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Chapter 9

July 1, 2019

Shizuka was working on the new storyboard for the August chapter of Break The Ice, while Chieko was at her own desk finishing up the coloring on a book cover Shizuka had drawn, when she got a call on her computer from Daichi. She hesitated for a few seconds, reluctant to answer it due to what had happened on Saturday before taking a deep breath and clicking on the green answer button on her screen. "Hello?"

"Hey, Hiratai-sensei, uh... I talked to some of the higher-ups in the company earlier today..." Daichi clearly felt bad about something when he talked to her. "I brought up what you proposed, and they said that perhaps you could go ahead with it."

Confused, Shizuka asked him, "Go ahead with what?"

"The sex thing," he sighed. "As long as you don't actually show them having sex or have any nudity, you can mention it in dialogue or show them waking up in bed together. Nothing below the shoulders for Ichigo, and nothing below the waist for Kazuya, though."

Shizuka was stunned, staring at the screen in silence. Chieko noticed this and turned around, asking her, "Hiratai-sensei, what's wrong?"

"I..." Shizuka looked down at her storyboard and realized what she had done to the old one on Saturday. "It... It may be too late..."

Worried, Daichi asked her, "Hiratai-sensei, what did you do to the storyboard on the Saturday I called you?"

"Oh my God... I ripped it up and threw it away... It's gone..."

Daichi sighed, realizing she had made her work a lot more difficult for herself. "Ugh... You really should have saved it."

"But you told me not to go ahead with the sex plot," Shizuka pointed out in somewhat of a raised voice. "What else was I supposed to do? As far as I was aware, it was useless anyway!"

"Calm down," he told her. "What have you been working on since then?"

"Since then? I've been working on a different storyboard for August. It's too late now."

"You gotta be kidding me," Daichi said in annoyance. "Just discard that one and make a new storyboard based on your old one."

"Nope," she replied, now getting petty with him. "It's too late. Not happening."

"Wow. I came here to tell you what I thought would be good news, and you're reacting like this?! Really?!"

"If you want, I can delay it to November's chapter, but I'm not going back and doing it for August when I already have new plans for the next three months."

"You really should."

"I don't have to."

Finally having had enough, Daichi then put his own foot down with her, similar to how she had done with him on Saturday. "I want you to do the sex chapter either in August or not at all! I told you it was okay, now do it!"

Shizuka paused, mimicking what he had done on Saturday, before telling him, "I don't think they should have sex at all at this point. It would ruin the plot to delay it by that much."

Having heard her mimic what he said to her, he finally gave up and told her, "I'm hanging up now. Call me back when you don't feel like acting like a child, Hiratai-sensei."

With Daichi ending the phone call, Shizuka sighed and looked down at her art, telling herself out loud, "I committed to this. I need to go through with it."

"Uh," Chieko said to her in a worried tone. "Hiratai-sensei, what... Why can't you just go back then?"

"I had planned the lead-up to Ichigo and Kazuya having sex for a while," she explained to her. "It would not work unless it happened in August, so now it can't happen at all. Even if it hurts, I can never go back."