As for why they made it look like an affair—honestly, the reason wasn't all that complicated.
It was simply unnecessary for Nanami to know, and to her, it would've been a bit too stimulating anyway.
From Utaha's perspective, being someone's lover—regardless of the motivation—was, at the end of the day, not entirely proper.
Given her thin skin, she also preferred that Nanami didn't find out.
After all, what they were doing wasn't for the sake of "competing" with Nanami over anything, so there was no need to "flaunt superiority."
In short, there was no need to expose anything, and both sides leaned toward keeping it hidden.
And once that decision was made, naturally, everything had to be done as perfectly as possible.
Well—there was also a certain unspoken, indescribable... pleasure involved.
The thrill of a secret affair was undeniably fun.
And since it wasn't based on any sense of immorality or guilt, while that might reduce some of the excitement, it made for just the right kind of amusement.
So the next morning, after nearly fully recovering, Utaha had her first proper breakfast at Akira's house and left with Nanami.
Because she'd gone to bed early the night before, Utaha, unusually, didn't sleep through the first two periods—which made her teachers quite pleased.
And for certain other reasons, her attitude toward studying also became more upright, which pleased her teachers even more.
What the teachers didn't see, however, was that behind this seemingly earnest attitude lay a shadow of despair—like the backside of a brightly lit wall.
No matter how much light there was on the front, the shadow behind wouldn't disappear—only sink deeper and deeper into hiding.
Until after school—finally, a long-overdue club activity.
"Ah, Utaha-senpai, you're here—"
"Is the draft done? Hand it over."
Utaha walked into the club room, placed down her laptop, and went straight to the point with a fully professional attitude—neither friendly nor impatient.
This professional demeanor alone was enough to silence Tomoya. Without a word, he quickly handed over the USB drive.
Utaha calmly took the USB, plugged it into her laptop, opened the document, and began reviewing it line by line.
Examining the cringeworthy text to see how to fix the logic, correct the grammar, refine the descriptions, add atmosphere, polish the dialogue… turning a rookie's passion-driven mess into something that might actually pass as a usable game script.
Eriri pulled up a chair next to her, watching Utaha's pensive and focused expression.
With some hesitation and concern, she asked, "Hey, Utaha, lately you…"
Before she could finish, Utaha replied evenly without looking up, "I'm fine."
Eriri didn't believe that.
She used to think of Utaha as a volcano suppressing layers of negative emotion, waiting to erupt once the pressure reached its limit.
But after observing her for so long, the eruption she had imagined never came.
She realized she'd been wrong.
That seemingly calm intensity wasn't waiting to explode.
It was simply suppressing, constantly suppressing—smothering all the negativity, all the warmth—alongside the dreams held by her pen.
The once-fiery volcano had now turned into a cold, dormant one.
Just like how she appeared to outsiders.
Were those angry emotions truly extinguished? Or buried so deep they couldn't be seen?
Or had they transformed into something else—flowed somewhere else?
Eriri didn't know. All she could do, as a fellow creator, was feel those vague, unspoken questions.
Even if she wanted to ask, she didn't know how.
And faced with Utaha's sealed-off demeanor, she couldn't get a single word out.
Glancing at the anxious, expectant Tomoya, she swallowed her questions, letting them stew inside.
She knew that ever since Tomoya had threatened and hurt Utaha, Utaha's attitude toward him had dropped to absolute zero.
Not just cold—zero. Like there was simply nothing between them. In a way, that was worse than hostility.
Worse than being insulted—this was total isolation.
Tomoya wasn't unaware of this shift.
Of course, he had tried to fix things.
But he'd failed, again and again. And seeing that his attitude didn't seem to affect the work, he simply left things as they were.
But Eriri remembered that when Tomoya once said, "I guess this is fine too," Megumi's expression had grown noticeably colder.
Well—noticeably to someone like Eriri, who had been trying to capture Megumi's character model down to the last detail.
Otherwise, no one would have noticed.
Oh, right—she had a few more questions.
Eriri didn't understand why, under such a relationship, Utaha would still take the script work so seriously, treating even the most unreasonable requests with the utmost responsibility.
She didn't understand how Utaha could still write such soul-stirring stories.
What was driving her?
Watching Utaha's expressionless concentration, Eriri felt like she might be grasping something—but it kept slipping away.
Eriri sat there in a daze, until Utaha finally scrolled to the end of the document and exhaled deeply like she was surfacing from underwater.
She saved the file, ejected the USB, and handed it back to Tomoya, saying calmly,
"I've received it. It'll take about three or four days to revise. If there's nothing else, I'll be heading out."
Tomoya blinked. "Huh? Let me handle the revisions, Utaha-senpai. You just need to give feedback."
"There's too much. I don't feel like talking."
Utaha really didn't want to explain—but Tomoya clearly misunderstood and earnestly said,
"Please tell me, Utaha-senpai. Don't worry about me. If I don't know my weaknesses, I'll never improve."
Utaha glanced at him. Ignoring the misunderstanding, she confirmed he genuinely wanted to listen.
Then she shifted her gaze away and, with a neutral tone, commented:
"Some of the dialogue is utterly meaningless—it's impossible to tell what the characters want or who they even are.
There's no coherent integration of personality, emotion, or relationships.
The grammar is a mess.
Long-winded and pointless passages like these—whether in a novel or a game—only prove the author's incompetence. In short, it's a pile of garbage."
By the time she finished, Tomoya's dramatic cry of "Ah!! Ahhhh!!! Don't say it so bluntly—!" had also come to an end.
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