Her name was Yoshizawa Aoi.
Haru, furiously writing at his desk, suddenly recalled the name of the girl whose memories lay dormant deep within his mind.
It was like suddenly remembering the name of a kindergarten friend—he felt a burst of inexplicable excitement, but it quickly faded, leaving only a lingering unease.
Oh well anyways..
Many people think writing novels is easy, that all you have to do is type nonstop and pump out thousands of characters every day.
But think about it: ten thousand Japanese characters are roughly equivalent to writing twelve 800-word essays. How many students struggle with vocabulary just to write an 800-word essay for their language test? Writing ten thousand characters without practice is an unimaginable torment.
Haru was feeling that torment now.
He had thought adapting the anime Ao Haru Ride from memory into a novel would be simple, but in reality, capturing character, setting, expressions, and details was a far cry from ordinary essay writing.
You can't build a house without laying a solid foundation first.
Though Haru had never written a light novel before, he had read many. His writing skills were lacking, but his appreciation wasn't.
After two hours of writing, he reread what he had written and thought, What on earth is this? The embarrassment made him want to disappear.
Sure enough, it's not that easy, Haru thought, not entirely surprised.
Though confident in his Japanese language skills, good language ability didn't guarantee smooth, vivid novel descriptions.
And though he was adapting the anime plot from memory, that didn't mean his novel would necessarily offer the same experience.
Just like in the world of the girl named Aoi, there was an anime film called 5 Centimeters Per Second.
During its success, the original creator, Makoto Shinkai, also published a short novel adaptation based on the same story.
Though both the film and the novel told the same story, experiencing them side by side revealed very different feelings and details.
Haru exhaled and looked at the mess of words he had scrawled.
Too many irrelevant descriptions.
Writing and revising at the same time made Haru tired. By the time sleep overpowered him, he had only handwritten about two thousand words adapting the anime plot from memory.
The speed was slow, but steady.
In his dreams…
Haru once again dreamt about Aoi.
But this dream didn't pick up where he'd left off. This time, she was playing a online shooting game in front of her computer, controlling characters, and gleefully blasting zombies.
"No! I need the rest of the memories from Ao Haru Ride! What kind of shooting game are you even playing?"
Haru mentally complained, but of course, the girl in his memory was unaffected, these were just memories after all.
In the morning, Haru woke up in disbelief that over eight hours, Aoi had played various games on her fully whaled accounts, Counter-Strike, Crossfire, Dungeon Fighter Online, Genshin Impact, rotating through them all without a break.
Yet, watching others play was interesting, and the girl's joy transmitted to Haru, making his own gaming experience surprisingly fulfilling.
After stretching, he looked at his desk.
"All right, today I have to write at least the first few chapters."
Haru wrote furiously.
His awkward writing from last night was already smoothing out.
Whenever writer's block hit, he referred to popular current light novels to see how others described similar scenes.
Slowly, his manuscript took shape, and his novel adaptation of Ao Haru Ride—set in a typical Japanese school and society, began to flow smoothly.
But these were only rough drafts.
After writing, he still had to check for typos, polish sentences, and revise repeatedly.
Three days later…
Haru had adapted about the first 5.9 episodes of Ao Haru Ride—the parts Aoi had watched—into novel text he could accept.
Why 5.9 episodes?
Because Haru hadn't finished watching episode 6 before Aoi's memory stopped as she went to sleep, leaving the story hanging.
During those three days, Haru had only re-entered Aoi's memories once in his dreams—attending a comic convention as a cosplayer.
The two nights before that, he'd slept normally, with no memories surfacing.
This made Haru realize that for now, he couldn't control the situation of watching anime through Aoi's memories in his dreams; he could only wait and see if it changed in the future.
Thinking back on last night's dream felt... weird. Like seriously weird, even for Haru.
In his dream, he had turned into a cute girl wearing black stockings and a full-on Gothic Lolita outfit.
At the convention, he enjoyed the admiration, photos, and attention from passersby, and hung out intimately with Aoi's close female cosplayer friends—hugging and having "bestie" fun.
Slap!
Haru slapped himself.
How can I envy a life like that? I'm a guy!
He looked in the mirror, startled by the thought that wearing a Gothic costume and attending a comic convention might actually be enjoyable.
Am I a pervert?
He spent a little time adjusting his mindset.
Five days remained until school started.
After that, free time would be scarce.
His priority now was to finish and submit his light novel in those remaining days.
Japan is an island nation with a much more bigger population than Aoi's world. This is a parallel world after all.
And so after escaping the struggle for survival, the middle and upper-middle class flourished, and cultural industries thrived.
Among them, the ACG (Animation, Comics, Games) industry grew rapidly in the past thirty years.
Not only beloved domestically, these cultural works gained worldwide recognition.
Thanks to widespread acceptance of ACG, creators—novelists, manga artists, animators—enjoyed high social status and incomes.
The reasoning was simple: although Aoi's home country had a developed ACG industry, it only had about 125 million people.
This Japan's vast market made author's incomes far higher.
But signing with top publishers was still a distant dream for Haru.
Japan's largest light novel serialization companies were headquartered in Tokyo and Osaka.
Sending manuscripts by mail was slow.
So Haru aimed for the five major local light novel publishers in Osaka Prefecture, close to where he lived.
Competition in the light novel industry was fierce.
Only a few top publishers had nationwide popularity.
Most medium and small publishers sold mainly within their home prefecture or a few neighboring ones.
This was normal; nationwide or global sales required capital and infrastructure beyond the reach of most. And building a strong local sales network took years of struggle and victories over competitors.
Smaller publishers in Osaka weren't as famous or wide-reaching as big companies like Starry Sky Novels or Seika Bookstore, but they still sold well locally.
Their stories weren't as good, however because they focused on the local market, they did better with promotions and discounts.
If your skills aren't the best inside, make up for it by working harder on the outside.
After printing seven or eight copies of his manuscript at a copy shop, Haru grabbed his student commuter pass and stepped out of his apartment complex.