The glasses clinked together with a bright, clear ring.
Sayuri drank half her glass in one go, then set it down and looked at Shimizu Nayotake.
"Nayotake."
"Tonight is mainly to celebrate your discharge from the hospital!"
Shimizu Nayotake blinked, then looked around at everyone and smiled quietly.
"Thank you all..."
"Don't mention it."
Kosaka Akane spoke up.
"None of us were there the day you were discharged, so of course we had to make it up to you."
Machida Sonoko nodded.
"And the cultural festival performance was a huge success, too." "Two things to celebrate at once."
Apparently a TV crew had been there that day, and the footage even aired on the news afterwards. Word from other schools was that loads of students had started forming Light Music Clubs in their own school clubs too.
"Does that mean we're going to be famous?"
Hiratsuka Shizuka, who had been listening nearby, turned to Ijichi Seika.
"Does that mean our band will have a bigger following at Livehouse shows from now on?"
Ijichi Seika shot her a flat look.
"Don't be an idiot!"
"Livehouse shows are about ability. Nobody cares whether you're famous at school."
Well, at least plenty of people will have heard of them, surely.
Hiroi Kikuri and PA-san, sitting nearby, chimed in too.
"Maybe Shizuka-senpai's onto something though."
"Give it a little while and our Livehouse tickets might just be selling out."
"You really think so?"
"Ahahaha, I'm just getting more and more excited about doing Livehouse shows with everyone!"
Hiratsuka Shizuka's little group finished their exchange.
Sayuri raised her glass again, beaming.
"Yes, yes, exactly!"
"To the success of our cultural festival performance!"
Another round of clinking glasses.
Shimizu Nayotake sipped her oolong tea and watched everyone laughing and chattering, and found that she herself felt noticeably happier than usual.
"Nayotake, were you nervous up there onstage when you were singing?"
Sayuri leaned in to ask her.
Shimizu Nayotake thought it over, then nodded.
"A little... but after singing for a while I stopped being nervous."
"Really? My hands were shaking the whole time I was playing bass!"
"I thought you did pretty well though, Sayuri."
Tsushima Kagami smiled and praised Sayuri, who had somehow exceeded all expectations that day.
Hearing Tsushima Kagami of all people compliment her, Sayuri lit up.
"...Really?"
"Then say more nice things about me, Kagami!"
Tsushima Kagami ruffled Sayuri's hair.
"Yoshi~ yoshi~ yoshi~ yoshi~ yoshi~ yoshi~"
Sayuri submitted to it with an expression of utter contentment.
Watching Tsushima Kagami and Sayuri's peculiar brand of praise-giving, the other girls around the table all burst out laughing.
Late October in Tokyo, deep into the night. The ginkgo trees lining the streets had begun to turn yellow, and leaf after leaf spun down through the evening breeze.
Akihabara. Toranoana.
Closing time. Out front of Toranoana, a freight box truck sat idling at the kerb.
A handful of staff were hauling in a delivery of newly arrived stock, scanning everything into inventory before they could finally clock off and go home.
Among the flood of end-of-month new magazines and doujin releases, one clerk paused mid-scan, frowning at a magazine issue he had never seen before.
"Eizonyan?"
A colleague on the other side glanced over with a look of recognition.
"Isn't that the brand-new magazine that Akaneshinsha announced in their magazine a while back — the one launching at the end of this month?"
"Oh, right, I think I did hear something about that."
Jogged by his coworker's words, the clerk remembered now. He looked at the cover again. Across the obi strip, in large bold characters, ran the announcement: [FEATURING A MAJOR NEW WORK BY XUANYAYI-SENSEI — DON'T MISS IT!]
"So Xuanyayi-sensei has gone and shown up in Akaneshinsha's Eizonyan, of all places."
"Does that mean Kairakuten doesn't have a Xuanyayi-sensei work this time?"
Having worked at Toranoana for as long as they had, they knew perfectly well just how popular Xuanyayi-sensei's work had been lately.
"Let me have a look."
"Well, I'll be."
Another staff member picked up the latest issue of Kairakuten, which had arrived in the same delivery.
"The cover doesn't promote Xuanyayi-sensei at all this time."
"Normally, any time Xuanyayi-sensei has a new work in the issue, the name's splashed right across the cover in big letters."
"The only time there was no mention was during that stretch over the summer when there was no serialisation."
"So it really is true — Kairakuten genuinely doesn't have a Xuanyayi-sensei work this issue."
"I'm going to grab a copy to take home."
"Otherwise once it goes on sale tomorrow it'll be gone in seconds."
This clerk was clearly a Xuanyayi-sensei fan himself.
"I'm grabbing one too."
Meanwhile, similar conversations and the same behaviour were playing out in manga shops all across Tokyo, among the stock-room clerks processing the night's deliveries.
The following morning.
Yamada Kenta was wearing a black baseball cap pulled down hard over his face and a black face mask, standing in a queue, darting nervous glances left and right.
When he finally reached the register, he placed the latest issue of Kairakuten — secured at great effort — on the counter.
Once he had paid, he crammed his cap back down, hurried out of the shop, made his way to an alley around the corner, checked both directions, and slipped inside.
He couldn't wait to get home. He was desperate to see what surprises Xuanyayi-sensei had in store for him in this issue of Kairakuten.
He tore off the plastic wrap with trembling anticipation, took a good look at the cover — and stopped dead.
Huh?
Why isn't Xuanyayi-sensei's name on the cover today?
Yamada Kenta's attention had been scattered in all directions earlier and he hadn't looked at the cover properly.
Now something felt wrong. He flipped the magazine open in a hurry and found the table of contents.
Sure enough — there was no new work by Xuanyayi-sensei in this issue.
Yamada Kenta's heart turned to ash. He had been surviving month to month entirely on Xuanyayi-sensei's new releases.
Just as he was inwardly howling with despair, two passers-by emerged from the bookshop and strolled past, chatting as they went.
"Hey."
"What magazine is that? I've never seen it before."
"This is Akaneshinsha's brand-new launch — the Eizonyan series."
"The very first issue even managed to get a new work from Xuanyayi-sensei."
At that, Yamada Kenta bolted out of the alley and planted himself beside the two of them.
"Is... is it really true that Xuanyayi-sensei went to Akaneshinsha's new magazine this issue?"
The two of them froze at the sight of him suddenly erupting out of a side alley.
Then, hearing his question, the one holding a copy of Eizonyan — still unbroken and unopened, too precious to tear into — held it out in front of him and pointed to the obi strip.
"See for yourself — it's plastered all over this."
Yamada Kenta looked as though life itself had been breathed back into him.
"Thank you!"
"Don't mention it — but you'd better be quick."
"I can already see loads of people heading over specially to buy Eizonyan."
"Right, right — I'm going now!"
Yamada Kenta said this and immediately turned back to the manga shop he had just left.
He searched frantically for the shelf where Eizonyan was displayed.
Finally, diagonally across from the Kairakuten display stand, he spotted it — the very last copy of Eizonyan.
He could already see people on both sides closing in on it fast.
He threw himself bodily at the shelf. There was a thud that sounded painful. But he had done it — he had blocked both reaching hands on either side.
Yamada Kenta ignored the stares of everyone who had turned at the noise, and ignored the pain radiating through his body.
He raised the last remaining copy of Eizonyan high above his head in triumph, like a man displaying a trophy to the world.
"I've got Eizonyan!"
____
👻🔥Seek: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Uchiha Reborn in Jujutsu Kaisen: The System Thinks I'm in Konoha, but I'm Not
Let's hit these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = 1 extra chapter for the public!