Katawa Shoujo Forums

So this story came out of the "Emi Ibarazaki's past encounters..." topic, the first point of it was my post about Miki and Emi making sense in a romantic relationship.
It kind of shot off from there.

So here's my second fic on this forums.
Exceeder

Scene 2: Kindling
Scene 3: Sparks
Scene 4: Warmness On The Soul
Scene 5: Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo: Part 1
Scene 5: Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo: Part 2 (to be posted)

Scene 1: A Proper Introduction

“Oh hey Hisao, long time no see!” Emi says in her usually cheery way “Haven’t seen you in a while, how have you been?”

“Pretty good, I’ve been hanging out with Lilly and Hanako a lot. So sorry that I haven’t kept up with the morning runs.”

“You should be sorry” she pouts “I don’t have anyone to run with in the morning.”

“Sorry, sorry. If you want I could see if I could find someone to run with you in the mornings.”

She gently punches his shoulder.

“That’s supposed to be you. But fine.” She gives him an venomous glare, which is somewhat lessened by her “cutesy” appearance.

“Don’t worry, besides maybe you’ll make a new friend.” Hisao smiles at her.

***

“Hey Hisao, what you working on?”

“Oh, hey Miki. I’m doing your most loved subject.”

“We aren’t outside doing gym.”

“That was sarcasm Miki, I’m doing math.”

“Ew. I hate math.”

A thought hits Hisao suddenly.

“Hey Miki, do you know Emi?” A dumb, but innocent, question.

“Is the grass green? Of course I know the only person who’s better at track than me. Why?”

“She’s been bugging me about the fact that I kind of ditched our morning run routine after I had a small heart attack while on our first run. I feel bad about it, but I don’t want to try that again. I was wondering, maybe-” Miki cuts him off.

“If I could join her instead?” she thinks about it for a few seconds, then nods. “Sure, why not? Emi and I haven’t actually hung out aside from track. It could be fun.”
Hisao looks like he’s somewhere between shock and disbelief.

“I didn’t expect you to agree so quickly. Now I need to find Emi.”

“Hey, I like running. Besides it might be fun to hang out with Emi. She’s always so serious during practice, maybe she’ll be different running for fun.”
She has a point and Hisao realizes this.

“Maybe, but she always seems so pushy.”

“That’s probably just her personality though. She’s always seemed focused on running and being the best. Maybe she’ll show a different side.” Miki shrugs her shoulders “Or maybe she won’t. I’ll tell you after a while.” Miki winks slyly.

“Sounds good. I’ll find her and ask her what time she’s out at the track by. Then I’ll find and tell you.”

Miki nods.

“Sounds like a plan.”

After class gets out Hisao sets off to try and find Emi. First checking the obvious place of the track, she isn’t there. He searches around the grounds until he remembers that the Nurse is someone likely to know where Emi is. He quickly walks to the Nurse’s office, and is panting slightly when he gets there. He waits for a few minutes to steady himself before entering. He knocks on the door.

“Come on in.”

Hisao enters and the Nurse turns to him and smiles.

“Mr. Nakai, I haven’t seen you in a while. Something wrong?”

“I was actually wondering if you knew where Emi was, I’ve been looking for her all day.”

A slight exaggeration.

“Hmm, Emi.” He taps his chin. “If you came from the track and she isn’t there now..” he checks the time “She’s probably at her room now, or heading there.” The Nurse pauses for a second. “Why do you need to find Emi?”

“I kind of told her I’d find her someone to run with her in the morning. I found a person, now I just need to find Emi and get the time she’s running in the morning at.”

“Aha. So you found a way to keep Emi entertained and stop from exercising then?” The nurse raises an eyebrow “Very clever Hisao, very clever.”

“Well I get some exercise now. Not as much as Emi would want me to get, but I get enough.”

“And what kind of exercise is that? I haven’t heard about you running on the track. From what I’ve heard you spend most of your time with Lilly Satou and Hanako Ikezawa.”

At the mention of Lilly’s name Hisao gets a slight blush.

“Umm, never mind.” The Nurse seems to take the hint.

“Right, not my place to pry. Just be careful Hisao.” He smiles.

“I am. Don’t worry about that”

The Nurse nods.

“Well Hisao, I think you need to go now to try and catch Emi. Oh before you go” he writes down a number on a piece of paper “This is Emi’s room number in case you need to find her dorm.”

“Thank you for helping me out on this.”

The Nurse smiles.

“No problem.”

With this Hisao leaves the Nurse’s office and heads towards the female dorms. Walking up to the door number that the Nurse gave him, Hisao knocks on the door. No response. He knocks again, harder this time.

“One second!” It sounds as if Emi had just woken up. There’s a rustling sound, then some steps over towards the door. Emi opens up the door and looks slightly surprised.

“Oh, hey Hisao. I didn’t know you knew where my room was.”

“I didn’t. The Nurse gave me your room number. I found someone who said they’d run with you in the mornings.”

“Oh really?” Emi seems to perk up at this “Who?”

“Not telling, better to have it be a surprise.”

“Jerk.”

“It’s better if it’s a surprise though. More fun that way.”

“Humph, if you say so. But what else are you here for, or was that it?”

“Other than that not much. How have you been?”

“Bored, since I didn’t have anyone to run with until now.” She shoots Hisao a look that is a mixture of mild annoyance and irritation.

“Sorry, I got distracted. That and I didn’t really enjoy having another heart attack.” At the mention of this Emi’s stare softens.

“Oh, that. I forgot. I’m sorry.” Now she looks almost sheepish.

“It’s ok, and I don’t think this one will have a heart problem. So you can run them into the ground if you want.” He lets out a slight smile.

“So is my new running partner going to start tomorrow?”

“Probably the day after tomorrow.”

“Aw, ok.”

With this they say their good-byes and Hisao goes back to his dorm. He’ll inform Miki of Emi agreeing tomorrow. For now, he’s tired… but why waste a perfectly good opportunity to pop by and see Lilly? Besides knowing Lilly’s addiction to certain things tonight might be a good night for them both relax and unwind…

***

After class Hisao manages to get a hold of Miki before everyone leaves.

“Hey Miki, I was able to find Emi and she’s fine with running. I didn’t say who I got though.”

“Nice an mysterious huh? Sound awesome.”

“Basically, I wanted to get her pumped up. Are you fine with starting with her tomorrow?”

“Yup!” She jumps a little bit as she says this and Hisao can’t help but notice her ample bosom jiggle noticeably. Does she ever wear a proper bra?

“Well you know where the track is, and Emi said early. Like a few hours before class start or so.”

“Damn, she does get up early. Ugh, I’m going to have fun with that.”

“That was one of the reasons I didn’t want to run with her in the morning.”

“Ehh, I guess I’ll just have to suck it up.”

‘Probably.”

****

Emi is already running around the track when Miki gets there next day. As Miki nears the track Emi slows down to see who it is that’s joining her.

“Wait, Miki? You’re the one Hisao got to join me?”

“Yeah, I thought it’d be fun.”
“Actually, you’re probably the only one who can keep up with me.”

“Yeah, but aren’t you the “fastest thing on no legs”? Besides you always beat me.” Miki seems to be slightly annoyed at bringing that up.

“Yeah, but you’ll actually give me a challenge. Come on, let’s race.” At this Emi takes off.

“HEY! That’s so cheap.” Miki begins to chase after her.

Finally. Finally, finally.

Great start to what I expect to be an amazing piece of work. Can't wait for Chapter 2!

[/fangirl]

edit: I guess I'm one of the few that's used to the third-person perspective.
Aside from Mirage's suggestions, I'm willing to fix the punctuation errors. I don't see much else that's wrong here. Am biased.

Hmm... Third person objective and present tense... Very unusual.
The story reads a bit like the script of a play or a movie. Just dialogue and a little bit of direction; almost no insight into characters' thoughts, which makes for a rather dry read.
The direction is a bit repetitive as well:
- The Nurse pauses for a second.
- The nurse raises an eyebrow.
- The Nurse seems to take the hint.
- The Nurse nods.
- The Nurse smiles.
Try varying that a bit.

Finally the story itself. Sometimes your characters' actions do not make a lot of sense, like when Hisao offers to find Emi to ask for a time and then find Miki to tell her. Seems needlessly complicated when Miki could just go ask Emi herself. Sure, you make it clear later that Hisao wants to surprise Emi, but at that point in the story it's just weird.
Then he goes to Emi to ask for the time and doesn't actually ask for the time, which makes the whole scene rather redundant.

i have to agree with mirage, reading it like this kinda dry.

I saw this yesterday before I went to bed, and didn't read it until now.

It's good enough, though, I cannot stand the narration. It's probably just me, but the 3rd person perspective being used makes the entire read a sort of drab and lifeless experience. I'm not sure why you couldn't have one of the character's thoughts take guide as the narration; maybe start with Hisao with most of the first scene, and turn into Miki narrating at the end; where she meets Emi at the track, and have either Miki or Emi narrate the rest. That might be a bit sloppy, but it's just a suggestion.

Other than that problem, I don't have much of anything else to point out. The story definitely has potential. I'll continue to read as long as you continue to update

Well, everyone doesn't like the third-person narration.
Good thing I wasn't planning on using that for the whole story. I've only ever written one story entirely in third-person, NEVER AGAIN!
However the viewpoints are probably going to bounce around quite a bit...just like Miki's tits.

Steinherz wrote:However the viewpoints are probably going to bounce around quite a bit...just like Miki's tits.

I see what you did thar

Anyway, I'll look forward for more Miki's bouncing tits

I like the story so far. Hisao/Lilly is the best for me so focusing on others in parallel is something I don't find often here.

But as others said, the third person PoV is quite bad Other than that I didn't find anything I did not like.

It's not really bad. It's different, but there are a lot of good stories using it.
I think the combination 3rd person/present tense is a bit jarring, but even that is a matter of taste.
The other points I mentioned in my first post are in my opinion more important.

That's what happens when I'm tired and writing something. It gets a little bit screwed up.
Well thankfully I won't be doing the rest of the story in 3rd person present tense. But what does suck is coming up with scene/chapter titles. I already have some specific scene/chapter names, but those won't be starting until at least after scene/chapter 3.
Umber knows the names of the scenes, and what they entail.

Captain, the usual "call me if you need me" applies. And I'm seriously supporting panda's push for Hanako to be in the story. Miki has a long schedule at night.

YZQ wrote:Captain, the usual "call me if you need me" applies. And I'm seriously supporting panda's push for Hanako to be in the story. Miki has a long schedule at night.

I know it does.
Also:

I was (and still am) all for Hanako being in the story. I haven't even finished writing scene/chapter (the fuck should I call these I mean seriously XD) 2.
Let me at least have Miki and Emi get together before the threesome starts XD

Don't start the three so soon. Time is needed, although I'll be damned if somehow, Lily managed to be persuaded to run a race with Hanako as the sighter because of all this.

Wow, it's like KosherBacon came back.

Oh, wait. He probably wouldn't have started with Emi.

Anyway, I look forward to the results.

Scene 2: Kindling

It’s been almost a week since I started running with Emi in the mornings. She’s surprisingly less serious running in the morning than when she’s running for practice or during a track meet. It’s nice to see that she’s actually human and not a running machine 24/7. And because of it we’ve been hanging out more outside of track to boot. I never thanked Hisao for that, I probably should.

“Hey Miki. How have your runs with Emi been?” Speak of the devil and he will arrive.

“They’ve been pretty normal Hisao. I never got to thank you for that. So here’s a thank you.”

“It was no problem Miki. I kind of felt bad because Emi did those hurt puppy eyes, and no-one can resist those.”

He’s right. Even I can’t resist them.

“That’s true enough.”

“So what are you going to do after class? Hang out with Emi some more?” Hisao gives a short laugh.

“Actually, yeah I was going to.”

“How did I not know that? You two seem to have become more like real friends instead of just track team members and running partners.” The more he drones on the more I’m reminded of Mutou. “I think it’s good that you two are actually friends now.”

“Well we’re still rivals” I shrug “so there’s that.”

“Just don’t kill each other. I don’t think anyone would be happy if that happened.”

I laugh a bit just as Mutou walks in and gets ready to prepare another boring lecture.

***

Class finally ends. I think I may have followed Suzu’s example and fallen asleep if the lecture had gone on any longer. Mutou’s not a bad guy, but his lectures are really, really boring. After we all funnel out into the hallway I go and find Emi, managing to walk behind her without her noticing.

“Hi Emi. I’m ready for… whatever it is you said we were going to do after class.”

“Oh hey Miki” She turns around and smiles. “We’re going to have a picnic!”

“A picnic?”

“Yup.” She smiles a bit energetically.

“And where are we having said picnic?”

“On the roof. I like it up there.”

“As long as you don’t try to push me off.”

“What? Why would I do that?” She does the hurt puppy eyes. Damn it.

“It was a joke. You’re too nice to do that anyway.” I smile to try and let her know I didn’t mean to upset her. It seems to work.

“Ok then. Come on.” She tugs on my arm and pulls me behind her.

She’s leading me and I think as I’m following her. The more I think on it the more I realize Emi’s pretty cute for a girl. And that’s coming from a girl. She has a nice figure to say the least. And she has some really nice eyes too.

My reverie comes to a halt as I suddenly realize Emi is trying to talk to me.
“Wow Miki, you really spaced out there.”

“Oh what? Sorry. I was thinking.”

“What about?”

“Just things. So where is this picnic?”

“Here, we’re on the roof.”

“No I meant where is the food?”

“Right here.” She walks to the side of the stairwell and grabs a bag. Did she leave it there earlier?

“Tadaa” She opens up the bag which contain a large amount of food.

“Wow. Where’d you get all this?”

“I made it. What do you think?”

“It’s a lot of food. How are we going to eat it all?”

“Well Rin was supposed to join us, but she’s busy.” She frowns a little. “Well more for us then!”

She’s got a point. But still, it’s a lot of food. She leads me over to one of the benches and we sit down and have our picnic. The food is actually pretty good. Emi’s a good cook it seems.

“You’re smiling a lot Miki. Enjoying my cooking?”

I swallow what was in my mouth.

“I am, I can get used to this.”

“Well at least it’s obvious. Rin’s a little hard to read at times.”

“I bet. You are pretty close though huh?”

“I guess we’re close. I have to help her get dressed in the morning.” she laughs a bit adding “For reasons that are probably self-evident.”

“Yeah, getting dressed with only one hand is annoying. It’s probably near impossible for Rin to get a shirt on by herself.”

“Pretty much. But Rin is my friend and I like helping my friends.”

“That’s good. Friends should help each other out if they need to.” I can’t help but smile. Emi seems to find a way to get you happy even without trying.

“Hey Miki?” Emi turns towards me fully.

“Hmm?”

“Do you have plans for Saturday?”

I think for a minute or two. No, not any that I can think of.

“No, why?”

“I was planning on going to the park with Rin, but she has something to do. I still want to go, but I don’t want to go by myself.”

More time to hang out with my newest friend? Who am I to say no.

“Sure. When are we going?”

“After class of course. Unless you want to skip.”

That I didn’t see coming.

“Are you serious? I didn’t expect you to bring up skipping. I thought I’d be the one to do that.”

“Yeah, I know it’s a short day but I’ve been feeling bored recently.”

“You don’t have Mutou as a teacher. I almost fell asleep during his lecture today he was so boring. Snoozu, I mean Suzu, did fall asleep but that’s because she actually has a reason.”

“Oh wow. Ok I think you have me beat in boredom.” She gets up and stretches a bit. “So are we actually going to skip, or are you going to wimp out?”

“Like hell I am. Are we going to ditch after the morning run?”

“Sounds like a plan.” She turns to me and smiles. “Don’t forget about it.”

“I won’t.”

After Emi and I clean up our picnic we head back to the dorms. I enjoyed this little excursion, it was pretty fun for just two people. We walk back to the dorms and part ways. It’s still a few days until Saturday. I’m actually kind of tired, so after getting a bit more comfortable, I lie down, quickly falling asleep.