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- “I’m going out. You take care of the house.”
- “Yeah, yeah.”
- ‘Take care of the house’? As if there’s anything to take care. Unless, of course, burning those worthless drawings of his counts as tidying up.
- …The thought is tempting…
- Maybe if I do he’ll divorce me. I’d give him the three-line paper anytime, but the old folks athome wouldn’t like that…
- Sorry for being an expensive daughter. And for painting the walls when I ran out of paper.
- When will someone come up with a way to make paper cheaper? Maybe I should have married an inventor instead.
- As it is, I’m selling myself for paper, ink and booze. Might as well try my luck as a whore. They dress better than me, even! Hmm, but they say whores can’t enjoy sex. Guess
- everyone has things they can and can’t do.
- “Excuse me, is the master here?”
- “Thankfully not—huh, who are you?”
- I’d expected to see one of the geezers from the publisher’s, but instead it’s a woman around my age at the door. Her face is flushed and she pants slightly as if she came running all the way here. Poor gal, missed him by so little.
- “Ah, I’m sorry! My name is Sayo and am with Saga Publishing!”
- “A woman? How old are you?”
- “Twenty…”
- Same as me, huh.
- “I’m Kame. My useless husband went out like five minutes ago.”
- “Aw, seriously? Where is he headed? I think I can still catch up with him!”
- “Forget it. If it’s his drawings you want, I have them, but leave that aside for a second…Come on, don’t stay there forever looking like an idiot.”
- “O-Okay!”
- She reluctantly comes in and closes the door. Despite her hairstyle, she’s surprisingly polite. Could she actually be the disowned daughter of some rich family who chose the love of her life, a lowly publishing apprentice, over her own house? Ooh, I so have to put that on paper.
- “You don’t need to stay three steps away from me. I’ll give you the drawings, so humor me a little, okay, Osayo?”
- “Eh?”
- I fill two cups with the sake I was about to drink right when she arrived and give her one.
- She has the look of cornered prey.
- “You won’t tell me you can’t drink, right?”
- “I-I can… but why me?”
- I pretend not to hear hear question and start voicing the complaints running through my head. What, I haven’t even started drinking? Don’t get hung up on details.
- “Honestly, least that good-for-nothing could do is stay home when he knows someone’s coming. I’m not his secretary, you know? Does he listen to my advice either? Of course not. That’s why he doesn’t sell. He should be thankful the Sagaya gives him work at all.”
- “I-I see…”
- I take a big sip followed by a big sigh.
- “Our finances would be better if he swallowed that stupid pride as he does cheap booze and just let me do the drawings for him. My pride would suffer more than his.”
- “Do you draw, too?”
- “Oh, don’t put me in the same level as him. I still have a long way to go, but I’m sure better than that.”
- Whoopsie daisy, maybe I talked too much. If she really is some rich family girl, she must be disgusted by my lack of respect. Not that he’s worthy of much respect.
- She points at one of the piles of paper behind me.
- “Did you draw that?”
- “You can tell?”
- She nods and walks to it slowly. The way she’s staring at it, it’s almost as if it’s some magic scroll from legend.
- “Sniff…”
- She’s crying?!
- "What's up?!"
- "Is this your hometown...?"
- "How do you know?"
- She hiccups while wiping tears.
- "I'm born and raised in Edo, so I don't know what it's like to be homesick... but for some reason, this drawing felt so lonely and nostalgic. You loved the people there, didn't you?"
- "Yeah... it was a tiny village with a whole lot of nothing, but I enjoyed it there."
- "I can tell. At first I thought you were just a grumpy wife, but this is on a whole different level. You're awesome."
- You’re awesome. As in my art is awesome. I hadn’t heard that in a long time.
- "T-T-That's not true... I mean, I'm better than that bum for sure, but..."
- "Weren't you saying how great you are just a moment ago?"
- "That was just a figure of speech! I can't deal with compliments!"
- "...hahaha!"
- "Stop laughing! What about you?! You were crying just now!"
- "Who was? We're both grown women. No one was crying here."
- We both end up laughing, and, after that, refilling the cups of sake.
- After a few cups (I lost count), she seemed to have completely forgotten the reason for her visit. I do need to eat, so better hand her the, um, artwork.
- "Here. That's what you came for, right."
- "Bleh. This looks so dull after seeing your drawings."
- "I'll have to agree there, but should you be looking so disgusted as one of the editors in charge?"
- "I'm just an errands girl, it's okay~"
- I definitely gave her too much to drink. It'd been such a long time since I last drank in nice company that I let loose.
- "I'd love to see the courtesans drawn by you... it's such a nice story, too. The suicide of Asagiri shouldn't look this boring!"
- She points at the illustration for one of the crucial scenes in the story. So even an amateur can see that isn't doing the character justice.
- "Ah, I like that scene too! I actually gave it a shot, myself. It's somewhere in that pile."
- I did try to give him kind advice--okay, not so kind--to improve it, but he'd just say 'stop nagging, woman'.
- "Wait, are these all sketches for the suicide illustration?!"
- She starts rummaging through the unorganized pile of paper and pulling out the studies I did. The amount of times I killed Asagiri would no doubt qualify me as a mass murderer.
- "The better ones. The rest became fuel for the stove or toilet paper."
- "This is it... it's Asagiri! She's alive!"
- "Technically, she's dying."
- "If she's dying, it's because she's not dead yet!"
- We look at each other and burst out laughing. Osayo then looks at me with a mischievous grin.
- "Let's use this."
- "Huh?"
- "I'll replace the original drawing with yours and hand it to my boss. Your husband will only find out when it's published."
- "Wait, won't you get in trouble for that?"
- "I can't possibly get in trouble when it's this much better than the real one!"
- She's definitely gonna get in trouble.
- Maybe I should have told her off. I'm not satisfied with this kind of life, but I don't want to risk going back to my parents' house either.
- Of course, those are things I thought after I was no longer under the influence of alcohol.
- "You know what?"
- I smile back at her, like two children ready to play tricks.
- "That's a great idea."
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