[Winter Contest Entry 2013] Star-crossed

Note: Imagine you are watching an anime and turn on your favorite soft anime song.






The train pierces through the snow. Sitting on the same seat for four hours, Yara tries to open the window to get some fresh air, but shut it right back – the wind makes it so cold to enjoy any air anyway. Beyond the horizon, he catches the first glimpse of the Starlit Inn – or he likes to call it “home”.

Yara has come back to this place again. Things don’t seem to have changed; even the feeling that comes with him every time. He misses his sister. This town hasn’t had snow for a hundred years, or so they say. He misses that time he went with his sister to the neighboring town – it was the first time they had seen snow. He lives in the city now. The snow in the city is cold; the rushes of the city life make it so. He thinks back about the snow back then, it was warm, or was it the warmth of her smile? He hasn’t been able that smile since that day…

“…Tsunora. Thank you” – He opens the door and a lady dressed in a white blouse and a long black dress is standing at the registering counter. A girl is standing next to her who seems to be following that lady in white. The girl is wearing a very sophisticated kimono, with flowery patterns and a red belt, like those of queens’ and princesses’ he sees in films. She also has such long hair, beautiful as if it was a black stream of silk, with ornaments attached on it, like sparkling droplets that are smashing into pebbles. She looks at Yara with her shimmering brown eyes. Her beauty is so breathtaking that Yara even forgets to greet his parents.

“…and here is your key. Enjoy your stay.” – The man standing at the other side of the counter replies to the lady.
The girl leaves, along with the lady.

“Yara-honey, I miss you so much!” – A woman standing next to the man shouts to Yara.

“Hello, Papa and Mama.” – Yara turns to look at the girl one last time – the girl also looks back – before finally replies to the woman.

Yara walks to their parents’ table in the diner, where two other people are sitting with them.

“Let me introduce to you. This is Mr.Orashi. He is my friend from college. That’s his wife. I haven’t seen them for a while.” – Says Yara’s father.

Although he said the man is his friend from college, the couple may look ten years older than Yara’s father. They all have grey hair and wrinkles.
Night falls and as the conversation develops, Mrs.Orashi asks Yara:

“Do you know why does this town doesn’t have any snow, young man?”

“I suppose I don’t.” – The question surprises Yara; he thinks that it has been so for so long, nobody really knows.

“Well, I have heard:” – She begins to slowly explain. – “More than a hundred years ago, there was a feudal lord who lived here. The lord and his wife had an older son and a younger daughter. He had just lost his son from a war, and for being defeated, his daughter must be offered to marry one of the victor’s sons. The princess locked herself in her room for three days until her mother came and gave her what would eventually became her most precious item – a hairpin. A victor's troop was sent to retrieve the princess a few days later. On their way back, the princess escaped in a snowstorm, ran into the sakuraforest nearby. The feudal lord couldn't find his daughter after the snowstorm had gone away. He made a tomb for her in the forest. The victorious lord was furious and attacked the feudal lord. His family couldn’t survive. So tragic was her family’s deaths, the spirit of the princess was said to still linger in the land, making the land never have snow and flowers again.”

“Wow, I have never heard of such things.” – Yara is surprised, just as much as everyone in the table.

“Rumor has it that the tomb still exist in the forest. It is also said that the spirit has tremendous power, enough to grant wishes or undo them.” – Mrs.Orashi smiles at Yara. – “You can choose to believe it or not.”

Yara lies down on the roof, gazing at the stars. He remembers the time he and his sister watched the starry sky together. He tries to fall asleep…
Yara wakes up to the sound of a flute. Under the moon and the stars, a girl is sitting on the other side of the roof and playing an exotic-looking ocarina.

“Hey, I didn’t know someone else likes being here like me.”

The girl is still playing.

Taking a closer look, Yara realizes it’s the girl at the counter this afternoon. The sound from the ocarina has stopped, but she hasn’t replied to him.

“We met this afternoon, don’t you remember me?”

She slowly turns back and looks at him, still no words coming out from her lips.

He scratches his head, he’s not good around girls – “My name is Yara, what’s yours?”

“…
…Sanae.”

“Sanae, isn’t it? I’m here to look at the stars. How about you?”

“…I’m playing my tsuchibue.”

“Can you play the melody again?”

“…” – she nods and starts to play. The sound coming out of the instrument is like the heavenly music of the muses that are served to their masters. The moon and the melody…

The rooftop has become their secret world.

“You want some cookies?”

“…No, thank you.”

“I made these. My sister used to make these kinds of cookies for me.”

“…Your sister?”

“Yeah, my older sister. She passed away 7 years ago though.”

“…I’m sorry…”

“I don’t mind. It’s just that… you remind me a lot of my sister. She had the same beautiful hair and used to play the same kind of melody…”

“…Is that so?” – She says in such a soft voice, like whispering to the leaves and grasses.

“Yeah… Is the girl you follows your sister, Sanae?”

“…She is my sister, but she doesn’t talk to me anymore…”

“Why?”

“…It seems that… I don’t exist in her eyes anymore…”

“Hey, do you like snow?”

“…I don’t hate it.” – Sanae replied gently.

“My sister loves it.” – He grins and says – “I can’t forget how happy she looked when we saw snow for the first time. It never snows here.”

“…”

“Do you believe in ghosts? The other day I was told there a spirit that will grant wishes in the forest.”

“…”

“I believe in the stars, though.” – Yara’s eyes light up. – “They say if you tell the stars what your heart wishes for, it will come true. So, I come up here to make a wish every night – maybe I can find that smile again if there is snow here…”

Still just silence from Sanae.

“Do you have any wishes? Hey, how about we make our wishes together? Maybe the stars will hear us out if we do.”

“…If you say so.” – She looks up into the sky. It’s dark, but Yara can still see that Sanae’s eyes make the stars not shining.

“Ok, then.” – He puts his hands together and closes his eyes. – “One, two, three.”

“I wish there will be snow here.”

Yara turns to Sanae. As she opens her eyes, he asks: “What did you wish for? Wait.” – He stops suddenly, remembering something. – “If you tell your wish to another person, it won’t come true. So don’t tell me.”

“…Uhmm.”

Yara notices the chill on his spine the next morning. Half-asleep, he gets dressed and goes downstairs to get breakfast. He wonders why the inn has closed all of its windows where it’s never very cold outside. Wait… it’s that snowflakes outdoors?

Yara can hear the voice of the usual morning board reporter: “…it has been snowing since the morning at the town Eikyuto – it hasn’t had snow for as long as we have known.”

Yara stands still, dumbfounded. Has it come true? Is it his wish?

That night, Yara climbs to the roof to find that Sanae is already there, playing the same melody.

“You make my wish come true, you know. It was thanks to you that I have found my guiding star. So, thank you.”

Yara can see that Sanae is blushing – “…Is it? Thank you… But mine hasn’t come true at all…” – Her face falls a bit.

“Well, all good things happen to people who have heart, so don’t doubt yourself, Sanae!”

“It’s not good, boss! The doctor says he couldn’t come until this snowstorm has gone away!” – A clerk who has just phoned the doctor returns with the news.

“No, it can’t be!” – Yara’s father is holding his wife’s hands – “Hang in there, Inori!” – The only moment a man cries is for their loved ones.

The sudden snowstorm made a condition that his mother had long ago recurs after all these years. Yara walks out of the room. He has seen the same scene once; he cannot watch it again…

Leaning his back against the wall, Yara recalls what Mrs.Orashi said: “The spirit has trememdous power, enough to grant wishes or undo them.”

“You can choose to believe it or not.”

Yara knows what he has to believe in…

Rushing to the door, he runs into Sanae.

“…I need to go with you, Yara…” – To Yara’s surprise, Sanae whispers. – “…I know what you are thinking. If so, this has to do with my wish, too.”

“…Ok, let’s go Sanae.”

The two set out in the raging storm.

The wind is howling like a wild beast. Yara has walked for what seems like hours. With only Sanae’s hands to keep him from freezing, Yara walks and walks, in hope of finding one thing he believes that will save his mother from the scythe of death.

Good things happen to those with good will. He finds a circle of dried up sakura trees surrounding a tomb. Three stones lean to each other and paper ornaments attach to them. The stones have red circles on them, glowing.

Yara runs up to it. With his knees down, he puts his hands together and prays:

“Please, please stop this snow and save my mother.”

The red gleams stop…

“Let’s go, Sanae…”

But he’s talking to the trees and the wind. He turns all around, but cannot find her anywhere.

“Sanae, Sanae? Sanaeeeeeee!”

Yara feels the colors around him are fading. He is falling. He reaches out his hand, trying to get hold of a woman’s…

“…This could be too much to ask of you, but, please, make my wish come true…”
Opening his eyes, Yara finds himself in a hospital room. Turning his head, he sees a figure of a big man sleeping to a side of a patient’s bed. The person lying on the bed is his mother.

“Are you awake?” – A nurse walks in. – “You were found unconscious outside of the inn. Your father brought you and your mother here after the snowstorm had stopped.” – She says gently to Yara.

Yara stands looking down to his sister’s grave. He thinks back to those memories; and he remembers what he heard the other day, now are only vague fragments. “Make my wish come true…” Was it a dream?

Something blinked. Looking at the side of the grave, Yara finds a metal piece. A hairpin.

It dawns on Yara. He rushes back to that place. Deep down in the sakura forest…

And he finds it. It wasn’t a dream. Catching his breath, he slowly walks to the stones. He puts the hairpin on top of them.

“…Thank you, Sanae…”

A sakura petal touches his face. He looks up to the trees above. The trees are covered in cherry blossoms, emitting a heavenly luminous light.

The sky light up after the storm.

---

Author’s Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. Whereabouts of the Stars
7. Whereabouts of the Stars - Harmonica Ver.
8. Sakurairo Maukoro
9.
10.

Last words: Thank you so much for reading my story. Be sure to post a comment whether you like it or not. It will help me to bring a more satisfying piece to you guys in the future. Hope you guys enjoyed it.

I agree that 2000 words cannot do this story justice in the way that it was written. I would cut down on the dialogue, perhaps omit a few characters like Orashi who did not play much of a role in the story. I commend the story for adopting a proper narrative and paragraphing which was for the most part easy to understand.


While I like to whine and moan about the need to have a proper establishing of the story, I suppose I did not mind that much because I can relate to the character getting of a train and visiting relatives.

The footnotes were extremely helpful and I do hope that it does not add to the word count.


That said, it is still important I think to indicate what Yara's occupation is and what he is doing in that town.

There are some plot devices that could do with better clarification like the what had happened to the feudal lord. Has he lost a war and was made to give up his daughter for marriage? Is the 'victorious lord' the same as the 'feudal lord'?

More importantly, how does telling the myth pay back in the end? I think it was conveyed in the story that Sanae had something to do with the myth. However, I wish you can spell it out what had happened in the last few paragraphs. What caused Yara to end up in hospital? Why did Sanae disappear?

I was confused as to which character was saying which line. Who was the person who baked the cookies? I think one can use add actions to the dialogue to discern who was speaking which line. For example:

Yara offered some cookies to Sanae,

"Do you want some?"

There was a moment of silence before Sanae replied in that soft and endearing voice,

"No, thank you."

Thank you for reading, leonard267. I have gone back to fix some things you addressed to make it easier for future readers. Let me clarify some of the questions you had, if not all of them:

1. As I said, I had to cut off lots of scenes to meet the requirements of the contest, so some thing ended up being hard to understand.

2. I decided to keep the dialogues the way I did because I think that would show better development in the two characters' relationship. Orashi plays a more important role in the original story, so I also decided to keep her, just less interaction with Yara, or else that would change the story too much, which is not what I want.

3. The story makes clear of the characters' backstories itself throughout the writing, so I don't think lacking introduction was a trouble.

4. Yara is a high school student, visiting his parents during winter break - you would know in the original story, but I didn't think it was important so I left it out. I'm not sure Japanese have winter breaks or not, but let's just assume they do. :)

5. The feudal lord lost the war, had to offer his daughter. I went back and fix that part.

6. I thought it would be clear which character was saying which line since before every Sanae's lines I would add a "..." part, to indicate she is really shy.

7. Yara ends up in the hospital because that what you would expect of someone who wanders around in a snowstorm, if he is lucky enough not dead or gone missing.

8. There are some parts I left out, one of it was explaining Sanae and clearing out some myths you addressed. HOWEVER, I thought it would okay to leave it that way, because I don't want the story to be set in stone. As I said, my feeling for the story can be different than yours, and that what I was trying to do whenever I write a story: making others being able to interpret it to their own liking. So, use your imagination. However, if you request, I will post the original version here, and I think it will clarify all questions you have had.

By all means, post the original story.

Just to clarify my thoughts about the entry.

1. I see.

I know it is ironic for me to say this. After reading your entry, I thought even more can cut down like the dialogue with the cookies, Orashi of course (just have the townsfolk explain the story). Words can be cut down by using prose instead of dialogue to explain how Sanae and Yara got close. This is all to make space for the most important part of the story which is who Sanae really was. I suspect she was the princess of the myth.

3. What I meant by 3 was, can you tell me who Yara is and what he intends to do as quickly as possible in the first paragraph. While the other characters like the parents were introduced later, Yara appears not to be the case, perhaps because he is the main character.

I think what you have written in 4 is excellent in introducing the main character.

6. I thought Sanae was baking the cookies because I am sexist. I had to read the dialogue again in order to figure out that it was Yara who baked the cookies and started the dialogue. What I have suggested, I believe helps build character as well.

As for the use of ellipses, I believe that reading a story and watching a cartoon or a play are two very different experiences. At least you can see or hear who is delivering the lines on radio or on television. Not so on paper. It is true that the way you presented dialogue is used in other stories as well. However, due to my tastes in reading, I don't quite like that and hope that they at least establish who is uttering what line.

8. I am afraid I am not good at interpretation. What is the most important part of the story must be clearly explained surely? Unless it were a mystery novel where the reader is expected to figure out what happened or it was intentional to make the ending ambiguous, like Norwegian Wood or Inception. I don't your story is like that, isn't it?

I do have a request though:

Can I try writing your story my own way after the contest is over?

Thank you for your excellent insights. I kept what I kept for a reason.

1. I decided to keep the cookie dialogue, not just to make sure to keep the relationship between Yara and Sanae growing, but also to address a relationship which is just as important - the relationship between Yara and his sister. He loves her, he tries to bake the cookies his sister used to make and keep having flashbacks of her. He adores her so much, to the extent that you may even think he has a sister complex, or obsessed with her, like the psycho in The Call, if you have seen the movie.

2. I thought what important was that readers get Yara is visiting his parents in a mountainous area. I'll make sure I will depict my characters clearer.

3. You are right about the need to indicate who is saying which line. I said that I imagined I was watching an anime when I wrote the story, and looks like I got carried away at some points. I'll be sure to not repeat the mistakes.

4. The joy of reading a book is imagination. You will enjoy a book more than a movie that is made based on the story, because of the sole fact that you can imagine what is happening inside the story in the book rather than watch something that cannot be changed on a screen. I will include some Guidance Questions underneath. I'm sure that would change you mind on some things.

I think I have a lot of "hidden" things going behind what meets the eyes in the writing. I give this guide to partly answer some question you have, leonard267, and to help other readers to have a better experience reading my story. It could help making the story behind the story clearer to readers. I say my writing this time has more depths to it than my last two entries, and saying everything out bluntly in the writing would kill the joy of reading it.

Guidance Questions (Note: you don't have to have the same opinions as mine, this is only how i interpret my story)



As for your request, I suppose I could let you, as long as you don't go around saying you wrote it yourself.

1. Why is Yara's sister important to the story when the focus was on Sanae, Yara and Yara's parents? Do you see what I mean about cutting the story down?

She might be important in the original drafts. Perhaps Yara found Sanae even more endearing because she is similar to her sister. Not in a condensed version though, I'd like to imagine.

5. Imagination as in imagining what the book describes surely. For a narrative like this, guessing about what the plot is does not figure in my head. For me, stories and the written medium are all about communicating information. Writing was invented for that same purpose, I thought.

Orashi's tale was clear enough so I thought the same ought to be applied to this entry.

1. The sister is what really drives Yara, his reason for doing things that he did. Why did he want snow? Why would he go out into a snowstorm to find something that he doesn't even know if it really exist or not? In this condensed version, I think that Sanae and his sister is similar enough. She used to play a same melody, sit on the rooftop with him, in an almost the same situation as he is. It's because that he sees his sister in Sanae and he can relate to her that he was able to get close to a very shy girl like Sanae.

2. Maybe it is just me, and I'm sorry if it makes you didn't enjoy my story as much as I hoped you would, I still believe that, as the author, the piece has enough establishment of a plot and enough room for readers to imagine whatever had happened in the past and what's happening in the story. On the other hand, I think I do agree that some of the mysteries are being more unclear than most other things happened in the story.

I appreciate all your feedbacks and will try to improve my stories next time.

No, no. Far from it. It is one of the few entries that was clear about what was going on initially. This means that I can enjoy it.

I was playing the devil's advocate. Different readers have different tastes. While other people are more concerned about beautiful prose, I am more concerned about plot and content. So, for almost every entry that I've remarked on, I kept on asking questions about plot, character and setting. Not to mention whining and moaning in the process... I have too much time on my hands.

That said, I have sent you a message asking if I can do a parody of your story. Can I proceed?

I wish it would snow.

*Looks around for the ghost of a princess playing a flute*

Probably won’t work for me. No snow here yet. Sad.

Anyway, I liked the story, as it felt quite original to me, albeit predictable. I also had anime music already running, so I was good to go.

Language was a bit of an issue with the usual culprits being sentence structure, punctuation and repetition. As you said yourself you translate some sentences directly into English… that usually doesn’t work. You really have to either spend more thought on translating correctly or think up the sentences in English to begin with (If I write in English I usually think in English as well).

There are also cases of missing words, which might be an issue with you cutting up the story? I’m not sure. For example: “He hasn’t been able that smile since that day”.

I’m not a fan of the hyphens after lines of dialogue, but that can go under stylistic choice I guess.

Not a fan of the “…” either, there are probably other ways to show she is actually shy through her actions, and if she talks quietly since she is shy, it’s enough to say that once.

The story is structured well enough, although it feels rushed. Again this may be an issue with cutting up, but it’s still an issue. The development of the relationships between Yara and Sanae seems fine enough.

I figured something was up with Sanae right from the start and pretty much knew she was the princess when the story was told. Still, it did seem a bit strange. There is no explanation why only Yara can see her or why she disappears in the end. There is no explanation about her relation to the inn woman either, which Sanae says is her sister… but the princess’ family was killed, so how is there a descendant?


Final Thoughts:

Due to issues with sentence structure and some stylistic quirks I found it a bit clunky to read, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The characters seemed nice, the dialogue seemed nice and I enjoyed the read. I wouldn’t mind reading the original. I think you could have cut other things to have this story make more sense in this format.

I also would have liked some more details, about Yara specifically and maybe his sister. As you discussed with leonard267 below it wouldn’t have been too difficult to at least say he was a student and was visiting during a break – because I did not get that at all.

永久凍土. Roughly translated as the Eternal Tundra. I understand Chinese characters (that is how I address 'kanji') but I don't know how it is pronounced in Japanese. Where was that mentioned? Was it the names of the characters.

Sorry I hadn't replied to you guys earlier, I couldn't find the time to - I've been having a lot going on at my hands at the moments. I've yet to read all the entries, too. I'll reply to each post one at a time.



Yes, thanks again for reading, enjoying and giving lots of feedback. I appreciate them.

As for the request you have made for me, I'll send you a PM.

The Chinese characters were included in my Author's Notes number 1. You can go back and check it out. The name of the village in the news post in the TV was a latin characterization of the phrase. I found the phrase on Wikipedia while searching for the phrase "permafrost" in Japanese.



Thanks. That's one way of understanding it, and it's completely fine by me. Different from the original story I crafted, which includes one scene telling why Sanae disappeared and who she really was, I felt this version would give readers more freedom to imagine the story however they like.



I haven't really got what you was trying to say in the first few lines. Could you elaborate?

I didn't plan on including any plot twist in the story since the beginning of writing the story, but rather write it so as to make it has a feel of mystery in it. Did you have any problem with the plot, or there is something you rather made different?

I do think in English when I write an essay or the likes. Sometimes it just slipped my mind that I'm writing English and start roughly translating sentences. Could you specifically point out some mistakes I had in the writing?

I meant to write "He hasn’t been able to see that smile since that day”. How did I miss that when I proof-read the writing twice...

"...". Got it. Will try to improve next time. But what's the problems with the hyphens? How would you have written it differently?

I thought it wasn't important, but after re-reading the story and receiving your comments on Yara, now I really think I should have pointed that out. I would be pretty irritated, too, not knowing who is it I am reading about. Maybe because I am the author and now full well who my characters are, I made it unclear to the readers.

I'll try to incorporate all your feedback into the original when I post it later. Thanks again.

Oh, and I'm in the first poll, along with you, FGRaptor. Good luck to us both.

Do check out my entry as well. Chances are 50-50 you would like it. It is a nonsensical monologue.

Just a joke in reference to your story.



Different writers would always make things different, that is why I try not to suggest how I would write something.

The mystery was there and I had no problems with the plot, but it did feel rushed and there were some questions left unanswered. Not knowing what the protagonist does or why he is in this city is a little jarring. Sanae being related to the innkeeper, even though her family was supposed to be killed by that feudal lord. The burial site being found by Yara so quickly, when it was told as a myth. Sanae disappearing, although she was around all the time. The fact that only Yara could see her.



Some mistakes will just elude you. Do other things for a few hours between proof reading, it helps keep your head clear. If you continuously read it, your eyes will get used to it and you won't see anything wrong with it. Read it out aloud, it will help you hear if something is wrong. Print it out, reading on paper allows you to see things very differently.

Do you want me to list every single mistake I find? Just some things from the first paragraph:



Mistakes in order of appearance: no subordinator (I found 'after' most fitting), shut = shuts, so cold = too cold, no need for a comma here, missing word, missing colon, you should use single quotation marks ('') when highlighting words if you use double quotation marks ("") for signifying dialogue.

It's quite complicated to highlight mistakes here, but I could highlight them in a word document and send you that if you really want.



It's just not what hyphens should be used for. A hyphen is used to join together different thoughts or intersect them into a sentence, but not to join dialogue and preceding actions together.

Instead of: “…Is that so?” – She says in such a soft voice, like whispering to the leaves and grasses.

You can just do: "Is that so?” she says in such a soft voice, like whispering to the leaves and grasses.

Or instead of: “My sister loves it.” – He grins and says – “I can’t forget how happy she looked when we saw snow for the first time. It never snows here.”

You can just do: “My sister loves it,” he grins, “I can’t forget how happy she looked when we saw snow for the first time. It never snows here.”



Thanks and good luck as well.

Parody of Dawn of Dark's Entry --- Very Cross

Dawn of Dark, your entry is heavily influenced by Japanese cartoons. Indeed, your entry called for readers to imagine the characters and scenery that are portrayed in these cartoons. For me, it succeeded in doing so and I do really hope that you'd be happy with what I thought about as my mind turned to those cartoons. This following parody will portray these thoughts:

Japan, as any patriotic person ought to know, was mired in war between quarrelsome tribes or cliques as they like to call themselves midway in the second millennium of the Common Era. We all know that the aftermath of these wars resulted in a unified Japan ruled by Generalissimos, (known in our tongue and worldwide as Shoguns) the Generalissimos deciding to bring their wars to the rest of East Asia, the birth of a nation of war fanatics and quite a lot of bad blood.

Never mind all of that, point of the story is, young man, is that the town you are in was a centre of a major conflict between some feudal lord and some other feudal lord. One of them won, the other lost.

To bury the hatchet, the defeated offered his daughter to be wedded to the victor. All seemed well in this marriage of convenience until a snowstorm struck the convoy that was transporting the would-be bride. That woman escaped into a wood filled with allergic reaction inducing cherry blossom tree pollen.

Finger pointing and quarreling ensued. That quickly escalated to arson, murder, head-chopping and all-out war. The defeated feudal lord lost once more and his estates, his posterity and his family were wiped out because no one forgives people who loses a second time.

Strange thing though, after these events, the town hardly sees any snow. While some say it was the doing of the bride that vanished in the allergic reaction inducing wood, I say it is global warming!

These were the words of a drunk and self-proclaimed academic who called himself leonard267. Whatever he was however, he definitely wasn’t Japanese. Yara, a high school graduate who was a newcomer to that town, was a member of leonard267’s one man audience. As much as he would like to kick that drunkard’s head in, his limbs were slender, his body light, his skin looked tender and he can’t start a fight.

He wanted to know more about the history of the town, its background and origins ever since the first day he stepped there to stay with his parents after graduating from a private boarding school somewhere in the city. Unfortunately, he was duped into listening to that leonard267 character who promised him an analysis of this town’s history only to go into a stream of thought, near nonsensical and borderline xenophobic rant.

Just as Yara thought that he would be stuck listening to leonard267 whine and moan on and on, someone struck that drunk rather hard on the head, incapacitating him. Yara’s heart felt a rush of gratitude as he turned his eyes to the person who struck leonard267. She was a ravishing beauty dressed in the finest of traditional Japanese clothes, her features were well-chiselled and her personality extremely horrible. The first words she spoke to Yara, shortly before brandishing her weapon in front of him, were,

“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!”

Yara’s eyes quickly turned away from her and was about to walk away when that woman shrieked,

“HEY! LOOK AT ME WHEN I AM TALKING TO YOU!”

Yara obeyed that instruction only to be verbally rebuked thus,

“WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME AGAIN?!”

It was a case of getting out of the frying pan and into the fire. That woman turned out to be even more of a psychopath than leonard267. Yara started to walk away briskly but not before he heard those words from that crazy woman,

“It is not as if I want you to look at me…”

In normal circumstances, Yara would have fallen head over heels over her voice that might have felt like music to his ears but after having to deal with a drunk and her, it made him start to break into a run. No matter how fast he ran though, she had some way of catching up with him.

There was no shaking off her, there was no escape and there can be nowhere to hide. The days that followed Yara’s first encounter with her were absolutely plagued by her turning up at the most awkward of locations namely the more awkward locations in his house like toilets and the place where one’s pornography collection is stored. Many times he considered calling his parents, calling the police or calling whatever was the Aunt Agony equivalent of Japan. However, Yara never close got to doing that.

Was it because he would be laughed at if he were to make it known that he was stalked by a woman around his age (and a good looking one as well)? Was it because Yara was a masochist? Was it because of some supernatural power that made him change his mind? One can’t tell.

What was peculiar about that woman was, whenever Yara was in the company of others she would disappear. Yara did consider sleeping with his parents or mingling more with the townsfolk, yet for some reason he never got round doing that.

What Yara suffered from that young woman was verbal and psychological abuse then strange attempts to make up with him. That threw the poor young man into emotional distress, delicate he was. Topics of conversation could be about he reads, (Yara read in his spare time) it could be how he sleeps, it could be how he uses the bathroom or it could be even how he breathes. She had an interesting fashion of speaking, a fashion that Yara grew to hate:

“Why are you reading like that? It is not as if I want you to read like that!”
“Why are you sleeping like that? It is not as if I want you to sleep like that!”
“Why are you s****ing like that? It is not as if I want you to s*** like that!”
“Why are you breathing like that? It is not as if I want you to breathe like that!”


Then, around a week after they first met, Yara finally got to know her name. The following was the conversation that led to Yara knowing her name. It begun with that woman shrieking,

“Why don’t you want to know my name? It is not as if I want you to know my name!”

Yara apologised profusely even though he did no wrong. After a few more moments of that woman’s shrieking, it was then followed by what Yara found a sickly sweet and soft voice,

“If you really want to know, my name is Sanae.”

Followed by a very abrupt and ear-shattering yell,

“IT IS NOT AS IF I WANT YOU TO KNOW MY NAME IS SANAE!”


Sanae knew Yara’s name after ransacking his entire collection of books and letters addressed to him. Yet, knowing each other’s names made a bad situation even worse. Sanae apparently saw it as a license to badger Yara to reveal his intimate secrets be it the more embarrassing of his life or his deepest fears.

Ironically though, it was this innocent question that made his time in that town the most miserable and it involved a seemingly innocent question that is used to start most conversations, namely the weather. When asked rather rudely what sort of weather he liked, Yara simpered,

“I like the snow; please don’t hit me!”

By then, it was one month since Yara met Sanae and it was in mid-January. All this time, the weather was cold but calm. The following day after the conversation about the snow, Yara and his parents decided to take a walk in that wood filled with allergic reaction inducing cherry blossoms, the very same wood leonard267 spoke about a month ago. Yara welcomed it as an opportunity to spend some quality time without Sanae breathing down his neck.

Everything began well. There was a gentle breeze, the sun was shining and the birds were chirping. But so was the calm before a storm. Very suddenly (relatively speaking of course), in the course of one hour, dark clouds began to gather, what seemed like a gale begun whipping through the wood, the birds were squawking and soon after, tonnes of snow fell from the heavens in the manner of a violent blizzard.

Yara and his parents had no plausible way of leaving the wood where visibility is low and temperatures are cold. They could only huddle together to keep their bodies warm and hope that the blizzard subsides as soon as possible.

However, Yara’s parents were old and their bodies cannot handle such pressure from the elements. Hours into the blizzard and into the evening, Yara’s parents could not speak, their bodies seemingly frozen on the spot. Yara was about to succumb too when he saw a figure approaching him.

It was none other than Sanae herself. She looked very different from usual. She appeared not to be made of flesh and assumed corporeal form, quite alike a spirit. The thought then occurred to Yara that Sanae might be responsible for the weather. Could it be that she was bride of leonard267’s story that perished in this very wood?


“I thought you liked the snow!” Sanae cried.

Yara could not muster the energy to speak and could only mouth,
“I will kill you…”

Sanae paid no attention to that and appeared to be weeping,
“It is not as if I want you to die!”

Yara mouthed the same words as before,
“I will kill you…”

Sanae screamed in a voice much louder than roaring wind around her.
“I loved you ever since I first set my eyes on you! Why can’t I marry the person I like? Why can’t the person I like marry me? I don’t want to be like this, a wandering spirit with no shape or form. I want to be like other girls and have fun!”

Notwithstanding the emotions Sanae felt, Yara felt sick to the gut and rather confused at his tormentor’s confession of love and her screams about marrying someone she did not like. He was not in a position to reply but if it could, the words will be,
“Can it stop snowing? I take it all back, I hate the snow. I don’t want us (my family and I) to be caught in a blizzard. We just want to be alive,”

And, if he could express his feelings to Sanae, he would have said,
"You are a horrible woman. Leave me alone!"

Perhaps due to the blizzard or perhaps due to hearing the revelation of what Sanae
was, Yara blacked out only to find himself in a hospital when he came to.

A rescue team found Yara and his parents hours after the blizzard subsided. They were lucky though; if Yara’s neighbours hadn’t informed the authorities that they went on a trek in the woods, the entire family would have perished in that blizzard.

What about Sanae? She was the spoilt daughter of the defeated feudal lord. The latter was only too happy to marry her off to his foes. However, she disobeyed her father’s wishes to be married off and escaped to that wood of cherry blossoms. The spirits of the wood, being stick in the mud conservatives, cursed her for her act of disobedience and turned her into one of their kind. She had no shape or form assumed powers, one of which is control over the weather near that wood. Maybe through strength of will, she manifested herself before Yara, eager to relive her days as the daughter of a (somewhat) powerful family. That was the conclusion Yara came to after reading through the myths of that town without leonard267’s help of course.

Yara never saw Sanae again and he was rather relieved that it was so.

Moral of the story Author’s note of the story:

Well that set the mood. It also gave me the idea that each star is like an eye that's watching me. Thanks.



This paragraph is a bit confusing. At first I thought that the two women were behind the counter working at the inn.



That's it for the greeting? Where has Yara been at while away from home anyway? I can assume his parents know, but at this point for I know, they could actually have no clue and don't care. What Yara's been up to before the story probably wouldn't be that relevant, but it would still be nice to know and give us more insight into his character.



There are grammar issues like in the above quote. In this case, delete the bold word.



Awkwardly worded, but I get the meaning.



I first assumed that this is the tomb of the princess who ran away, but I'm not so sure after finishing it. If it is indeed the princess's grave, how did Yara find it?

I think the main problem I have with this is all the scene breaks. I found half of them to be entirely unnecessary like the ones breaking down the conversations Yara and Sanae have on the roof. I understand that they're becoming friends and spending time on the roof together over the course of several days, but you could have easily made the conversation take place in one scene and saved you some precious words.

As Raptor said, I was able to kinda predict how the story would end, but it was still enjoyable.

Nice to see that you entered Dawn! And it looks like you've improved from last time I'd say.

I actually adore the idea behind your story. That legend with the feudal lord felt so rich. Did you get that from a reference or were you inspired by anything? It's quite nice. I also thought the dialogue was quite nice and embodied much of your story, though as mentioned by FGRaptor, the excessive '...' was taking away from the conversations.

Like Leonard was saying though, this definitely feels like something 2k words cannot contain. It's grand and the cutting down very likely cut the quality of the story. There are a number of scenes that I would've liked extended as they felt rushed, like the scene with them at roof, or when Yara runs around looking for Sanae in the blizzard. The potential and atmosphere for the scenes were there, but it just sort of goes to waste.

Nonetheless, nice entry my man. With technical/grammar issues solves, and some restructuring or with some more focus on important scenes, this would've been a dark horse on my list.

I wonder if you could say the same for my parody of it which is drier and darker.

Dawn of Dark's entry was one of the entries that I understood roughly what was going on. This is another way of saying that I liked it. I just wish some more things can be made clearer like what happened in the end and like d pointed out who is Tsunora?

Vanilla, dialogue stories ain't my thing, I like to read about the dress, the smell, where they are, their gestures if you may. But it was easy to read unlike most of the time for me when theres a story made up mostly of dialogue.

Not the most heart-wrenching vanilla I've read so far but cute. Looking forward for more!

Thank you guys so much for reading my entry and providing feedback. I've carefully read them all and I appreciate the time you took to help me become a better writer. I admit it was somewhat disappointing to lose, considering the time I took to write this (about a week of my free time, taking in account all the steps from sketching out idea to the final 2000-word product) <-- (pay no attention to this shit, just ramble from an author trying to pity himself :D). Nonetheless, I enjoyed the contest and I am working hard to write better stuffs.

I will be working on the original story for this entry for the time being. I hope after careful revision and adding more content based on your feedback above, I will be able to post it here in a few days. I think I will also try my best to write and post things here regularly from now on (no promises :D). I've some ideas on my mind but they are far to become actual stories. Please look forward for more!

Thanks again, to all the readers and the organizers for the awesome contests that I have been attending every winter for, like, 3 years(?).



Well, I'm not quite sure but you can check my Author's Note No.5 above to see if I ripped anything of from them, haha. I had done some research and thought about a lot of things when I sketched out the outlines of the story, so the inspiration for the legend could have come from anywhere. I read about the feudal times back then in Japan when there were still feudal lords called 'Shoguns' and stuffs. The legend is my original idea, I would say, if not inspired by some random faint memories of childhood stories. Sometimes, when you write, a idea 'pops up' and just 'clicks' with the entire story, you know. Maybe you can call that 'genius' <-- bluffing and shit, don't pay anything attention either :3

well, I think it was a nice story. rich in the contents too. though, like someone said, the word limit might be a problem and I didn't really get the story during the first reading. had to read it slowly at some parts.

your explanation on the previous post really helps though.

I kind of thought that Sanae has something to do with Yara's deceased sister, how she appears to be a kind of manifestation of that. I also read or heard something about the spirits, and how they interact with people and grant their wishes. Had some familiarity to it, so I could somehow relate.

Also, the thing about how the hairpin was mentioned again in the end, as with the beginning parts - it gives the story a whole deeper meaning. Similar to how the Feudal Lord story gives a nice foreshadowing to it - I guess.

apart from the delivery and the story being a bit hard to understand at times, I think this could be a really nice story =)