Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Happy Endings, And Other Lies ❯ Happy Endings: 8 ( Chapter 8 )

The school year ended. The third years graduated. I became a third year as the sakura blossoms covered the streets, as is traditional. Sakura, as a metaphor, are a stark reminder of just how brief youth is. They blossom beautifully, and then they fall to the ground and vanish into the dirt. That was an apt metaphor for life, and why the trees are planted around the entrances of schools. You have to respect that kind of ominous thinking.

Why don’t we plant Hydrangeas? They blossom for most of the year, endlessly. I sighed.

Time is moving on. I’d told the girls of my ambition to be a professional writer, and privately spoken to each of them of my feelings. Saki was likewise interested in a career in fashion, probably to an industrial arts school in Tokyo. Yui cried. Like, really cried. With snot and everything. I can see loving her would be so easy.

“I’m going to show you, Hikki! I’ll prove to you I can be the woman you need!” she promised, before storming off, eye shadow blotchy down her cheeks and makeup smears all over my jacket. I appropriated alcohol wipes to remove most of the worst of it, having features of cold cream which does the same task. I sighed deeply. I like that girl. And it’s not like we won’t see each other at all in the final year, but we’ll be studying and cramming for college entrance exams. I had three schools to apply for, and a backup university with a publishing program. The one I wanted was down in Nara Prefecture. A long way from Chiba.

Yukino did not cry, because she knew this wasn’t the end for us.

“So you’re going to write novels, publish, and gain an income and a name for yourself?” she clarified.

“Yes. I need help learning the reality of publishing, and the school in Nara actually teaches that properly. I don’t need technique help. That’s something I already learned, and I’ll get better with practice. The hard part is getting paid, establishing myself and developing a fanbase that will pay me to write.”

“I see. Mother will be pleased you choose to stand for yourself.”

“The hard part will be missing you. And our friends here.”

“Do you think you can publish something, for profit, in a year?” she asked.

“Probably. I don’t know the timing on publishing. It might take longer than that.”

“Do you have anything ready to publish?” she asked.

“I’ve… been writing a memoir. It’s sort of about here, but the characters are slightly different and the protagonist is not exactly me. The drama will be more dramatic, and the romance more romantic and juvenile. I think if I write it correctly it will sell.”

“What are you going to call it?” she finally asked.

“My teenage romantic comedy is wrong, as I expected.”

“That’s a very long title. Is it a tragedy?” she asked.

“Of course. I put that in the title.”

And so it was that my last year of high school was spent writing and editing my debut novel, which won the new novellist prize and gained me the entrance exemption to my first choice university of industrial arts in Nara.