A/N: Oh my gosh totally forgot this would go out onto the General Azumanga Daioh page and not just to the two people following this story. Sorry if you clicked this thinking it would be anything special. This chapter is more just for me to put an end to everything. Sorry for the necrobump!
He woke up, his head feeling groggy. What did he do last night? What did he eat? Whatever it was, it was definitely not agreeing with him this morning.
His eyes struggled to open as he looked across his shoulder toward his alarm clock. The green glow of the numbers was blurred beyond recognition. He knew that even without his glasses he should have been able to see the time, but in his half-awake state, he had somehow assumed his eyesight had degraded, and not merely been impaired by his slowly waking body.
With great effort he rolled himself onto his back, and with a great intake of breath, he lifted his upper body into a sitting position. He still had to squint to make out the time, but at least sitting up in bed he could see the numbers more clearly. They indicated that the time was 5:54; in just 6 minutes his alarm would have woken him instead. He groaned after realizing it wouldn't be enough time to go back to sleep.
He rolled out of bed just as he did every morning. His open window revealed his quiet street was just as sleepy as him. The winter sky was still dark, and the rain of the previous night was still pooled in every pothole and deviation of the roadway. Below the window, he stared again at his alarm clock, now reading 5:57. He turned the alarm function off as he remade his bed, so that when 6 o'clock rolled over, the sounds from the machine would not wake anyone else in the house.
With profound slowness he reassembled his bed, and reached for his phone. As it alighted he also bent down to turn on his desktop computer. The blue glow from each screen assaulted his still weary eyes, but it was a comforting pain. The man lived his life on computers, something his childhood self would have marveled at, but which his older body was already recognizing was not healthy. Oh to be a carefree child once more, he thought.
He was eager to connect to the internet this morning. For the past few weeks he had been reading a long epic, and was nearing the end of the story. It was a work of fanfiction, and while not the best writing, it was thoroughly entertaining. He knew that the story was not completed - a new chapter had just been released the other day - and so he came to terms with the fact that he would need to create an account in order to follow the work, and stay up to date.
But as he navigated to the website, an old memory of younger days drifted into his head. A time when he had decided that the spark of inspiration, mixed with the kindling of an established cast, would drive him to write his own story. Now a decade older, and a self-published author even, he laughed at his middle school naiveté: a basic outline did not a compelling story make.
As he was already going to the website, he decided to take a quick detour down memory lane first. He wasted almost 15 minutes just trying to access his old account, and in doing so rediscovered his first published work. It was pitiful. Since he had had nothing but a basic concept the first chapter was barely even reached 200 words, the second (and final) chapter only brought the story just over 1000. Worse yet, the last chapter for some reason involved a plot point about airline terrorism and was for some now unknown reason published on the 10th anniversary of 9/11! What was he thinking?
He remembered what he had thought, not about the incomprehensible 9/11 decision, but about the story in general. He envisioned a wild goose chase across the United States. Our heroes desperately searching for clues, only to turn up minutes too late to find their lost friend. A lost friend who would have her own struggles as she tried to escape her captor. But his problem has been that despite knowing what story he wanted to tell, he had no idea how to write it. At best he could have produced a bullet list of interesting story threads - maybe an action set-piece or two - but no matter what his 13 year-old self had tried, those grand ideas always came out bland.
After coming to terms with this, he had abandoned the story. It was his personal shame. The single thing tied to his name that embarrassed him the most. When others discovered it he deflected in cowardice, unable to separate himself from the young fool with grand ambitions. He let it stay unfinished, before it had even really started.
But now, over a decade later, he was older and wiser. In the blink of an eye he managed to accept his middle school self, recognizing that everything he once saw as a fault had brought him to the current day. He resolved to finish the story. For the life of him he could not recall what should have come next, but that did not matter anymore. The story's new ending would not only conclusively end this period of his life, but it would stand in the future as proof of his personal growth in emotional matters and as an author.
Thus he began a not so truthful recounting of what brought him to the present moment: a progression of 10 years condensed into a single morning. It would not match the rest of the writing. It also wouldn't technically be fanfiction anymore; the only character in the last chapter was himself. Yet it was a conclusion nonetheless, and a much better conclusion than killing all the characters off unceremoniously in an unexpected explosion which was his first idea.
Finally, he no longer had any more meaningful words to add. He had finished it.
For a moment he hesitated to publish the chapter. It did not feel right to actually end it. For the last decade it had stood as something he might get back to one day. This was closure in its most permanent sense, and as always, that made the moment bittersweet. Although now he could write a thrilling chase across a continent, adding new depth to familiar characters, and testing them in ways never before imagined, it was not a story he was particularly interested in writing. Nor would he ever feel like doing so. He had resolved to end it, and despite all the hesitation, the time had at last come to do so.
And so, with a few taps of the keyboard and clicks of the mouse, he put an end to a chapter of his life, and an ill-conceived story of kidnapping and detective work featuring Japanese high school girls.
A/N: I think the story itself explains it all. To be truthful I'm actually playing hooky at work right now as I type this waiting to get an email reply. I would not have the energy to write this at six in the morning. However, deciding to do this on a whim is indeed the truth. I had only intended to log in to follow another story and search for something new to read. If you had asked me this morning if I would be ending Chiyochan: Lost in America today, I would have laughed in your face.
I'm honestly surprised that 2 people even followed this story, though I'm sure one of them is my childhood friend who had encouraged me in the first pace. I would like to thank him for doing so because that probably led to me taking up writing as a hobby in my adult life. My only novel so far was in no way a sales hit (especially because I self-published it and did not do any marketing), but it is something that makes me proud. Now too I am proud of having the courage at such a young age to push this piece of what I consider today to be trash out into the world. I wish that I was so inhibited today.
I guess I'll stop rambling here before the author's note takes up more space than the final chapter. I thank the people who rightfully gave strong, constructive criticism back in the day. I took it hard then, but only because I knew it to be true. I do not plan to write any fanfiction at present, though none of us knows what our futures hold. If such a day never comes, let me say one final thank you for taking the time out of your life to humour me by reading this, and if you are an author in your own right, thank you for working so hard to provide entertainment for the rest of us. Thank you!
P.S. I am not bothering to spell-check or proofread this so please excuse me for the grammatical errors and spelling mistakes.
