Page by Page

Chapter 4

May 7, 2015

The second chapter of Break The Ice had dropped today, and Shizuka was looking it over in that month's issue of Monthly Girl Step. As she read the panels she had spent so long crafting together, she sipped on a cup of coffee and nodded along, happy with her work. She then set the magazine down and put the coffee cup in a holder before picking up a pencil and beginning to draw more panels for another chapter of the series, this time working on a storyboard. As she finished drawing a panel, she said to herself, "I wonder if any mail has come in for me from readers. I haven't even checked my emails today yet..." She moved around her mouse on her desktop to start it up before logging into her professional email and looking it over. "Hmm, let's see..."

She saw that an email had been sent from her editor with the simple title of 'Reader Mail'. Curious, she clicked on it to read its contents.

Hiratai Shizuka

We received two letters from readers about Break The Ice. Both are short, but I think you will enjoy them.

Sincerely,

Obuchi Daichi

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From Anonymous

Hello Hiratai-sensei! I really like Break The Ice! I hope your story gets to continue and reach its full potential. When I read the first chapter, I couldn't stop until I reached the sixty-second and final page. The fact it's a monthly manga makes me impatient, but I know you'll come back with a great second chapter!

—————

From Shingetsu-san

Break The Ice is a good manga from what little there is right now. Ichigo is a really cute girl, and so is her friend Miyako! While I'm a guy, I think Kazuya is a pretty cool guy from what I saw of him. He seems really mysterious, and I can't wait to see what his backstory is.

Shizuka smiled, enjoying the fan mail she had gotten from Chapter 1. She quickly began typing back a reply to her editor.

Obuchi-san

I really appreciate both of their emails. Tell them their words are very encouraging, and I will not let them down with the rest of Break The Ice.

Sincerely,

Hiratai Shizuka

To close out the email, she attached an image she had made that represented her avatar of sorts, consisting of a chibified version of herself doing a v-sign. She then returned to her storyboard after sending the reply email to Daichi, also writing out on the side what was going to happen for this particular part of the chapter's plot.

...

Later on in the day, Shizuka began videoconferencing with Daichi, showing off the storyboards and discussing what was to happen in the chapter she was writing. "So now I'm on Chapter 5. I think I'm gonna slow it down with the new chapters and instead focus on tweaking Chapters 3 and 4. I don't wanna be too ahead just in case I have to change something last-minute."

"That's fine," Daichi replied. "By the way, on another topic, is your old PictoView account still active?"

"PictoView?" Shizuka and Daichi were referring to a popular Japanese art website that she had used for many years prior to going professional. "Yeah. I still have it. It's not shut down."

"I noticed you put up some new art there, including some boy's love art... Some R-18 boy's love art."

"Oh," Shizuka replied, fearing she was in trouble. "Uh... Yeah... I got a commission for it, and the person requesting it was willing to pay me a lot of money, so I drew two pages of it. Is... Is there a problem?"