In The Old and Dusty AV Room

January 12 the school has started again, and we are back in the old and dusty audiovisual room.

"Good morning, Kenji, Yasu!" Fumi once again is the first one to greet us.

"Good morning, Fumi" I replied and placed my things on my desk.

"Oh, Fumi did you drag someone again?" Yasu reminded her again of our first meeting.

"Muumuu, enough reminding about that..!" Fumi stomped her foot on the floor and pouted.

"Jeez, stop teasing Fumi... Let's go check out on the other group." I yawned

"Wait, Hanako hasn't arrived yet, I wonder why." Fumi looks concerned,

"Don't worry about her, she stayed over my place today...she just woke up when I was getting ready to leave, she'll be here," Yasu replied and headed out the hallway.

"Hey, Yasu, I was thinking about it late at night. Why don't we give ourselves a pen name?"

"Yeah, I was thinking of the same thing because if they just put our school name and the club name, wouldn't it be like normal?" Yasu shakes his head.

"Without a pen name, we sound amateurs, and by using our club name and the school it is just like they're publishing a school paper," I replied with a long sigh.

"Well, let's just discuss this with everyone later, once we start working on the third chapter."

"Yeah…"

So we meet up with everyone else in the clubroom since it's just the restart of classes we were given time to clean our clubrooms, proceed with our club activities, or if you are not in the club just roam around the school with your friends.

"Hey, about the pseudonym is there something being all casual, thinking of something makes it even harder to think at all." Yasuyuki scratches his head.

"Yeah, it is hard to think of something quickly…" I replied

"How about just a combination of our names?" Fumi suggested something casual.

"Yeah, I guess that would work and keep people from knowing about us." Kozue agreed.

"So if it is our names, Yoshikawa, Okamura, Aoyama, Mabeyoshi, Enomoto, and Sugawara." Hanako thinks things thoroughly.

"Yoshikamuwara Aomamoto" Nagi suggested.

"That'll do, it's good.." I agreed with Nagi's suggestion.

"Hmm, it is fine I guess." Nami shrugs it off.

"I'm going to send this to Mr. Kiichi, so he'll be informed ahead of time before we get our first manga out." Yasuyuki implored.

"Yeah, let's finish cleaning this room so we can start and finish chapter three today and we can finally rest for a day."

"Oh, that was a fast reply, he accepted it and he said it'll be used as our official pen name, he also reminds us about the deadline."

"We got how many days left?"

"Four days, until the deadline."

"Then let's finish it today and send it tomorrow."

"Okay!"

I just realized, "Hey, isn't our name meaningless, also it kinda sounds cheesy and embarrassing."

"Didn't you just say that you don't care about whatever, and wanted something casual!" Kozue crosses her arms and shakes her head in disappointment.

"Uh, right, can I be forgiven?"

"No, only if you treat me some parfait."

"You got a boyfriend, go ask him."

"But this boyfriend is useless and broke, he just wants to support 2D girls and spend on gacha rolls."

"Wait, Yasu is playing gacha games?!" I didn't know he is into that type of stuff.

"Well, you know I just got into this game recently and I got addicted to it."

"That's it, I'm giving Kozue 80% of your share in our payment."

"WHAT! No way!" Yasuyuki yelled...

"Ho! You don't want to share of that to me, after giving you what you wished for Christmas and treating you every day!" Kozue starts beating Yasuyuki in the corner.

"Sheesh, this guy is hopeless, he already got a girlfriend what else does he need," Nagi commented.

As soon as we finished cleaning the clubroom, we started working on the third chapter and since we already have decided on the pen name, we focused on just working and finishing everything today.

Then Yasuyuki started a conversation, "Say, we got the results for the survey of the manga ranking, I don't think I'll be able to calm down just thinking about it."

"In other words, you don't want to know about, sure we won't let you know...." I replied

"No, I mean the anticipation and the adrenaline rush knowing if you are on top of the competition."

"Yeah, right...so we just have to keep doing what we know best to stay in the ranks," Hanako commented.

"If we continue in what we are doing, say so, and get the same reaction from Mr. Kiichi every time we present our manuscript then we'll be alright." Nami pointed out obvious facts.

"We have nothing to worry about it, for now, all we have to do is give the best that we can so we can rest easy." Kozue agreed to what Nami and Hanako said,

Meanwhile, Fumi is silent and focused.

Then a lengthy silence happened after,

I restarted the conversation, "Hey, what do you think should we get more equipment placed in here?"

"Yeah, we lack a lot of stuff… like a light table for tracing, we are one desk short, also we need a photocopy machine with scaling, mirror image printing, fax and printer functions," Hanako replied

"Yeah, that will be a great help if we have those," Fumi commented,

"Also, we need a lot of reference books and a computer or a laptop with a printer is a must," Hanako added to the list of things we needed.

"Why do we need a computer?" I asked,

"For research, as well as from time to time we will take photos of some scenery, edit it in photoshop and then trace the image," Hanako replied waving her pen back and forth.

She continued, "We can do a canvassing on our list of things, after we are done here, maybe order those stuff online or get them on our local stores nearby and have delivered. What do you think?"

"I'll handle the permission and admission papers of the equipment so they'll be allowed to enter the school if they happen to deliver it when we are in class or not in school." Fumi takes care of school stuff because she's the school director's niece.

"Yeah, I think ordering online for the things that we can't find here in our local stores would be the best option. Let's do it on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday after school if that alright with you guys." I suggested a timeline.

"Yeah, I guess that will be good for me, I think I know a few stores that have what we need." Yasuyuki agrees with me.

"Yeah, that will be fine." Kozue agreed.

After that, we are settled and were able to finish the third chapter and double-checked our work then scanned it to be emailed to Mr. Kiichi.

The day was long and we have nothing else to do, so we just decided to head home and call it a day. But I have other plans so I asked Fumi to come with me,

"Fumi, let's have some milk tea?"

"Eh, why so sudden?"

"Uhm, I just thought of it on a whim."

"Well, okay then if it is your treat."

*********

"Fumi, do you think our manga will be popular?"

"I think it's good, why?"

"I hope so but I can't still shake the idea that it might fizzle."

"Really, how come?"

"It's just a hunch, don't take it seriously...I know we did our best, just having mixed feelings about it."

"Anyway, we will know about it soon."

We had our mini-date at the small milk tea shop near the school until the night.