My Parallel-World Literature Club Was Also Pretty Out There

Late May, with the days growing longer; even after school lets out, the sun still hangs high and dusk is a long way off.

From the club-room area on the third floor of the west building, you get a good view of the north end of town, and the lookout park beyond it too.

Along the row of culture-club rooms, each club's poster is stuck to a rust-speckled door. Among them, the literature club's room is the one with a full-on light-novel illustration of a blonde high-school girl (pretty well drawn) hugging a book and gazing up at you through her lashes.

"That's the poster a junior chewed us out over. Said it was too light-novel and kept the pure-literature fans from joining."

"Same on your side too, huh, Tsukino?"

"The one who drew it argued it was within tolerances, since character-focused illustrations get used in general entertainment too."

"I know that story."

"On my side the girl in the poster had pink hair, though."

"That wouldn't fly in general entertainment."

"She forced it through anyway."

Pink hair flies, does it. I guess it's not unheard of.

Anyway, I could hear voices from inside, so the door probably wasn't locked. With an "afternoon," I opened it.

"You won't be able to forget it now. Go on, tell me you want more."

"I couldn't… but I can't take any more."

Right in front of me, a man as flashy and flippant as a host was kabe-don-ing a silver-haired beauty against the wall.

"It's not a show, Asahi."

His eyes slid my way.

 

 

When he quit the kabe-don and straightened up, his height stood out, a full head taller than me. His short brown hair had been carefully set into spiky points. The eyes looking down at me were rough, but unlike mine, which are just plain mean-looking, his carried a wild, cheerful brightness. Even through a uniform worn with the collar carelessly loosened, you could tell he was healthily muscled.

By any measure, a jock. Putting it mildly, an extrovert. Supposed to be a high-schooler, yet a guy like some host.

He tossed me what he'd been holding.

"That's this month's new release. No, the Rom-Com of the Year."

It was a light novel, a harem rom-com. Plenty of bare skin on the cover, too.

"See, that's the one I was recommending to Senpai. It makes your heart race. It made yours race, right?"

"I've only read the intro so far, but it was so good. This has the scent of a masterpiece. Even at the end of May, I can tell it's Of the Year material."

The one who'd been pinned to the wall nodded eagerly. With each nod, her meticulously even bangs and carefully braided silver hair bounced softly. Behind her round-framed glasses, gentle, soft-looking eyes shone with delight. A green ribbon adorned the collar of her primly buttoned uniform. The mark of a third-year.

The cardigan worn under her blazer and the black tights concealing her legs strengthened the impression of a refined young lady.

"Don't hold back. Let your heart race, Asahi."

"Let's let our hearts race together, Asahi-kun."

"Jun, Nanaha-senpai, both of you hold on. I just got here."

When I glanced sideways at Tsukino, she shot back a look that said, "I know, same as always." As you'd expect of the same existence, an unspoken understanding.

The host-look-alike light-novel fan, Hikawa Jun, and the fiction-come-to-life silver-haired beauty who is also the president of the Himurogioka High School literature club, Hananokorizuki Nanaha-senpai.

Book impressions delivered at kabe-don range and all, this is everyday life in our literature club. Proof: the handful of other members present didn't seem to mind in the slightest.

"You came again today, Tsukino-chan. I'm so, so happy."

Nanaha-senpai beamed.

"Yeah, I figured I'm kind of interested after all."

Tsukino answered as if picking up right where she and Nanaha-senpai had left off the day before.

Unspoken understanding again. I see, so that's how she's being treated here… the feeling came through from Tsukino.

So I headed to my usual spot in the club room, feigning as much nonchalance as I could.

The club room, cozy as our living room at home, has its space eaten away by the bookshelves ringing it, until it's downright cramped. In the middle of the room, desks are pushed together into a rectangle for meetings and critiques, with chairs lined up around them any old way. In short, it's tight.

I pulled out a chair near the window and sat. Tsukino, pretending to be used to it, sat down beside me.

"Tsukino-chan, you really are interested after all. So how about becoming an official member? Then I'd be even happier. All-you-can-read from the club stock."

Nanaha-senpai, being Nanaha-senpai, kept right on recruiting. What she'd pointed to as "club stock" was the multitude of books lining the shelves. From literary-award winners the club bought, to ones graduates left behind. Recommended books current members brought in, from light novels to literary fiction to reference material, crammed in to overflowing. No, they were literally overflowing onto the desks, stuffed on top of the shelves and into cardboard boxes all over the room, too. Cramped.

"I'll think about it a little more."

"Ah, Tsukino-chan. No polite speech, okay? I use polite speech myself, but I'm no good with having it used on me."

"That's ri… that's right, then."

Thanks to that, all the members are forced to talk to the club president like she's a classmate. What kind of rule is that. In a way it does make things friendly, though.

In any case, the look in Tsukino's eyes as she answered breezily said it all, and I understood without us needing to exchange another word. In the literature club too, Tsukino is recognized as a student who's been around all along, and everyone here holds the same impression of her relationship with me that our classmates do. But she isn't actually a member.

That aside, I found myself quietly asking Tsukino.

"In your world too, Jun and Nanaha-senpai are like that, huh."

"Like that, yeah. Jun does the kabe-don, always face-to-face at zero distance, and Nanaha-senpai smiles the whole time while steamrolling you at her own pace."

"Asahi. Words aren't necessary between us. First, just read it."

Jun leaned all the way out and pressed in. His face was close, as expected.

This really isn't the time for that… I thought, and then I noticed something.

"Have you read this one before, Tsukino?"

"Nope. I'm interested, though."

Either the same events don't happen over there, or Jun brought this light novel in at the exact same timing in her world too, and she simply hadn't gotten to it yet.

So, still sitting side by side, we turned the pages. Jun watched us, eyes glittering. His face was close.

"No, back off, Jun. I can't concentrate."

"Haha. Interesting man. Fine by me."

You're a face-too-close man.

Now that Jun had backed off, I started reading again.

"Okay to turn to the next page?"

"Of course. Our reading speed's the same, too."

So from the next page on, there was no need to check. I could tell we were following the same words together.

Because we were peering into the paperback together, Tsukino was close. Closer than Jun's kabe-don. Tsukino's long black hair was touching my upper arm. Through my blazer, and still it registered, definite and silky. The whisper of hair against cloth and Tsukino's soft breathing reached my ear faintly. A scent teased at my nose, similar to the one from when we'd been together in my room after a bath, but a little different.

My concentration was clearly shot. Was I the one falling behind? I glanced over, met Tsukino's eyes, and then she gently looked away. No prompt to turn the page came.

Since we're the same existence and think alike, maybe she'd been looking at me too… I thought, but there was no way to confirm it, and Tsukino didn't bring it up either.

If anything, I found myself able to focus on the text.

Anyway, we finished reading roughly through the intro Jun had mentioned.

When I lifted my face from the book, across the desk Jun curled his lips and bared his teeth like a carnivore.

"Well? You can't forget it now, can you."

"There's no forgetting or not forgetting when it's just the intro. But yeah, it really is interesting right from the start."

"It's a straight-up harem rom-com, but the gimmick where every heroine got extreme-rescued by the protagonist is fun. The opening move is a shark, then a snowy mountain, then terrorists."

"Three heroines showing up all at once and still each standing out and being cute is a strong point too. The protagonist is unbelievably cool, but his worries are ordinary, so he's surprisingly relatable."

"Exactly right. That's Asahi and Tsukino for you. You get it."

Jun sat shallow in his chair and threw himself back. The attitude alone is pure arrogance.

"I'll say this much without spoilers. This far is still like a kindergartner's playtime. It grows up from here."

"Meaning it gets even more outrageously interesting."

"Exactly."

"Got it. I'll buy it and read it."

I closed the book and handed it back to Jun.

"Just… it's a rom-com, so it can't be helped, but. This is a happy ending, right?"

"Not this again! You're gonna say a bad end would've been better?! A bad end in a rom-com is impossible! And quit asking about the ending first thing!"

"A bad end in a rom-com works, though. So, do the heroines die?"

"If we're talking unexpected developments, I'd like to see it go straight to a bad end from here too. The heroines meeting a fate where they'd be better off dead, that is."

"I don't wanna see that! Heroines, please, all of you, just be happy!"

Jun looked up at the heavens, then slumped his shoulders. Nanaha-senpai, who'd been watching over it all, narrowed her eyes.

The literature club, same as always.

"Hey, Asahi."

Jun said it with feeling. In his hands was the club journal put out a little while back. It's a compilation of the fiction written in the club, produced a few times a year. Naturally Nanaha-senpai's stories are in it, and so are Jun's and my short stories.

"I was rereading that story of yours from last time."

The journal was Jun's own copy, and it bore the marks of being read hard.

His wild eyes fixed on me. He leaned out hard, and once again he was a little too close.

"I love you, seriously."

"You mean the writing, right."

"Obviously. What are you even saying?"

Same as always, but somehow it pisses me off.

"…I once had someone give me a review of my novel right after prefacing it with, 'Just so you don't get the wrong idea, I have absolutely zero interest in you as a member of the opposite sex, okay,'" Tsukino muttered.

"That's grounds for a punch."

"I punched him on reflex."

She punched him, huh…

Jun cleared his throat, so I turned back to face him.

"Anyway. I love your novels. Case in point, I've lost count of how many times I've reread this."

Reread was an understatement; the club journal was falling apart from being read to death.

"That's a little creepy."

"Relax. I'm creeped out at how much I love it myself. And I still can't hold it back."

"Now it's just scary."

"Anyway. First, the characters are great. They're written with attributes that read clearly as entertainment, but their designs are backed by real background and inner life. So they aren't shallow. Even the extreme character traits, even the lines where you'd go 'no one talks like that in real life,' land as lines only that character could say."

His face is close and he's talking fast on top of it. Behind him, Nanaha-senpai nodded along with a "yes, yes."

"And it's not just the characters, the story structure is superb too. You keep to the basic narrative patterns for a solid build, yet you plant several developments that catch the reader off guard. That's proof you build the story around how the reader will think."

"The Jun on this side ratchets up the praise to a creepy degree too, huh."

Seems the Jun in Tsukino's world is the same.

"And then, the description. A rich vocabulary giving varied expression. And yet prose that stays readable without drowning in its own flourishes. You don't just depict scenery and appearances, you express a character's feelings, the foreshadowing, and each scene's imagery all at once. I envy that sense of yours. I can't reach that level yet."

"Uh. Thanks."

"But!!"

Jun suddenly slammed both hands on the desk. Practically climbing onto it, he bore down on me.

"Why does it have to be a bad end?! I thought Shizuka was an interesting woman and I was enjoying the rom-com stuff, and then the string of tragedies in the back half had her despairing over her whole life up to that point and dying on me!"

"I do think killing her off was a mistake. Left alive, she'd have suffered so much more."

"Is your blood green or something?!"

After the scream, he heaved a deep sigh.

"But look. The reason I'm telling you to quit the bad ends isn't only that my woman got done dirty."

"Quit casually making someone else's character your woman."

"Come on, it's fine. Anyway. As a matter of logic, your novels are absolutely more interesting without the bad end. I mean, the bad-end turn is too abrupt, and the structure that was so good up to that point turns into a mess in the final stretch!"

"That's… a fair criticism."

When I was working out the back half, I do remember fixating only on how to make it end badly, and I'd felt the developments were forced, too.

"I keep telling you. Readers don't want bad ends. No matter how much hell the protagonist goes through early or midway, in the end they grow a little and things end up a bit better. That happy ending is the basic form of a story. A bad end breaks that, and in practice it makes the flow forced."

Passion blazed up in the depths of Jun's eyes.

"I'm a hardcore happy-end junkie. And that's a law of entertainment, too."

Jun looks like nothing more than a flippant extrovert and a playboy, but he studies entertainment more devotedly than anyone in the literature club, he's a hard worker, and his novel count ranks first or second among the members. Also, that build of his comes from overtraining, inspired by a favorite light-novel protagonist who trains in-story.

So these words aren't armchair theory. They're theory built on practice.

Even so, the happy-end-junkie versus bad-end-junkie debate went as it always did.

I opened my mouth to fire back. But the words caught.

The complaints the other moviegoers had aired after the "Infinity Heaven" screening came back to me. "Why isn't it a happy ending? Isn't that messed up?" "The type that thinks slapping on a bad end makes it interesting."

I love bad ends, but the world doesn't want them. I'm aware I'm in the minority.

Chasing after what no one wants, trying to write what no one wants. Is there any meaning in creative work like that?

"Asahi. You should just do as I say and write nothing but happy-ending rom-coms."

Jun had started saying things like a no-good boyfriend.

But the truth is… I did carry that conflict inside me. Sometimes even writing a happy ending—.

"I wonder about that."

The sharp voice came from right beside me.

Her long black hair didn't so much as sway. The rose done in black and silver glinted quietly under the club room's lights. A keen, thoroughly cold gaze pierced Jun's wild, heated eyes.

Tsukino had risen to her feet. Arms lightly folded, spine drawn perfectly straight, she cut an unfairly lovely figure standing there. She stole a glance my way for just an instant and lifted the corner of her faintly colored lips.

"What's at issue right now is that the development was abrupt because of the Catastrophe StrikeSudden Strike, right?"

"Sud… Sudden what? Say what now?"

"An abrupt turn into a bad end. We call that a Catastrophe StrikeSudden Strike. You could even call it common knowledge."

"Springing insider jargon on people out of nowhere, aren't you being a bit too much of an interesting woman?"

"True, for us it's what you'd call a beginner-level technique."

"Where else you'd ever get the chance to use it, I've got absolutely no clue!"

Even as Jun floundered, Tsukino pressed on, paying him no mind.

"I'll grant that Asahi, in his eagerness to land a Catastrophe StrikeSudden Strike, tends to rush the developments from the midpoint into the finale faster than the reader can keep up."

She admits it? No, since Tsukino is me, it means she has the same bad habit.

"But that's a matter of story structure. There's a way to fix it. Yes… with the Ultimate CausalityOuroboros the End."

"You've gotta be kidding. That's another term I don't know!"

"Let me explain it in terms a bad-end beginner can follow. The Ultimate CausalityOuroboros the End is foreshadowing meticulously laid before the bad-end turn. It means the actions the protagonists took connect straight to the bad end in the final act."

"Right. For instance, you firmly depict, from the reader's view, the omens of the catastrophe coming for the protagonist. Or you write in a development where the protagonist crosses an ethical line they never should have. A bad-end turn from there shouldn't feel structurally forced."

"…I see. You're exactly right, actually."

"If you make the foreshadowing clever enough, you can even use it to color a bad end alongside a Catastrophe StrikeSudden Strike. When the abrupt catastrophe strikes the protagonist, the reader realizes it isn't sudden at all, but inevitable cause and effect."

Tsukino thrust a finger at Jun.

"That is the Ultimate CausalityOuroboros the End!"

Jun caught his breath and flinched. The club members, who'd been drawn in listening before they knew it, let slip an "oooh." Nanaha-senpai, eyes shining oddly bright behind her glasses, was applauding.

I'd always lost these arguments to Jun. Partly because his points were well reasoned, and partly because there wasn't a single club member who'd side with a bad end.

The bad-end lover was always just me, alone.

But now Tsukino stands beside me. She loves the same thing I do.

"Yeah. I get your advice, Jun. It helps. So next time I'll put the Ultimate CausalityOuroboros the End to use and write a bad end with a structure readers can accept."

At the declaration, Jun twisted his lips and drew back.

"That's the best, seriously! Make it unforgettable for me."

He swept up his spiked hair and flashed a fanged grin.

"That aside, though. This still isn't an answer to the argument that readers want a happy ending over a bad end, is it."

""Gu.""

The two of us groaned. I know exactly what that "Gu" was: the embodiment of having not one peep to say back, a reaction so stumped it couldn't even get out a full "Guh."

"See? But I don't think every bad end is bad, either. Even among bad ends, there's the merry bad end, right? Situationally it's a bad end, but the protagonists are satisfied."

""Haah?""

Tsukino's voice and mine harmonized.

"That's not a bad end, though."

"If the protagonists are satisfied, that's a no-go. Regret or despair is the starting line of a bad end."

Tsukino snapped, and so did I.

"Honestly, the definition of merry-bad itself is fuzzy."

"The people who say 'merry-bad' can't even agree among themselves how far merry-bad goes."

"Uh… scary. Hardcore bad-end junkies are seriously interesting… Okay then, like a terminal-illness story, where tragedy waits at the very end but it moves you."

""Haaah?""

"That's not a bad end either, though."

"The reader being moved is a no-go. Shock, grief, and fury enough to break your heart. That's the starting line of a bad end."

Tsukino and I snapped again.

"Exactly. I want a bad end to rip my heart to shreds."

"I want a shock I can't recover from for days, too."

"Are you serious. That's way too niche a kink. I'm getting so scared I could cry."

Jun reeled back.

"No, but still…"

"Fufu, ufufu. Fufufufufu."

That voice cut the conversation between us and Jun short.

Pressing a hand to her mouth, shoulders trembling, was Nanaha-senpai. There were even tears at the corners of her eyes. She's laughing too hard.

"I'm sorry. It's just so good. I can't stand it."

Nanaha-senpai narrowed the eyes behind her glasses, looking delighted from the bottom of her heart. Her pale cheeks were vividly flushed.

"It's wonderful. I really do think it's wonderful. A heated exchange of creative theory… it feels so very literature-club."

She spoke as if enraptured.

"I understand both the wonder of happy endings and the devotion to bad ends. There are plenty of bad-end works counted as masterpieces, and there are ones I love dearly myself. But…"

Still beaming, Nanaha-senpai went on.

"Whether you apply the creative theory or not. Happy ending or bad end. There's an absolute law, isn't there."

She pushed up her glasses. Three times in a row.

"Ugh. There goes Nanaha-senpai's Thing."

"So the Nanaha-senpai on your side does the Thing too, huh."

The Thing, you could say, is a literature-club fixture. Jun and the other members all wore a "here comes the Thing" look.

"Which novel is more fun. That is the absolute law of what's right! Let's read Asahi-kun's and Jun-kun's novels side by side and critique them, decide which is more fun, and settle it once and for all."

Nanaha-senpai clapped her hands together with a big smack.

"A novel battle, a real showdown. We'll go in with the spirit of 'kill each other!'"

She hyped herself up with a "yaay." Clenching both fists, she spun around and around in a cute little dance. The club members clapped too, sparse but there.

"Nanaha-senpai, what an interesting woman… Her brain's a hobby anime again today."

"Senpai's got this way of thinking about novels like they're a card game or Beyblade."

"So over here too, the moment there's a little friction, it starts. The novel battle."

I never imagined novel battles were unfolding in another universe too. She's even got a side to her that would stake the fate of all humanity on a novel showdown, given the chance.

"Um… I went and decided it on my own, but is 'kill each other' okay? A critique isn't really supposed to be a competition, after all."

I wish she'd stop suddenly coming back to her senses. Well, the reason Senpai hit on the idea of a novel battle in the first place is that Jun and I get noisy about happy-end this, bad-end that at every opportunity, and the only ones in our club who actually battle are Jun, me, and Nanaha-senpai. With the other members, it's a normal critique, or more like an impressions session.

"I can't hold back anymore. And perfect timing, I've got a novel I just finished."

Jun bared his fangs provocatively.

"I've got a bad end that's almost done, too."

The moment I said it, I thought, oops.

We need to be looking for a way to get Tsukino back to her own world, so is there really time for this?

A hand touched mine with a light tap.

Tsukino, standing beside me, had bumped her clenched fist against my hand, and I realized she'd secretly done the fist bump from "Infinity Heaven."

Our eyes met. Cold-looking as ever, yet with brows raised in confidence, her eyes said, "Let's win this."

Just as Tsukino had done for me a moment ago, I tapped my fist lightly against her hand too.

More Bad, More Hell.