All Beautiful Girls Want to Stick with Me

Before she even had time to think, Hibiki Naegi suddenly felt a weight descend onto her shoulder. When she came back to her senses, she realized that Eiren Kanagawa, who had been sitting across from her, had abruptly thrown down her chopsticks and was tightly gripping Hibiki’s shoulder with her slender, pale right hand.

Despite how thin that hand looked, it was astonishingly strong at this moment, like a massive boulder pressing down on Hibiki Naegi’s shoulder and leaving her completely unable to resist.

”K-Kanagawa-sensei...”

Hibiki Naegi looked at Eiren Kanagawa with panic in her eyes, unable to understand what she was trying to do.

”Where are you going?”

For some reason, Eiren Kanagawa’s voice, which had sounded perfectly normal just moments earlier, had suddenly become extremely hoarse, sending an inexplicable chill of fear through Hibiki Naegi.

”K-Kanagawa-sensei, I-I was just going to call my little sister first...”

Hibiki Naegi explained somewhat nervously.

After hearing that Hibiki Naegi was not trying to leave, Eiren Kanagawa’s tone and voice immediately returned to normal. A smile whose sincerity was impossible to judge also appeared on her face as she said:

”It’s better not to make phone calls while you’re eating. Focus on your food and eat slowly. You can call your little sister after we’ve finished. It won’t be too late then.”

Even as she spoke, Eiren Kanagawa’s right hand never released Hibiki Naegi’s shoulder. On the contrary, compared with before, her grip became even stronger. It was as though she were using that gesture as a silent language to tell Hibiki Naegi:

’I don’t care what you’re thinking right now. All I want is for you to sit down obediently and keep me company while we eat. Forget one minute. I can’t accept you disappearing from my sight for even a single second!’

Faced with Eiren Kanagawa’s overwhelming forcefulness, Hibiki Naegi froze for a moment before obediently nodding and sitting back down.

But Eiren Kanagawa seemed as though she were still not satisfied and continued:

”Put your phone on the table, then stop paying attention to it and focus on eating. I’m also using this as a way to train your concentration.

”The most obvious weakness I’ve noticed in most students I’ve taught is insufficient concentration. They always think they simply don’t have enough time, when the truth is that they can’t calm themselves amid all the distractions around them and completely immerse themselves in painting. So if you want to improve your artistic ability, the first thing you need to improve is your concentration.

”The fact that your previous level of painting was enough to qualify for the first exhibition of the Tokyo Metropolitan University National Youth Painting Award proves that you do possess a certain degree of concentration. It’s simply not enough yet.”

Hibiki Naegi did as Eiren Kanagawa instructed, then asked with some curiosity:

”Kanagawa-sensei, will improving my concentration really improve my painting?”

”Not necessarily. But excellent concentration will definitely allow you to immerse yourself more deeply in the world of painting. It’s easy to tell from your previous works that your mind is currently in turmoil.

”Especially in the works you’ve produced recently, whether oil paintings or practice sketches. One casual glance is enough for me to see that you can’t keep your brush steady while painting.

”And you don’t have any physiological hand tremor. The reason you can’t hold your brush steadily is that your attention frequently drifts toward things that put you under pressure. That distracts you and gradually eats away at your confidence.

”If someone lacks confidence, forget producing a beautiful painting. Simply standing inside the examination room for an art entrance exam might make them so nervous that they can no longer keep their brush steady.

”So right now, what you need to improve isn’t just your concentration, but your self-confidence as well. Improving your actual technique isn’t nearly as urgent.”

Every assessment Eiren Kanagawa gave Hibiki Naegi struck directly at the heart of the matter. While Hibiki felt somewhat embarrassed, she also experienced a sudden sense of enlightenment. So these are the reasons I’ve fallen into a bottleneck?!

If Teacher Kanagawa says I don’t need to rush to improve my technique, doesn’t that also mean I actually have some talent for painting?

People sometimes said that teachers could tell at a glance what their students were thinking.

That saying really was true.