"Kasumigaoka-senpai, please join my club!"
Up on the breezy school rooftop, Aki Tomoya bowed as deeply as his spine allowed, extending a fiercely earnest invitation toward Kasumigaoka Utaha.
"A club?" Kasumigaoka Utaha looked up from the notebook resting on her lap, casting a deadpan gaze at the underclassman standing before her.
"That's right! I intend to establish a circle dedicated to producing a visual novel. Your debut work, *Love Metronome*, has already proven the immense potential you possess. With you on board, our circle is practically guaranteed to be a massive hit!" Tomoya preached with boiling passion, his eyes sparkling with absolute obsession.
"Love Metronome...?" Kasumigaoka Utaha muttered quietly, repeating the deeply familiar title with a distant, tracing cadence.
"Yes, Senpai! Your *Love Metronome* is an absolute masterpiece! I honestly can't wait to read the third volume!"
"What a pity..." Utaha cut his sentence short, yanking her awareness straight back to reality.
*Love Metronome* was already dead. More specifically, it had been axed.
"Huh?! Why... why would that happen?! Hasn't the sales metrics for the second volume been steadily climbing lately? There's absolutely no reason for Shinazugawa Bunko to pull the plug!" Tomoya’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief, a flash of panic instantly painting his features.
"The publisher didn't cancel it. I was the one who decided to throw in the towel," Utaha shook her head slightly, diverting her gaze toward the sprawling school courtyard below.
***
Once, fueled by a surging wave of absolute self-confidence, she had submitted her manuscript to Shinazugawa Bunko. The process had gone smoothly enough to land her a formal publication.
That initial taste of success had caused her ego to soar. She foolishly assumed that carving out an empire in the light novel industry would be an effortless stroll. However, the raw reality of the market instantly delivered a devastating, merciless strike to her pride.
The sales numbers for the second volume completely cratered upon release. The bookstore owners who had stacked their shelves with *Love Metronome* vocally complained about heavy losses, aggressively demanding to return the remaining unsold copies. Her editor at Shinazugawa Bunko had even handed down an early warning that the series would be forcefully terminated if a miracle didn't materialize.
During that dark period, Utaha frequented a different bookstore every single day. She would often spend hours on end just leaning against the corner shelves, desperately praying that a single customer would pick up her book, flip through its pages, and murmur, *'Ah, this author has a remarkably solid prose style.'* Yet, every shred of hope dissolved into painful futility.
Right when she was beginning to drown beneath the weight of despair, she stepped into another bookstore tucked away at the corner of the district.
There, she witnessed a high school guy walking directly toward the register. Completely brushing off the clerk's explanation that the title was currently being recalled from the shelves, the boy adamantly insisted on purchasing a single copy of *Love Metronome*.
The boy clutched the book against himself, his eyes burning with an intense, living spark as he muttered, *'This is it, Love Metronome! I've been hunting for this book everywhere, I finally found it!'*
'So... there really is someone who traveled all this way just to hunt down a book I created.'
A strange, intense surge of emotion flooded Utaha's chest at that exact moment. A failed work officially pronounced dead by the market still had a dedicated reader who treated it like an absolute treasure.
Driven by a mounting wave of curiosity, Utaha gathered her courage, stepped closer, and initiated a conversation with the boy—who introduced himself as Kitahara Akira.
The one thing that caught Utaha completely off guard was that, despite it being their first verbal exchange, Kitahara Akira seemed to profoundly grasp the core essence of her characters. He tossed out structural questions and thematic angles that had never even crossed her mind as the actual author.
The sensation felt exactly like an epic sequence where Joker meets Batman, as though this entire chain of events was an absolute destiny charted out by the world itself.
Believing she had found a literal soulmate capable of peering into her headspace, Kasumigaoka Utaha lowered her guard. She revealed her true identity as the author of *Love Metronome* and took the initiative to exchange personal contact information.
It was through that exchange that Utaha learned the boy attended the exact same school as her, and was actually an underclassman a year her junior.
As a girl possessing a legendary reputation for absolute beauty and flawless physical proportions around the campus, Utaha was entirely used to handling legions of guys trying to win her over. She assumed Kitahara Akira would be no different from the rest of the pack—aggressively shooting her text messages every hour to draw her notice.
However, the reality turned out to be the exact opposite. Utaha ended up staring at a completely empty chat window with knit brows, waiting through the heavy silence until the dead of night.
Recalling how incredibly engaging their discussion at the bookstore had been earlier that afternoon, Utaha finally yielded. Her slender fingers shifted to type a single line into Kitahara Akira's chat bar.
—"Are you free right now?"
The exact heartbeat the send button was pressed, a sudden wave of inexplicable regret hit her chest. 'Dammit... it's already way too late. He's probably asleep.'
She actually considered recalling the message, but it was already too late. The status indicator instantly shifted to read.
—"Sorry, I forgot to save your number. Who is this again?"
The blunt reply coming from the other end caused Utaha's entire body to freeze solid.
The guy had actually wiped her existence from his memory! Absolutely infuriating! Was my appearance at the bookstore earlier today really that unmemorable to his brain?!
Even though her pride was thoroughly stung, Utaha didn't lose sight of her core objective. She re-introduced herself formally and stated her intention to consult him regarding some writing drafts.
The two of them ended up locked in a massive conversation that stretched across several hours. Utaha had to admit, every single angle Kitahara Akira offered provided a brilliant wave of raw stimulation for her manuscript's direction.
The only drawback was Kitahara Akira's agonizingly slow reply tempo. More often than not, Utaha would fire off three to four consecutive conceptual questions, only for the boy to reply minutes later with a single, bare-bones sentence.
It might have just been her imagination, but Utaha couldn't shake the distinct impression that Kitahara Akira was dividing his focus to text someone else at that exact same time.
'At this hour... is he casually texting his girlfriend? Is my late-night consultation actively intruding on their relationship?' the thought caused a sudden, faint tightening inside her chest.
However, Utaha aggressively shook her head, scattering the assumption. 'Ha, as if. That guy radiates a profoundly heavy virgin aura, there's no way he has a lover.'
(The absolute truth of what transpired that night was that Kitahara Akira was indeed heavily occupied exchanging rapid-fire texts with Kato Megumi late into the night, a fact that Megumi's mother had already playfully cross-examined a while back.)
As time slipped down the line, the threads of interaction between them tightened until they officially landed on the status of friends.
Until one pivotal night, Utaha finally gathered the absolute last of her courage to drop her most critical dilemma onto Kitahara Akira—asking whether she should force herself to continue the serialization of *Love Metronome* or terminate it permanently.
Kitahara Akira had gone entirely silent for a long stretch before finally sending a single line that appeared vague, yet carried immense structural weight.
—"If you truly love that creation, then just pour everything you have into it until the very end."
That night, for the first time, Utaha didn't fire back a reply. She chose to lie flat across her mattress, staring blankly up at her bedroom ceiling as she digested the weight behind those words.
"Pour everything you have..."
The lingering doubt clouding her eyes steadily dissolved, replaced by an absolute resolve. The wheel of destiny in her life officially turned toward a brand-new trajectory.
Whether it was a cruel jest from the world, a hidden blessing from the heavens, or an active intervention from the gods—the exact night she locked in that massive decision, Utaha suddenly manifested a mysterious, supernatural humanoid entity, which she promptly christened *Love Metronome*!
***
"Senpai? Kasumigaoka-senpai!" Aki Tomoya waved his palm directly in front of Utaha's face, desperately attempting to shatter her long walk down memory lane.
"Huh? What is it?" Her consciousness was abruptly yanked back to the reality of the school rooftop.
"Why would you choose to axe your own novel anyway? Especially when the sales metrics have been aggressively recovering lately, right?" Tomoya demanded an explanation, a thick layer of frustration painting his voice.
"Because I felt the final execution hadn't achieved absolute perfection, it's as simple as that." Kasumigaoka Utaha leveled a freezing gaze at Tomoya.
Even though *Love Metronome* had suddenly detonated into a massive commercial hit overnight right after she made the call to end it—which was entirely due to the massive promotional review Tomoya had pinned on his personal blog—Utaha harbored zero regrets. Across her entire lifespan, she had never formed a habit of looking back to mourn the choices she had locked in.
"But... but still...!" Tomoya desperately scrambled to construct a fresh line of argument to sway her.
"There are no buts. If your sole purpose for summoning me here was to debate a decision I've already finalized, then excuse me." Utaha pivoted her stance, preparing to make her exit.
"I'm sorry...! Wait, please, Senpai! So... what is your verdict regarding the invitation to join our circle?" Tomoya hurriedly bowed in apology, rapidly shifting the trajectory of the conversation.
"...What is the specific core concept of the game you're trying to build?" Utaha halted her steps for a brief moment, choosing to grant him a microscopic sliver of consideration.
Regardless of her personal feelings, the massive promotional push from Tomoya's blog had gifted her brand a tremendous wave of visibility within the industry. Utaha was the type of person who absolutely loathed carrying a debt of gratitude. If this new circle possessed a concrete, reliable trajectory, assisting them with the scenario script was the fastest route to balance the ledger.
"Well, I plan to utilize Kitahara-san and Kato-san as the primary character blueprints for the narrative, and the prologue sequence will—" Tomoya began mapping out his headspace with frantic enthusiasm.
"Hold on," Kasumigaoka Utaha cut his pitch short, her brows knitting into a tight, sharp line. "This character named Kitahara you're referring to... could he perhaps be Kitahara Akira...?"
Utaha’s eyes narrowed into sharp slits, her expression instantly turning incredibly rigid. The surnames 'Kitahara' and 'Kato' were admittedly common across Japan. However, the exact probability of a guy named Kitahara and a girl named Kato existing within the exact same tight social circle... the statistical variance was far too small to be dismissed as a mere coincidence.
"That's right, Senpai! You actually know him?" Tomoya blinked, thoroughly baffled by her sudden defensive reaction.
Yet, from the drastic shift playing across Kasumigaoka Utaha's features, his veteran otaku instincts instantly flagged a heavy signal that the dynamic between those two was unmistakably far deeper than that of simple acquaintances.
"Since this is supposed to be a game-development circle, you've naturally prepared a polished project proposal, right? Hand it over, I want to review it." Utaha chose to completely ignore his query, demanding a written document with absolute authority.
If Kitahara Akira was actively woven into the fabric of this circle, then there was absolutely zero harm in Utaha dipping her toes into the mix as well. This step would simultaneously serve as the perfect avenue to liquidate her debt to Aki Tomoya.
"Of course I have! Here it is, Senpai!" Witnessing the sudden green light from her rapid shift in posture, Tomoya was ecstatic. He frantically dug into his bag and handed a single sheet of paper over to his senior.
Kasumigaoka Utaha accepted the sheet. Yet the exact moment her eyes grazed the very first line, the veins along her temples violently throbbed.
"You have the absolute audacity to call this garbage a business plan?!" Utaha snapped the paper directly in front of Tomoya's nose.
The document was literally just a few lines of abstract text thrown together haphazardly, possessing absolute zero weight or structural clarity to be taken seriously.
"The elementary school brat living next door to my house can write a far longer and more cohesive essay than this useless scribble you've presented!"
Simultaneous with the final syllable, Utaha crumpled the proposal sheet with a single hand until it formed a tight ball, then violently hurled it dead at Tomoya's feet.
"If this is the absolute maximum level of sincerity you can muster, you're better off heading home to sleep early. Anything is possible within the boundaries of your dreams!"
Utaha internally cursed her own stupidity. How could she have squandered her precious afternoon hours just to listen to Tomoya's abstract delusions, even briefly harboring a high expectation that the otaku before her could deliver something professional.
"Wait, please! Kasumigaoka-senpai! I can still revise the contents! Please just give me another chance!" Tomoya extended both hands into the air, desperately attempting to halt the genius author's retreat.
But the lock had already turned. Kasumigaoka Utaha slammed her shoe heels heavily against the concrete rooftop floor, storming away with footsteps so weighted they seemed intentionally designed to crack the surface under the sheer volume of her wrath.
*BANG!*
The sound of the heavy rooftop door being violently slammed shut echoed through the afternoon quiet.
Tomoya could only stand frozen and entirely alone amidst the biting rooftop wind, staring blankly ahead with one hand still hanging limply in the air.