Akashi was clearly unaware that, in just a few short seconds, Akashi Kana had begun to seriously question the possibility of her own inadequacy.
Once the packing was done, the next morning, a moving company truck arrived at the house. After Akashi and the movers loaded his belongings into the vehicle, he followed the truck to Akashi Kana's rental house.
Akashi Kana was not renting an apartment, but an old-style, detached Japanese-style compound (Wafu-in).
The owner of this old house was an elderly woman. After her husband passed away, partly to make a living and partly to bring some life into the house, the old woman rented out all the rooms except the one she occupied to nearby students and office workers.
Currently, besides Akashi and Akashi Kana, there were three other tenants living in the old house.
While the total number of residents wasn't small, they generally did not interfere with each other's lives.
This was because the old Japanese-style house was genuinely large. The overall layout was a three-sided rectangle. The east and west sides, the short ends of the rectangle, each had two rooms. The north side, the long end of the rectangle, contained a large living room and three large rooms.
Akashi and Akashi Kana lived on the east side. Even the nearest tenant was separated by a linear distance of almost five or six meters.
More importantly, the rent here was genuinely cheap.
Akashi's room was on the outermost part of the east side. Although it was the smallest of all the rooms, it was still over twenty square meters... not counting shared space.
It used to be a storage room, but after renovation, it was equipped with all necessary appliances and a separate bathroom.
Also, because of its corner location, the room had large windows on both the east and south walls, providing excellent natural light.
The general market rate for a comparable room in this area of Miyagi Prefecture was typically 80,000 to 100,000 yen per month.
However, the monthly rent for this room was only 35,000 yen, less than half the market price.
If the old woman hadn't been very selective about the quality of her tenants, and had not intended to contact a real estate agent to advertise the rooms, there would have been no vacancy left for Akashi.
The truck stopped at the gate of the courtyard, and the moving company employees helped Akashi move his belongings into the room.
Meeting the Tenants
After unpacking, Akashi met the landlady and the three other tenants in the main living room.
The landlady was an elderly woman with black and white hair, a somewhat plump figure, and a perpetually cheerful smile.
The tenant closest to Akashi Kana's room was a female university student named Horiguchi Tomoko.
She had an average-to-above-average appearance, but with makeup, she could be called a beauty. She had an outgoing personality; the moment Akashi Kana returned, she embraced her in a mighty hug.
"Oh, Kana, is this your little brother? He's quite handsome!"
"Horiguchi-san, could you please loosen your grip? I can't breathe."
...
The other two tenants, living in the west-side rooms, were Kudo Koichi and Koyanagi Mizuki.
Kudo Koichi was also a high school student, but he was quite taciturn. He hadn't said much since Akashi arrived.
Koyanagi Mizuki was a white-collar worker who had just graduated this year and worked at an advertising design company. He had rented here for his four years of university, and since his new office was nearby, he hadn't moved out.
When he saw Akashi, Koyanagi Mizuki greeted him but immediately returned his attention to the laptop in his hands, seemingly working overtime.
Overall, the initial meeting with the other tenants was, while not overly enthusiastic, at least friendly.
This made sense, as these people were all carefully vetted tenants selected by the landlady. Leaving personality aside, their personal standards and culture were definitely high.
In fact, Akashi was currently in a probationary period with the landlady. If, over the next one to three months, Akashi caused any trouble that distressed the other tenants or the landlady, he would likely have to find a new place to live.
However, this possibility was low.
Akashi Kana had mentioned that the landlady was quite lenient with students. Unless Akashi's behavior was truly deplorable, passing the inspection should not be an issue.
This was why most of the tenants here were students or people who had rented here since their student days.
The purpose of gathering all the tenants today was simply to introduce Akashi to everyone.
Getting to Work
After they had acquainted themselves for a while, it was lunchtime.
There were two options for meals here. One was to handle food independently, either by cooking or eating out. The other was to pay the landlady an extra 30,000 yen to be provided with three meals a day.
Basically, all the tenants chose the second option.
30,000 yen was incredibly cheap, essentially covering the cost of the ingredients. If one ate every meal out, the cost would certainly exceed that amount in a month.
However, choosing the meal plan didn't mean they did nothing.
The tenants here were all quite considerate. Generally, except for when people were away during the day or couldn't wake up in the morning, the landlady cooked the dinner, and the others would help out after school or work, preparing both dinner and the next day's bento lunch boxes in one go.
Speaking of which, Akashi Kana used to not know how to cook. The meal she made during her summer visit was probably just a few basic things she had picked up while helping out here.
After lunch, Akashi helped the others wash the dishes, then returned to his room, took out his laptop, and resumed his work as a writer... or rather, resumed writing.
Writing novels.
This was the method Akashi had devised to earn money during this period.
In his previous life, Akashi had written online novels for a while, but later realized it was a dead end and shifted his focus back to work.
Because of this, Akashi was self-aware enough to know that if he tried to publish a novel based purely on his writing skill, he would likely fail miserably.
Therefore, for the novel to be published, it had to succeed based on its unique concept.
After much deliberation, Akashi finally decided to copy... ahem, to take inspiration from the concept of the novel Cautious Hero: The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious, which would be published a few years later.
The reason it was 'inspiration' was mainly that Akashi couldn't recall the entire text, so he could only slowly flesh out the writing based on the general plot and concept.
Akashi didn't expect the novel to become a massive bestseller. He would be quite satisfied as long as it earned him enough money to cover his food expenses.
...