“You were not joking when you said that they won’t get any closer for a while huh?”

“Sorry, I have been busy lately and could not complete the chapter of last week”

Josh stopped writing and then Keita asked

“Is everything ok?”

“Yea. It just feels like I have lived this before”

“Are you writing about your life?”

“No, not really, its just that the idea of the story just came but somehow it feels like is getting mixed with my memories”

Keita didn’t ask Josh about his memories because is way too early for him to reveal the truth to Josh

“Did the client said something about the delay?”

“Not at all, we use a lot of fillers on our Anime so is not like we are not used to delays, the only bad thing about delays is that it can turn into a good thing or a bad thing”

“You may lose readers and your popularity will drop right?”

“I could not have said it better but if your story is interesting people will be happy to read your work again”

Josh knew about how the process of making novels worked because he used to be an amateur writer in the past but he was never recognized

The client then arrived and Keita had to leave Josh

“The client is here, when do you think you will have the chapter done this week?”

“By the end of the day”

“Cool”

Keita left and Josh continued with the story

Megumi started dating Chris after a couple of weeks, she got a job at 7 at the end of the Detective Hill, Chris was always there for her at the end of her shift. Chris was always carrying light novels and Megumi noticed that he liked to read them a lot but she never tried reading them. Reading books always reminded her of her school days.

Megumi stopped going to University since she escaped from home, University life was not something that she missed, she was way too busy to worry about it. There were times when Chris didn’t pick her up because he was too busy with University activities, those days she had to walk alone to home. She could hear when Chris came back to his apartment, sometime he brought friends and she remembered those days with Ayase and how she ended up here, next to Chris.

She had mixed feelings about meeting with other people, Chris was not the person who would push you to do stuff you don’t like, it was nice from him to be able to read that feeling in Megumi so one day he came with the idea.

“Want to go out this weekend?”

“Sure, where do you want to go?”

“I want to take you to the most beautiful place, we will go to Hokkaido”

It was that time on the year, just before the snow started to fall, they went to Hakodate at night. The place was crowded but Megumi and Chris were on their own world, it was the first time in ages that Megumi had a smile on her face, well, she usually smiles at work but is part of her Job as customer service. Chris was hugging Megumi from the back, the weather was really cold but the warm of Chris arm was making Megumi feel comfortable. I’m going to be honest, they looked pretty well together, but they never moved forward on their relationship, neither Chris or Megumi wanted to give the next step because their current state was all they needed at that time, they were support to each other.

They went to Noboribetsu onsen on the next day, it was not a smart move from Chris because the city was a very unusual place, several statues of demons were all around, even when they were walking during the day the face of the demons were really scary, Megumi started to have flash backs of her child days, Christ noticed that Megumi was feeling really uncomfortable, she even grabbed Chris arm tighter than usual.

There is a reason why that place had so many demons around, the place is called the Hell Valley, even when the demons look like chibbi figures Megumi was remembering her days at Akita, Megumi felt like a demon was coming for her after looking at the wasteland filled of steam and then the hand of Chris touched her shoulder and she screamed.

“Calm down, are you ok?”

“Don’t do that! It’s your own fault!”

“Are you feeling ok? You have been acting weird the whole day”

Of course, she is feeling weird after being in heaven the previous day at Hakodate and now in the middle of Hell Valley.

“Please take me out of here”

Megumi saw how a mother was pulling her daughter who was panicking after seeing the steam coming from the wasteland and she remembered her Mother and then Chris could not stop her, she started going back.

Megumi stopped (finally) at the train station, Chris reached her and bought her a coffee

“Sorry, I should not have run away”

“Is ok”

“Look, I just had really bad memories from the past going---”

“Look, if they are bad memories it may be better to not remember them, right?”

Megumi had mixed feelings about what Chris said, she thought that it was nice from Chris to not dig on her past but on the other hand she felt like he didn’t want to get closer to Megumi.

They went back to Tokyo, it was a nice weekend at the countryside of Japan, Megumi was staring at the window inside the train while going back to Tokyo, Chris was holding Megumi hand tightly, she was remembering the journey that she had to go through to get her freedom, she made her dream come true.

A couple of weeks passed and Chris was really excited and came to Megumi apartment and when she opened the door he suddenly hugged her

“What’s gotten to you?”

“I’M SO HAPPY!!!!”

“What happened?”

“One of my novels was accepted and is going to be published”

“Really?”

The reason why Chris was always carrying novels was because he as an amateur writer and he kept submitting novels and he finally got one that was pretty interesting, the next step was getting his novel made into a Manga but he was just happy that his Novel was going to be published.

Even when Chris made a big deal of his novel Megumi was not attracted to read novels herself, she kept working and supporting Chris as a girlfriend, however her time with Chris started to reduce, his novel became famous really quick and was something unexpected, he kept reading the reviews to Megumi when he had the chances, he was not trying to hunt her with his work, it just happened that Megumi was the closest person to him, it was just natural to tell her about his achievements, he became the number one writer that season.

Megumi started to feel that Chris was the only person going forward on his life, while she was stuck and this was the reason why their relationship didn’t move.

One day Megumi was so tired and Chris was not there to pick her up at work so she sat on the bench outside of the shop and fell asleep, couple of minutes later Chris arrived and found her sleeping and freezing so he covered her and didn’t woke her up. A few minutes passed and she woke up on Chris lap and then he said

“Good Morning”

“What time is it?”

“it’s 10pm”

“Is not morning at all….”

Megumi was still half asleep

“Sorry I could not come earlier”

“Is ok, it’s my fault for staying at the bench after this long day”

Megumi was being rude by default, it was not like she wanted to hurt Chris but she noticed that Chris went silent

“Look, is not your fault, I was just too tired and sat on the bench and didn’t notice when I fell asleep”

It felt really awkward because it was true

“I’m sorry, I have been really busy with my novel lately”

“I told you is not your fault”

In fact, Chris was being nice and this was his payment, Megumi really made him feel bad and she felt bad as well because Chris was being way to awesome for her and the only thing that she could give him back was this treatment, she was not ready to move forward….