I won the "Soft Yell Award" — Chibi Creative Awards

Shizuku Amano, thank you so much for selecting my work for the "Soft Yell Award" at the Chibi Creative Awards.

Out of a festival featuring nearly 500 entries, you chose my work, "Eye of the Wind." And the fact that you received the message, "Even if you cannot erase the past, you can still move forward," is the greatest joy I could ask for as a creator.

That was the very core of this piece. Having you put that into words and return it to me makes me feel saved, knowing that every expression I chose while struggling actually reached someone.

Along with the news of the award, I would like to take this opportunity to write a little about the background settings of the story and what I was thinking while writing it. (I know my character has already broken down, but I will write this seriously.) This contains spoilers for the main story, so if you haven't read it yet, please do so first.

Everything started with a single question

The first seed was just one question: "What if I wrote a fantasy themed around wind?"

Among the many ideas I came up with, the one that captured my heart the most was the image of "a quiet country in the middle of a tornado that hasn't stopped for a thousand years." A calm country where time has stopped in the center of a raging storm—this contradictory beauty became the backbone of the story.

The storm is a world that keeps moving, in other words, life. The eye of the wind is a stopped world, in other words, stillness and the abandonment of life. When I realized that this contrast could be directly overlaid onto a story about how people live, the structure fell into place.

Things I intentionally left unexplained

To be honest, I rewrote this story from the middle to the end three times. It had a completely different ending. And since I like to plant foreshadowing, there are several settings in the main story that I intentionally did not reveal.

For example, there is a rule in the country of the eye of the wind that "no one is born because time has stopped." All the residents are drifters who wandered in from the outside. That is why I designed it so that Rainy's loneliness as the only child would stand out.

And the numerical rule that "when you leave the country, the time you stayed there hits you all at once, about three times over." Zeff's aged appearance and the fate of his mother decaying are all born from this rule. However, in the main story, I intentionally did not specify the numbers. If readers start calculating with a calculator, the emotional impact of the story would be ruined. I designed it so that you would experience it through Zeff's appearance and the wrinkled hands of the man by the wall.

Why did Rainy lose her memories? I didn't explain the reason for that at all in the main story either. By not telling everything, I wanted to make her not a "device to guide the protagonist," but "a human being with a story that isn't told."

The mother's story, which took the most time

The heart of this work was the "reason why the mother didn't return." I reworked this part many times.

The villagers say, "The mother was called by the storm," but the truth is the opposite; the mother ran away on her own. From her broken heart, and from herself, who might hurt her beloved son.

The mother had raised her hand against her son impulsively a few times—I handled this setting with particular care. If I made it habitual abuse, the mother would just look like a toxic parent, and the final "separation out of love" would not hold up. That is why I always paired it with a description of the mother breaking down in tears immediately after hitting him. "A person who is a perpetrator but also suffering more than anyone else." I believe this contradiction is the truth of the person who is the mother.

The real engine that drove the story

In the latter half of the writing process, I shifted the center of gravity of the story significantly. Initially, the protagonist Haru's motivation was an outward quest to "meet his mother." But that alone was weak.

So, I placed the thirteen-year curse of "It's my fault that my mother disappeared" as the vertical axis running through the story. In Chapter 4, when the phantom mother whispers, "If only you hadn't been born," it is the words Haru has been whispering to himself for 13 years. And in Chapter 5, the mother's "No. It's the opposite. It's not your fault" becomes the blow that breaks that curse.

The story shifted its axis from a mystery of "Is my mother alive?" to a story of "Can Haru's curse be broken?" I believe this change gave the work the most warmth.

What I really wanted to write with this story

The three main characters each face their "past" in different ways. The mother, who stops time and remains stuck while carrying her past. Rainy, who lets go of the past and moves on to what comes next. Haru, who faces the past, finds an answer, and returns to the outside world.

"Only those who do not run from the storm and instead head into its center will know true silence"—this theme actually also meant, "Only those who do not run from their own past and instead face it can move forward."

The message that Amano-san received—"Even if you cannot erase the past, you can move forward beyond it." That was truly the very core of what I wanted to put into this story. The hidden settings, the parts I revised over and over—everything was to reach that one point. Amano-san's words taught me that it had reached her properly.

Conclusion

Behind every story lie countless unwritten settings and choices that were painted over time and again. "Eye of the Wind" also reached its current form after many "what ifs."

And this time, to have such warm light shone upon this story in the form of the "Soft Yell Award." I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Shizuku Amano, who chose this work while gently standing by it, to everyone who planned and operated this, to the judges, and to everyone who read this one work out of the many available.

If, when you who have read this far reread the main story, the sound of the wind sounds just a little different—that is my greatest wish for having written this behind-the-scenes story.

With the yell I received held close to my heart, I will continue to write. Thank you so very much.

Yu Yoizuki

▼ Click here for the LEWD article that unfortunately missed out on an award

▼ Click here for Shizuku Amano's article

▼ A bonus for those who scrolled all the way down here

▼ Click here for details on the fun membership of "Yoizora-san" that I am participating in

We are currently recruiting members. Please feel free to join us.