Chapter 150: 1v3 Chat
Sakamoto Ken completed the 《The Quintessential Quintuplets》 male lead and five female leads’ character design drawings.
One is a group illustration of the five female leads, and the other six drawing papers each feature one character.
He laid out the six drawings side by side on the workbench.
Ichika, Nino, Miku, Yotsuba, Itsuki.
Five identical faces, distinguished by hairstyle, hair accessories, and subtle expressions to show personality differences.
《Chainsaw Man》’s style is quite wild, with bold lines, while this 《The Quintessential Quintuplets》 takes the complete opposite route.
The art style must be exquisite and delicate, a typical harem romance manga that sells on beautiful girls.
The studio’s three existing assistants, Ryū Kōshin, Kaku Yuji, and Endo Tatsuya, are first busy with 《Chainsaw Man》 work, and second, it would be too much to ask them to switch from drawing 《Chainsaw Man》 to the style of beautiful girl romance daily life.
Sakamoto Ken plans to recruit specialized assistants for this manga later, ones skilled at drawing beautiful girls, especially female body curves and expressions.
But before that, at least the first few chapters of the manga he has to draw personally himself to set the overall art style tone for the work.
He stretched lazily and checked the time; it was already nine at night.
Today’s work was done for the day. He leaned back in the ergonomic chair for a short rest, then saw the mobile phone screen light up with a new LINE message.
Hoshihara Ai: 「Alone?」
Sakamoto Ken raised an eyebrow and tapped lightly on the screen with his finger.
Sakamoto Ken: 「Alone, at home.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「『Image』」
It was a photo she took.
Hoshihara Ai lay lazily on the lounge chair in her apartment, the main subject of the photo being her evenly proportioned, slender beautiful legs.
Ivory-white skin glowed with an alluring sheen under the room’s soft warm lights, legs crossed, toes pointed up, and on her thigh were several printed A4 papers.
The papers were full of data charts and some diagrams, but most crucially, this paper covered her leg crease, blocking everything that shouldn’t be blocked.
Sakamoto Ken: 「Take the paper away and let me see?」
Hoshihara Ai: 「I showed you the data, and all you saw were the legs?」
Sakamoto Ken: 「I only understand legs.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「Then look closely.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「『Image』」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Thanks for the treat.」
「Hoshihara Ai retracted a message.」
Sakamoto Ken: 「I haven’t saved it yet!」
Hoshihara Ai: 「Stop thinking about legs. These are the noon data, all sorted. You’re really special. If I hadn’t experienced it personally, I wouldn’t believe rebirth is real.」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Oh, it’s about serious business. I thought it was loneliness, that you missed me.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「What, rested half a day and ready again?」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Not that meaning. I’ve had enough today.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「I thought you wanted it again.」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Honestly, my body is a bit in the mood now, but my brain isn’t thinking it.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「Decide which head to use when talking to me first.」
Sakamoto Ken changed the subject.
Sakamoto Ken: 「Can we meet now? I mean in the dream kind.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「No, that channel has time limits. If we could connect anytime, we’d have met already. After all, we both sleep at the same time every night.」
Sakamoto Ken: 「So connection time is really only during naps?」
Hoshihara Ai: 「Yes. By my guess, the earliest connection is when we stabbed you with the knife, and the latest is when you fully died.」
Sakamoto Ken: 「No exact time?」
Hoshihara Ai: 「Around one o’clock to start. Not sure exactly what minute or second we stabbed you.」
Sakamoto Ken: 「What about the exact time I died?」
Hoshihara Ai: 「Don’t know. You didn’t die on the spot; died from failed rescue.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「Don’t you even know if you died?」
Sakamoto Ken: 「I passed out from blood loss before dying, so I got stabbed three times and didn’t die on the spot?」
Hoshihara Ai: 「What, three knives not enough?」
Sakamoto Ken: 「…Not that meaning.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「If you want, we can meet tomorrow afternoon.」
At that moment, another message notification popped up at the top of the mobile phone screen.
It was Natsume Mio.
Natsume Mio: 「A Jian, what do you want to eat for lunch tomorrow? I’ll make you a bento!」
This was seen through message preview, not tapped in yet.
Sakamoto Ken suddenly felt like he was standing on that familiar tightrope again…
He typed quickly, replying to Hoshihara Ai first.
Sakamoto Ken: 「Meeting next time, busy lately.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「No time even to sleep?」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Dream time and reality are 1:1. A short nap and nothing gets done.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「Five minutes is enough.」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Five minutes and I can make you beg for mercy, but you can’t.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「Try it?」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Definitely next time, even in reality.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「Contest must be fair. In reality, I can’t confirm if you’re cheating.」
Sakamoto Ken: 「How cheat?」
Hoshihara Ai: 「Take pills beforehand.」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Don’t need that stuff.」
Sakamoto Ken switched chat windows and opened the conversation with Natsume Mio.
Sakamoto Ken: 「Too tiring to make bento early in the morning. No need to trouble.」
Natsume Mio: 「I’ve been learning cooking properly lately. Anyway, have to make it, so make for A Jian.」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Even if I don’t reply, you’d still bring me a bento?」
Natsume Mio: 「Hehe~」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Having you make bento is too expensive. I’ll pay.」
Natsume Mio: 「No need. Making bento for A Jian is free.」
Sakamoto Ken: 「I can list the expense in studio operation costs, tax deductible later.」
Natsume Mio: 「Okay then, A Jian, you decide~」
Sakamoto Ken nodded in satisfaction.
This turned “girlfriend’s loving feed” into “studio’s catering service.”
Though essentially the same, the relationship definition was completely different.
“Accept food and lose freedom”—he deeply experienced that in his previous life with Haruna.
He switched back to Hoshihara Ai’s chat interface.
Sakamoto Ken: 「Ai, that call for submissions where you’re a judge, time to announce results?」
Hoshihara Ai: 「Told you yesterday, 《Look Back》 is confirmed gold award, but I don’t know when they post the announcement.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「How will you thank me?」
Sakamoto Ken: 「My manga quality is good enough.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「I’ll chat with the person in charge, say another work has more adaptation value than 《Look Back》.」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Don’t, Ai.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「How thank me?」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Next time, whatever you want.」
Hoshihara Ai: 「Remember it, wait for you.」
Sakamoto Ken scrolled back through his chats with both women, reviewing to avoid missing info or mixing them up, causing unnecessary misunderstandings.
In his previous life, he made that low-level mistake, misremembering something from a date with Haruna onto Mio, mentioned it to Mio, nearly flipped the car on the spot, but muddled through.
As he was thinking, the mobile phone vibrated again.
This time it was Mikazuki Haruna.
Mikazuki Haruna: 「『Screenshot』」
Mikazuki Haruna: 「You won an award?!」
Sakamoto Ken opened the screenshot: JUMP official Twitter’s just-posted update, the final review results announcement for the “Future Film Star” call for submissions.
【Reality Group · Gold Award】
【Work: 《Look Back》】
【Author: Sakamoto Ken】
Though Hoshihara Ai had spoiled it early, seeing the announcement live, Sakamoto Ken still clenched his fist excitedly and slammed the desk hard.
Success!
Gold award bonus 150,000, copyright advance 200,000, plus Campus Star’s 50,000.
Total 400,000, beautiful dollars!
Mikazuki Haruna’s messages followed up.
Mikazuki Haruna: 「Just forwarding to remind you. I’m not jealous!」
Sakamoto Ken couldn’t help laughing out loud.
Sakamoto Ken: 「You high-intensity searching me?」
Mikazuki Haruna: 「No, I didn’t!」
Mikazuki Haruna: 「I just happened to check JUMP official. I’m serializing in JUMP too. What’s wrong with checking official?」
Mikazuki Haruna: 「Wanna celebrate tomorrow? Big meal or something.」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Mio’s bringing me bento.」
Mikazuki Haruna: 「I mean big meal!」
Sakamoto Ken: 「Already settled with her.」
Message sent, the other side immediately showed “read.”
But she went silent.
Sakamoto Ken waited a full minute, no reply from Mikazuki Haruna.
No need to think; this girl was probably off chatting with Natsume Mio now.
Sakamoto Ken put down the mobile phone, feeling that short chat earlier took more brainpower than drawing manga all afternoon…
