"…Y'know, I should be the one saying 'ow,' considering I'm the one you landed on," he said gently.
Eriri, curled up with her hands over her head and tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, flinched when she heard his voice.
Kyousuke reached up and softly patted her head where it rested on his chest.
Her golden hair was as silky as ever. His voice stayed soft, almost soothing.
This girl really had poured all her stat points into "Art." She didn't even try to break her fall or protect herself, just closed her eyes and waited for the impact.
"Huh?"
Eriri finally cracked one eye open.
Her face was still scrunched in pain, but her hands slowly came away from her head and started feeling around.
"Look, I get that as a doujin artist you might be a little confused about the line between fiction and reality after such a shock," Kyousuke said with a sigh, "but I really need you to stop groping my chest now."
Eriri blinked and looked around, and only to realize exactly where she'd ended up.
Yup. Just like he said, she was sprawled on top of Kyousuke, her arms braced against his chest.
She'd thought she was lying face-down on the floor, hugging her head… but no.
She was lying on him.
The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was his chiseled jawline and that soft, exasperated expression.
"Ah! You idiot, pervert, creep! What are you doing under me?!"
It seemed she completely forgot she was still lying on top of him.
Her brain overloaded in an instant, her face turning beet red like a teapot about to whistle from built-up steam.
And then her attack mode activated.
She started wildly smacking Kyousuke's face with her twin tails at point-blank range.
"Hey, hey! Your tears and snot are getting all over my shirt!"
Watching the girl bury her face in his chest again, shaking her head back and forth like a blender, Kyousuke's slight germaphobia kicked in hard.
Beautiful girl or not, there had to be a line somewhere.
"Shut up!" came her muffled voice, still buried in his chest.
She didn't lift her head, she just couldn't.
She had no face left to show.
The shame was unbearable. Why had things turned out like this?! Just now, she'd been... groping around his chest for ages!
"Alright, if you're done being dramatic, let's get back to talking about the doujinshi," Kyousuke said, brushing past the incident without missing a beat.
He slipped his hands under Eriri's arms and easily lifted her upright.
Like a kitten picked up by the scruff, she stopped struggling and let him help her stand.
"First off, the guy's face has to change. At the very least, give him some of that artistic interpretation you love so much. Second, the plot—"
"The plot absolutely stays!" Eriri snapped back before he could even finish.
"That's the heart and soul of this whole work! And now that we're adding the 'delinquent' angle to the male lead, there's no way the girl should be bringing him to her house."
"He should be the one taking her in after she gets injured—and once she discovers who he really is, he locks her up in his place..."
They sat side by side at her work desk, and the moment they shifted into creative mode, Eriri instantly forgot her earlier embarrassment.
She rambled on enthusiastically, grabbing a blank sheet of manuscript paper and sketching out rough thumbnails.
Kyousuke had initially thought she was going to flip the power dynamic—maybe the guy would be the one coerced this time.
But nope. It had just gone from "coercion" to straight-up "imprisonment." He gave her a look.
Golden hair like sunshine, porcelain-white skin that could make fine china blush, flawless features that looked like they'd been sculpted by a divine hand... If anyone fit the image of a storybook princess, it was her.
And yet, the moment the topic turned to slightly risqué manga, it was like she became a whole different person.
Words that would make anyone blush spilled from her lips without hesitation.
The plotlines she described?
The kind that would make most people call the police. Even her dazzling blue eyes seemed to flicker with a little madness.
"Um..." Kyousuke hesitated.
"What?" she whipped around with such force that Kyousuke flinched.
"Is there anything I can help with?"
'Help?' Tapping her pencil lightly against her chin, her eyes gleamed.
Since she'd been the only one thoroughly embarrassed today, it was only fair Kyousuke walked away with equally scarring memories.
"You can be my model. It's way faster for me to draw with a live reference."
A small, mischievous smirk curled her lips. Her signature little fang peeked out in triumph.
"If it's just posing, I can help out. You know I'm good at gesture drawing," he offered.
"Ugh, no. Stuff drawn from memory doesn't have soul. A true artist must draw what they see. Or what—do you want a cut of the profits from this doujinshi too?"
"I mean, I wouldn't mind sharing..."
The words flowed out of her mouth like water, the sheer creator energy radiating off her silenced any objections.
Even Fukuzawa Yukichi's face on the 10,000-yen bill would've flinched under her intensity. Kyousuke wisely kept quiet.
"First scene: the heroine crashes into the male lead."
Eriri, now wearing her black-rimmed glasses in place of contacts, pointed at Kyousuke with her pencil, directing him like a stage actor.
He stood about a meter or two in front of her.
"But didn't you already draw that part?"
"Quiet! You're the one who insisted the male lead's face needs to be redone. Do you even understand how much more work that gives me?!"
Despite the extra workload, Eriri had already made up her mind to fully change the guy's face and even the heroine's signature twin tails were going to be swapped out for long, straight black hair.
She probably realized what most buyers were going to do with a doujinshi like this…
"Yeah, yeah." Kyousuke muttered as he leaned his body back slightly, trying to recreate the original scene in his memory.
Wait, didn't I just stand there frozen at the time?
"Eriri, does this look right?" He balanced on one foot, the other raised as if mid-fall.
The pose, while weird, showed off his surprisingly good control over his body.
"Hahaha! What is that pose?" Eriri laughed out loud. She quickly snatched her phone and snapped a photo.
"Hey! What are you doing?"
"Taking a reference shot, obviously. It's faster to draw from a picture."
"But didn't you just say art without a live model has no soul?"
"Shut it! I said it has soul, so it has soul. A half-baked wannabe artist like you wouldn't understand!" She coughed, trying to hide her grin.
"Next, the scene where the male lead catches the falling heroine."
Kyousuke sighed.
Well, if he was helping, he might as well go all in.
He bent down slightly, raised his right arm, and made a catching motion.
"Nope, nope!" Eriri said, frowning. "With that little space between your chest and arm, they'd basically be kissing!"
He adjusted his pose.
"Nope, angle's off. She'd slip right out of his arms like that."
More adjustments.
"Nope, not like that either..."
Even before Kyousuke could complain, Eriri was already getting flustered.
"Ugh, what a moron!" she muttered, her voice a little shaky. "Fine! I'll do it myself, just this once!"
Honestly, he could've used a body pillow to simulate it, but Kyousuke wasn't stupid enough to say that out loud.
Eriri set her phone on the desk, hit record, and walked up to him.
"What are you staring at, huh? Shocked by how gorgeous I am?" she said, half-teasing.
But before she could finish the line, Kyousuke reached out and gently wrapped his arm around her waist, the curve of her figure emphasized even more by the way her dress clung to her body.
"Ah—!" A belated cry escaped from the girl.
Then, she looked up at the boy in front of her and finally saw him clearly.
Kyousuke didn't notice that, in Eriri's original draft, the scene where the male lead catches the girl as she falls had one glaring omission.
Neither character's face had been drawn.
She just couldn't remember their expressions!
Late at night, under the bright glow of her desk lamp, Eriri furiously tugged at her golden hair in frustration.
She'd replaced her original plan—Tiny Love Rhapsody—the debut work she had prepared for her professional launch, with this personal story, based on her own experiences.
And it wasn't just because she'd found emotional closure, or because what happened felt like a dream.
She genuinely wanted to preserve their meeting in the way she knew best through art.
As for the more "enhanced" story details... well, that's just the creative process.
It's not modifying the story it's artistic evolution.
Once your imagination starts running wild, there's no stopping it.
Sure, she'd already changed both the main characters' faces beyond recognition, and she even considered swapping the heroine's twintails for straight black hair.
Deep down, Eriri probably knew exactly what kind of use some readers might find for this kind of doujin.
But still despite how vivid that encounter was, she just couldn't recall the details.
It had to be because of his stupidly handsome face, it was so distracting she couldn't focus on anything else!
No way was she going to admit that she'd been paralyzed by the fear she was about to die, her mind going completely blank in the moment.
A magical meeting, a face more perfect than any anime prince, strong arms that made her feel safe, a broad back...
Her head was full of abstract words and fleeting impressions, nothing solid.
That's why she'd jumped at the chance to recreate the moment.
And sure enough, as she stood in the crook of his arms again, that face from then and now began to blur together. The memory, long locked away, started to trickle back in.
That arm around her waist, so steady it felt like it could support her whole body.
Those soft, gentle eyes.
That voice—cool and clear, like a breeze across a frozen lake...
Ah. He really was a hero, driven by pure instinct.
"Hey, Eriri? You okay? Spacing out on me?"
His voice snapped her out of it.
What the hell was that poetic nonsense she was just thinking?
Her pink daydream shattered in an instant, and she curled her lip in annoyance.
"Shut up! I'm trying to channel the heroine's feelings in this scene!" she huffed, her voice bratty and full of irritation.
Still, one of her pale, slender legs lifted daintily, waiting to be scooped up.
You don't need to say "the heroine" like it's not obviously just you, you know.
Kyousuke sighed inwardly but didn't say a word. Instead, he slipped his left arm beneath her knees and lifted her up effortlessly.
'Yes! This was it the familiar feeling!' The moment he picked her up, Eriri instinctively nestled her face against his chest.
The faint scent of either detergent or body wash made her cheeks flush with heat.
'Hmm? Why does it feel… kind of damp?'
Though the moment was warm and comforting, she couldn't help but notice the slight moisture on his chest.
"Kyousuke… why's your shirt wet right here?" she asked, reluctantly lifting her head and gazing up at him.
"Oh, that? Probably a mix of your tears and snot," he replied with a warm, sunny smile, his voice annoyingly calm.
"AAAAHHH! You jerk! I'M GONNA KILL YOU!!" Eriri shrieked, her embarrassment exploding into rage.
She didn't care that she was still being held in his arms, her attack began immediately.