First Comment

We have a piano in the studio.

It's nothing fancy. An old ivory Steinway that my parents bought when I was little. Not for me, but because it fit the vibe of the studio.

None of us played. Sometimes, some customers would walk up to the keys to impress their dates. It was rather cute.

When I got a little older, I became interested in the instrument. I listened to a lot of classical music… still do.

It was nice. Thinking I could play the tough songs, trying to get the notes and tempo right, the intonations that each press of the key brought to your chest. I quite liked it.

So I tried to play. Learned the notes first, then tried the scales. They were boring, though. It was a boring process.

I tried learning around a bit more. From notations to tablature, jazz scales to blues, they were all boring.

I tried to play one note and would forget the next. My fingers would slip over and touch something else, sometimes too soft, sometimes too hard.

Slow, slow, I played and played the boring notes. Notes that seemed to have nothing to do with the beautiful music I had hoped to play. Scales that seemed useless for the compositions that I hoped to learn.

After three days of playing the piano.

I quit.

***

"What's up with you today?" My mom's question flew in from the side while I sat at the counter.

"What?" I asked back before greeting another customer. After they left, I turned back to my mom. "The shop's busier than usual, it's a good day for business."

My mom let out an incredulous scoff.

"Look at this guy. Are you going out with your friends or something? Oh, you don't have any."

I was used to my mom being like this. Just because I didn't bring any home didn't mean I didn't have friends. I talked to a total of three people almost once a week.

These little things did not bother me today, though. I just smiled at my mom and continued working. Things slowed down to a lull as evening approached, which meant I could take a break.

Like a giddy kid smiling while thinking about his latest, cool beyblade, I rushed up the stairs and jumped straight to my desk.

"System, are you there?"

The translucent blue window popped up in front of my eyes.

[Yes. How can I help you?]

"Do you think we might have gotten some views? Any comments?" Even though I asked the system, my hands were already logging in to the website. There were quite a few promotions about their exclusive comics, but those didn't matter to me.

[It has barely been a few hours. You won't see anything.]

The system was correct. There was nothing much to see on the page, just a few views. I didn't mind it, though. I was a little disheartened to not see anyone following or commenting on the story, but that was fine.

"Let's just write the second chapter anyway…"

[Do you want me to threaten you again?]

"No thanks…"

I was pretty motivated. I didn't understand it myself. There seemed to be nothing wrong or right about what I was doing.

All that mattered was that words got on the page.

The story of Reversal was just what was filling my head every moment. Morally gray main characters were a dime a dozen, so I made him extremely corrupt. Loners were just as many, so I made him an emotional manipulator. Emotions that I didn't understand well enough myself seemed like a puzzle to piece together in the story.

A steampunk setting. Instead of relying on Victorian or Western European fantasy models, I decided to make it more Slavic. I had no idea about any of those settings anyway, but whatever my little research could piece together, I used.

Everything that I thought of just flowed out of my fingers and onto the screen. Once it was done and the chapter finished, I uploaded it and started over again.

One chapter turned into two.

Two turned to four.

Days passed by just like that, where writing more than a single chapter would exhaust me and fill me with a sense of satisfaction.

And then, it happened.

{You have 1 new comment!}

"C-comment!?" My eyes widened. A whole week had passed, and my story had attracted a grand total of four followers, now there was even a comment. I was a natural at this.

[Check it! Check it!]

With nervous hands, I clicked on the comment. Was this how someone being dragged to the execution field would feel like?

{Comments:}

{User-122212sf: nice, tftc}

"O-oh…"

[…]

Time seemed to have stopped.

Was this… for real?

I left the laptop behind and jumped on my bed. Quickly, I rushed to the pillow and smacked my head on it. I took a deep breath and…

"WOAAAAH!"

My scream continued for a strong few seconds. The poor little pillow would probably have sued me if it could, but the world was unfair. After calming down, I scooted back to my chair and sat down. My lips were stuck curled upward and my heart pumped faster than it ever had.

Love? What is that? It's overrated. This is where the real heart pump was. A comment.

I still couldn't believe it. The views and followers made me happy, but for the first time, it felt like someone was truly reading my story.

I wrote up three different paragraph-long replies, but the system dissuaded me from using them.

{Thanks a lot for reading!}

And in the end, that was what I came up with.

"Hehe… hehehe…"

[What are you going to do now, host?]

"Write more."