The Summer Vacation That Never Ended
Director Daito stared at the executives seated across from him with trembling eyes, his expression one of utter disbelief. “B-but… D Note is at the absolute peak of its popularity right now. Why on earth would you want to rush the ending of a series like that…?”
An anime adaptation would have an even greater chance of success if it could ride the wave of the original work’s explosive popularity. That was why Director Daito was clinging to this so desperately. It certainly wasn’t because he didn’t want to lose a month’s worth of salary!
“Of course we in the editorial department feel the same regret, but this decision was made some time ago. I’m afraid there’s no changing it now.”
“N-no…”
Director Daito rubbed his face in despair. As he hung his head, a hand came to rest on his slumped shoulder. He turned reflexively to see who it was—Producer Yamaguchi.
“Director, there’s nothing we can do about it. Shall we head back and discuss this again?”
“Y-Yamaguchi…”
Yamaguchi was grinning so widely that the corners of his mouth looked ready to split, though the angle was perfectly calculated so that only Daito could see it. He leaned in close and whispered into the director’s ear.
“Don’t take it too hard. We’ll make sure to put your precious salary to good use.”
Unable to withstand the psychological blow, Daito clutched the back of his neck and collapsed. Yamaguchi caught him before he hit the floor.
“Our director has been eager to take on D Note for quite some time. It seems the sudden news of its ending caught him quite off guard.”
Director Daito stared at Yamaguchi with eyes full of horror, but the producer simply smiled sweetly in return.
“If it’s not too much trouble, could you give us a few days? We understand the ending came as a surprise, but it would be a shame for us to give up on such a captivating work as D Note for that reason alone.”
“Very well. However, please keep the news of the ending strictly confidential for now. It hasn’t been shared beyond those directly involved.”
“Thank you. We’ll be in touch again very soon.”
Director Daito tried to say something, but Yamaguchi clamped a hand over his mouth.
“Isn’t that right, Director? He says he agrees.”
With that, he dragged the struggling director away and disappeared down the hall.
“What was that all about…?”
“Beats me…”
Deputy Editor-in-Chief Sawada and Matsuda could only watch the scene with puzzled expressions.
Summer vacation had ended.
I only found that out a full week after it was already over.
When I told Hasegawa Kanna, who was sitting beside me eating a low-calorie salad bento, she gaped at me in disbelief. Even while doing so, she neatly swallowed everything in her mouth before opening it again. Truly the mark of a professional celebrity.
“Wait, that actually makes sense to you? Don’t teachers usually call? And I tried contacting you too!”
“Ah, well… my phone broke.”
Ring ring ring—
My phone started ringing.
“……Hello?”
“Did you get a new phone? That connected way too fast.”
Kanna’s voice came through the speaker. She must have turned the volume all the way up, because it rang out loud and clear. The girl who had just been tormenting my sanity with her signature Kyoto dialect now smiled brightly and lightly flicked my forehead.
“So why couldn’t I reach you?”
“Hah… you really want to know?”
“Not really that badly.”
“If you’re that curious, I’ll tell you. Listen carefully and don’t breathe a word to anyone.”
“……”
Here’s how it all happened.
After Comiket, I started receiving all kinds of threats from various people. Everything from publishing threats via Twitter DMs to demands that I upload new chapters immediately. If I were to describe the content dramatically, it was along the lines of “Author… I’ll kill you… AAAAAARGH!” And if I were to put it cutely, “Haaah haaah! I want to lock the author up and make him draw manga forever…!”
These constant threats left me mentally exhausted. I couldn’t even sleep properly at night anymore.
“So you slept like a baby.”
“……Just listen to the end. This next part is important.”
In this repeating routine, this repeating life, I had long since lost all sense of what day of the week it was. I only remembered occasionally when Matsuda came by for meetings. And once I lost track of the days, I eventually lost all sense of the date as well.
I barely used my phone except to contact Matsuda. After he learned that I rarely answered, he started skipping the whole annoying “calling first” process and simply abused his guardian privileges by picking the lock and walking right in. That became routine.
As a result, my phone naturally ran out of battery and fell into deep sleep. My only means of contact was cut off.
But even that alone wouldn’t have caused the bizarre phenomenon of summer vacation being extended by a whole week. Several misunderstandings and coincidences had overlapped to create this perfect storm.
“How long is this going to take?”
“It’ll be over soon, so just be quiet and listen.”
“Since Takahashi-sensei is currently on maternity leave, I will be serving as your temporary homeroom teacher! I look forward to working with you all for the time being!”
A temporary teacher had been assigned to both Jung Junhyuk’s class and Hasegawa Kanna’s class. His name was Matsumoto Yuichi. Matsumoto was a loyal servant of the school, diligently working toward promotion at this private middle school.
His eyes darted quickly around the room, scanning for students to watch out for.
‘That one, that one, and that one. Those kids have parents with a lot of influence. And Hasegawa Kanna—although she started as a child actress, she’s a well-known performer now. I need to be careful not to get on her bad side.’
Some might call it calculating, but it was simply Matsumoto’s personal survival technique for modern society.
“Hm?”
His gaze landed on an empty seat. Was the student late on the very first day of school? But contrary to Matsumoto’s assumption, the student in that seat never showed up—not even by the end of the school day.
“How dare they! A student skipping school without so much as a single call!”
Matsumoto was an ambitious teacher, but he fundamentally believed in following proper procedure. Even though this was only a temporary position, he had no intention of slacking off.
“Haha. A student playing hooky on your very first day as a substitute teacher?”
When the teacher sitting next to him asked, Matsumoto answered with great vigor.
“Yes! How long do they plan to act like they’re still on summer break? I’ll have to give them a good talking-to!”
“Who is it? The student skipping on the first day of school.”
“A foreign student! His name is Jung Junhyuk! No matter how difficult it must be living in a foreign country, he still needs strict guidance to fulfill his duties as a student!”
As Matsumoto huffed angrily and reached for the phone on the staff room desk, dialing the number with determination—
“Ah, is that the one? The student the chairman specifically told us to pay special attention to.”
Matsumoto slowly set the receiver back down.
“He must have had such a hard time coming from another country… Living alone at such a young age can’t be easy in so many ways.”
“?”
“You idiot! How could you express anger without even trying to understand how the student must feel? What if he’s sick and couldn’t contact us?”
Suddenly scolding himself, Matsumoto took a deep breath to regain his composure. He turned to the teacher beside him.
“It’s a teacher’s virtue to wait patiently for their students, right?”
“Uh, um… I suppose so…?”
Matsumoto was a man with strong ambitions. To him, Jung Junhyuk—who appeared to have connections to the chairman—was a student he couldn’t afford to touch. But by the fourth day, simply waiting around had become difficult.
He had sent several polite calls and messages, but Jung Junhyuk’s phone was off and there was no response. Of course, he could have contacted the guardian, Matsuda, and that would have solved everything, but—
“How dare you lay a hand on someone blessed by the chairman?! Do you have any idea how much trouble I got in because of you? I’ll tell the chairman and you can forget about that promotion—no, you’re fired right now! Fired!”
After imagining a middle schooler’s savage emotions leading to his own dismissal, he found himself unable to make the call easily.
“B-but… what if he really is sick and something’s happened…”
Having thought that far, Matsumoto finally picked up the phone with a trembling hand and contacted the guardian.
—This is Matsuda from Weekly Shonen Jump.
“I-I am truly sorry to bother you! Jung Junhyuk has not been attending school, so I had no choice but to call! Please understand that he would never do such a thing with any malicious intent. If he is in good health, we would greatly appreciate your guidance in getting him to attend!”
—??
“And that’s what happened.”
“……Did you really need to explain at such ridiculous length that it was all your fault?”
“Hey now. It wasn’t my fault. It was a perfect storm of coincidence, inevitability, and accident.”
Kanna looked at Jung Junhyuk with cold, narrowed eyes.
“You said you go out for walks all the time. How could you see kids in school uniforms and not realize summer break was ending?”
“I knew it was coming. I just didn’t realize it had already ended.”
Kanna let out a small sigh, having apparently given up on trying to understand him. She closed the now-empty bento box.
“More importantly, what’s this about Comiket? You went to Comiket?”
“…!!”
Jung Junhyuk looked at her in shock.
“H-how did you…”
“…? You said it yourself. After you released a book at Comiket, you started getting threat messages on Twitter.”
Hearing Kanna’s words, Jung Junhyuk carefully retraced his own memories and recalled the slip of the tongue. Because he had been so excited to talk with someone other than Matsuda for the first time in a while, he had ended up saying things he shouldn’t have.
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. I already know you’re the author of D Note, so there’s no point making a fuss about it now.”
Kanna rummaged through a convenience store bag and spoke as if it were no big deal.
“Kanna-chan… thank you. From now on, as your fan, I’ll do everything I can to support you—mentally and physically.”
“Ugh, gross. Never call me that again.”
But Jung Junhyuk, already feeling grateful, couldn’t help but offer some unnecessary meddling in his desire to repay her kindness.
“That’s 1000 calories. It has more calories than two bowls of rice.”
He pointed at the bread package Kanna was opening.
“If you eat that, the salad you had earlier will have been completely—”
“Shut up. Unless you want to die.”
Jung Junhyuk shut up. He didn’t want to die.
The producer and director from ND House returned to the Weekly Shonen Jump editorial department just a few days later. Director Daito looked somewhat haggard, while Producer Yamaguchi somehow seemed to be in an excellent mood. The two sat down side by side.
“We should ask the author for his opinion, but if it’s acceptable, we at ND House would like to take on the anime adaptation of D Note and produce it all the way through to the ending.”
And with that.
The anime adaptation of D Note officially began moving forward.