The piercing chirps of my alarm clock greet me to a rude but routine awakening. Groggily, I run my hands across my nightstand in search of the clock. I grab it and squint through the darkness as I try to read the dial.

7:01am. Monday.

I sigh, and toss my blankets aside as I prop myself up on the bed. I get up and start to stretch in the still darkness of my room, the blinds turned closed. I reach for the nightstand and grab my phone off its hook, scrolling through the notifications that had built up overnight. Endless texts from people I both did and did not know, some missed calls and a lot of local news blurbs.

I ignore them all and tap away to my playlist, pulling up one of my favorites. Soon an upbeat but smooth piece fills my ears as I stumble into my small connecting bathroom. I start to undress as I begin screwing with the shower nozzles, still glaring through the sand in my eyes. I step in and take a labored moment to let the hot water rush over me, streaming down my body as I try to gain my thoughts for the nightmare ahead. The swollen puke-green and purple bruises that mark up and down my arms, my neck, and my face at first ache with the pressure of the stream but soon start to relax with the heat. I sigh, popping my fingers as I try to let the shower wash my woes away. A brand new day, it's a brand new day, today is the start of a brand new–

But there's a knock at the door.

"Kazuma?"

"Yeah, Dad?"

"Are you taking a shower?"

"...Yes?"

"Okay, just checking…sorry."

And the sound of footsteps departing and my door closing.

I groan. Putting my hand to the tile of the shower, I thud my forehead over and over as the tension of another migraine threatens to spike through my temples already. It's nothing compared to the living nightmare that has refused to die over these past three days.

My life as I knew it really is over, huh? This is the new normal, this walking on eggshells.

It truly kicked off the night I came home from the police station. Once my interrogation ended I was put in the empty cell while the entire world outside seemed to just fall away, the monotonous march of time with no end, no clock or watch or anything to measure it. I don't know how long it took, but the police eventually pulled me and my grief-stricken parents into that same room and explained what our…situation looked like. I was not being charged with anything, to my muted shock, not assault or trespassing or accessory to whatever. At the very least, the officers opted not to press charges against me because their logic was 1) they did not consider me an instigator to the situation and 2) I had not committed a criminal action in their eyes, or at the very least they opted for leniency despite the circumstances. Surprisingly, nobody had said anything about the busted state of my car, which as far as I know is still parked across from Natsuki's house waiting for me, or the I assume several neighborhood traffic cams catching me speeding through the streets running reds that night. At least, they hadn't mentioned it and I certainly wasn't gonna snitch on myself. The officers' tones struck me as sympathetic, genuine, and I couldn't detect any air of condescension. It was something of a relief until the other shoe dropped.

With respect to Natsuki, they had nothing to offer. She will remain in custody as the investigation continues. There is no specific timeline on when she could or would be released. The situation is very fluid and has the opportunity to change for the better or worse. There would be plenty of opportunities to talk to the suspect in due time. The eldest in the room, the stern-faced Officer Hamada, repeated the obvious that a very serious crime had been committed and it was only the job of the National Police Agency to investigate the facts and reveal the truth. I found myself impressed by his bluntness, and soon I was handed me a piece of paper with seemingly random phone numbers I could call for case updates and assistance related to the inevitable legal fight to come, among those the office that handled inmate messages. I had called I don't know how many different times over the weekend and could not once meet my goal of talking to Nats; I always got the automated line first, usually leading to a voicemail, and the one actual human being who answered simply said to call back later and hung up. To my astonishment, the officers had explained a person in custody could remain as long as twenty three days in lockup before a decision on release or indictment could be made.

I remember my jaw dropping a little when that was made known, the officers pointing out the bulletins on their neat little pamphlet detailing the legal process for a person in custody. Over three weeks just to sit around and pray that nobody forgets you in there? What the fuck!

In the shower I swiped for the conditioner, squeezed a dollop into my palm and dug my fingers into my hair. My scalp spiked with the pain from me obsessively tugging at it for the past two days but I didn't care.

Once that circus was over, I had to come home and face my parents alone. After I got my belongings back and made a tearful but brief reunion/goodbye to the Literature Club (who I had to beg to go home as it was already pushing midnight by the time I was released and to their undying credit they spent the entire time waiting in the lobby), my parents and I just awkwardly hugged outside and we silently got into their car and went back home. In the extremely loud hours-long living room argument with my parents still wearing their party attire, they told me the event pretty much got put on pause and later on fizzled out after the true scope of what happened with me and my girlfriend got out. It was ugly, really ugly, the worst argument I've ever had with them. The theme of the shouting was "how could you do this to us?" and screaming about the embarrassment at the party before I reality-checked them with the fact I just witnessed a man have his fucking head blown off and land on top of me. They stopped with the self-victimizing really quick, but there's a big part of me that has to reckon with their understanding of their situation, to try and see things from their point of view. This is just as bad if not worse on them than it is on me, the fact their only son had to go through any of this.

Then the argument gearshifted to Natsuki. Both of them wanted me to cut off contact with her, absolutely, arguing about the long-term impact to my schooling and my career in being associated with someone who "most certainly will never leave that jail cell" according to my all-seeing deity of a Mother. My father was not as absolute in that, but agreed with the sentiment. How could it be that just half a day ago he was all ears and ready to bring her to meet the family and I have to re-negotiate her standing in my life now? Every second I felt myself fighting a losing battle, my voice shaking and threatening to crack. Again, endless eons of more reasoning and shouting at them, stressing my genuine love and admiration for her and saying that I would never, never leave her side. I can't. Even if I had a single bone in my body that wanted to, how could I do that to her? After everything we had been through; dates, confessions, slow dancing in the dark and now this unimaginable evil crashing down all around us…to just abandon her in the thick of it?

Never. I simply cannot and will not. I have to fight for her.

There was a relief that washed over me again and again that despite the anxiety of the argument that they weren't explicitly forbidding me from seeing or contacting her, but just really really really hoping I wouldn't. Neither one had made that implication, so at least that's some kind of victory there. Things could be worse; I wasn't being thrown out on the street, or disowned for the great shame I brought to the Odaka name, or being beaten, and they both knew that I was going to bat for her. Finally, after a lot of crying and hugging some more, our tired eyes went to bed. Collapsing buildings, crashing waves and shrill screaming dominated my sleep.

But at least Mom and Dad are on my side. For now.

The Saturday morning that followed I was able to sleep right through the day, and in that time once all the news stations serving the greater Tokyo metropolitan got wind of this so-called crime of the century, it was just a trickle that turned into a downpour of text messages and phone calls from just about everybody I had ever passed by in the hallways of Yamaku, relatives, friends of relatives. Somehow, someway people put two and two together. Pretty much all of them were more-or-less strangers–well, not entirely true, there was Toji and a few other friends I still kept in touch with. There were my aunts and uncles and cousins from the party. I knew them at least. All the local agencies and soon the nationwide ones were to my absolute horror showing Natsuki's full name, her mugshot and even revealing that she went to Yamaku! I couldn't believe it; isn't that some sort of breach of privacy? Although it was doing more harm than good, I had been obsessively watching the news and trying to get ahead of whatever lies they would spin about us. To my surprise, everybody was running Natsuki's name (and it was how I learned she actually had a middle name) in the headlines but nobody had ever mentioned a Kazuma Odaka at all, only referring to me as "the boyfriend" or in the national stories not even mentioning me at all, just Natsuki and her father; Gerald Xavier Tamura. I don't know why, since we're all eighteen now. The legal protection of releasing the names of minors doesn't apply to me any more than it does to Nats. I'm chalking it up to the fact I wasn't charged with anything and therefore aren't too important in the story.

Ironic.

Perhaps I'm not as up-to-date on my country's politics as I should be, but the very idea of someone using a firearm to kill another in such a gorey fashion is truly unheard of in modern Japan. It simply does not happen, at least not in such a public fashion. Serial killers don't exist anymore, those boogeymans and mystery capers are exposed easily in the light of technology. Over the weekend as my mind was hurding at a million miles an hour over a billion different thoughts, I struggled to think of how guns were mentioned in my life before this. It barely gets taught in school, more as reference during wars or law enforcement, and I've never even held one before. Firearms are legal but quite rare for private ownership. The only people I've ever seen with guns would be the police or army soldiers, and even then I can't remember the last time I had actually seen one in person, at a function or in a parade…or maybe this unfolding trauma of mine is ruining my memory already.

I looked down at my hands. Thick strands of my black hair, both short and long, were tangled in my fingers and coiling up in my palms. Through the steam of the shower I breathed hard and rubbed my hand across my face, wiping away the sweat.

Ruining my memory, among other things.

…

With a wet brush the morning began to smear and blot into the afternoon. It started with slugging through a muted breakfast with my parents, then a quiet walk to Yamaku with Sayori (who greeted me with sobs and a bear hug outside my front yard, which only caused me to get misty-eyed). Then getting to campus and forcing a blank expression for the walk down the halls to get to first period. The swelling in my face from the fistfight had relaxed somewhat over the weekend, but a long bandage where a cut from a big chunk of glass had stretched from my chin to an inch under my left eye was obvious to anyone who looked my way that I got into it with someone. My tongue awkwardly felt and pushed around on the recent filling for the chipped front tooth I got during the fight, getting it done just yesterday after collecting myself enough to go to a clinic. My eyes felt heavy, drooping, and I tried to ignore the stares of girls and guys alike as I gripped the strap of my bag and stayed mum through the morning.

Lunch couldn't get here fast enough.

Mr. Takeshi Kido, my teacher for Theory of Knowledge class, was droning on in his usual sharp-tongued demeanor. Thankfully he wasn't in the mood of picking on students at will for pop quizzes today and seemed to be just rattling off a lecture from the top of his head while we transcribed. "...And I hope that one of the things you can take away from this class is that you learn to observe interactions you deal with, no matter who it might be; a stranger on the train, your best friend, your parents, and know that life is about taking the best of what others offer and…"

I looked down at my notebook. My handwriting was sloppier than usual, but had been able to scribble down…something, I'm not too sure on what exactly. It looked like notes, whatever it was Kido was rambling about. I can't even remember really writing them. On the sides of the notes were random doodles of boxes, shapes and a poor attempt to draw the Tokyo Tower which looked more like a pyramid with spikes on it than the real life thing. I scratched it out with my pen and flipped to a fresh page.

"...As we were talking about in the last class, does morality truly have a definition?" Kido paused by his desk for dramatic effect, took a chalk and turned to write on the blackboard. "Is it moral to abandon a child on a doorstep one night when the mother knows they cannot care for them, not knowing if they've potentially doomed them to a life of squalor with the person who volunteers to care for them or perhaps saving them from it?" He continued scribbling with chalk to make a diagram, "Life can be defined by your heredity plus your environment; it is the world around you that defines your own personal definition of morality, and moral choices…"

I rolled my eyes to myself and tapped the tip of my pen against the page, making little ink marks. Per Monika from the group chat, there was still going to be a Literature Club meeting (but of course we all knew we wouldn't be doing any reading) as scheduled but that wouldn't be until Wednesday. Sayori wanted to get together after school but the details were fuzzy, since Yuri implied she would be busy later. I glanced out the window, watching puffy white clouds roll across the clean blue skies surrounding Edogawa, and suddenly the wisps of a poem came into focus. What a beautiful day. I scribbled at the top of the page,

Dreams of Love and Literature

I looked over at the clock hanging in the front of class; ten minutes 'till we leave. Plenty of time to write a draft. I returned to the paper.

The sun rises up with glee

As sure as one can dream

Of snow-capped peaks or the scent of greens

I paused…of snow-capped peaks or the scent of greens? Or dreams? No, the scent of sweets. Sweet like candy or those taffies Sayori likes to get at the grocery near Yamaku on the walk back home. Plus it kinda rhymes. I crossed out 'greens' and wrote sweets next to the scribble.

Of snow-capped peaks or the scent of sweets

Dreaming of ourselves in the distant future

With our hands entwined in eternal embrace

Ready to face the world which hastes

Our rush to grow up

Another pause. That last line is too abrupt. Our rush to…rush to…hmm. I moved my pen down to the next line, drew an X and rewrote,

Our hands laced despite the haste

Of others demanding we get a taste

Of the world they call adulthood

Eh, that's a little better. Again, a poem is supposed to rhyme, isn't it?

But in the meadow we trip and scrape

As we rush to the lake to drink from its wake

We pluck fruit along the stream

And drink up its sweet sweet dreams

Okay, maybe not that much rhyme. The pen dries up, and I dab the end of the tip with my tongue to scribble a hasty finale.

Those dreams of love and literature

The bell rings and the room explodes with activity. I hastily put my notes into my back and beeline for the door. There's an uncomfortable tension swirling around me; people staring again? I don't know cause I don't stop 'till I'm at the end of the hallway. The dining hall is still a ways away, so I slow my speed and take a breath.

Lunch. What do they serve you when you're in jail? At least the basics, I hope. Rice and meat or some sort of soup. Maybe some smelly canned meat, or hell they just give you ramen without the water to cook it. At the very least something edible. When I was in there the cell seemed clean enough, I was given a baggy pair of clothes to change out of my blood-soaked tux for their evidence bins but the T-shirt and shorts were at least washed. I…what did I eat when I was kept in there? I only remember sipping water.

The crowd surges as I near the wide glass swinging doors of the cafeteria. The grandest of the clouds had offered a sprinkle of rain to dust the air and the smell of dew grew thick as it collaborated with the blooming fauna. Spring had sprung and everything was looking extra colorful, green trees with blurbs of reds and yellow flowers. I rub my temple and groan. Despite the nice weather, my headaches' coming back and I dig into my inner pocket for a tiny aspirin bottle. This entire weekend was a strange headache; I feel like I'm among the living dead. It still seems so unreal to me that only a week ago we had our usual club meeting, our lives as normal as it could get, laughing and hanging out together, and now it was just…j–one of our best friends might be going to prison for murder. It doesn't make any sense! How can this be happening to us! Was Natsuki going to have to drop out now? What about her career, her future? Was she going to be gone for life!? What about our plans, everyone's plans together!?

I had barely eaten anything over the weekend, the roaring stomach sickness assured that. None of this feels real. Where do we go from here, us together? I love her, I really do…but the question is, how are we going to get out of this mess we're in? By fighting, obviously. Japan has a legal system, a justice system. Innocent until proven guilty, right? Or so it is said.

I stepped into the dining hall and looked around. The banners hanging from the ceiling had been changed for the spring season, opting for intricate and lush paintings of oceans and clouds with blossoming petals and the like. With rays of sunshine gleaming through the sprinkling rain onto the long rows of tables and booths, it gave the hall a serene but harmonic glow. I slowly shifted over to the soup counter and ladled some miso into a bowl, garnishing it with onions and coriander. I grabbed a tea, two bread rolls and quickly checked out as a ripple of pain constricted in my temple. If the aspirin was planning on working, it was taking its sweet ass time.

Slowly I started up the steps to the second floor balcony, where Natsuki would either be waiting or following me up the stairs. Except today she's not.

Just me.

Certainly for someone who is only a year off from graduating high school, there is a way to get your diploma while being imprisoned. Some youth advocacy group I've yet to hear of will say that she has to continue her education at the least, if she proves she wants to (which if she wants to be a mangaka she has to at least finish basic schooling). Maybe some kinda half-cell/half-classroom thing; mornings with lessons and nights in lockup. Or would she even go to prison? Maybe because of her age she'd be in some sort of special confinement for youth inmates. The gangbangers and thieves and offenders and just yeeesh. Natsuki was nothing like those lowlifes.

I shuddered a little, my fingers holding the tray. We shouldn't even be thinking about these what-ifs. Natsuki should be right here scarfing down a bento box with me, not miserable and alone in a six by six cell. Her father was the fucking criminal, the abuser, the deviant. What was her crime? Self-defense? Above that, defending me? I was as good as dead before she intervened, I was out-for-the-count and he was gonna bash my head in like I was rabid.

The second floor balcony was surprisingly empty, but not a lot of students had gotten through with the lunch line yet; the tables would fill up soon. I sat down at our usual spot, near the corner of the balcony overlooking the hall below and set my bag on the table. I dug through my papers before I pulled out a small book; The Parfait Girls, Volume 7. Natsuki had the collectors set I got her for Christmas and I adopted her old copies, so recently we had decided to reread from the beginning together to see if it still held up (it did).

I cracked it open and set it next to the tray, but before I started to read a voice coughed behind me. "Hey."

I glanced back. There stood Yoshi Tadashi a foot or so away from me, with a warm smile and his lunch bag in one hand. With his other hand he had his blazer slung over his shoulder, finger holding it by the tag.

"You, uh, mind if I eat with you?"

I shuffled a little bit and gestured to the seat across from me. "Sure."

He nodded and set his stuff down at the seat, sighing as he did. "Thanks. Man, today has just been so annoying."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I have this group project for Kido's class next period and I've kind of been tripping about it. I don't know why I volunteered to be the public speaker, I suck at it."

"Ah."

"But Sayori's been helping me practice with it, so hopefully I can just manage to not screw it up. You know how much Kido scrutinizes the little shit."

I took a spoonful of the miso soup, swishing it around a little. It was more on the salty side. "Yeah."

Yoshi glanced at me for a moment and started to unpack his lunch, an impressive big bento box complete with shrimp, steamed rice, what looked like brussel sprouts with steamed cabbage, a dab of wasabi and some other tasty bits. A bottle of iced water and some chocolate wafer cookies as dessert. I continued to sip the soup and break little bits of the bread off, not really saying anything. I picked up the Parfait Girls and thumbed to where I last stopped. Yoshi opened his chopsticks and started to eat, chewing slowly and scrolling at his phone.

We didn't say nothing for a few minutes. Some more students came up the stairs to sit, mostly in pairs. There was a pause before he spoke again, setting his phone down on the table. "So listen," he coughed, "now that I got you here, there's something I was wanting to talk to you about."

I glanced up from the manga. "Yeah?"

"It uh," he pushed on his glasses with his free finger. "It's nothing bad. I was just…well, I guess we don't really know each other that well and I was kind of hoping we could change that. Be better friends."

"Hmm," I sounded hesitant even though I didn't mean to. "I mean, yeah. Since you're with Sayori maybe one of these days we could double–"

A streak of pain flashed across Yoshi's face as I caught myself in my words. My train of thought imploded. "I–, I mean…yeah, man. Sure."

Yoshi rubbed his thumb against his cheek before he continued. "She talks about you, y'know."

"Who?"

"Sayori."

Oh God, he's not gonna tell me she admitted last night she's actually in love with me or something right? That is juuust what I need right now. "Oh."

"I mean, you literally saved her. You got her out of a horrible spot in her life, and she'll talk about how much you mean to her as a friend. And a lot of guys would see that as a red flag, or get jealous, but I know you two go way back so it doesn't bug me. I'm not here to complain or anything like that, that's not why…I'm here."

I just nodded, and took another sip of my soup. "So what's up."

"Well, I heard about what happened to Natsuki."

I didn't say anything. This dead sinking weight I've been carrying over the weekend pushed down onto my spine.

"I mean, I'm sure everyone has. It's all over the news. I can't say I ever knew her, but I know that she's your girlfriend and all. From the Literature Club. I think we spoke once at the Festival, but I don't really remember."

"Mm." I swirled the soup around with the spoon, staring into the broth.

"I'm sure you've heard it a billion times already, but I hope you know that this isn't the end of the world. There's a way to get out of this, and…people give a shit about you, y'know? They don't want to see you get destroyed or do something to yourself, Sayori maybe most of all. And…y'know, if you ever need someone to vent to or you just wanna hang my line's always open. We could play games or something, if you ever wanna reach out."

The dead weight lifted just a few inches up. I felt a small smile tug on my lip. "Hey…thanks, Yoshi. That, uh, that means a lot."

"Alright. I'm not tryna sound like some guidance counselor or anything, it's just…for what you did for Sayori, just know you're not in this alone. I'm so sorry for the shit you're going through, man. I can't imagine."

I looked up at Yoshi. That ugly scowl on Natsuki's fathers face right before he threw me across the room flashes against his features, stabbing my vision like red-hot spears. I blink hard and my voice drops, wounded. "Yeah. Wasn't fun." I swirl the broth around with my spoon, hearing the metal clink against the bowl. Clink clink clink.

Yoshi grunts in reply and just resumes eating, back to looking at his phone. Just as I'm about to go back to reading my own phone starts to ring. I swipe it open and it shows it's from an unknown caller with no number shown. I stare at the blank contact pic for a moment, then swipe to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Hi!", an automated computer voice greets. "This message will be monitored and recorded. You are receiving a call from the Edogawa Police Department from an inmate within their jail system. The inmate's name is–"

For the first time in four days, her voice rattled in my ear. "natsuki tamura."

"To accept this call, say 'yes' or press one. To decline, simply hang up."

I huffed. "Y-yes! Yes." I pushed on the keypad and looked over at Yoshi. "It's her," I held up my screen as if to verify it was actually happening, "She's calling me from the jail."

He seemed surprised. "Oh, wow. That's, wow." He quickly picked up his bento box and started to collect his stuff. "I'll, I'll give you some privacy. Later, dude."

I gave a wave goodbye. "See ya." My mind was racing and the headache seemed to evaporate with this turn of events. I had tried calling again this morning on the walk to Yamaku, and was only able to pass along the message to some clerk that I was trying to get ahold of her. Now it was really happening. The call dropped to a dial tone, and briefly hold music played before the call clicked. I heard what sounded like scratching fabric on the other line.

"-No, fuck you." A female voice growled before her attention turned to the phone. "Um, Kazuma? Is that you, hun?"

I gasped, cupping my mouth with my hand so my voice wouldn't travel. "Yeah, Nats. Oh, oh I miss you so much baby."

"I miss you too," her voice ached. "How are you healing? Your bruises?"

"Don't worry about me, I'm fine. I'm at school, Monika, Sayori, everyone's here. Tell me what's going on with you. Have you eaten?"

I heard what sounded like a shout, muffled through the speaker. "I'll make it quick, they're only giving me like two minutes for this call apparently. These motherfuckers haven't let me contact anyone all weekend. They keep making up this, 'ooh the lines are down, ooh someone using it, ooh you'll use it in a minute' just nonstop nonsense to keep me off the phone. Bunch of rat liars. Now that it's Monday, I guess they can't keep hiding me."

"I had no idea, I've been trying to call that station we were sent to all weekend. Your face is all over the news."

"You're kidding."

"I wish I was."

More scratching. "I saw myself on the TV in the lobby, just briefly when I was getting moved to somewhere bigger. I have a roommate now, haha."

"Oh, that's…", my voice dragged. "Nice?"

"Honestly it's fine. She's twenty, goes to college, she got arrested for shoplifting and some other little stuff. Nothing like these scum and drunks in the other cells. She's really sweet. I could've been stuck with some perv, but we've just been braiding each other's hair and trying to kill time. I told her my story and she told me hers. We're having as much fun as you can when you're…you know, in jail."

I laughed nervously. "Yeah, right? But, um, has anyone said what's gonna happen to you? If you're being moved again, or, what?"

I hear her sigh. "No, nothing. It's been the same shit for the past two days; they prod me awake, they give me my meal, I get interrogated for hours and hours, they stick me back in the cell. Lather, rinse and repeat. It's just, they're really trying to get me to confess to all this shit."

"Ah, aw y–" I get up from my seat and start to do an awkward pace, standing by the railing to the balcony. "I'm so sorry."

"It's what I deserve."

"What? No no no, Nats."

Her voice creaks. "I got you hurt. I fucked up e-everyth…" I hear her gasping hard.

"Nooo, no. Baby. Hey." I try to reassure but I j-just, God, we shouldn't be having to bear this burden. She did the right thing and she's being punished. She should be here reading with me, not locked up in a fucking–

"I'm sorry," she sniffles. "I can't cry. They're gonna…tell me to stop crying, Kazuma."

"For my sake, please stop crying."

There's a long pause. I hear her breathing relax a little as she tries to collect herself. "Hhh…o-okay. I'm…I'm good. I'm okay."

"I will see you soon, my love. I'm trying to figure out how. They're making it so fucking difficult to."

"Someone had mentioned you have to make an appointment for that. I really don't know. Just hearing your voice again is all I need."

I look out across the dining hall. A smile spreads across my face, but it's undersold by the biting fear in my mind. "Just be safe. Be safe, please. We're all fighting for you out here, please don't give up hope."

The call clicks abruptly. I looked down at my phone to see only my lockscreen, with Natsuki holding up a peace sign and grinning from ear to ear. The call lasted exactly two minutes.

…

Author's Note: Hey everybody! The last chapter might've been confusing for some people; the bit with Natsuki's mother is a flashback to her youth in 1998, and the drag race chapter with Kazuma and Natsuki takes place about a month before the events of Chapter 27 (Natsuki killing her dad). Chapter One takes place around mid-September of 2017. The most recent series of events, the Kazuma/Dadsuki fight and Sayori passing out at the convention took place on a Friday and as of this new chapter, the current date is April 30th of 2018, the Monday following that weekend. As the story continues there will be flashbacks to certain important events in the past but I hope this clears the Love and Literature timeline up!

As always, thank you so much for reading and be sure to follow for updates! Long live the Literature Club!