September 29 (Sunday)
Some friends from school came over, and we had a study party to prepare for our next test. I baked a cake so we’d all have something to eat while we worked. I messed up the decoration a little bit, but everyone said it was tasty. “Asumi, you’re good enough to be a professional baker!” they told me. I couldn’t help but blush. Here’s hoping next time they come over, I’ll be able to make them a cake that looks as good as it tastes!
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October 4 (Friday)
We got our test results back in class today. Thanks to my study regimen, I managed to maintain my position in the school year’s top ten. To celebrate, my family and I went out for dinner to that restaurant with the cake I really like. For dessert, I had some lemon pie and an apple tart, plus the restaurant’s signature chocolate cake to go. I’m eating that one right now while I’m writing this. I can’t help but feel that three servings of cake in one day is going a little overboard, though.
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October 13 (Sunday)
I visited my favorite confectionery supply store and ran into Kino, that boy from my class! I knew he was into making sweets, too, but what are the chances we’d be at the same store at the same time? I decided to talk to him, and we kind of bonded, chatting about baking and stuff. We were really hitting it off, so then we…
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Asumi stopped writing and set her mechanical pencil down next to her diary.
“So then we… Then we… Hmm, what should I say we did?”
She pondered how the rest of the entry should go. The more she thought about it, the fewer ideas seemed to occur to her, and in the end, she erased that last sentence altogether.
Asumi heaved a sigh. Nothing she wrote in this diary was real. None of it actually happened. It was more like a wishful thinking diary where she wrote what she would have liked to have happened. Maybe you could call it a “Liar’s Diary.”
“Urgh… This just feels pointless. Why am I in such a weird mood today…?”
Most nights, Asumi would write quickly and smoothly, and she’d have fun with it, too. But every now and then, she would have a moment of self-awareness and wonder what she was doing, really. At times like those, she’d be struck by how fruitless the whole thing was.
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Truth be told, she didn’t have any friends at school. She couldn’t make cakes, either. Her grades weren’t all that good, and she’d never even been inside a confectionery supply store, let alone talked to anyone about baking. The ideal world that she wrote about in her diary was just as far removed from reality as any other work of fiction.
Well, what else am I supposed to do? Nothing ever happens to me that would actually be worth writing about.
Writing a truthful diary about her life as it really was would be no fun at all. Why not get creative and make up some more interesting memories instead? At least the version of herself she wrote about was living her best life. However boring her real life may be, reading her diary and thinking about what might have been gave Asumi some small comfort.
“Looks like I’m already on the last page…”
She’d have to go and buy another one soon. With that final thought for the day, she closed the diary and put it away in her desk drawer.
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Asumi visited a stationery store the very next day. It wasn’t one she’d been to before; apparently, it had opened up only recently.
She’d found a flyer advertising it in her mailbox that morning. Printed on the flyer—which had a cute neon-pink border around it—was the following:
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WE GUARANTEE YOU’LL FIND WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR!
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That gave her the impression that this was a store with a high-quality, varied lineup of goods. If she went there, she’d be sure to find a wonderful new diary.
Asumi had followed the map on the flyer and found the store. But now that she was here, it wasn’t anything like she’d expected.
It’s a lot smaller than I thought it would be… It looks kind of dark inside, too.
When the flyer claimed she’d find exactly what she was looking for, she’d imagined a big, fancy store holding a grand opening. Would she really find a nice new diary in a dingy little place like this? She was beginning to have second thoughts about the whole thing.
Then again, if they’re that confident about it, maybe it’s actually a better place than it looks from the outside.
Hoping that was the case, Asumi walked through the door.
The interior was even more dim and dingy than it had looked from the outside. She couldn’t see the goods on the shelves very well, and they were the whole reason she was here. As she glanced around, it still didn’t seem like this store’s lineup was anything special.
Guess this whole place is a bust… But now that I’m here, I should at least check out their diary section.
Making her way further into the store, Asumi heaved a sigh.
What a disappointment. She’d never find a good diary somewhere like this. At the same time, though, she’d feel uncomfortable leaving without buying anything.
Soon, she arrived at the section where the diaries were kept. It was also a pretty small section.
Yikes, there’s hardly any variety here…
One look at the sparse offerings, and Asumi’s face fell.
This is just the worst. What’s with this store? “We guarantee you’ll find what you’re looking for”? When this is all they’ve got? What a scam.
She felt like she’d been tricked, reeled in, and hung out to dry. It was not a good feeling.
Not that it really mattered, though. Today was sure to be another boring, tedious day when nothing particularly interesting happened. Same old, same old.
She still had to buy a new diary to write in. At times like this, she needed her Liar’s Diary more than ever.
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October 14 (Monday)
I went to a new stationery store today and found a totally cute new diary. The moment I saw it, I knew I had to have it. And here I am, writing in it now! The store had such a great lineup, and there were lots of other cool diaries there besides this one. Who’d have thought there was a great store like that right here in my neighborhood? What a lucky find!