The Start of the New Year

The morning of January 1 saw Itsuki Hashima in his apartment, enjoying some classically Japanese osechi cuisine to ring in the new year. It was prepared by his stepbrother Chihiro, who had added some extra shrimp dishes to suit his tastes—in addition to the traditional simmered and grilled shrimp, Chihiro threw in some fried shrimp and ebichiri, shrimp steeped in chili sauce.

It was all excellent, and Itsuki ate it briskly, but as he did, a pang of guilt struck him. Every year, Chihiro suggested that he come back to their family home to celebrate New Year’s Eve and the following day together, and once again, he had turned down the offer.

Compared with when his father Keisuke first married Chihiro’s mother, Itsuki’s feelings toward his dad had softened considerably—he almost never got angry with him at all now. Still, though, he knew full well how awkward it would get if they were in the same room. Itsuki knew he couldn’t keep his family at arm’s length forever—he had someone in his life he genuinely intended to marry someday, for one—but he just couldn’t drive himself to take that first step forward. He kept thinking I gotta get it together, I gotta get it together, but it never quite turned out that way.

I guess this means I’m still a kid, doesn’t it?

Shaking off the masochistic thought, he continued working through the osechi dishes. Chihiro had made them for him, after all. He needed to banish the negative thoughts and enjoy this feast from the heart.

Nayuta Kani came to Itsuki’s place at around ten in the morning. She was a popular author working for the same label as Itsuki, and she was now officially his lover as of about a month ago.

“Happy New Year, Itsuki,” she said with a bashful bow.

“Oh, ohhh…uh…,” Itsuki replied, too dazed to craft an intelligible response.

Nayuta was dressed in a kimono, a pink one with a flower motif. It certainly made her stand out. Between her silver hair and blue eyes, she was far from traditionally Japanese in looks, but the kimono was shockingly perfect on her. Itsuki was smitten with the syrupy sweet sight of his lover; he could hardly even speak.

“H-happy New Year to you, too,” he finally managed to blurt out. “Um, here’s hoping it’s a good one.”

Nayuta smiled. “Nya-ha-ha… What do you think of the kimono?”

“…It’s cute,” he said, relaying exactly what he thought. It made Nayuta blush.

“…It’s embarrassing when you say it like that. My whole body’s heating up. I want to strip this off right now!”

“Don’t, you idiot,” Itsuki jabbed back. “Ready to go?”

He was dressed in a jacket and slacks today, a fair bit neater than his usual attire. He wore a coat over this as he left the apartment with her.

The two of them were headed for a shrine practically right in front of Gift Publishing, just a few minutes’ walk from Itsuki’s building. This area was primarily a business district, where many of the residents were out celebrating the holiday at their family homes, and there were larger, more famous shrines nearby, so not that many people were picking this place for their ceremonial first shrine visit of the year. Still, there was a line of visitors that extended from the shrine itself to the edge of the street. The couple meekly took their place at the end of it.

“It’s kind of a pity there’s no stalls selling takoyaki or candied apples around here.”

“If we went to a shrine big enough to have food stalls,” Itsuki replied, “it’d be a hundred percent packed to the gills. Better to just head someplace local and more chill, right?”

“True. But I’d like to go on a date where we got to walk around and try out stuff from a bunch of different stalls.”

Seeing Nayuta act so meek made Itsuki blush a bit.

“W-well, we could always do that at the summer festival.”

“Right. And I hope you’ll have a yukata on then, Itsuki.”

“S-sure…………… I’ll think about it.”

Itsuki imagined the two of them enjoying a summer festival in a pair of matching yukata, watching the evening fireworks, and his lips curled into a small smile.

“In that case,” Nayuta whispered to him, “why don’t we wrap up this shrine visit and enjoy our first lay of the New Year?”

“No!”

Now Itsuki’s face was completely red, while Nayuta was giving him a sullen glare.

“Huhhh? I was looking forward to playing around with this kimono a bit, too… It was hard getting this on, you know. I mean, I had my mom help, but…”

“…Then how’re we gonna get it back on if you take it off? At least keep it on until you get back home today.”

“I don’t wanna wait until I get home. This is hard to move around in…but if you praise my kimono some more, I’ll put up with it.”

“That kimono looks absolutely great on you. It’s so cute,” Itsuki quickly deadpanned, although he was still blushing.

“Can you put some more emotion into your praise, please? It feels good to hear either way, though. Hee-hee-hee…”

She laughed her sweet laugh as they stood in line. Before much longer, it would be their turn to enter the shrine. Removing his coat, Itsuki and Nayuta came up to the altar and bowed lightly, while Itsuki tossed a five-yen coin into the offering box. This tradition of his was based on a Japanese pun between the words for “five yen” and “[good] relationships”—not just romantic relationships, but everyone he knew at work and elsewhere as well. He didn’t need any more love help at the moment, but when it came to work contacts, the more the merrier.

Looking to his side, he saw Nayuta with a five-hundred-yen coin in her hand.

“Kanikou, a five-hundred-yen offering isn’t a good idea.”

“Why is that?” Nayuta replied, raising her eyebrows.

“That’s the most valuable coin in Japanese currency, so it suggests that you won’t see anything more valuable than that in the next year.”

Thanks to the research he did for a novel a while back, Itsuki knew assorted trivia related to shrine manners. He wasn’t a particularly religious man, but no harm in being a little superstitious with things like these.

“Oh, I see…”

Nayuta gave him a convinced nod, then tossed the five-hundred-yen coin into the box.

“You ‘see,’ but you did it anyway?!”

She smiled back. “Well, my happiness is already maxed out. This is my way of saying thanks to the gods for giving me more than I could ever hope for.”

“Um, yeah…”

So cute. My girlfriend is way too cute!

Itsuki’s heart couldn’t help but skip a beat at Nayuta’s words. If people weren’t watching them, he’d embrace her right this minute. But instead, he grabbed the rope and rang the shrine’s suzu bell, calming himself down a little as he passed the rope over to Nayuta. She gave it a more spirited yank, ringing it loudly.

“Um, what comes next?” she asked him softly.

“We bow twice, clap twice, put our hands together to pray, then bow one more time.”

Itsuki did just this, bowing deeply giving the shrine two loud claps. Then he closed his eyes and, instead of making a wish to the gods, made a promise to them. This dream wasn’t the sort of thing someone could make happen for him. Unless he achieved it himself, it would be meaningless.

…I’ve got to become the ideal protagonist for Nayuta Kani.

…And I’ve got to make her happy.

His resolve strengthened by the vow, he opened his eyes and bowed.

Looking at Nayuta, he found her still fervently praying with her eyes closed. It took twenty or so seconds for her to finish before they left the altar.

“…You were really into it back there,” Itsuki casually mentioned. “What did you wish for?”

Nayuta glanced aside, looking a little bashful.

“Weh-heh-heh… You really wanna know?”

“…Well, yeah, I’m curious, so…”

Nayuta brought her lips up to his ear. “…I wished that I could build a happy family with you, Itsuki.”

“That’s going kind of fast!”

Itsuki instantly went red in the face.

That night, Itsuki was at his computer writing.

The pace of his work wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good, either. As suggested by his earlier vow, he was highly motivated toward his work. It might be the first time he ever worked on New Year’s Day as a professional writer. But for whatever reason, no matter what he did, he couldn’t give his manuscript complete focus.

It’s finally happening this month…

His fingers stopped as he thought.

Volume 5 of All About My Little Sister, the latest in the series, was going on sale January 18, as both a regular edition and as one with a bonus drama CD—and along with that launch, the anime adaptation would finally be announced. The official website would go up on that day, as well as the first trailer, a short story written by Itsuki to celebrate the anime, a new piece of art from series illustrator Hoshiimo, and a new comic chapter from Kaiko Mikuniyama, the artist behind the manga adaptation. The light novel, anime, and manga sides were all coming together to give All About My Little Sister’s anime version a grand welcome.

Itsuki had finished and submitted the Volume 5 text a while back, but he had no doubts that the anime staff, Hoshiimo, and Kaiko were all working hard to make their own deadlines. For a writer, this was a huge moment, something you may never even get to experience your whole career, and the big anime announcement was the clarion call to launch everything else.

What would the readers think? For that matter, what about nonreaders? Other writers? Industry people? His family? His relatives? Would his older acquaintances notice? This anime was just another checkpoint on the way to his dreams, but as the announcement date drew near, he couldn’t help feeling nervous. To a writer like him, the big launch was just as major an event as episode 1 getting shown on TV.

“Whew…”

Itsuki let out a light sigh, minimized the word processor window, and opened up a Twitter tab, figuring he’d do a quick search of his own franchise to distract himself. He typed “All About My Little Sister” into the search bar, figuring there wouldn’t be much new to read until the next volume came out. But despite not expecting much, Itsuki was immediately greeted with:

“Itsuki Hashima’s All About My Little Sister anime confirmed!” “Itsuki Hashima’s All About My Little Sister anime confirmed!” “Itsuki Hashima’s All About My Little Sister anime confirmed!” “Itsuki Hashima’s All About My Little Sister anime confirmed!” “Itsuki Hashima’s All About My Little Sister anime confirmed!” “Itsuki Hashima’s All About My Little Sister anime confirmed!” “Itsuki Hashima’s All About My Little Sister anime confirmed!” “Itsuki Hashima’s All About My Little Sister anime confirmed!”

Nearly all of the many tweets in the results had the same text: “Itsuki Hashima’s All About My Little Sister anime confirmed!”

“Wh…wha…?”

Itsuki’s eyes shot open. He sat there lost for a moment, words failing him. Then:

“What the hell happened?!!”

Forgetting it was the middle of the night, he screamed with all his might.