Chapter 1: Editor – Natsume Kotoha

The white curtains in the classroom were swaying in the summer breeze.

The regular exams had ended in the morning, and it was time to go home. The atmosphere in the classroom was relaxed, probably due to the sense of freedom after the exams.

Some students were happily leaving the classroom while chatting with their friends, while others were leisurely spreading out their bento boxes in groups and talking about their plans for the afternoon.

Yuto was also zoning out in that peaceful atmosphere.

He had no particular business to attend to, just wanted to avoid the crowd during the way home.

He didn’t have any close friends, so no one was talking to him.

After climbing the long hill to school, quietly attending classes, and watching the other students dedicate themselves to their club activities, he would go home. This had been his daily routine for the past two years and three months since entering this prestigious school in Gifu Prefecture.

In a little over half a year, this routine would end too.

Once he entered university, a more detached and free daily life would likely await him.

“What are you reading?”

“Oh, this?”

Yuto overheard two female students near him talking.

He didn’t particularly pay attention.

However, the title of the book he heard made a ripple in his heart.

“──”

A dark feeling, as if black ink was being poured into his chest.

Yuto suppressed that feeling, which he had forgotten for a while, with a deep breath.

He closed his eyes and tried to regain his shallow breathing so that the feeling wouldn’t overflow from his heart and paint his whole body black.

“Oh, I know that one. It was quite the topic a few years ago, right?”

Yet, the prolonged voice hit Yuto’s ears.

Don’t listen, don’t listen.

“Yeah, the genius middle school writer.”

“Recently, you don’t hear about it at all.”

“Well, it was probably just a fluke.”

“Haha, what’s that? That means he wasn’t a genius. What was the author’s name again?”

“Um, that was Fuyu──”

Yuto buried his face in his desk to block out the rest of the conversation and waited for them to leave.

Eventually, the presence of people disappeared.

When he finally raised his face, there was no one left in the classroom, and only the sound of cicadas from afar filled the room.

He let out a small sigh of relief.

When he looked out of the open window, he could see the school gate.

A path of asphalt extended downhill through the trees from the school gate, and in the plains beyond, the rice paddies were neatly aligned, with a river running through them.

If he looked even further, he could see the deep green mountains.

This was the scenery he had gazed at every day for the past two years and three months at this school.

Let’s just continue this peaceful daily life.

Study moderately, get into a decent university, lead a laid-back university life, get a job at a company where you can leave on time, and live days without any remarkable achievements or major failures, without any ripples, just endless, endless, flat days.

A life that no one would remember.

He didn’t need a passion that would burn his body or scorch his heart.

However, the wind always blows suddenly.

“Hiiragi, Yuto-senpai.”

With a whoosh, the curtains fluttered.

The papers piled up on the teacher’s desk were blown away.

Someone’s reference book on a desk fluttered open.

Yuto turned to face the voice calling his name.

And he saw her.

A female student with a defiant smile was looking at him from across the desk.

Her long bob, slightly below her shoulders, swayed in the wind. Her hair was slightly light in color, softly reflecting the sunlight. Her slender arms and legs extending from her summer uniform were dazzlingly white. But more than anything, Yuto was struck by her sparkling eyes.

“Who are you?”

“Natsume Kotoha.”

She grinned.

“Please let me be your editor, Hiiragi-senpai.”

“Huh?”

The wind carrying the summer heat blew strongly once more.

She didn’t even try to hold down her hair being played with by the wind and looked Yuto straight in the eyes as she spoke.

“Please continue… to write your novel.”