Chapter 183: Mom and Dad Are Back
After the fireworks festival, the lives of Kaede and Eriri returned to peace. Since school was starting soon, neither of them had the motivation to run around everywhere. While diligently drawing manga at home, they adjusted their biological clocks to avoid difficulty adjusting once school started.
At 7:30 in the morning, Kaede felt an itch on his face and groggily woke up.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw Eriri reaching out a finger and stroking the faint stubble on his chin back and forth.
"...What are you doing?"
"Hehe, I just thought this stubble was getting a bit noticeable. I hadn't realized it before."
"It's normal for me to be growing a beard at this age. Besides, I don't have the habit of keeping one. If I shave too often, it won't be as soft as it was at first."
While speaking, Kaede got out of bed and stretched.
"Or are you saying Eriri wants me to grow a beard?"
"Let's skip that. It's too prickly."
Seeing Kaede get up, Eriri stopped lying in bed and quickly got up too.
Since she hadn't stayed up late these days, she had essentially developed the good habit of waking up early.
After washing up, the two went to the kitchen together to prepare breakfast.
While frying eggs, Eriri asked, "Kaede-kun, aren't your uncle and aunt coming back today?"
"Yes, the flight arrives at 2 PM."
While brewing coffee, Kaede said, "Do you want to come with me, Eriri? It's going to be quite hot this afternoon."
"Go? Of course I'll go!" Eriri said with a smile. "Besides, when she called last night, didn't Aunt Reiko say she brought me gifts? She said they were all delicious things."
"Delicious things, huh..."
Kaede thought back. His parents' last stop on their trip was Chengdu. If she mentioned delicious things, and they were local specialties... combined with his mother's personality, Kaede already had a prediction.
However, Eriri didn't know any of this. She only knew that Auntie brought her delicious things, so she remained very excited.
Kaede, who had basically guessed correctly, decided not to tell her yet.
After breakfast, Kaede and Eriri started their day's work. Since they had to pick up the plane in the afternoon, and Eriri's parents would also come over for dinner in the evening, they needed to draw a little more before leaving.
The serialization in Jump had gotten on track after the first chapter. Regarding the magazines, the two only collected the issue containing the first chapter; for subsequent issues, they only planned to check the comments online after the new issues came out.
However, according to news from Editor Izumi, quite a few readers had already sent in reader votes for Nurarihyon no Mago.
It was just that... while drawing storyboards, Kaede heard Eriri next to him say, "Ugh... I really want to play games. I haven't touched a game in three days..."
This couldn't be helped. If it were just daily life plots, it wouldn't require much effort, but since the manga had many battle scenes starting early on, and also involved various monsters, there couldn't be any oversight. This was much harder than when Eriri used to draw ordinary characters.
Finishing a storyboard panel, Kaede said with a smile, "It's just today. Hang in there. School starts in a few days. Didn't I tell you we'd take the two days before school starts off and not draw?"
Putting down her pen, Eriri counted on her fingers and said, "If we go by what Kaede-kun said, then excluding today, we still have to draw for two more days."
"Only two days? Are you already giving up?"
"It's not that I can't keep going."
Eriri shook her twin tails and said, "I'm just suddenly feeling emotional about how big the difference in workload is between a doujin artist and a manga artist."
"Even when I took commissions before, I wasn't this tired. And luckily, Kaede-kun helps me, and we cooperate well. If I had to find a new assistant to draw, I might not even be able to submit the manuscript steadily every week."
"Hearing you say that, Eriri, it seems you can't live without me."
"Ah! Don't randomly add vague definitions to my words!" Eriri said, blushing, and reached out both hands to push Kaede.
After messing around for a while, the two returned to work.
Although the reasons were different every time, Eriri would pull this kind of stunt every now and then, which seemed to be her own way of deliberately adjusting her mood.
She was quite cute.
Kaede knew very well that being a professional manga artist could be very boring. Coupled with the fact that they were still students and had to balance their studies, Eriri would become even more tired, and it was normal for her to feel depressed and have reduced motivation.
Therefore, he did not try to stop Eriri's method of adjusting her mindset.
However, this alone wasn't enough. Kaede felt he needed to think of more ways to prevent their future life from becoming too monotonous.
Of course, he didn't need to think about it today, because something interesting was about to happen.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, Kaede and Eriri arrived at the airport on time.
There was usually a gap of varying length after a flight arrived before passengers emerged, so they weren't in a hurry; arriving on time was enough.
After waiting at the arrival gate for about fifteen minutes, they finally saw Asakura Kiichi and Asakura Reiko, pulling their suitcases and smiling broadly.
As soon as she came out, Asakura Reiko saw her waiting son and Eriri. After handing her luggage to her husband, she immediately jogged over.
Upon reaching the two, she hugged Eriri without a word.
"Eriri~~~ We're back~~~"
Seeing this, Kaede showed an unsurprised smile; he knew his mom would definitely pull a stunt like this.
Hugging Asakura Reiko, Eriri said with a smile, "Welcome back, Auntie Reiko, did you have fun?"
"Of course, I did! We went to so many places!"
After letting go of Eriri, Asakura Reiko looked at her son and said, "Kaede-kun doesn't look disappointed at all, how boring."
"I already guessed it. Don't I know what kind of person you are, Mom?" Kaede looked at his mom helplessly, then went to his dad, who had followed behind, and took a suitcase from him.
"Let's go, the taxi is already called."
After leaving the airport and getting into the pre-booked taxi, the four of them went straight back to the apartment.
After half a month, Asakura Reiko arrived at the apartment and immediately began inspecting the cleanliness of the house.
"Hmm, not bad, not bad. The hygiene is very good; the house is kept very clean."
She inspected everything inside and out, and also noticed that Eriri's room was missing a pillow and blanket, both of which were in her son's room. Asakura Reiko returned to the living room as if nothing had happened.
"Alright, now for the delicious treats I promised to bring you!"
Soon, Eriri looked at the individually sealed packages, wrapped in bright red seasoning, that Asakura Reiko was pulling out of the suitcase, and showed a puzzled expression.
As for Kaede, everything was as he expected, and he swallowed hard.
Spicy rabbit heads, delicious.