After weeks of momentum building and word spreading, every major city across the prefecture had its own sizable pocket of loyal Blue Spring Ride readers.
The series had reached its eighth installment, and the story had finally arrived at a critical point for the whole work.
Futaba had to choose.
Friendship… or love?
No matter how badly readers wished the plot would not go there, reality was reality.
The story had already stepped onto that stage.
So when it came to the eighth installment, you could say every single Shiori fan in the prefecture was on maximum alert.
Starting Thursday, the die-hard readers spent their days in a miserable tug-of-war.
They wanted to see what happened next more than anything. But they were also terrified the story would collapse in one badly handled paragraph.
If the author slipped even once, Futaba would instantly get branded with the worst labels imaginable.
Selfish, or saintly in the most infuriating way.
And because Blue Spring Ride leaned so heavily into the heroine's inner monologue, it was even more dangerous. One wrong line could become "proof" that Futaba was secretly dark on the inside.
Finally, Sunday arrived.
Release day for installment eight.
At seven in the morning, Aoi Kisaragi was already up. She went for a light run, ate breakfast, got herself dressed neatly, and headed straight for the bookstore.
Most magazine readers were not like her. Most people did not wake up at dawn just to buy the new issue the moment it hit shelves.
Normally, she was not this intense either. But the way chapter seven had left her hanging for days had been cruel. She could not take waiting any longer.
The moment she stepped into the store, she spotted it immediately. Fleeting Blossoms was stacked in a tall, proud column right beside Crimson Maple. The cover featured an illustration from Blue Spring Ride. Soft, elegant linework, and characters drawn with that clean, beautiful charm that practically screamed "shōjo."
The second she got home, Aoi ripped the plastic wrap open and flipped straight to the table of contents, hunting down Blue Spring Ride like it was a matter of life and death.
The first line she saw hit her like a punch.
"To be honest… I've thought he was pretty great for a long time."
Yuri's cheeks were flushed as she smiled gently, her voice low and shy.
"And then I really fell for him… in that forest. When he held my hand and helped me cross the stream. He was so kind. It made me feel safe."
An opening critical hit.
Futaba's best friend was talking about Kou, the boy she liked, right beside her.
And Futaba could only sit there, pretending to be supportive, pretending to be happy for her, offering blessings she did not mean.
It was painful to read.
But was Yuri wrong?
She had fallen for a single boy who was not taken, a boy who had helped her when she needed it most.
The story stayed in its usual rhythm.
Daily life, gentle daily life.
Pages and pages of Yuri and Futaba talking endlessly, sharing secrets, pouring their hearts out, laughing the way best friends do.
Their friendship was written as something genuinely beautiful.
If they were not both in love with the same boy, this would have been warm and comforting.
But because they were, every sweet line landed like a knife. Futaba listened as her best friend confessed her feelings for Kou, and she still had to smile, still had to encourage her, still had to tell her to do her best.
"This is awful," Aoi muttered, already in a bad mood.
After school, Futaba and Kou were kept behind by a teacher. As class reps, they had to stay and handle leftover chores and paperwork for their homeroom.
A perfectly timed assist from the teacher, creating a situation where the two of them could be alone.
Futaba gripped her pen so hard her knuckles almost went white.
'Every time he looks at me through that gap in his bangs… even just a little… it makes my heart panic.'
Her expression darkened with sadness.
'No, I can't keep thinking like this. He's the one Yuri likes!'
"But he's also the one you like!" Aoi blurted out before she could stop herself. Before you learn to love someone else, you should learn to love yourself. That after-school classroom scene took its time, devoting a lot of space to the heroine's inner turmoil.
Her spiraling thoughts.
Kou's quiet, half-hidden concern for her, always there and yet never stated outright.
'What do I do? Every time my heart skips because of Kou… Yuri's face pops into my mind.'
Futaba was struggling.
When the classroom chores were finally finished, Futaba reached her limit.
'If I stay with Kou any longer… I can't.'
'Kou, I'll take the report to the teacher.'
She made up an excuse, trying to send him off first, trying to avoid being alone with him any longer.
But she dragged her feet around school for half an hour, stalling, forcing herself to do things slowly, as if time could solve what her heart could not.
Finally, she walked out of the school gates under an orange-red sunset.
And there he was.
Kou, standing at the entrance, waiting.
"You're still here?" Futaba asked, forcing her voice to stay calm. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" Kou looked at her like it was obvious. "I'm waiting for you. You said you had to turn in the report, so I waited until you finished."
"I mean… you could've gone on ahead," Futaba said.
"If we're going the same way, splitting up would be weird," Kou replied calmly, his gaze steady on her. "Let's go home."
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Aoi could see the whole scene in her head like an anime cut.
Seriously, what was with this male lead? How could he be this charming?
This was insane.
On the walk to the station, Kou kept trying to find something to talk about, any topic at all to bridge the silence between them. But Futaba, because of Yuri, was terrified of getting closer.
'What do you do if you and your best friend like the same person?'
'I don't want to… fall for Kou.'
'But I also… want to keep loving him.'
'But… but I wish someone would just pick for me. I wish someone would answer this question for me.'
At the station, they waited for the train. When it arrived, Kou had already bought his ticket and stepped aboard.
And then Futaba spoke, suddenly.
"Kou… I forgot something, so…"
Inside her head, she formed a cruel little rule.
'If Kou doesn't get off, then I'll stop liking him.'
'If he gets off… then I'll keep liking him.'
'If he stays, I give up.'
'If he gets off, I keep going.'
In just a few hundred words, the author handed an impossible decision to Kou, a boy who had no idea what was happening in her heart.
Aoi's entire body tensed.
'If he stays, I give up. If he gets off, I keep going.'
Futaba repeated it over and over, staring at her shoes, unable to look at Kou inside the train, terrified of what she might see.
The immersion was suffocating.
Aoi clenched her fist so tightly her palm started sweating.
The doors began to close.
Right at the moment they were about to shut, the one honest answer inside Futaba surged to the surface, loud enough to drown everything else.
'Get off.'
In that instant, she understood.
There was no such thing as a choice you could not make.
She wanted him to get off. She wanted to keep loving him.
The train pulled away, the sound fading into the distance.
Futaba's tightly shut eyes slowly opened.
She raised her head.
And there, on the platform, bathed in the glow of the setting sun, stood Kou, looking at her.
"You forgot something at school?" he said simply. "Then let's go back."
Futaba could only stare at him, unable to speak.
'I'm such a liar,' she thought.
'I already knew what I wanted. I acted like I couldn't decide, but I knew.'
'And in a moment like this… Kou would get off. He always would.'
'Sorry, Yuri.'
That scene…
Aoi felt like her chest was going to burst.
It was too sweet.
Her heart could not handle it.
No debate.
From chapter one to chapter eight, this was the best-written sequence in the entire series.
Futaba's tangled feelings, the "test" she forced herself to create, and Kou's gentle decision, made without knowing anything about the war inside her, all landed perfectly.
On the surface, it looked like Futaba was deciding whether to love him based on whether he got off the train.
In truth, the result reflected Kou's own heart.
If the person waiting on that platform had been Yuri…
Then based on everything the story had shown so far, Kou would not have gotten off.
The installment ended right there, in the moment Futaba finally confirmed her feelings.
And Aoi's soul immediately filled with rage.
What was this?! Why did it end here?!
"You can't cut it off there!" she yelled at the page. "Shiori Takahashi, you little menace, are you even human? How are you supposed to sleep at night after doing this to people?!"
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