Chapter 21: Too Sweet!
「Miss Makima, what type of boys do you like?」
「I like people like Denji.」
「I also… like Miss Makima…」
It’s a pity A Jian won’t say that line from the end of the second chapter to me.
Although A Jian has never been in romance, the interactions between the male and female leads in his manga look like he has a lot of romance experience.
Denji and Miss Makima are too sweet!
Natsume Mio is still savoring the content of the second chapter.
After all, there are only two chapters updated every week, so she finishes them quickly and can only read them over and over.
Working part-time at the convenience store, just thinking about seeing A Jian again in the evening and working with him for an hour makes Natsume Mio’s mood much happier.
The convenience store is an important magazine sales channel. It’s Sunday now, and Weekly Shonen JUMP》 will go on sale tomorrow with the new issue, but there are still a few old ones left unsold in the store.
Natsume Mio puts these few JUMPs in the most prominent spot on the bookshelf. If they don’t sell today, they have to be returned.
The magazines in the store all use a consignment sales system, which is equivalent to borrowing magazines from the publishing house for sale.
If they aren’t sold out that week, they have to be returned to the publishing house, and the staff delivering the new issue will take away the unsold ones from last week.
Because of the resale price maintenance system, the returned old magazines are not discounted but are directly sent to the paper mill for destruction and dissolution, turned back into paper pulp to print the next issue.
Cheap magazines like these come without plastic wrapping, but the store ties up the most popular ones with plastic rope to prevent customers from flipping through them repeatedly.
It’s actually easy to untie them, and if one can save face, they can stand in the store flipping through until finished.
Occasionally elementary school students do this, but older ones will buy the magazine under the clerk’s gaze.
After all, a JUMP weekly is only 260 yen, just two bottles of cola.
The store manager grandma specially keeps one copy for customers to read, and on the day each new issue comes out, several elementary school students always crowd together to flip through it after school.
Natsume Mio hasn’t read this issue of JUMP yet and flips through it while organizing.
The first dozen pages of each JUMP issue are usually promotions for new serializations, as well as ads for merchandise and events. This issue has a half-page promotion for the JUMP+ platform.
Natsume Mio spots at a glance that the mobile phone screenshot on that page uses the color page from《Young Lady, Sniper Rifle, and Pantyhose!》.
Although not specially emphasized, as long as it appears in the illustration, it’s exposure.
Why is it this manga? Didn’t she just start WEB serialization this week?
It’s Sunday now, and the magazine goes on sale Monday, so layout would have started the Friday two weeks ago.
At that time, she hadn’t started publishing yet!
So JUMP prepared promotion for her work this far in advance.
What is the background of that girl…
Natsume Mio read her work; the drawing is very detailed, but compared to A Jian’s《Chainsaw Man》, it’s far inferior.
Hmph… If these promotion resources were given to A Jian, he would definitely be popular by now.
Then A Jian could release volumes, earn more royalty fees, and not worry about making a living.
Then he could move out of that poorly conditioned house, rent a nice apartment with good soundproofing, so even if it’s particularly loud in the room, the next-door neighbors won’t hear.
She’s really fed up with having to go to a love hotel…
Ah… No, no…
Natsume Mio shows a sweet smile as if savoring it and mutters softly: “Jeez, treating the experiences from the dream as real again.”
The entire afternoon passes, and Natsume Mio waits eagerly until she finally sees that familiar figure through the convenience store’s glass wall.
She hurries to the shop entrance to greet him.
“A Jian~ You finally came.” Natsume Mio’s corner of the mouth curves into a perfectly cute arc, with two shallow dimples blooming on her cheeks.
When Sakamoto Ken sees Natsume Mio, he blanks out for a moment and doesn’t react right away, since this Makima hairstyle paired with her face really looks just like her.
Of course, Makima has pink hair, but Sakamoto Ken hasn’t published Makima’s color page yet, so in the manga alone, one can only tell she has light-colored hair.
When the color page comes out, will she immediately dye her hair?
Directly cosplay Makima for me?
In the previous life, Mio cosplayed many characters; she’s a voice actor and can imitate characters’ tones, but she really hasn’t tried Makima…
Sakamoto Ken deliberately makes eye contact with her for two seconds, then responds with a smile and steps into the store.
It’s still 6:30 in the afternoon, and Sakamoto Ken comes early to eat a free dinner in the store first.
He greets the store manager, and the store manager grandma lets Sakamoto Ken pick any bento from the bento area.
It’s not yet time for nighttime discounts, so Sakamoto Ken doesn’t pick an expensive one, just takes a 396 yen curry rice.
By now, Natsume Mio has already gone behind the counter ahead of time, looking at Sakamoto Ken with a beaming smile.
The way A Jian just looked at me definitely means he likes me!
“A Jian, I’ll heat it up for you~” She reaches out to take the bento and puts it in the microwave oven.
A minute later, with a “ding,” Natsume Mio hands over the steaming bento, and places disposable chopsticks and spoon on the bento box.
“Thanks.” Sakamoto Ken takes the bento and turns toward the store’s dining area.
Natsume Mio’s gaze follows Sakamoto Ken until he turns past a shelf and disappears from view.
It’s dinnertime now, with many customers in the store, so she has to get busy checking out other customers.
Although she can’t see him, just knowing A Jian is in the same store makes her feel especially reassured.
Scanning codes, making change, heating—these repetitive operations don’t feel so tedious anymore.
On the other side, Sakamoto Ken eats his curry rice while opening Twitter on his mobile phone.
This year’s Twitter logo is still that blue bird and hasn’t changed to a black checkmark.
He logs into the alt account named「Meguro Ward First Deep Affection」, which has a red notification dot.
He had previously commented under Haruna’s tweet:「Is this really Miyuki Haru Sensei from JUMP+? I read your work, it’s amazing!」
Now she replied in the comments.
Miyuki Haru:「@Meguro Ward First Deep Affection, that’s right, I’m the author of《Young Lady, Sniper Rifle, and Pantyhose!》 myself~ Deep Affection-san, you’re my first fan to follow, thanks for the support!!!」
Sakamoto Ken puts down his spoon and types with his free hand.
Meguro Ward First Deep Affection:「Miyuki Haru Sensei, I saw in JUMP+’s comment section that you said you’d draw a short story about Lord Benzaiten sending a dream. When will it be published? I really want to see it.」
Not even ten seconds pass before a reply pops up.
Miyuki Haru:「Soon, soon, drawing it now, don’t worry, won’t drop it!」
……
Mikazuki Haruna pouts, a bit regretting how she got carried away earlier seeing supportive readers in JUMP+’s comment section and mentioned Lord Benzaiten sending a dream.
It was just a casual remark, why did this person take it seriously?
You really believe a god sent me a dream to draw this manga?
If it was on Twitter, she could just delete it and pretend nothing happened, but the problem is JUMP+ comments can’t be deleted.
She doesn’t want to share things from that dream with readers.
In her sketchbook, there are several sketches of scenes from recalling the dream.
But these are memories she keeps to herself, experiences shared with that boy named Sakamoto Ken.
Although the end was a bit infuriating, there were still many obsessive, lost-in-the-moment, pleasurable, peak memories during the process.
Unless she can really find this Sakamoto Ken and talk to him in person, better to keep it as her biggest secret.
