My Stepsister is My Ex-Girlfriend - Volume 6 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

As much as I’d like to believe that year after year, the world has a better understanding of what it means to be different—in other words, diversity—that doesn’t necessarily seem to be the case. No matter how much time passes, people still write off being shy as a simple quirk. It really feels like the general sentiment is that shyness is simply one’s lack of communication ability.

I mean, true, shy people are lacking in that manner. This sort of classification may be inevitable due to society being set up in a way such that, more often than not, it’s difficult for anything to get done if you’re a poor communicator. Even as a writer—a job that seems least likely to require any communicative abilities—I still need to know proper email etiquette.

In that regard, it’s true that it’s easier to have some kind of ability to communicate whether you’re shy or not. But ultimately, it’s just a matter of skill, of ability maturation, of improvement and mastery. It’s like being able to spell long, complicated words or being able to use the computer. Could you really say that anyone who only has one of those skills has matured as a human?

So then, what is growth? In fiction, it’s usually classified as getting stronger or making friends; however, that is purely for entertainment purposes. Of course, there are people, like Yume, who would feel satisfaction from consuming those kinds of stories, and those who wouldn’t, like Mizuto. This is the exact problem that this volume sought to explore.

The word “ideal,” which came up a lot in this volume, is basically what lies at the end of “growth.” After all, an ideal is the image of yourself that you want to eventually reach. But what happens if it clashes with your partner’s ideal? Maybe you wouldn’t think too much of it at first, but somewhere down the line, it’ll create a divide. It’s only natural since your logic will be completely different. You won’t be on the same page when it comes to what’s right and what’s wrong.

My job this time around was to equip Mizuto with the courage and desire to try and overcome the differences between him and Yume. Instead of me destroying his jaded, entrenched self-consciousness and forcing him to change, I needed him to recognize his flaws on his own.

This wasn’t about making him stronger or increasing his friend count. I think you might understand that it’s more about having him accept who he is and having him affirm instead of reject who he used to be. Ultimately, though, the desire to make someone your own is something difficult to express if you don’t have a high opinion of yourself.

In the end, this volume wound up being another great challenge, but I’ve overcome it and can move on to the next volume, which’ll dive right into the mutual one-sided love arc. Oh, did you think that’s how the story already was? Didn’t you know that they mutually hated each other from the start of Volume 1?

Thanks so much to the illustrator, TakayaKi; Rei Kusakabe, who’s in charge of the manga; my editor at Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko; and everyone else who helped on this book. I know I’ve been really cutting it close with my deadlines, and I’d truly like to get around to fixing that.

So anyway, this has been Kyosuke Kamishiro’s My Stepmom’s Daughter is My Ex Volume 6: The Six Words I Couldn’t Say. The remaining student council members haven’t been decided yet!