WANI Publishing — the reception lounge that by now felt as familiar as coming home.
The four of them had settled onto the sofa nearby.
Editor Watanabe, whom they hadn't seen in over a month, was already fussing over them with his usual warmth, holding out an assortment of drinks.
"Tea or something cold?"
"I'm fine, thanks — just had coffee before we came."
Tsushima Kagami waved it off, and Sayuri and the other two laughed and said the same, patting their stomachs and claiming they were still full.
"What a shame."
Editor Watanabe stared at the canned iced coffee and canned cola sitting beside him, weighed his options, then set the cola aside and cracked open the iced coffee, chugging it with a satisfied gurgle.
"Must be nice, you lot — leisurely afternoon tea on campus while some of us still have our youth."
"I've still got a whole list of authors to cold-call for submissions after this."
He turned to his niece Machida Sonoko with a grin.
"Sonoko, you're graduating this year too, aren't you."
"Any interest in coming to help your uncle out over the summer break?"
"Better yet — do your university internship here, then come join us full-time after graduation."
"You've always wanted to be an editor, haven't you?"
Machida Sonoko looked at her uncle — who was getting older and, with it, chattier — and smiled.
"I want to be a light novel editor, not an editor at an adult manga magazine."
"Besides, we've all already decided — we're going to work at Kagami-kun's company after graduation."
Editor Watanabe blinked at that, then seemed to remember something and laughed.
"Almost forgot — Kagami-kun's already running his own kabushiki gaisha, isn't he."
He raised an eyebrow at Tsushima Kagami.
"Have you been keeping up with the gym, Kagami-kun?"
"You're looking pretty solid these days."
Tsushima Kagami smiled back.
"Something like that, I suppose."
"Good on you — young people should stay active."
Editor Watanabe gave Tsushima Kagami a meaningful pat on the shoulder and continued.
"When your company really takes off someday, don't forget to come visit your old uncle Watanabe."
Tsushima Kagami gave a modest smile.
"It's barely a shell company, really."
"And it's registered under my mother's name at that."
"Now you're being far too modest, Kagami-kun."
"Word gets around, you know — The Setting Sun hitting a million copies in sales inside half a month is nothing short of a miracle."
"If you were willing to put out work at the pace our magazine artists do, month after month without pause —"
"Tsk, tsk."
Editor Watanabe took another swig of his coffee and shook his head with a look of pure, wistful reverence.
"Kagami-kun's company would probably be sitting on a portfolio of massively valuable IP rights before you know it."
"Every major producer in the industry would be lining up to collaborate with you."
"You flatter me — the output just isn't there in reality."
"I haven't even figured out what I want to write for my next work yet."
"Well, pure literary fiction has its own rhythm — I'm sure Kagami-kun will have another big hit before long."
Editor Watanabe paused, then seemed to remember something else.
"The Setting Sun performed so spectacularly that I was almost too embarrassed to bring this up, but —"
"The collected volume of The Lady Next Door went on sale at the end of the month and sold 160,000 copies on release day alone!"
"Which means —"
Sayuri and the other two sitting nearby turned to stare at Editor Watanabe in disbelief.
"That's right. The Lady Next Door may be on track to become WANI Publishing's —"
"No — the first collected volume in the entire history of adult manga magazines to break one million monthly copies sold!"
How does one estimate a title's projected sales figures?
You apply a week-on-week decay rate of thirty to fifty percent after the first week.
Typically, the first week alone accounts for at least fifty percent of total monthly sales. And first-day figures account for at least thirty percent of that first week.
In other words: to crack one million copies in a month, you need to move at least 150,000 units on day one.
The Setting Sun had been something of a special case, of course — a paper supply shortage had caused severe under-stocking on release day and halted reprints entirely.
But after Kobayashi Tomoaki and the editorial department — indeed, the entire network of contacts at Shinchosha — had been mobilized, the paper supply was rushed in and printing resumed. Two additional printing plants were brought under contract, and then, like running a currency mint, they printed with reckless, all-out abandon. That blitz of copies blanketed bookstores across Tokyo and every other major city in Japan, producing the staggering result: one million copies in half a month, with momentum that showed no sign of slowing through the entire summer.
"You know, Kagami-kun —"
Editor Watanabe barely containing his excitement, kept his eyes on Tsushima Kagami.
"More and more reader letters are coming in asking for you to draw a pure romance story."
Pure romance titles in the past had always been lukewarm affairs — formulaic plots, zero visual impact.
So the artists with real chops had all migrated to the more popular NTR genre.
And then, out of nowhere, Tsushima Kagami showed up — always weaving pure romance elements deep into his NTR work. Fine enough on its own, but the art quality spoke for itself, and on top of that, the stories were actually interesting.
After being put through Tsushima Kagami's particular brand of re-education across several works, readers had slowly begun to wonder: what would it feel like if Tsushima Kagami did a straight-up, no-tricks pure romance story?
The fan clamor had been growing steadily ever since.
At that, Tsushima Kagami looked at Editor Watanabe with a smile.
"Actually, the reason I came to see you today, Watanabe-san, is about a new manga."
At that, Sayuri and the other two — who had known nothing about this — sat up straight, every bit as curious as Editor Watanabe, all eyes turning toward Tsushima Kagami.
"Don't tell me — this time it's finally going to be a proper pure romance title?"
Tsushima Kagami gave a quiet smile and said nothing. He simply reached behind him for his shoulder bag, and from it produced a cover page he had already finished drawing.
Sayuri and the other two crowded in alongside Editor Watanabe, all of them craning to look.
"Huh? Wait — is this another NTR?"
That night, Yukinoshita Shizuku had already finished her bath. She padded out in a loose, oversized camisole, her hair still damp and wrapped in a towel, carrying a mug of hot cocoa that she set down in front of Tsushima Kagami.
Because the room was smaller now, with little space for a proper desk, Tsushima Kagami had taken to doing all his drawing and writing at the dining table in the living room.
Yukinoshita Shizuku pulled a chair up beside him, looked at the cover page Tsushima Kagami had unveiled at WANI Publishing that afternoon, and spoke softly to him as he worked on the interior pages.
Tsushima Kagami looked up at her.
"You look at it and think NTR too?"
Yukinoshita Shizuku nodded.
"Didn't you say it yourself — blonde and dark-skinned is the NTR starter pack."
She tapped the male lead on the cover.
Tsushima Kagami laughed.
"It's actually pure romance!"
What Tsushima Kagami was preparing to draw this time was sensei Shunchuu (Oni Henka) 's work, Show Me Your Boobs for a Thousand Yen.
If everything Tsushima Kagami had drawn before could be described as NTR with an extraordinarily high concentration of pure romance elements woven in —
Then this new work was pure romance that wielded its cover art as a weapon: dangling the bait of an NTR look to lure in the unsuspecting, only to execute them once they were inside.
Tsushima Kagami felt that after several works of pure-romance-laced NTR re-education, the yearning for real romance buried in his readers' hearts had begun to stir and awaken.
You could see it in the pure romance approval metrics — from the earliest magazine serialization of The Lady Next Door through to the collected volume released just days ago, those numbers had exploded exponentially. More and more fans were hungry for something pure.
And Show Me Your Boobs for a Thousand Yen would serve as the killing blow for that final stubborn cohort — the ones still flailing around in NTR hell, refusing to turn back to the light. It would be his swan song for the pseudo-NTR era.
In other words: this would be Tsushima Kagami's last NTR dance.
____
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