“Booo,” Tomoyo jeered. She spent a moment pouting at me like a little kid, then sighed heavily. “I never thought writing a second volume would be this tough. I’d heard that lots of people put everything into their debut novels and end up with nothing to write about in the sequel, but I didn’t really think it’d happen to me... I guess this is the second-volume wall they always say you have to break through. Man, this sure is one of those problems that only pros know about! Only pros end up suffering like this! God, being a pro is just so hard sometimes!”
So...are you trying to be obnoxious about this, or what?
“Okay, but is writing a second volume really that hard?” I asked. “You seemed like you were doing great back when you started working on it.”
“I was, back then...but.”
“But what?”
“I was making such good progress that I thought I might as well take a little break to work on the story I’m writing for fun. Then I ended up getting way more into that one instead, and before I knew it, the second volume’s deadline was just a week away...”
“So this is completely self-inflicted!”
“Oh, shut up! I know, okay?!” Tomoyo snapped—which was, frankly, totally unreasonable of her. “Look, Juujuu,” she added in a sort of chiding tone, “you know how sometimes the publication date for light novels gets pushed back?”
“Well, yeah.”
“And you know how sometimes when that happens, it’s super obvious that it’s the illustrator’s fault that the volume got delayed?”
“Sure.”
“And sometimes that illustrator spends the whole time posting stuff that they drew for fun on Twitter or streaming themself drawing on Niconico?”
“I mean...I can’t say that never happens.”
“Well, I always wondered how the hell anyone could have the nerve to do something that shameless...but now that I’ve had my debut, I finally get it. Creating something as a hobby is so much fun. When your work’s driven you into a corner, the temptation to work on something you’re not doing as a professional instead is just so intense...”
“Nice excuse. Now get writing.”
“Ugggh, I know, okay?!” Tomoyo snapped once more.
This time, though, she finally hauled herself out of bed. I thought she was going to head over to the desk where she kept her laptop...
“Hey, Juujuu...?”
...but instead she made her way in my direction, leaning in so close to me that our faces were practically touching.
“I can’t get motivated. Charge me up.”
“Charge you...? Like, how?”
“Gimme hugs,” Tomoyo rather shyly muttered. Her tone was shy, to be precise—her overall attitude was as forward as could be, and she even spread her arms wide open in a “come on, hurry up” sort of gesture.
“This again? Seriously...?” I sighed.
“I wanna hug! I wanna hug! I wanna hug! Gimme hugs, or I’m done! I won’t do any work anymore! Then it’ll be all your fault if I don’t finish my book on time! A series that should’ve been a light novel legend’s gonna get canceled thanks to you!”
“Okay, fine,” I said with a sigh. She was approaching the far reaches of obnoxiousness, but I gave in anyway and gave her the hug she wanted.
I wrapped my arms around Tomoyo, squeezing her gently, and she responded by grabbing onto me and returning the hug with as much power as her kinda-spindly arms could exert. She buried her face in my chest as well, more or less grinding it into me. I couldn’t quite tell if she was trying to sniff me, mark me with her scent, or some combination of the two, but judging by the stifled chuckle she let slip out, she was enjoying herself immensely either way.
“Heh... Heh heh... Heh heh heeeh...”
“Satisfied?” I asked.
“Uh-uh. Not yet. This isn’t enough. A hug can’t get me motivated on its own.”
“Well, what else do you expect me to do?”
“Hey, Juujuu...? Say you love me.”
“Huh?”
“You haven’t said it in ages! And when you stop saying you love me all of a sudden...I get worried about whether or not you really do.”
“Wait...but that’s not even true. Like, I literally said it yesterday! A ton of times too—you wouldn’t let me hang up the phone until I said it enough to satisfy you. My sister was listening in, you know? Do you have any idea how bad things got after I finally hung up...?”
“Th-That was yesterday! Yesterday! You have to say it every day!” Tomoyo grumbled. For all her sulking, she was still being as clingy as ever in a physical sense. It all came together into a downright adorable whole that I was completely powerless to resist. I just had to bite the bullet and accept the fact that I was a slave to her charms.
“I love you, Tomoyo,” I said, swallowing my shame and baring my feelings for her to see.
“Really...?” Tomoyo asked.
“Yeah. Really.”
“How much do you love me?”
“Like friggin’ crazy.”
“If I died, would you follow me?”
“You bet I would.”
“Hee hee... Me too. I love you too, Juujuu! I love you to itty-bitty pieces! If you died, I’d die too for sure!”
I was getting some severe secondhand embarrassment just listening to Tomoyo, and she kept gushing like that for what felt like almost a minute or so before finally, reluctantly releasing me from her hug and making her way to her desk.
“All right! Thanks, Juujuu! I’m all charged up and ready to write now!”
“Glad to hear it. Get to work, then.”
“You have to give me more hugs later if I do a good job, okay?”
“...If I feel like it.”
“Oooh, are you embarrassed, Juujuu? That’s so cute!”
“Oh, shut up! Hurry up and do your job already!”
“Okaaay,” Tomoyo cheerfully agreed before finally—finally—getting to work for real.
I, on the other hand, was so mentally exhausted I collapsed to the floor. I was, without question, the luckiest man in the world to be loved so intensely by my partner... Okay, on second thought, maybe there were actually a few questions worth asking there after all.
It was the summer of my third year in high school...and I had begun a relationship with Kanzaki Tomoyo—but, like, a version of Kanzaki Tomoyo who was so egregiously out of character that some part of me had to question if she was really Tomoyo at all.
It hadn’t been like this back when we first got together. Back then, since we were both so preoccupied by the idea that we’d started dating, we’d end up sitting together in awkward silence too flustered to think up a conversation topic, or we’d have the most ridiculously over-the-top reactions to something as simple as our hands brushing against each other, or we’d get comically worked up over something as benign as an indirect kiss. Our relationship was, for a period, as innocent as could be...but that had only lasted for a moment.
Before I knew it...Tomoyo had gone full dere. I’m talking zero to dere in an instant. Her dere side had grown at a terrifying speed, to a terrifying degree. She was as dere as dere could be. Like, seriously, zero percent tsun, one hundred percent dere. It was like she’d tossed the whole personality she’d displayed up to that point into the trash in favor of going so thoroughly dere that it actually freaked me out a little. It was so bad I was seriously considering calling her Dereyo instead of Tomoyo.
It all started with the Juujuu nickname. Once she’d crossed that fateful line, it was like all the affection she’d kept bottled up over the course of her life came exploding out all at once, all directed straight at me in the sappiest way possible. She was taking every opportunity to match outfits with me in any way she possibly could, she’d call me up on the phone every single morning to whisper sweet nothings, and she’d started getting way touchier and clingier than she’d ever been before.
It’s not that I wasn’t happy about her being super up-front with her love and affection for me, to be clear! It’s just that if I said it wasn’t also a little bit obnoxious, I’d be lying. The phone calls were particularly hard to deal with—we would talk for hours on end, and when things were finally wrapping up she’d be all “Oh, no way, I’d never hang up on you! You have to hang up on me!” Then when I hung up, I’d get another phone call moments later where she’d go, “Why’d you actually hang up on me? Do you hate me?”
Agggh, give me a break!
For real, though, I hadn’t seen this coming at all. Who could’ve imagined that Tomoyo, of all people, would end up like this when she started going out with someone?
“I did it, Juujuu! It’s time! Hugs!”
Thirty minutes of actual, serious work later, Tomoyo spun around on her chair to face the floor table where I was doing summer homework (hers, not mine).
“You ‘did it’...?” I repeated. “You mean you finished the chapter you were working on?”
“Nah. I finished writing one new line.”
“Then you didn’t do squat! You’re only one line farther than you were when you started?!”
“Hah! You’re underestimating writing, Juujuu. Before I could even start writing that one line, I had to proofread everything that I wrote last night, and I ended up deleting a bunch of parts that I didn’t like anymore. I’m not one line farther than I was before—I’m a bunch of lines back from where I started.”
“That’s so, so much worse!”
“Okay, but while I was working, I came up with a really awesome name for a character!”
“Is that why you’re smirking at me? Because you came up with a single name...?”
“It’s basically the best name you could ever possibly give a Japanese character, but that means I can’t actually use it in this story. This one’s a full-on classic fantasy without any Japanese elements, so it wouldn’t fit the setting at all. I’ll have to keep it in my back pocket for my next work... Oh, actually, I know! We can use it as our kid’s name!”
“Jumping the gun, much?!”
“Oh, but I guess this feels a little like a boy’s name... Or really, it’s definitely a boy’s name, for sure... Okay, no choice! I’ll have to come up with a girl’s name too on the double!”
“No, you won’t! That’s not even close to what you should be thinking about right now!”