Chapter 1.5: Intermission
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*cough*
"Gin-san, what's the meaning of this?"
A young lady took a seat in front of the man as the man proceeds to scratch his head. He turned his attention towards the lady.
"Otae-san... don't you get the memo already? Because of the new movie as well as the recent releases of new season and episodes, one of our fanwriters finally took an action to catch up with the series. And that means the possibility of her finishing some of her old writings that she left unfinished long ago."
Otae let out a soft chuckle. "Ah, really... isn't that a good news?"
Gintoki shook his head. "Not really, if you recall her inconsistent bouts of attention spans. Even now in her long lists of works in progress, our particular writer has a lot of pending works that she needed to finish. It would be too much to hope that she could continue on this line of the track too long to actually complete what she intended to do."
"Ara? But isn't the fact we were having this exchange shows that she really does intend to complete this piece?"
Gintoki shrugged. "Well... it's because she had been having this conversation stuck in her head for days now, was the reason she finally snapped."
"Then, it shouldn't be a problem then?"
He shook his head again. "No, no... you don't get it. Let us recall... how many years since the first chapter of this fic was posted? It's almost ten years now, and do you know how many fics had our writer been posting ever since? Not to mention how her writing style has evolved since her way of thinking would have also taken a lot of evolution. For her to go back to continuing this piece and finish this chapter, it would not have been an easy task. Not to mention she would have lost her old draft after all the life mishaps and bad lucks with computers, getting back on the track would be-just look at her other very old piece for Sai○○○○ when she tried to resume the story? Halfway though a sequel, she realized that some scenes were better written differently and she ended up revising the chapters and ended up rewriting the original multi-chaptered fic. And what happened after? That piece ended up on a hiatus because she had too many things to rewrite and many other things to watch and write for. Asking her to achieve more with just one more chapter of Misco-"
"Gin-chan... are you going to spend the rest of this chapter just trying to explain our writer's situation?"
Gintoki coughed. "W-Well... this chapter was just an intermission, but don't you think that this is something that we should do at least? How would you feel if you were reading HangerXHanger and had to wait for the next chapter for years afterwards because the series had to be postponed for indefinite time and years later it finally returned but then you noticed that the art style and story telling had differed a lot since the last time you were following the series? Culture shock, you see! Even if new readers started taking attention on her old works and were able to read the continuation, they would have noticed the difference! Also, considering that the anime and manga plot had progressed so much since the last time our writer had followed Gintama, certainly that would have affected on how she would want to write this next chapter that she's been meaning to complete!"
Otae laughed. "Well, it's still just one more chapter, isn't it? Miscommunication was originally meant to be a two-chaptered fic from the very beginning... so it shouldn't be too much burden for our writer to carry."
"W-well... Otae-san? You're just saying this because you have a main role in this fic, aren't you? You're just saying this because you love all these attention on you, isn't it?"
A haughty laugh burst out.
"Well, I AM the heroine of Gintama after all. There's no way I would say no for more chapters involving me. And Gin-san... don't you remember all the reviews we used to get? The readers just loved the pairing between us, do you intend to disappoint all of them? They had been waiting for so long for this piece to be completed after all."
He sighed. "As if we don't already have the anime and manga to worry about, now here come all the fanfictions! And it's not like you can just label this chapter as 'Chapter 1.5'! In the end, this fic would still appear to have THREE chapters than the supposed TWO."
"Maa, maa... now don't worry too much about those minor technicalities. At least we'll finally get to finish this fic."
"IT'S NOT LIKE THE NEW DRAFT HAS ALREADY STARTED!" Gintoki hollered, before remembering his manners. "Well, I think we already said enough to cover the explanations. And I think we could also post this notice on ○○ net without breaching the agreement about the no 'Author's note' thing or what was it that used to happen in the past...?"
"Now, now... enough complaining. Don't you think it's a bout time we address the readers now?"
Gintoki snapped his fingers. "Oh yes!" he exclaimed as both of them turned to face the screen.
"Dear readers, considering that all of you had managed to read through all of this without pressing that Esc button... you really have our deepest appreciation."
Both of them bowed.
"THANK YOU, FOR YOUR CONTINOUS SUPPORT!"
Gintoki shrugged. "Our writer would start working on the next chapter soon. Hopefully, it would not be another long wait."