An artist’s struggle.

As usual, Leo was the first to wake up that morning. Reiko, Kaede and Lucia were still fast asleep next to him, and though he rose gently so as to not startle them, she still needed to wake them up.

It was a quiet morning, much like ant other. Leo took his shower and went to the kitchen to get breakfast ready. But it wasn’t the sound of sizzling oil that broke the silence in the house, but a high-pitched screech coming from his own room. Seconds after, it was followed by another, and two more happening simultaneously right after.

Leo rushed back to his room, his heart in his throat as he pushed the worst-case scenarios out of his mind. He threw the door open and saw Lucia covering her eyes with her hand as she shook her head. And while that was happening, Reiko and Kaede were jumping with joy and excitement, laughing and screaming their hearts out.

“What the hell happened?” he asked.

“We have like 700 likes and over 100 comments!” Kaede explained.

For that comic they uploaded last night?

“Is that a lot?” he asked.

“I don’t know!” Kaede giggled. “But it’s 700 different people, right? You can’t fit 700 people in this house!”

“The most I’ve ever gotten on random drawings had been like 200,” Reiko said, staring at her phone with a huge smile.

“First thing they did when they woke up was to check again,” Lucia explained.

“Leo smiled,” All your hard work is paying off, then.” He went up to them and gave each a congratulatory kiss. “Just try not to scare the soul out of me next time, okay?”

The pair were absolutely giddy, looking at the like count slowly rise and reading comments of praise for their work throughout breakfast. The giddiness, however, lasted them until the first recess at school.

Leo had to watch their mood plumet and crash from on high at the drop of a hat, an for the second time that day, he had ask the same question once they all gathered at the rooftop.

“What the hell happened?”

With heads down and shoulders slumped, Reiko silently handed her phone over to him. On it, Leo could read a longer comment than most of the others they had gotten.

“I don’t know why this is trending in the site or why it’s getting so much praise. It’s an above average work, yeah, but the bar is pretty low. You can catch spots where the artist fucked up hands and feet. Some proportions are inconsistent, too. Like, the size of the blonde girl’s tits is all over the place. Big in one panel and small in the other. Pick a fucking size and stick to it. It’s not hard. Also, what the fuck is with the story? Porn doesn’t need a story. So many panels wasted on dialogue I don’t care about. Just don’t do it. I saw this trending and I thought it would make for a goo wank, but it was a total waste of my time.”

The comment went on to criticize the manga even more, pointing to specific pages and panels he thought were really, really bad.

“I knew someone would call m out on those feet,” Reiko said. “I should’ve done them again, but by the time I noticed we had already scanned the pages.”

“This guy obviously doesn’t know how hard it is to draw over 35 pages,” Kaede said. “Some inconsistencies are fine, and he’s totally exaggerating about the breast size. But… he’s right about the story,” she sulked. “Of course everyone likes Reiko’s art. She’s one of the better artist in the site, so of course suddenly releasing 38 pages would make her blow up in popularity. My story is just dragging her down.”

“What on earth are you talking about!?” Reiko asked. “You think I would’ve been able to put out 38 pages on my own. The longest thing I’ve ever done is only five pages. Practically a short scene. I’m not good at stories and characters, but you are. It’s the story that makes this manga memorable!”

“Excuse me, but…” Angela interjected. “Why do you even care about what some random idiot on the internet is saying?”

“Yeah,” Valerie agreed. “He says it was a waste of his time, but he certainly had time to write all that. Sounds to me like someone with nothing better to do.”

“He’s not the only one with criticism, though,” Reiko said. “There are more people saying the same.”

Leo quickly skimmed through the comments, getting a general gist. He would say about 20% of all comments were negative in nature.

“So you’re just going to forget about the people that absolutely love your work?” Valerie asked. “About all those saying how much they think both the story and art are great?”

“…They’re probably just being nice,” Kaede said.

“People aren’t ‘just nice’ on the internet,” Leo said. “It’s easier to ignore what you don’t like than it is to **** yourself to write something nice to make a stranger feel good about themselves. Those saying they like it mean it. And besides, you two are forgetting about the two most important people in all this.”

“Who?” Reiko asked.

“You two. Who else?” he answered. “I watched you pour you heart and soul into this project and enjoy it every step of the way, no matter how difficult it was, no matter how many times you had to redo a draft. You always did so because you wanted to make the best that you could, and you did. You loved this all the way until you published it, and now that some few don’t like it you’ll start hating what you created?”

The girls looked at each other. “We can’t just dismiss criticism,” Kaede said.

“Yes, but you need to decide what criticism is worth following. For example, there’s this one guy saying it was a waste to make your story a harem because the girls didn’t get enough pages each. What can you take away from that? That you shouldn’t do harems anymore?”

“…” Reiko shook her head. “We made it a harem because we liked the idea.”

“…So maybe next time we should have either more pages or less girls,” Kaede nodded.

“See? That’s it.” Leo smiled. “Now that you finished and published this project, are you satisfied? Will you stop making manga?”

The girls didn’t even have to look at each other. They fervently shook their heads.

“We had so many more ideas while we were working,” Kaede said. “Scenes that didn’t make it, characters we saved for later…”

“I’ve been drawing since I was little, but this is the first time I’ve worked so seriously. It felt so fulfilling,” Reiko giggled. “There’s no way I can stop now.”

“Then you’ll only grow from here,” Angela told them. “Getting out of your first fight without a couple bruises means it was never a good fight. And if you continue doing it, you’ll only ever get more. So you toughen up, learn to deal with it, and push on because that feeling of accomplishment that lies at the end.”

“Besides, you’re working as a team,” Valerie added. “Kaede clearly loves Reiko’s art, and Reiko also loves Kaede’s stories. You have a teammate to lean on, and that’s huge! And obviously, we’re here too. Though I don’t know much about art or stories, so I don’t know how I can even help,” she said, sheepishly scratching the back of her head.

“No, what you’re doing is more than enough,” Kaede said, smiling. “We got a little carried away. Negativity always weights more than positivity, so it was easy to forget that, yes, there ARE people who like what we made.”

Reiko nodded as she turned to her friend. “So don’t let me catch you saying you’re dragging me down again, you hear? I WANT to draw your stories, so I’ll do it until you don’t want me anymore.”

“Shut up. I couldn’t find an artist who was better at putting my thoughts into an image even if I paid the most expensive one,” Kaede laughed.

“Aww, you two are so sweet,” Valerie giggled. She turned to Angela and asked her, “Are there tag matches in MMA? Think we could fight as a team?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t think so,” Angela answered. “But I want to fight you, not with you. Though… Maybe we could go look for some dangerous thugs and teach them some manners together. That’s always fun.”

“Sure, give me a heart attack,” Leo shrugged ironically.

“What? Don’t think we could win?” Valerie asked.

“Sure, I think you could win. But it only takes one knife you don’t see for it to turn into a tragedy.”

“He’s right,” Reiko said. “No matter how strong you two get, we’ll never not get worried.”

“At least you cheered up now,” Valerie told them. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah And… sorry,” Reiko said. “We’ll try not to let it get to us so hard next time.”

“What should we do next?” Kaede asked her. “Should we make a chapter 2 or work on a new story?”

“Hmm. We already have so many character designs ready that it’d be a waste not to do at least two more chapters, right? We could divide our cast so each one gets more page time.”

Like that, the duo was already back in brainstorming mode. There was no more screen staring for the rest of the day. Though from his seat in the classroom, Leo saw Reiko drafting some safe-for-work scenes on her notebook while Kaede wrote more ideas in front of him. Considering the latter had already graduated school, this distraction would only come to bite one of them in the butt when midterms came back.

Once school was over and most of their classmates had left, Leo went to the locker in the classroom and picked up a broom. He started sweeping as was his and another girl’s duty this week. Then that girl came up to him with a guilt-ridden face.

“Sorry Leo, could I ask you to take care of the cleaning on your own today? I’m running late for… something.”

“Got a date, don’t you?” Leo asked casually, making the girl flinch. He could see a bit of that anxiety on her face, plus a classmate had claimed to have something to do later after school. Wasn’t hard to put two and two together. “Sure, I’ll do it. But you owe me one.”

“I promise! Thanks, Leo! You’re the best!” the girl took off running, leaving Leo alone to sweep.

“Should you be doing that?” Angela asked, appearing at the door. “Doing favors for free?”

“Like sweeping the classroom is any bother. I’d do it every day if we didn’t have a system in place. Besides, I’ll remind her of this when I need a favor of my own. Say a busty blonde asks me out on a date all of a sudden when I’m on duty. Perfect time to collect my dues, wouldn’t you say?”

Angela snickered. “Very funny. The others are waiting outside and sent me to see if you were done.” She picked up the other broom. “Might as well help out.” She started sweeping the other side of the classroom, though doing so… unevenly and leaving some spots dirty.

“Thanks,” Leo said, keeping silent as he quietly did the spots Angela missed.

“…The coach is coming over for dinner tonight, isn’t she?”

Leo nodded. “She asked me if I could make something from my country. We don’t have very unique cuisine, but I’ll settle for making empanadas. I think you’ll like them.”

“The only time I haven’t liked something you made was that fish stew.”

“I told you, the fish was going bad and I didn’t notice.”

“Then the lady who sold it to you apologized and gave you some free salmon.”

“Oh, right. We used it for rice balls, didn’t we?”

They talked about nothing particularly interesting as they continued sweeping. Once they were done, Leo put away the brooms in the locker and closed it. When he turned around, he found Angela right in front of him. She leaned in and pressed her lips against his. She pushed him against the locker as she deepened the kiss, her tongue assaulting him mercilessly. Leo was more than a little stunned from the sudden surprise, but he eventually recovered enough to reciprocate, holding Angela close as they made out.

It was long and passionate. A kiss like they hadn’t had in a long while, probably since she broke up with him. She sucked on his tongue and messed with his hair, pushing her chest against his. She pulled away breathlessly, staring into his eyes as she breathed deeply.

“Can I… get a short explanation?” Leo asked, also catching his own breath.

“I’ve been getting jealous,” Angela told him. Her voice was quiet and calm. “That’s all.”

“That’s all?”

Angela nodded. She kissed him again, just as hard and just as deeply, moving one of her hands down to his firm butt and giving it a squeeze. “Are you sleeping with the coach tonight?”

“If she wants to,” Leo answered.

She went for a third kiss, losing none of her intensity with every consecutive one. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and Leo couldn’t resist the temptation to grope her ass one more second. They stayed like that for a long while in the empty, quiet classroom until Angela finally pulled away.

“…Dammit,” she said with small smile and a furrowed brow. She then quickly turned away from him and took a deep breath. “Almost forgot you might be able to read my mind if you look at my face long enough.”

“It’s doesn’t quite work like that, but… yeah,” he chuckled.

“Can I ask you not to ask questions?”

“You couldn’t answer even if I did,” he shrugged. “Let’s go. We’ve kept the others waiting enough.”

“Yeah. And I’m getting hungry. Be sure to make enough for seconds, alright?”

“Always.”

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