Chapter 35: The Stall

Chapter 35: Chapter 35: The Stall

The next morning felt wrong. Not dramatic, not devastating. Wrong.

Haruki sat at his desk at eight in the morning, Chapter Nine still open — the same Chapter he’d been working on for days, the same Chapter that should have been finished by now, the same Chapter that suddenly looked impossible. He stared at the page. Nothing happened. Five minutes passed, then ten, then twenty, the cursor blinking patiently, mockingly, the page refusing to change no matter how long he sat there. For the first time since starting Threadless Gate, Haruki genuinely had no idea what to do next.

The support program rejection still lingered — not constantly, quietly, like a bruise, invisible until touched and then suddenly noticeable all over again. He’d told himself it wasn’t a big deal. He’d told Yui it wasn’t a big deal. He’d almost convinced himself, almost.

The problem wasn’t the rejection itself. The problem was what came after it. Nothing. No promotion, no support, no breakthrough. Just more Chapters. The same work, the same deadlines, the same uncertainty as before, except now with the added weight of a door he’d let himself hope would open and hadn’t. Part of him had expected something to change once the decision came in, one way or the other. Instead everything stayed exactly the same, and that realization drained his motivation far more than he wanted to admit even to himself.

At noon, the system appeared.

[Chapter Progress]

New Pages Created: 0 Hours Worked: 3 Efficiency: 12% Recommendation: Identify root problem.

He stared at it, then closed the window — not angrily, tiredly. The truth was simple enough once he let himself look at it directly. He wasn’t struggling with Chapter Nine. He was struggling with himself. A much more annoying problem than a difficult scene, because there was no outline to revise, no dialogue to punch up, nothing external to fix.

His phone buzzed. Takeda. He ignored it. It buzzed again. Ignored. A third time. Ignored, and eventually the calls stopped, replaced by a message: You’re becoming impossible. He stared at it, then set the phone face-down and let it sit there.

The afternoon crawled by, slowly, painfully. He redrew one page, deleted it. Redrew another, deleted that one too. Nothing felt right. The confidence from Chapter Eight had evaporated completely, the momentum gone with it, even the excitement gone. Every scene felt weaker than it had a week ago. Every page looked amateurish under his own eye. Every decision felt wrong the moment he made it, and the thoughts got increasingly vicious the longer he sat there — a dangerous sign. Creators were often their own worst critics, and Haruki was rapidly becoming his own worst enemy in a way none of the forum arguments or editorial feedback had ever managed to make him.

At four, another email arrived from the platform. Normally that would’ve excited him. Today it didn’t. Monthly performance statistics — growth, reader retention, engagement, all of it objectively good. He skimmed the numbers, then closed the email, and the reaction surprised even him. Three weeks ago, those same statistics would’ve made his entire month. Now they barely registered against everything else sitting in his chest.

The apartment door opened unexpectedly. Yui stepped in — no spare-key stealth this time, just a normal visit, two convenience store coffees in hand, one for herself, one for him. She noticed the atmosphere immediately — the untouched pages, the untouched food, the untouched Chapter. Her expression shifted slightly. Enough.

"You haven’t done much today." Not a question. An observation, and he appreciated that — questions required answers, and he didn’t have one worth giving yet.

She sat beside him. For several minutes, neither spoke. Eventually she opened her coffee. "Did you know something?"

He looked over. "What?"

"The support program would’ve annoyed you." He frowned — the statement felt absurd on its face. "You would’ve spent two weeks worrying about it."

Fair. Possibly. Annoyingly plausible, if he actually thought it through.

"But you wanted it."

"Yeah."

"You still would’ve hated parts of it."

The line lingered, because it sounded true even though he didn’t want it to be. Silence returned — comfortable, necessary, the kind that didn’t demand a solution from either of them. For once, Yui offered no advice, no perspective, no answer. Just company, sitting there with him while the light outside the window slowly shifted. Oddly enough, that helped more than anything she could have said.

After an hour, she stood. "I’m leaving." He nodded, and then she paused at the doorway, looking back.

"You know what I think?"

Dangerous question. Very dangerous.

"What?"

"I think you’re scared."

Then she left. The door closed. The apartment went quiet again, the word she’d left behind sitting in the middle of it, simple and annoyingly accurate.

Scared. The support program rejection wasn’t actually the real issue, and he could finally see that clearly now that he had the room to. The real issue was what happened afterward. Nothing. No excuse waiting to explain the delay, no shortcut past it, no magical breakthrough that would rearrange the road ahead of him. Just the same road. The same climb. The same daily work, indistinguishable from yesterday’s, indistinguishable from tomorrow’s.

The realization arrived slowly, then all at once. Haruki wasn’t afraid of failure — he’d already failed, publicly, several times over the past few weeks, and survived every single one of those. What actually frightened him was the possibility that success might take years instead of months. Not a milestone he could sprint toward and reach through sheer effort, the way Chapter Eight had briefly convinced him effort alone could solve anything. Years. The thought felt enormous. Terrifying. And, unlike most of his fears lately, real.

For the first time all day, he looked at Chapter Nine differently — not as the Chapter that would save his career, not as the Chapter that would prove something to Mizuno or Kuroda or the twelve nominees who’d beaten him out for three spots. Just a Chapter. One Chapter among what would eventually be hundreds, if he kept going long enough. The pressure eased, only slightly. Enough.

He picked up the stylus. His wrist still hurt. His motivation still felt fragile, thin enough that he wasn’t sure it would hold through the next page, let alone the whole Chapter. His doubts hadn’t gone anywhere. None of that disappeared just because he’d named it out loud to himself.

Yet a page slowly started taking shape. Then another. Then half of a third, rougher than he would’ve liked, but there on the screen instead of deleted. Not much. Not impressive.

Progress. Real progress, the kind that didn’t announce itself the way a milestone would have.

Outside, evening settled across Tokyo. Inside, an eighteen-year-old creator finally moved forward after an entire day spent standing still, staring at a page that refused to change until it finally, quietly, did.

The support program remained lost. The future remained uncertain. The doubts remained sitting exactly where they’d been that morning. For the first time since starting Threadless Gate, growth had genuinely stalled — not because of readers, not because of rankings, not because of anything the industry had done to him.

Because of him.

And that made it, by a wide margin, the hardest obstacle he’d faced so far.