A Novel Is Born

January 18 was the date when GF Bunko’s releases for the month went on sale. Bookstores across Japan would welcome six new titles to the shelves, including All About My Little Sister Volume 5 and its deluxe edition, drama CD included.

Haruto was in Tokyo’s Akihabara neighborhood, world otaku headquarters, to pick up the new GF Bunko books. The bookstore near his family’s place in Chiba stocked them as well, but he always went to Akihabara to grab GF titles, seeing it as a chance to engage in a little market research. One could, of course, get a decent grasp of industry trends online, and purchase the more well-known doujinshi and self-published games online, but you never knew what kind of treasures you might find among the lesser-known doujin releases, and many light novels and comics came with store-exclusive bonuses available only in the shops that catered to nerds.

Even discounting all that, however, Haruto just liked the town of Akihabara. There were otaku stores in every direction, huge signs advertising games and anime, girls dressed like maids passing out ad flyers for their cafés, and crowds of people—his people—going up and down the street. It was loud and obnoxious, but he found it endlessly soothing, which he imagined probably made him a hardcore otaku.

Itsuki, his partner in crime, didn’t have much interest in store-exclusive bonuses or doujinshi. He hated going to Akihabara at all—there were “too many people”—and he bought a lot of his content digitally. He wasn’t the sort, Haruto thought, to get attached to material possessions.

—Here’s this total f—k obsessed with little sisters who talks and acts like he’s in middle school, and yet he really doesn’t act much like an otaku at all. He said he didn’t care about Comiket; he has a girlfriend; he’s not a virgin…

A slight sense of inferiority crossed Haruto’s mind as he entered an otaku-oriented shop loaded with manga and light novels. An entire floor was devoted to the latter, in fact, and the new-releases section boasted piles of GF Bunko’s latest. Volume 5 of All About My Little Sister was front and center, and between the regular book and the deluxe edition, it was clear this shop took in a lot of inventory. That’s what scoring an anime adaptation would get you, for sure. There was even a handwritten staff-recommendation card placed next to it, reading “The top pick among our little sister-obsessed staff is finally getting an anime!! If you don’t read this, you’ll never catch up on the hottest ‘sister’ light novel of the year!!!!” It even included a little piece of staff-drawn art. Itsuki’s work tended to attract a small cadre of die-hard fans, and at least one of them worked here, it seemed.

Itsuki himself had given Haruto one of his comp copies of the new All About a few days back, so Haruto turned to the other releases. Out of the other five, four were new volumes in ongoing series and one was a brand-new title; the store bought the same number of copies of each one, it looked like. The new release was I Woke Up as the Demon Lord of Another World, so I Just Started a Harem by Ui Aioi, grand-prize winner at the 15th GF Bunko New Writers Contest. As one of the judges on that contest, Haruto already had a sample manuscript from the publisher, but he wanted to purchase a commercial copy anyway—a habit he borrowed from fellow judge and veteran novelist Makina Kaizu.

But when he picked up his copy of I Woke Up as the Demon Lord:

“Ah…!”

He thought he heard a squeal of joy from nearby.

“?”

Puzzled, he turned toward the noise. There he spotted a woman hiding in the shadow of the next shelf over. She had a hat and a pair of glasses on, as well as a rather large mask that covered half her face, and it made her look incredibly suspicious. Also, even with her winter coat, you could tell she had big breasts.

When their eyes met, she opened hers wide.

“Haruto…?!”

He suspected it was her, and he was right. This was Ui Aioi, author of the book Haruto had in hand.

“Um, what are you doing, Ms. Aioi?” Haruto asked as he approached her, straining to keep a straight face.

“This is, um… Uh, I was just wondering if my book was selling, so…” She was blushing all the way to her ears as she replied.

“Ah, I see,” Haruto said with a smile.

“I-I’m sorry… This is so embarrassing. I’m being weird, aren’t I?” Ui hung her head, embarrassed.

“No, not really,” Haruto replied lightly.

“Oh?”

“I don’t think it’s rare at all for authors to stake out bookstores when their new book comes out. I mean, I do it sometimes.”

“You do?”

“Uh-huh.”

Surprise rushed across Ui’s face as Haruto nodded. He was telling the truth. If you ever see someone by the new-releases section of the light novel department, scoping it out for an extended period of time, then nine times out of ten, you can bet it’s an author checking to see how their book’s doing. Books, of course, could sell at wildly varying rates depending on the time period and the bookstore’s clientele. A book that sold no copies one day may sell a ton the next for no discernible reason, so prowling around a single shop for a single day won’t tell you much. But it’s only human for authors to want to go anyway. (So please don’t call the police on them. Thank you.)

“Oh, good… I guess it’s not just me, huh?”

Haruto chuckled at the visibly relieved Ui. “I don’t think a lot of them do it dressed like that, though. Are you in disguise?”

“Y-yeah. I didn’t want people to know I’m an author…”

“…Did you show your face in any online or magazine coverage, Ms. Aioi?”

Haruto doubted it. Some labels published headshots and interviews from their award ceremonies, either online or in print, but he didn’t think GF Bunko did.

“No, I didn’t, but… Ahh.”

Ui groaned. If her face wasn’t in the media, she finally realized, there was no need to go incognito. Haruto laughed a bit as she reluctantly took off her mask and glasses. She was surprisingly attractive with reddened cheeks and teary eyes, and it made his heart beat faster.

“So did any customers bite yet?” he asked to take his mind off it.

Ui’s face clouded. “No… I’ve been watching for about half an hour, but you’re the only one who’s picked it up. I got so excited, I guess I kind of shouted out loud…”

“Oh… Well, it’s a weekday and there’s not too many customers right now. The real test begins in the evening, once people get out of school and work.”

He wasn’t trying to soothe her when he said that. Which was a good thing, because he didn’t.

“…I saw people buying All About My Little Sister and some of the other new releases…”

Haruto gave Ui a vague smile. “Well, you know, it’s a new series. It’s not like a series that already has a fan base. A lot of people are gonna wait for the reviews first.”

“That’s how it works…?”

Ui sighed lightly. Then a customer, a college-aged man scoping out the new releases, picked up a copy of I Woke Up as the Demon Lord.

““!!””

Haruto and Ui looked at each other, then watched the customer. The young man flipped through the book, opening it to the color illustrations. The story’s three heroines, all clothed in a very unladylike manner, were sidled up against the protagonist—pretty sexy stuff. He stared at it for a while. Then, as Ui fervently watched him, his eyes turned over to her. He blushed, hard, and placed the book down, heading away from the light novel floor.

“Ahh… So close…”

“No it wasn’t! That was clearly your fault!”

Haruto couldn’t help but speak up. Staring at a piece of sexy comic art, only to notice a pretty girl staring at you, would make anyone feel awkward enough to run away.

“Look, I know this is important to you, but you should probably be a bit more subtle about your people-watching.”

“Um, all right… I’ll try not to act suspicious,” a blushing Ui replied as she took a book from the shelf and started pretending to read it, eyes still fixed on the new-releases corner.

Haruto browsed the area around her, looking at the shelves. They were stuffed with thousands of paperback light novels—and even this was just a small subsection of what had been published. Over a hundred new volumes came out every month, and even a place with a great selection like this one returned whatever didn’t sell in a flash. Those series would disappear from the bookstore—and then, the market. More light novels were getting sold in larger sizes as well, and if you looked around the Net, you could find all kinds of engaging novels for free. To Haruto, someone wading through this infinite number of titles and selecting yours for purchase was nothing short of a miracle—and actually getting to see that happen in real life was an even greater one.

And that’s why…

Over the next half hour of careful observation, the two of them saw three people pick up a copy of I Woke Up as the Demon Lord and put it back down. But not the fourth person. That one—a man in his early twenties—picked up I Woke Up as the Demon Lord with a few other light novels and took them all to the register.

“Ah, ah, ahh…!”

Ui yelped as she saw it happen, tears in her eyes. Watching the purchase of your book was a miracle indeed. It was a given that anyone lucky enough to see it happen would be moved to tears.

“Congrats,” Haruto said, feeling just as joyful as he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thanks!” Ui was beaming. That smile was nothing like any other expression he saw from her before, more beautiful than her bountiful breasts—and Haruto felt like he’d been shot through the heart.

Once the customer left the floor, Haruto picked up his own copy of I Woke Up as the Demon Lord, along with the other new GF Bunko releases, and exited the store with Ui.

“Thank you for putting up with me, Mr. Fuwa,” she said with a quick bow that embarrassed Haruto a little.

“Nah, you know, I just wanted to see how the grand-prize winner was doing myself. But that was really great, huh? Getting to see someone choose your book.”

Ui gave him a sweet smile. “Yes!”

Haruto’s voice became a bit more serious. “Remember that, okay? Because whenever you feel like your heart is about to break, I’m sure you’ll find some solace in that.”

Ui nodded, face resolute. There was real emotion behind Haruto’s words.

“All right. Thank you. I’ll remember this day for the rest of my life.”

“Yep. Anyway, I better get going…”

Just as he was about to walk off, Ui stopped him, blushing a bit.

“Oh, um, Mr. Fuwa! If you have the time, would you like to get some tea or something…?”

“Sorry, I have plans pretty soon,” Haruto replied, cutting her off. That was the truth. He was attending a party at Itsuki’s apartment later that night to celebrate the new book release and anime announcement.

“Oh…” Ui looked disappointed, but quickly smiled again. “Well, Haruto, thanks again. I look forward to seeing you soon.”

“S-sure. See you.”

And deep in his heart, Haruto was glad he had plans—because if he spent any more time with Ui, he worried he would fall for her.