2 Chapter 2
◎My wife Sayuri◎
Chapter 2 [My Wife Sayuri]
"Sayuri~ I need two cups of milk tea here—"
"Here I am!" she replied with an energetic voice, and then the sound of milk tea being prepared began. In just a few moments, Sayuri Agatsuma had brought the milk tea the customer had requested to the counter.
All the staff in this milk tea shop are dressed in exaggerated costumes of 2D characters, and the milk tea cups are printed with various characters. If you don't tell them, everyone will think that this is a collaboration with the work. But in fact, this is not the case. Instead, the author of this comic was saved by the owner, and later worked in the shop, directly authorizing the owner to produce related peripherals. Of course, when this matter is only known by the parties involved, outsiders will still think it is a collaboration.
Thanks to the comic work becoming a huge hit on the Internet, the author mentioned a joint event in the work, and the first batch of customers who tasted the milk tea were naturally the readers of the work.
Because the milk tea tastes good and is reasonably priced, and the unique "linkage" between the shop assistants and the milk tea cups makes the milk tea shop widely praised by the two-dimensional audience.
The few negative reviews focused on regrets such as “Why can’t they open a branch in my city?” and “It’s too far away and I can only go once in a while.”
Comic readers are often also readers of other comics. With the spread of the second dimension to the second dimension, this place has gradually become a food mecca for readers of the second dimension. After becoming famous in the second dimension, because the milk tea tastes quite good, it has attracted the general public and caused a sensation again.
This breakout opportunity was fueled by the critically acclaimed original manga serialized by my wife, Sayuri, on the website. After winning a newcomer award for her recently completed short story, her new series has been a huge hit since its release. Each update tops the homepage trending charts for a day or two, and then maintains a high position, often surpassing established IPs.
With such popularity, Agatsuma Sayuri could easily support herself by maintaining a steady update frequency. Even the boss who took Agatsuma Sayuri in when she was broke felt that she no longer needed to work at the milk tea shop. However, this girl, who couldn't even remember her real name or age, made an offer the boss couldn't refuse: to collaborate her manga with the milk tea shop.
Originally a coffee shop, it was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was thanks to my wife Sayuri's suggestion that it was transformed into a milk tea shop, which gave it a new lease on life. Later, thanks to collaborations with Sayuri's works, the milk tea shop's sales skyrocketed. The owner couldn't find a reason to refuse her suggestion.
Just like that, the milk tea shop on a secluded street became a craze. And Agatsuma Sayuri had the perfect excuse to get all the employees to dress up in the manga character costumes, along with her. She herself enjoyed the experience, tying her long hair into twin ponytails to cheer herself up, applying beautiful, exaggerated makeup to hide her haggard look, and using brightly colored clothes to transform herself into a cheerful girl.
It’s not that my wife Sayuri doesn’t remember her past, it’s just that she doesn’t remember the past of this body.
The last memory of her past life was of her fainting at work, the dark ground approaching her. When she woke up, she was Sayuri Agatsuma, lying penniless on the side of the road.
She had nothing beside her except a note that read "Sayuri, my wife." No phone, no contacts, no money, no driver's license, and no other proof of identity. She sat on the ground, dazed, staring at the people standing around her. Everyone spoke Japanese, and as a Chinese woman, she hadn't inherited her original Japanese skills, so she could only speak the halting Japanese she'd learned from watching anime.
Even her name, "がさいさゆり," was pronounced by others for her, and she had to memorize it many times because the pronunciation of her surname was strange.
"It's really pitiful. He can hardly even speak."
"Without memories of the past, wouldn't that make me an illegal resident?"
“…”
…
She looked around in confusion, at the strange people, strange streets and strange language, her heart filled with fear and panic.
Some bystanders felt pity, others sympathized, and some kindheartedly called the police. However, the police filed a case against my wife, Sayuri, but were unable to find any information. They left me with the words, "Go back and wait for news," and then let her go.
Go back? But where could she go back to?
Suddenly, she was driven away from her hometown, became an illegal immigrant, and had no money. The only thing she was given was a pork chop rice at the police station. She ended up living on the streets until she was taken in by a coffee shop owner who was looking for someone to work.
This is why my wife Sayuri is stranded alone in Tokyo.
The anime industry in this world seems slightly behind the times before she traveled through time. Manga is still mostly hand-drawn, and animation is mostly based on cel animation, with a few incorporating unique filming techniques. This explains why Agatsuma Sayuri stands out among the newcomers in the comic book world. While her previous life's job was indeed just an ordinary white-collar worker, she was secretly a top-notch doujinshi artist.
This top refers to the "top" that is among the best in terms of painting skills and output.
She started out by drawing the character "Morofukoshi Kagemitsu" who only appeared in a few scenes in "Detective Conan", but after only a few paintings she began to accept custom drafts, including those of various characters, but she no longer drew Morofukoshi Kagemitsu.
Is it because she has fallen in love with another character?
But that's not the case. If I were to explain why...
Just look at the fact that she is still wearing a key chain of Morufushi Kagemitsu and the cute rabbit backpack with a Morufushi Kagemitsu doll hanging on it, and you can tell that she loves it very much.
The reason she painted him was love, and the reason she stopped painting him was also love. Not wanting others to see the face of the person she loved, Agatsuma Sayuri capriciously "hid" all of Morofushi Kagemitsu's works, putting them where only she could see them.
After traveling through time and space to a world without Detective Conan, Agatsuma Sayuri felt awkward and thought, "My favorite person is so handsome, so perfect, and so unique, how could no one know about him?" She started making peripheral products of Morobushi Kagemitsu again.
This time, she no longer wanted to sell them, but instead kept them with her, hoping to see his smile at her anytime, anywhere.
Another ordinary workday ended. My wife Sayuri stroked the chibi-version image of a black-haired man on her keychain, thinking to herself, "Keychain Kagemitsu has worked hard today. Should I make a new one? Let this Kagemitsu take a break."
The woman made a heart shape with her hands to Jingguang who had always encouraged her to work hard, then smiled and said goodbye to all the store employees.
The apartment she rented wasn't far from the milk tea shop, a small studio the owner had recommended to her when she first arrived. It was affordable and close to her workplace, which was a real help at the time. However, after becoming more financially comfortable, its shortcomings became apparent.
Too small!
The toilet, bathroom, kitchen and bedroom are squeezed into a mere 12 square meters room. Even in Japan, where everything is made very small, there is still no room for anything else after cramming in the necessities.
She could only take her handmade cosplay costumes to the milk tea shop as much as possible and distribute them to the staff, or put them up online to sell as quickly as possible. These were costumes from her own comics, and she didn't feel bad about selling them.
That would have been fine, but she had nowhere to put the posters, small cards, colored papers, standees, acrylic bricks, bajii, dolls and various other peripherals of her favorite Morobushi Kagemitsu!
Even if she had to pile them on the bed, the increasing number had reached the point where she had nowhere to sleep.
After recently making a life-sized Morofushi Kagemitsu pillow, Agatsuma Sayuri was faced with the current situation: carefully opening the door to let the accumulated peripherals spill out of the room, then going inside to collect the peripherals that escaped the door and bring them back inside.
Every time she opened the door, she had to spend half an hour to put them back. Even if she didn't find it troublesome, she felt sad when Zhu Fu Jingguang dropped them on the ground!
After arranging the surroundings neatly again, keeping them in a shaky but not falling balance, Agatsuma Sayuri sighed silently.
"It seems that I have to change my residence."
She did it right away. She browsed her phone for a while on the bed where it was difficult for her to turn around, and found a nearby real estate agency. Although she could ask the milk tea shop owner for help again, the other party was only good at renting employee dormitories, and it might be difficult for him to understand the huge storage needs of the two-dimensional world.
It is better to entrust professional matters to professionals.
My wife, Sayuri, found a large, unremarkable apartment. Because it was old, the landlord offered a low price and agreed to some modifications to the walls, as long as the tenant could restore it to its original state upon moving out.
When the real estate agent asked the client about his needs, he confirmed, "Is it for hanging the peripherals you made yourself?"
"Yeah." My wife Sayuri showed the Q version of the doll on the keychain, and greeted the intermediary while holding the doll's hand.
"Hahaha, very cute. Which comic book character is this?"
At this point, Sayuri paused, then hesitantly said, "It's a relatively unknown character, so you might not have heard of him. He's Morobushi Kagemitsu from Detective Conan."
"Ah, I really don't know much about comics. Sorry."
The woman lowered her brows. She knew it wasn't that the agent didn't understand the manga, but rather that Detective Conan had never existed in this world to begin with.
The character she loved, the only character she loved, wasn't even born.
===
Agatsuma Sayuri's current savings can allow her to rent this house for more than five years. Even if her future comics do not receive a good response, she can still make a living for a long time just by relying on the salary from the milk tea shop.
Until this day, life began to get better for my wife Sayuri.
On the day of moving, she hired a moving company and carefully packed up her beloved belongings one by one, taking only a few pendants, key chains, and dolls with her, just like she would on a normal day going to work at the milk tea shop.
The staff helping with the move didn't look particularly strong, but they lifted her belongings with ease. Agatsuma Sayuri barely moved anything—in fact, when she tried to move, she was sternly rebuffed, leaving her to jog behind them to keep up.
She hurriedly followed here and there, and finally got on the car. She didn't even have time to take another look at the surrounding scenery. She was so tired that she was gasping for breath.
Naturally, she didn't see that a golden figure picked up a Q-version peripheral that she had dropped from the ground, and showed a pensive expression at the gradually moving away car.
Moving is a big project. Even if you have eight strong men to help pile all the luggage into the living room, it will take a long time to clean the house, unpack the boxes, and put the items back where they belong.
My wife Sayuri spent a whole month buying new furniture, customizing display cabinets, and placing peripherals in the display cabinets. Then, after discovering that the display cabinets were too empty, she immersed herself in the work of making peripherals.
So it wasn't until a month later that she realized that there was a keychain without a pendant on her bag, hanging alone among a pile of pendants.
"No……"
"No."
"No!"
My wife, Sayuri, turned the new house upside down, even contacted the landlord of her old house and checked the previous rental house again. It turned out that this house hadn't been rented out yet, otherwise she wouldn't be able to go there even if she wanted to.
These past few days, she was so distracted that she even worked in the milk tea shop. Not only did she take the initiative to clean up the shop inside and out, she also checked the surrounding areas.
She leaned against the counter, her chin in her hand, mumbling to herself, "Where on earth did it go? I've already asked the moving company to look for it in the car we left that day, and they definitely didn't leave it there... Could it have fallen on the road? Then I'm afraid it'll be swept up by the garbage truck."
The store manager was furious when he saw her distracted. My wife, Sayuri, was his cash cow, but even as a seasoned waiter, she had already made 12 incorrect milk teas, called out the wrong character's name once, and accidentally knocked over a topping just because she was looking for a charm.
"Sayuri, have you searched the back alley for the pendant? If not, go look there now after get off work and take out the trash while you're at it."
The back alley is where most of the street's garbage is dumped. Although garbage trucks arrive daily, most of the trash is food. Over time, the air becomes filled with the pungent smell of spoiled food. Employees rushing to take out the trash hold their breath, throwing away the trash as quickly as possible and running away. Who would linger there for long?
The store manager said such difficult things just to make my wife, Sayuri, give up.
Unexpectedly, my wife Sayuri gave me a fist pump, and then thanked me as if she had suddenly understood something. "You are indeed worthy of being the store manager. I really haven't found it there. Thank you, I will go look for it right away!"
She grabbed her belongings, turned around, and rushed to the back door of the milk tea shop, leaving the manager standing there yelling, "Take the trash with you! Hey!"
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