“Bungaku Shoujo” Prologue

Bungaku Shoujo: Volume1 Prologue
Mine has been a life of much shame.
Amongst a flock of white sheep, I was born the peculiar black sheep.
I cannot experience the joy my companions can feel, or the sadness my companions can feel, nor can I
eat the same things my companions can eat.
Alien to its companions’ feelings of affection- love, kindness, empathy, and many others, all the tragic
black sheep can do is cover its black wool with white powder, and pretend to be a white sheep.
Even now I am still wearing the mask, and play the part of the clown.
Prologue: The flashback that takes the place of my self-introduction ----- a
former genius Bishoujo writer
Mine has been a life of much shame.
What? Who once said something like that?
An actor? An athlete? Or was it a politician who got arrested for accepting bribes?
Let’s not mind too much of who said it.
I just entered my 2nd year of senior high school. It is a bit pretentious of me to say things like
“mine has been a life of…” But when I was 14, I did experience events that shocked all who
were involved. The events that happened knocked me over as if they were the rough waves of the
sea. In one short year, I actually felt as if my life had ended.
In one year, I became the mysterious Bishoujo writer who became popular and well known
throughout Japan.
This happened in the spring of my 3rd year of junior high school.
Back then I was 14, and was fast approaching the 15-year-old mark. I was a very ordinary
student. I had friends, and I had someone I liked. Those were quite the days. And then, as if I
swallowed the wrong medicine, I submitted my very first novel scripts to an amateur writing
contest held by a literature magazine. Incredibly, I became the youngest writer ever to win the
contest. The story was written as a girl narrating in a first person point of view. Furthermore, I
used the female name Miu Asakura as the pen name, so the magazine thought-
“The youngest writer ever! The award-winning, 3rd year, 14-year-old girl author!” 
“Such a genuine writing style and yet, such sensibly delicate delivery of the plot and theme! The
story has every judge complimenting it in glee!”
The magazine used such phrases to market my story.
Oh gosh, I feel so ashamed.
“Girl writers are usually more popular. Let’s market you as a mask-wearing, mysterious, cute,
Bishoujo writer!”
Under the extreme persuasions from the editorial staff…
(How would the reader know that I am a “cute” Bishoujo if I wear a mask?)
I all but grudgingly agreed to publish my story. Then the book became a bestseller. Then it
became a bestseller with more than a million copies sold. Then it got adapted into a movie, a TV
drama series, even a manga series. The whole population was practically talking about the book.
I was shocked.
My family was dumbfounded as well.
“What? My child actually… but he's just a normal little kid. My God, what’s going on? What?!
The royalty fee is over a hundred million yen! Wah! That’s 20 times father’s annual income!”
They jabbered in awe.
On the train, one could see (in large font) the name of my book on the advertisement board
hanging in the interior walls. When one entered a bookstore, he would see the books, with their
beautiful “book lumbar,” stacked like a sturdy fortresses in front of the cash registers.
“The author of this book, Miu, is a junior high school student! What kinds of girl is she? She's
probably really cute, right?”
“I heard she's a descendant of a noble

family. She must be the heiress, that’s why she wouldn’t
show her face!”
“She must have grown up in a very luxurious environment and had never held anything heavier
than a pen in her entire life!”
“Probably! The title “bungaku shoujo” makes you feel like- she must be a pure cute shoujo.
Ahhgg! Miu is too moe~~~”
Every time I hear something like this, I feel so ashamed that I could just stop breathing. 
Sorry! Please let me be! That story was just the result of my sudden nonsensical gibberish. It
wasn’t anything worth reading! It was just some mumbo jumbo that I wrote during classes. It just
so happened that I won the award. I am so very sorry. What "sensibly delicate delivery," it's all
just balderdash. All of it was just a bored boy’s drivel. What happened in the contest was just the
judges’ sly planning - if a fourteen-year-old girl wins the literature award, things would become
interesting! People would start talking about books; this could stimulate the fledging publishing
community! Publishers would be glad to have books that are popular. Everyone has gone way
over their heads. I don’t have much talent. Please spare me of this, please!
My limitlessly guilty conscience, plus a disaster that happened near the end of the whole mess,
caused me to become hyperventilated from the accumulated stress and faint in school. As I was
being hustled to the hospital, I mentally broke down and, with tears covering my face, cried, “I
can’t write novels anymore.” Later on, I started to refuse going to school, this made my father,
mother, and sister very worried.
What a shameful year.
So, the mask-wearing, genius, Bishoujo writer Miu Asakura only wrote one single book before
she disappeared without a trace. And I, just like any other normal junior high school student,
took the senior high entrance exam and became a senior high school student. Because of this, I
got to know the real “bungaku shoujo”- Tooko Amano-senpai.
But, why am I writing again now?
Because on that day, under the glimmering light of a white manglietia tree, I met Tooko-senpai. 
Bungaku Shoujo: Volume1 Chapter1
 

Chapter end