It was the afternoon of January 1, and Itsuki and Kazuko were at the local shrine to make their traditional New Year’s Day visit. They didn’t want to take Sora to crowded places yet, so they dropped him off at the Hashima family home for today; he’d get to visit his first shrine with the Yasaka family at a later date.
They were at a nearby shrine, the same one Chihiro and Itsuki visited for New Year’s four years ago, and both of them were dressed in kimono. Kazuko’s outfit was something she’d owned since before they married, a flashy pink kimono with a flower pattern. Itsuki was wearing his own as well, a refined, mostly black affair that belonged to his dad and was nearly identical to the one he wore four years ago. Back then, his parents had said he looked like a little kid in his pop’s outfit (which he was), but after a few years and a child, he had reached a level of maturity that this kimono suited decently well.
“It’s been a while since we’ve done this shrine trip by ourselves.”
Itsuki nodded at Kazuko. “It sure has.”
Ever since Sora was born, whenever a Hashima went out, it was either all three of them at once or one person at a time, the other watching Sora at home.
After about half an hour of waiting, it was their turn at the shrine itself. After a bow, Itsuki threw a five-yen coin into the donation box (a traditional way of wishing for continued good personal relationships), while Kazuko upped the ante with a 500-yen coin. Five hundred yen wasn’t a traditional offering; as the most valuable coin in Japanese currency, it carried the nuance of “never getting better than this” when used as an offering, which was bad luck. But as Kazuko put it, “I couldn’t be any happier right now, so I just want to thank the gods for this.” Whether this personal logic of hers was valid or not, she always had a shiny 500-yen coin for the box every year.
After ringing the bell, bowing twice, and clapping their hands twice, they closed their eyes and prayed.
I wish that my family…and also my parents, my two sisters, my mother-in-law over at Kazuko’s place, and also the Yasakas, Miyako, Haruto, and Kaiko… I wish everybody around me has a healthy, happy new year.
That was Itsuki’s prayer, and he debated a bit over whether to add his wish for a masterpiece that could surpass I Want to Be the Protagonist, but decided against it. When it came to his novels, he didn’t want to rely on divine assistance—he wanted to figure this out by himself. He was still grasping at straws over it, however, so if he had the chance, a little help from above would’ve been more than appreciated.
With one final bow, they left the shrine and purchased charms promising good health and a safe family.
“Do you want to buy some souvenirs, Itsuki?” Kazuko asked, scanning the stalls by the shrine. Itsuki followed her eyes.
“Oh, yeah… How about some of this sponge cake for Sora? And is Shi old enough for takoyaki yet?”
“I think it’d be fine. She’s almost four.”
“She’s kind of a gourmet, though… I don’t know if some fried octopus from a street vendor would satisfy her…”
“She’s only a gourmet when it comes to nipples, isn’t she?”
“Good point,” laughed Itsuki.
So they purchased some sponge cake, takoyaki, and imagawa-yaki (sweet red beans cooked in pancake batter). On the way back, Itsuki also bought a corn dog for himself, while Kazuko opted for a more traditional hot dog on a stick. They had sushi and soba noodles at New Year’s Eve, traditional osechi cuisine and ozouni soup in the morning, and more of the same at Itsuki’s parents’ place, so after all that fancy Japanese food, they much appreciated this junkier street fare.
“I haven’t had a hot dog in a while, actually. It’s good.”
She ate it completely normally, making sure not to get any ketchup on herself, and definitely not pretending to fellate it like a penis the way she used to. Since marrying Itsuki, she had done away with pretty much all sexual humor, and she dropped the habit of going around the house naked as well. She used to go on about her dream of staying naked all day and having constant, nonstop sex with Itsuki at all times, but all that was now a thing of the past. She was cooking, doing household chores, and handling a lot of the child-raising as well.
Yes, Kazuko had grown to become the perfect wife and mother.
…But is that really growth?
“Hey, Kazuko?” Itsuki suddenly said.
“Yes?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“…When’re you gonna go back to writing?”
✦ ✦ ✦
The question, one he had wanted to ask but never could for some reason, finally made it out into the open. Ever since she’d announced that she was taking time off her career to raise her child, Kazuko had written nothing at all novel-related. This rest period had begun early on in her pregnancy, so the last book she’d published was now over two years old.
“Mmmm…” Kazuko took another bite of her hot dog. “Well, Sora’s still pretty little, so I need to focus on raising him for the time being.”
“Sure, yeah, but…”
In Japan, most offices allowed you a maximum of two years’ child-rearing leave. Sora was nineteen months old, so maybe it was a little early to talk about returning to work—and besides, there was no point applying government standards to freelance work like novel writing. But:
“If you say ‘for the time being,’ that means you will come back to it, right?”
“Hmm…” Kazuko raised an eyebrow at Itsuki’s request for confirmation. “To be honest with you, it’s like… I kinda think it’d be fine if I just retired right here.”
“…You think?”
Kazuko’s voice was soft, gentle, as if what she was saying wasn’t anything important. Itsuki had to keep his own voice from shaking. She was now putting his vague fear into clear words, and it stabbed at his heart.
“I mean, you’re getting really popular, Itsuki. We have more than enough money saved up. Do I really need to earn us any more?”
“You never really wrote for the money in the first place, did you?”
“No, I didn’t. So, like, that’s one less reason for me to come back.”
Kazuko had begun writing novels in order to meet Itsuki, and she’d kept writing novels in order to enter a relationship with him. Now that they were married with a child, she had fully lost her motive.
“A lot of readers are waiting for your novels.”
“Mmmm…I do feel a little bad about that, yeah. But the most important thing to me right now is Sora. Living peacefully with you and Sora makes me too happy. I can’t imagine myself thinking about writing again, you know?”
She gave him a smile, a completely satisfied, serene smile.
“Ah… Well, so be it.”
Itsuki smiled back, trying his hardest to fight down the raging emotions bubbling inside of him and keep from shaking. No way could he possibly advise her to care more about random, anonymous readers than her own child. Asking her to return to a world akin to hell on earth—doing away with her current fulfilling happiness to face deadlines, whittle away her mental and physical stamina, and potentially never get rewarded for it—was impossible.
I can’t just say “I want to read your novels, so be Nayuta Kani for me again.” That’s just me being selfish. Pure egotism. My one and only love, living in bliss… How could I ever say that?
Itsuki Hashima, in Kazuko’s eyes, was both a very precious person and a very precious novelist. And to Itsuki, Nayuta Kani was a precious person and a precious novelist. Ever since he read The Silvery Landscape, her first work, Nayuta Kani was a rival he hoped to catch up with someday, a fearsome enemy whose overwhelming talent simply crushed him—the novelist he loved the most in the world. Apart from her editor Kirara Yamagata and the people involved with the New Writers Contest, he was Nayuta Kani’s number one fan.
A world without Nayuta Kani had no fun left in it. He wanted to read her novels. He wanted to be faced with that awe-inspiring force again. He had grown as a novelist since then, and now, he wanted to face her. In other words—what he wanted to say was:
Fight me!!
…But she wasn’t a rival character from a shounen fighting manga, and a grown man could never say anything so nonsensical and self-serving in real life. He couldn’t say it…but he kept writing. Why? Because Itsuki Hashima was a writer. Because no matter how stupid, nonsensical, and self-serving a desire it was, being able to freely tell stories in the novel format was the best job in the world.
That night, Miyako Shirakawa was working at home (despite it being New Year’s Day) when an e-mail from Itsuki arrived in her inbox.
Hello, hope you’re doing well. I’m sending you the proposal for a new novel.