Innocent | Sugawara Koushi (EDITING)

8.

Sugawara got up earlier than usual to go back to his apartment for some fresh clothes before he went to work. I had the rest of my week off, so I decided to sketch a little. It was a long time since I felt so motivated to draw, so I took this opportunity.

I took a huge notebook from my drawer where I tried to sketch a comic. It was nice to do something other than work and binge watching another series on my laptop.

The story I came up with when I was in high school was a little bit too simple. It was about the girl who fell in love with a boy, but he didn't even pay attention to her at the beginning. She sent him stares for days during classes and breaks until he saw her and decided to invite her out for a date. It was just a short comic book and now I wanted to write completely something different.

I started drawing different characters, trying to think about the plot but my head was empty. I remember showing Sana one of my comics and she said that if I wanted to make an interesting story I need to make people feel deep emotions while reading. Whether it was sadness, happiness or anything really, I didn't know how to do that. Maybe I should just grasp some inspiration from my life?

But wouldn't that be boring?

I thought about it for a while. I had problems with my family, my love life was actually dead until now. People usually like happy stories, right? But if everything in my main character's life is perfect then what next? There would be no plot.

I groaned, now annoyed at myself. Well, at least I'll try to do it my way. I looked at the page filled with different characters, some of them inspired by my previous, 'perfect' story and I started thinking. It was hard to come up with a plot that would be interesting and I understood that motivation to draw is not enough to make a comic. Ugh, I should just stop dreaming about making my own manga.

Vibrations from my phone shook me off from the train of thoughts and I looked at the screen. Kaori? Right! I didn't call her back yesterday.

I swiped the green phone icon. "Hey, I'm so sorry for yesterday. I forgot to call you back and-"

"I bought the present from both of us. You don't need to thank me." She interrupted me with her usual, dispassionate voice.

"You what?" I was surprised by the fact that she didn't even ask me whether I was going to the party or not.

"I thought that you probably talked with that man and finished late so don't worry about it." She was probably on a break at work right now, because it was too early for her to leave the job just now. I got up and started wandering through all the rooms I had in my apartment while talking.

"Okay, but what if I said that he refused and that I'm not coming at all?" I asked, quite intrigued by her assumption that I will actually be there.

"You don't really have a choice. It will be... a special party." Something in her voice suggested that she was a little bit nervous.

"Kaori, did something happen?"

She was quiet for just a second. "I'll tell you if you come. Will you?"

Well, since Sugawara said he would come with me I was less scared of going. "Yes, I'll go with Sugawara."

"Wait, Sugawara Koushi? Ai's teacher?" Oh, right. She didn't know it was him who came with me the last time.

"Yeah, the teacher."

"Miyu! When did this happen? Why didn't you say anything?" She screamed suddenly and I had to move the phone away from my ear until she stopped.

"Don't yell! It was last week when you told me to pick Ai up from the preschool." I looked inside the fridge just from a habit and I was surprised to see food in there. Sugawara probably put it there yesterday, when he came back from shopping. I took a strawberry yoghurt and opened it, switching the call to a loud speaker.