Afterword
Hey, Sunsunsun here.
I know I stopped at a cliffhanger at the end of Volume 4, and I know I made you wait for over half a year, but I’m back. Perhaps this is punishment, because the afterword this time is almost ten pages. Again. I know what you’re thinking. What do you mean, “again”? Well, you must not have read the side stories in Volume 4.5, because if you did, you would know. Once again, there is not much of a point to reading anything I’m going to say from here on out, so if you’re not extremely interested in whatever I’m going to ramble about, please close this book now.
Anyway, this is rough. Two afterwords in a row that are about ten pages long. I was able to squeeze out over ten pages pretty easily last time because I was weirdly excited for some reason…but I can hardly remember anything I even wrote. No joke. Of course, it’d be easy for me to check, but I’m afraid I wrote something embarrassing that I’m going to end up remembering in the shower for years to come, so I’m not going to attempt to check. Right now, I’m my ordinary self: not overly excited and not in any mood to pump out more than ten pages in the blink of an eye.
Of course, I don’t have to force myself to write these obscenely long afterwords. I could just let the publisher cram advertisements into the book at the end and be done with it, but that just doesn’t feel right. There’s something unsightly about seeing a ton of ads at the end of a novel, and I don’t mean to brag, but Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian has become a huge success. So if you put an advertisement at the end, it would surely be effective, right? Don’t you think it’d be a little strange if I just started letting people post their advertisements at the end of my novels for free? If you want to start cluttering my books, then you better start coughing up some dough! Pay up, or get out!
…And yet here I am, writing an afterword that makes me absolutely no money, no matter how long it is. Feels almost contradictory. Feels almost like a cart-before-the-horse kind of thing. For example…
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…I can’t come up with a good example. Eh. Whatever. I guess I shouldn’t have been trying to come up with something while pretending to watch ads on Magazine Pocket. Oh, this isn’t a joke, either. I’m currently writing this on November 5th, 2022, and right now, watching up to three online advertisements gives readers access to a treasure box. (Opening these gives readers either points or a ticket.) Now I’ve opened all my treasure boxes, and I’m currently swiping through a comic that also gives me points. By the way, the comic I’m currently reading is… Hold on. Who drew this beautiful, cute girl looking at me like I’m garbage? Th-this comic…! It’s…! This is Saho Tenamachi’s artwork…!
This is Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian! In comic form!
Okay, I lied. I know—I’m a loser. Even I felt grossed out. Of course, Alya in the comics is extremely cute, and I do get chills seeing her look at me like I’m garbage, but I’m not actually quickly swiping through the comic right now. After all, I already read it the instant it came out. I mean, I even got to see the rough draft and proofread version of the comic before it got published, to boot.
But you all know this because I made an announcement in the last afterword. Wait. Did I? Now I’m starting to doubt myself… Oh, wait. Here it is. Yep. I did. Thank goodness. It even says on the cover’s belt that the serialized comic was starting in October, so yeah. It’s on Magazine Pocket right now. Every time a new issue comes out, I’m so impressed by how well it’s done. I really mean that from the bottom of my heart.
Sometimes you see light novels get turned into comics, and you’re like, “They don’t even respect the source material. They’re just doing whatever they want with this thing!” You may even wonder, “Is the author of the source material fine with this?” Nevertheless, I am seriously satisfied with how the comics are turning out for Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian. Saho Tenamachi believes that the best way to turn something into a comic is to follow the source material in a way that would make the original author happy, so I know I can trust her to make it good. Sometimes I do give her a few opinions and actually have her help me from time to time as well. Anyway, every day I’m reminded of how lucky I am to have someone like her handling the comics.
You can read Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian every other Saturday if you download the Magazine Pocket app. And as I mentioned earlier, if you watch the ads and read enough comics that award points, you’ll have enough points to read the newest chapters every release, so please check it out if you can!
…Tsk. I know I mentioned earlier that the afterword was essentially going to be garbage with no substance, but that was actually a very important announcement. In other words, there was at least one important thing mentioned here.
Now that I think about it, is it even okay for me to be writing an advertisement for a comic app made by a different company entirely? I’ll have to ask the editor. I wrote a lot about Saho Tenamachi as well, so I’ll need to get her approval first, too. The schedule’s already tight, so if I give the editor any more work, blood’s going to shoot out of his nose, and he’s going to have to go into overdrive and transform into his second form… I kind of want to see that, though.
He is actually really busy from what I heard. After all, he is apparently the editor for a Sneaker Bunko award-winning series for the first time in twelve years. I can’t even imagine the heavy responsibility. He talked about his enthusiasm for taking on such a big responsibility on note (the website), and it sounded intense. Reading about him passionately writing his entire life story with its ups and downs until he finally become the editor for an award-winning series really moved me. I really wish I could write about my life like that and move people…and yet this is what I choose to write. Ha-ha!
…Hold up. Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe I could start talking about something serious. Maybe I could bring up an exciting tale from my life that could touch the readers’ hearts. Well, there’s no time like the present! Fortunately, I still have plenty of pages left to use! All right! Let’s do this! Hee-hee! Ah! Ahn! Mn! Ooof! Yeehaw! All right. Ready? I’m now wearing my big-boy serious face. Doo-a-doo-aloo. That’s the sound of the shakuhachi (a bamboo flute) in the background. Following that, we have BANG, BANG, BANG… Uh… What sound is that? Wood clappers? Uh… Let’s ask the internet. “Kabuki,” “Intro,” “banging sound…” Yeah, those are wooden clappers in the beginning. I was right. I’m so smart. Anyway, my apologies. I’m going to put on my real serious face now. Allow me to explain how Sunsunsun started on Shousetsuka ni Narou (Let’s Become a Novelist website) and worked his way to getting Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian published.
My first step to become a novelist started in the research lab in college. I know it sounds ridiculous already, but hear me out. I was obsessed with Shousetsuka ni Narou when I was in college, and the research lab I was a part of allowed us to use the place relatively freely as long as we were producing results. It was a wonderful lab. The kind of place where you could ask the professor if you could watch YouTube in the classroom, and he’d be like, “Eh, why not? I mean, I’m watching it right now.” Plus, the break room had so much booze that it got to the point that there were rumors that you had to be drunk to get inside. Of course, the fact that I was always in the break room was proof the rumors weren’t true. By the way, you can find Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian hidden among the academic journals now in the break room. I bet there are rumors that you have to be a drunk nerd to be allowed inside the break room nowadays. Yeah, I know this is ridiculous, but let me finish.
If you’re studying the sciences in college or are a graduate who was a student in science and engineering, then you probably already get this, but many experiments have a lot of downtime. The research I was doing took at least ten hours to complete every time I conducted an experiment, but over half of that was just me waiting. Of course, you could use that wait time to do other experiments, read essays or someone’s thesis, or take another class, but even after doing all that, there was still a lot of wait time.
I’m sure a lot of you sharp ones can see where I’m going with this, and you’d be correct. I used that free time to start writing novels. The first thing I wrote was a short story that was only a little over twenty-thousand characters. I started it one day just to test out how it’d feel, and before long, the story started to take form. Once it became a real story, I showed an older student working in the lab with me. I believe he was a doctoral student two years ahead of me, but he was my only nerdy friend in the lab back then, and he was also a writer who wished to become a novelist someday. Anyway, after he read it, he told me it was good and recommended that I post it online somewhere, so I decided to upload it to Shousetsuka ni Narou. For the first time, I was a poster on that site instead of just a reader.
What happened after that was a huge surprise. It got a lot more traction than I ever could have imagined, and it got me really into loving to write. I posted novel after novel after that. To tell the truth, when I started writing this series, I already had a vague dream of having it novelized one day. I wanted professionals in the business to read my novels and enjoy them more than I wanted to be a novelist. I wanted my writings to live on without me in the form of novels one day. That was my dream. It was a wish to leave something behind while I was alive that showed that I was here. I existed. I’m sure that’s something everyone feels at least once in their life. I never really had any huge dreams like making bank selling my work or having it turned into an anime. I just wanted to leave behind a reminder for after I’m long gone, that an author named Sunsunsun once lived in this world. It was a vague dream of mine, but one I gave up on relatively quickly.
And that’s because, surprisingly, I’m not the kind of person who can sit down and write extremely long novels. I’m not being modest. I’m being serious. Whenever the story gets too long, I start getting the urge to add so many different storylines and details that things get out of hand. The story becomes a mess. Plus, I got bored with sticking to the same thing for too long, so the longer something gets, the harder it becomes to maintain quality. It got to the point that when I read the serialized stories I wrote, I realized the writing was amateur and not fit to be made into a book.
But that failure helped me realize that I was good at creating short stories. “I want to write about situations like this.” “I want to write characters like that.” The ideas just kept popping into my head, so I decided to use these ideas to tackle short stories, and I immediately felt at home. I started calling myself a short-story writer, and I continued to produce numerous short stories after that. Before long, I had thousands of people “favoriting” my account, and my stories started making the rankings for best short stories. I eventually even made it to eighteenth place out of the top three hundred short-story rankings for a while. Up until then, most of them didn’t crack the top one hundred, and I only had one that made it into the top fifty…but you know what that story was? Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian. And a month after I posted it in the middle of June 2020, I received a message asking if I was interested in novelizing the story.
“What?”
That was the first word that popped into my head. I couldn’t believe it. After that, I noticed the message was sent by an editor for Sneaker Bunko, and my head almost exploded. Technically, it wasn’t exactly an offer to novelize the short story. It was an offer to try to turn this short story into a longer story. But I was like, “No way… There’s no way I can pull this off.” I was a short-distance runner who only performed somewhat well in contests for amateurs, and I was basically being told I was going to have to run a marathon with the pros. And it was a professional editor for the legendary Sneaker Bunko, of all companies, who saw potential in me. It was an honor, and I was thrilled, but I had my reservations. Nevertheless, I decided to at least hear him out first.
The first person I spoke to was none other than Miyakawa, the editor I have now. The first thing he told me was that the title, Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian, was perfect, and the premise that the protagonist could understand Russian but Alya didn’t know was an amazing concept to build off of. He then passionately talked about what he loved about the short story, told me he saw huge potential in it, and asked me to work together with him to novelize it. I was touched by his passion and told him I would love that.
The first promise we made was to start writing the plot out, and that was how my first remote meeting with Miyakawa concluded. The path to turning this story into a book had suddenly revealed itself right before my eyes. My vague dream, which I had already given up on, seemed like it could very possibly come true. The opportunity came unexpectedly and quickly. After that, I deeply exhaled, then said:
“All right! Time to start a new short story!”
I wish I was joking. But this is what I really said. This is nonfiction. I’m sure you could check my Shousetsuka ni Narou account and see for yourself, but I continued to post short stories for a while after that. Ridiculous, right? I can’t believe there are people in this world who can hear Miyakawa speak so passionately about something they put their heart into and feel nothing. I know. Rip me apart, guys.
But first, I have an excuse. A small one, but an excuse. I was all about writing short stories back then. That was my life. Plus, I had heard tales of people getting offers that never actually worked out, and the deal fell through… It was like, “Do I want to work on something that’s six thousand characters that will definitely be posted and read, or do I want to work on something that’s twice as long that may never even be seen by anyone?” Plus, back then I wasn’t the kind of person who liked trying out new things, either. Yeah, I know that doesn’t excuse what I did. I can feel novelists and aspiring novelists starting to dislike me already. But you know how you sometimes hear stories like “I went with my friend to the audition to help them out, but I actually got the part”? Well, that’s me. The chance just fell into my lap. The world can be fair at times but extremely unfair as well.
I didn’t have the drive, and yet I somehow managed to finish writing the first novel for Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian, and it was all thanks to Miyakawa. He took a kid like me—who you could hit and still wouldn’t do what I was told—and he continued to hit me with love and passion until I finished the story. I used to be like, “There’s no way I can write over one hundred thousand characters without hearing the readers’ feedback.” It was a naive, weak way to think, but Miyakawa was always there to give me his detailed thoughts on every story. Even when I was writing this volume, Volume 5, I sent him a message saying, “There aren’t any fan-service scenes with Alya yet. Do you think we need to remove some clothes so we can have a nice illustration for the first few pages of the novel?” And he immediately replied, “Do it for the people. Do it for the world.” The instant I read that, I genuinely thought to myself, Man, I’m so lucky to work with a guy like that.
Looking back, I can really see how fortunate I was to be surrounded by great people. Of course, my editor, Miyakawa, is one of those people, but I am also very grateful for having the illustrator, Momoco, and Saho Tenamachi as well. There are so many people who have helped me get Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian out there. I am grateful for having parents who completely supported my passion to be a part-time writer as well. Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian would have never made it this far without the help of countless others. (Did that comment help me win back some people?) Hmm… Strange… I actually took this afterword seriously for a change, but I feel like it actually made people think less of me? Maybe it’s better that some authors just keep their mouths shut and focus on writing stories. Besides, it’s really not like me to actually put effort into the afterword, especially after mentioning how pointless this afterword was going to be in the very beginning. I should probably rewrite the beginning and mention that nothing will be gained from reading this afterword. Oh well.
Anyway, I’m out of pages, it looks like. Hmm… Yeah, I’m really not made for writing serious stories. Plus, longer isn’t better when it comes to afterwords. If anything, these should be short but sweet. You can’t maintain the quality when you write this much, but you can really show what you’re made of with shorter afterwords. Yep. I really am only meant to write short stories. The foreshadowing finally came together. All right, that’s enough of this.
I rambled so long that we’re out of pages, so I think it’s time for me to move on to the special thanks. I want to thank the great editor Miyakawa, Momoco for always meeting my detailed requests, Kinta for joining in this time as a guest illustrator and making Alya look not only cool but extremely beautiful as well, Tei Ogata for also joining as a guest illustrator with his extremely tasteful illustration of Masha, everyone else involved in the production of this novel, and of course, you, the reader. Thank you very much! I am looking forward to seeing you again in Volume 6. Until then.
P.S. Hey, you. Yeah, you. The guy who thinks I’m not the real Sunsunsun for being serious in the afterword for a change. You’re smarter than you look. Meet me behind the gym.
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