his circle of friends has expanded, and how the number of people he can depend on has grown so much. I wish I could show the present-day Amane the Amane from a year ago. Also, they finally made a promise to live together. But we haven’t seen these kids make an official proposal yet. Amane very naturally made up his mind that he was going to live with Mahiru in the future, and while she was kind of overwhelmed by it all, if Mahiru is happy, it seems like an okay idea. Mahiru was saved by Amane making promises for the future like it was the obvious thing to do, so I think we can say Amane’s learned how to press Mahiru’s buttons without even meaning to. And then we have Miss Koyuki, who made her first appearance in this book (albeit through a screen). It would be no exaggeration to say Miss Koyuki was Mahiru’s surrogate parent and the person who had the most influence on the development of her personality. She doted on Mahiru like she were her own child, and when anything happened, she even took Mahiru into her care. Now Mahiru seems happy, so she trusts Amane to care for her, but if anything ever happened to Mahiru, Miss Koyuki certainly has it in her to come flying to Mahiru’s side and tear her away, so we can only hope Amane will keep making Mahiru happy in the future. Well, since Mahiru and Amane are both rational and fully inclined to listen to what their partner says, they’re the type of couple who won’t have too many miscommunications, so I’m not terribly worried about them. With Miss Koyuki showing up in this volume, it really made me want to write more about Mahiru’s childhood. I was surprised by how much I liked writing about the little bit of gloom that revealed itself amid the joy. It’s like Mahiru’s current happiness is underscored because she experienced that suffering. Also, my desire to see illustrations of Mahiru as a young girl is enormous. The little Mahiru Hanekoto draws is just too cute, right? Now that I’ve brought up Hanekoto, they drew wonderful illustrations for this book as well! Every time we do a special edition, we get to see lots of color illustrations, which is really just the greatest feeling for me as the author. My reward for writing is that I get to see all sorts of illustrations of Mahiru… If you’re wondering who benefits the most, it’s the author. No question about it. The cover illustrations for the special edition and for the regular edition each have their own different vibe, which is really great. She really is adorable. I struggle to express it. Mahiru’s expression in the cover art, where she looks overcome with emotion, is almost too much to bear. Well done, Amane. Every time I see the feather element in there, I grin like a fool. It makes me smile to think the illustrator is paying special attention to things like that. I also really like the sense of seasonality in the cover illustration for the special edition. I love the four seasons as drawn by Hanekoto, so this one, too, with plenty of autumnal feeling, is out of this world. Miss Koyuki finally makes an appearance in the color pages this time. Who knew she was such a beauty…? Could she really be old enough to have grandchildren…? I’ll be keeping her age a secret for now. I definitely want to write more in the future so that we get an illustration of them meeting in person sometime! And with that, we’ve come to the end and to my acknowledgments of everyone who has taken care of me. To my managing editor, who worked so hard to get this book published, to everyone in the editing department at GA Books, to everyone in the sales department, to the proofreaders, to Hanekoto, to everyone in the print shop, and to all of you who picked up a copy, truly, thank you all very much. I hope we can meet again in the next volume. Thank you very much for reading all the way to the end!