It wasn't until the Nishimiya's gate closed that Tsuna withdrew his gaze and continued riding towards his garage, as if nothing had happened.
That sound just now, combined with Shouko's unusual behavior today and her words after school, had given him a vague idea of the reason.
After much thought, he decided to act as if nothing had happened. As long as she wasn't feeling unwell, he had nothing to worry about.
After dinner, not long after, Shouko came to Tsuna's house. The tiptoeing feeling he had experienced early that morning had disappeared.
Both of them tacitly avoided mentioning the incident from that afternoon. Shouko continued drawing her unfinished illustrations, and they chatted idly.
Sometimes, if a small mistake appeared in her illustration, she would even swat the person beside her in dissatisfaction, complaining that he had disturbed her.
Tsuna, meanwhile, continued to check and revise the light novel, while also replying to messages from Jun.
["Sensei, can this ending really not be changed...?"]
After waiting for a while and seeing no reply, and with the previous message not showing as 'read', Jun typed another sentence and sent it.
"Actually, I think Menma can still be saved. At worst, she could be the male lead's guardian spirit…"
Initially, when Tsuna hadn't sent her the second volume of Anohana, her guesses about the subsequent plot were similar to Nishikata's analysis.
Unfortunately, not long ago, Tsuna sent her the second volume. She was excited for a day, rushed home to read it eagerly, and then took the next day off.
Especially when she reached the ending, she wished she could immediately run to Tsuna's house, grab him by the neck, and make him revise the ending.
"Ding-dong…"
"Ding-dong…"
"Ding-dong…"
"Tsuna, why don't you check your phone first? What if someone has something urgent?" Shouko said worriedly. "If it's too much, can you at least put it on silent?"
"It's probably Jun's harassing messages." Tsuna withdrew his gaze from the computer, picked up his phone, and indeed, there were more than a dozen messages.
"Jun? Is there a problem with the Anohana illustration?" Shouko poked her cute head over, wanting to see what was going on.
"No." Tsuna unhesitatingly pushed her head away, not forgetting to ruffle her hair at the same time. "She's just airing her grievances, that's all."
"..."
Seeing that Shouko didn't understand, Tsuna explained it to her in more detail and even showed her the chat history with Jun on his phone.
"..."
At first, she thought Tsuna's words were a bit excessive, talking about harassing messages and such, but after reading them, she somewhat understood.
Out of those dozen messages, only one or two had main content; the rest were 'pure harassment', almost all asking if the ending could be changed…
She scrolled up through the chat history. Initially, when Jun asked if the ending could be changed, Tsuna would reply seriously and explain the reasons.
But she asked once every other day, and later, Tsuna became increasingly perfunctory; there was even one day when he didn't reply to her at all…
Seeing this, Shouko didn't say anything. She returned the phone to him and continued drawing her illustrations, not forgetting to remind him to put his phone on silent.
"Can't change it…"
Tsuna replied to the main messages and ignored his phone until it was almost 10:30 PM. Only after Shouko said goodnight to him did he pick up his phone again.
"Sensei, but with an ending like yours, you might get beaten up if you go out in the future, and you might even receive razor blade deliveries."
"It's fine. As long as I don't hold signing events, no one will know I'm the author of The Flower We Saw That Day."
"..."
For a moment, she didn't know how to reply…
Whether or not to hold a signing event indeed depended on the author's interest. Holding a signing event could also sell merchandise and autographs, bringing considerable income to the author.
But she felt that with Tsuna's background, he really wouldn't risk getting beaten up to hold any signing events…
After a few simple exchanges, Tsuna sent Shouko a goodnight message, telling her to go to bed early. He charged his phone and then enjoyed a baby-like sleep.
---
The cherry blossoms of late April had long fallen into the mud, but the new green of the street trees grew increasingly dense.
After the Golden Week crowds receded, the corner convenience store quietly put up ice cream posters, and housewives put away their thin wool coats, hanging linen shirts on the entrance coat rack.
The May sun began to feel heavy, wisteria strings hung beside the shrine's torii, and the air was filled with a unique clarity that preceded the plum rain.
Half a month had passed, and the sales of the first volume of Anohana could only be considered just entering the upper tier.
It wasn't bad, but not excellent either; it was stuck in the upper-middle. However, there shouldn't be any major problems with the second volume.
On second thought, that was right; the climax of this book was in the latter half, which was the second volume.
Most people were currently waiting and seeing, afraid that the second volume would have a bad ending, so they hadn't bought the first volume. After all, it was a new book by a new author, and there was no guarantee in this regard.
However, as long as Tsuna published a few more books later, this problem would be easily solved.
Others wanted to wait until the second volume was released to buy both together and enjoy reading them all at once.
At the same time, in the past half month, Tsuna had also met that chuunibyou girl. To be honest, she was indeed very cute, but he felt that being pestered by her was also very annoying.
Tsuna was just a 'passerby', and he only brushed past the two of them. He remembered that they had already gotten together in their second year of high school.
As for Ishida Shouya, whom he was 'a little' concerned about, he was still a 'lonely' invisible person in the class, so he didn't pay too much attention to him.
If there was any good news in the past half month, it was this: a few days ago, he went to Futaba Publishing and discussed with Jun about when the second volume would be released.
After several rounds of discussion, the time was finally set for the second week of summer vacation, which was around early August, putting pressure on Shouko…
But not really, after all, Shouko still had about two and a half months.
"Tsuna, are you feeling unwell?"
Tsuna felt a fair little hand waving in front of his eyes, accompanied by Shouko's worried voice.
"I'm fine. I was just thinking about something and got distracted." He shook his head, looking at the pool reflecting the scorching sunlight in front of him, feeling a bit like crying.
Now that the good news was over, it was time for the bad news. The pool cleaning task was assigned to the beginning of their class, and Nanase-sensei had sent the few of them to clean the pool…
It was pretty much as he had expected: seven people, their group of five plus two extra 'oxen and horses'.
"Miyamura, I fought tooth and nail for this. It's a chance to skip class, slack off, and play in the water. You should cherish it."
At this moment, Ajitani's playful voice rang in his ear, intensifying his desire to strangle her.