Mizuki Nomura - Book Girl and the Famished Spirit

This is a perfect misanthropes heaven.

So said a certain gentleman who secluded himself in the countryside. During the second half of my third year in middle school, I secluded myself in my bedroom.

I kept the curtains shut through the day and drew the covers over my head, praying that the sun wouldnt rise, that tomorrow would never come, while I dug my nails into the sheets and buried my face in the pillow, blubbering.

There were plenty of middle school boys in Japan, so why had this happened to me?

What had I done?

I wasnt actually a misanthrope. It was just that the first novel I ever wrote happened to be chosen for a new authors prize; I happened to be the youngest winner ever; and I happened to choose Miu Inoue as my pen name, which made me sound like a girl.

But when my book was published, it had to go and become a best seller, and there had to be a big stir about the brilliant, mysterious young girl who wrote it and in exchange, I lost something important to me.

I would never again be able to see the special girl I had liked ever since I was little, but that didnt stop people from applauding the fourteen-year-old girl genius or conjecturing about who Miu really was, and the publishers hounded me for my next book almost every single day.

Why did I have to keep writing novels when something so awful had happened to Miu?

Just leave me alone. Im not a brilliant author, and Im not a stuck-up girl from a good family who could actually pull off the whole white parasol look. Im never going to write a novel again!

Cold sweat coated my body. The tips of my fingers ached. My chest tightened as if it were being twisted in a vice. I couldnt breathe. I closed the door to my room, squeezed my eyes shut tight, covered my ears, blocked out all information, and tried to pretend that none of it had happened.

Everything happening outside my door was a dream. Only this side of the door was real, and the other side was nothing but lies. Please, dont let anyone open the door. Dont come in here. If the door opens, that world of lies will become reality. It will crash over me like a tsunami and swallow me up and Ill drown.

I bit down on my blanket, damp and smelling of sweat, until my gums bled, and with all of my heart, I wished I could go back in time and do it all over again.

Just a few months, thats all. If I could just go back

I would never write that novel. I would never apply to the new author competition.

I could just be an ordinary middle school student at Mius side, watching her smile, listening to her stories like rays of sunlight in a forest, intoxicated by the vibrant abundance of words she wrote, and my heart would be satisfied with that, not afraid of the world or the people in it, living my life in peace and happiness.

I want to go back.

I want to do it over.

Please, God. Please put me back the way I was before I wrote that novel.

But no matter how earnestly the middle school boy prayed in his dark bedroom, of course a convenient request like that would never be granted.

At the end of a long, long winter, I hobbled out of bed, took the exams, and entered high school.

And in the summer of my second year of high school

Im writing treats for the book girl in the book club with only two members.