Iron Oxide (Abandoned)

[bhtooefr]

Oxides of iron are extremely useful substances. They are used to store information. They are used as pigments. They are used for polishing. One of them is even medically useful. However, oxidation of iron can also be destructive.

NekoDude gets an editing credit for this, for what it's worth. He's helped out with a lot of ideas, too.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Catalyst
• Chapter 2: Surface Rust

Update 2014-05-02: Fuck it, I haven't had the inclination to do anything on this story since December. It's dead, Jim.

A quick outline of where I was going to take things:

Hanako and Hisao's conflict was ultimately because Hisao wanted kids, Hanako was terrified of the idea, and that's where their communication breakdown started
Hanako was going to drunkenly get Akira (who was on a business trip to Sendai) to >Comfort Hanako, Akira was going to reject her
This was route-scale, and Hanako and Hisao were going to break up, realizing their differences weren't reconcilable, by about chapter 9, which would mark the end of Act 1
Lilly left Japan as she did in her own route, because she realized that she had feelings for Hisao, and felt that she needed to be on another continent to not be tempted to act on them
Act 2 would focus on Hanako coming to terms with her swinging both ways, and dating Akira - was going to have a fight after Hanako tried to pass Akira off as her boyfriend
Acts 3 and 4 would focus on Akira's alcoholism and family issues
In the background, Lilly would eventually come to Japan and start dating Hisao
An epilogue would show Hanako and Akira happily married (Akira having become a UK citizen by that time, and the timeline long enough that gay marriage would have been legalized, and Japan recognizes foreign gay marriages), and Lilly and Hisao also happily married, and celebrating the birth of their first child

Here's the problem... I was doing this because I wanted to see Hanako and Akira together, and I also wanted to explore what would happen when Hanako and Hisao's relationship falls apart. Someone else kinda did the Hanako x Akira thing, and in a way that I quite like, although it does present problems that my idea does not. But, I think that's why I completely lost the spark - I saw what I wanted to see, and lost the motivation to make it happen myself.

I actually did write out to chapter 7 or so, and Emi was going to be prominent early on as well (Hanako and Emi having become friends, although with an element of jealousy on Hanako's part). But, I wasn't satisfied with where things were going.

[bhtooefr]

The door to our home slams shut, and silence falls.

Is this how our relationship is going to go for the rest of our lives?

Some tiny issue blows up into a big argument, one of us says things that we don't really mean, then the other storms out. This time, I said some horrible things to Hisao, and he's left, probably for Kenji's.

A few days later, it'll all blow over, we'll make up, everything will happy for a couple months, until it repeats.

It wasn't like this before.

We used to be able to talk about things. Talk about our concerns, and actually work to address them. But ever since we graduated from university, we've had more time to spend with each other, yet it feels like we're more distant than ever.

I've tried to talk to Lilly about all of this, but that hasn't been fruitful. The first few times, she helped out, even acted as an intermediary, but eventually even she got frustrated by our petty arguments. Last time I had a fight with Hisao, I called her. She asked me to leave her out of it. We haven't spoken since.

Where did things go wrong?

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[bhtooefr]

Some notes:

• Chapter release schedule is going to be excruciatingly slow. I want to get this right. I won't promise a schedule, but I'm going incredibly fast if I do more than one chapter a week.
• The title is a reference to three different characters (in just two words, I know). Two of them are already involved in the story, the third will be introduced next chapter.
• I'm not entirely sure where exactly this will go, but I've got a general idea. Unlike Like Fire and Powder, I don't have a specific scene I'm trying to drive the story towards, so I can let the characters be themselves more, let them direct the story.
• Yes, that was a double drabble. First draft was 201 words, and I couldn't help myself. The other chapters will be quite a bit longer. Most of them, anyway.

[AntonSlavik020]

Not sure how I feel about the rather downer intro to this story. And seeing as how I really didn't like the "true ending" you gave to the Suzu epilogue, I'm somewhat leery about where this one is headed, but I'll give it s chance.

[bhtooefr]

All I'll say in that regard is... while sometimes destruction can be bad, it can also allow rebuilding something stronger in its place.

Oh, and I don't see any reason to involve character death or physical abuse in this one. Hell, I don't like my own ending in Like Fire and Powder.

[Silentcook]

I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but why for all that's holy even include notes for something that's not off the ground yet? Of course, my opinion typically leans towards "why include notes ever", but doubly so in this case.

[bhtooefr]

Eh, that's just my thing, it seems.

I never link my notes in the chapter navigation, so there is that.

Edit: Changed one word in Chapter 1, from "house" to "home". Hanako thinks of it as home, but it's not a house, it's an apartment. Which is a detail I planned on changing, and forgot to actually edit in. Rewriting Chapter 2 for the eleventy billionth time, I realized it.

[bhtooefr]

Damn it.

I check my heartbeat briefly, just to be sure I’m not going to keel over. It’s been a few months since a fight with Hanako caused a flutter, but I can never be too safe. Luckily, everything’s fine.

With my mortality out of the way, I call up Yuuko. Looks like I’m crashing on her and Kenji’s couch again. After a few rings, she answers.

“Hisao? You had another fight with Hanako, didn’t you?” This is probably a bad sign, that I don’t even have to tell her what happened.

I sigh. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

“Ah… Well, you’re always welcome to sleep on our couch… I’ll let Kenji know you’re coming over.”

“Thanks, Yuuko. I’ll be over in a few minutes, then.”

I walk over to their apartment. Usually I’d find a walk through the city relaxing, but not under these circumstances. Not when it’s because Hanako kicked me out of our apartment.

“I h-hate you, H-Hisao. I f-fucking hate you. I d-don’t want to see you. G-get out.”

And all over some goddamn dishes. It’ll all blow over soon, of course. This isn’t the first time this has happened, not by a long shot. And, I know she didn’t mean a word she said there, she was just angry. I’m no saint, and I’ve said things just as bad to her.

After a few days, I’ll apologize, we’ll make up, and it’ll all be fucking rainbows and sunshine again.

But is that going to solve anything? No. It won’t solve a fucking thing.

Because it wasn’t really about the dishes, was it? It’s never been about the damn dishes. Or her gaming. Or my runs with Emi, which were her idea anyway. This will just happen all over again.

But, thinking about this isn’t healthy, either. Hopefully Kenji will help me take my mind off things. I sure as hell hope so. I knock on the door to their apartment, and Kenji answers. “What’s up, man? Am I gonna have to start charging you rent?”

“Come on, it’s not like I’m here that often.”

“Are you kidding me? You’ve been here like five weeks out of the past six months! If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it’s a conspiracy to freeload off of me!”

“Fine then, I’ll find somewhere else to crash.”

I turn to leave, and Kenji grabs my shoulder. “C’mon man, I was just kidding around. I owe you anyway for getting me back with Yuuko, you’re welcome any time.”

I follow him into their apartment, and take my place on the couch.

My place.

Pathetic, when I think about it. My place should be by Hanako’s side, not on my insane, blind best friend’s couch.

Kenji tosses me a controller, and sets a bottle of whiskey between us. “Something’s up, man, so it’s my job as your bro to take your mind off of it. So, Super Mario Kart and whiskey. It’s the perfect combination. Get hit by a shell or hit a banana peel, take a drink. And I call the Princess.”

This is a plan I can get behind. I pick Bowser, and we’re racing.

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[hyroglyphixs]

Interesting story/idea so far, I hope you continue it

[dewelar]

I will be keeping an eye on this one, but so far it lives up to its title in another way. The chemical notation for iron oxide is FeO (with or without subscripts), which is also the Spanish word for ugly. This story's going to have its share of ugliness before it's done, I'll wager (not meant as a criticism, mind, just an observation).

[bhtooefr]

Things are definitely going to get uglier from here, that's for sure. But, not grimdark ugly, just dark ugly.

Like I said earlier...

All I'll say in that regard is... while sometimes destruction can be bad, it can also allow rebuilding something stronger in its place.

[Lost In The Fire]

Things are definitely going to get uglier from here, that's for sure. But, not grimdark ugly, just dark ugly.

Like I said earlier...

All I'll say in that regard is... while sometimes destruction can be bad, it can also allow rebuilding something stronger in its place.

So you are going for a darkest before the dawn situation?
Something akin to breaking the relationship into a thousand pieces and building something better from those pieces (hopefully with said relationship still intact at the end.)

[Liminaut]

I'm just catching up with this and I like the premise a lot.

Hanako has a lot of reasons to be angry in her life, and she's clearly gotten very good at repressing her anger. Handling that anger when it finally comes out is going to be very messy.

[TheGoatman]

This is looking alot like a rather unpleasant story(Unpleasant STORY, was decently written but OOC and had a pretty sad vibe to it) I read a while back that looks to be following the exact same path. http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=9065 Try to keep your story from being a clone of that one if you can. The very little I've read so far is pretty OOC to me and the size of chapter 1 and 2 together is still pretty small in itself. The beginning of the story I couldn't make heads or tails of, as I am under the effects of a sleeping pill making my last post for the night, that doesn't mean a whole lot. The only part of the story I could grasp and understand fully was when Hisao crashed with Kenji.

The first chapter should be changed to a prologue, I'm sorry but sleepy/drugged or not I simply can't look at that splotch of a few lines as a chapter, chapter 2 is a bit more reasonable but should aptly be changed to chapter 1 and lengthened a bit, it's implied on what's going on but it's so heavily implied that it feels more like one of my stories than an actual one, that is to say, a summary/description of a story and not the story itself.

Many of the writers who successfully finished projects on these forums had schedules of sorts, I believe the author of the Akira psuedo route does a post every month, give or take a few days(Note his updates are large, 10-12k is nothing special for him) and some of the other authors that do weekly updates(give or take) are in the 1-3k range. It seems to me like it's better for you as a writer to put a schedule down for yourself, whether we know of that schedule is up to you.

I'm dozing off at my keyboard now and I've had to retype this post twice now because of simply spelling errors, so I'm gonna head off, I look forward to seeing what you can come up with in this story!

[bhtooefr]

Snipped a ton of stuff. Let's just say that this is a different story.