Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Happy Endings, And Other Lies ❯ Happy Endings: 10 ( Chapter 10 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Chapter Ten

 

I was up late working on my novel, pushing out 30 pages that night trying to drown out the ecstatic groans and cries of our upstairs neighbors going at it like cats. I went to bed late after they finally exhausted each other and consequently woke late too. The shower was busy so I had to make do with a face wash and shared glowers with Nana, who felt the same way. We were both on the ground floor after all, and Shinoaki and Romeo were up there making the ceiling squeak. Sigh. I quickly cooked some rice and made onigiri to take with me. Nana kept her comments to herself, accepting them without a word, wrapping them in plastic. We both left the lovers to their morning and headed to class before eight AM.

Our first class was on screenwriting, which all of us shared as part of the Visual Arts curriculum, and a required course for graduation. I drifted off to sleep. I woke up taunted for an answer. I looked at the board and the sensei, an older gentleman with a grey-brown cardigan of indeterminate lineage started to chastise me before I interrupted him.

“A foil. A story needs a foil. It was the answer left off your list. Someone to steal the treasure, cause problems for the hero, and otherwise provide tension the story. Every story needs a villain.”

“And who was the villain in your story?” asked the teacher, interested.

“The sensei, of course. She was the driving force that pushed the hero into the service club, and forced him to interact with the students despite his stated desire to be alone.”

“I’ve read that interpretation by book critics, but I am surprised to hear that from the author himself. Do you consider her a villain?” he asked.

“Nah. She actually does care about her students. She’s just lonely and pent up so it affects her judgement.”

Hundreds of kilometers away in a Soubu High School classroom, Shizuka sneezed. “Damn Hachiman.”  

“I also portrayed the elder sister as an agent of change and conflict, almost a muse chorus for the meta of the story. She hangs the lanterns on the obvious problems.”

“And the former love interest and source of humiliation,” asked the teacher.

“She’s the Ghost of Christmas Past,” I answered. “She is the reason the hero is withdrawn in the first place, and the source of his reason to be apart from others, and the major stumbling block holding him back from happiness in the romance that could develop.”

“Interesting,” said the teacher. “Good answers. You can take your seat.” There was murmuring from the students, and a glare from the redhead in front of me, probably the daughter or sister of the Kano sensei who’d warned us our dreams would face steep difficulty. The lecture continued and I was finally awake enough to pay attention, though I really want to go to bed without the two lovebirds going at it. Maybe I’d take a nap somewhere between classes. I checked my schedule. Nope. Not enough time. Max Coffee, don’t fail me now.

The coffee drink helped. The local cafeteria drip brew was not good, or varied in quality between darkened burnt tea to bitterness that was almost pleasant. It seemed to depend on who made it.

I worked on editing the chapters I’d written over night. Towards the end I found some repetition and wrong words I was trying to puzzle out. I eventually erased the bad parts and re-wrote the section so it made sense. Memoirs are easy, at least. All the added drama of a main character who wasn’t as smart as me, and gets trapped in stupid events while remaining likeable and sympathetic, that kind of writing is harder. It’s the style I’ve established for my story, unfortunately. And it works. It sells. If only I was better paid for this work. Still, my reputation is still growing and I have to use that to get somewhere, to turn this into decent money. Name recognition is worth something, at least. It will help later.

Time ran out so I shut down and headed to my afternoon class. More Visual Arts Theory. It was interesting as a meta overview of the industry, and an introduction to facets of the different related fields.

Afterwards Nana and I found that our housemates were getting drunk together at the Freshman mixer on the lawn above the club building. I joined them, though I did not drink. Nana seemed intent on catching up. I resolved to deal with probable vomit later. I hoped I could prepare the bathroom. I would begin by removing the rugs and mats, I decided. Haruno would be proud of me for this common-sense forethought. Go me?

The sun sank and my housemates were all drunk. Joy. They turned on overhead lights and the sakura blossoms fell. I let them wait a bit longer before I guided them back to our boarding house. I cooked them some drunk food so they wouldn’t die and made them drink lots of water by adding extra salt to the fried noodles and bean sprouts. I personally hate bean sprouts, but they are cheap protein and I’m trying to keep these kids alive. I also made them each take a multivitamin before bed, which should remove some of the effects of their hangovers tomorrow. Some, but not all. I could already hear the belches and gas emitting. For the first time, the two lovers slept in separate rooms.

I caught up on sleep, though I am almost sure I heard some puking from Nana during the night. I reminded myself to turn on the light before stepping into the bathroom. I thoughtfully had a mop ready outside the door. Go me?

 

The following morning found my kohais, and considering their maturity level this is appropriate, looking green and struggling to eat a light breakfast. Miso seemed to help. They manage to eat half a bowl of rice apiece and I let them be, forming the unused into onigiri for the day.

My laptop battery was charged, my brain well rested, and I was prepared for another glorious day of higher education. The brightness disagreed with my kohais. I was the only one smiling with sunglasses on campus that I could see. Other people with sunglasses merely looked to be hiding their hangovers.

Class began with an assignment to create a three minute short film by a team of four people. It would be graded, and must tell a story. My classmates, Kyoya especially excited, grouped up with the kouhais and me on one team. Well, this would be interesting and stretching my wings would be good for me. You’re supposed to do that in college, right? Find out what you can do?

He decided to take lead on this project, as production management was something he was focusing on for his major. He eventually sat us down at our dinner table that night to talk about what we might do.

“I have an idea!” he said after some moments of idle conversation about railways with the women in the house, memories of old times drifting them into silence. I was no help yet, since my old memories are things I wanted to forget so I used to them to help me write my antagonistic hero and finished the fifth volume after only three days at the university. Honestly, this place is a fantastic source of inspiration. If I don’t ruin the ending by taking a Happy Ending buyout from my publisher I could totally continue the story in a realistic and character driven way which would both please the fans and extend sales in a new part of the story. I’ll make sure to write that proposal when our next contract negotiations comes up.

“So I wanted to tell a story from a bench at a train station, because stations don’t change much so it can be used to tell the passing of time using different aged actresses. What do you think?” he asked.

“That sounds like something by Checkov.”

“Who? The guy from old Star Trek?” asked Nana.

“He’s the guy who invented the Android around 1900, and is famous for the gun on the mantelpiece? You haven’t heard of him?” I queried.

“We have a gun?” asked Shinoaki, which the others were now calling her after her attempt to reinvent herself as Aki-san.

“We have a mantle?” asked Nana.

“This place has a fireplace?” asked Hashiba, looking around. I facepalmed.

“It’s a metaphor.”

“A Meta for what?” asked Nana, more confused.

“Never change. Never change,” finally decried, exhausted by this manzai skit. They really had no idea.

“My sister must feel like this, all the time,” I muttered.

“So is the idea going to work? Can you write a script, Hachiman?” requested Hashiba. I shrugged.

“No problem. Give me a little while. Three minutes and only screen cards, or maybe a narration? How do you plan to film this?”

“I’ll sign up to borrow a camera,” offered Nana, stepping up to help. “The school has loaners.”

“My computer is good for video but I can’t do much with sound,” warned Shinoaki. “I don’t usually work with video, but I’m good at photography.”

“My computer is good at sound,” offered Nana again.

“I’m good at editing both, but my computer kind of sucks,” warned Hashiba.

We got to work.

“I didn’t know you had read Checkov. He’s kind of obscure,” I mentioned to our group leader, Kyouya I should call him.

“I must have read him somewhere. Maybe a side project or mention. He’s very influential in modern media, isn’t he?” he hedged. He was lying. I could see he was lying, thanks to my Haruno training. I wonder why?

“Very. There’s a Korean visual artist that got an award winning anime about a couple separated across light years, writing text messages while she died when her air runs out. It’s a short, but its powerful. I expect good things from him.”

“You keep up with popular culture?” he asked, a little surprised. “Isn’t that odd when you write school romance light novels? Even with the anime? I mean, if there’s an anime someday,” he lied again. He’s well informed. That was secret. 

“Anime is still in negotiation. I didn’t know that news had reached the forum. Must be a leak at the publishers. I have to write six more volumes before they’ll sign off on starting production. Keeping up with popular culture prevents accidental duplication and losing audience. It’s a downside in Japanese media, and has happened many times, resulting in scandal and missed sales. Fans usually choose one story to follow and ignore the other one as a ‘copy’, often based on who publishes first. I’m trying to avoid getting caught in that sort of race, because it’s a trap where you chew your own leg off to escape.”

“Huh. The business side of publishing sounds brutal,” he admitted.

“So far it has been. I’m just out of high school and I’ve got a mess of unfinished business back in Chiba, book contracts, novels to write, and eventually some kind of anime might result. The publisher got an illustrator for pictures in the books, and reissued the first three volumes with them added. It should boost sales and maybe pay my grocery bill. I’m kinda interested to see what our roommates can do with their particular talents applied to this project. Have you heard Nana sing when she forgets you’re there? She’s not bad. And your lover seems quite serious about illustration.”

“Shinoaki might be someone amazing. I’ll try and listen to Nana. Maybe develop that talent further,” he promised.

“Do your best, and remember that while deadlines matter, doing your best work is even more important,” I cautioned him. “We didn’t come here to compromise. We came to be the best artists we can be.”

The following day we toted the camera bag and ourselves with some costume changes and makeup and old Mrs Getsugan from the lunch counter had promised to show up as an extra at 4 PM for the final section of our shoot. I got Shinoaki into a kid’s outfit which concealed her… everything. Damn she was ripe. I would be shocked if she wasn’t knocked up by the end of the month. I could only hope that having babies didn’t interfere with her talents because I’d gotten a glimpse of the picture she was illustrating using the one I’d taken at school the other day and it was becoming really beautiful. She had a great imagination for detail and posing and understood the message in body language. Really skillful, so I told her so and she seemed pleased. She also continued working. The outfit worked well enough to imply a youth. The problem came when we opened the bag expecting a camcorder and found a still camera. A decent quality camera, but a still camera. It was devastating. We all stared at it.

“I asked for a camera. I meant video. This is what they gave me,” complained Nana. She’d wrecked our project. It was due in two days. We wouldn’t have the opportunity to use this site and still finish it in time if we left and came back.

“I can work with this,” promised Kyouya. I raised my eyebrow and peered at him. His face was determined and he was seeing a solution. He wasn’t lying either.

“Okay. How do we do it?” I asked. He explained. We got to work. It would take more work editing, but it actually worked to their talents, and the narration still worked. When we watched the completed work at the end of the next day we were silent.

“Its good. I hope Kano-sensei likes it. This sort of thing will only work once,” I critiqued it. We burned a disc and a backup, just in case and turned in. We wanted our sleep.

+++++++++

The lights came up as our little short film finished playing. There was silence, and then clapping from the other students.

“Very creative. On to the next student film,” said Kano-sensei.

We took the top spot that day, having used inferior equipment and creative editing. College is about spreading your wings and seeing if you can fly. We had soared. Only a short distance, but it was a beginning.