The Manga Research Club room still held only two people.
Tsushima Kagami sat by the window, a thick stack of printed pages spread out in front of him.
They were the episode scripts for The White Tower, turned in by the writers of the Programming Division.
He circled and crossed things out in red pen, jotting the occasional note in the margins.
The afternoon sun fell across the side of his face, throwing the concentration in his brows and eyes into sharp relief.
Sayuri sat on his left, an open book of math drills in front of her.
She chewed on the cap of her pen, brows knitted, staring at a single problem for a full three minutes.
Then she sighed and tossed the pen down.
"This is impossible..."
"What's impossible about it?" Kagami didn't even look up. "It's the same formula type as last time. They change the wrapping and suddenly you don't recognize it?"
"Why am I doing University of Tokyo Science III math problems when I'm only a second-year!"
"I'm not even planning to apply to the University of Tokyo!"
Sayuri pushed out her lower lip and looked at Kagami like she was about to cry.
"As the saying goes: aim for the top and you'll land in the middle, aim for the middle and you'll land at the bottom, aim for the bottom and you'll get nothing at all."
"Look at it this way. Everything short of the University of Tokyo is within your reach now."
"You might even have a shot at Science I there."
"And I hear you placed top three in your class on last term's finals."
"From dead last to top three. That's pretty good, isn't it?"
Kagami still didn't raise his head from his circling and marking, but a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Kagami."
"Mm."
"It feels kind of lonely in here."
Kagami lifted his head and glanced at her.
Sayuri had her chin propped in her palm, gazing out the window. Out on the field, the track club was running laps.
"Am I not sitting right here keeping you company while you work?"
"That's not what I meant."
Her gaze came back from the window and settled on the empty club room.
"I mean, the Manga Research Club used to be so lively. Everyone drawing doujinshi together, arguing about storyboards, making fun of each other. Now it's just the two of us."
As she said it, she reached over and ran her hand along the empty chair beside her.
"Once Akane-senpai and Sonoko-senpai finish the Keio University recruitment session, they'll be able to come to the club every day."
"Come to think of it, today's their last campus recruiting event, isn't it?"
"So they'll be back tomorrow."
"But..."
Sayuri's voice sank.
"By the time they come back, it also means they're about to graduate."
"What are you actually trying to say?" Kagami had had enough of her sudden fit of melancholy. He set down the red pen and looked at her.
Sayuri raised her head and looked back at him.
"Just thinking about them graduating makes me lonely."
"After that, this club room might really only have the two of us left in it."
She finished and dropped her head.
Her fingers folded and unfolded the corner of a page in her workbook.
"That's exactly why I'm making you grind through problem sets." Kagami's tone softened.
"Then you can apply to Keio University too, and be back together with Akane-senpai and Sonoko-senpai."
"You can keep running a club in university, draw doujinshi, argue, fight over snacks. Doesn't that sound good?"
"But..."
"No buts."
Kagami reached over and flicked her forehead.
"Get back to work. You're not leaving until this set is finished."
"Ow!"
Sayuri clapped a hand over her forehead and looked at him with watery eyes.
Then she shot him a glare, but picked her pen back up all the same.
The room went quiet again.
About five minutes later, Sayuri spoke up again.
"Kagami."
"What now?"
"I really want to kiss someone all of a sudden."
Kagami kept his eyes on the script in his hands and answered without any real attention. "With who?"
"With you, obviously."
Sayuri said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. She didn't even blush.
Kagami's hand never stopped moving.
"Ugh. No thanks."
"Why not?!"
"Swapping spit and all that. Gross."
"It's not swapping spit! It's a kiss! It's youth!"
Sayuri smacked the desk.
"How can one person have so little sense of romance?"
"Can romance feed you?"
"Romance can't feed you, but it puts you in a good mood!"
Kagami looked at her puffed-up, indignant face, and his mouth twitched.
"First you're lonely, now you want to kiss. It's all out of nowhere."
"Are you just looking for an excuse not to study?"
"Of course not!"
Sayuri's voice went up a notch, but her eyes wandered.
"It's just that the moment I think about graduation season, naturally I want to leave behind something that actually feels like youth."
"Isn't drawing doujinshi together youthful enough?"
"That's all of us together!"
"I want to do something with just you and me that feels like youth."
Kagami raised his head again and pointed at the workbook in front of her.
"I've been tutoring you this whole time, and for your entire third year you'll have me to yourself as a private tutor."
"Isn't that youthful enough?"
"Why does everything come back to tutoring with you!"
Sayuri grabbed her eraser and hurled it at him.
The eraser grazed past Kagami's ear, hit the wall behind him, and bounced onto the floor.
Then Kagami spoke up.
"Ah, that reminds me."
"Tomorrow's Valentine's Day. Just buy me the Meiji milk chocolate, that's fine."
"That's the only kind I like."
"Don't give me any of that handmade stuff where you melt down a bunch of chocolate and remold it. I'm not a fan."
Sayuri blinked, then frowned.
"Since when do you place an advance order for someone's feelings?"
"I'm giving you advance notice. Saves you the wasted effort."
"Could you at least pretend to look forward to it?"
Kagami lowered his head and shook it, smiling.
"Fine. Meiji milk chocolate, right?"
"Right."
"Noted."
"Thanks."
"Honestly. Doesn't that strip out every last bit of the youthful feeling?"
Before Kagami turned to the next page of the script, his pen tip paused on the paper for a moment.
"Speaking of youthfulness and graduation season, I've actually thought of a subject."
"Eh? What subject?"
Sayuri looked over, puzzled.
"A doujinshi subject, of course."
Sayuri, bored out of her mind a second earlier, perked up at once.
"What is it, what is it?"
"Hurry up and draw it so I can see!"
She grabbed Kagami's arm in her excitement and shook it.
It struck her only then that she and Kagami hadn't drawn a doujinshi together in a long time.
"Stop shaking me."
Kagami laughed, set down the red pen and the script, and pulled a fresh sheet from the stack of drawing paper he always kept at the edge of the desk.
He picked up a pencil and laid down the first line.
The room fell silent, nothing left but the soft scratch of pencil on paper.
How long it went on, neither of them could say. Then Kagami stopped.
"She's beautiful."
Beside him, Sayuri gazed at the girl on the page in admiration.
"Have you got a title yet?"
Kagami thought about it.
"Let's call it Blossom and Bubble."
He looked down at the heroine on the paper.
It was his favorite of all the manga drawn by the artist Higashide Irodori.
The original title was Aoharu no Obenkyou, "Studying Youth."
Blossom and Bubble came from the scanlation group's afterword remarks, and Kagami had always found it fitting.
The male lead and a hugely popular high school idol carry on a secret romance inside a club with only the two of them in it.
And they promise to graduate together.
Unfortunately, the heroine's work keeps her away more and more, until by graduation day they never manage to see each other again.
Reading that far, Kagami had assumed it was another dose of the "realism" those simple-life folks loved so much.
But years later, the male lead revisits the school for a graduation ceremony.
And there, in the old club room that has since been turned into a storage closet, the two of them come back together.
It left readers with an ending as dreamlike and unreal as a soap bubble.
The first half is blossom, the second half is bubble. Kagami thought the name suited it perfectly.
Especially that final panel, the heroine glancing back over her shoulder at their reunion. The manga stopped right there.
No dragging it out for another round.
It could honestly be called negative space of genuine artistic beauty.
It left the reader with endless, lovely room to imagine.
"Blossom and Bubble?"
Sayuri frowned, chewing the title over.
"It sounds like a story that's going to end in regret."
"It's a happy ending!"
February fourteenth.
By Valentine's Day custom, girls give chocolate to boys.
These days, of course, it isn't nearly so strict.
Friends, upperclassmen and underclassmen, even teachers exchange it among themselves.
But the ones that draw every eye are still the girls who work up the courage to press chocolate into the hands of the boys they like.
The moment Kagami walked into the classroom, he felt how different the air was today.
Someone had drawn a huge heart on the blackboard in chalk, with "Happy Valentine's Day" written inside it.
A cardboard box sat on the teacher's platform, stacked with a few cheap boxes that looked like obligation chocolate.
Colorful wrapping paper and ribbon lay all over the desks, and several boys were smugly showing off the spoils they'd received.
Kagami had barely sat down and hadn't even set his bag aside when three girls came over at once.
"Tsushima-kun, this... please take it!"
"I made this myself. I hope you like it."
"It's nothing expensive, but..."
Three boxes of chocolate were held out in front of him.
Different wrappings, different colors.
The ribbons were tied neatly, and some had a small card attached.
Kagami stood, gave a slight bow, and accepted them with both hands.
"Thank you. I'll enjoy them properly."
The three girls ran off laughing, huddling together to whisper while glancing back at him again and again.
Kagami had just tucked the three boxes into his bag and sat down when someone else came over.
Then a fourth, a fifth, a...
Before long his bag was stuffed full, and several more boxes were crammed inside his desk.
The lunch bell rang, and the classroom came alive all over again.
Kagami had just pulled his bento out of his bag and was about to start eating when he caught someone approaching out of the corner of his eye.
"Kagami."
He turned and found Seika Ijichi standing in front of him.
She was holding a paper bag.
A gold ribbon was tied across the top of it, finished in a lovely bow.
Before he could say anything, Seika shoved the bag into his arms.
"Chocolate."
"For you!"
Kagami looked down at the bag.
Judging by how carefully it was wrapped, it had to be handmade.
"Thanks."
"Is this handmade?" he asked, curious.
"D-don't get the wrong idea."
"I-it's not like I made handmade chocolate specially for you!"
Her words came out faster and faster, for reasons she couldn't have explained.
"I was going to just buy something ready-made at first, but Nijika wanted to make some, so I kept her company."
"We made way too much, so I figured I'd give this to you."
Seika turned her head away as she finished. The tips of her ears were red enough to bleed.
Kagami looked at her, the corners of his mouth lifting.
I didn't say anything, though.
A laugh escaped him.
He placed the paper bag carefully into his school bag.
"I'll eat every last piece."
Seika made a small huffing sound, jammed both hands into her jacket pockets, and turned toward the door.
"Not eating lunch together today?"
"I'm eating with Kikuri and PA-ko and the others!"
With that, Seika Ijichi fled the classroom.
Poor kid, embarrassed half to death.
It was probably the first time she'd ever given anyone chocolate.
He was still thinking about it when someone tugged gently at the hem of his uniform from behind.
Kagami turned around and found Shimizu Nayotake.
She brought something out from behind her back and held it out to him.
Kagami looked, and it was exactly the Meiji milk chocolate he'd asked Sayuri to buy yesterday.
Ordinary packaging, just the standard red-wrapped bar you find in any convenience store.
Kagami blinked.
"You..."
"You buy this at the convenience store all the time."
Whenever Kagami went to pick up Yukinoshita Shizuku, he'd buy this chocolate at the convenience store where the girls worked part-time.
And Shimizu Nayotake had rung him up at the register more times than either of them could count.
So she'd remembered.
"Sorry, it's just the plain store-bought kind."
"Not handmade."
Kagami took it and smiled.
"This is the one I love."
"You know that, Nayotake."
"I even told Sayuri yesterday to buy me this exact one."
Hearing that, Shimizu Nayotake smiled faintly too.
"Anyway, let's eat lunch first."
"Okay."
That afternoon, Kagami pushed open the door to the Manga Research Club.
Even before he stepped inside, he could hear that the room was far livelier than usual.
Clearly Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko were back.
Kagami pushed the door open and walked in.
Kosaka Akane was standing by the window, eating Pocky while talking to Sayuri about something.
Machida Sonoko sat at the table with a notebook open in front of her, writing something down.
All three heard the door and looked over as Kagami came in smiling.
"Kagami!"
Kosaka Akane spotted him and came straight over.
Machida Sonoko stood up, smiling as well.
"Long time no see!"
"We saw each other a few days ago."
Kagami set down his bag.
"How did the recruiting sessions go?"
"Not bad. The written test felt fine."
"They asked us a ton of questions in the interview, though."
"Then you're fine."
"Congratulations in advance to our two university-student senpai." Kagami grinned.
Sayuri pulled a paper bag out of her own bag and walked over to him.
"Kagami, here."
He took the bag and opened it.
A box of Meiji milk chocolate.
"Thank you, Sayuri."
"I can barely fit anything else in."
Kagami showed all three of them his school bag and the extra tote he was carrying.
"Hmph. Well, you'd better eat mine first."
"Then I'll eat it right now."
And with that Kagami tore it open and started eating.
"Could you not be so half-hearted about it!"
"I'm full of gratitude, I promise."
At that point Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko both drew a beautifully wrapped box out of their bags and held it out to him.
"Here."
Kagami accepted it and glanced at the packaging.
A limited-edition chocolate gift box from Ginza Mitsukoshi. Not cheap at all.
He looked up at the two of them.
"This is a little expensive, isn't it?"
Machida Sonoko laughed. "Haha, you could tell?"
Kosaka Akane added from beside her, "We walked past it during the recruiting sessions yesterday and picked it up on the way."
By now Kagami genuinely could not cram another thing into his school bag or his tote.
He looked at the three of them, at a loss.
"Um. How about we all eat it now, together?"
Kosaka Akane laughed. "Sure. It's been a while since we had afternoon tea in here."
"Sayuri."
"Present!"
Sayuri snapped to attention.
"Go brew us a pot of tea."
"Roger!"
Once the tea was ready, the four of them sat together, drinking and eating chocolate.
Kagami and Sayuri talked about how the two of them had been spending their time.
Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko shared funny stories from cram sessions, and passed along some advice about campus recruiting for Sayuri's sake.
"Oh, right!"
Kosaka Akane suddenly clapped her hands.
"Sayuri says you came up with another manga idea about graduation season, Kagami?"
"Ah, so far I've only drawn a character design for the heroine."
"Bring it out, let's see!"
Before he could even respond, Machida Sonoko was urging him too.
Kagami pulled yesterday's drawing out of his bag.
He thought about it for a moment, then looked at the three of them.
"Since you're all here anyway, how about we draw it together?"
"Absolutely!"
Kosaka Akane rolled up her sleeves.
"It's been forever since we made a doujinshi together!"
Machida Sonoko smiled. "I'll handle color and screentone, same as always."
Sayuri raised a hand.
"Akane-senpai and I are on backgrounds, like usual!"
"Then here's the plot outline, and here are the storyboards for the first few pages."
Kagami produced several more sheets of paper.
In the club room, the four of them settled back into their places.
Pencils scratched across paper, and eraser shavings drifted down onto the floor.
Kagami drew for a while, then stopped.
He looked around him.
This moment, right now, was exactly like the start of first term back in April.
It had been so long since they'd all drawn together like this.
Nearly a year had slipped by just like that.
Some of them were about to graduate. Some of them were staying right where they were.
But this club room, this laughter, this soft scratching of pencils...
"Kagami, what are you spacing out for?"
Kosaka Akane's voice pulled him back.
"It's nothing."
"I was thinking about the storyboard for the next page."
"What's on the next page?"
"The graduation ceremony."
The room went quiet for a beat.
Then Sayuri said softly, "Then it has to be drawn beautifully."
"Mm."
"It will be."
____
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