The school's Ice Princess defended me, a bottom-tier author, in front of the entire student body.
I think I'll never forget that sight as long as I live.
It happened at lunch the next day, in the courtyard. The sun was out, but the wind was cold.
Students who'd heard about the commotion had gathered in a ring around me. At the center was Shota. In his hand, his phone. On the screen, my signature work—A Star in the Mud—was open.
"Hey, everybody, listen up. This is the great Fuyuno Yui's masterpiece."
In a deliberately theatrical voice, Shota read my writing aloud. That gritty story that kept repeating live, even if you have to crawl through the mud. Cackling as he read.
"Ugh, so corny. What is this, live, live, is it a religion or something?"
Laughter erupted.
"The novel that's selling right now, they probably just piled up cash to make it number one. Not one single person actually read it properly."
I hung my head. Not one word of rebuttal came out.
I knew it was corny. I knew it was unpolished, too. I'd written anyway. Even when no one read me.
—Not one single person.
Those words alone stuck in my chest. Not one person had read it. Maybe that was true.
For three years, who had I been writing for? A single read at 12:02 a.m. I already knew that the one was Koyomi.
But being laughed at like this, I didn't know anymore. Whether my gritty story had truly been something she needed. Whether something as grand as being "saved" had really happened because of this story, which not one person had read.
Maybe I'd just been conveniently convincing myself, all three years of it, so I could bear how miserable I was.
Shota's laughter echoed somewhere far away. It was all I could do to stay standing there.
I wanted to just run away. From this courtyard, from this school, from this second face that had been peeled away.
That was when it happened.
The wall of people parted.
Silver hair and the hem of a coat came straight across the courtyard.
It was Koyomi. Everyone caught their breath and cleared the way. The Ice Princess coming anywhere near a commotion like this was unthinkable in itself.
Koyomi stood in front of Shota. With sub-zero eyes, she looked down at his phone.
"Can you say how the line you just read aloud continues?"
Shota faltered.
"Huh...?"
"If there is even one reason to wait for tomorrow, a person can make it through the night. You laughed without even knowing the weight of that line."
The courtyard went dead silent. A passage from a bottom-tier author's novel had fallen from the Ice Princess's lips, without a single word out of place.
Koyomi's voice began to tremble. Her white breath scattered in short puffs.
"There are people who received hope from this story. There certainly are people who made it through a night no voice could reach with this one line alone."
Shota tried to say something back.
Koyomi cut him off.
"I—"
Her voice caught there.
And then the ice cracked.
"—I was saved by this story."
I. The formal "I" she never once let slip at school had given way, in front of the whole school, to her plain, unguarded "I."
No one could move.
The Ice Princess looked as if she were about to cry. That Koyomi, who was said never to show even a shred of emotion.
Koyomi turned toward me. And in front of the crowd, she bowed her head deeply.
"Your stories are not worthless."
I couldn't move.
For three years, I'd written for just one person. That one person was now bowing her head in front of the whole school in my place.
Only moments ago, I'd been doubting. Whether all three years of it had just been something I'd convinced myself of.
It hadn't been. The person my stories had kept alive was here, right now, in this courtyard, with her silver hair and the end of her scarf hanging toward the ground, bowing her head for me. She'd really been there. She'd been there all along.
Something deep in my chest grew warm and tingling.
Shota's hand holding the phone lowered awkwardly. The laughter around us had long since vanished.
Still bowing her head, Koyomi said it once more, clearly.
"I am the oldest reader of this person—of my god."
A cold wind crossed the courtyard.
I knew that in this moment, something had changed decisively.
Both of the things we'd been hiding had been exposed to the light of day. That I was Fuyuno Yui. And that the Ice Princess was my believer.
But seeing Koyomi's sub-zero eyes stay fixed on Shota, unmoving, I was struck by a different premonition.
She would—probably—never forgive anyone who laughed at my stories.