Notes: One of the things you can get in the first game is the synopsis/outline/teaser for Junsei Takamine’s last novel. I could see Miku becoming a folklorist-novelist because she can write well, has really good research skills, and has gone through so much trauma. Occurs after the events of Fatal Frame III, assumes good/canon ending.
This makes reference to an untitled ficlet I wrote about Miku inheriting Yuu’s folklore books, and also to the events of Transcribing the Fear in her Voice.
Working Through the Novel
by EstiRose
“I still can’t believe I’m an author,” Miku said, folding her hands across her chest. The books bearing her name - and Junsei Takamine’s - sat in the window of the shop. It was something she’d never expected at all.
“It’s well-deserved, Miku,” Rei said, putting a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “You can write.”
“Sometimes I think it’s just because I could imitate Junsei Takamine’s writing style,” Miku admitted. “I… this was never meant to be published!”
“It’s a bestseller,” Rei pointed out. “You might have been using his outline, but it was your story.”
Miku nodded, still staring at the book. Countless hours of writing, rewriting, typing, and editing had created that book, and she still wasn’t sure what to make of it.
She knew she had more interviews coming up, because of her background. Her ancestors had lived at Himuro Mansion, her brother had disappeared there, and she had somehow been entrusted with Junsei Takamine’s vague plot outline. It fascinated the Japanese public, and there was talk of translating it for international audiences.
Miku was even being approached to write more supernatural stories, because she had a knack for them that Junsei Takamine never had. She might have written in Junsei Takamine’s style, but many parts of the plot had been distinctly her own.
She was getting to be enough of a folklorist that she might actually be able to pull it off. Yuu’s entire library sat in her room now, and she was starting to consult his books for a new plot. She wished that Mio would tell her about Minakami Village; not only was it part of Miku’s own heritage, but it would give her a chance to educate more people about the area.
But having gone through enough trauma in the Manor of Sleep and Himuro Mansion, she was in no hurry to cause the other girl more hurt. Mio might tell her when she was ready.
She closed her eyes, thinking of how she’d ended up being a novelist-folklorist in the first place….
A year and a half before publication
“She wants to see me?” Miku looked at her friend Kei - her brother’s friend before he became hers - with a wide-eyed look.
“Now that she’s gotten a look at your novel,” Kei said. “She started reading it before I realized it, and now she wants to meet the author.”
“But… I can’t publish something from Junsei Takamine’s outline!” Not the outline that she’d picked up in the middle of navigating Himuro Mansion and filed away with the rest of her papers. She’d given it to Yuu when she’d told him the entire story of Himuro Mansion, and gotten it back when she, Rei, and Kei had cleared out his bookshelves.
“I told her that it was based off of an outline that you’d been entrusted with, and out of consideration of Junsei Takamine’s family you didn’t want to publish it. Maybe she wants to talk you into writing an original novel.”
“I hope so?” Not that she really hoped so, but it was better than explaining that she found Takamine’s synopsis in the middle of a dangerously haunted mansion. “She’s an editor, right?”
“Yes, but one of her brother-in-laws works in the same publishing house that publishes Junsei Takamine. It couldn’t hurt.”
Miku knew that she couldn’t publish Junsei Takamine’s last work, but if the lady wanted to talk to her, she supposed it wouldn’t hurt. She could at least talk her out of it.
After all, she wasn’t Junsei Takamine, and would never be.
Two years before publication
“So, what are you doing?” Rei asked.
Miku looked up from Yuu’s word processor. Because it belonged to him, not the publishing house, they’d been able to keep it. She liked it; it had a memo function, games, and a schedule thing that allowed her to keep all of Rei’s appointments.
Of course, it ate batteries unless she kept it plugged in, but at the moment she didn’t care. “I… I guess I wanted to try to write a novel.”
“About?”
“One of the things I ended up with when I was in Himuro Mansion was a synopsis of Junsei Takamine’s next work, about the Mansion. I… I wanted to see what I could do with it. I can’t publish it, of course, but it might be nice to have around to read.”
Rei nodded. “If it helps.” She didn’t say it out loud, but they were all still recovering from the traumas they’d been through, she and Rei, Kei and Mio. They were all there for each other now, but sometimes Miku found that she had to work through the trauma herself.
It was soothing, in a way, to write about people being torn apart as she’d almost been. A way to exorcise herself using Junsei Takamine’s last gift to the world.
She just hoped that she’d do him justice, even if nobody outside the four of them would ever see it.
End notes: I’ve done some research, and I’ve made the machine that you see on Yuu’s desk a Sharp WV-500 word processor, which came out in 1987 and has the functions that Miku mentions. I just don’t see Rei doing any word processing so that, too, went to Miku.
The webpage I used was http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/word/0042.html - retrieved April 22, 2014, no date on webpage.
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