Tokyo: The Manga Begins with the Funeral of Frilian

Kamiya Yuma didn't hesitate at all.

I choose option two.

Emotional storyboard rhythm.

These skills have become deeply ingrained.

Is Kamiya-kun still around?

I heard Ryota Onodera's voice coming from the other end of the phone.

"I'm listening."

Yuma Kamiya sat down in the chair.

"Senior, I want to open my own studio."

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"What?"

"Kamiya Studio. Use royalties as registered capital."

"Besides the editor in charge, we need another person to handle taxes, contracts, assistant salaries, and liaison with Shueisha's finance department. My current single-volume royalties have exceeded 30 million yen, so I can no longer just throw the remittance slips into a drawer like before."

"Have you made up your mind?"

"The current economic climate is bad. If we invest all our money in the studio, what if..."

"It's precisely because the economic situation is bad that we need to make it a formal matter."

  

Kamiya Yuma interrupted him.

"Publishing houses may go bankrupt, and magazines may cease publication. But the corporate studio belongs to an individual. No matter how many trees fall outside, my tree will never fall."

Ryota Onodera paused for a moment, then laughed again.

"You're starting to sound more and more like Editor-in-Chief Tanaka."

"It was taught to me by my seniors."

"Get out of here. What's the studio's registered address?"

"Itabashi-cho. The living room of this apartment is quite large; you can put two desks there. As for the specific procedures, you can ask Shueisha's legal department."

"Okay. Did you write down the legal representative's name yourself?"

Kamiya Yuma turned around and saw Shirakawa Shiori washing vegetables in the kitchen.

"Write my name as the legal representative. Write Shirakawa Shiori's name together for both the finance and general affairs manager."

The sound of water in the kitchen stopped.

Shiori Shirakawa turned her head, still clutching a handful of spinach tightly in her hand.

"What did you say?"

"I'll hang up now, senior."

After Kamiya Yuma hung up the phone.

He stood up from the drawing table and walked towards the kitchen door.

Did you hear that?

"What kind of finance and general affairs manager?"

Shiori Shirakawa put the spinach into the sink and wiped her hands on her apron.

"I'm a civil servant. I have a formal government job."

"Is the position still valid?"

Shiori Shirakawa was stumped by the question.

She still remembered what the personnel section chief said at the meeting held at the ward office last month.

Many non-core document processing staff will be optimized and adjusted based on the financial situation.

She works in document processing, which is a non-core category.

"It's...it's still here."

"Then be prepared to smash your iron rice bowl at any time."

Yuma Kamiya leaned against the kitchen door frame, speaking in a very casual tone.

"Come and take my pure gold rice bowl."

Shiori Shirakawa stands there.

The corner of the apron in her hand was crumpled into a ball.

"Do you know how many people want to get a position at the ward office? I took the exam twice before I finally got it."

"Know."

"So you're telling me to smash it?"

"An iron bowl will dent if you drop it. A gold bowl will only make a sound if you drop it." Kamiya Yuma looked at her. "And I won't let it drop."

Shiori Shirakawa bit her lip.

"You're only paying me 1,200 yen per hour."

"That's the assistant's hourly wage. The finance and general affairs manager's salary is a different matter."

Kamiya Yuma turned around and walked back to his drawing table. He took the royalty remittance slip from the drawer and walked back to hand it to her.

"Do the math yourself. Ten percent royalties, based on the studio's profits, how much do you think should be?"

Shiori Shirakawa accepted the remittance slip.

She had just looked at many of the numbers that morning, and even after glancing at them again, she still felt dizzy.

That number is 32 million, and that's for a single volume.

The next volume is already in the printing process.

"This is bribing a public official."

"You will soon no longer be a public servant."

"Who said I was going to resign!"

"I didn't tell you to resign today."

Kamiya Yuma snatched the remittance slip from her hand and put it back in the drawer.

"I'm just reserving this position for you. You can start working whenever you want to quit your job. The studio door is always open."

Shiori Shirakawa took a deep breath, then turned around and walked back to the kitchen.

Then the tap was turned on again.

The water flowed gurglingly, and the spinach kept turning over and over in the middle of the water.

"You're really infuriating."

"What's wrong with me?"

"When a normal person invites someone to join their studio, they would say, 'Please come and help me,' 'I hope you can consider it,' or 'It's okay if it's inconvenient for you.' What about you? You said, 'I'm ready to smash my rice bowl at any time.'"

"Because I know you'll smash it."

Shiori Shirakawa paused.

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because you said last time that if I lost my job, you would help me collect more lottery outlets. When you said that, your expression wasn't one of comforting me. You were seriously calculating how many outlets you could collect in an eight-hour day."

Kamiya Yuma's voice came from the kitchen doorway.

"You're the kind of person who calculates all possible escape routes before making a decision. So I've already calculated the escape routes for you."

Shiori Shirakawa turned off the tap.

The kitchen had been quiet for a short while now.

The shadow cast by the ginkgo tree outside the window flickered on the cabinet door.

"Then I'll ask you."

She didn't turn around.

"What specific tasks are the finance and general affairs supervisors responsible for?"

"Managing money, contracts, and assistant salaries. Liaising with Shueisha's legal department. Communicating with the tax bureau. Cooperating with banks. And also..."

Kamiya Yuma's footsteps stopped.

"You're in charge of managing me."

Shiori Shirakawa turned her body around.

"What do I care?"

"You set the schedule. It ends at 10 o'clock, and the lights are off at 11 o'clock. If you ignore it, I'll draw until 3 a.m.

"Give it a try."

"So you're the one who has to tell me what to do?"

Shiori Shirakawa wiped the water droplets off her wet hands with water.

"Then let's settle on that. There will be no exceptions if we finish writing at 10 PM. The deadline is also not allowed."

"Is the deadline not acceptable either?"

"The deadline is to draw more during the day. I'm not saying you can't draw during the day."

she says.

"The responsibilities of the finance and general affairs manager include overseeing the legal representative's health. I'm going to include that in the company's bylaws."

"Did you draw up the rules and regulations before you even started working here?"

Shiori Shirakawa's ears were bright red.

She turned around, scooped the spinach out of the sink, and shook it vigorously twice.

"It's just a passing fancy, I don't necessarily have to take the job."

"OK."

I meant 'if I get the job'

"Okay, I understand."

"What do you mean by that look?"

"What's wrong with me?"

Yuma Kamiya walked from the kitchen to the drawing table.

The corners of his mouth rose slightly.

......