Oregairu: My First Masterpiece, Your Lie in April

Oikawa honestly thought of himself as a model student.

After lunch, once he’d dropped Taishi off, he didn’t waste a single second and headed straight back to school.

Lying down on his familiar desk, he felt right at home. He was even considering sneaking it into his new classroom when he moved up to third year.

But if anyone caught him, it would be embarrassing. The old hag alone would roast him for the rest of his life.

Oikawa paused.

Then again, it looked like Shizuka Hiratsuka wouldn’t be around to see him become a third-year anyway.

Teachers in Japan rotate schools, and the average teacher gets moved every five years. This was Shizuka’s fifth year at Sobu High.

For some reason, that made him a little sentimental. Sure, she was always forcing him into thankless, exhausting jobs, but to be honest, he respected her. She was a good teacher, and she was giving it everything she had.

“Oikawa-kun, where were you this morning?”

During the break, Yui turned around and asked why he’d taken the morning off.

Ebina looked over too, curious. Oikawa slept a lot every day, but he’d never actually skipped class before, and she wanted to know what could be important enough to make him break that record.

“Woke up late.” Oikawa yawned and brushed her off.

“Oikawa-kun, you’re so lazy.”

“Tsk, tsk! I bet your finals score won’t beat Yukino’s this time, Oikawa.”

Yui and Ebina teased him, but Oikawa just smiled. He was very confident about his grades.

Yukino had been working hard lately, determined to take back first place in the finals, and Oikawa did feel a bit of pressure from that. So he’d been studying in secret.

Sleeps all day in class, grinds problem sets all night at home. The whole strategy was to out-grind everyone, quietly get better, and fool them all.

The bell rang.

It was math class again, and Oikawa lay down on his desk, ready to catch up on sleep.

Suddenly, a slip of paper landed on his desk.

「Thanks」

Oikawa rolled his eyes at Kawasaki and scribbled a reply.

「If you want to thank me, you can wear that lace set for me. The one with the garter belt.」

Kawasaki read it and turned bright red. She shot him a look full of reproach, then tore the note into tiny pieces, so small that nobody could ever tell what had been written on it.

If anyone had seen it, the story of her and Oikawa would be all over Sobu High by the next day. That would be a surefire way to keep Oikawa from playing the field, but Kawasaki didn’t want him to get hurt, not even a little.

Love really is a strange thing sometimes. Selfish yet selfless, beautiful yet hideous, frightening yet something you can’t stop longing for.

She turned her head and watched Oikawa’s sleeping face for a good while. For some reason, she never got tired of looking.

In her mind, a scene came up of the two of them waking up together in the morning, wrapped around each other. That small happiness was something she really didn’t want to let go of.

…

..

In a luxurious villa in Tokyo, Yoshihiro Togashi, the famous mangaka behind HiatusXHiatus, played mahjong with one hand and held his phone in the other.

“Just say it, what is it… hold on. Pon! Ok, keep going, I’m listening…”

On the other end of the line, Shun Kubokawa, an editor at Shonen JUMP, wiped the sweat from his forehead. He wasn’t exactly an old hand, and every phone call with Togashi left him feeling overwhelmed.

“It’s like this, Togashi-sensei. Full-Drive Bunko wants to hire you to promote one of their new books. If possible, they’d love a crossover with Hunter × Hunter, and they’re willing to pay twenty million yen for it.”

Togashi’s irritated voice came through the phone right away. “You called me with this boring nonsense just because of twenty million yen? If that’s all, you can hang up.”

Togashi was thoroughly annoyed. Twenty million yen was a decent sum, but to him it was nothing. If he wanted money, twenty million would be easy, and so would two hundred.

Besides, he had a rich wife. Living off her a little wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

“Understood, Togashi-sensei. I’ll go ahead and turn down the promotion request for this book, Clannad.”

Kubokawa had barely started to hang up when Togashi’s voice came back. “Wait! What did you say the book was called?”

“Clannad.”

“The author of this Clannad, is he that guy with the Copycat name?”

“That’s right,” Kubokawa answered. “His full pen name is Copycat Transmigrator, but everyone just calls him Copycat-sensei. He recently signed a deal with JUMP for the manga adaptation of Your Lie in April. Otherwise I wouldn’t have called you about this, Togashi-sensei.”

Togashi was quiet for a moment, then said, “Let me think it over. Don’t give Full-Drive Bunko a straight answer yet.”

“Understood—”

Kubokawa hadn’t even finished the word before Togashi’s excited shout came through the phone. “I win! Nine Gates! Nine Gates!!! Pay up, now.”

The line went dead with a series of beeps.

Kubokawa shook his head with a helpless smile and muttered, “If Togashi-sensei put this much enthusiasm into his actual work, Hunter x Hunter would’ve been finished years ago.”

Now that he had a read on Togashi, Kubokawa immediately messaged Chris Yamada. The two had worked together a few times and were on pretty friendly terms.

「Kubokawa」: Togashi-sensei seems pretty interested in Seven-sensei. He didn’t turn it down outright, so he might take the Clannad promotion. His conditions will probably be harsh, though, and it’ll most likely come down to money.

「Yamada 」: Thanks a lot. I’ll treat you to a nice dinner sometime.

In the Full-Drive Bunko editorial office, Chris Yamada stared at the message on his screen, deep in thought.

Togashi Yoshihiro sounded interested, but he couldn’t put all his eggs in one basket. He needed to come up with some new promotion strategies too.

Honestly, this campaign had gone better than he’d expected. The results were surprisingly good, and it hadn’t even cost much. He kept getting the feeling that some giant hand was quietly pushing the Clannad campaign along behind the scenes. He’d assumed it was Oikawa-sensei, but after asking around carefully, it wasn’t him.

Still, who it was didn’t matter right now. What mattered was what to do next.

“A signing event… no. The autograph sessions are already on the plan for Clannad. So what else can I do?”

Chris frowned and thought hard, but after a long while he still had nothing good.

“Wait!” Five or six minutes later, his eyes suddenly lit up. “I’m an idiot. How could I forget TikTok?”

The TikTok book promotion he wanted wasn’t the video reviews from big creators he’d done before. This time he’d make the recommendation videos himself and push them through accounts with a few thousand or a few tens of thousands of followers to drive traffic. The goal was to hook viewers within three sentences.

The catch was that this kind of traffic push had to happen in the few days right before Clannad went on sale. A fan’s urge to buy is a passing thing, just like with any new release. If you drag it out too long, the first-week orders won’t look good.

Having made up his mind, Chris started thinking about who should write the scripts. Before long, his thoughts landed on Oikawa. When it came to knowing Clannad inside out, Oikawa Toru was without a doubt number one.

The problem was whether Oikawa would agree. Scripts like this thrived on exaggeration and making things up out of thin air, and plenty of writers looked down on that kind of thing.

—

Inside the Service Club room, there was no scent of black tea today. Instead, the floral, fruity aroma of green tea filled the air.

“Oh? Switched to Gyokuro?”

Feeling the warmth of the room, Oikawa dropped his bag and poured himself a cup.

“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to drink it.”

Yukino’s voice was as cold as ever, and her words had a bit of an edge. But Oikawa wisely pretended he hadn’t heard.

Yui wasn’t there yet. It was her turn for cleaning duty, so she was still tidying up the classroom.

The room fell quiet. Oikawa and Yukino sipped their gyokuro in silence, each reading a light novel.

In the end, Oikawa spoke first. “Are you and Yui going to the mall this weekend?”

“As expected, you’re scum,” Yukino said coldly. “Only scum would eavesdrop on other people’s conversations.”

“…”

“Speaking of which, Yukino, I seem to remember you still owe me an apology. On the school rooftop, in front of everyone, if I’m not mistaken?”

Yukino glared at him, and Oikawa glared right back without flinching.

“Hmph. So you’re not only scum, you’re shameless too. You have the nerve to bring up that bet now? Now that I know you’re Copycat?”

Oikawa took the attack calmly. “Yukino, this is why information matters. You should be thanking me. That lesson was worth its weight in gold.”

“Oh, so I should thank you now?”

Just as things were about to get heated, the clubroom door opened again.

Oikawa assumed it was Yui. But when the door swung open, it was Isshiki Iroha.

“Good evening, Oikawa-senpai! Yukino-senpai!”

At some point, Isshiki had become a regular at the Service Club. She had her own chair, and she’d even brought her own mug. Worth mentioning: it was the prize they’d won after paying the bill at that restaurant, back when they’d pretended to go on a date. It had a blue elk on it and looked really cute.

“Didn’t Shizuka-sensei say the student council had to prepare the slogan for the incoming freshmen? Are you already done?” Oikawa was quite surprised by her appearance.

“There’s still plenty of time.” Isshiki brushed him off, then pointed at the green tea in her mug and turned to Yukino, practically glowing. “Senpai, you made this gyokuro, didn’t you? It’s so good!”

“If you like it, have as much as you want.”

A rare smile crossed Yukino’s face. Even she got happy when she was complimented.

“Isshiki, how’s the confession thing going? Have you made up your mind?”

Yukino cared quite a bit about this. She seemed to genuinely like Isshiki, and a gentle look often slipped into her eyes when she looked at her.

Oikawa thought it was probably because Isshiki had some qualities Yukino envied. Her liveliness, for one, and the way she did whatever she wanted. Those were things Yukino could never quite reach.

“Oh, I’ve definitely made up my mind about the confession.” Isshiki tilted her head, looking a little troubled. “It’s just, I feel like I’m probably going to fail. My dummy of a senpai doesn’t seem to like me at all. Right, Oikawa-senpai?”

Oikawa blinked. What did that have to do with him?

“Haha, Oikawa-senpai. I just meant that my senpai treats me about the way you treat me, like he feels nothing for me.”

Isshiki kept smiling, but there was a hint of loneliness in her eyes.

“The most important thing in life is not having regrets,” Yukino said. “Just having the guts to try already counts as a success.”

A cold wind rattled the clubroom windows, and thin drafts crept in through the gaps. But right then, Isshiki felt that Yukino’s words were warmer than the weather outside.

Yeah. Just having the guts to do it was already half the battle.

And who knew? Maybe a certain scumbag didn’t feel nothing for her after all.

She lifted her steaming mug and, through the haze drifting over the rim, turned her face to look at Oikawa.

“Yahallo~”

That familiar voice rang out again. Yui, her hair in its usual bun, pushed open the door and strode in.

“Yui, good evening!”

“Oh, Iroha-chan, what are you doing here?”

Oikawa was startled to hear them use each other’s names like that. When had they gotten so close? It was practically one of the ten great unsolved mysteries of the world.

“I came to ask you two for advice on my confession.” Isshiki then shook her head. “Okay, fine, I’ll just say it. I came to the Service Club to slack off. The student council is way too stressful. If I stay in that soul-crushing place forever, I’m going to lose my mind and die.”

Oikawa didn’t even have the energy to respond to that.

“The Service Club will always welcome you, Iroha-chan! You can come hang out with me and Yukinon anytime.” Yui poured herself a cup of tea, sat down straight in her seat, and smiled a happy little smile.

“Thank you, Yui! You’re the best!”

Isshiki jumped up, looking thrilled. She seemed to like the Service Club even more than the student council.

Then again, that made sense. A place with free tea and free snacks all the time? Who wouldn’t love it?

From that day on, the peaceful triangle of the Service Club became a four-sided shape that kept on growing. Oikawa couldn’t tell whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, but there was definitely a lot more laughter in the room.

What puzzled everyone, though, was that no matter how many traps Yukino set, Isshiki never told them who she was planning to confess to.