All Beautiful Girls Want to Stick with Me

Nakamori-sensei, who was standing at the podium teaching, casually glanced toward the window seats and noticed that Izumi Kotomi was once again hunched over, writing or drawing something in her notebook. He had noticed this habit of hers before—frequently bowing her head to scribble in her notebook during class. At this point in his math course, there wasn’t much that needed meticulous note-taking; it was more about understanding the concepts.

Although he considered reminding her to focus on the lecture, Nakamori-sensei remembered how brilliantly Kotomi had answered questions in the past. No matter how difficult the problem, she always provided the correct and detailed answer in the shortest time possible.

Could it be that Kotomi’s constant scribbling was part of her unique study method?

This thought made Nakamori-sensei feel as though he had figured something out. Every excellent student has their own specialized way of studying, enabling them to achieve twice the results with half the effort.

Realizing this, Nakamori-sensei concluded that Kotomi was simply using her own method to study and wasn’t actually distracted. With that in mind, he decided to ignore it and continued teaching.

Twenty minutes later, the math class that left some students drowsy finally came to an end.

As Nakamori-sensei packed up his textbooks, he left the classroom in high spirits. As a teacher, discovering a student with great potential was one of the most gratifying experiences. Now that he had found such a student in his class, how could he not be pleased?

Meanwhile, Izumi Kotomi, who was engrossed in drawing her Chainsaw Man manga, had no idea that she had already become a student with potential in her teacher’s eyes, worthy of nurturing.

Kotomi spent the majority of the day at school working on the rough draft of Chainsaw Man’s first chapter, particularly focusing on the first page. She had always heard that creating manga was a time-consuming process, but now she was truly experiencing it firsthand. Despite having an innate talent for drawing, she found that even a simple rough draft took a significant amount of time.

She started working on it during the first class in the morning, and by the time the final class in the afternoon ended, she had only just completed the rough draft for the first page. And this was just a preliminary sketch.

With the help of the drawing skills provided by the God-Level Heroine System, Kotomi was able to get into a good rhythm, and each stroke felt natural. However, she realized that without the system, it would have taken her much longer to complete even a single page. It made her appreciate the difficulty of a manga artist’s job even more.

As the final bell rang, signaling the end of the school day, Kotomi finally snapped out of her focused state. She packed up her things and prepared to head to the art club.

She was feeling a mix of nervousness and excitement, as this was her first time seriously attempting to create a manga. The progress was slow, but the sense of accomplishment with each stroke kept her motivated. Even though she was only working on rough drafts at the moment, Kotomi knew that she needed to pour her heart into every detail.

The actual work on Chainsaw Man would begin in earnest once her drawing tablet, which she had ordered from Amazon, arrived. It was scheduled to be delivered the next day, and Kotomi was eager to familiarize herself with it and begin creating the digital version of her manga.

Kotomi was checking the delivery status on her phone when she heard a familiar voice.

”How’s the progress on your manga coming along, Izumi-san?” Kato Megumi asked, approaching Kotomi’s desk. She had noticed Kotomi drawing throughout the day and had given her space to work uninterrupted. But now that classes were over, Megumi couldn’t resist talking to her friend any longer.

”Not much progress yet, just working on the rough drafts,” Kotomi replied, feeling a bit embarrassed about the slow pace.

”When will your drawing tablet arrive?”

”It should be here tomorrow, according to Amazon,” Kotomi said with a small smile.

”Tomorrow?” Megumi’s expression shifted slightly, and she seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then, as if trying to keep her tone casual, she asked, ”Izumi-san, do you remember the phone call I made to you last night?”

”Yes, I remember,” Kotomi replied. Of course, she remembered—it wasn’t every day that she received a call like that, especially under such peculiar circumstances as last night.

After all, last night had been one of the most unforgettable nights since she was reborn in this world.

”After we hung up, I remembered why I called you, but it was already late, so I didn’t want to bother you again,” Megumi explained softly. ”I also didn’t want to interrupt you today since you were so focused on your manga. That’s why I’m only bringing it up now.”

”What is it?” Kotomi asked, feeling a slight pang of guilt for having been so engrossed in her work that she hadn’t paid much attention to her friend today.

”It’s nothing serious,” Megumi reassured her. ”I just wanted to ask if you’re free after school tomorrow. If you are, I thought maybe we could go somewhere a bit farther away, just to relax and enjoy the start of the weekend.”

She paused for a moment, then continued with a hint of disappointment in her voice, ”There’s a movie I’ve been looking forward to, and it’s premiering tomorrow. But it won’t be showing in Chiba City until next Sunday. If we want to see it sooner, we’d have to go to Tokyo. But going to Tokyo alone to see a movie doesn’t sound like much fun. So, I was hoping you could come with me to Roppongi after school tomorrow. But I understand if you’d rather stay home and work on your manga.”

Kotomi quickly understood what Megumi had been trying to say. She was inviting Kotomi to go to Tokyo with her to see a movie—an outing that Kotomi would normally be excited about. However, she also remembered her previous plans.

With a bit of regret, Kotomi shook her head. ”I’m really sorry, Kato-san, but I already have plans with my sister tomorrow evening. We’re going out for yakiniku, and I promised her I’d be there.”

”Oh, I see,” Megumi replied, trying to hide her disappointment. ”That’s perfectly understandable. Family comes first, after all.”