Chapter Text
Karen Noir: You don’t realize it at first. Change can happen gradually but one day, you wake up in a whole new world. People leave your life. People become a more real part of your life. Either way, your image of what play you are in and how the characters are lik can turn out to be completely different in only a couple of months. But if everyone’s roles to play were changing, maybe it was time for me to change as well.
Without guidance, I was never going to adapt and my art would suffer for it. But much as I would like to believe otherwise, there was only one place where I could get real advice.
But first, I had to pay for the consequences of my past actions... I have to go visit the Student Council room.
Narrator: Karen Noir is Karen Kino’s alter-ego that she has created to add narrative to her life. She thinks she’s the narrator, but that’s not the case.
Ishigami: Namamono-Senpai, what are you doing here? You are not welcome in this place!
Karen Kino: Vice-president Ishigami! Long time no see! And glad to see you still have your sense of humor!
Ishigami: I’m not kidding! You are the one who told Kogane that I can review Doujins.
Karen: Oh, that ....
Ishigami: Do you have any idea what I’ve had to go through? The things I’ve had to read? How difficult and stressful is it to keep Iino from finding out that I read that stuff?
Karen: Well, since you are the vice-president and Iino is the president, I thought I was just helping the tradition get going...
Ishigami: Yeah but not even you would be insane enough to show your doujins to Shinomiya...
Karen: Well, it’s just... Okay, I don’t have any excuses. I’m sorry, Vice-president Ishigami.
I can make it up to you. How about: I can help you get with President Iino!
Ishigami: Do you think I am insane!?
Karen: Ok, okay!
Then how about this: I promise to get back to helping Kogane out, that way you won’t have to do it. That’s got to be something, right?
Ishigami: That is something.
But I’m still weary about something: What are you here for?
Karen: Well.... I need a favor.
Ishigami: Oh no.
Why are you taking that notebook out of your bag?
No, no.
Karen: Please, I need an editor. I really need feedback.
Ishigami: Really? I know Kogane said your new doujins were doing great.
Karen: I need objective feedback...
Ishigami: Over my dead body!
Ishigami: Hmnn
Karen: So, what do you think?
Ishigami: I don’t get why you were so worried. This is so much better than your previous work. The drawings are a lot more consistent. Good thing that you are using original characters. And even the comedy is not so bad.
Karen: Well, I was going with your idea of having a sort of Love War between Kaguprez to see who gets the other one to confess. But now that the President left and I started interacting with Kaguya-sama for real, it didn’t feel right to keep using them in my stories.
Ishigami: And that’s a relief. This is significantly less creepy.
Karen: But, how about the romance?
Ishigami: The romance is as usual in your stories.
Karen: Really? Huh, I was so worried.
Ishigami: Yeah, the romance is as shitty as always.
Karen: What?
Ishigami: It’s not like it’s your fault.
Karen: BUT
Ishigami: Overall with all things considered, the new work is better.
Karen: But my concern was specifically the romance!
Ishigami: You were really taking it that seriously?
Karen: After adding new characters that weren’t Kaguprez, I’m not sure about their chemistry, that’s what I needed feedback for!
Ishigami: Hahaha, you should have started there.
I didn’t notice any difference, really. Your doujins had shit romance.
Karen: But...
Ishigami: Maybe it is that you are maturing or something. When you were making your first doujins you didn’t care as much about this because drawing the former student council heads doing couples stuff or kissing was enough for your hormones. But after writing so much and no longer drawing your fetish, you are more conscious about it?
Karen: How am I supposed to fix this?
Ishigami: Like I said, it’s not like it’s your fault. You don’t really have any experience with love, do you?
Karen: I guess not.
Ishigami: You are supposed to write what you know. No one is really interested in reading a teenage girl’s theoretical version of what love is like.
Karen: But... It’s not like it’s easy to find experience in that regard!
Ishigami: Is it not? What about that guy? Hmm... Toyosaki-senpai?
Karen: Oh you probably saw something and misinterpreted. He has been helping me simulate love scenarios for my doujins. Hmnn, I thought that was going to improve my ability to write.
Ishigami: That might help you write some cute moments. But without a real relationship, those moments are meaningless. What if you just made the thing real?
Narrator: Ishigami and Miko were in the past contacted by Toyosaki for counsel on how to confess to Karen, a chain of failure made Toyosaki settle with just telling Karen that he’s going to help her simulate scenes. BUT THE WAR IS NOT OVER!
Miko implied that a failure on Toyosaki’s part would reflect badly on the Student Council’s advice. Not wanting to disappoint the legacy of the Student Council, Ishigami was interested in making it happen and he finally saw an opening!
Alliances are a big part of war and you never know where a surprise alliance may happen when common interests align.
Karen: I don’t know... Would it not be enough to just get writing help from someone with experience? How about you, Vice-president?
Ishigami: You think I have tons of free time? And not to mention I don’t really have that much experience with romance, either. Only ... heartbreak.
[...]
Heartbreak....
Karen Noir: I may have accidentally triggered the Editor Vice-president to enter a rather unproductive state. When he gets like this, he’s of no help for a while.
Still, I guess he had a point.
When I try to think of Toyosaki-kun as a romantic prospect, I can’t help but think of my best friend Erika, instead. This story would be eerily similar to what she’s going through. Coincidentally, Toyosaki-kun’s best friend is involved there. I know that Kazamatsuri is interested in Erika, but she’s too oblivious in love to realize. I am not sure if such a one-sided situation is good for anyone involved. If I were to ask Toyosaki to become my boyfriend for real just for the purpose of improving my writing skills, would that be even ethical?
I tend to forget the Vicepresident has some darkness to him. Some of his ideas might be insane and dangerous.
The next day, I made my decision. I was going to ask Toyosaki to be my boyfriend. Maybe that was the only way to become a better writer. If he had been helping me with simulations of situations, maybe he really was the only one who could accept such a dodgy idea, a relationship of convenience just to gain experience, it’s not that much different, right?
Toyosaki: Kino-san, hey. How’s it going?
Karen: Hi, well, can we talk for a bit later after class?
Toyosaki: Huh, sure.
Karen Noir: I would spend the whole day wondering about what I was going to do. Finally, we met at the terrace. He was looking at me with some weird combination of nervousness and kindness.
Kindness. Looking back, Toyosaki was always kind to me. It was certainly a treasure to have a friend like that, he helped me with studying, and eventually was patient with my hobby and even went above and beyond to help me with that. I was just about to ask for even more help. It was certainly good to have a friend like this.
A friend...
Toyosaki: So, Kino-san, what did you want to talk about?
Karen Noir: It was the moment to go for it. As weird as it sounded, it was the only way forward. But I remembered about my friend Erika, once again. That whole situation... She was always so oblivious to love, so she didn’t notice how obvious Kazamatsure was being.
Karen: Oh yeah, well. I wanted to ask you...
Karen Noir: Oblivious to love.
Karen: Toyosaki-kun... Do you like me?
Toyosaki: I guess even you were going to figure it out eventually.
Karen: Oh...
Karen Noir: I don’t know what made me change my question. But this was so fortunate. This was my perfect chance to go forward and start gaining more experience with love. And in addition, he’d be happy. It’s a win-win. This makes everything so much easier.
Sometimes fate just works. I guess the Vice-president was right after all.
All I needed was to move forward.
Karen: Sorry, I don’t feel the same.
Toyosaki : Well, I.
I ...
Go figure.
Karen: I’m so sorry. Are you going to be fine?
Toyosaki : No.
But , thank you.
Karen: What for?
Toyosaki : For lifting that weight.
Toyosaki : I guess I sound too calm, but it’s more like I knew this was coming .
Karen Noir: So there was I, when that day started I certainly wasn’t planning to break a man’s heart.
The Vice-President was right about one thing. Experience is really a big deal. I spent a good chunk of the previous week's writing about how Love is a War, but I wasn’t aware that this implies that there will sometimes be casualties.
Just one attempt to learn something real about Love and it was already looking like it was going to be too cruel for me. I wasn’t really feeling encouraged to try more anytime soon.
Still, it’s probably for the best. You can’t go around just pretending a relationship is just friends when in reality it’s more like that. Eventually, it has to either evolve or crash. And that day I learned that there’s no middle ground.
Narrator: Today’s results:
Toyosaki and Ishigami’s loss.