Chapter 115: The Cost of Staying

Chapter 115: Chapter 115: The Cost of Staying

Three days passed.

Nothing exploded.

No mysterious calls.

No anonymous messages.

No dramatic revelations.

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The silence felt suspicious.

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Deeply suspicious.

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Haruki distrusted it immediately.

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Life, unfortunately, continued anyway.

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Chapter Twenty-Nine released on Wednesday.

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The response wasn’t spectacular.

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It wasn’t terrible.

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Something stranger.

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Stable.

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Readers discussed Ren’s argument with Miyu.

Readers debated Shiori’s decision.

Readers criticized the wrong staircase scene.

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The story.

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Actual story discussion.

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The comment sections looked healthier.

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Not healed.

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Healthier.

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Haruki checked the forums exactly once.

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A major achievement.

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The system agreed.

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Workflow Improvement Detected

Compulsive Analytics Checking:

Reduced 61%

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Creator Focus:

Improved

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Haruki closed the notification before it could become smug.

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At eleven o’clock, he met Mizuno.

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Not in a conference room.

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An actual restaurant.

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A dangerous development.

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Editors became unpredictable when removed from office environments.

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Mizuno ordered immediately.

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Without looking at the menu.

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Suspicious behavior.

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Haruki spent three minutes deciding.

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Then chose the safest option available.

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Curry.

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The universal compromise.

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Food arrived.

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For several minutes, neither discussed manga.

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Weather.

Trains.

A recent baseball game.

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Normal conversation.

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Haruki felt increasingly concerned.

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Then Mizuno finally put down her spoon.

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"There are consequences."

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There it was.

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The meeting had returned to familiar territory.

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Haruki nodded.

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"I know."

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"No."

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The editor shook her head.

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"You know there are consequences."

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A pause.

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"You don’t know all of them."

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The distinction mattered.

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Damn it.

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The phrase escaped.

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Mizuno ignored the slip.

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She pulled a folder from her bag.

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A thin folder.

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Thin folders were dangerous.

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Thick folders contained information.

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Thin folders contained problems.

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Haruki opened it.

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His stomach sank immediately.

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Convention invitations.

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Industry appearances.

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Interview requests.

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Several had been withdrawn.

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Quietly.

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Professionally.

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Completely.

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The room felt colder.

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Not dramatically.

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Realistically.

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Because these weren’t readers.

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These were opportunities.

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Career opportunities.

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Gone.

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Mizuno let the silence sit.

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Not as punishment.

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As reality.

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Eventually:

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"Public trust affects business."

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Simple.

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Brutal.

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True.

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Haruki looked through the withdrawn invitations.

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One convention.

Two creator panels.

A collaborative project discussion.

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Nothing career-ending.

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Enough to hurt.

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Exactly enough.

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The consequence arc had found another bill to collect.

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Outside the restaurant, Tokyo moved normally.

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People crossed intersections.

Delivery drivers rushed between buildings.

Students laughed outside a convenience store.

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The city didn’t care about lost opportunities.

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The city rarely cared about individual disappointments.

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At two-thirty, Haruki arrived at Yamashita Publishing.

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Suzune intercepted him immediately.

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A clipboard in one hand.

Phone in the other.

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Professional panic.

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Her natural state.

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"You have a meeting."

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"I always have meetings."

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"This one matters."

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That narrowed it down to approximately everything.

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Suzune led him upstairs.

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Not to the editorial floor.

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Higher.

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Executive floor.

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The realization arrived—

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No.

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Absolutely not.

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The realization punched him in the face.

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Better.

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The executive floor felt different.

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Quieter.

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Less crowded.

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More expensive.

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Haruki disliked it instantly.

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Inside the conference room waited three people.

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One executive.

One marketing director.

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And Rika.

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Of course.

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The heiress sat comfortably.

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As though boardrooms belonged to her.

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Which they probably did.

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The meeting started immediately.

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No introductions.

No small talk.

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Numbers appeared on a screen.

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Sales.

Retention.

Reader demographics.

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Actual business.

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The numbers looked strange.

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Not bad.

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Conflicting.

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Threadless Gate retained strong core readers.

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Casual readership declined.

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Discussion remained high.

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Trust remained low.

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The contradiction fascinated the executives.

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Terrified the marketing department.

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Rika looked amused.

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Always dangerous.

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Eventually the marketing director summarized everything.

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"Your audience still believes in the story."

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A pause.

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"They’re deciding whether they believe in the creator."

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The sentence landed harder than any ranking drop.

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Because it felt accurate.

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Painfully accurate.

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The meeting continued for another hour.

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No mystery discussions.

No Ghost Project.

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Just publishing.

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Again.

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Good.

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Necessary.

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The creator story remained dominant.

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Exactly where it belonged.

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That evening Haruki returned home.

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Exhausted.

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Not physically.

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Professionally.

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The kind of exhaustion created by consequences.

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His apartment felt unusually quiet.

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Until the phone rang.

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Yui.

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Haruki answered immediately.

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"How was Osaka?"

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A pause.

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Then laughter.

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Real laughter.

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The kind he hadn’t heard from her in days.

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"You skipped three conversational steps."

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"Efficiency."

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"Terrifying."

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Fair.

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Very fair.

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The conversation lasted nearly forty minutes.

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Longer than expected.

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The interview went well.

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The organization looked promising.

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The project sounded meaningful.

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Yui sounded excited.

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Genuinely excited.

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Haruki listened.

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Mostly listened.

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The realization hit halfway through the call.

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Not neatly.

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Not elegantly.

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Just suddenly.

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He wanted her to succeed.

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Even if success took her away.

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The thought hurt.

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It also felt correct.

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Life remained complicated.

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Unfortunately.

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When the call ended, Haruki stood by the apartment window.

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Rain clouds gathered above Tokyo.

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Lights shimmered across distant buildings.

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The city looked endless.

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His phone vibrated one final time.

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System Notification.

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Creator Growth Assessment

Current Lesson:

Supporting others carries a cost.

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Progress:

Accepted

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Reward:

None

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Haruki stared.

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Then laughed.

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Because for once the system understood something important.

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Not every lesson deserved a reward.

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Some lessons simply changed you.

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And somewhere across Japan, Yui was deciding whether to build a future in Osaka.

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While Haruki sat in Tokyo learning that loving someone’s dream and wanting them to stay were not the same thing.

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The uncomfortable part?

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He still hadn’t figured out which feeling would win.