On the evening of December 25, Itsuki held a Christmas party at his place. They had actually had another party at the Hashima family home the previous day, so this was now a two-day free-for-all.
The event was attended by Itsuki, his wife Kazuko, their son Sora, the sisters Chihiro and Shiori Hashima, and the Yasaka family—Makina Kaizu (real name: Akira Yasaka), Ashley Yasaka, and their daughter Yuu Yasaka. The Yasakas’ apartment was about a ten-minute drive from Itsuki’s place, and once they got married, Ashley moved her accounting office near their home. Sora’s birthday, by the way, was May 17, while Yuu’s was May 14—a three-day difference. Between that and being born in the same hospital (the place where Shiori was born as well), Sora and Yuu were quite literally lifelong friends so far.
The Hashimas and Yasakas had grown close as they discussed newlywed and newborn-raising life, and while one couple was a bit older than the other, they were now firm mommy/daddy friends. Kazuko and Ashley in particular had shared in the trials and tribulations of pregnancy and birth, something men didn’t have to experience, so they had built a strong bond over time. It’s now hard to believe the two girls would ever compete over Itsuki in the alternate story route from a past volume of A Sister’s All You Need.
“Okay, all done! These are Gundam boobies!”
“Ha-ha!” “Gun-demm!”
Shiori was in the living room with Sora and Yuu, playing her big-sister role and using LEGO bricks to build something that was kind of hard for the grown-ups to recognize. Kazuko and Ashley were watching them, warm smiles on their faces, as they engaged in some friendly chitchat.
“Have you ever seen My Neighbor Totoro, Kazuko?”
“Umm, actually, no, I haven’t.”
“Because I saw it for the first time the other day, but I can definitely see how it’s become a classic loved by generations now.”
“Really? I’ll have to check it out. Oh, speaking of which, I finally got to see Frozen the other day. I didn’t realize the ‘let it go, let it go’ song was in a scene like that—it was kind of a surprise.”
“Right? It’s a good movie, but I’m not sure our kids are quite ready for it.”
Before they became mothers, they were both huge fans of B-movies involving a lot of zombies or sharks (or both). More recently, they had been swapping suggestions for movies they could show their children when they were a bit older. Nobody could have ever predicted a few years ago that they’d be chatting about Ghibli or Disney films someday.
Their husbands, Itsuki and Kaizu, were enjoying some wine with Chihiro’s snack plate in the dining room, looking on at this portrait of happiness before them.
“Boy… Sure is peaceful, huh?”
“Yeah…”
Kaizu seemed smitten by it, letting a faint smile appear on his face.
“…I tell you, until just a little bit ago, I really never imagined that I’d ever have a family. Even now, I sometimes feel like all of this is a dream.”
“Oh, it’s reality, all right. You got a lot of work waiting for you at home, you know.”
“Don’t remind me,” Kaizu said with a scowl.
At the moment, he was doing work for several publishers—not in light novels, but in regular fiction. Mistress of the Sixth Sense, a one-off novel he wrote not long after his wedding, caught the attention of a talented producer; they made a film out of it with a well-known actress in the leading role, and it became a big hit. Offers from multiple publishers had been rolling in ever since.
Kaizu’s writing style—stable and high in quality, but lacking much in the way of personal uniqueness—was an unexpected asset when it came to adapting his work for movies or TV, where a project’s cast often took precedence over the plot in the early stages. Whenever he put out a new book, it would get made into a movie or drama series. In terms of sheer popularity, Makina Kaizu was now well ahead of both Itsuki and Haruto.
“I meant to live out my whole life as an anonymous light novel writer, too. You never know what’ll happen, huh? And I can’t even imagine what Kasuka would say if she saw me fleeing from light novels and pursuing this other path in my life.”
Kaizu sounded like he was beating himself up over it.
“The shame of running, as they say,” Itsuki replied.
Running away from something can cause shame, but it can also help you. It was a Hungarian expression, supposedly. Basically it meant that one shouldn’t cling to their current environment, but sometimes run away from it and choose their own place to fight it out.
“I think you making it big in regular fiction gives a lot of hope to light novel writers, you know. Like, knowing there are other options out there… That gives hope to anyone, doesn’t it?”
Having a film producer notice your work and turn you into a household name in fiction sounds like a Cinderella story, but Kaizu’s success wasn’t sheer luck at all. In Itsuki’s mind, it was absolutely the result of the humble talents he had spent years cultivating.
“I’m a hope, huh…?”
Kaizu sounded moved by it.
“It’d be nice if that were true.”
“Besides, if Kasuka Sekigahara saw how happy you and Ashley are right now, I think she’d be really glad for you both.”
“Yeah?” said Kaizu, thinking it over. Then he smiled. “…Yeah.” Kasuka was a woman who valued hard work being rewarded with happiness over anything else; of course she’d be happy for a friend finding joy in life.
“But how have you been lately, Itsuki?”
“I…haven’t been a hundred percent, really.”
He’d never whine in front of his family, or Miyako or Haruto for that matter, but around Kaizu, Itsuki felt comfortable being totally honest.
“Like, I write stuff, but it just isn’t hitting right with me… I don’t feel like I’m making any forward progress.”
“Hmm…” Kaizu nodded sagely. “Well, it’s not like some average joe like me has any advice he can give in response to that.”
Itsuki laughed at Kaizu, self-deprecating as always. “You don’t think? Because I was hoping you could lend me some of your experience.”
“Well…I know it’s trite to say, but don’t you think you’re trying to carry too much?”
“Too much work?”
“That too, I guess.”
“But you’re working on several projects at once, too, aren’t you?”
“I’m only writing novels. You’re supervising pretty much everything related to your anime and manga adaptations, aren’t you? I don’t see why you have to go through all the trouble.”
“But it’s my work, you know? Of course it’s important to me. And Haruto takes the same approach.”
Kaizu gave a wry grin. “I guess the biggest difference between me and you two is whether we count things besides our novels—stuff we’re not directly involved with the creation of—as ‘our work.’”
Ever since that first movie project, Kaizu had never even once meddled with the content of his media adaptations. No matter what kind of project came along, he never said no to it—that was his credo. This occasionally resulted in situations like the plot getting reworked into a completely different story or a would-be rising star with no acting talent getting shoehorned into the project, but Kaizu never voiced any dissatisfaction with any of that. Some industry people accused him of not having any love for his own work, but maintaining that stance—and gaining a reputation as a writer who wasn’t difficult to work with—undeniably did a lot to popularize his work, too.
“And, really, to put it an extreme way, I don’t really care about the novels, either. For me they’re a way to make a living. Just a way I can keep my family in good shape.”
It wasn’t a view shared by Itsuki, but if Kaizu was at a point where he could sincerely believe that, Itsuki had to take his hat off to him. Here was a guy who completely understood what he found to be truly important. He had a clear picture of what he needed in life, and he genuinely didn’t give much of a care about anything else. In Itsuki’s mind, it was almost staggering to see.
What’s truly important to me?
Number one, of course, was Kazuko and Sora. So what about his novels? To him right now, did they rank below his family—something he could write off as a way to keep himself and his kin fed and housed?
If that were true…then Itsuki Hashima likely wasn’t the protagonist of his life any longer.
✦ ✦ ✦
