The silent apartment seemed to breathe along with her, as if the air carried the same gentle tension that coursed through her shoulders. The light filtering through the curtains was dim, almost lazy, and fell directly on the messy bed where Akame sat, legs crossed, the first volume of the literary magazine open in her hands.
She had shifted position so many times that the mattress bore an uneven pattern, but now, leaning against the headboard, something had finally captivated her: the first pages of 'Ao Haru Ride'.
"Interesting," he said, tilting the book a little closer to his face.
Although I had only read a few hundred words of the plot, the writing style of this "Ao Haru Ride" seemed noticeably different from most of the popular romances I was used to.
It wasn't a glaring difference, but it was there, subtle, persistent, like a sustained melancholic note in the background of a song.
The thing is, while shoujo romances focus on the inner world of the female protagonist, they generally don't delve into as much detail or use descriptions as frequently as in this book.
If not well-crafted, readers might find the work verbose and the plot redundant.
Ao Haru Ride, however, did the opposite: it delved deep into Futaba's fragile and contradictory inner world. And it did so fearlessly.
The paragraphs were populated by intimate thoughts: fears, regrets, subtle memories, and those little embarrassments that remain ingrained in the memory of adolescence. The writing was light, never convoluted, but emotionally precise.
This could easily have become excessive, she thought. It could have become slow and boring. It could have seemed like rambling.
But it didn't.
Even a simple sentence like "At seven o'clock in the evening, I waited all night at the agreed-upon place, but he didn't show up" left Akame a little uneasy.
"It's so easy to make this kind of writing boring… and yet, it's not here."
She turned the page, her thumb brushing the thick paper of the magazine.
A carelessly uttered phrase to a bored boy in her class, "I hate all boys!", protected her, but also hurt the person she liked. The weight of that phrase, in that context, hit her like a mirror: Futaba had been cruel, yes, but she was also defending herself, reacting to an environment that didn't understand her.
She planned to apologize to Kou in class the next day, but the real reason Kou had arranged to meet her at 7 pm that night was to say goodbye to Futaba before transferring to another school.
In the story, Kou didn't show up that night, so there was no chance to apologize.
Akame continued reading and took a deep breath. The silence in the room seemed to thicken.
A vague memory? The feeling of being left behind? Or just sincere empathy for the girl from that phrase?
She couldn't say. She only knew it hurt.
"It's only the first chapter and I'm already like this…"
She turned a few more pages, moving on to the transition between teenage Futaba and high school Futaba. A change of perspective that, curiously, didn't leave a feeling of rupture: it was as if we were following the same wounded soul trying to survive new scenarios.
["I really like him. Even now, he's still part of my heart! I want to go back to that time."]
High school Futaba had learned the hard way that her sweet and delicate appearance attracted trouble. And that girls like that, in this cruel world, were easily isolated and stoned by other girls.
Which led her to hide her true nature in high school, acting deliberately loud, speaking loudly and eating with gusto. As long as she wasn't liked by the boys, she would be liked by the girls in her class.
"This is so… real," Akame whispered, almost in a sigh.
Her classmates were the same; The women were beautiful and lively, always dazzlingly dressed and beloved by their male colleagues. Behind their backs, they were often the target of gossip and mockery from other women.
And no matter how hard they tried, the gaze was always sharp, always suspicious. There was a kind of silent war being waged only among women, and no one openly admitted it, but everyone knew it was there.
Futaba, therefore, was not a caricature. She was painfully human.
She continued reading, now with her elbows resting on her knees and the magazine held between her hands. Her pupils followed each line as if the story were a silken thread pulled into her chest.
Then came the part about the reunion.
A chance encounter with Kou, her elementary school crush, in high school; the feeling of butterflies in her stomach when they cross paths; a reunion with Kou in the place where they used to shelter from the rain; a reunion under the sunset after three years.
Akame's heart raced.
In truth, the plot isn't complicated; in fact, upon closer inspection, it seems quite commonplace.
But that's the appeal of romance stories for young women. There aren't many epic and sweeping romances in the world. Most people's love is ordinary and sincere. The greatest appeal of this type of story lies in the character development.
And there was something magical about that scene, despite its simplicity. The kind of coincidence that only seems real when it happens to you or when it's written honestly.
The long internal monologues in the text didn't bother her as they usually did when reading similar novels, making her feel like the book was just filler. On the contrary, they made her even more involved with the story.
Then came the trip to the old rain shelter, the place where everything began and ended. The scene described with the setting sun, the warm nuances illuminating two silhouettes that were no longer the same.
And Akame, now completely submerged, thought:
"It's now. It's now that the apology that's been stuck for three years will happen. It's now that they'll start over."
"After three years, we'll finally give each other that long-awaited hug!"
Kou saw that the girl in front of him finally recognized him, and a gentle smile appeared on her face, as before.
His smile. That same gentleness as before. And her nervous, typical refusal, trying not to expose herself.
"I don't want to, I don't want a hug! How can you talk like that?"
"It's true. After all, you've always hated men." Kou said in a calm, indifferent tone, smiling slightly.
The sentence landed like a punch to the gut.
Akame felt her throat tighten.
He remembered. He remembered perfectly. Even three years later.
How could she be so calm? How could she be so indifferent? You still remembered that Futaba hated boys, even after three whole years.
The reading continued.
"Yeah, I've always hated boys. But you're an exception." Futaba paused, looked at Kou, and said frankly,
"Yeah, me too. I liked you."
It was quick, it was direct, it was surprising, and yet, profoundly natural. None of the drawn-out, endless "do they/don't they" of other novels.
Akame's eyes became serious as she read.
"Although... but... this plot unfolds so quickly, but this romance is so interesting."
"The protagonists declare their love for each other in the very first chapter? What kind of journey is that? The author's pseudonym is "Mizuki Ito," right? Author, you really know what we, the readers, want to read."
What's the point of those books that drag on for months without the protagonists even signing autographs?
But the plot takes a sharp turn immediately.
Kou sets the tone for their relationship.
"It's over, there's no going back. Everything has changed, now it's just a memory."
The boy finished speaking and left without looking back.
["Just as I've changed, the Kou of that time has also disappeared without a trace, and we can never go back to that time."]
The first chapter of the novel ends with Futaba watching Kou's figure walk away, her inner monologue echoing.
When she finally finished the chapter, she realized she had read almost twenty thousand characters effortlessly. Time had slipped away without her noticing.
She slowly closed the magazine, staring at the cover for a few seconds as if she wasn't quite ready to return to her room.
"How did this novel manage to grab me like this…?"
Nothing in the plot was particularly revolutionary. There were no major plot twists, no absurd dramatic devices. It was just… truth.
Emotional truth. And characters so well-developed they seemed to breathe.
Akame let her body fall back, sinking into the bed. She left the magazine beside her, face down. She felt a certain pleasant melancholy, that sweet emptiness that always appears when we find a story that touches us more than we expected.
She had bought two magazines that morning: Red Violet and Momentary Blossoms, but now, honestly, she didn't want to read anything else.
Her heart was stuck there, at the end of the chapter of 'Ao Haru Ride'.
She wanted the continuation right now.
She wanted to know what would happen between Futaba and Kou. She wanted to understand why Kou was so closed off, so cold, and why he had suddenly disappeared. She wanted to know if Futaba would be able to grow, mature, stop hating herself inside.
But she would have to wait.
"I have to wait until Sunday! Ugh." Akame threw herself onto the bed.
She stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. Suddenly, a flash of memory crossed her mind: the promotional poster for 'Ao Haru Ride' that she had kept inside the book.
She sat up quickly and pulled out the small promotional leaflet folded between the pages of the magazine. It was simple promotional art, but now it seems to have come to life.
It depicted a scene of a boy and a girl gazing at each other, the two at sunset. Futaba was beautiful and delicate, Kou was handsome and charming, but his eyes held an indescribable emotion.
Akame sighed.
After finishing the novel, looking at the poster again, Akame realized.
"It's very well drawn. It's Kou and Futaba!"
Unlike her previous indifference, she now quite liked the poster, as if she could finally see what the illustrator had envisioned.
She flipped the leaflet over in her hands and, on impulse, dove back into the chapter's pages. She reread some striking phrases and paragraphs; the passages seemed to gain new layers now that she knew the ending.
And then, almost without thinking, she picked up her phone.
She typed "Red Violet Official Website – Voting" into her browser. She clicked the first link and followed the instructions; a pop-up window finally appeared on her phone.
The feeling was almost childlike, like a teenage fan voting for her favorite novel.
After entering the unique serial number for each issue of the official magazine, another pop-up window appeared.
[Confirm vote for "Ao Haru Ride"? Note: Each magazine has a unique serial number, and after verification, you can only vote for one novel.]
She smiled. And pressed Confirm without hesitation.
The next screen opened the rating system.
Five stars. Ratings from 1 to 10.
She clicked directly on 10 without thinking twice.
"Done."
And in that instant something changed. Something as small as a drop of water, but which could start an entire ripple.
Akame had officially become the first true fan of 'Ao Haru Ride'.
End of chapter 16