Exentio here, sorry for the interjection. Due to *sigh* limitations from Tapas, the story is split into parts. It's annoying, I only have 15,000 characters. You can read it in one piece on Yozakura by clicking on the banner, on the image at the end, or by writing this URL: https://yozakura.me/projects/exentio/dreamer/blooming-city-lights

Back to the story.

I place the manuscript back on the desk. This is a lot to take in. The author is staring at me, waiting for my words, but I don’t know where to begin.
“Hey, hey, so? So??? How was it? Was it good???”
I take a deep breath and open my eyes. “So, Jaku-“
“Takao Shinkomi.”
“… I’m not calling you by your pen name. Jaku, I have two questions.”
His smile is so huge it’s almost threatening. “Tell me, tell me!”
He doesn’t know that I’m about to crush it. “So, first of all. Did you actually graduate high school?”
“W-what do you mean with that?”
I take back the manuscript. “It wasn’t this bad with the other volumes. I get that grammar doesn’t have to be impeccable, that’s what editors like me are for, but,” I point at the manuscript, “my 14 years old siblings don’t write this badly. You alone are the reason why I had to go to the stationer’s and ask the poor man to sell me the whole pen cardboard display when I ran out of red pens. Which wasn’t particularly big and more than half the pens were sold, but it’s weird that I had to. My cat loves his new bed, by the way.”
He didn’t like the reply. “Aw, come on! You’re clearly exaggerating!”
So I quickly swipe all the pages to show him the red-on-white ink with some black left here and there, then took my phone and scrolled the gallery until I found the photo of Kai inside the display thing.
“What a cute cat! What’s written on there? Inker’s… oh shit, you weren’t lying.”
I am: there were only three or four pens and the man had to get rid of the display. But he doesn’t need to know. “You’re gonna take some italian grammar lessons, if you need to pay for them you can file them as business expenses. Anyway, this isn’t even the biggest problem.”
He gulps loudly. That was probably on purpose hoping that I’d go easy on him. Oh, how wrong he is. “So, this is your fourth series, and the first one you publish with a publishing company, am I right?”
He nods. “Right.”
I look him right in the eyes. “I read all of them. I can’t get the message across without being brutally honest with you, “ - I take another deep breath. This is hard for me too. “You won’t get away with simply writing the same exact story for the fourth time by changing the setting a bit, not at this company. Start again from scratch if you need to, but this can’t be published. Find a way to make it work with the two previous volumes, or your contract will have to be terminated.”
He’s speechless, but I expected no less. His eyes got all teary too, I’m sure he’s about to cry.
I look at my phone, it’s ten past 17. “This is what editor Rori had to say. It’s past work time, so he’s gonna clock out” - I say as I take the badge from my neck and put it on the desk.
I walk in his direction and start massaging his shoulders from the back. “Alright, you’re with the reader Rori now. That was bad, wasn’t it?”
He starts weeping. “Yeah, it hurts because I know that it’s true!”
“You have a good creative vision, Jaku. The first two volumes were good, the setting was really worth the read. You’re afraid, so you take the safe route. But you’re worth more than cheap boy-meets-girl romance with confessions lit by fireworks.”
He takes a tissue and dries his tears. “That’s all I can do, though.”
I give him a chop on the head. “Ow!”
I walk back to my chair so we can talk face-to-face. “I know that’s not true, and you do too. What are you afraid of?”
He looks down. “Writing is the only job I really want to do. I’m afraid that people won’t like it if I write something different than what they’re used to.”
“But this series has given you lots of new fans too, right? Who cares if the old ones leave because they want you to write generic romance.”
He laughs a bit. “Isn’t this bad business advice? Although I really appreciate it.”
I shake my head, “not here at Kotodama. We care about quality above everything else. I know you want to put in the effort, you took longer to write this one. Tell me the truth: this isn’t what you wrote originally, right?”
He sighs and nods. “That’s true. Should I email it to you?”
“Hell yes. Go back home NOW, and send it. Editor Rori will read it. Don’t waste his time again with anything like that.”
“Yes sir!” - and with that he rushes out. Later, I heard from the receptionist that he almost tumbled down the stairs.

“Kai, I’m home.”
“Meowwwrp~”

I’m so tiiired. It’s so hard to do my job when I have to say things like this. Sure, it’s true that I do it so that people can publish their best stories, but still, I don’t like being the bad guy.
I throw myself on the sofa and glance at the phone. There’s a new message: it’s Inami asking if I got back home.

“Mind if I call you?”
“I was about to ask myself.”

After what happened to the lavender field, we started talking more often, almost every day after work, and always at some point of the day. I need to hear her soft and reassuring voice so I can get rid of this slimy feeling. Even if I don’t tell her what happens to me, just speaking to her puts me at ease, I don’t need anything else; and yet, every time without fail, she always understands when something is wrong. I just can’t escape her.
“Everything okay at work today?”
“Yeah, not really. I had to do my job and have a serious talk with an author. This is the worst part of the job, honestly.”
“Did you make it clear that you care about them?”
“Mhh, I think I did. I pointed him in the right direction, and I think I managed to cheer him up, if everything goes well I should be able to finally get the best out of him. But I still feel bad for what I told him, I wondered if I should’ve said some things differently, or if I was too harsh. Nah, I’m sure I was too harsh. Ahh…”
Her voice gets softer and sweeter. “You’re such a kind man. I’m sure you got across properly, have some faith in yourself.”
I wonder what faces she makes when we talk over the phone, if she smiles like I do.
We chatted a bit about the rest of our day, what we were about to eat, what I would do after that and how many reservations she’s got for dinner, and I slowly started feeling better. She makes the simplest moments feel so warm.
I still haven’t answered her feelings. Just like I wonder if I was too hard on Jaku, I wonder if I would say bad things I don’t mean to her if we were to have an argument. And while I would eventually accept that someone like Jaku can’t stand me, I could never accept being hated by Inami.

After the call was over I made dinner, I even spoiled myself with oven fries and breaded cutlet. But instead of playing games like I told her, I decided to go for a walk to the convenience store to grab some snacks. I want to spoil myself more, despite being fully aware that it’s not the best kind of coping mechanism: I’m feeling bad again, but this time it isn’t about Jaku. It’s the happiness Inami brings me still lingering and making my heart flutter, compared to the way I’m being unfair to her, maybe even mean, by not telling her how I feel. The truth is that I know very well how I feel, I know that what I feel for her is true love and that I can’t just let her go.
I grab some chips and five bars of dark chocolate at the store, swearing to myself that I’m going to make them last no less than a month. I’m starting to notice that I lie a lot.
During the walk, already halfway through the peanut butter snack I also got, I find myself before the stairway of Colle Zefiro, where Ventus’ shrine is. I’ve met him before, here at the shrine. He’s a fan of some of the series we publish, we talked a lot about them since it was just the two of us. I want to talk to him again, but I can see from down here that the lights are out, so I guess he’s not there today. Well, Ventus Day is close and he always comes to visit on that day, maybe I’ll try to talk to him then.

I check the phone: 22:18, it’s already been about an hour. I already went across the main street, so I’ll walk along the river. The truth is that it’s closer anyway since I basically walked around a circle, but I’m trying to convince myself that I did a long walk so I can justify eating a whole bar of chocolate as soon as I get back home.
I lean on the railing and let out a loud sigh. I wish I had more confidence. I was so lost in thought that I had to look at the reflection in the water to notice the full moon hovering over my head. I stuff my mouth with the last piece of the snack and walk home, which is exactly right above the riverbank. Realizing it made me wonder if I really deserve the whole bar. I’ll only eat half of it.
After walking through the door I throw myself again on the sofa, but this time I also opened the window to the balcony so I could keep looking at the moon. “Kai, come here you fluffball.”
He’s the only other being who can make me feel better when I feel bad, his purring is like a massage for my soul. “Alright, I’ll only eat the top row. I don’t wanna get fat.”
I keep looking up at the moon until I notice an unknown silhouette moving on the railing of the balcony. I take Kai off me and go look. The sight I find before me is that of a fluffy red fox sitting on the railing, scratching his head and looking in my direction. “How the hell did you even get there, this is the second floor!”
The fox hops in my direction, morphing into a man before my eyes. “I took a very high jump!”
I’ve already seen that green, fur-lined parka before, those blue eyes too, and even those ears that don’t look exactly like the wolf ears on my head. “Ventus?!”

He strokes my hair, “excuse me for the intrusion, I had just left the shrine when I saw you passing by! We could’ve talked at the river, but I’d rather avoid letting other people see me around. You can never be too careful when you’re in my position.”
I let him get inside and prepare some tea to show some hospitality. I don’t know if I should be happy or feel creeped out because he followed me in secret, but I’ll go with the first since I wanted to meet him anyway.
“So, Rori… why the depressed look on your face?”
Well, I wanted to ask him for advice anyway. I can trust him with this. “Have you ever felt insecure about yourself, about important things?”
“Mhh? Yeah, more often than not.”
I feel my brow raise instinctively. “That is not the answer I was expecting.”
He does the same exact thing. “What, did you expect us divinities to live without a worry in the world? We’re quite literally humans just like you all. Well, I’m a fox, but you get the point. I just happen to be a representative of this country I founded with the others.”
Yeah, and also many centuries old, with some supernatural powers sprinkled on top. I hand him his cup. “What makes you so insecure then?”
He sighs, “so many things. Well, honestly I’ve been doing quite good in the last few years, I finally came to terms with everything, so I don’t feel as troubled anymore. But I always worried about whether I’m worthy of this chance I got to be a divinity, or deserve Pluvia- ahem, Shigure’s love, or the love of the people, really. It took time, but I finally realized that insecurities and overthinking take all the joy away and distract you from what matters the most.”
He doesn’t sound that different from me. “Hmm. Then have you ever worried about hurting Shigure?”
He sips his tea before replying. “Hurting each other is inevitable, Rori. Sometimes you say the wrong words at the wrong time, or don’t notice things that others want you to notice. You think you’ll hurt them, but they’ll hurt you too: however, you’re thinking of that pain as broken bones when it can just be a paper cut. What matters the most,” he says with a big smile on his face, “is what we do afterward. Love hurts, and love heals. We need both to keep growing and keep loving.”
I never thought of him as a particularly wise man, he looks like he’s in his mid-twenties, around my age, so despite knowing that he’s older than this country, I still couldn’t see him as someone actually more mature than me. But I couldn’t be more wrong: he’s the right person at the right time. “Ahh… don’t you hate when the right answer is the simplest one?”
He giggles, “that’s infuriating, right?! But it’s the simplest things that we give for granted, and love is one of them.”
I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. “Well, thank you, Ventus. We’re so lucky to have people like you watching over us.”
He blushes a bit, “all the love I keep getting from my people made me stronger: as I said, love heals. I kept saying for years that I don’t need any celebrations for my birthday, and yet Ventus Day gets better every year. I owe you all so much, so this is the least I could do.”
Ventus Day is in less than two weeks, now that I think about it. “It goes both ways, we’re really grateful too!”
He finishes his tea before stretching his arms, “nghhh… ah! Alright, I need to go back to the village. Thanks for the tea, and good luck, Rori! Let’s meet again to talk on a more positive note!”
I smile at him, “of course, goodbye Ventus!”
And there he goes to the balcony, morphing into a fox and jumping into the darkness. As for me, my heart isn’t wavering anymore, and I’m already thinking of the best way to give my answer to Inami.

“You up?”
“Yup, I went back home not too long ago. What’s up?”
“Are you free on Ventus Day?”
“Oh, I wanted to ask you the same thing. Noemi is gonna come over on wednesday for sister complex reasons, I could come to the city with her the day after and meet with you for the festival.”
I laugh behind the screen. “That’s so like her! That’s a good idea, I’ll drive you home afterward.”
“That’s a date then.”
That’s a date then. A simple message like that is enough to make my heart skip a beat. I’m not any different from a 14 years old girl in a shoujo manga.

Licensed under Yozakura BY-NC-SA-NoAI 1.0