Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me - Volume 6 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

Kimizero has suddenly moved on to college. How did you like it?

The last sentence of volume 5 was actually a message for my readers. This development is something I’d been planning with my editor since volume 3, but to make it a surprise, I asked to leave it out of the prerelease plot summary. I was glad that I could bring Maria back to the center of the plot now that three years had passed too.

I’m currently writing a series of shorts about Ryuto’s and Runa’s lives in their last year of high school for Dragon Magazine. They function as a sequel to volume 5. For those of you who still would like to see more of the main pair in high school, please take a look at those!

When I started writing the college setting in this volume, my memories of being a total HSP (highly sensitive person) introvert in college came back to me one after another. It was really hard. Ryuto has come even closer to just being me. He’s practically me already!

The name of the fictional Houo University is a mashup of Keio University (where I went) and Hosei University. In terms of what Ryuto’s school is like, though, it ended up being just like the one I went to... Then again, universities probably don’t differ all that much, at least not in terms of the way they’re built, their systems, and the like. Or that’s my excuse, anyway.

My student life was inseparable from the bottle, so even though I know that young people these days don’t drink so much, it was unimaginable for me to write college students who didn’t. My editor didn’t like it but looked the other way anyway, “because it’s me.” I never imagined that the fact that Ryuto’s birthday was in March would make things so interesting here. When I wrote volume 5, I realized that Ryuto’s birthday hadn’t been celebrated by that point yet, so I shoved it there in a hurry.

When I first tried beer in college, even I grimaced from the bitterness. Incidentally, I usually drank oolong tea highballs at the time.

Now, let’s discuss the new character Kujibayashi-kun. My editor immediately nicknamed him “Kujirin” because of the kanji in his name. Feel free to use it for him too, if you like!

Kujirin is modeled after a male friend of mine in college. As for him being a virgin with low self-esteem despite being attractive, that comes from the character Kurokawa in my debut work Chuu no Ge! (Lower Middle!)

My friend from college didn’t talk that way, of course (that was someone else entirely), but thanks to him, things were much easier for me in college. He was to me what Kujirin is to Ryuto—a precious friend. I hope he’s somewhere out there, reading this book.

Once again, I’m really grateful to my illustrator magako-sama for making so much finely crafted, gorgeous artwork! Sorry to take up your time, I know you’re busy!

And thanks so much to my editor, Matsubayashi-sama, who’s been extremely helpful as always! I’m sorry I can be sloppy here and there sometimes—that’s just how much I trust you!

I would also like to express my deep gratitude to the people I’ve come to know as part of the process of creating the anime adaptation—the screenwriter Fukuda Hiroko-sama (head writer of Kimizero) and the animator Ito Yosuke (responsible for the series’s character designs). I got to talk to them while writing this volume, and they definitely boosted my creative urges. I’m sincerely happy to have made not one, but two friends at this age, and that we’ve had conversations where I’ve gotten so absorbed that I’ve forgotten about the time.

Thanks to the efforts of the wonderful team behind the anime, it’s approaching its completion as I write this. Please look forward to it!

Now then, may we see each other again in volume 7!

February 2023, Makiko Nagaoka