October 31st, 2019

"Mr. Sage, how does it feel to be the first author ever to have not one but three signing events in the National Library? At the young age of 26 at that."

Nith smiled as he leaned back in his chair. "Awesome."

The group of reporters sitting in front of him laughed.

Lily stood away from the stage, the schedule of the event in her hand as she watched Nith maneuver through the hungry reporters.

The book signing event was supposed to be divided into two parts. The reading and the actual signing. But the number of reporters that turned up was more than what they had anticipated; making them add an additional two hours to the already lengthy affair.

What more questions could they possibly ask Nith about a book that was published almost ten years ago? Lily just didn't understand the craze behind it. But it got the bills paid, so she didn't mind.

Another reporter raised her hand before she stood up from her chair with her pen and notebook. "It has been eight years, yet Maybe Someday is still considered one of the bestselling novels of the decade. What's your thought regarding it?"

He nodded, rubbing his chin slightly. His right leg was on top of his left as he thought of his answer. "Of course, it's one of the best feelings in the world. To see something that you had written years ago still receiving love. As a writer, you can't really ask for any more than that, can you?"

"You were spotted at the Colored Entertainment’s head office a few weeks ago. Can you tell us more about that?"

Nith smirked, shaking his head. "There will be an update regarding that soon from Colored Entertainment. Please be on the lookout for that."

Lily glanced at Nith from the papers in her hand. He was doing well. The three glasses of wine he drank before going up to the stage had worked their way through his nerves. She might even have mistaken the smile on his face by thinking he was enjoying it if she hadn’t seen him shaking in his boots before the event started.

"If you could, would you change any part of the story?"

"No. No, I wouldn't."

Another stood up. Clearing their throat, they asked, "You have written more than 5 books apart from Maybe Someday. But none of them has the same vibe as Maybe Someday. Why is that?"

Lily sighed alongside Nith. This was the same question he would get asked every time he was in front of a mic.

"Have you ever been in love?" The reporter raised an eyebrow, but bobbed their head, smiling. Nith smiled back. "Then you will probably understand. For me, Maybe Someday is my first love. You will fall in love again and again, but it will never be like your first. Because when you fall in love for the first time, you don't expect anything in return. You don't know what you can get in return."

The room quietened as he talked. Lily crossed her hand over her chest listening; this wasn’t the answer she prepped for Nith. But he rarely used the answers she wrote up for him.

"You just want to bask in their light and feel that feeling, you know? It's new, and it's exciting. It's different from everything you thought it would be." His lips pushed, head down. His copper locks hid his face from the cameras in front of him as he talked. Eyes focused on the clasped hands in his lap as he played with his fingers, continuing, "That's how Maybe Someday is to me. The ‘vibe’ that you mentioned, was my naivety toward the world, my feeling that was busting through me to my pages. It was my first love. It was special." Nith looked up, smiling shyly.

"And I think … The process was different too. Where I was in a different place in life. What I knew back then was different. I had more time, and more freedom to experiment with my writing when I wrote Maybe Someday. I guess that also played a huge part." Nith nodded to himself. "Now whatever I write it automatically gets compared to Maybe Someday. I think that's why I subconsciously avoid writing stories with the same vibe. Why you guys don't get that vibe, because it isn't there," he added.

"You mentioned how people compare your other works with Maybe Someday, is it because no other work of yours has risen to that level of popularity?"

"Ah." Nith took a big sip of his coffee, grimacing at its coldness. He motioned for another cup.

Lily shook her head from the back. The list of questions that the reporters had agreed to ask was in her hand, along with the names of those who had joined. And that question was not on that list. She marked the reporter’s name in red. "You are not getting an invitation next time."

Nith placed the cup back on the table as the staff switched his cup. "I think one of the reasons Maybe Someday did so well was not just the writing or the story itself but the timing played a bit too. People wanted something sweet and comforting. Maybe Someday debuted around that time and the readers went for it. And Romance is more forgiving than any other genre out there. It's more accepting."

The reporters stared back at him, bored. And Nith finally realized the bitter truth about his predicament. The reporters had nothing new to ask of him. That was the reason why they kept repeating the same questions again and again like a broken record. Yet he couldn’t give the same answer to a question they had been asking him for the last five years. It seemed unfair.

"The stories I write now are more into dystopia-fantasy, horror, and mystery. And it isn't like they are not doing well in their own category. Angel and Demon series had a successful trilogy and now is in work to be a TV series. Murder at Grayville has received a critic's award. It's not that Maybe Someday was a one-hit-wonder. It's just that Maybe Someday has gotten a bit bigger, way bigger than anything we could have imagined, and everything that comes after just feels like it's not big enough."

"They are all my work." Nith shrugged a little, eyes back onto his fingers in his lap. "I had fun writing them all. At the end of the day, which one is higher than the others doesn't really matter. I understand that everyone loves Maybe Someday, and as a writer, it's an honor. But it gets tiring after a while when people only associate you with one thing that you did years ago; when all of my works are somewhat in a similar position, at a different level of popularity." He looked back at the reporter in the eyes, smiling his 'Nith's Fake Camera Smile' as Jay would call it. "At the end of the day, they all bring big bucks home."

The reporter at the front chuckled as he stood up to ask his question. "Is this the reason why you stopped writing romance? Because everyone kept comparing?"

"Thanks, Freedy." Smiling to himself, Nith shrugged again. "I don't know," he said truthfully. "It's not like I didn't try writing romance in the past, but it just didn't feel the same. I couldn't find my muse. Both Angel and Demons and Murder at Grayville had a bit of romance in them. So it isn't that I stopped writing romance altogether."

As Freedy sat back on his chair another stood up. Nith’s brows frowned at her, the smile vanishing from his face. She was not supposed to be here.

The girl smiled at him, making Nith’s mood sullen.

Lily called in one of the security guards, asking them how she had gotten inside the venue. Lily made sure to exclude her name from the invite, so it made no sense how she could even get through security when they were given clear instructions that Rina Coral from the Weekly Spotlight was not allowed to enter.

"Mr. Sage," her voice cut through the air as she started to talk. The edge in her tone also didn't go unnoticed by Nith or Lily. She clicked her tongue in anger. "If you could tell us who was your muse for Maybe Someday, maybe we‌ could find her for you." Few of the reporters snickered at the suggestion, oblivious to the glaring war going on between Nith and Rina. "I am sure the muse would work her magic again."

Yesterday with Kate came to Nith’s mind. Kate’s smile, the way she looked at him, how her fingers brushed past his arm, and the way she called his name. A smile crept onto his lips, and a blush spread up to his ears. Nith couldn’t hide how happy was. Just having spent that one evening with her had his heart bursting with emotions that he thought he had finally forgotten.

Rina was right. The muse did worked her magic on him again.

So when he spotted Rina’s eyes narrowing at him, accusing him; Nith wanted to do something he had never done before. As if he was six again, having the courage to finally hit the bully back.

It seemed Kate’s fighting spirit had rubbed on him.

"I am sure the fans would love to know who inspired their favorite book. So why not share?" Rina added.

It was a question he was familiar with. She had asked him about it before. Though it was years ago and not in the midst of an interview. But this time, he won’t disappoint her. Smiling his 'Nith's fake camera smile' he leaned back in his chair. Rina raised her brows.

"Miss. Coral, I have some good news for you. For everyone in this room, I think." She wanted to get a rise out of him; they all did. That was the reason they were here, asking him condescending questions. Not because they cared about his books or the fact that he was the youngest and the only writer to be invited into The National Library for the third time. No one cared about that. "I actually had a brief meeting with my muse recently." He watched as the reporters looked at each other, before jolting it down on their notepads.

They wanted a headline, something that would make people click their poorly written articles online.

So he would give them one.

Lily turned toward him, confused. It wasn't on the list of answers they had prepared though that question or the person who asked wasn’t on her list either. Nith caught her eyes, reading her expression: the knotted brows, narrowed blue eyes with anger, and lips in a thin line, daring him to not say anything stupid.

The author shrugged.

"What does that mean?" someone from the crowd asked.

Nith turned back at the journalists sitting in front of him, ready to write whatever he would say. And he knew what he wanted to say. Rina always liked to be the one a step ahead. So Nith knew how much his answer would piss her off. It almost compensated for the scolding he would get from Lily later.

"It means - " He stood up from the chair, camera flashing. "A romance novel from me might come out sometime soon." Rina scoffed at him. Nith tilted his head, smiling. This got him a leer from her. “Well, that will be all for today. Thank you all for coming."

Lily groaned, walking toward Nith as the room busted into a murmur. The reporters stood up from their chairs, pushing toward the stage, continuing to ask him more questions.

"Mr. Sage!" Rina's voice cut through the crowd, "How soon ... Mr. Sage?" Her lips twitched into a scowl as she asked.

He glanced at her briefly. "Very soon."