There's an unspoken rule in the creative world, a truth as undeniable as gravity: the moment your passion project becomes your profession, all the joy gets sucked out of it like air from a vacuum-sealed bag. What's left is just the suffocating pressure, the painful struggle, the endless staring at a blank page.
It's hell. Pure and simple.
Kuroha Akira's brain was now operating at maximum overclock, processing threads of plot and character like a CPU struggling to render a hyper-detailed scene. Thankfully, thanks to the "Academic Ability A" he'd copied from his class monitor, his mental processor was running a lot smoother than it might have otherwise.
First things first: the relationship between the protagonist siblings. The beginning was everything. In the world of web novels, they had the concept of the "golden three chapters"—the critical opening that determined if a reader would click away or stick around for the long haul. In an era where attention spans were shrinking faster than a cheap shirt in a hot wash, a killer opening was non-negotiable.
He considered his options. There was the classic Kousaka sibling dynamic from that one series he remembered—starting in the negative, with the sister treating her brother like garbage. Then there were siblings like 'Blank', the legendary duo who were practically lovers in their past life, starting with their affection meter already maxed out. Setting that initial affection level was a crucial strategic decision.
After rotating the possibilities in his mental 3D model, Kuroha Akira made his choice. He'd set the sibling relationship as "used to be super close as kids, but grew distant over time due to various circumstances." It was the perfect middle ground.
This setup would let his little sister's emotional arc develop naturally, with room for growth in either direction. Plus, it opened the door for heartwarming—or heart-wrenching—flashback chapters later on, showing their childhood bond. Perfect for building those emotional climaxes that make readers tear up on the train.
Next up: defining the little sister's core attributes, her "moe points." What kind of imouto would make readers fall in love?
Definitely not tsundere.
Sure, hearing a voice actress shout "Baka! Hentai! Urusei!" with that perfect blend of indignation and embarrassment sounded cute in anime. But in a novel? Stripped of vocal inflection and animation, those aggressive catchphrases just came across as... aggressive. Reading "Shut up, idiot!" on a page didn't make you feel warm inside; it just made you wonder why the protagonist put up with this verbal abuse.
Besides, Kuroha Akira personally wasn't a tsundere fan. He found it hard to write the essence of something he didn't genuinely like. You can't paint a masterpiece with colors you hate.
And those plot devices where the sister's stubborn pride creates misunderstandings just to pad out the story? They annoyed him to no end. If he were forced to write a tsundere character, he'd rather write the satisfying payoff: the moment her pride shatters, leaving her regretting everything, tears streaming down her face as she begs the protagonist to reconsider. Now that would be cathartic.
But for this story, where he wanted to explore that delicate, ambiguous tension between siblings, the little sister needed to have real agency. She was the soul of the entire work.
A proactive personality... with a hidden yandere streak simmering beneath the surface.
On the outside, she acts like she couldn't care less about her brother. But inside? She's obsessively, desperately devoted.
Every action she takes, every snide comment, is secretly calculated to get a reaction from him, to make him cheer up, to keep his attention focused on her. This gave her clear motivation and, more importantly, laid the perfect groundwork for the ending. Whether he chose the "just siblings" route or went all the way down the forbidden path, the foreshadowing would be there from day one.
Now for the core gimmick. Kuroha Akira had to admit that the eroge hook in "Oreimo" was genius. Fushimi-sensei was a master of finding those perfectly provocative concepts that walked the line between suggestive and acceptable. Later, "Eromanga Sensei" pushed it further with a little sister who drew... illustrative material. The pattern was clear: take a socially awkward hobby, attach it to a cute imouto, and let the awkwardness unfold.
So what should his sister's secret be? A younger sister who writes adult novels?
No, that was a landmine waiting to explode. If a brother-complex novel got discovered by the protagonist, the conversation would immediately escalate from awkward hints to "Onii-chan, can I borrow your dictionary for research purposes?" and then the whole thing would devolve into straight-up R-18 content. Not the vibe he was going for.
So, eroge it was. But with a twist. Not playing eroge, but making eroge. That settled the opening scene perfectly.
Picture it: The protagonist is settling in for a private evening, about to... appreciate... a newly acquired eroge. Then, scrolling through the credits out of idle curiosity, his blood runs cold. The creator's name? His own little sister's pseudonym. Roll credits. Story begins.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
Opening: decided. Next: the development.
A gimmick alone couldn't carry a whole novel. What mattered was whether the subsequent characters and plot developments could support the tone and keep readers invested for the long haul.
And right here, at this crucial juncture, Kuroha Akira hit a wall.
He frowned, scratching his head with increasing frustration. Okay, so the protagonist discovers his sister makes eroge... and then what? What happens next?
Stuck. Completely and utterly stuck.
A familiar, unpleasant sensation churned in his stomach, a burning knot of anxiety. The pressure to use his abilities to earn a living came crashing back, a hot wave of stress reminiscent of his worst office days in his past life.
The pressure was so intense he felt physically ill. If this flopped, it wouldn't just be a waste of time—it would mean zero income. Shinomiya's voice actor training plan would stall, crashing into the wall of reality. He'd be mocked by Shirai Shiori, forced to honor their ridiculous bet and run naked around the school track, achieving a new level of social death that would follow him to graduation and beyond.
Damn it... why wasn't there a skill for "creation"? If he could just see a proficiency bar filling up, at least he'd have some measurable progress to cling to for confidence...
But no matter how much he wrote, the fear of failure lingered like a shadow.
Kuroha Akira forced a bitter smile from somewhere deep inside. His mind drifted to Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's masterpiece, "Hell Screen." In that story, the artist father was forced—by his own obsessive devotion to art—to sacrifice his daughter to complete his life's work, the blood-soaked Hell Screen. For the sake of creation, he abandoned everything, including his beloved child, casting himself willingly into artistic hell.
Creation truly was hell.
"Akira-kun?"
Shinomiya's gentle voice pierced through the darkness, pulling him back to the surface.
"Hm? What's wrong?" He blinked, realizing she had quietly sat down beside him at some point, her worried expression hovering in his peripheral vision.
"I'm fine, but you..." She hesitated. "You look really uncomfortable. Is something wrong?"
Ah. His constipated, tormented expression must have alarmed her. He forced a smile, trying to smooth away the tension in his features.
"I'm fine, really. Just struggling with how to develop the story from here."
"Develop?" She tilted her head, genuinely curious.
"Yeah. I'm writing a novel. Planning to submit it to a publishing house."
"A novel..." Shinomiya's eyes flickered briefly toward his laptop screen, that natural curiosity sparking before she caught herself. She visibly restrained the urge, not wanting to pry or annoy him.
Kuroha Akira noticed her wandering gaze and felt a small wave of amusement wash through him, lightening his mood despite everything. He smiled, more genuinely this time.
"It's still just in the concept phase—total mess, really—so I can't show you yet. But it's not a diary or anything. I don't mind people seeing it eventually."
"Mm..." A soft warmth bloomed in Shinomiya's chest. Every time he showed that casual trust, it felt like a small current of warmth flowing through her heart.
Emboldened—just a little, like a cat testing boundaries—she began to gently inquire about his thoughts. She wanted to understand what had driven him to write in the first place.
"Akira-kun, do you want to become a novelist?"
"Uh, not really..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's more like a hobby, I guess? Or maybe a Literature Club activity? Anyway, I've never seriously thought about becoming a novelist."
Kuroha Akira's dream remained unchanged: live comfortably off a woman's income, preferably without working himself to an early grave. Writing a novel was just a means to an end—a money-making scheme. If he hadn't met Aizono Moe and discovered her artistic talent, he probably would have abandoned this path entirely.
Also, there was the small matter of being provoked by Shirai Shiori...
Now that he'd calmed down, he had to wonder: why was he, a grown man reincarnated, acting like a hot-blooded teenager competing with a high school girl?
He suddenly felt pretty childish. Did physical age actually influence mental state more than he'd assumed?
Taking a step back to reassess, Kuroha Akira realized his real motivation for writing this novel was simpler than he'd thought: he wanted to wipe that smug look off Shirai Shiori's face. Plain and simple—he wanted to prove her wrong.
He couldn't stand arrogant people who dismissed things without understanding them. Pride was fine, healthy even. But arrogance? The kind that sneered at entire genres without knowing anything about them?
Just because she'd won some newcomer award, she thought she could look down on light novels? How dare she?
Wasn't there some wise man who once said: "The people love it, you don't like it—who are you to judge?" Something like that, anyway.
Shinomiya watched the clouds of worry gradually dissolve from Kuroha Akira's face and smiled softly.
"Since that's the case, Akira-kun, you can be a little more selfish about it. Wouldn't it be better to just write something that makes you happy?"
The words cut through the fog like a beam of sunlight.
She was right.
He wasn't a professional screenwriter anymore. He wasn't grinding away in some cramped office, chained to deadlines and corporate expectations. He was just 'Kuroha Akira', a high school boy with too much free time and a complicated relationship with a rival classmate.
Why was he taking this so seriously?
If this novel-writing path didn't work out, he'd find another way to make money. There were always options. No need to fear failure—if he lost the bet, he could just bluff his way through it with jokes. Shirai Shiori probably didn't actually want to see a guy's naked body anyway. The threat was mostly for show.
And even if he failed, that didn't automatically mean Shirai Shiori would get published. It could easily end in a draw, both of them quietly burying the whole bet and pretending it never happened.
Somewhere along the way, he'd developed this professional burden... even though he hadn't been anyone special in his previous life. And he'd called Shirai Shiori arrogant, but here he was, expecting to become some literary prodigy with his first attempt. This wasn't a world where success came from expectation alone.
"...You're right." A genuine laugh escaped him, loosening the last knots of tension. "Haha, I was overthinking everything."
He'd still write the novel, obviously. The bet was still on. But there was no need to torture himself over it anymore.
With a relaxed mind, it was time to charge through hell.
After all, the 'light' in light novel... meant keeping it light.