"I'm back."
"Welcome back, wash your hands and get ready to eat."
"Okay..."
Tsuna, having changed his shoes at the entrance, went straight to the kitchen. After everything was done, during dinner, he took the opportunity to mention the manuscript submission from last night to Shizuka.
Shizuka agreed without hesitation. She understood what Tsuna meant; as his guardian, she would need to sign the contract procedures later on, etc...
Furthermore, under Japan's civil law, one must be over 20 years old to independently sign a contract without a guardian's consent.
(The protagonist is currently around 2017, and it wasn't until April 2022 that the amendment to Japan's civil law took effect, lowering the age of majority from 20 to 18.)
After they finished eating, Tsuna cleared the table and went back upstairs to continue writing, while Shizuka returned to the master bedroom to take a nap.
The midday concrete road still steamed with a thin heat. The copper wind chimes hanging from the eaves of a distant temple were suddenly struck by the wind.
On the branches where the cherry blossoms had not yet awakened, camellia petals rustled and fell into the shadow of the vending machine. In the blink of an eye, the shadow crept diagonally onto the convenience store curtain.
"Tsuna, I'm back!" The girl pushed open the door happily, holding a small bag printed with a dessert shop's logo.
"Shouldn't you knock first?" Tsuna leaned against the chair back, rubbing his slightly sore eyes with a bit of helplessness.
"I forgot."
Shouko placed the dessert she was holding on the table, stuck out her tongue playfully, then put away the cute act and asked curiously:
"Tsuna, have you received a reply from that editor?"
"Only half a day has passed, how could it be that fast?" He put his anti-blue light glasses back on and spread his hands helplessly.
You know, the Futaba Publishing he chose is relatively well-known in Japan. Fifty, if not a hundred, people submit manuscripts to those editors in a single day.
How could it be his turn, someone who submitted his manuscript close to midnight last night, so quickly?
"Oh, okay. Then quickly come and taste this I brought back for you."
Seeing this, Shouko reached out to open the dessert box in the bag, but Tsuna raised his hand to stop her. "Put it in the refrigerator first? I'll eat it later. I'm not very hungry right now."
"Alright."
Shouko carried the bag downstairs, put it in the dining room refrigerator, and then returned to the second floor. She couldn't help but ask in confusion: "Where's Auntie?"
Tsuna stared at the computer screen and replied without lifting his head, "She went shopping with her good friend."
"Oh, okay."
Hearing this, she stopped asking questions, walked to the bed, kicked off her cotton slippers, and, in two or three movements, burrowed into Tsuna's quilt:
"Tsuna, call me when Auntie comes back. Good afternoon~"
"..."
When he turned back to look, Shouko on the bed had already closed her eyes. He sighed silently, continued to look back at the screen, and the speed of his keyboard strokes unconsciously slowed down by half a beat.
Meanwhile, at Futaba Publishing.
"Knock knock..." A girl walked up to Jun's desk, bent her index finger, and knocked on the surface. "Jun, going to eat?"
Jun looked up at the girl in front of her, her peripheral vision also scanning the few people waiting behind her.
Among them was the editor with a receding hairline and beer belly who had caused her physical aversion when she first joined. She politely waved her hand and refused:
"Komura-senpai, you go ahead, I'm not very hungry yet."
After saying that, she continued to look back at the computer screen, not noticing the editor behind her whose face stiffened.
The girl showed no unusual emotion regarding her refusal, just a bit curious about what Jun was looking at so intently.
She walked to Jun's side, bent slightly, and looked at the screen. With just two simple glances, she withdrew her gaze. The first glance confirmed it was a light novel submitted by someone else, and the second glance was at the title.
But the title was a bit long, and she had almost forgotten it as soon as she stood up straight.
"Jun, there are always more manuscripts to read. Your health is more important. Why not go eat and then come back to read?"
"This one is different."
Jun said so verbally, but this time she didn't refuse the other person. She stood up and went to a nearby restaurant with the girl and the others behind her to eat.
She felt that Komura-senpai had a point, and it wasn't good to refuse people too many times in a row.
Mainly, Komura-senpai had also helped her quite a bit with work.
---
"Shouko, wake up."
Tsuna called her several times, and seeing no effect, he gently shook her. "It's about thirty minutes until dinner time."
"Just five more minutes, just five more minutes." Shouko swatted his hand away, rolled over, and kept murmuring.
"..."
He could already predict that Shouko would definitely not be sleepy before midnight tonight and would make video calls to "harass" him.
After much thought, he directly set about ten alarms on his phone with 1-minute intervals and placed them by the pillow for Shouko. He turned and went downstairs to help his mom.
"Where's Shouko? Still not awake?" Shizuka, who was prepping ingredients, looked up and saw it wasn't the person she was expecting, feeling a bit confused.
"Yeah, she wants to sleep for five more minutes." He went to his usual spot, grabbed some garlic, and started peeling it.
"Then let her sleep a bit longer. Just call her for dinner."
"It might be a bit late, she should be waking up soon." Tsuna's movements paused.
While she was wondering what Tsuna meant by that, she saw Shouko quickly walk up to him, huffily slap his arm, and stuff the phone in his hand into his pocket.
"Ring... ring... ring...!"
Just as she was about to ask what happened, she heard the phone's alarm ring and instantly guessed the approximate reason. She even felt that Shouko's slap was too light.
However, regarding their "little couple's" playful fighting, she chose not to interfere and let them handle it themselves.
Until after dinner, Shouko pretended to be angry and didn't pay much attention to Tsuna but was finally successfully appeased when he took out the dessert from the refrigerator.
Twilight spread from the horizon, a gradient of indigo and light purple, and the silhouette of Mount Fuji in the distance blurred into an ink-wash outline.
Stone lanterns lit up one after another with warm halos, and people returning home walked in small steps along the shrine path.
Shouko said goodnight to him on the second floor and then turned and left.
Just as Tsuna was about to focus on writing, the black screen of his phone instantly showed a video call interface, and he knew his guess from this afternoon was correct.
He reached out and clicked accept, then propped the phone up to the side so that Shouko on the other end could see his upper body and continued to focus on the computer screen.
"Tsuna, I can't sleep, can you tell me a story?"
"Across the phone, can you really hear clearly...?" Tsuna muttered softly.
"What did you say? I didn't hear clearly just now. Tsuna, just point the screen at your face so I can read your lips easily."
Hearing this, Tsuna could only silently readjust the phone's position. Regarding Shouko's ear problem, he promised to take her to the hospital again when she gets to high school.
"Is this better?" He tried to speak slowly.
"Okay, okay, I can see clearly."
"Tsuna, I regret it. I knew I shouldn't have slept for so long this afternoon. When I wake up tomorrow, I'll definitely have dark circles..."
Tsuna was a bit helpless. "You can sleep longer tomorrow, you don't have to wake up so early every day."
"No, I see you wake up so early to go for a morning run every day, I don't want to fall behind."
"Tomorrow is the weekend, you won't have anything to do if you wake up so early..."
"Waiting for you to come back."
"..."
Next, he listened to Shouko complain a little from time to time, and he would comfort her. Later, the topic shifted to the interesting things she encountered while shopping today.
Tsuna also told her about Shin-chan's heartbreak, which greatly shocked Shouko.
Time unconsciously passed, and soon it was past midnight. He saw that Shouko on the screen was already struggling to keep her eyes open but was still trying to talk to him.
For a moment, he felt a bit like crying and laughing at the same time.
"If you're sleepy, go to sleep. You don't have to force yourself to chat with me."
"What about you?" Shouko yawned, her eyes still fixed on his face.
"I'll sleep too, okay?"
He almost instantly understood the meaning in her words, feeling a bit helpless, but still saved the records on the computer, shut it down, and prepared to sleep.
"Then, Tsuna, goodnight."
"Goodnight."
The video call ended only after Tsuna got into bed, pulled up the covers, and Shouko hung up.
---
A line of shallow gold, like melting snow, appeared on the peak of Mount Fuji. The morning mist soaked the shrine stone steps, making them slightly cool. The first train of the day carried the first hint of life as it rolled along the tracks.
---
"What about the rest? Why is there nothing more? Why is there only one volume??"
Jun, huddled in her futon, looked at the manuscript novel on her phone, which had no more pages to turn, and kept repeating this sentence.
Last night, after eating with those few people and returning to her desk, she forced herself to resist the urge to continue reading this novel, which had already passed her internal review, and looked at other submissions.
But until she got off work, she didn't see any novel that could compare to this one. They were all manuscripts with illogical plots, messy descriptions, and just generally chaotic...
Finally, because the next day was her day off, she saved the novel, which still had over 50,000 characters left, onto her phone, planning to take it back and read it.
But as soon as she walked out the main door, she was delayed by other things. Because the next day was a day off, her department couldn't avoid having a get-together, and she faced multiple invitations from Komura-senpai.
She could only reluctantly agree and ate and chatted with everyone at an izakaya until after ten o'clock before returning home. Then, due to various other things, she was delayed until now to finish reading it.
In short, an unlucky day...
"Yes, yes, the submitter's name and contact information."
She threw off the futon covering her, put on the glasses from the bedside table, but the high-powered glasses couldn't hide the dark circles under her eyes.
She ran to the computer in two strides, turned it on, and as soon as it booted up, she impatiently clicked into her email to start searching.
She had only saved the novel last night, nothing else, because that would affect the reading experience...
'Shouko? What a strange pen name.' She muttered and shifted her gaze to the contact information below.
Following the string of numbers above, she quickly dialed the number on her phone.
"Beep beep beep..."
"No one is answering... Is it too early?" She looked at the time, '7:36.'
Okay, it is a bit early...
But she still stubbornly dialed a few more times.
Meanwhile, Tsuna, who had just finished his morning run and returned home, went upstairs to get clothes and heard his phone ringing. As soon as he picked it up, he saw that the call had been hung up.
He unlocked it and, wow, over a dozen missed calls from an unknown number.
While he was hesitating whether to call back, his phone vibrated, and the screen instantly turned into a call page.
"Hello? Who is this?" Tsuna answered without hesitation.
After all, the other party had called back, so there was no reason to hesitate.
"Is this Shouko Sensei?"
Tsuna heard excitement mixed with exhaustion in the other person's voice, a bit like someone who had been up all night...
But he still responded, "Yes, are you an editor from Futaba Publishing?"
"Yes, yes, yes, Shouko Sensei just woke up? Or did I disturb you?"
"No, I just got back from exercising. My phone was at home, I just saw it."
From that last sentence, Tsuna felt that the other party didn't seem like a seasoned veteran who had worked in the workplace for a long time.
But that made sense. After all, when he was choosing who to submit to, the profile he saw happened to be someone who had been working for only two or three months.
As for the headshot, who would believe it? It could have been taken five or six years ago...
The other party exchanged a few more pleasantries with Tsuna, all revolving around the topic of him just returning from exercising. Later, Tsuna couldn't stand the sticky feeling on his body anymore and got straight to the point.
"My submission was accepted, right?"
"Yes, yes, yes, Shouko Sensei, are you free this afternoon? Shall we meet at a coffee shop to talk?
I'm off today, and Futaba Publishing is not convenient to go to for now."
Generally speaking, the submitters are asked to come to Futaba Publishing to sign the contract, but she was off today and didn't want to go there.
As for why they weren't meeting this morning or noon, it was because she wanted to sleep a bit more first...
"Okay, how about meeting at 'That' coffee shop that just opened on Futaba Street at 3 PM?"
Under the questioning eyes of Shizuka and Daisuke, Tsuna took his phone and went downstairs while talking, holding his change of clothes in the other hand.
However, neither of them chose to interrupt him.
"Okay, okay, I'll bring the contract and everything and wait for you there this afternoon."
"Alright, I'll hang up then, see you--"
"Wait! Shouko Sensei, how many characters have you written for that light novel? Or have you only written the first volume?"
Tsuna hesitated for a moment, "Volumes two, three, and four are all written. Is there a problem?"
"No, no, no, just asking. See you this afternoon, bye-bye."
"Beep... beep... beep..."
Tsuna looked at the hung-up screen and suddenly felt that the other party didn't seem very reliable...
"Tsuna, who was that just now? Why did they call you so early?" Shizuka was the first to couldn't resist her curiosity and asked.
Tsuna put his phone aside, forcing down the smile that was about to appear on his lips. "Mom, let's go to 'That' coffee shop at 3 PM this afternoon, okay? My first book got signed."
Under Shizuka's slightly surprised gaze, Tsuna left that sentence and turned to walk into the bathroom.
Saying anything more now would be useless; he just needed Shizuka to be more surprised. As for his old man's expression, which hadn't changed at all, it didn't matter. How could his old man show too much surprise just because a book got signed? Unless he becomes famous in Japan.