Comics, daily stories

Nomiyama asked at the opportune moment, "For example?"

Kasumigaoka Utaha looked at him and pondered for a moment: "For example, a farmer knows that the crops are about to ripen. Although the next step is the tiring harvest time, I think no farmer would complain about the harvest because of the hard work. Instead, he would be filled with the joy of the harvest."

Nomiyama raised the question: "If the harvest is poor and the crops are not growing as well as expected, it must be disheartening."

Kasumigaoka Utaha quieted down, frowned, and walked into a coffee shop.

Nomiyama stepped forward, gestured to the staff member who came over, and then pulled on his senior's sleeve to sit opposite her by the floor-to-ceiling window.

He reached out, took the menu, glanced at it, and then heard the reply.

"How could I possibly grow crops that don't grow well?"

A very certain tone.

Nomiyama smiled slightly, but he didn't say anything about how farming mainly depends on the weather, because he really liked what his senior said.

Because I am Kasumigaoka Utaha, I don't know how.

He liked this simple cause-and-effect relationship: ability brings confidence, confidence brings certainty, certainty leads to a lack of reserve.

Nomiyama has seen too many reserved people, even those who have done very well, who remain reserved. They always maintain humility and modesty towards the world. He likes those kinds of people, but he likes another kind of person even more.

I'm just that awesome!

There's an undeniable air of energy about them, making them feel vibrant.

"latté."

Nomiyama briefly explained his needs and then handed the menu to his senior.

Kasumigaoka Utaha took the menu, but instead of opening it, she handed it directly to the staff member waiting nearby: "Cappuccino, spaghetti bolognese."

Nomiyama was somewhat surprised: "Senior, you went out without having lunch?"

Kasumigaoka Utaha glanced at him, then looked down at her phone and said, "I was planning to have lunch with someone."

Nomiyama raised his hand: "Excuse me, another serving of pasta, please."

After finishing this, he said thoughtfully, "I thought you would choose espresso, since you usually drink espresso."

Kasumigaoka Utaha sighed and looked up at him: "When you're not working, what girl doesn't like to be a little sweet?"

Nomiyama thought back on his own family, and it seemed that even Sayuri stopped drinking concentrated liquor after she stopped doing anything.

While waiting for his pasta and coffee to arrive, Nomiyama picked up "The Little Prince" again. He knew the story by heart, but the arrangement of words in some works could bring him a certain pleasure and satisfaction, so he didn't mind reading it again and again.

Kasumigaoka Utaha put her phone aside, then looked at the person opposite her holding a book, somewhat annoyed.

The book is on you, so I can't read it. You're not talking to me, so what do you want me to do? Play on my phone all by myself?

Their eyes met, and seeing that the other person seemed to realize something, Kasumigaoka Utaha didn't give him a chance to start a conversation, but instead took the initiative to bring it up.

"Junior, have you ever thought about what you absolutely must pursue?"

"Must? Then it can only be girls." Nomiyama shamelessly said that his strongest obsession was simply to pursue girls.

Kasumigaoka Utaha wasn't surprised by his answer. She simply propped her chin up and gazed absently at the spring scenery outside the window: "For you, junior, are there many things in this world that are too unchallenging, making it hard to find meaning in the pursuit?"

Nomiyama nodded, then shook his head. He looked at the person opposite him and said, "Actually, I've thought about creating things, but I found that I'm not good at it, so I was forced to give up. I'm better at a simple life and only choose what I'm good at."

“I’m just choosing what I’m good at,” Kasumigaoka Utaha sighed. “But I almost didn’t even do these things well.”

Nomiyama took the coffee from the waiter and stirred it twice: "You have become one of the most promising writers in Japan. Your new book won the Naoki Prize, and you have stepped into the literary field. This is not something you have done poorly. At the age of twenty-four, you are a complete genius, and you also manage to sell well."

After saying this, he quietly glanced at his senior. She seemed to have transformed from a cheerful girl into a melancholy young woman in the blink of an eye. This might be a sensitive trait of some literary creators, which he neither knew nor understood. However, he had become accustomed to and knew that sometimes, when someone wants to speak, the best way to handle it is to listen to them quietly.

“I used to think I couldn’t do it.” Kasumigaoka Utaha turned her gaze away from the outside, glanced at him, and then looked down to add more sugar to her cappuccino.

“My junior realized he was somewhat special from a young age and quickly found what he truly wanted, so his thoughts are definitely different from mine sometimes. For example, there was a problem that my junior would rarely consider or had already considered long ago.”

"What exactly is my life?"

Nomiyama watched as her senior added a lot of sugar to her cappuccino and thought that after drinking too much bitter coffee, she was now retaliating by replenishing her sugar intake. Adding more sugar to the cappuccino would make it very sweet.

Kasumigaoka Utaha picked up her coffee, took a sip, put it down, and stared blankly at the coffee swirling in the cup: "When I was little, I didn't know what I wanted, but I read a lot of books, so I was inevitably curious about the outside world. I heard adults say that Tokyo was very big and the most bustling place in the country. I watched 'Tokyo Love Story' on TV and it made me cry. I read in a book that Tokyo trains were crowded at all times, and that every sunny evening, the twilight would break my heart."

"So when I was in elementary school, one day after school, I looked at the map for a while and realized that the distance between Chiba and Tokyo was Tokyo Bay. If it were land, then I could just walk northwest and keep walking until I got there."

"So I set off, bypassing one building after another, and kept walking northwest until a road sign appeared in front of me. I remembered what it said on the map and knew that as long as I followed that road, I could get to Tokyo."

"It was when I was happily and tirelessly heading towards Tokyo that my parents found me with the police. They didn't blame me; they were just scared and cried in my arms. I realized then that one can't just go wherever one wants, at least not until one grows up and no longer worries the people one cares about."

At this point, Kasumigaoka Utaha laughed: "I was too stupid when I was a kid. If I wanted to go to Tokyo, taking the train was much more convenient than walking."

Looking at her smiling senior, Nomiyama silently thought of many years ago, when a little girl memorized a map at home and simply went out, heading towards Tokyo, the city she longed for, as dusk fell. She probably wasn't afraid at all, nor did she feel the road was long; she just walked briskly, humming a song alone in the twilight, thinking that as long as she followed this road to the end, she could reach that place called "Tokyo."

Kasumigaoka Utaha took the pasta, said thank you, stirred it with a silver fork, and continued, "Tokyo is probably nothing special, just more crowded and bigger. But I've never seen anything like it, so I was always a little disappointed. So when I got older and had what I considered to be the right thing to do, I went to Tokyo very soon."

“It’s really big there, but when I first arrived, it didn’t seem that big. I thought that the pen name ‘Kasumi Shiko’ would soon cover most of the bookstores in Tokyo and I would quickly become famous.”

Nomiyama rolled up a pasta, put it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed it. Then he looked at the person across from him and said, "You did it. In the light novel field, you were the most popular person for those two years."

Kasumigaoka Utaha ate her pasta, chewing slowly. After swallowing, she was silent for a moment before saying, "Mmm."

Then she shook her head: "But it's not as happy as I imagined."

"One reason I didn't know how to write the sequel to 'Love Story' was that I started to realize some things. I realized that being lively isn't necessarily a good thing, and crowded trains only make people feel annoyed. I also didn't encounter a 'Tokyo Love Story' that I would remember. And in every sunny evening, the sunset wasn't so beautiful that it broke my heart. It was the feeling of seeing the sunset through the gaps between the tall buildings after a hard day's work, and realizing that my day had been wasted without any value, that was heartbreaking."

Kasumigaoka Utaha looked up at him: "While my confidence in creating was being undermined by cardio, I also discovered that what I was striving for might not be what I wanted."

As Nomiyama listened to these words, he silently met her gaze, his cheeks puffed out.

Kasumigaoka Utaha watched him chew, his cheeks bulging, and thought it looked a bit like the pufferfish he often caught and brought home. So she couldn't help but smile: "I felt sad back then, and subconsciously wanted to avoid the twilight every afternoon. It seemed that as long as I did that, I wouldn't realize that I had wasted a day."

Nomiyama swallowed his pasta and offered his suggestion: "Would you like some drinks?"

Thinking of getting drunk, Kasumigaoka Utaha nodded in agreement: "Okay, let's go after we finish eating the noodles."

......

"Chiba hasn't changed much. If it's not rush hour, there are always seats on the train," Kasumigaoka Utaha said, looking at the carriage ahead.

Upon hearing about the tram, Nomiyama recalled the discussion they had on the day they first met: "My senior once said that she really enjoyed the feeling of having several carriages all to herself."

Kasumigaoka Utaha recalled, "Yeah, when the late bus arrives at a less crowded stop, this place becomes so empty that if someone is standing in the carriage, you'd wonder if they're a person or a ghost. Otherwise, why would they stand out when there are so many seats?"

Nomiyama leaned back, looking at the lights above the tram: "That sounds interesting. I think you could write it into a short story. You encounter a ghost on the tram, but it's not actually a ghost. It's just some kind of humanoid creature that can't sit, lie down, or rest. It has a bit of a fantasy feel to it."

Kasumigaoka Utaha smiled and said, "Junior seems to really enjoy adding fantasy elements to stories."

Nomiyama pondered, "Maybe it's because I'm curious. For example, I'm curious about what life is like for someone who can't sit, lie down, or rest. Even though such a person doesn't exist, I just want to know. Doesn't Senpai like it?"

"No, I like it very much."

Kasumigaoka Utaha let out a soft sigh: "I used to think that youth romantic comedies needed to be commonplace, but often had surprises. But then I thought, if the story wasn't commonplace at all, wouldn't every day be a surprise? It's like fantasy, it's a word that's unrestrained and anything is possible."

Nomiyama clapped lightly: "Fantasy is a word that is unrestrained and all possibilities are possible. Senior is so cultured."

Kasumigaoka Utaha proudly raised her head, revealing her fair and beautiful neck: "You're the stupid junior who gets rejected as soon as he submits his work."

Nomiyama felt that she was slandering him: "My last literary review was approved."

Kasumigaoka Utaha rolled her eyes at him: "How could I possibly refuse your critique of my book?"

Nomiyama whistled silently and turned his head to the side.

Kasumigaoka Utaha raised the corners of her mouth, tugged at his sleeve, and whispered, "Next time I publish a book or reprint it, secretly slip me a passage and I'll put it in the preface."

Nomiyama's eyes widened, and he whispered in return, "Isn't this a bad idea?"

Kasumigaoka Utaha prepared to withdraw her hand.

Nomiyama grabbed it and swung it up and down, his expression serious: "It's a deal."

Kasumigaoka Utaha looked down at his hand that was holding her tightly and wouldn't let go. So holding hands was this simple?

Nomiyama looked righteous; these weren't a girl's hands, but his dream of publishing literature.

......

“This izakaya is my family’s property. Occasionally, Yu Nai and Xiao Jing would come here to eat and drink on snowy nights. That’s how the manager here found out that I’m the president, since they always need me to pick them up when they’re drunk.”

Kasumigaoka Utaha listened quietly to his explanation, then watched him explain to the store manager and gesture to herself, guessing that he was probably making arrangements, such as so that she wouldn't have to pay in the future.

When he came over to lead the way, Kasumigaoka Utaha asked curiously, "What did you say to the shop manager just now?"

Nomiyama replied quickly: "If I see you come in alone next time, and I don't order you any drinks, just tell me it was my request when you ask."

Kasumigaoka Utaha's eyelids twitched: "What do you mean?"

Nomiyama looked at her earnestly: "You are my literary dream, and I can't let alcohol ruin my thinking."

Kasumigaoka Utaha followed him into the inner private room, feeling a bit of a headache: "I've been practicing for a while now, so removing the effects of alcohol is quite simple if I want to."

Nomiyama took a few steps and stood in front of the liquor cabinet next to the private room. After glancing at it a few times, he turned around and said, "Drinking is never good. It's fine to have a taste once in a while. Hmm, what would you like to drink?"

Kasumigaoka Utaha listened silently as he stood in front of the specially prepared liquor cabinet, picking out bottles while saying that drinking was bad.

She turned around, walked to the sofa, and sat down: "Whatever you usually drink is fine."

Hearing this, Nomiyama took down a bottle of whisky, picked up two glasses, and turned to her: "The Macallan 30 Year Old, matured in sherry casks. Although it's not a rare or special edition, it's widely available on the market. I originally wanted you to try the whisky made by that drunkard Yukino Shinohara, but unfortunately she didn't keep any here, and I don't want to go looking for her now."

Kasumigaoka Utaha glanced at the bottle of sake. If those few drunkards had put it there, it must not have been cheap. However, compared to what he said Yukihane-nee brewed herself, it did seem quite ordinary.

Nomiyama thought for a moment and stopped opening the bottle: "Speaking of which, I brew my own rum. How about I bring a barrel over?"

Kasumigaoka Utaha shook her head: "Never mind, they're all the same. I'm not picky about alcohol."

Upon hearing this, Nomiyama immediately opened the bottle.

Just then, the waitress walked in, carrying a small ice bucket in one hand and a plate in the other.

Nomiyama took the ice bucket, then picked up the dishes of snacks to go with the drinks.

Edamame, sashimi, pickled cucumber.

After the waiter left, he poured drinks and added ice for everyone before stretching out his chopsticks: "Later there will be grilled meat, grilled fish, and yakitori platter. This private room was specially decorated for our own people, mainly because the yakitori here tastes really good, and they love to use it with their drinks."

Kasumigaoka Utaha took the glass, glanced around the obviously oversized room, and noticed that the noise from outside had been almost completely shut out. She shook her head and said, "If we're talking about their favorite snacks to go with drinks, aren't yours the most appealing?"

Nomiyama smiled and said, "Yeah, so I sometimes come here to keep them company, to cook for them in the kitchen. Part of the reason I come here is that Megumi and Yukinoshita don't drink much; they drink at home, um..."

Kasumigaoka Utaha laughed, recalling how several of them had been too afraid to speak at the dinner table once: "Xuewan-nee has never been scolded."

Nomiyama took a sip of his drink and said with disdain, "She runs away whenever something happens, and no one but me can catch her, so of course no one can say anything to her."

Aren't you going to talk about her?

"I can't bear to part with it."

The answer was simple, casual, yet certain.

Kasumigaoka Utaha was taken aback by the answer for a moment, then picked up a sashimi with her chopsticks and put it in her mouth, concealing the strange feeling at that moment: "Junior is quite direct."

Nomiyama picked up a slice of fish and put it in her mouth: "Liking someone means understanding that you can't bear to part with them, plus being afraid that you're not doing enough."

Kasumigaoka Utaha nodded: "Understood."

She looked at the wine glass for a while, then picked it up and took several gulps.

Nomiyama was so surprised that he stopped chewing. Was this how he drank his first time drinking strong liquor?

But he quickly stopped paying attention to it and got up to take the snacks the waitress brought him. After all, his senior had cultivated herself, so sobering up was just a matter of thought.

"Junior, why did you suddenly invite me for drinks?"

Kasumigaoka Utaha looked at his face across from her. The private room was dimly lit, and his expression and eyes were faintly visible under the warm yellow light.

Nomiyama swallowed the crispy yet still tender chicken skin, picked up his wine glass, and said, "I think my senior's previous state was perfect for drinking. Sad things, tragic events, unhappiness, and those distant past stories would all be good accompaniments to the wine."

Kasumigaoka Utaha took another sip of whiskey and picked up a skewer of chicken cartilage: "It really goes well with whiskey."

Nomiyama took two sips of sake, feeling the burning sensation rising: "I also felt that it would be unfair if I didn't say anything after my senior had said so much, but I wasn't in a good mood at the time, so I just came over and drank a few more sips of sake before I spoke."

Kasumigaoka Utaha paused slightly, then smiled faintly: "Yes, junior, you go ahead."

Nomiyama poured himself another glass of wine, only to see the person opposite him gulp it down in two mouthfuls, then hand the glass to him. After Anjing poured her a glass as well, he picked up his own glass and took a sip.

"Didn't you say that I've known since I was little that I'm a bit special, so it's inevitable that my ideas are different from yours? But actually, it's a two-way street. There are some issues that you rarely consider, but that I do think about."

Kasumigaoka Utaha asked curiously, "What's the problem?"

Nomiyama couldn't help but laugh when she thought of that question: "If you're thinking about 'where am I going?' then I'm thinking about 'where did I come from?' You know, I'm a bit special. I've never had a family since I was little, but I didn't know that back then, so I inevitably thought about it a lot. After all, being born without parents is too terrifying."

Kasumigaoka Utaha took a sip of sake, exhaled a warm breath, and, feeling her mind racing, looked at him with interest: "So, what's the answer?"

Nomiyama grabbed a piece of grilled meat and shrugged: "I later realized that this problem is not important to me. It's enough that I exist."