It’s been two weeks since that huge turning point in my life, and it has also been two weeks since I last seen Kashiwagi.

On the night we parted ways, I seemed to have gotten the wrong idea.

“No no no, my condition wasn’t for you to fall in love with me. I simply needed you to turn into a vampire to justify your writing. Wouldn’t it be weird if the vampire judge read your work and you turn out to be a normal human being? You’d get in deep trouble!”

And I’m glad she cleared it up. I might still be hung up over it to this day otherwise.

Looking back, I suppose what she said was completely reasonable. Though, I wish she would’ve mentioned that part a bit sooner so I could have at least reconsidered taking her help in the first place. Either way, I suppose being a vampire wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Anyway, I submitted my story the day after that evening and today was the day I get the results. And as we speak, I had the envelop with the results in my hand.

To Kashiwagi-sensei

It had written on the back of the envelope.

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By the way, I didn’t inherit her surname which was supposedly a tradition since I was registered under my real name under the law. Which is why, I decided to simply inherit the surname Kashiwagi in my pen name instead.

I opened the envelop and inside were two letters. One had a wax seal and the other didn’t. I decided to open the latter out of convenience. And it read:

To Kashiwagi-sensei,

Good day, I am pleased to inform you that your submission has been chosen as one of the three entries to be printed in our fall season anthology. It is also with even greater joy that I’d like to congratulate you for winning second place in the third annual Azusagawa writing competition! (I honestly vouched for your entry to be placed first but my influence can only take me so far it seems, teehee!)

Please expect the prize money to be transferred to your bank account in two to three business days, as well as call from one of our agents in regards to the prints.

Kind Regards,

Senior Judge,

Kashiwagi Anne

That woman...does this mean she was just toying with me during those two months—no, those two years!? And she even had the nerve to turn me into a vampire! I’ll definitely give her a good piece of my mind once I see her in the publishing house soon!

With the first letter slightly crumpled from my grip, I set it aside and opened the fancy-looking letter with the wax seal.

Upon opening the letter, I was met with jarringly large blocks of text on two separate sheets of paper. Considerably longer than the first one. Upon inspecting the contents with a quick scan, it seemed to be a personal message from Kashiwagi.

To be more precise, it was a parting message. That kind of note.

I sat down on the sofa before reading it intently, bracing myself for what my eyes were about to consume. And as I started going through the thick paragraphs at a moderate pace, I started getting overwhelmed with heavy emotions. My eyes started watering at some point without me noticing, and I could feel a big clump of nothing stuck in my throat. My voice began whimpering as I tried to hold back my sobs, but I eventually succumbed and cried my heart out.

It was then when the realization came to me.

That Kashiwagi Anne,

Meant the world to me.