A newbie's anime life diary

“That’s right.” Cai Muzuo sat on the mountain and nodded. “This is my original manuscript. I originally wanted to submit it to a newcomer award, but I don’t have any friends and I didn’t get any feedback. Please read it and tell me your thoughts on my manuscript!”

"I always felt like he was saying something really sad, as if no one else was around." Yukino Yukinoshita said that she couldn't understand people with chuunibyou (middle school syndrome) at all.

"If you want to share your thoughts, wouldn't it be simpler to just post the novel on a submission website?" Hachiman said. Every light novel publishing house holds its own awards, and winning novels not only receive prize money but also a reward for being published the fastest. Of course, in Mr. Hachiman's opinion, these things are out of reach for Zaimokuza.

To everyone's surprise, Timber refused outright: "No way! Those guys don't know how to be polite at all. I'll definitely be criticized mercilessly, and that feeling will be worse than death!"

"Is this what they call a fragile heart?" Xuehui stepped forward, picked up the stack of manuscripts, glanced at the titles, and quickly flipped through them.

"So you found the Service Club? But let me tell you, Yukinoshita is even more ruthless than a submission website..." Hachiman said, having clearly noticed this fact from the very first day he joined the club. The beautiful club president in front of him was aloof, stubborn, and incredibly sarcastic. Fortunately, the addition of Yukiteru and Yuihama made Hachiman's life in the club much easier, reducing the chances of him being verbally attacked.

In just two minutes, Yukiteru flipped through about ten pages of the manuscript, then forced himself to close it while his brain was trembling. He looked at Yukino Yukinoshita and said, "Yukinoshita, you're the club president, so you should decide. Although I personally don't really recommend it."

"Original manuscript review... If that's the case, then I'll accept it. After all, having someone review the manuscript before submission is part of the process." Yukinoshita thought for a moment and then nodded in agreement.

Afterwards, Cai Muzu handed several printed copies of the novel manuscript to the four of them and earnestly requested that they read them carefully and provide their evaluations.

Although this guy is a bit of a chuunibyou (a person with delusions of grandeur), he's still quite polite at this moment.

With that thought in mind, Xuehui suppressed the urge to point out the flaws of the novel manuscript right now, deciding to wait until tomorrow.

After completing their task, the group prepared to go home.

As they walked toward the school gate, looking at Yui who was clinging tightly to Yukino Yukinoshita, Yukiteru asked, "Hey Yuihama, I know Yukinoshita played the hero today, but aren't you being a little too enthusiastic?"

"Hehehe, although I feel a little bad for Yumiko, Yuki was really cool at noon, and Yumiko wasn't angry with me in the end, everything was perfect! Also, Yuki already told me that you sent her a message at noon and that's why she came over!"

"I already told you not to call me that. Don't you think what you just said sounded weird?" After saying that, Yuki couldn't help but glance at Yukinoshita, but seeing that she looked uncomfortable with Yuiko holding her arm, he dismissed the thought.

"Hehehe, this isn't my fault. It's because both your name and Xiaoxue's name contain the character 'Xue' (雪). Ah, Xiaoxue's name has two 'Xue' characters!"

"You've been using the name joke for two weeks now..."

Hikigaya and an excited Zaimokuza walked to the side, watching Yukiteru chatting away with the two girls, their sense of unease growing stronger.

I want to get closer, but I have a strange sense of repulsion.

"What a contradictory guy," Hachiman commented.

That evening, Yukiteru lectured Hiratsuka Shizuka, who had taken on a commission without informing them, and then reluctantly took out the beef to be cooked that night, after Shizuka agreed with a laugh.

I still couldn't deliver the vegan punishment dish I had planned before. Hachiman, I broke my promise!

After dinner and a shower, Yukiteru and Shizuka Hiratsuka snuggled up on the sofa in the living room, eating potato chips and playing Street Fighter with the controllers, looking every bit the stereotypical lazy bum.

Yukiteru has found yet another reason why Hiratsuka Shizuka can't get married.

However, Yukiteru quite liked Hiratsuka Shizuka in this look. Gone was the serious teacher she was at school. Dressed in a refreshing outfit, she had a girlish smile on her face. Every time she won a game against Yukiteru, she would excitedly sway left and right, unaware that Yukiteru was deliberately letting her win.

If they keep winning, we won't see that smile anymore.

Smelling the fragrance emanating from Hiratsuka Shizuka beside him, and hearing her loud and boisterous voice, Yukiteru felt a sudden sense of belonging.

"Om~"

Suddenly, the phone vibrated. Yuki instinctively looked down at his phone, and Hiratsuka Shizuka immediately exclaimed, "Great opportunity!" With a series of combos and a powerful Hadouken, Ryu took down Yuki's Chun-Li.

"Have some shame, sister!" Yukiteru said, putting down the controller and picking up his phone. He discovered it was a message from Yukino Yukinoshita.

Yukiteru has very few contacts on his phone. Apart from two friends he could talk to from high school, there is only Hiratsuka Shizuka. Although he later added the contact information of three people from the Service Club, he has never contacted them by phone.

Hiratsuka Shizuka wasn't embarrassed at all by Yukiteru's accusations. She smiled indifferently, leaned closer to look at Yukiteru's phone, and said with amusement, "Oh my~ It's a message from Yukinoshita? I didn't expect you two to develop so quickly!"

"No way!"

When Hiratsuka Shizuka leaned in, she was pressed against Yukiteru's body, her head resting on his shoulder. Her shapely figure pressed against half of Yukiteru's body, making his heart race.

Although they had become very familiar with each other after spending almost two weeks together, Xuehui, who had been single for two lifetimes, still found it hard to bear this kind of contact. He reached out and pressed Hiratsuka Shizuka's cheek to push him away, and then walked towards the room with his phone in his hand.

"It's all your fault, it's today's request. Also, it's getting late, get some rest, staying up late is bad for your skin." After saying that, Yukiteru disappeared from Hiratsuka Shizuka's sight.

"Isn't it bad for my skin?" Hiratsuka Shizuka pinched her skin, then turned off the TV, preparing to go back to her bedroom to contact her junior students and ask if they had any tips for skin care.

Back in his room, Yukiteru leaned against the bed and opened the message on his phone from Yukino Yukinoshita. His eyes were met with a large number of English words and long strings of names made up of Chinese characters.

"Neptune, Dark Flame... It's not the world that's wrong, it's the blood oath... How should these words be understood? Why are they used in these places? I've read so many explanations, but their meanings are still unclear. Are all light novels like this nowadays?"

Looking at the message from Yukino Yukinoshita, I couldn't help but admire the girl's dedication. Reading this poorly written manuscript word by word, and making sure to understand the words and sentences she didn't understand, was something Yukiteru himself couldn't do.

After explaining the words he could, Xuehui wrote at the end of the message: "Just wondering, how much did you see?"

Five minutes later, the phone vibrated again. Xuehui guessed that the other party must have memorized those messages before replying.

"I've only read up to page seven. Putting aside the grammatical errors, I really can't understand this kind of light novel."

"This is just an isolated case. After all, it's just something I did for fun. Most publishers wouldn't accept it. My personal suggestion is to stop reading on page 10. If you're going to read it like that, you might not finish it in one night."

Yukinoshita replied quickly this time. Yukiteru opened the message and couldn't help but smile wryly.

"Since I've agreed to it, I must do it seriously. That's my principle."

This girl is really serious.

It was already 11 p.m.

Please add this to your favorites~~~

Chapter 13 Sleeping Snow

The next day, Yukiteru arrived at the classroom yawning. After sitting down, he saw Hikigaya yawning as well.

"How was the draft you reviewed last night?"

"I couldn't watch it past the third of the way; I felt like my brain was going to explode. What about you?"

"I didn't look at it much; the few pages I flipped through in the clubroom yesterday were enough for an evaluation," Yukiteru said. Although he hadn't looked at it after returning home, he had been acting as Yukino Yukinoshita's translator.

The other party seemed to think that Xuehui was also watching, so every time they saw a cringeworthy or incomprehensible chuunibyou word, they would send a message to Xuehui asking him to explain it, acting like they had found a laborer.

Since the girl was being so earnest, Xuehui couldn't possibly not reply, so he had no choice but to explain one by one. The two of them kept sending messages back and forth until 2 a.m. before they knew it.

The next morning, Yukiteru had to get up early to exercise and prepare breakfast. He was so tired that he told Yukino Yukinoshita before going to sleep. He only saw the goodnight message Yukinoshita sent him when he woke up in the morning. Even with Yukiteru's help, they had only completed two-thirds of the course by the time he fell asleep. It's likely that Yukino Yukinoshita didn't get any rest that night.

"You really have no manners. You should at least take a look." Mr. Hikigaya felt a little indignant upon hearing Yukiteru's reply. Although he also thought the original manuscript of the Zaimokuza was not good at all, it was written seriously by the other party, so he should at least take a look.

"Don't look at me like that. Even if you submit that manuscript, the editor won't even flip through three pages. The opening alone has already doomed the novel to failure. Whether you read the rest or not is really irrelevant. If you really want to help them, you should first teach them how to write a novel."

As Yukiteru said this, Hikigaya also felt that he had gone a little too far. Although he was good at Japanese literature and always wrote articles that made Hiratsuka Shizuki want to vomit blood, it did not mean that his ability to discern was low. He still agreed with what Yukiteru said. The beginning was indeed very bad, and the vocabulary used in it made him, a person who had graduated from chuunibyou, feel uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, he could only offer his own ideas and wasn't very familiar with writing light novels, so Hachiman asked, "From what you're saying, it seems like you've already come up with a method?"

"Thanks to someone, I couldn't go to bed early last night, so I made a light novel outline and some notes on word usage in novels." Yukiteru pulled two sheets of paper out of his bag and gestured to Hachiman.

Last night, seemingly inspired by Yukino Yukinoshita's selfless dedication, Yukiteru also turned on his computer, replying to Yukinoshita's messages while typing out two pages of text, contributing to the club's work.

After school in the afternoon, Hikigaya had to do his cleaning duty. Yuihama was being pulled aside by Miura Yumiko while Yuki was talking to her. Yukiteru had no choice but to pack his things by himself and head to the Service Club first.

She opened the door and saw Yukino Yukinoshita sitting in her seat.

As Xuehui had predicted, the girl had stayed up all night reading her manuscript and was now catching up on sleep in the clubroom.

Looking at the girl's peaceful sleeping face and her little head bobbing up and down, Xuehui didn't disturb her. He quietly moved a chair over and sat down next to her, then took out his sketchbook and pencil and began to draw.

Having previously completed a task to "provide three meals a week," Xuehui directly earned 1500 exchange points. Adhering to the new philosophy of "no pain, no gain," Xuehui used 500 points to exchange for the beginner drawing skill and then began to record things in his life.

To summarize, I have drawn 10 pictures so far, including 5 of Hiratsuka Shizuka, 3 of Yukino Yukinoshita, 1 of Yuigahama Yui, and 1 of a school landscape.

Well, Mr. Hachiman was not shortlisted.

The drawing in my hand right now is the 11th one.

A decision made on a whim may, over time, become a precious memory.

Although it was only a beginner level of drawing skills, Yukiteru's speed was not slow at all, having already drawn 10 pictures. Gradually, Yukino Yukinoshita, who was taking a nap in a chair, came to life on the paper in black and white.

After finishing the drawing, I closed the notebook and put it in my bag. Because the movement of turning around was a little loud, Yukinoshita groggily opened her eyes.

"Hmm~" She stretched lazily as if no one else was around, her body curving into a beautiful arc. Yukinoshita rubbed her eyes, turned her head, and saw Yukiteru smiling at her. She was stunned.

Just now, when I woke up, he was watching me the whole time?

Was he watching me the whole time I was stretching?

Yukiteru rarely saw a different expression on Yukino Yukinoshita's face, and said with a smile, "Good afternoon, Yukinoshita."

"You..." Yukino Yukinoshita instinctively wanted to greet him, but quickly stopped herself, looking coldly at Yukiteru, "You saw everything?"

"Yes, I saw it all," Xuehui answered honestly.

"When did you arrive...?"

"Let me think... about 20 minutes ago," Xuehui said after a moment's thought.

20 minutes ago... wasn't that when I had just fallen asleep?

Yukino Yukinoshita never imagined that her sleeping posture would be exposed to a boy like this? And the other person sat next to her for 20 minutes without her noticing at all.

"Do you have anything else to say now...?" Yukino Yukinoshita took a deep breath, trying to maintain her sanity as it began to crumble.

"Sleeping Beauty's sleeping face and the scene when she wakes up are amazing, thank you for the treat!"

After saying that, Yukiteru gave Yukino Yukinoshita a thumbs up.

"Could it be that Hiratsuka-kun is also in heat? No matter how hard he tries to hide it, he can't hide the fact that he's an ape? I think it's better to call the zoo and have them take you away for this kind of sexual harassment." With that, Yukino Yukinoshita took out her phone.

You're really planning to fight?

Seeing Yukino Yukinoshita unlock her phone to make a call, Yukiteru knew he couldn't play along any longer and immediately said, "Um, sorry, what I said earlier was a bit harsh. I was just really sorry to wake you up since you were sleeping so soundly. I'm sorry, I won't do it again next time."

"You want a next time?"

"No, there won't be a next time." Xuehui shook his head, looking completely defeated.

Yukino Yukinoshita wouldn't actually call the zoo or anything. Seeing Yukiteru lower his head, she breathed a sigh of relief and put away her phone.

Looking at Yukino Yukinoshita, who was sitting there silently with faint dark circles under her eyes, Yukiteru frowned and asked, "Did you read through all the manuscripts last night?"

"I've said it before, I'll do my best to fulfill what I promise," Yukino Yukinoshita said, as if it were a matter of course.

So you stayed up all night?

"It's nothing, just one night," Yukino Yukinoshita replied, feeling a little uncomfortable with the concern in Yukiteru's tone.

"I know you care about the case, but you still shouldn't stay up so late. You're already looking very tired after just one night," Xuehui sighed, offering kind advice.