Romance Novelist

"I FOUND YOU!" How dare you try to hide from your Mother!" She slapped him again. "Did you think I wouldn't know what you were up to? You've been hiding away from me with your little club activities. You cheeky monkey."

He fell to the floor with the last hit. She then grabbed the hair on his head, pulled his torso up and smacked him hard. He fell back down again. She repeated the process, putting her whole body into the slap. When she got tired, she nearly tripped after swinging at him, but staggering bled the momentum, regaining her balance. He closed off his body in a fetal position, making it hard to pull him up. She stood up and walked away.

Daichi Atsuo wasn't born out of love. His father was a rising romance novelist named Kuniyuki Atsuo (Kuni, his friends called him). Before then he was just a nobody at school. He was a classic virgin. He never had real friends in school or a girlfriend. It's not that he didn't try, but none of the schoolgirls had enough interest to give him a chance. The same thing happened in college.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with a major in creative writing. When deciding what kind of fiction novel to write, Kuni felt drawn to romance despite lacking experience. All the romantic moments he wished for stirred his creativity. His writing hand moved with the flair of a professional writer. He printed his heart in ink.

Unexpectedly, the readers loved it and were dying for more. His soul was finally soothed.

After his second book, many fans reached out. A few he met up. They would talk about their admiration and their thoughts on his work. A nice genuine chat over coffee in a beautiful and cosy café. At this point, Kuni felt content with his social life.

As if things couldn't get better, some of his female fans asked him out. Many were just a once-off romantic date and some ended in a kiss. A few were one-night stands. He was happy.

One day he got intimate with Eriko who was a hardcore fan. They got along well. They talked a lot about his novels and future works. She was equally as interested in them as him. Things went so well that she moved in with him to a new house.

They had more fights when they moved in together. Often, she wasn't happy when he took a break from his work and hanged out with others. He thought it was normal that she'd be jealous and insecure. She was just an ordinary and average looking person after all, and he was a prolific writer with a great deal of passive income.

She got mad when she looked through his phone. He wasn't allowed to meet up with his female fans. He agreed to it.

Soon after they married, Kuni felt a drop in the quality of his novels. It wasn't a big amount, but it was significant to make him think that he should move on to a different genre. Perhaps having a good life now, he no longer thought much of romance.

When his wife found out, they had the biggest fight of their life. She wanted him to continue his novel. He asked if she would want the series to die out as the quality dropped. She told him to try harder and use their relationship for inspiration. If he didn't, he simply didn't love her enough. He argued that it was his life's decision and his work never belonged to her. He was about to break it off with her until she revealed to him that she was pregnant.

For the sake of their newborn, he continued the story to end the fights and raise enough for his son to have a good life. 5 Years later. Critics and women's magazines criticized him for the declining quality of each new title. Kuni could no longer hold off the pain in his chest. One night, he told his wife that he could no longer continue writing those novels.

***

"Where are you going!" Eriko shouted at his back.

"I told you. I'm not dealing with this anymore and I'll be taking our son with me." Kuni replied as he walked away. Kuni had just enough of her oily knotted hair, her dark circles, her frantic mumblings in bed when he's sleeping and not working. He had enough of this woman's insanity.

She was always chewing off her fingernails while watching his work from over his shoulder. He would even get eyed at when he took her to the doctors. The patients and doctor would think that her ripped off fingernails were a sign of abuse. He can finally be rid of it all.

'I'll take my son away from this as well.' he thought. In the five years of writing under pressure, he never got much time to spend with his son despite being home.

He remembered Daichi would ask him to play but his wife would tell him that Daddy was too busy to play. Another time, Daichi would come over with a toy. Kuni played a bit but when he saw his wife's haggard appearance peeking from the door frame, shock came to his eyes. A bandage had unfastened on her fingertips. There was a nail growing halfway of her fingertip. She bit onto the growing nail and tore it off. Seeing the fresh blood trickle from her middle finger. He told his kid to play by himself. He felt sorry for the kid.

'She kept us separate...'

He couldn't leave his child to this maniac. Once he takes Daichi out of here, maybe he can spend time with him. Have a father to son bond...

That thought made him smile in the long 5 years.

!!!

A sharp inhale had caught in Eriko's throat. She needed the novels. What Kuni said had broken her heart. She had heard that he will give up writing the novels. When he turned his back on her, it was like the umbilical cord had been ripped out of her. Her life is being threatened!

She screamed and lunged at him. Her screams were so shrill and deafening that he was confused and did not hear the footsteps rushed at him. Pushed from behind, he collided with the stair railing and fell over.

Thack!

Through a peek in the door, Daichi had seen a body fall from the top of his vision. Eriko's silhouette stood beside his father. She turned her head from Kuni and saw him.

"You're supposed to be in bed." She smiled. She walked towards him laughing hysterically. The house echoed in laughter that night.