9 Visual Novel Overview

Susumu has finished playing his guitar and is hard breathing; he wipes some tears from his eyes with the back of his palm and sighs relievedly, "I—I haven't felt that way in so long..."

Susumu glances up and his eyes widen as Ayano jumps out of bed and begins clapping her hands. "That was good, Ishibashi-san," Ayano remarks triumphantly.

Ayano's face changes in an instant, her smile becoming bewildered as she asks, "B—but were those bad notes on purpose? I don't know what a musician thinks when playing music, but I do know that wrong notes are usually faults made by the composer..."

A blush appears on his cheeks, and he looks aside before producing a cringe-worthy smile—with a small twitch, if you look closely!

"It wasn't on intention, and please forget that this ever occurred," he mumbles.

Ayano looks at him for a moment before nodding, "Sure, I swear I won't tell anybody this—" She then concludes the sentence in her brain, "—even if it's such a minor error and nobody would care in the first place."

Susumu returns the instrument to the black guitar case and slowly places it on Ayano's bed after a few minutes of shared throat clearing and gazing around.

Susumu walks up to the desk and stares at the screen, which shows a hand-drawn fantasy-esque living room, which means the house is constructed of wood. Ayano walks over to her desk and wears the headphones around her neck.

"I've been meaning to ask this for a while now, but what genre is your visual novel going to be in?" he says, tilting his head.

Ayano brings the sketchpad on her desk closer to her as she says, "It's a fantasy visual novel," before grabbing the sketchpad pen and beginning to draw.

"If you want a more in-depth explanation about the storyline, you may ask me," she replied, her gaze fixed on her backdrop work, which appears to be only detailing the living room for the time being.

"Sure, I don't mind an explanation," Susumu says, narrowing his eyes.

It's time to warm up my vocal box, it's time to narrate a very long explanation... hum hum~ Alright, that's OK.

Ayano nods her head and begins discussing the backstory of her graphic novel,

"If you don't mind me... The visual novel, which still doesn't have a name, is a bishoujo, if you don't know what a bishoujo is— which you definitely know since our friends are otakus, especially Fujikawa-san..."

"But I'll describe it anyway: a bishoujo is a visual novel aimed towards guys, in which you play as a male character with various female romance possibilities; it doesn't have to be a harem, mind you; it could be an action-focused visual novel or something along those lines."

She then stops drawing and places the pen down and moves her right hand over to her mouse, she minimizes a tab and opens a notepad on the computer, the notepad is filled to the brim with words,

"I've already written the script around two months ago... it was also another reason why I told you guys not to talk to me, but not the main one; because I know you three would've tried to raise my spirits by recommending other visual novels, and by recommending me those visual novels, I would get distraught," she says.

"You know us too well," Susumu replies, rubbing the top of his head.

"That's why we're all friends to this day, right?" Ayano says, turning to face him.

Susumu excitedly nods, and Ayano then opens another notebook that appears to include character descriptions: age, height, weight, name, hair and eye color, everything!

"My untitled visual novel is balancing romance and action, our main character, who can be named anything, has two childhood friends, his male best friend, who I have already introduced, is named Konno Hisashi—" She opens a jpeg that depicts a boy with blond hair and hazel eyes wearing a beige tunic, she drags the notepad beside the photo and scrolls down.

"Konno Hisashi is one of the primary supporting characters and the main character's lone male companion; he and the main character have always been friends because they have virtually lived beside each other since childbirth."

Ayano says, opening another drawing on her desktop of a girl with lavender hair and blue eyes wearing very adorable clothing,

"This is Horie Yoshie, the main heroine, I was originally meant to make her another adventurer like the other two, but I ended up making her a noble."

she says, opening another drawing that depicts the class divides in her graphic novel, "The ones at the top are named 'Royalty,' it's generic, I know, but you have to start somewhere, these are the individuals that rule plots of land like kings and queens."

She points the cursor to below the Royalty, "Below the 'Royalty' is the 'Nobility', this is where Horie is at, they are the... how do I explain it... think of it as like they hold some power, like a quarter of the power, they can dictate what the lower divisions have to do, i.e. pay more taxes or pay fewer taxes, but at a vote with the other nobilities, and after the voting, they have to report to the royalty, who will have the final decision, of course."

She says, moving her cursor below the Nobility,

"And next to last is the 'Adventurers/Heroes,' this is where the main character and Konno are, they're above peasants simply because they help the Nobility and Royalty with their problems, this is where the mages, knights, and many more are mentioned."

she says as she circles the last division, "And this is the 'Peasant' division, these are where the farmers, builders, and other folks are."

"There are other species as well, such as elves and demihumans, but they aren't mentioned in these class categories, this only relates to humans," she says to Susumu after her lengthy explanation.

Susumu cocks his head back, "You already have everything down... are you sure you actually need my help?"

"I obviously need your help, Ishibashi-san," Ayano says, "since if you weren't here, I wouldn't be able to make the music or voice act—what I'm trying to say is you're needed here."

"You usually like saying these types of things, I bet you stole that remark from a manga you read," Susumu says, straightening his back.

Ayano looks at the computer and grins, "M—maybe."

Susumu gives out a brief laugh as he moves up to the bedside and sits down on the floor, we can simply ignore the snorting sound he made.

"But actually, when I listened to you performing that song, something kind of clicked, maybe you and my other friend who works with digital music might work together," Ayano says as she takes a sip from the coffee mug on her table.

"What?" Susumu asked, raising an eyebrow.

"What do you mean by 'what,' Ishibashi-san?" Ayano asked, agitated.

Susumu then stands up and walks over to her, saying, "You could have invited the friend who worked with digital music to help you!"

Ayano rests on the armrest of her chair as Susumu leans in closer, she says shakily,

"As I stated before, I don't want to admit that I'm an otaku until I've released the visual novel..."

Susumu closes his eyes and lets out a disappointed sigh,

"Look at Moriyama-san, he doesn't try to hide the fact that he's an otaku, and he's still the current popular boy in our class— well, amongst the underclassmen, that is, some of our classmates also look up to him, but the majority of his fanbase are the underclassmen,."

Susumu backs off and glances at Ayano, saying, "Sorry for being so aggressive, It's just— I want you to be proud of who you are, Shinsato-san, but if you want to stay a closeted otaku, then I don't mind."

"It's your life, and I'm in no position to dictate what you do, I'm sorry," he says, bowing after a little pause.

With wide eyes, Ayano returns to Susumu and flails her right palm in front of her, "W—wait, you don't need to apologize so formally!"

"I won't straighten my back until you accept my apology, Shinsato-san," Susumu says, still bowing.

Shinsato sighs defeatedly, knowing that if he doesn't straighten his back, he will undoubtedly acquire back problems, which is an exaggeration, and she replies, "F—Fine... I accept your apology."

Susumu says, smiling and straightening his back,

"Moving on from here, could you teach me how to code? I want to help you in ways other than playing music and voicing a single character."

"Teaching you how to code?" Ayano pauses as she turns to her computer, pondering in her head, "If I taught him how to code, the pressure on me would diminish... but it would also raise the workload on Ishibashi-san..."

She returns her gaze to Susumu and ponders.

Meanwhile...

Susumu glances out the window, thinking, "Am I being too troublesome for Shinsato-san? She already has a lot on her plate, with the coding and the artwork, maybe I shouldn't have asked her..."

The two of them are currently in a quandary, an unnecessary quandary at best; if someone had spoken up, this would never have happened in the first place!

I'll never comprehend humans or their ideas...

Someone then abruptly speaks up...

"Of course, I can teach you to code."

"Perhaps you shouldn't educate me; you have a lot on your plate right now."

If you were confused about what happened, the two of them looked at each other with perplexity on their faces, and they both spoke at the same time.

"What do you mean by not wanting me to teach you anymore? You were the one who asked in the first place," Ayano says, tilting her head.

"As I stated earlier, you undoubtedly have a lot on your plate right now, and I would be at least an annoyance to your existing burden," Susumu says, clicking his tongue.

Ayano gets out of her chair and approaches him, flicking his forehead and saying, "Don't think like that, Ishibashi-san, this is the problem with you..." She sighs and continues, "You've always valued what people needed instead of yourself, I believe you got this personality feature from the manga you read."

"You just reiterated what I said previously..." mumbles Susumu as he massages his brow.

Ayano crosses her arms and says respectfully, "I'm teaching you how to code, whether you like it or not, starting..." She turns over to her monitor and points at it, "...right now!"