My new work went up at midnight on August 8.
I no longer needed to worry about PVs. If I posted, tens of thousands of people would read it overnight. Book deals and sequels were getting decided on their own. The guy who used to refresh a dashboard lined with zeros, his fingertips going cold, wasn't anywhere anymore.
Even so, I posted at midnight.
At the same time as before.
Because of the lag before it went live, it showed up two minutes later.
I still treasure those two minutes. No matter how many tens of thousands of PVs it gets, for me, the real meaning is inside those two minutes.
Besides, this new work was different from everything before. It wasn't a story about a princess from another world. It was a story about me and that person. Everything about me and you, starting from that 12:02 a.m. I'd already decided the opening line.
—The school's Ice Princess is in my room.
I was keeping the title under wraps. But in my heart, I called that story by just one name. The name given to me by the person who kept waiting for my updates at midnight.
"Sensei."
Koyomi sat down beside me.
Outside the windows of the tower condo was the summer night view. The two of us peered into one screen together.
12:02 a.m.
The first chapter of the new work went out into the world.
"May I read it?"
"You're the very first."
Koyomi nodded and reached a finger toward the screen.
The person who had read my stories all alone for three years. The person who always lit a one for me on the zero nights. That person was still the very first to receive my words. Beside me, at 12:02 a.m.
Her finger stopped before the text.
At the very top, the one-line dedication I had placed there.
Koyomi's eyes followed it.
—To the one and only, my very first reader
For a while, Koyomi didn't move.
Before long, a single tear spilled from her gray eyes.
Maybe it was the same tear as on that night long ago, when she cried in a dark room over a single line. But it was a completely different tear from that time.
It was the face of someone who no longer thought the morning didn't need to come.
"Is this about me?"
"Who else would it be?"
I laughed.
"For three years, the single one that always showed up first on my stories. ...Without it, I'd never have made it to where I could write this line. So this is a story I'm dedicating to you."
I don't really know how good my stories are.
It's not like my writing is skillful. The numbers the conglomerate pushed up aren't mine, either. Book deals, face-up display tables—honestly, none of it feels real to me yet. Tens of thousands of PVs are just numbers in the palm of my hand. Neither warm nor cold.
That feeling the first time I saw a single "1," of my fingertips growing warm. That alone was the real thing, for me.
But there's one thing I'm sure of.
The words I wrote kept one human being alive.
On a night when she thought the morning no longer needed to come, a single line held her here. The 12:02 a.m. update became her reason to wait for tomorrow.
Not numbers, not fame.
I kept one life going.
That alone was the whole meaning of the three years I kept writing.
Koyomi wiped away her tears and smiled.
And then she said the same words as on that night long ago, but with a completely different sound.
"If there is even one reason to wait for tomorrow."
She looked at me.
With the eyes of a reader beside me, neither kneeling nor frozen.
"A person can make it through the night. ...It is your favorite line, Sensei."
"Yeah."
I nodded.
"It's your favorite line too, isn't it?"
Koyomi laughed, and then her eyes settled on the date in the corner of the screen.
"...Why did you choose August 8 to start the serial?"
"...It's a secret."
August 8. Two circles side by side, like two rings side by side, so apparently some people call it that. Pair Ring Day. And an 8, laid on its side, becomes the symbol for something without end.
For a guy who meant to keep bringing this person new stories from now on, as the day to put out the first chapter. I couldn't think of a better date than this. ...Not that I'd ever say so, even if you tore my mouth open.
"I see."
Koyomi didn't ask any further. But the corners of her mouth had softened.
This was the person who had kept recording the 12:02 a.m. updates without a second's deviation. There was no way she wouldn't notice what this date meant.
Outside, the summer night was quietly deepening.
Koyomi scrolled the screen and began reading my new story. Beside her, I stole a glance at her profile. Here, her brow moved a little. Here, the corners of her mouth softened. My one and only reader, taking in my words one line at a time.
Just watching her profile, I felt like I could write again.
12:02 a.m. was no longer the hour of a lonely prayer. It had turned into the warmest hour of all, when the two of us wait for the next chapter.
I wrote this story for just one person. But maybe someday, this story will reach someone else I've never met, at their own 12:02 a.m.
I'll write again.
She'll read it again, the very first.
Because I promised her a lifetime of installments.
Not as god and believer. As a writer and a reader.
Our story is finally, from here, about to begin.