Me!

Genuine question--is the protagonist a guy or a girl? Not that it's important, but I read their character as a guy in the starting paragraphs, and then was taken aback with this line:

If I was a guy, I’d find a rose by now and give it to her.

It's an interesting line, as it may or may not reveal the character's gender (assuming we're talking in the binary gender form), but it also suggests the character isn't keen on courtship because of their gender. Is it because they're afraid the friend isn't 'her type'? Or is it just uncomely for a woman to give another woman a rose? Is flower-related courtship a male-dominated practice?

But in any case, this was an interesting read. I think it has way too many flaws to be considered good, but I feel like the emotion behind this is real despite its grammatical errors and dubious pacing. Unlike some works, I can actually imagine the character talking to me in first person, I actually believe that there's a person like this somewhere in the world--and I'll highlight that later on in my voice section, but for now,

The Beginning

Before I begin; I suggest you send this through a proofreader. As I'm not a proofreader myself, I can't fix all the grammatical and capitalizing errors here, but I suggest you do. Grammarly is a good program for this sort of thing, but I also suggest a thorough read through on your own, or at least have someone else read through it.

The beginning is where my problems and my favors start to pop up simultaneously regarding this work, as (ignoring the grammatical errors) it isn't exactly written well--however, it's not written well in the way someone would impromptu vlog themselves about their lives and post it on Youtube, in low-quality resolution and lighting, no doubt. It's very rough, almost to the point where it's a turn off, but there's no hidden agenda behind it, nothing that would feel quote unquote 'fake'. It's just a human being talking about their human life in a human manner, and I admire that, despite it's flaws.

Observe;

A few days back was my 19th birthday. Unlike what I think others thought about during their birthdays, I have two separate thinking. One part is the ones I said to others, and another to myself. The parts that I said to others are mere repetition of the sentences I’ve memorized over the years I’ve been living. Those words are; thanks man or it feels good to grow up and be alive! There’s also something along those lines, but never mind those. The second part is the part that I say to myself. It usually goes pretty depressing, but nevertheless, I’m grateful to myself. Here, let me show some of it. The most common ones that I think about these days are ‘good job on lasting this long, good job’ and ‘just a few more years to go, hang in there!’ I’m guessing you might be thinking that I’m going to end my life. Unfortunately, I can’t. I’ve thought about it before, but I can’t.

See here, this isn't the best way to start a story. There's no introduction to the main character or who they are, and so the reader isn't sure if they like the character yet. While the conflict is admittedly set up, the reader isn't hooked, there's nothing for them to be interested in. Your first line talks about how a few days ago was the main character's birthday. Not the most interesting line, is it? If I told you a few days ago it was Robert Brown's birthday, would you care? No. Why? Because you don't know anybody named Robert Brown (presumably)! You don't care about any stranger's birthday, do you? You care about the birthday's of the people close to you. Why? Because you know them personally, you feel like their births are worth celebrating. Same goes for death--you might not care if some random stranger died somewhere, not as much as if your parents died.

If you want my opinion, the lines that really got me hooked were the bolded, italicized and underlined ones. Why? Because it shows something more about this character that just had their birthday. It shows them as more than "Random Birthday Person"--it shows them struggling with themselves, persevering in the face of great conflict with themselves, congratulating themselves for another year of living. That's a genuinely sad, but also very empathetic sentiment. It shows us the two sides of our character, the one they show to the public and the one they wear in private. It doesn't feel black-and-white, it doesn't feel one-sided.

I usually hate it when authors write about depressed characters as only thinking about the meaninglessness of life and how they'd like to die, and never showing how hard this character tries to keep living, never showing their struggle of living. Characters like those, while they are depressed, are one-sided, vaguely inhuman; they're defining trait is their depression, and they don't struggle with that, they depend on it to make them 'interesting' characters, which doesn't usually make a good story. Characters deserve to have two sides, they need two different masks to show to two different people.

And honestly, if you started with any of those sentiments, if you started with "I look at my birthday in two different ways", I think that would've been more compelling, as it immediately shows the reader that the main character is human.

Thoughts and Actions

I described the main character as an awkward vlogger in the beginning, and I think that really is the style of text you're going for here. The introduction to Aihara reads more like What the Protagonist Thinks in Their Head in a movie, and we're supposed to be watching this beautiful girl suddenly appear after the main character does some silent navel gazing. There's no real description of Aihara, no warning, no "And then I heard a voice talking to me in real life", she just sort of appears and the character acknowledges her presence, which is confusing.

However, back to the main character. I think that you've got the main voice down, and I have a theory that it's because the main character is you, but I have no idea. Eitherway, you already have a good grasp of how to show the character's humanity (two-sides, gray character, remember that), it's just that you have a lot of structural issues. Story wise, you get into way too much of your character thinking to themselves. Most of the time, you're actually dispensing information while the character is thinking (the fourth paragraph you inform the reader that the protagonist is in college, the third paragraph gives us a glimpse of the character's struggles, the fifth paragraph sort of informs us that the main character has left the building), but a lot of that info is too clouded over by the thoughts.

For example, the fifth and sixth paragraph. I had no idea that the character was walking around because there's no action saying "I walked about" or anything like that, just the character running their thoughts. It was even more confusing by the sixth paragraph, as it's obvious that somebody is talking, but who is talking? What do they look like? Where did they come from? Since there's little to no action defined, the reader has no idea objectively what's going on in the scene. It's like walking around blind, it's not exactly a comfortable position to be in.

Basically, make a good separation between thoughts and actions. Describe what the characters are doing, and use thoughts sparingly (when using thoughts, ask yourself; is this telling the reader something they don't already know? Do I lose anything if I don't show the reader that the character is thinking this way?)

A Strange Introduction

As I said before, the introduction to Aihara is particularly strange, not only for the reasons stated above, but also because of how the main character immediately reacts. The main character is attracted to her, obviously, and what luck! Suddenly, without transition, she's moved in next to the main character. D'oh!

It's very abrupt, and I would've let the two characters talk a bit more before suddenly dumping this information about how they've moved in next to each other. Again, we still have no idea if we like this Aihara character, so we don't have much of an emotional reaction when we find out that the character is now the main's neighbor.

However, that's not all I have. I do find it weird that suddenly the character is in love with Aihara (they deny it, but none of the audience believes her probably). I mean, the love at first sight trope is a bit overplayed at this point, and it's hard to sympathize with, but I think it could definitely work--it just needs time, something you didn't give these characters. Give at least a chapter of their interaction, or at least a couple more paragraphs of the main character watching Aihara and asking themselves, what am I feeling? Why do I feel this way? You can't really fix the Love At First Sight thing, but it'd still be poignant if you gave the characters time to develop their feelings.

The Ending

And finally, something that I wanted to talk about briefly.

I have no patience for homemade cookies. I’d eat it before it even made it into the cookie jar.

This ending was weird. It was anticlimactic, it didn't really share a common theme with the rest of the work, and it definitely ended the chapter/story abruptly. I know that you might actually continue this, but I feel like either way you need to still resolve something by the end of a chapter, or at least hint at future chapters. For example, if your current conflict is how the main character will deal with their neighbor, maybe end with a statement like "Only time will tell if I survive her presence" or "God, *character name*, please don't embarrass yourself." It ends the chapter with a question, and it still shares a common theme with the rest of the story, that being the main character is unsure of herself. However, cookies? Not sure if that connects with anything.

Take care,

--Elliot.