Staring at the final lines of Blue Spring Ride chapter eight, Aoi felt like her whole body was itching, like ants were crawling under her skin.
You cannot end it there. You seriously cannot.
What was Futaba going to do next?
Would she confess everything to Yuri? Would the two of them fall out? Or would Futaba, carried away by that sunset and that heartbeat, finally blurt out a confession to Kou?
No matter which direction it took, Aoi was hooked.
And yet the chapter ended right there, at the exact worst possible moment.
It was poisonous.
She opened the Fleeting Blossoms forum on Crimson Maple Literature's website.
As expected, the entire screen was basically Blue Spring Ride discourse. Page after page, post after post, everyone screaming into the void together.
"The strongest cliffhanger has arrived."
"I feel physically sick. Please tell me I'm not the only one."
"I'm a guy and even I got worked up reading that scene. Futaba looked up and Kou actually got off the train. It's not a complicated twist, but the buildup before it was so good that it hit me straight in the heart."
"I finally understand why girls do that thing where they want the guy to guess instead of saying it out loud. Futaba's 'inner choice' should have been her own decision, but she tied it to Kou's actions instead. If you ask me, that's ridiculous. And yet after I finished reading… I still got moved by what Kou did. Because I was in Futaba's head, Kou felt unbelievably cool."
"Futaba didn't tell Kou anything, but everything Kou did landed right on the softest part of her heart. If a boy like that exists, it's honestly impossible not to fall for him."
"Same. If there was a girl who never said a word but somehow always knew what I wanted, like she'd leave me alone the second she sensed I wanted to game, and she'd light my cigarette the moment she knew I needed it, and she'd feed me when she knew I was hungry… I'm done, I'm giving her my whole life."
"But come on, it's fiction. In real life, who matches another person that perfectly, where every move is exactly what the other is thinking."
"That's why chapter eight got me, though. Futaba's conflict, and the way Kou showed how much he valued her just through getting off the train. He didn't say anything, but it felt like he said everything."
"Shiori-sensei seriously gets it. In real life she's probably a cute, considerate high school girl just like Futaba."
"Only someone gentle can write scenes this gentle and create characters people love this much. Honestly, I can't wait for the day Crimson Maple finally reveals who Shiori Takahashi-sensei is."
"She's still a high schooler, so I get why they're protecting her identity. They don't want school life to get messed up."
"By the way, why are there so many guys discussing the plot? Does Blue Spring Ride really have this many male fans?"
"Same. I feel like I'm going to stand out if I comment. This forum vibe is different than I expected."
"And now we have to wait days for chapter nine… sigh."
"It's such a waste that this is running in Fleeting Blossoms. I read both Crimson Maple and Fleeting Blossoms, and I'm not joking when I say this. Before chapter eight, I thought Blue Spring Ride would probably sit around top three if it ran in Crimson Maple. After this chapter, I can only say that every single one of Crimson Maple's current serialized titles has been outclassed in my heart."
"And Yesterday's Starlight too. I thought it was just decent at first, but it genuinely gets better every chapter. It's not on Blue Spring Ride's level, but it's still an insanely good fantasy romance now."
Aoi skimmed through, watching the topic heat climb higher and higher, then opened the group chats she was in. The same thing was happening there too, readers passionately recommending Blue Spring Ride to anyone who would listen.
'So it's not just me who thinks chapter eight was incredible,' she thought, a grin creeping onto her face. 'And it's not just me who's suffering from that ending either.'
There was something comforting about that.
When other people love what you love, it feels good. That's simple.
And when you realize you're not the only one losing your mind, you feel strangely soothed.
Did a great novel need every sentence polished like a jewel, every turn of the plot twisting and exploding nonstop?
Of course not. It just needed a few moments that genuinely moved people, a few scenes that carved themselves into the heart.
The first seven chapters of Blue Spring Ride were excellent, but they hadn't fully pushed readers into that kind of emotional state.
Chapter eight did.
And once it did, those readers transformed.
They became unpaid evangelists, spreading the series for free across the internet, recommending it everywhere with the intensity of true believers.
All day Sunday, the hype fermented and spread across every major novel forum and across Crimson Maple's own site. Fans of otaku culture loved nothing more than pushing a favorite work onto someone else, because recommending was part of the fun.
For a while, it felt like if you logged into any relevant platform, you couldn't go ten minutes without seeing the title Blue Spring Ride pop up again.
The next day, Monday, after twenty-four hours of vote counting, the newest data for Fleeting Blossoms finally came out.
Blue Spring Ride: Rating 9.5, rating rank #1. Reader support votes: 10,678, vote rank #1.
The Day We Said Goodbye: Rating 8.7, rating rank #2. Reader support votes: 5,134, vote rank #2.
Summer Fireworks: Rating 8.4, rating rank #4. Reader support votes: 4,203, vote rank #3.
Yesterday's Starlight: Rating 8.7, rating rank #3. Reader support votes: 4,125, vote rank #4.
For a publisher like Crimson Maple Literature, ratings mattered, but they were not the main thing.
What the company cared about most was support votes. Votes reflected the size of a fanbase, the heat of the fandom, the ability to sell. Ratings only reflected how "good" readers thought the book was. Between "people praise it" and "people show up for it," the publisher would always prioritize the second one.
When chapter seven released, Blue Spring Ride had already taken the top spot with 6,531 votes.
So in theory, chapter eight staying #1 in both rating and votes should not have shocked anyone.
But when the editorial department arrived at work that morning and pulled up the report…
They realized they had been completely wrong.
Blue Spring Ride was still #1.
But that vote count…
The entire office erupted into argument.
Even Yukino looked stunned.
She had expected strong feedback, sure.
In her mind, a jump from 6,531 votes to maybe around 7,000 was reasonable.
That would have already been impressive.
But over ten thousand?
That was absurd.
That was the kind of number you did not see by accident.
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