Episode 8 — Heroine
My writing still can’t reach the actual beauty of Kanzaki-san. Every memory is seared in this clearly — and yet my plain vocabulary can’t capture what she essentially is. All that comes through in the words is the feeling I had in the moment, rushing out ahead of everything, pulling me further from the ideal.
The reluctance when her warmth left me. The loneliness when she disappeared through a door that closed so lightly behind her. In the end, all I ever manage to write down is my own feeling.
And today again, I placed the final full stop on the last sentence. The finished piece doesn’t satisfy me — but the sense of having written it through to the end brings a quiet, comfortable feeling of its own.
Afterwards, with no particular intention, I find myself staring at the work’s page on the posting site — the screen showing view counts, follower numbers, review counts. The graph there looked different from how it had a little while ago.
I Dedicate This Final Note to You.
This novel is the crystallised form of a longing and a complex.
When I was small, I saw a girl on television — a prodigy — and in an instant she stole my heart with a grace that seemed impossible for someone my own age. I admired her, and the piano she played. I was consumed by that beautiful image, drawn helplessly to the sound she made.
A piano might be a little difficult for us, I’m afraid.
My mother, home from work, exhaustion on her face — and that was when I learned about reality. I understood, in some wordless way, that there were people born to stand on a stage, and that I was not one of them.
Even so, the longing never left the back of my mind — tracing the curse written into my name, Uta, growing up alongside literature even as the longing remained. And the mirror of that complex became the protagonist of I Dedicate This Final Note to You. A girl who simply loves piano with everything she has, blessed with the right environment, able to pursue what she loves in a straight line. The person I might, perhaps, have been.
And onto the heroine I layered the image of that prodigy I had once seen and adored — my ideal of beauty, projected. A girl who weaves a bond with the protagonist, who grows through their rivalry and companionship. A novel that wore its wishful thinking on its sleeve.
Of course, a self-indulgent piece like that couldn’t draw much of a readership. Which is how I came to quit once.
And then, in the middle of all that, I met Kanzaki-san. The ideal beauty I had been trying to capture through the heroine — that very thing was right there, producing sound.
Somewhere along the line that miracle stretched to reach, I am still putting words together today. The serialisation continues, quietly but without stopping.
And perhaps because Kanzaki-san has sharpened the resolution of my descriptions — my view count has been climbing steadily. Which is a simple thing, but it makes me a little glad.
I was sinking into that pleasingly shallow, pleasingly ordinary happiness when the bell icon lit up red. Otonashi-san, probably, I thought, and opened the notification.
But the name displayed there was one I didn’t recognise.
I only recently started reading, but the way you write the heroine is so delicate, so beautiful — I love it! Cheering you on from here!
Such a pure, lovely comment — too good for the likes of me. I looked at it for a while, and then the red light came on again. I refreshed on reflex, and this time, it was Otonashi-san.
What was written there:
The final scene — watching the heroine step off the train and disappear — I found myself wondering if the heroine wanted the protagonist to take her hand.
Slightly lower in energy than usual. That was what was written, in those words.