i like the idea of different there's and elsewheres

by appleschan

i.

In the Japanese romance literature section of the National Diet Library, there is an old, surviving copy of a short love story that sits on the top row of the section's sixth bookshelf.

-the book was only checked-out for a total 112 times since the library opened in 1948. It is probably the only copy.

-the story itself is little-known, incomplete, and unhappy.

But on June 1, 2016, after a reporter broke a story relating to the book's origin citing an old clan and commissioned research findings, close to ten thousand people signed the waitlist for the book that afternoon. It crashed the library's online booking system.

The institution's administrators opted to send the digitized copies instead to avoid straining the public's convenience.

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Inoue Orihime, who knew of the story since her teen years but never read the actual book, received her digital copy at three in the afternoon of June 2, a day after she signed the waiting list. Below the deeply apologetic yet thankful note of the library administrator was the 19 MB, PDF file attachment.

The file thumbnail, the story within it, was unceremoniously titled the Lady and the War General.

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ii.

2018

The news is…the news is…the news has been very romantic these days, Inoue Orihime thinks absently, glancing at today's headlines from an older man's newspaper across her.

The morning rush hour has passed uneventfully at the Hongo subway train station; there's none much people and Orihime is on her way to her classes in Bunkyo.

She briefly scans the paper front page for something familiar to her, like a new red bean seed specie, or a NASA landing on a new space rock or circumvention, or an update to an old love story.

Of course, Orihime knows, there is nothing romantic about uncertain economies or leaving trade blocs or worldwide outbreaks or societal divide or rocket threats -

But from time to time, there is some bit about a man, some mighty, mighty man the news make out to be. He lived many centuries ago but stories about him remained. In his time, the news and books and stories remarked he was deathproof, as if death himself avoided him for as long as it could. And he was handsome, too, very young but already a commanding leader. Orihime likes hearing about him – he is the stuff of her daydreams.

But there is something about a woman, too, they call her Lady and she was very pretty and capable and a high born - it's good to know someone like her truly existed. The stories say she was all snow, lived on snow - depending on the storyteller if they liked to be fantastical about it, but she was strong and brave and was deeply enduring. The Lady, too, lived centuries and centuries ago. Orihime likes hearing about her – she is someone to admire.

She, like everyone else, is familiar with the story of the Lady and War General.

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iii

It isn't so often that a 300-year old, romantic, scandalous, and potentially history-altering gossip between a noble and warlord is brought out and publicly discussed and debated.

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iv.

But real life does not allow for fantastical day dreaming for too long. Orihime, after all, is still a student, has classes and presentations and thesis and a scholarship to maintain; has a part-time job at a bakery and has bills to pay, and is still somewhat 22 but has to be 30 sometimes.

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a/n: the longest, previously unreleased story draft i made. though incomplete, i thought i'll release it now.