What comes out when you can't write tells you about a person's life.
In my case, it was coffee. Cheap instant, strong, cup after cup. Groaning in front of the keyboard while my stomach ached. That was what writing meant for me.
After I came to the tower condo, that changed.
I was trying to write a new story. A romantic comedy set in another world, with a silver-haired princess. Who I modeled her on, I would never say, not if you tore my mouth open. The plot still wasn't coming together. My hands stopped.
When I got up to make coffee, there was already a warm drink set at the edge of the desk.
"When you are stuck, I hear warm milk helps your mind work better."
Kisaragi was there, before I'd noticed.
It was in a spot where I could pick it up just by reaching out. Even the way the steam rose was the same as always. If I drank it, it would surely be the same temperature as always.
She never once gets it wrong. She never, ever forgets that I can't handle hot things. Three years of observation are packed into this small temperature. When I thought of it that way, a mere cup of something to drink felt terribly heavy.
I have something called a deadline.
Not because anyone told me to. Just one chapter, updated every night at midnight. I've kept that up for three years. Even with single-digit PVs, whether I had readers or not, I've always kept to that one time.
It was my one and only point of stubbornness.
Kisaragi knew about that stubbornness.
When evening came, small plates were lined up on the desk. Rice balls, each one bite-sized. Unsalted roasted nuts. Peeled fruit. All of them things I could pick up with one hand without stopping my typing.
"If you are going to write through the night, then something to keep your blood sugar steady. If you take in sweet things all at once, your concentration breaks afterward."
Even my nutrition was being managed.
For these three years, I had gotten through my nights on a single convenience store rice ball. It was a wonder I hadn't collapsed.
But Kisaragi's care was different from simple pampering. She was keeping my body in shape so that I could keep writing. Supporting my stubbornness so it wouldn't break. Everything had been prepared, worked out backward, so that I could keep to the midnight update. She understood my three-year habit better than I did.
"You don't have to go that far."
"I will."
Kisaragi would not give an inch.
"Because your body, my god, does not belong to you alone."
The way she said it gave me a slight chill. But more than that, there was a part of me whose chest grew warm in spite of itself, and that frightened me most of all.
Late at night. Midnight drew near.
I still hadn't been able to write the first chapter of the new serial. I'd only built the plot; I couldn't get into the actual text. I just couldn't settle on the princess's way of speaking.
Kisaragi was quietly reading a book in the corner of the room. So as not to disturb me. But she didn't leave, either.
"Kisaragi."
"Yes."
"When a silver-haired princess thanks the hero, what do you think she'd say?"
She thought for a moment, then answered.
"'Thank you' would be too light. If the princess had truly been saved by that person—it would be beyond words. So she would bow her head, deeply. That alone would convey it."
It struck me.
That's right. Not words. Gestures.
That figure from the rainy night, in my apartment, pressing her fingertips to the floor and bowing her head, rose in my mind.
My fingers began to move on the keyboard.
It was strange. The writing I'd groaned over alone for three years was coming loose, little by little, just from her being near. It wasn't that she had taught me the answer. Just that a person who truly believed in what I wrote was beside me. That alone made the writing flow this much.
Inside the fingerless gloves, my fingertips were warm.
The next morning, at the entrance, I noticed that everything for the day ahead was already in order.
The car to school, arranged. A bag with my textbooks in it. A dry school uniform. In my wallet, at some point, exactly as much cash as I would use.
So that I didn't have to think about anything.
So that I didn't have to be lost about tomorrow.
The thought suddenly came to me. How long has it been since I went back to that apartment? Maybe there's not a single piece of my life left in that room anymore.
My reasons to go home were being moved over here, one by one, quietly.
The door is open today, too.
It's open, and yet my feet had already begun to lose sight of any reason to head outside.