Afterword
Thank you very much for picking up this book.
I am the author, Saekisan. This is the first collection of short stories in The Angel Next Door series, so I hope you enjoyed it.
Actually, I never expected to get to put out a collection of short stories, you know? Amane and Mahiru reached a milestone in their relationship in Volume 4, which is exactly why I felt that it was time for a short story volume. But I’m extremely grateful to have gotten the chance to depict things that I wasn’t able to depict before in a volume like this.
In the main series, for the most part, we only get to see things from Amane’s perspective, so this volume is packed with stories that (I’d like think) you can enjoy as a glimpse of what’s been going on in the background.
This is occurring to me anew, but Mahiru really does love Amane, huh…? She’s completely head over heels, isn’t she? I wonder why she couldn’t be more confident and make a love confession? I guess it’s strange for the author to write that.
It’s obvious that Amane is a loser, but each time I add another story, he continues to improve. Plus, he’s turning out to be quite the “gigolo,” so Mahiru is rapidly losing her patience.
Good luck, Amane! If you work hard, it’s possible for you to become an ideal man (but asserting that Amane is an ideal man feels a little counter to my reading of his character).
This time, I included some stories not just from Mahiru’s perspective but from Chitose and Itsuki, the characters who are watching the couple from the sidelines. I can’t deny feeling that they turned out to be pretty serious stories.
One way or another, Itsuki, Chitose, and even Yuuta are having a hard time of it.
I feel bad for Yuuta, who (I’m awful for saying it, but) got pretty traumatized because of Itsuki and Chitose’s business. Because of the damage he suffered, and after watching his two friends grapple with romance, he may or may not be a late bloomer in love, too, for different reasons than Amane. I hope he finds a wonderful girlfriend someday.
And then there are the incredible illustrations by Hanekoto that we got to adorn this volume, each one of them the best of the best. This time, there were three versions of the cover, one for the regular edition, one for the special edition, and one for the pamphlet that went with the special edition, and each one of them had destructive power beyond compare. I love them all.
Through a Twitter poll for the special edition pamphlet illustration, we determined that it would be a seductive-looking Mahiru, but isn’t she a little too seductive? She’s a full-on devil. She looks erotic but not vulgar, and I think it’s really great to see her in a sexy state. (How can I even say that?)
And why wasn’t Mahiru’s figure more visible in this scene?! was probably something you asked yourself in this volume.
That’s right, there was a bathtub scene, wasn’t there?
There was a good reason for that, or rather, as you might expect, there’s another bathtub scene coming up with A— (Here the writing cuts off abruptly.)
Leaving that aside, at some point you’ll get a chance to see her…maybe! At some point! Probably!
So then we’ve come to the end, and it’s time to thank everyone who helped me.
I am truly grateful to the people whose efforts got this book published: the chief editor; everyone in the editorial department at GA Books; everyone in the sales department; the proofreader; Hanekoto; everyone at the printer’s; and all of you who picked up a copy.
Let’s meet again in the next volume. The next one is part of the main story!
Thank you so much for reading to the very end!
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