After playing for an hour, Shiori Takahashi suddenly paused.
She spent a few minutes searching the internet for non-spoiler information regarding the game. Through her actions, Haruto also began to grasp the weight of this particular work.
It was a pixel-art indie game barely several dozen megabytes in size, yet in the year of its birth, it had managed to snatch the Best Story award from major gaming publications. In the years that followed, it continued to rack up accolades for its narrative depth. Its sole focus was the script. As for the gameplay itself, it was, quite frankly, a total mess.
Haruto's consciousness drifted alongside Shiori's memories. Once she felt certain that her friends hadn't tricked her into wasting her time, the girl steeled herself. She overcame her initial disgust for the primitive interface and forced herself into an immersive playthrough.
That night, while Haruto's physical body lay in bed recovering from the celebratory drinks with KyoAni Studios, his mind was anchored to the game's plot.
One hour passed. Then two. Then four.
To the Moon wasn't a particularly long game.
The only reason it took Shiori an entire night to finish was that she struggled with the puzzles, wasting countless hours overthinking the mechanics. But those details didn't matter. Through the grainy, pixelated screen, Haruto witnessed the launch of the rocket at the story's end.
The protagonist, Johnny, saw his life come to a standstill in that final moment, but his dream of reaching the moon and reuniting with River had finally been realized within his mind.
When morning arrived, sharp sunlight lanced into the room. Haruto opened his eyes to find them slightly red. He sat up, his mind a whirlwind of fragmented scenes from the past few hours. He felt hollow, as if a piece of him had been left behind in that digital world.
Was it moving? Certainly. But for Haruto, there was a strange disconnect, like a layer of gauze muffled his emotions. He felt a lingering sadness, a touch of inspiration, yet he wasn't completely shattered.
The reason was simple.
He hadn't fully understood the story on his first pass.
"I have to see it again," he whispered.
Haruto took a deep breath and immediately re-entered a state of deep immersion. Since he had already experienced the memory once, he could now manipulate and replay it at will. His consciousness returned to that dark room, standing before the glowing computer monitor. The haunting, beautiful piano score began to play once more.
The game started with the two protagonists, Dr. Rosalene and Dr. Watts from a renowned medical technology firm, driving to a remote island. Within the first few minutes, they accidentally ran over a squirrel. They were there to fulfill the dying wish of an old man named Johnny.
The story unfolded. Using a specialized machine, the doctors dove into Johnny's mind, traveling backward from his elderly years into his deepest childhood memories. Haruto saw the lighthouse standing on the edge of the cliff outside Johnny's house and the grave of his wife, River, nearby. He saw the house filled with hundreds of hand-folded paper rabbits.
He watched the decades of their life together play out.
Should they use their life savings to build a dream house or to pay for River's medical treatment? River, the wife, chose death over spending the "house money" on her own survival. For decades, she had constantly asked Johnny about the paper rabbits, what they looked like, what details they had, hoping he would remember a promise he had long since forgotten.
He saw River's despair when Johnny accidentally knocked a beanbag off the cliff near the lighthouse during their middle years. He saw her psychological struggles, the true reason Johnny approached her in their youth, and the massive void in Johnny's childhood memories.
Having the context of the ending, Haruto finally decoded the non-linear narrative. On this second viewing, every bit of foreshadowing clicked into place. The sense of "depressive healing" grew heavier and more suffocating with every scene.
Two hours later, Haruto woke up again. This time, his heart was aching in earnest. The rhythmic beeping of the medical monitor and Johnny's final heartbeat seemed to echo in his ears. The first time was a hazy feeling of melancholy; the second time was a direct emotional strike.
'What is wrong with Shiori's friends?' he wondered. 'Why do they only recommend these kinds of stories?'
Anohana was bad enough, but in Haruto's opinion,
To the Moon was even more of a tear-jerker.
'If we forget, then we'll meet on the moon.'
As that line surfaced in his mind, his chest tightened. "What did I do to deserve this? I just spent ten hours watching a pixel game twice. Dammit... I can't be the only one who has to suffer through this plot."
A realization dawned on him. It was now late September.
In October, the three regional seeds for the "Ascent of New Gods" competition would be selected. By the end of November, he would have to submit his new manuscript to the Tokyo headquarters. And by early spring, the biennial magazine would be released simultaneously across all seventeen provinces of Japan.
Haruto analyzed the structure of To the Moon.
The beginning was all about foundation and mystery, the middle was a series of revelations, and the end was a massive emotional payload. Unlike Anohana, which had to pass a serialization meeting at Crimson Maple Literature, the "Ascent of New Gods" was different. As long as he secured a seed spot and the content wasn't illegal, the story was guaranteed to be published in its entirety without the threat of cancellation.
In terms of pure quality, Haruto found To the Moon even more to his personal taste than Anohana. Its ability to induce "tearful depression" was on another level entirely. And Anohana had already proven that the Light novel market had a massive appetite for emotional tragedies.
"It has to be To the Moon," Haruto decided after hours of contemplation. If for no other reason than to ensure his fans felt the same pain he did.
After all, heartbreak shouldn't just vanish; it should be shared and multiplied.
Haruto found a strange sense of accomplishment in the idea.
Unless a more suitable memory surfaced soon, this would be his entry for the national stage.
---
By late September, the heat finally began to break.
In the third-year classrooms, the atmosphere was growing increasingly tense.
With only nine months left until the university entrance exams, the students were realizing that their fate was fast approaching.
In Class 7, the elite track, the pressure was suffocating.
Their homeroom teacher was fond of telling them that anyone who didn't get into a top-thirty university was a failure.
"Your only glory in life," he would say, "will be that you once sat in a classroom with successful people."
Reina stared at her textbook, but her mind was miles away. *Star Sea* had finished its run. Its best performance was second place in Crimson Maple. She hadn't surpassed Haruto's Anohana, and she hadn't even managed to unseat Winter Lake.
For a girl who had known nothing but success since childhood, it was a bitter pill to swallow.
She felt like a frog in a well. Her "effortless" excellence had only existed within the small pond of Minamijo. What did it matter if she crushed everyone in her grade? She had discovered that in the world of fiction, a true genius like Haruto existed right next to her.
'If the entrance exams were about writing light novels,' she thought gloomily, 'I would have been stuck in second place since elementary school.'
The thought made her so miserable she had to manually talk herself down to keep from spiraling. The impact of Anohana had been too great; the pressure it placed on her was immense.
Her desire to win had evolved from a simple competitive streak into an obsession. Even in her spare time, she found herself thinking of his face, of Blue Spring Ride, and of the tragic ending of Anohana. She wondered what his next work would be. She wondered what she would have to write to finally beat him.
Suddenly, her phone vibrated. She looked at the screen.
'Haruto?'
Her fingers twitched. 'Why is he calling me?' She glanced at her classmates, then quickly slipped out of the room and headed for the roof. Once she was alone, she hit the green button.
"Hello?" she said softly.
"Oh, Reina! It's been a while. How have you been?" Haruto's voice was cheerful on the other end.
"I'm... fine," she replied. "Congratulations, by the way. Yukino told me yesterday that Anohana is getting an anime adaptation." She leaned her back against the rooftop railing and slid down to sit on the concrete, clutching the phone with both hands.
"Thanks. Yukino also told me some studios are reaching out about Star Sea."
"Yes, I think so. Haruto... why did you call? Is there something you need?" she asked, her voice quiet.
"Ah, you caught me. I wanted to do some small talk first so I didn't seem too transactional."
"Go on."
"So, Anohana is being animated, right? I have this melody in my head, just something I thought of when I was bored, and I think it would be a perfect insert song for the show."
"But I don't know the first thing about music theory. I was wondering if you'd be willing to help me out. If I hum it for you, could you turn it into a proper score so I can send it to the production committee?"
Reina Fujimoto was the school's resident prodigy. Not only were her grades perfect, but she was a prize-winning pianist on the national high school circuit. She was the only person Haruto knew who actually understood music at a professional level.
The line went silent for a few seconds.
"If it's too much trouble, just forget I asked," Haruto added quickly. "I know you're busy with your senior year and I don't want to waste your time." He figured if she said no, he'd just hire a professional musician.
But he was worried about plagiarism.
If he hummed a masterpiece like Secret Base to a random musician in the city, there was a non-zero chance they'd tweak a few notes and register the copyright for themselves. Haruto didn't want to deal with that legal nightmare. Reina, however, was someone he trusted implicitly. She didn't need the money, and her pride as a creator would never allow her to steal.
"I'll do it," she said, her voice clear and crisp.
"Wait, really?" Haruto was stunned by how quickly she agreed.
"I said I'll do it."
"You're being very straightforward. Aren't you going to ask for payment? Or make me take you out to dinner or a movie or something?"
"I'm helping you because we are friends, not because I want a reward. Besides..." On the rooftop, a small smile appeared on Reina's face, one she didn't even realize she was wearing. "I'm curious. I want to know how a person who knows nothing about music theory 'imagines' a melody good enough for an anime. I want to see this masterpiece of yours."
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