Title: The Anthology In Which We Met
Description: About a student reviewer and Light Novelist classmate forming a rivalry about stories. This is about their day to day interactions as they learn more about writing stories from each other.
This is basically me writing in my pass time some concepts I don't have the time to actually write in full length. That's why I'm just listing it based on what genre story it is rather than anything concrete.
Prologue: Meeting My Dreaded Nemesis!
As a child, I always believed myself to be the hero of my own story. That I was hiding some special talent even I myself didn't know about was waiting for my time to shine. The media that affected me most was watching 'Superheroes' and other kind of generally nice protagonists easily getting ahead in life. It was like the world itself was protecting them from harm.
However, as I grew up, I realised that I severely underestimated the 'story' of life. It was when I realised that I was slowly becoming an 'outcast' with no friends in Primary School did I realise that just waiting for life to shower you with luck is just an unrealistic fantasy only protagonists in fiction could do. An actual human being needed to work hard!
To think that I was narrow-minded enough to believe that the fiction of reality was as simple as a power fantasy... It wasn't a self-indulgent tale created to cater to whims of reader's desires!
Instead, it was an extremely adaptive and interactive story where choices and the will of the almighty author of my life mattered most. The story of James Speedwagon could even become a tragedy or psychological drama if I didn't pay enough attention to the people around me. This realisation led me to aim for the perfect slice-of-life my story should be...!
This made me exercise my body, honing my fashion sense by asking my sister for advice, and generally paying attention to the 'story' happening around me so I could avoid the worst outcomes imaginable.
Once my backstory was finished and I moved on to Secondary School, I knew at that moment that this time it was truly my time to shine! The training to become a typical good-looking classmate who could enjoy is school life with his high popularity was a success. Ahhh, the wonders of using everything one has in their disposal to control their story's route~
The feeling of being control of my life is so wonderful~! Who wouldn't love this kind of life?
A mob never undergoes intense hardships!
I had a nice group of friends with the same interest as me, no bullies, high grades, and the respect of the people around me. Although their were the odd few who viewed me as stuck-up and arrogant due to their jealousy, everything was mostly perfect.
Not only did I have a great mask that allowed others to have better feelings about, but my true identity also shined in the vast ocean of the internet as Webnovelist that posted an anthology of short stories online for my own amusement. Seeing people comment in order to praise me for my hard work really made me feel that all the time I spent toiling and planning fiction was worth every moment of it.
Everything was so peaceful... until SHE came along...
"Good morning, today we're going to introduce a new transfer student. Please be sure to treat her nicely, okay?" The bald-headed teacher spoke with a tone that left no room to refute. However, before the person in question was sent to sit at her seat, the transfer gestured by putting her hand up.
"...You don't have to put up your hand."
"Sir, can I do a self introduction? Pleeeassee~" The girl transfer student stretched out her last words in an extremely cute tone. This, combined with her natural Asian beauty, made it hard deny her.
"You can..."
"Thank you, Sir~" Even her words of gratitude seemed to be affected by her bubbly personality and came out sounding pleasant to hear. If she became a voice actor then I'm sure she'd make a lot of money.
"Nice to meet everyone, my name is Tina Sakura. I may look and sound like your typical Japanese foreigner but if you ask if I actually know how to speak Japanese, then you'll be disappointed~!
Some claim I'm eccentric while others claim I'm fun to be with, but what's my most notable quality is that I'm the Light Novel author of 'Is my Big Brother really a Magic Assassin?'. My pen-name is 'Girigiri-girl' and I'm a Genius Writer that's quite popular online~!" The girl named Tina spoke with so much confidence that my short-circuited in confusion.
Was this girl out of her mind? Did she not feel any shame? How could she reveal her identity as a writer so easily? This is quite strange... Normally, most would try to avoid being labelled as some kind of 'Bookworm', but this girl seems perfectly content with the outcome...! Somehow, her bubbly personality seemed to melt everyone's hearts quite quickly... Eventually, the entire class befriended her.
However, when it finally came to my turn of having my heavily guarded heart melted by her extroverted attitude, I buckled and decided to avoid her altogether instead. Why? Well, it was because she took the 'spotlight' without even trying to.
I felt quite jealous towards her... Not only did she honestly talk about her hobbies, but she didn't even have to pay attention to anyone else's feelings to befriend them. It was almost like she was a naturally born main character who didn't need to put effort into her appearance yet still got along with everyone around her. Strangely, I've even come to hate that part about her... I feel like my effort was wasted...!
"Hey, you okay...?"
"It's nothing. Just leave me alone. Be quite in the library." I asked while spending my break 'reading'.
No, it wasn't quite that. This Girigiri-girl before me might be an 'Author', but I myself was actually a 'Troper' that recognised the ins and outs of a story in order to give it an appropriate review. My username of 'Prince Pauper, the Troper' online was treated like a grim reaper which many tried to stay away from due to my constructive but negative review methods.
"You like reading as well?" She asked with curiosity.
I closed the Fantasy Novel I Has in my hand and nodded my head since there's no use hiding it. I've already realised the errors of my ways and decided to stop hiding what parts of me are truly 'real'...
"That's great! Do you wanna become pen-pals?" The girl asked with great enthusiasm. It was this mundane conversation that started the endless battles between me and my nemesis, Tina Sakura!
