The Girl Who Has a Crush on Fuji

There are plenty more sweet romances in my collection, both short and long. Come on in!

[Bittersweet Unrequited Love x Three-Sugar Sweetness]

Unrequited love is a coming-of-age novel. The boy I like is a dazzling genius, but sadly, I am not the heroine.

--Onodera Shiori, age 17

Buddhism teaches that life has eight forms of suffering: birth, old age, illness, death, separation from loved ones, being forced to meet those you resent, longing for what you cannot have, and the burning intensity of the five skandhas.

Shiori once believed that "longing for what you cannot have" was the bitterest kind. You can give it everything you have and still fall short; you can walk such a long way, only to find no one waiting at the end.

But over time, she came to understand that the real pain is not wanting what you cannot have. It is having no one to resent after you fail to get it.

The boy I like is a dazzling genius. He is kind and outstanding, beyond reproach. He is worth looking up to for all of your youth.

And so, for many years to come, he became an ordeal I could neither escape nor even cry injustice over.

--Onodera Shiori, age 25

A short story inspired by eating green tangerines. Extremely bittersweet.

Theme: Be brave and make it through your ordeal. Keep moving forward without looking back.