Insert smut here:   So first thing I do while writing is an overview, don’t mind me.   Explore what could go >wrong< after Emi’s negative ending.  Why was Hisao so dense? How could he improve, or rather, how could he spiral down.  Out of all the routes, Emi perhaps improved him the most - making his life one in which he could potentially be proud of and live long in.  What would the rejection of this love cost him?   How would Emi, who already is incredibly inward sheltering handle the blow after the fact.  What would you see from her? An inward destruction, and powerful outwards burst, or would she continue to harbor it and burn it as fuel along the way?   Focus on the passage of time, and how it has weathered and forged our characters.   --------------   Another long day.   Perhaps it’s this generation.  Perhaps it’s the fact kids these days simply don’t give a shit about science.   I let the cigarette hang idle in between my fingers.  I should have kept going in college.  Getting an associates’ to be a public high school teacher was a bad fucking call.   It’s too damn cold.   This whole day sucks.  First week teaching, and I already regret every moment of this career choice.   Steel skies and kids I can’t stand.   Fuck this.   I flick the cigarette away.  This isn’t right at all.   When the hell did I decide to drop school so early?  Why do I even ask this shit anymore?   The walk back to the apartment is thankfully short.  I need a drink.   --   The early morning’s siren beside my bed makes me want to scream.   I throw the covers off.  I walk into the shower.  I shave my face.  Brush my teeth.  Still tastes like whiskey.  Walk to the kitchen.  Throw a frozen waffle in the toaster.  Toss my pills back.  Walk back to the bedroom.  Put on the latest ‘business casual’ fashion.  Nearly let my waffle burn.  Walk out the door.   The steel skies of yesterday greet me again.  Fantastic.   Agenda says we’re going into low level chemistry today.  Bet the kids will pitch a fit.  And the homework will be unfair.  And the test will be stacked against them.   I flick open my lighter.  A generic light cig to my lips.  I don’t even like the things.  Why do I do this too?   Why do I do any of this?   I put the lighter back down.   This is silly.  Today, we’re learning.  These kids won’t like it, but they’ll learn it.  Or I’ll fail them as hard as I can.   I dig my hands deep in my pockets, raise my head up, and continue the agonizingly long, short walk to school.   --   Well, went a little better than I expected.  About half of them understood what was going on.  Only had a few fall asleep.  Our public school deserves a gold star.   I leave in a little better mood than I started.  Tonight I won’t drink.  I have some reading to catch up on.  Well, scratch that, I should pick up some dinner first. Maybe have a glass of wine with it.  Then I can go home and read.   This little old dinner reminds me of the Shanghai so much.  The wood furnishing, the quiet ambiance, the complete understaffed nature of it.  I mean, it has a bar, and an additional staff or two - however they really need to step up their game.   The old wooden door swings about as well as it should.  My long coat clings around me pretty close to right.  Yet as I enter everything is wrong.   That young woman at the bar.  The long blond hair.  The pencil dress that screams far too seductively for work attire, yet entirely too modest on her for nightwear.  Her green eyes instantly lock on to me, and scream for me to drown in them.  The false legs that dangle bellow her short dress.   You’ve got to be kidding me.  My legs scream at me to run.  Not from their previous training from years ago, but from my final memories of this gir- woman.   I stand in the entry way.   I stand there.  For an eternity.   “Welcome to the Blue Flower!  Where would you like to be seated sir?” the young lady  who rushed to the front desk stammers out.   I swallow hard, my eyes still locked on Emi.  “I’ll seat myself at the bar.”   Somewhere inside my chest there is a feeling of dread.  It’s exciting, intoxicating.  I can’t remember the last time I had this sort of anxiety.