However, Miyauchi Hiyage had not come to the Koshigaya Family to see the two Koshigaya sisters. He had come for their inconspicuous older brother, Koshigaya Suguru.
He was one of the successors Miyauchi Hiyage had personally chosen.
Through the three seasons of anime from his previous life, coupled with nearly ten years of friendship in this life, Miyauchi Hiyage knew very well what the other was capable of.
In the anime, Koshigaya Suguru was proficient in handicrafts, housework, farm work, and musical instruments. It could be said that as long as the main cast needed a skill, he could immediately show it off.
The only problem was that across three full anime seasons, a movie, and an OAD, this all-purpose character had failed to get even a single line. Not only did he have little presence, his name was not even listed among the voice actors. He was practically the purest example of a tool-character setup.
But in reality, that kind of tool-character setup was an undisputed genius.
He had talent, initiative, and, most importantly, no ambition. He only provided god-tier support and would never screw over his teammates. He was the perfect employee.
In fact, Miyauchi Hiyage had begun grooming him years ago.
He made the craft videos and edited them into videos. He had contributed to the wilderness survival scripts, and in terms of filming, Koshigaya Suguru had also taken quite a burden off Miyauchi Hiyage's shoulders.
It could be said that as long as Miyauchi Hiyage set the broad direction, he could leave the rest to this all-purpose tool character.
He did not need to say much when talking to someone smart. A few simple hints about future development plans were enough for the other to understand what he meant.
"I understand. I'll continue staying in Asahigaoka," Koshigaya Suguru said, adjusting his glasses. He was not surprised that Miyauchi Hiyage intended to shift the focus of his life away from Asahigaoka.
The fact that Miyauchi Hiyage had never truly appeared on camera in his videos until now made that clear enough.
Asahigaoka was too small. From the very beginning, it had been unable to contain Miyauchi Hiyage's ambitions. To him, this place could only be considered the starter village in a game.
Feeling the respect and admiration in Koshigaya Suguru's gaze, Miyauchi Hiyage could only sigh helplessly.
He had said it so many times already. He did not have such grand ambitions.
The only reason he did not show his face was because he did not want some anime girl to say, "So you're that wannabe tough guy who films those weird dance videos," while he was trying to interact with them in high school, causing him to die of embarrassment on the spot.
Still, a misunderstanding was a misunderstanding. When he returned to Asahigaoka in the future to retire and loaf around, the other would understand what he really wanted.
Just as Miyauchi Hiyage finished explaining the situation and prepared to leave, Koshigaya Suguru suddenly called out to him.
"I'll continue carrying out your plan, but have you figured out how you're going to explain this to Kaede-senpai?"
You Really Are a Hopeless Siscon
Hearing Koshigaya Suguru's question, Miyauchi Hiyage scratched his head.
"You don't believe those pointless village rumors too, do you? Kaede is four years older than me. When she was in high school, I was still in elementary school. We're close entirely because of Renge, okay?"
Kaede Kagayama was nineteen this year and a graduate of Asahigaoka Branch School, though she had been four grades ahead of Miyauchi Hiyage.
The reason Miyauchi Hiyage was close with her was that she liked Renge very much. After meeting Renge once at school, she often brought snacks and toys to the Miyauchi Family to look after her.
As for the Miyauchi Family, the elders had to keep busy with farm work. Ichisu-nee was attending university elsewhere at the time, while Guanghua loved running around and causing trouble. Naturally, the task of caring for young Renge fell to him.
It was during that period that he and Kaede Kagayama became familiar with each other.
After she entered high school, Ichisu-nee graduated and returned to Asahigaoka as a teacher, giving her time to look after children. Renge also gradually became more sensible and required less care. Although Miyauchi Hiyage and Kaede Kagayama interacted less often, they still saw each other frequently, and their conversations never strayed from Renge.
Then, during Kaede Kagayama's third year of high school, her grandmother passed away. Despite having decent grades and a good chance of getting into university, she chose to drop out and return to Asahigaoka to take over the confectionery shop her grandmother had left behind.
When Miyauchi Hiyage learned of this, he set his sights on Kaede Kagayama.
At the time, the Asahigaoka Revitalization Project had just begun making a name for itself and was recruiting people everywhere. He had practically wrung every young person in the village dry, even pulling in the old men and women to film several episodes of Asahigaoka's past.
Miyauchi Hiyage remembered that in the anime, Kaede Kagayama had complained more than once about how her shop had no customers.
So he had a long heart-to-heart talk with Kaede Kagayama. In the end, he used the promise that her family's confectionery shop would never have to worry about customer numbers again once Asahigaoka was revitalized as bait, persuading her to become the public promoter and ambassador for the Asahigaoka Revitalization Project.
Now, Asahigaoka's prospects were excellent, and the entire village had made quite a bit of money. The Miyauchi Family, which had led the effort, along with the Koshigaya Family and the Kagayama Family, which had been the main executors, were among the biggest beneficiaries.
The confectionery shop, once just a small storefront, had expanded into a convenience store occupying three units. Kaede Kagayama's image had even been trademarked for use on Asahigaoka agricultural products.
On top of that, because she occasionally appeared in videos as the convenience store owner to promote products, she had built a certain amount of popularity online.
To put it somewhat bluntly, Hoshino Ai was not actually as well-known online as Kaede Kagayama was now.
As for the rumors about him and Kaede Kagayama, they had probably started around the time the confectionery shop was renovated—how could a girl who had dropped out without even finishing high school possibly receive so many benefits for no reason? She must have gotten together with that boy from the Miyauchi Family.
Those rumors spread wildly through the village. Miyauchi Hiyage had heard them, but no one had dared mention them in front of him.
Naturally, he could not step forward to clarify things himself. Nor could he bring himself to say, "I originally wanted my eldest sister to work for me as a shield, but she was too lazy to do anything, so I had to settle for Kaede, who was close to Renge and happened to be sitting around at home with nothing to do."
He simply had not expected even Koshigaya Suguru to think that way.
But thinking about it carefully, it was understandable.
The way he and Kaede sometimes interacted really did not look like ordinary friendship to outsiders.
In many people's minds, if a man and a woman were closer than friends, they were naturally lovers.
But they had changed Renge's diapers together when she was little, fed her milk, and spent all day thinking about how to make her happy. There was simply no way any romantic spark could come from that.
If there really had been sparks, then given how things worked in the countryside, Kaede Kagayama's child would probably be walking by now.
Their relationship was more like that of siblings. Well... siblings where the older brother was four years younger than the younger sister.
After all, in order to turn the woman from the anime, who had no fashion sense and relied entirely on appearing barefaced, into the genuine Asahigaoka ambassador she was today, Miyauchi Hiyage had put a great deal of thought into it.
After briefly explaining things to Koshigaya Suguru, Miyauchi Hiyage headed straight for Kaede Kagayama's convenience store without the slightest hint of guilt.
In fact, Koshigaya Suguru's worries had been complete nonsense.
His conversation with Kaede Kagayama went smoothly. Not only did he tell her his plans without holding anything back, he even casually probed to see whether she was the owner of the Diary.
Kaede Kagayama's response was perfectly normal as well.
She supported Miyauchi Hiyage's decision to gradually let go and shared her thoughts on Asahigaoka's future direction.
As for the Diary, Kaede Kagayama did not seem to be one of its owners for the time being.
After all, she truly did not have much screen time in Non Non Biyori. Even the two Koshigaya sisters were far more likely to have received the Diary than she was.
They spent several hours discussing work. Once they were done, and since it was mealtime, Miyauchi Hiyage shamelessly stayed to mooch a meal.
At the dinner table, they habitually chatted a little about Renge.
"Renge will be starting elementary school in a few days. Guanghua and I are both going to Tokyo for school. Ichisu-nee will be there with her, but you know what Ichisu-nee is like. She's basically just an oversized lucky charm."
"So, do you want to attend Asahigaoka Elementary School's entrance ceremony? Renge should be really happy if you're there with her," Miyauchi Hiyage suggested.
Once she was out of work mode, Kaede Kagayama's slightly tsundere nature instinctively showed itself. "What's there to attend at an entrance ceremony for a country school with only a few students? I'm managing so much right now. How would I have time to go?"
But Miyauchi Hiyage could tell at a glance that she actually wanted to go and take a look.
Dealing with a tsundere like this was far too easy.
"You haven't gone to see Asahigaoka Branch School since it was renovated last year, have you? Our families all chipped in for it. You should at least inspect the results."
"Weren't you all still taking classes there a month ago? What's there to see..." Kaede Kagayama muttered, then shook her head. "Still, I really should go take a look. If you spent the money on something useless, I'll have to get my share back."
After grumbling for a while, Kaede Kagayama effectively confirmed that she would accompany Renge on the day school started.
After dinner, they sat around and watched television for a while. Since Miyauchi Hiyage still had not decided what to write in today's diary, he prepared to go home and update it.
But it seemed everyone liked saying things they normally would not say right before parting.
Koshigaya Suguru, who never gossiped, had asked whether he had figured out how to handle Kaede Kagayama.
And just as Miyauchi Hiyage was leaving, Kaede Kagayama suddenly hit him with a soul-searching question.
"You'll come back, right?"
Hearing the rare hesitation in Kaede Kagayama's voice, Miyauchi Hiyage merely rolled his eyes at her.
"Go ahead and raise your affinity with Renge while I'm gone. If you can get it higher than mine, I'll admit you're impressive."
"...You really are a hopeless siscon!"
You Know Who Actually Likes Men?
I spent the whole day outside discussing work with people. Being a corporate slave was seriously troublesome.
When I had just transmigrated, I kept thinking about slacking off and taking it easy. Yet in order to make money, I could only work to support myself.
Fortunately, the handover was almost complete. Once I officially resigned, I could wander around elsewhere.
I checked the time. It seemed the new school term was about to begin.
According to my previous research, quite a lot of school anime protagonists would be entering high school from middle school this year and beginning their stories.
Who knew why works from entirely different periods had been forcibly crammed into similar ages in this world, only for me to miss that point in time? The god who created this world was truly willful enough.
Since I did not know what to write today, I might as well talk about a few stories whose plots began on the first day of school.
So, what might happen on the day school started?
A boy living an energy-conserving life met a wealthy young lady curious about everything in the Classics Club, which was on the verge of disbandment, beginning an interesting yet far-from-simple campus mystery life;
A boy hoping to forget the embarrassing things he did during his chuunibyou phase chose a high school far from home, only to encounter a chuunibyou girl falling from the sky onto his balcony the night before school began, throwing all his plans into disarray;
A boy who wanted to leave his small town discovered a girl unable to move forward on the slope leading to school. Meeting her became a turning point in both his life and the lives of those around him;
Still, when it came to plots related to the start of school, the Haruhi Suzumiya series was definitely the one that left the deepest impression. Even recalling that introduction now, it was still interesting.
"I have no interest in ordinary humans. If any of you are Aliens, Time Travelers, people from another world, or Espers, come find me."
Unfortunately, I do not remember which prefecture Prefectural Kita High, the school Haruhi Suzumiya attended, was located in. Otherwise, I could investigate it.
But by common reasoning, Haruhi Suzumiya probably did not exist in this world. Otherwise, she would be far too overpowered.
After all, she possessed godlike power that could rewrite the entire world according to her wishes, though she did not know it herself.
If she were in this world and knew its secrets, then with her rowdy personality, the whole world would probably become her toy.
I wonder whether any of the people reading this diary are among the people I mentioned above.
Incidentally, these works were all produced in my previous life by an animation company called Kyoto Animation. Unfortunately, it had already declined because of an arsonist before I transmigrated. I wonder if it can regain its former glory after I came here.
If anyone reading this diary is a light novel author, manga artist, or employee at a game or animation company, I wholeheartedly welcome you to adapt these works.
The only problem is that before adapting them, you should probably contact the original people behind these stories and obtain adaptation rights from them, so as to avoid unnecessary trouble in the future.
Of course, if you take an interest in other stories, I would also be willing to provide you with their continuations as long as you can find the original owners and obtain authorization. The premise is that you have to let me know.
Oh, I almost forgot. There was one more thing that happened at the start of school.
Yukino, the Second Daughter of the Yukinoshita Family in Chiba. Yes, the one I mentioned in my diary on the first day. Though your role will not officially begin until next year.
But after thinking carefully, I remembered that on your first day of high school, the driver employed by your family will hit a boy trying to save a dog, causing him to spend almost his entire first month of high school in the hospital.
At the same time, because of this incident, by the time he returned to school, the social circles in his class had already basically formed. Since he was not very sociable to begin with, he became the least noticeable yet most conspicuous person in the class.
Honestly, from the perspective of a viewer, I quite liked that sort of character setup.
But I am also curious whether his awful, awkward, withdrawn personality would improve even a tiny bit if he avoided the car accident and started school normally. Personally, I do not think it would.
Anyway, if you see this diary entry, decide your own future for yourself.
That is enough padding for today's diary. Everyone, get some sleep early. See you tomorrow.
At 8:15 p.m., the Diary in Yukino Yukinoshita's hands updated.
Yukino Yukinoshita recorded the time of today's diary update.
Since obtaining this Diary, its owner had updated it at an uncertain time every day, which made her feel slightly uncomfortable.
Fortunately, the other party had to update the diary before the day ended, or they would be unable to receive rewards.
Under such a system, reading the diary before bed every day was actually the best choice.
However, Yukinoshita had only received this Diary a few days ago, and she had not fully recovered emotionally yet—
Anyone would struggle after learning that the genuine thing they had always pursued was merely a "story" from another world, seen by an unknown number of people.
It was only because the Diary had automatically consumed some Reading Points, putting her into deep sleep and giving her room to recover, that she had managed to adjust her state of mind.
And once she accepted all of it, many things that had once been unclear suddenly became obvious.
In the past, she had always followed the path her older sister had taken, hoping to surpass her on that road and find her own genuine thing.
But now, because this Diary had appeared, she was already walking down another path.
Before you continue