Catharsis

By: Aviantei

-4a

As previously mentioned, I'd decided that writing was my passion in middle school.

Not necessarily a surprising turn of events, given how much I liked reading. I'd spend my allowance on new volumes whenever I had the chance, and, when that well ran dry, both the school and the public library were around and waiting for me to plunder their stashes. And, sure, it was that sort of attitude that encouraged me to try putting the first few characters to paper in pursuit of making stories, but that wasn't the real catalyst.

No, when I first tried it out, I was really just attempting it as a hobby. Something fun to do. If I started a story and ran out of ideas, I let the old one go and dived into something new. I never edited anything, never took it seriously. I really wanted to put most of my energy into reading anyways, and school was still something I cared about. So what changed that?

A teacher happened to read a piece I'd accidentally turned in along with my homework and she encouraged me to write more.

Told me with a little bit of refinement I could submit my work to a contest.

So I tried it.

Why not score a little bit of bonus points for doing something I enjoyed, right?

To my surprise, I won an honorable mention, and a copy of the contest works ended up in my hands. I was still deep in a phase where I'd read anything for the sheer bragging rights of saying I had. And as a collection of writing from a bunch of teenagers, it was engaging enough. I mean, we were the winners, after all. Inexperienced as we were, we had a spark of something.

And then I read the first place piece.

It blew my mind.

You could do that with words?

It didn't take me too long to look up the author after that. To no surprise, he'd had several pieces that won contests before. Not all of them were available online, but a decent chunk were. The rest I asked if my teacher knew where I could find them, and she helped me out. The guy was a genius at swapping between styles, at exploring different ideas in an amazing execution that just became more refined from his earlier works. I was floored—a guy only a few years older than me had created that. As one does, I built him up in my head as an idol, turned him into a goal—a level of skill I wished to aspire to.

And then there was a special event for young writers to attend over the summer, a quick sort of camp to make new connections and practice skills. All the winners and honorable mentions from the contest I'd entered had been invited, which meant, naturally, the first place was on the list. It wasn't a guarantee that he'd accept, but I wasn't about to let go of the chance.

And so, Sugiyama Kazue, age thirteen, second year middle schooler—

-4b

All but ignoring the rough draft I'd been working on the past few days, I looked up from my seat and glanced around the room. For the most part, the camp had divided us up roughly by age and grade level for activities—something about giving us the chance to work with writers similar in skill or whatever. It was a surprisingly intense program considering the target group, and there'd been so many lectures about different writing techniques so far it was enough to make my head spin.

The one exception to those age groupings was free work time, which every participant had at the same time each day (I guessed to give the chaperones and instructors a breather). And we were in the middle of that free work time.

I'd been wishing, hoping, that one of these times would be an opportunity to meet him, the first place winner I'd come to admire so much. I'd memorized his picture from the competition's website, and I'd caught a glance of him in passing when the competition winners had been shown off during the writing camp's opening ceremony. It'd taken almost everything I had not to jump for joy on stage when I saw he was there.

Encountering him during our free time was another story.

It was the penultimate day of the camp, and I really should have been focusing on incorporating the suggestions I'd gotten from other people in my group if I wanted something good to show at the end; it'd be pretty lame for an honorable mention to not even produce something worthwhile, after all. But all I could focus on was changing up where I went to work every day to see if he'd been waiting somewhere else.

The common room area around me looked very much the same as ten minutes ago: All the computers along the side of the walls had people in their seats, each of them staring at a screen and typing in some fashion. Those of us who had personal laptops had taken up every other available possible space: groups clustered around tables, kids slouching in beanbags, some even laying on their stomachs on the floor. A lot of people had notebooks of some kind beside them, others had novels for inspiration, and plenty had headphones in, someone occasionally bobbing their head to an otherwise inaudible tune as they got in the groove.

Not a single one of them was who I was looking for.

I leaned back in my chair, picking up the copies of my work with notes on them and resigning myself to spending the afternoon correcting grammar mistakes and rearranging a few sentences I hadn't liked but no one else had commented on. If nothing else, I'd gotten to stand on the same stage as my idol, even if it was only for less than ten minutes. That would have to do.

"Hey, would you mind if I used this half of the table?"

Given the environment I'd been in for the past week or so, responding to the type of whisper I'd just heard had become second nature. The work room wasn't like a library where you had to stay dead quiet—heck, some others who knew each other were discussing their works here and there—but it seemed that a lot of us instinctually kept things down when we knew other people were writing. Letting my pen clatter to the table, I worked on shifting my spread of papers into a more manageable pile so my fellow participant could have some space—and then I started so hard I was impressed I hadn't tossed my entire draft up into the air in shock.

Kamiya Noriyaki had dark hair long enough to need a short ponytail to keep it out of the way, though a few wisps still stuck out here and there. In contrast to the stiff-looking gakuran uniform he'd worn for his contest profile picture, his casual style seemed to consist of mostly breezy looking clothes that left a little bit of bagging around his frame. I desperately wished I'd been born with a photographic memory—and then ducked my head before the blush on my face became too obvious.

Oh god, oh god, oh god—

It felt like some sort of dream, though I suspected my subconscious would have at least provided a scarf for my viewing pleasure if that were the case. Still trying to get my brain under control, I gave my thigh a discreet pinch underneath the table, earning myself a twinge of pain.

The situation, it seemed, was reality.

What the hell, what do I do?

For all my planning to try and encounter Kamiya Noriaki, I'd forgotten about planning for what I would do when I finally encountered him. Or maybe I had planned for it, and the preparation had straight up abandoned me in my flustered state. I wouldn't be surprised, considering that my brain felt like a rice cooker mid-boil. Steam would erupt from my ears any minute, for sure.

Given that I hadn't so much as moved from my hunched over position and was in the process of crumpling my drafts and notes into indistinguishable lumps, it wasn't difficult to tell if something was up. I caught Kamiya Noriaki—holy cow, it's actually Kamiya Noriaki, I may die—leaning over to try and get a look at me. "Are you alright?" he asked, voice still a stage whisper. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

"I—" I'd barely gotten through half a syllable before I realized my voice had spiked what felt like three octaves, and I snapped my mouth shut. Deep breaths, Kazue. Try to chill out. Straightening up and trying to salvage the wrinkled remains of my papers, I tried again. "I'm fine. I-I was just really lost in thought. Don't worry about it." Since there wasn't a good way to say, Please don't think I'm a weirdo without sounding like, well, a weirdo, I left that addendum off my response.

Kamiya-senpai—calling him senpai wouldn't be that weird, all things considered—nodded, giving me an easygoing smile. "I get that. Sometimes when I'm trying to figure out what to write, I totally forget to pay attention to the world around me."

My desperate brain latched onto any sense of familiarity, and my heart started to race with pure excitement. "Right? Whenever you start to get into the groove, it's like the rest of the world disappears!" Admittedly, my concentration towards my story at the moment wasn't anywhere near that good, but I still understood that feeling enough to use it as a springboard for conversation. "I thought I was the only one who did that…but coming here has helped me understand there are plenty of other people like me who love writing." I glanced over the rest of work room, enjoying the sight of so many other people turning their imaginations into words on a page. "It's nice to realize that you're not alone sometimes."

A few beats later, and my brain caught up to the situation, which just so happened to be me tossing out my babbling nonsense in front of my idol. I intensified my grip enough on my papers to make them wrinkle, hoping to avoid the embarrassing as all get out situation of slapping my hands to my mouth when—Kamiya-senpai chuckled.

"I definitely get what you mean. I was surprised the first time I found people like me, too." Unable to do much else, I nodded. "That said, you shouldn't be so mean to your drafts. I know they can be frustrating, but that's still your precious work there. Want me to look over it and see if I can help out?"

It took me a moment to recognize that he was pointing, then an extra one to recognize that he was pointing at the papers in my hand. "Huh? This?" Kamiya-senpai nodded, and I wouldn't have been surprised if I broke out into a cold sweat then and there. "Um, well, like you said, it's a draft, so I dunno if it's worth reading yet—"

"Don't be silly. You've already had your peers look over it, right? Assuming that's the piece you've been working on for the camp, that is." He wasn't wrong, and the following smile was more than enough to short circuit my brain. "Then what's the harm of having one more person check it out? Oh, if you want, you can look at my draft, too, just to—" I all but slammed my papers onto the table before Kamiya-senpai. "…make it fair?"

"If you don't mind," I said, ducking my head from embarrassment, "I'd really like to see what you're working on."

I half expected a rejection or at least someone scolding me for causing an unnecessary racket, but all I got was another one of those laughs. "Yeah, like I said, make it fair. 'Sides, sometimes you can get great ideas by reading what someone else is working on." Kamiya-senpai shifted to dig into his bag before producing a neat stack of papers from a folder. "Do be kind, though. It's just a draft, so I dunno if it's worth reading yet."

I was about to begin a heated protest along the lines that there wasn't any possible way that his work could be less than incredible—and then I realized he was throwing my own words back at me. Mouth still open, I sucked in a breath, shut up, and accepted the stack of papers before me and sunk in to read in a silence that was only broken by a short chuckle from Kamiya-senpai.

It was one of those moments where everything but the words on the page ceased to have meaning—and in a way, the characters themselves didn't have meaning anymore, either. They became mere vehicles for conveying the idea of a tale, of a story that stretched out beyond this world and into something that you could only understand when it existed outside of yourself yet within yourself at the same time.

That was the kind of story that Kamiya-senpai wrote.

That was the kind of ideal I wanted to aspire to have spill out of my own pen, to have come to life as I tapped out characters on the keyboard.

It wasn't perfect, obviously. There were awkward phrases here and there, a couple of kanji in the wrong places—but those were expected of even the cleanest of drafters. And, really, when it came to breathing in a story like that, the details of whether it were mechanically perfect or not didn't matter. A work with plenty of soul could still touch you, even with imperfections.

On the contrary, even the most polished of works were worthless if they didn't have a speck of soul in them.

"Amazing," I whispered, and even that word wasn't enough. Though I'd read the last word, I didn't want to let the sheets go. The idea of wasting my energy on moving my body when I could still be floating in that fiction-induced daydream seemed ludicrous. It wasn't the first time that I'd finished reading something wondering why reality even mattered anymore, but it was easily one of the most potent in my recent memory.

If I could just, somehow, someday, create something even a fraction as beautiful as this—

"I don't know what you're so worried about," Kamiya-senpai said, breaking me out of my reverie. Realizing that I was about to get feedback from my goddamn idol of all things, I forced myself to set down his draft and sit up straight. His dark eyes danced with amusement, but he maintained professionalism and got to the point. "You're obviously a very clean writer, and you've got some solid pacing and narrative ideas. Sure, I'd tweak one or two things, but if I were you, I'd be damn proud of what I could make into reality." Pride and exhilaration rushed through me with such force that I thought I might pass out. "I went ahead and marked a couple of places that I thought you could play around with to refine, but this is impressive work for your age."

The mention of providing feedback reminded me that I had not, in fact, used my pen once to note anything I noticed on Kamiya-senpai's draft. The very idea seemed like sacrilege. "S-sorry. I got really caught up in reading so I didn't write anything down," I said, feeling a fresh round of blushing coming on as shame joined the emotional cocktail in my brain. "Y-you probably hear this sort of stuff all the time, but you're—your writing is really amazing."

Kamiya-senpai scratched the back of his head. "You're gonna make me blush. I'm not all that impressive." The show of humility stole any of my ability to protest. If he didn't think his writing was all that impressive, I shuddered to think of what heights we would have to reach to achieve that. "But since you said that, I feel a lot more confident now! It's hard being someone that people expect a lot out of, you know? I always end up wondering if what I'm going to create is going to be good enough."

"Of course it'll be!" That time, I caught my outburst's volume in advance and turned it into a whisper shout. "I—I read your competition piece, and I thought it was really inspiring. You're making me not just want to write a story, but craft one instead. I know that because of all the passion and care you put into it, you'll always make something worthwhile. So please keep writing stories, Senpai!"

"Well, when you put it like that…" Kamiya-senpai smiled, looking even brighter than he did in his anthology profile pictures. "I guess I just gotta keep working, huh? So you keep doing the same, okay?" He handed back my draft, and his next words were enough to make my heart stop:

"I'm looking forward to seeing what you work on in the future."

-4c

And so, those words were what sealed my fate, what made me toss out everything else in my life for writing, what spurred me to the keyboard day after day, night after night.

I fought with my Mom over it, I talked with my Dad. We found a compromise.

I entered my third year of middle school. Kamiya-senpai and I didn't talk, but I saw the name of his chosen high school in one of his latest contest profiles.

As if it was any surprise what I was going to do next.

-2d

Nagatsuki High was a school that operated on the "half days for the first week of the trimester" principle, which I should have been grateful for as someone who'd just moved into a new apartment and was living away from my parents for the first time ever. I still had boxes to unpack, a fridge to put food into, and a whole neighborhood to acclimate to. But instead of being productive with my time, all I did was whine that it was going to take until the second week of classes for extracurricular clubs to start meeting up.

I should have probably converted that energy into something more productive like unpacking my apartment, but that's not how things went. I did, if nothing else, use my freed up afternoons to write quite a bit, but even then, by the time the second week of classes rolled around, I was getting kind of antsy.

And, so, I ended up outside of the Nagasaki High School's Literary Club room, too worked up to do much more than stand outside of the room and try to convince myself to open it.

"Oh, hey there. I haven't seen you before."

At the sound of the unfamiliar voice, I jumped, turning to see who it was. An upperclassman (Second year, I realized, glancing at the tips of her school shoes) with glasses and her hair tied up in a ribbon smiled at me, looking the very picture of welcoming. Still caught a bit off guard by how pretty she was, I could only stare. "Did you wanna join our club?"

"Ah, y-yes I did," I said, stumbling over my syllables like a complete fool. My one saving grace was that Kamiya-senpai wasn't around to watch me completely stumble over normal pleasantries.

"No need to be shy, you can come on in." The senpai reached around me to put the key into the door, unlocking it before easing it open. I'd apparently been panicking about heading inside a not yet occupied room—yet another incident to add to my growing list of Being Incredibly Lame achievements. "Our room's a little small, but there's plenty of room for whoever's interested." The senpai urged me to follow in after her, and I dutifully did so, soaking in the view of the shelves lined with books, the whiteboard with leftover dry erase marker scribbles, the chairs surrounding the table where I'd come to join the other club members soon. "So, what made you want to join up in the first place?"

The senpai gave me that stellar smile again, and I had to remember how to even breathe, let alone speak. "Well, that's…I like to do this sort of stuff. And…"

"And?" she prompted, far too patient with my antics.

"I wanted to meet Kamiya-senpai." The words slipped out of my mouth far too simply, and I waved my hands in front of me, trying to dispel the nervous energy in me along with the awkward thing I'd just dumped on this total stranger. "Ah, I mean, that is, I've been a fan of Kamiya-senpai's works for some time, so I decided to come here so I could join the same literary club. No, wait, that sounds awful, let me try again…"

The senpai simply shook her head and pulled out a piece of paper from one of the cabinets before taking a seat at the table. "No, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, our Kamiya-kun has gotten a bit famous after all." I was both a bit jealous of her being able to use the friendly honorific so calmly and somewhat mortified that she didn't call him senpai. "No matter the reason, we're always glad to see new faces. So why don't we get to know each other before we talk more. I'm Takahashi Hinata, a second year."

Mortification rushed to my face in a hot wave—How could I prattle on so much without introducing myself properly?—and I dipped into a bow that dropped me low enough that I almost smashed my head into the corner of the club table. "I'm Sugiyama Kazue. It's nice to meet you!"

"Great to meet you, Sugiyama-chan," Takahashi-senpai said. She used her foot under the table to nudge out the chair closest to me, and I took the hint, dutifully sitting down with my back ramrod straight. "Are you more of a reader or a writer, would you say?"

"Oh, I love both!" If anyone had ever asked me to choose between the two, I wouldn't be able to do it. Taking words and language in, letting words and language out onto the page—being able to indulge in them both was happiness for me. Feeling a bit subconscious, I picked at the nonexistent lint on my brand new uniform skirt. "Then again, I guess enjoying reading, too, is pretty normal for people who like to write, isn't it?"

Takahashi-senpai shook her head. "Even if that's the case, that doesn't mean you can't be enthusiastic about it. All that we ask in this club is that you enjoy at least reading and that you help out with our anthology projects—easy stuff." She passed me the paper she'd had before—a club registration form. "I'm guessing you won't mind that at all, so we just need this to turn in. Formalities and all that."

I'd already started digging into my bag, and, by the time Takahashi-senpai had finished talking, I was already halfway through filling out the form with green pen. No matter what other high school I might have ended up going to, I would've probably found my way into a literary club, but there was even less reason to hesitate here. I'd finally made it to the same place as my idol, and I wasn't going to waste the year I got to have with Kamiya-senpai one single bit.

I passed Takahashi-senpai back the form (earning another unfairly smile in the first place like wow), and she set it aside to probably drop off later. "Great," she said. "When the others get here, I'll be sure to introduce you. Make things easier." I nodded, my glasses slipping down my nose, thinking about how it wouldn't be much longer until Kamiya-senpai arrived. "Oh, but I figure it'd be fair to let you know, Sugiyama-chan…

"Kamiya-kun's home sick with a cold right now, so that part of your excitement for joining will have to wait, okay?"

-2e

My luck is just the utter worst. Is this what I get for not tying up that bad luck fortune I pulled at the temple during our new year's visit? How long does that stuff cling to you, anyways?

I contemplated such thoughts between chapters of the paperback novel I was reading in the clubroom. I'd been the first to arrive that day, so I'd signed out the key, and I was lying in wait. We'd already gotten into the third week of school, and, while the other members of the Literary Club were a delight to talk to, I was getting antsy enough to consider going to a shrine for purification—though I didn't put too much stock in such things.

"Oh, you're early again, Sugiyama-chan," Takahashi-senpai said as she entered.

I raised a hand in greeting. "Yo."

"I see you're onto a new book already," Takahashi-senpai said as she settled into her own seat. It was true; I was probably on my third volume of this week. I found that regularly reading things made it easier to keep up the flow when I was writing—essentially the composition nutritional requirement. Takahashi-senpai herself had pulled out a thick volume with a flowery bookmark right in the center. "At this rate, you'll finish most of our collection by the end of the year."

"Well, that's kind of the plan." I glanced longingly to the shelves lining the far end of the room; a miniature library in its own right. "If I can get through all this, then I'll be able to keep up with new things we pick up and see what else there is in the school library…" Sure, I knew it wasn't conceivable to read every book ever with the limited human lifespan, but that wasn't going to stop me from working through as many as I could.

"That sounds like a pretty good plan to me," said a voice from the doorway, and I almost dropped my paperback onto the table in surprise. Sure enough, I recognized the speaker before even needing to turn around, and Kamiya-senpai had arrived, his hair as mussed up as ever and his uniform tie hanging lose. His eyes fell on me, and that grin stretched out over his face. "Oh, so this is the kouhai I've heard so much about?"

"Yes, President, that's her," Takahashi-senpai said, her language becoming much more formal than when she'd been speaking to me, and pushed up her glasses. I was too busy trying not to stammer like an idiot to think of much else.

Kamiya-senpai nodded and crossed the room in quick and assured strides, and soon he was standing close enough that I had to crane my neck to look up at him. "I've heard that you've been causing quite the stir."

"A-ah, well, that's…" Sugiyama Kazue's mission to not stammer like an idiot status: failed.

"Relax, you're not in trouble." Kamiya-senpai pulled out a chair and flopped down into it, sitting backwards with his arms folded over the back. "I just want to apologize for being out sick whenever the new school year was starting."

I shook my head; I was the one who'd been causing trouble; I should have been the one apologizing. It wasn't like Kamiya-senpai could help getting sick. "It's okay, I'm just glad that I get to meet you now." If nothing else, making a fuss would mean I'd make enough of an impression.

"It's a pleasure. Though I believe that you know my name, but I haven't heard yours yet."

"I'm sorry, I totally forgot!" The last time we'd met, we actually hadn't exchanged names, plus it'd been a few years since we'd last met. I'd gone through a growth spurt, if nothing else, so I wasn't too upset that he didn't recognize me. This time, for sure, I'd be part of his life.

"No worries, we can start fresh here." Unaware of the somewhat ridiculous vow I was making in my head, Kamiya gave a two fingered salute. "I'm Kamiya Noriaki, and I'm club president around these parts."

I successfully dropped my bookmark in place and left my paperback aside as I bowed in my seat (this time taking care to not almost give myself a concussion in front of Kamiya-senpai). "It's an honor to meet you!" I said, not bothering to stop my voice from hopping up an octave and a half in excitement. Takahashi-senpai made a valiant effort at attempting to hold back her giggle from the sidelines. "I'm…I'm Sugiyama Kazue!"

"Alright, Sugiyama-chan," Kamiya-senpai said (and, wow, Sugiyama-chan, I may have just been able to die happy then and there), allow this to be the official welcoming to the Literary Club. We're glad to have another member to bolster our ranks. Besides, I'm gonna need a worthy successor after I graduate, you know."

Takahashi-senpai snickered. "Now, now, President; we've still got a whole year before you need to worry about things like that." She elegantly flipped to the next page in her novel. "Besides, if you keep talking like that, you're going to make all the other kouhai worry. It won't be your last finale until you give us a good work for your final anthology, you know."

I could feel my eyes widen. "You guys have a club anthology? Do they have some of Kamiya-senpai's early works."

Kamiya-senpai grimaced. "Well, yeah, but, like, that's all early stuff, you don't wanna…"

But I was already on my feet and rooting through the shelves, looking for a line of thin spines that would indicate previous club works. "Oh, let her have her fun, Kamiya-kun," Takahashi-senpai said. "She obviously looks up to you. Besides, isn't it nice to get that attention?"

"Yeah, I suppose so…" Kamiya-senpai sighed, his chair legs scraping against the floor as he stood up. "Alright, let me be a good senpai and help you out, Sugiyama-chan. Most of the anthologies are closer to the back…"

And those days were the beginning, the mark of my high school debut. Sugiyama Kazue, age fifteen, first year high schooler and—

Kamiya Noriyaki, age seventeen, third year high schooler and president of the Nagasaki High School Literary Club.

Catharsis

TWELFTH

It was originally intended to be a joke

[Author's Notes]

God, what a year, right? We're slowly working our way to the end of it, so I offer you this holiday/fanfiction anniversary chapter to hopefully put at least something good at the end? (I apologize to those who read more than one of my stories and have already encountered similar author's notes, but my wishes for 2021 do remain the same, haha.)

Extensive thanks go out to BlankEmptySpace, amgs, yorukakusaku, The Name Is Greed, KookierThanFiction, Valen Goncalvez, TechGirl143, caviity, CHarmcaster98 (Guest), Mikj (Guest), sarah1231, AmIValid2, kiyu-shurui, and Lonney-Chan for the favorites, follows, and reviews! Your support makes me feel incredibly warm and fuzzy inside.

But, yes, we're in flashback territory now. Pay attention to the number indicators near the letter sections; they indicate how many years back from the main timeline we are. For those of you wondering "Who the heck is this Kamiya guy?" here are some answers. More to come in the next update.

Here's hoping to see you all again in a (slightly better) place in 2021, when the next update should take place. Please look forward to it!

-Avi

[12.29.2020]