Tokyo — a city where dreams and exhaustion look the same from far away.
From the top of Senvidia Tower, the lights stretched endlessly, painting the sky in gold and violet — a masterpiece the city repainted every evening, whether anyone looked or not.
Kaizen Ryou Aizawa, twenty-five, stood quietly near the edge, watching the city that once felt like a miracle.
Now, it only felt… predictable.
Success had a pattern.
So did disappointment.
The world called him a prodigy — the youngest mangaka to reach international fame.
His manga, The Girl I Met Online, had shattered records, winning awards, adaptations, and endless applause.
They called it a story of connection.
They called him a genius who understood loneliness.
Yet Kaizen didn't feel joy or pride.
He felt like a spectator in his own life.
Applause fades faster than silence, he thought.
And silence always comes back.
Behind him, the glass door slid open.
A woman stepped out — Lyra Watanabe, his girlfriend and co-founder of Senvidia.
Her black hair caught the last rays of the sunset, glowing faintly, as if the light itself hesitated to leave her.
"Kaizen," she called softly, "you skipped the afterparty again."
He didn't turn around. "Crowds make it hard to breathe."
Lyra sighed, though her expression remained patient — the kind only built from years of understanding and compromise. She walked up beside him, her tone half gentle, half teasing.
"You won Best Global Manga again. You could at least smile."
Kaizen looked out at the horizon, where the sun sank like a tired god.
"I smiled once," he said. "The world didn't notice."
Lyra chuckled faintly. "You really know how to sound poetic and depressing at the same time."
He almost smiled — almost.
But then his phone buzzed in his pocket.
The name on the screen broke the moment in half.
Manajit Ghosh.
He answered.
"Yo, Manajit. Been a while."
"Kaizen…"
The voice on the other end was uneven, Fractured. "You heard about Simi?"
Kaizen's brow shifted slightly.
That name felt buried — from another lifetime.
Simi.
The girl who first read his rough sketches during science tuition.
The one who laughed at his stick-figure panels and still called them stories.
The one who said, 'You should draw a story about people who meet online.'
His first reader.
His first supporter.
The silent inspiration behind The Girl I Met Online.
"What about her?" he asked quietly.
"She's gone," Manajit said. "Killed… last night. Some random psycho, they say."
The city kept glowing.
Cars kept moving.
Somewhere, people were celebrating.
Kaizen didn't speak for several seconds.
His reflection in the glass window looked calm.
Like someone who had already learned how to lose everything once.
"I see," he finally said. "That's… disappointing."
Manajit paused. "That's all?"
Kaizen watched the last trace of sunlight disappear.
"There's nothing I can say that would change it."
Some truths didn't deserve emotion.
They demanded acceptance.
He ended the call before his voice could waver.
Lyra tilted her head. "Bad news?"
He nodded once. "Someone I used to know."
She didn't press further.
Some silences were boundaries.
That night, Kaizen returned to his Tokyo apartment — a place that looked more like an art museum than a home.
White walls, Cold lighting, Perfection without warmth.
Canvases leaned against every wall.
Half-finished sketches littered the floor like abandoned thoughts.
At the center stood a seven-foot canvas, illuminated by a single lamp.
It showed only half of a girl's face.
One eye gazed into the distance — delicate, haunting, unfinished.
No one knew who she was.
Not even Lyra.
Not even Kaizen… anymore.
He stood before it, expression unreadable.
His hand hovered near the brush, trembling slightly — then stopped.
Creation had once saved him.
Now, it only reminded him of what he couldn't protect.
He whispered to the empty room,
"Disappointing… yeah. Maybe everything is."
The wind howled faintly outside the window.
And for a split second, his right eye glimmered red —
not with anger, not with grief, but with something far more dangerous.
Leaving behind a city, a corpse of the past,
and a story that was only just beginning.
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