Final A/N:

Phew! Where do I even start with this? Before going on, I want to say that it's been one hell of journey. Journey probably doesn't even come close to describing what this story was for me to be completely honest. About two and a half years ago, the idea for this story came about directly after I got all four of my wisdom teeth pulled when I was high on pain meds playing Dark Souls and listening to trippy music. Before going to sleep, I decided to make a what-if scenario of a one-shot that involved Hachiman being diagnosed with brain cancer. After getting over 50 follows/favorites within the first twelve hours, I decided that I'd turn it into a full-fledged story and 29 months later, here we are! Holy moly!

When I originally started expanding on this fanfiction idea, I had absolutely zero clue what I was doing. I'd never touched a creative writing piece before nor had I ever consulted with someone who did. I definitely made some major mistakes along the way and almost gave up on multiple occasions for a number of reasons, but I'm glad I stuck it through. From a change in schools to a change in career plan to good ol' writer's block, I faced multiple roadblocks that would have otherwise had me quit. However, I'll admit: I was never good at finishing things and only had a slew of unfinished projects and ideas when it came to creative works. I wanted this to be the one thing that I would finish, the one thing that I'd see all the way through. Despite the challenges I faced, I told myself that it would be worth it, and Goddamn was I right.

One interesting thing that I noticed was that as a novice writer, as Hachiman grew as a person throughout the course of my story, I could feel myself growing as a writer as I constantly reordered and shifted things around and did my best to figure out what worked and what didn't on the fly. It was an uphill battle at times, but in the end, I'm ultimately proud of what I created. Going back through each chapter is like visiting different eras in a time machine and despite the fact that there were some very clear flaws, I can say that I'm pleased what I was able to turn this thing into.

Now comes the fun part! There were two goals that I created for myself when I started seriously organizing the story (around chapter 6 or 7). One, I wanted to develop the romance between Hachiman and Yukino in a realistic manner, and two, I wanted to make the story as a whole as medically accurate as possible.

The first goal was sort of ruined by the fact that I rushed the romance and confession early on in a manner that made absolutely no sense. Looking back, both Hachiman and Yukino needed a significant amount of development and the tension surrounding Hachiman's failure to communicate should have been given at least a couple extra chapter's worth of time to fester before it blew into what it did. Hachiman also would have been more resistant at the time given his general disposition towards individual members of the Service Club and an out-of-the-blue confession would have thrown him off severely. Passing this off as a wild mixture of emotions was really all I could do to salvage the situation although things smoothed out quite a bit once the outline became more and more developed. I noticed that quite a few readers were discontent with this mistake and realizing the error that I made here is what got me to revise my way of thinking and create an outline in the first place. Although it was a terrible mistake to make, especially with such a crucial story element, it's the one that I ultimately learned the most from. From that point on, the name of the game for me was to take things slow, although for a few chapters that meant moving at a snail's pace which I understand was also a point of contention for some. The culmination of the last arc regarding Hachiman and Yukino definitely drew a lot of backfire and going into it, I knew it was likely to. Given the significance of each character's actions in this story, deciding to include a lemon scene as late as I did was a risk that I took more because I wanted to finish that arc with a bang (no pun intended). It was… semi-effective at best and might've been insulting at worst. Some people enjoyed it and it was honestly the most fun I had when writing this thing, but at the same time it was a bit out of place. Despite all that, their relationship as a whole was probably one of the more natural things I was able to write and seeing it blossom out of such terrible circumstances was a reward, both as a fan of the LN series and as a writer.

Now, on to the "medically accurate" part. There are individual aspects of this story that I had to do some heavy research for, from the types of brain cancer and treatment to the surgery procedure and follow-ups that the oncologist did. The surgery in particular was one of the most research-intensive plot points that I had in the story as it required both a great deal of internet research and personal consultation. That being said, there are a few key mistakes I made when writing this out. Despite the fact that Glioblastomas are some of the deadliest, most aggressive forms that cancer can take, I only listed a few treatment methods, namely surgery, radiation, and targeted chemotherapy. In reality, there are a plethora of different options that Hachiman's physician could and would have chosen before switching him to palliative care, especially in a medical-saavy country like Japan! This was something I didn't think about until very late into the story at which point there was nothing I could do to fix it. I also didn't even give Hachiman's oncologist a name despite her being such a prominent character, something that I only recently realized. Still, the research was very informative and I learned a lot of useful information that I might even be able to use moving forward in my own career.

Yukino's father was a particularly interesting character that I chose to incorporate in the story. Despite the fact that we don't know an incredible amount about him, I saw him as a potentially useful catalyst in Hachiman's personal growth. A man of power and prestige who more than likely has a lot of very interesting, useful life experiences had a lot to offer Hachiman as a mentor. Given that he also owns a construction company and sits as a diet member, it would also make sense that he own a large philanthropy. His personality is still somewhat of a mystery, but given that he owns a philanthropy that stems from personal inspiration (namely his friend who died of the same cancer that Hachiman had), his incentive to help Hachiman and bestow words of wisdom came from an authentic place and I did my best to portray that.

There's a million other things I saw after reading through the story again that irked me that I could address in this note, but I covered the biggest ones so I'll move on. I'm sure future reviewers will have no trouble pointing out other errors.

I would like to offer my thanks to those who stuck it through with me from the beginning. You know just as well as I do how much of a wild ride this has been and I greatly appreciate your patience and dedication. Your support is duly noted.

In terms of special acknowledgements, I'd like to start out by thanking Judicar Deimos, who I know has been inactive on this site for over two years now. In any case, your review, although brutal and unapologetic, was very constructive and ended up being the catalyst that got me to rethink the way I organized my story. If I didn't have someone like you leaving a review like yours when you did, I have no idea where I'd be right now or if I even would've finished this story. You were a major godsend and your input was invaluable.

Scarrufffles. Our back and forth during the reviews/author's notes which ended up in a rather fruitful PM conversation was enjoyable and I appreciate how you always had me asking questions about how I could have handled something better or more efficiently/effectively. I know it's been some time since you've left a review or even given this story a look, but I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. Best of luck on whatever you're working on at the moment! I hope you see this someday!

Frampt the Friendly Snake. Ever since you followed me almost two years back, you've become my most regular reviewer and probably one of the biggest morale boosts I've ever been blessed with. You've consistently left a ton of insightful reviews and your input has become something I get excited about when posting a new chapter. "What's Frampt going to say about this?" has popped into my head many times as I've published a new chapter. It's actually pretty funny how you tended to voice many of the concerns I had when writing this story as I was writing it. You and I think alike, my friend! I am incredibly grateful to have had you with me and words cannot express how much it warms my heart to have someone like you around in the reviews.

And to Ulfcloak… Well you already know what I'm going to say since we've been through this many times, but I'll recap anyways. As a brainstorming partner, it's always been fun to pick your brain on certain topics and rant on for hours about others. If you were into the Oregairu LN series, I would've made you my beta-reader in a heartbeat. You know more than anyone else the amount of struggle, frustration, love and dedication that went into this project and I'm glad to know that you've been with me the entire way. You know, when I'm done publishing this shit I'm gonna go on for hours on end again as we JitB n chill at one in the morning. You'd best be ready my friend. Heh, who am I kidding? You saw that coming over two years ago. Of course you are.

For now, I'm planning on taking a looooooooong hiatus. On top of finishing all of One Piece (to date) and dealing with real life stuff, I'm going to need a reprieve before I think about starting up another big project. One-shots are possible within that period as time allows, but I'll be focusing on other endeavors for now. When I come back, I plan on starting a To Aru fanfiction centered on Accelerator right after WW3. I actually came up with a pilot chapter for that three and a half years ago that I might reuse, but we'll see when the time comes. After that, who knows? Maybe I'll attempt writing an Evangelion fanfiction and get utterly destroyed by both the fanbase and an onslaught of superior writers. Maybe I'll write my own novel from scratch. Only time will tell.

Until then, for the last time this story and the last time in a while, Bronze V Lee Sin out! HIKUUUUUU!