Chapter 18: Confession, Followed by Rejection (Part 2)

“T-Thanks for the meal,” Hisui meekly smiled, placing a hand on her sister’s shoulder.

“Don’t mention it,” Chou growled, angrily slamming her bedroom door in her sibling’s face. She angrily marched over to her desk, picking her manuscript up and preparing to rip it in half.

All of those weeks of going on mind-numbingly preposterous and idiotic “dates”, down the drain in one fell swoop! And what did Chou Usagi have to show for it? Fuck-all, that’s what! She lost her dignity! She lost her virginity! She lost her best-friend! And all for some stupid novel which sat in her paws as nothing more than an unfinished first draft!

“Deep breaths, Usagi…” she sighed. “This fucking outline is all you have left from that godsawful train-wreck of a relationship! If you tear this fucker up now, you’ll have lost so much for nothing! …Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.” Chou placed the sheets of paper back down on her desk. “Where did it go wrong?” she pondered. “I didn’t take Fumihito for the type of idiot to think he could somehow brainwash an aromantic into falling in-love with him!”

She flipped the cover page of her manuscript over and started silently reading to herself. ‘Chou put her elbows on her editor’s desk as she leaned forward on her tiptoes, her checkered-skirt pointed outward as her cottontail poked out above the waistband. The rabbit bounced up and down eagerly on the tips of her feet as her editor finally flipped to the last page of her manuscript before placing it down on his desk.’

“Hmph,” the bunny girl rolled her eyes, “if Mister Fox had just accepted that first idea, I wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place!”

As she continued reading her latest novel, the first time she had looked over previous chapters since writing had begun, her eyes widened in realization. That chapter – a faithful recreation of her first rejection from Mister Fox followed by Fumihito’s romantic confession – didn’t have the protagonist (tentatively named-after Chou herself, until she could think of a new name) telling the love-interest (tentatively named Fumihito) that she was aromantic!

“Oh, gods…” the rabbit sighed. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t picked up on that when initially writing the chapter. Not only was it a plot-hole, an inexcusable mistake for an author of her caliber, but it also meant she HADN’T told Fumihito that she was aro all-along! “Oh, fuck… Oh, fuck… Oh, fuck… Oh, fuck… OH, FUCK!”

The rabbit girl burst out of her room, tumbling down the stairs and leaping in front of her television. “Hisui! We need to talk!”

“I had a feeling you’d come back down here tonight…” the author’s sister smiled, grabbing the remote-control and turning-off the TV. “You wanna talk about the double date tonight?”

Chou sheepishly nodded.

“Ok, Sis… Whaddaya need?”

“Well,” Chou began, “it’s about Fumihito. It… turns-out I didn’t tell him I was aromantic before.”

“Saw that one coming…”

“HISUI!”

“Sorry, sorry… Anyways, you were saying…?”

“I don’t get why he got so mad. He knew we weren’t really dating! I told him I was never gonna be his real girlfriend!”

“Oh, boy…” Hisui sighed. “Y’might wanna sit-down, Sis. This may take… awhile to explain.”

Chou took a seat on the couch next to her sister.

“It’s possible that Fumihito just thought you were playing hard-to-get, or that you might eventually fall in-love with him if he was juuust romantic enough…”

“But I told him I wasn’t interested. It’s not my fault that he didn’t listen!”

“Chou, you didn’t do anything wrong…” Hisui smiled. “You just…” her smile disappeared, “didn’t do anything right, either.”

“…So, explanations on some romantic crap that I’ll never understand aside… What should I do now?”

“I think there’s only one thing you can do…” Chou’s sister replied, “find Inugami and explain what happened. I’m sure things will go-over better without all those restaurant-goers watching.”

“…Thanks, Sis.”

“Don’t thank me yet…”

“So… any ideas where Fumihito might’ve went after he left Chez Platypus?”

“You know him better than I do, Sis. Where do YOU think he went?”

 

The public park. At that time of night, it was deserted; well, apart from Fumihito Inugami’s presence. He’d walked up to the clifftop to clear his mind. He looked-up at the Moon and let out a melancholic howl.

“What a joke,” he fumed, “how could Usagi possibly think that doing that to someone was ok?!” He picked a nearby flower and started plucking its petals one-by-one. “She loves me not, she loves me not, she loves me not, she loves me not…” This continued until the plant had been stripped of all of its petals. A single gust of night-wind swept the petals over the side of the cliff and into the uncaring abyss below.

Fumihito’s ears and tail shot-up as he heard a tree branch snapping behind him.

“Who goes there?!” he asked, sniffing the air. “…Oh, it’s you. How’d you know I’d be here?”

“Because… we both like walking in this park,” Chou said, with a forced smile.

“Go back to your apartment, Usagi. We’re through, remember?”

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“I, uh… I was rereading through my manuscript, and, uh… I realized you were right.”

“Uh-huh?” Fumihito angrily raised an eyebrow.

“I never told you I was aro. I-I’m sorry…”

“It’s a bit late for apologies, don’t’cha think?!” the cavalier King Charles spaniel barked. “Those last few weeks I spent trying to get closer to you – they were a complete and utter fucking waste!”

“Yeah, well think about how I must feel,” Chou snapped back, “I got nothing outta it, either, y’know?!”

“What about your novel?!” Fumihito growled.

“It didn’t meet the minimum word-count.”

“…How many words off?” the mutt asked, a hint of genuine curiosity seeping through his enraged tone.

“Three-hundred-and-ninety-one.”

“Just and an epilogue or an ‘about the author’ segment or something, then,” the pooch rolled his eyes.

“I… don’t know how it ends,” Chou admitted. “I’ve never known how it would end. Only YOU know how it ends.”

“And what is that supposed-to mean?” Fumihito asked angrily.

“You’ve helped me out with writing it so far,” the rabbit smiled. “Whaddaya say; wanna help me out one last time?”

“Fuck-off,” Fumihito replied. “No, really, just fuck-off, will you?”

“Fumihito…” Chou sighed. “These last few weeks… were fun, weren’t they?”

“…”

“…”

“Yeah, I guess so…”

“Neither of us got what we wanted from this experience, I’ll admit… But we did get to know each other better. We did get to hang-out more. And for the first time since I started working for this company… I had fun. When we were ‘dating’, I’d never had so much fun writing on a deadline before!”

“That’s… great…” the King Charles said, standing up and walking over to Chou, “but I’m not gonna be able to help you finish your novel. So you can just stop trying to win me over now.”

“This isn’t about the novel, anymore!” Chou squeaked. “In-fact, it never really was! Just… uh…” The lagomorph fumbled around inside her jacket for a few seconds before withdrawing a stack of papers. “Just read it, will ya? It should explain everything.”

“…Fine.”

 

After just over an hour, Fumihito place the last piece of paper down on the stack to his right and let out a deep sigh. “So, when you said that I could help with your ending… you didn’t mean proofreading.”

“Oh, fuck no!” Chou giggled. “I’ve written my story. Now it’s time that you finish writing OUR story…”

 

Suddenly, another gust of wind blew past the coworkers, scattering Chou’s manuscript pages off the clifftop and into the darkness below.

“The draft!” Fumihito cried.

“Yeah, I know, it’s getting chilly, huh?”

“No, the manuscript! It… it blew away!”

“…”

“Uh, Chou?”

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!!”

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