‹Ginji›

Ey, you already know where this is going since this is a fluffing day in a life kind of thing.

Of course, I wake up—I open my eyes, and then realize that I am very dissatisfied that my electric fan is not blowing cold air to me. But rest assured, the fan won't blow up any time soon. I personally trained it to have great endurance.

I have a confession to make however. The first thing I do in the morning is open my phone and browse Instanyan for the art that has been posted while I was asleep. But technically even without Instanyan, I pretty much use my phone right after I open my eyes since my alarm rings at 8am even if I don't follow it much and go back to sleep for another hour. Nonetheless, I think that that habit is not really that surprising at this point. I'm not the only one who does that, really.

Afterwards, I of course get up and either make my daily cup of coffee or go to the potty. Pull a reverse YUNO card on those two and I won't even complain.

Even though I have been drinking coffee ever since… sixth grade? I actually did a research about that and realized that it was actually not a really good thing to drink in that age. But anyway, I still haven't perfected my blend. Everyday is always something—sometimes it's sweet, too sweet, bitter, a tad acidic, or it is so bland it feels like I'm just drinking water.

Morning drink aside, I actually began to make my own breakfast a few months ago after getting the basics of Gin's knowledge and muscle memory, and it just happened that I only know what my ideal breakfast everyday is if I am not running late. Then again, it is summer vacation so I have all the time to sleep in.

Pretty much, I make garlic bread every single day, but I only follow my own ways in doing it. I usually prepare some kind of… I don't really know if I would call it a compound butter since I just put chopped garlic in the butter and put it back on the fridge for a few days of use. I put it on the pan to melt then make both sides of the bread absorb the fat. Once I have done two slices, I just use the same pan to fry an egg and put a smiley on it with ketchup. It is a plus point if the garlic gets cooked since I like its subtle bitterness.

And that's how I do that thing called breakfast.

~ ~ ~

So of course it is summer and it is stupidly hot. I am not that kind of person who will opt to travel like for instance to the beach. Firstly, I don't have money, so I'd rather waste away my summer in the house and barely even leave although the pandemic has been stopped.

But a few things regarding that have changed.

Every morning after I fill my stomach with an egg and bread, I step out to take a walk and go to wherever my feet lead me. I said that, but I usually just go to the nearest mall and watch the construction of a train station that is about to be finished in a few months. I really hope that that will be my hero against all the traffic to Ryhan when I will finally enter CSU.

I would usually be found in the highest floor of a tall public building on the opposite side of the road against the mall and station pretty much just to look at the view while I try to ignore the traffic below me.

So how do I actually mean with sleeping in? Basically, the most time that I can oversleep is two hours after my alarm rings. At least I still have a very tiny bit of sleeping discipline, but that's pretty significant as I am working part time in Stylo Studios for a while now.

I only come to work on weekdays with Nagi starting from 11am to 5pm in the afternoon, and then I will go to Yuuga's apartment in Sector T1 to help out in his manga as his assistant, and come home at around 8 in the evening.

That sounds like a very little time, but trust me I can do so much in that three hours.

Back in Stylo, I am under their advertising and branding section where I get to make promotion posters of products. I am however not allowed to take part on any logo designs as they actually consider it as something profound, and that my skills are still green to do them. But seeing that I am in this division of work, there is probably the one thing that I wasted my time on but actually liked so much.

There is a good chance that Gin and Ringo have never told this but there is actually some quirky stuff happening in his kitchen which I have actually seen it in person. Gin absolutely hates labeling his things, especially jars. It's not that he doesn't label his things in his pantry, but what he hates are janky labels—like putting a sticky paper or tape-on-paper where he sees his handwriting on them. That sounds so overly disorganized to not do, but it is actually the opposite.

He is stupid enough to make a vector layout that he can print on a sticker paper and remove the original label of his condiments and spices, as if he is making his own brand. Heck, he will go all the way to also print for the top of the lids.

I thought, it was actually a very ingenious idea; but in reality, it is so stupid and is a very big waste of resources even for graphic designers since you're only seeing it in your own house.

But hey, I liked the concept so much because I feel like it's a novelty.

So I used the opportunity to learn from professionals and made my own print layout in the studio itself as long as I am going to replace the ink and the other materials I used myself. Now our spice cabinet looks like the spice shelf in the supermarket because of that, and life in the kitchen has become way easier as I spent more time there than ever before.

Nooooonetheless, it is pretty much a given that I went for a quick shower so as to get ready for work. I don't know if this is a saying or not, but creative ideas really come on the situations we don't expect, and the most frustrating thing is when your brain begins brainstorming right when you go to sleep, and then you can't stop your mind then sleep at 2am. Sadly, I was not able to grasp any creative inspiration and just headed out to the studio.

To the studio…!

The studio actually opens at 9am from Monday to Saturday, whilst the employees can decide to work from home on Sunday. I guess there is a silver lining to the bitter happenings at the start of the year.

The office itself has an area of 800sqm in a perfectly architectural square, two-floor building. The very first room of the first floor is a lounge room after an entrance hall where every employee goes through the time recorder machine before coming to the main room. Pretty much, the lounge area is the only partitioned room on this floor as the chief wants a more open communication to all the people and the sections, therefore the individual desks do not have a separation.

What is actually amazing in this huge workspace is that the desks are PACKED so much that I had to stress it like that. What I mean about it is that you can definitely see the investments placed on every unit in the office as they are all quite specced.

Upon entrance to the office, every employee needs to clean the place near his desk and those that are still unoccupied so that the whole place is sanitized around the clock. And so, the first thing I did is to clean my proximity and check if the other employees missed a speck of dust on the empty desks.

And yes, part timers like Nagi and I actually have a desk and a PC to work on. With all the sanitation finished, I finally turned on the unit I am using.

"Ah, Ginji! You're finally here!" suddenly, an employee on the 3D section spotted me and called.

I approached his desk and asked what could be the concern.

"You see, our technician is off for the day and I haven't done a pixel of work since my unit won't boot up but the monitor works fine. Any guesses?"

"Is this also the one that had the same issue for a few days now?"

"Yeah… I'm just glad that I didn't have a deadline. Anyway, I tried replugging the monitor but still nothing."

"Don't mind if I do…" I crouched down and pulled out the PC itself and removed the cover.

Ever since WT I have pretty much become another technician here as I coincidentally have too much knowledge about hardware so I was able to fix some issues without the need of being taught.

"Has power… GPU fans and others are spinning so the board is good… heat sink is getting warm…"

I unplugged the unit and took out the RAM sticks from the slots. Since there are two sticks, I cleaned them first and I tried to leave them individually to see if the display will show up or if I can jump to the BIOS if it boots up.

It'll be quite tiring to explain everything, though.

"Ahhh… I think we have one dead RAM here. You won't be able to work with just one 8GB stick, right?"

"Yeah… I need to render a lot today. Does it need to be replaced?"

"Yes."

"Alright, then," he pressed the intercom on his desk, "Sir Sans, my unit needs one 8GB RAM replacement."

"Alright. You're with Ginji, right? He can take one from upstairs."

"You heard him."

"On my way, then."

The second floor of the building isn't really used apart from utilities and storage. And when I mean storage, physical and virtual, so the floor is still very delicate as the servers are situated there.

This time, I went to the physical storage to swap out the RAM stick and labeled the one dead. But that's not the only thing there. The studio actually has storage of replacement parts. There are peripherals, power supplies, RAM, hard disks, solid state drives that a few are even M.2, and most frighteningly, there is a stash of CPUs and GPUs in there that is probably worth more than 300000 Laxes that is equal to $6000 or most likely more. I do think that my estimates are way inaccurate.

I'm actually scared of this place, so I quickly scrammed.

Thankfully though, that fixes the problem after a memory test.

With that, I can finally go to work on my o-

"Lunch break, Ginji!"

Sir Sans himself called as he is walking with a few of his employees and with Nagi.

"I've been clocked for only an hour! (lol)

Anyway, I'll follow!"

…

"It's rare for you to invite a group for lunch, Sir Sans."

"Well, it's my first time in Giotto's so I decided to pull you and Nagi with us."

"Actually Sir Sans, my friend told me that he works there. Do you remember the one in the camp?" said an employee.

"Ah, the one with the gray hair. That's him, right, Nagi?"

"Yes."

Hearing that, I approached my senior and walked beside him.

"So you know Gin Sakato, Martin?"

"Yup. I was the president of the Art Club when he was a first year."

"So you were an alumnus."

~ ~ ~

As anyone would expect at this point, this is Giotto's, so an incredible lunch had as assured without punching a hole in our wallets. And yes, the boss did not treat us as much I actually wanted it.

But speaking of restaurants, I indeed worked on teaser posters of Hosa Restaurant of Presto that is confirmed to have its second branch here in Sector 527, but in a decent ways away from this one. I became aware of that because we were informed of its address where the construction is happening, and now I am looking at my own work hanging on lampposts promoting the opening of that restaurant.

I did not join on the school trip, but I actually felt slightly guilty as I could have helped Gin and Ryota more on the stopping of the truck incident. But nevertheless, that was the only thing I heard from them and their experience in Hosa. From how they described that place, it looks like the branch here would be packing some myriad of flavors, and that it became more popular exponentially ever since the changing of weather system in this country. Presto was cold enough on its own, but winter just made it so easy to sip some of their specialty soup. So knowing that they aim to finish everything before the third quarter of the year ends, I know where I'm going to invite Yui next.

That is, if I actually find some time as I still don't know if I will be able to actually manage my time once I become a college student.

…

Actually, Sir Sans treated us with desserts as takeout and ate them at work. He is actually a lenient one on snacking small in front of your desks as long as your cookie crumbs won't get anywhere. But finally, I am able to tend to my own station. What's great on this office is that you can plan out your agenda for the next day before you clock out and put that right in your Desktop, as most of our units are running in Wind*ows. Do M*c users also call it desktop? I don't really know much about that since I'm not in Ap*le ecosystem.

Well, great. I actually don't have any ad designs to do for today. Even though I am in the branding section, it is actually a good thing to be some kind of an all-around in this studio as you can provide further help on tasks where my seniors need. This time, I am going to be under the animation section.

Yes, there is animation section. But strictly speaking, Stylo is not an animation studio, while we still do animations. The section along with the 3D section exists to be hired by full-fledged animation studios on doing keyframes, motions, 3DCG, and even illustrations. For a while now, the animation section has been working with UsaPyon Animation in Japan and it just so happened that they will be broadcasting two anime in two consecutive seasons, which are Spring and Summer 2020.

I was tasked to color an illustration today in two versions. The first one is replicating UsaPyon's way of cel shade which involves so much reference illustrations in my face, and the second is color with the colorist's own style—and it will be promoted both.

So basically, I'm personally paid for this one since I will have the rights on it!

But because we don't have the same equipment as UsaPyon, I had to color the main poster with unconventional ways that is conventional in my case. Matching the shading and the correct colors, however, are extremely hard. So I burned through my remaining three and a half hours with only plotting the solid colors on the secondary version.

I am still on schedule, though.

I then sorted out my work outline for tomorrow and shut off my station and clocked out for the day. With that, I came to Yuuga in search for free dinner.

That is indeed shameless, but I am not a potato, let alone a shameless potato.

~ ~ ~

"You don't get tired of giving me buildings to ink, sensei…"

"That's just fine. You've become more proficient in using a G-Pen."

"Did Ringo come today?"

"Nope. She said she'll play a bit with Mina tomorrow and then do work here."

"Uh, sensei. I thought I was only inking buildings, but I still don't know how to draw this kind of flower."

"Oh, didn't notice that. Sorry.

Can you scan that and then put it on the software? I'll draw them then you can print it back."

"Gee… you have an insane printer, Yuuga."

"Well, that was a gift from the publisher so I take care of it a lot."

"By the way, what exactly are you going to do in Japan?"

"Mghhh… Stuff? I'll just let sensei lead us."

"I'm quite surprised that Minase's parents actually allowed her to come with you?

I get Gin and Ringo, but her father is quite trusting on Gin. How about you?"

"Nah, I had to beg a little. I also want to bring her friend, Erika, but we'll go out of budget. Why did the conversation suddenly went like this anyway?"

"Yui's dad is very unpredictable, but he seems like he's not going for my head.

Oh, that's a good idea, Yuuga. When do you plan to make Taiyou confess to Mayumi again?"

"Around chapter 40+ or something…? Why though?"

"Why not make Mayumi's dad an unpredictable fellow? I'll tell you how to describe him."

"Ohh, let's make the profile once we're done here.

Ah, I need to make dinner. Assistant-san, would you mind helping me?"

"As long as I'll get to eat it."

"Alright. My food processor broke so you'll have to grind the pork manually."

In plain sight, I took a wooden cutting board and two knives for my two hands.

"I'll be fast so I'll try not to cut your board along the way."

"Can you actually do that?"

"Yeah. But Gin can cut this like butter."

"What?!"

…

I am blessed with a great lunch and awesome dinner, but it is finally time for me to go home.

I actually sort of like going around outside at night since no one will really notice me, and even if I begin jumping on roofs as silently as a cat, no one will see my face in the dark. That is actually how I go home at night ever since I learned how to stabilize my core while I am midair. And to add, so many months of practice finally paid off because I am now able to land from my jumps easily without spraining my ankles.

Because of that, I got home in no time and landed on my bed immediately after realizing that I got a headache from too much eye concentration on the anime poster and inking buildings on the manga.

But then my phone sounded just beside my ear only to see that Yui Akina has messaged me.

8:13PM

Boop

gud eve

just came home?

yuuuup

u don't have work on weekends right?

yeah?

I'm pretty much free on sat sun

y tho

dad needs his power tools

*sigh*

hahahahahahahaha

‹Pretty much in Yui's dad's eyes, I am equal to power tools because I can do what those tools can with my hand.›

awwight

Yay uwu

oh right you mentioned the Linear light blending mode to me a while back right?

??

yeah you were so hopeless since u cant figure out what ur doing lol

twas actually very effective

thanks

ehhhhhh

ur welcome

welp gonna watvh anime

watch*

talk to u later

okay!

▪ ▪ ▪

And that is it for my day. I just watch my missed anime on the night and catch up with stuff, then I'm off to bed to wake up on another day. But if I have to say, I am very glad that there is something that can pull me up from a day's worth of fatigue. May it be my hobby, my likes, or the other kind of like.

I am happy enough that I can still go on even without looking forward so much on what is to come tomorrow.

I will now sleep, so with that…

Goodnight.