090. This club is seriously problematic! (continued)

At the cry of alarm, everyone turned their eyes to Jiang Yu. Following his shocked gaze, they saw what lay before them: Eriri’s personal webpage, the very page that had just been opened by Kato Megumi, hastily closed by Jiang Yu, and then reopened by the subject of his exclamation.

Sasahashi Shiwa leafed through the works displayed on Eriri’s page, their age restriction barely hiding them, and gave an occasional approving click of her tongue.

Jiang Yu rushed over at once and snatched the mouse straight from Sasahashi Shiwa’s hand. Under her expression of mock surprise, though with obvious amusement in her eyes, he clicked the red cross in the upper-right corner of the page.

“Now then, what is little Jiang Yu doing? Shouldn’t he let everyone in the club properly appreciate our artist’s work?”

Sasahashi Shiwa asked, pretending not to understand.

Jiang Yu curled his lip. “Minors shouldn’t casually browse pages restricted to adults!”

“Oh? So you, junior, are one of those consumers with an exaggerated sense of morality too? As expected of a friend of Tohya’s junior. Hmm, perhaps I can no longer call the two of you consumers?”

As the senior among everyone present, Sasahashi Shiwa remained as irreverent as ever. When she spoke, it was either with poisonous wit or with shameless innuendo.

Jiang Yu sighed helplessly. “Senior, you aren’t eighteen either, are you? So don’t speak as if everyone else were children…”

“My, I certainly am not treating you as a child. However, Kato-senpai is unexpectedly pure in this regard.”

With a faint smile, Sasahashi Shiwa’s wine-red eyes flashed with mischief as she spoke with pointed meaning.

Then, before Kato Megumi could react, Sasahashi Shiwa went on, “I had thought all high school girls nowadays were nothing but sluts.”

“...Could you not lump yourself into the category of sluts with such a calm expression? And what terrible impression do you have of modern high school girls, Sasahashi-senpai!”

After Sasahashi Shiwa finished speaking, the room fell into silence. Then, unable to hold it in any longer, Jiang Yu finally complained.

Kato Megumi also stared at Sasahashi Shiwa in astonishment. In her mind, this girl had carried the labels of model student and bestselling author, Shiwa Kasumi, at school.

Although during the club’s first sudden meal together last time, Kato Megumi had already begun to suspect that much of her previous impression of this admired, unreachable beauty had been mistaken, only now did she feel that she had gained at least some understanding of Sasahashi Shiwa’s true nature.

For better or worse, Megumi felt that today she had come to know the world anew.

“Oh, and there’s also the fact that Kawamura is quite skilled in these matters.”

Sasahashi Shiwa said with a suggestive lilt.

For some reason, the topic had circled back to Eriri again. What was worse, the shameless innuendo left her, despite spending her days drawing explicit doujinshi, still fundamentally a pure-hearted girl, at a complete loss.

In the end, her face flushed red and she blurted out, “Sasahashi Shiwa! Who are you calling skilled?!”

Seeing Eriri’s crimson face, Sasahashi Shiwa replied in a tone that sounded suggestive no matter how one listened to it. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I was only saying your drawing technique is very skillful, that’s all.”

“You, you, you... Aaaah... Sasahashi Shiwa!”

With nowhere to vent her frustration, Eriri turned once again on Aki Tomoya, who had been unable to insert a single word into the conversation from the beginning, and struck with her twin-tails like a whip.

“Yes, yes... it’s all my fault, so please stop already...”

Aki Tomoya raised both hands with a helpless look, showing he had no intention of resisting.

Sasahashi Shiwa seemed uninterested in intervening, though she also appeared to have lost the desire to continue speaking. To be fair, this whole mess had essentially been her fault.

So Jiang Yu had no choice but to step in once more and stop Eriri’s childish outburst.

After everyone had calmed down, Jiang Yu walked to the whiteboard, picked up a marker, tapped the board, and said with a sigh, “Then let’s return to the earlier topic. Sasahashi-senpai and Kawamura-san don’t agree with this schedule, right? I think it’s fine apart from being a little tight... Still, tell me your reasons.”

“...With a schedule this tight, we won’t finish unless we devote one hundred percent of our energy to it, will we? I still have club activities and my own doujin circle work.”

“I’m the same. It just so happens to conflict with the time I’m supposed to be writing my new work. And thanks to Master Toso, everything I’d written before now has to be scrapped and started over, you know?”

The artist and the writer, seated on either side of the central aisle, said this while looking at the script writer standing before the whiteboard.

However...

“What does that have to do with me, Sasahashi-senpai?” Jiang Yu pointed at himself in astonishment.

Sasahashi Shiwa narrowed her eyes slightly and said calmly, “Because you wrote... ‘Spring Thing,’ right? It seems that’s how the editorial department refers to it. Because of your light novel, my editor decided the work I submitted earlier lacked originality. She even used harsh words to criticize it, saying it was basically the same as my previous book except for the characters and plot. A mere editor, and yet she dares... Heh.”

By the end, Sasahashi Shiwa’s calm tone had turned into gritted teeth. Her crossed hands clenched with all her strength, and her displeasure could be felt even from a distance.

“Uh...” Not knowing what to say, Jiang Yu could only scratch his head awkwardly.

But soon enough, Sasahashi Shiwa returned to normal and smiled at him. “Still, your work really is splendid. That much is beyond doubt.”

“T-thank you...” Hearing that, Jiang Yu only grew more awkward, not knowing where to put his hands.

If one were to compare the two, he was even less adept than Sasahashi Shiwa at handling sincere words from readers.

Taking a deep breath, Jiang Yu thought for a moment, then turned and erased the schedule Aki Tomoya had just written on the whiteboard, replacing it with the following:

Plot conception: April
Character design: April to May
Script: May to November
Adjustments afterward

“Hm... If it’s only the conception stage, it should be fine, right? Besides, junior, you’ve already written the plot line, haven’t you?” Sasahashi Shiwa replied with a smile.

“...In any case, I’ll do my best to try.” Eriri muttered with a frown.

“Uh... then what about me? I’m at least the producer and representative of this club, aren’t I?” a faint voice said weakly.

Everyone: “...”

Come to think of it, this club was doomed sooner or later, wasn’t it? An explicit doujin artist handling the original art, a dark and venomous bestselling novelist taking on the script, a half-baked programmer responsible for all the post-production, and a likewise half-baked producer who still didn’t even know what he could do right now...

Thinking of it that way, the future really did seem grim for this club. Jiang Yu sighed inwardly.

Wait, weren’t you forgetting someone?