It's already been a few days after the day that Honoka had started to worry about Koto...
Unfortunately, Honoka's editor Shigure couldn't obtain the contact details nor the home address of the said girl due to privacy and security reasons.
This ofcourse didn't help with anything as this only made matters worse as her concern about Koto's health hadn't left her mind for the past few days, considering that she also showed a side of herself that she wasn't aware of in front of the said girl.
I have less time to work on a rough draft now because of this... I need to start on working on it or else my schedule is gonna be ruined.
She thought as she washed her face in the bathroom to refresh herself from her current problem.
All that she had done the past few days was either watch a TV drama and just check the group chat on her phone for updates from the other group cosplay participants regarding the progress on their own costumes.
No reply to messages on the group chat app nor any progress on her own light novel.
Although, she has already written down some of her plans on a notepad that she always kept near herself for her light novel during the commerical breaks of the TV dramas that she had watched.
Her only problem now was she needed to manage to make herself concentrate to make those plans into part of the story and make her upcoming deadline.
If I could only get in contact with her-- You know what? This is ridiculous... I can't believe that my concentration is being wavered by something like this...
Just as she was about to grab a pen to resume the progress to her novel, the doorbell suddenly rang.
Who could possibly be visiting at a time like this...?
She wondered as her feet slowly took her to the front door to open it and see who it was that rang it.
"It's been a while, Honoka!"
"K-Koto??" She stuttered, seeing the girl that she was so worried about just being in front of her apartment.
"My editor told me about what happened." Koto said, with the usual expression on her face.
Oh, Ofcourse her editor would say something...
Honoka let out a sigh, seeing that Koto really was fine like she thought her worries now all gone.
She didn't say anything back to the girl as it was somewhat awkward for to do so, now that the Koto's editor herself has actually spilled the beans about the whole thing.
Now what...? It is good that she's fine since I can start writing again without worrying about her but this is too much.
Still not being able to make eye contact with her visitor, Honoka tried to think of something to talk about as she avoided looking at the cat girl that was sat across from her.
"Is something wrong? You've been quite ever since you let me in." Koto finally decided to break the silence, noticing how Honoka had been averting her eyes this whole time.
"N-No, nothing's wrong-- I was just thinking about something... Oh! That's right! How's the adaptation for volume two coming along?"
"It's almost done."
Huh? Why did her way of speaking change all of a sudden?
"O-Oh, Is that so..."
Stupid! That question ended the conversation immediately!
"I-I'm sorry!"
Koto bowed as she suddenly apologized, Honoka was suprised by this sudden apology that she had gotten from the mangaka that she didn't know how to react nor know what to say.
Koto merely ignored the silver-haired girl's reaction before continuing: "Because of me you weren't able to finish your draft sooner!"
"It's fine, Don't worry about it. This worrying thing is just a habit that I had since I was a kid, it's not really a big deal."
"But..."
Koto's expression turned stiff, it was really apparent that she really felt bad about the ordeal that she had caused unknowningly.
"It's fine, I was about to start working on the draft before you came anyway."
"..."
Koto didn't say a word after that, due to how persistent Honoka was when it came to her writing and just instead thought: "I need to somehow find a way to make it up to her..." due to her own pride getting the better of her judgement.
And so... Koto left Honoka's apartment after continuing to talk to the light novel author for a few more minutes and started to think about ways on how she could make it up when she got back home.
***
I finally finished the first rough draft... It took longer than usual but it's fine, but if she makes me re-do even one chapter, I might not make the deadline.
Honoka nervously awaited for her editor to proof read the said draft, hoping that she wouldn't be told to re-do a chapter or worse the whole volume. It had been quite a while since she was able to hand over her own work this late within the given time for her to work on a draft, although she did miss a deadline or two in the past from experiencing "Writer's Block".
Due to the success of all the current volumes, was quite confident that she wasn't gonna be asked to do what she feared.
"You brought you're draft late this time, but it's fine since it looks good to me and you told me in advance that you had some "business" to take care of so..." She leaned towards Honoka and whispered: "I managed to make up an excuse."
With an approval from her editor, a brand-new volume of her novel will soon be published- aside from her having some free time once again to either do whatever he wanted with it or to think up the plot of the following volume in preparation for the next.
"Are there any... Oh, I dunno... Any current contests for oneshot stories right now?" Honoka asked reluctantly, expecting atleast one to be running at the current time.
The previous night, Honoka who was just about to turn in for the day suddenly thought up some ideas for a quick oneshot novel that she could possibly enter for a contest after she was tempted to end her currently publishing novel series after getting that said "writer's block" aside from starting to run out of ideas for it's next story arc plots.
She doesn't usually ask about current contests, why would she be asking about it now? Shigure was quite curious about the silver-haired girl's sudden interest.
"Well, there is one that's currently going but it's for genre that's different from your novel- Wait, are you planning on starting a new novel?" Shigure answered, noticing that Honoka had a certain look on her face as she asked the said question.
[End of Chapter 18]