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I just want to quietly draw manga Chapter 1
🕑 Added 2025-04-11 16:22:34 +0000 UTCOsaka Municipal No. 5 High School – Third-Year Classroom
During the short break between classes, many students slumped over their desks, catching a quick nap. The room buzzed quietly with low murmurs and the shuffle of papers.
"Ren, do you know where Haruki went?"
A soft voice interrupted the stillness.
A girl approached ren's desk—the one directly in front of Haruki's. She tapped his shoulder gently, her voice laced with hesitation.
She wore the standard light-blue school uniform, her long black hair tied into a sleek ponytail. Her skin was pale, and her eyes shimmered with a quiet clarity. Even now, she looked at Ren with a slightly apologetic expression.
Ren had been on the verge of dozing off. His nap skills were elite—barely ten minutes between classes and he was already halfway to dreamland.
So, being shaken awake wasn't exactly pleasant.
But the moment he opened his eyes and saw the girl standing before him, his irritation melted like snow under the sun.
"K-Kanna…" he stammered, sitting up straighter, suddenly alert.
Kanna Tachibana was one of the most well-known girls in the third-year class. Beautiful, intelligent, and quiet—the subject of many teenage crushes.
Ren included.
"What do you need Haruki for?" he asked, trying to sound casual.
"It's the family information form the homeroom teacher asked us to submit. Everyone else has turned theirs in—Haruki's the only one left. Sensei told me to bring it to the office during the break, so I came to check."
"Oh, that thing!" Ren laughed. "Haruki probably went to the bathroom or something. You can check his desk—if he brought it, he would've left it in there."
"Is… that okay?" she hesitated.
"It's fine," Ren said, waving dismissively. "Haruki's not the petty type. And if the teacher asked you to rush it over, you don't really have a choice. Go ahead. I'll explain when he gets back."
"Alright then," Kanna replied uncertainly, then knelt beside Haruki's desk.
His desk drawer was a chaotic mess of textbooks and loose papers. She began to carefully sift through them, searching for the document.
Then her fingers brushed against a thick stack of paper—different from the others.
She pulled it out.
"What's this…?"
The texture was rougher. Not normal printouts.
Each page was covered in detailed illustrations.
The top page showed a rainy scene: a young man and a woman sitting under a small pavilion. The boy held a sketchpad, focused on his drawing. The woman, in business attire, sipped from a can of beer and silently watched the boy.
The style was striking. The details exquisite.
There was even a small poem written at the top:
"A distant thunder, a hazy sky—
But I wish for wind and rain to come,
And leave you here."
Beneath it, in stylized kanji: The Garden of Words.
"A manga?" Kanna murmured, surprised.
If it had just been a random comic book, she wouldn't have cared. But this… this was different.
This was a manuscript.
As she flipped through the pages, more scenes unfolded. The rainy encounters, the quiet glances. The boy drawing in soaked shoes. The woman sitting alone by the lakeside. Their brief, fragile connection—and the quiet ache of parting.
The art. The atmosphere. The emotion.
It pulled her in.
Then—suddenly—the pages were snatched from her hands.
Kanna gasped and looked up.
Haruki was standing in front of her.
"When did you…?"
"What are you doing?" he asked, brow furrowed slightly.
"I—I was just looking for the form—" she stammered. "The teacher asked me to—"
Haruki paused, then nodded slightly. "Oh. That. Yeah, I brought it ages ago. Just never handed it in."
He turned, rifled through the mess in his desk, and handed her a sheet of paper.
"Here."
Kanna took it quietly, eyes downcast like a kid caught doing something wrong.
"If you're looking for documents, just look for those. Don't go through things that don't concern you," Ren added. His tone wasn't angry—just firm.
Unlike Ren, Haruki wasn't the kind to get flustered around girls. He was a hardcore manga otaku. Reality didn't excite him much—his heart belonged to ink and pixels.
Kanna puffed out her cheeks, resisting the urge to snap back. She knew she'd messed up. She had no excuse.
Inwardly, she muttered: Stingy jerk…
"Oi, don't be like that, Haruki," Ren cut in. "I told her to check your desk. You weren't here, and the teacher was rushing her."
Haruki gave Ren a tired look, then sighed.
"Fine. Whatever. Just this once."
Ren grinned. 'Nice, he's letting it slide.'
Kanna, still red in the face, mumbled a soft "thanks" and turned to leave. The awkwardness was too thick in the air to stay any longer.
"I overreacted earlier. Sorry if I was too harsh," Haruki called after her.
He didn't really care that she peeked at his manga. He just wasn't expecting anyone to see it—especially not like that. After a moment of reflection, he knew it wasn't worth getting worked up over.
His apology eased the weight in Kanna's chest.
She glanced back over her shoulder.
Haruki was sitting quietly now, calmly organizing his desk. His expression was unreadable, but his profile was surprisingly soft.
The manuscript was already tucked away again.
She wanted to ask him if he had drawn it. But she couldn't bring herself to say the words.
After all, she had gone through his things without asking. She felt guilty enough already.
Still, the whole encounter—and that beautiful, delicate manga—left a deep impression on her.
On Haruki, the quiet, distant boy she barely knew…
And on The Garden of Words.
---
After Kanna left, Haruki sat heavily in his seat.
That little encounter was just a blip—an interruption.
He pulled the manuscript back out and looked down at the familiar characters again.
His thoughts drifted, back to the beginning.
Back to the summer break, a month and a half ago.
He'd been sleeping in late as usual when something bizarre happened.
A voice in his head.
A "system."
It introduced itself as the Manga Artist Support System, and brought with it an archive of classic two-dimensional works from a parallel version of Earth.
At first, Haruki didn't care.
But then the titles started to appear.
And everything changed.
As a veteran otaku, Haruki had already devoured nearly every decent manga this world had to offer. Finding something new that actually grabbed his attention was rare—once every few years, if that.
So when the system dropped a library of completely unknown masterpieces into his lap…
He was hooked.
The system also offered him "Manga Proficiency"—a skill package that boosted his technique and drawing speed. And then, it handed him his first project:
The Garden of Words.
It had taken him the entire summer to finish. Seven chapters. Nearly 180 pages of fully inked and lettered manga.
Ten days ago, he submitted the manuscript to three major manga publishers in Osaka.
Since then?
Nothing.
"Ten days… and still no response."
His stomach twisted.
He had poured his soul into that story. Woken up early, stayed up late, spent every spare second drawing. If it was rejected…
He wasn't sure how he'd take it.
Logically, he knew rejection was part of the process.
Emotionally? It would hit like a truck.
