"Nobody could have imagined that 'Manga Artist Fujin,' the kid we all used to tease, would actually become a real manga artist."
The moment Furuta finished speaking, there was a clatter. The chopsticks in Hasegawa's hand hit the floor.
He didn't even bend down to pick them up. His fingers were trembling as he asked in disbelief. "What did you say? A manga artist? Fujin?!"
"Yeah." Furuta tilted his head and nodded, a distant look crossing his face.
When he'd first run into Kai at Shueisha, he thought it was just an old friend passing through.
Then suddenly, the guy was a hit manga artist.
Even though it had already happened, it still felt like a dream. Completely unreal.
The others were stunned too. After being ground down by the real world, things like fame or financial freedom were fantasies. Just having a stable life was already an achievement.
Everyone was struggling and barely getting by.
A manga artist? How could something that bizarre come out of their ordinary, unremarkable lives?
"That Fujin? He actually made it."
"I always thought he was just daydreaming."
"Hey," Sayuri, the only girl at the table, turned to Yuta after her initial shock. "Kawata, did you know about this? Did you come to Tokyo because of Fujin... Fujin-sensei?"
Yuta uncrossed his legs and sat up straight, spine rigid, to show he was being serious.
"That's right. Kai is already a well-known, household-name manga artist."
Pairs of curious eyes turned toward him.
Only Hasegawa's gaze looked particularly intense.
"A well-known manga artist?"
He'd instinctively assumed Kai's work was some four-panel comic strip printed in a tabloid for laughs.
Kai Fujin was just a guy earning a measly salary while boasting about being a manga artist. Someone completely overestimating himself.
"You're saying he's well-known?"
He was curious. What kind of nonsense could Yuta possibly come up with?
"He's right." Furuta chimed in, happy to back it up.
"Yeah," Yuta replied calmly. "Kai is the author of Death Note. Ryuji Kanzaki."
Since Kai was holding public autograph sessions and showing his face, there was no reason to keep it a secret.
Yuta didn't need to hide anything.
Besides, Furuta already knew the whole story.
"Death Note! It's actually that manga! You're kidding me."
"What? What?" Sayuri, who didn't read much manga, asked anxiously. "Is that some incredible manga?"
"Not just incredible," Kaga, the newspaper employee, sighed. "It's a phenomenon."
"One of our journalists, Kitagawa-sensei, had his reputation wrecked because he wrote an article looking down on Death Note. Several of his new pitches got rejected and are sitting in a drawer right now."
Yuta's ears perked up. He leaned forward. "Is that the one who wrote 'The Fall of the 24-Year King, Jump'? Kai hasn't taken a single day off because of that article. He's been drawing every single day."
"That's the one," Kaga nodded. He turned to Sayuri to explain further. "Kitagawa-sensei wrote that Death Note was a gimmick-driven manga with no future."
"Turns out Death Note performed insanely well. It became the most popular manga in Jump at one point. And it didn't slow down. It kept climbing, helping to reverse Jump's declining sales, and it set the record for the fastest-selling first collected volume."
"If Jump had a Hall of Fame, Kanzaki would be a first-ballot entry."
"That's amazing!" Sayuri gasped. "What a legend."
She clicked her tongue in wonder. "Fujin actually pulled it off. He actually made his dream come true. That's incredible."
"It really is. I'm a Death Note fan too. I never would have guessed the author was Fujin. That's wild." Kaga smiled, then asked. "Kawata, are you Kanzaki-sensei's assistant now?"
"Yeah." Yuta nodded. "I draw backgrounds and stuff like that every day."
"Hold on." Kaga pulled out a notebook, ready to jot down the insider details.
Then he paused, held up the notebook, and grinned. "This isn't a Death Note, by the way."
Yuta waved him off. "How could something like a Death Note actually exist? Hahaha."
"What even is a Death Note?" Sayuri asked curiously.
"Well, basically..."
The three of them launched into an animated explanation, talking over each other.
Furuta used the distraction to load up his plate.
Hasegawa sat with his head down, his expression shifting and unsettled.
'Kai Fujin is Ryuji Kanzaki?'
'How is this possible?'
Not long ago, he'd been debating with a colleague about whether Light Yagami deserved to die.
His colleague, devastated by Naomi Misora's death, insisted that Light Yagami belonged in the deepest circle of hell.
But Hasegawa didn't care about that. Villains could win. Villains could be protagonists.
Death Note was that rare. Kanzaki had stepped outside the boundaries of shonen manga and carved out a completely new narrative direction.
It made Hasegawa admire the work. Respect it, even.
And now?
Kanzaki was his old high school buddy?
The delusional kid he'd written off as a daydreamer?
The one he'd abandoned. The one he'd shoved to the back of his mind.
Fujin?
Hasegawa had come to this reunion intending to showcase the success of his own life. To prove that the choices he'd made were the right ones.
Yes, after careful consideration, he'd chosen the more reliable path. The animation industry.
That wasn't wrong.
Look. He was doing well. He'd landed at a big studio. He lived in Tokyo. His future was bright. He could become a key animator. Maybe even get promoted to animation director someday.
He wasn't wrong.
Not wrong at all.
...Right?
For the rest of the gathering, Hasegawa sat in a fog. The second round that Furuta had planned had to be scrapped.
Before everyone went their separate ways.
"Kai had to draw manga, so he couldn't make it. He's really sorry about that." Yuta explained on Kai's behalf.
"Can't be helped," Kaga said. "Manga artists are busy people."
Sayuri nodded. "Totally understandable."
The three of them said their reluctant goodbyes.
Hasegawa just waved, then shoved his hands into his pockets and walked off in the opposite direction.
Tokyo was so big. So beautiful. It had always intoxicated him, filling him with endless motivation.
But tonight, Hasegawa was lost.
Streetlights flickered on one after another. The darkness beyond them stretched out, empty. There was nobody around.
He was the only one walking in the whole world.
'I should... just go home.'
"Hasegawa."
Yuta had caught up at some point. He patted Hasegawa on the shoulder. "We didn't get a chance to talk at the party. Let's walk together."
Hasegawa nodded in silence.
Yuta talked to him about the years that had passed.
"Furuta and Kaga got into universities in Tokyo and stayed after graduating."
"Sayuri married a bank employee and became a housewife."
"And you, Hasegawa, put down roots in Tokyo too."
"Only I... didn't have the guts to leave home."
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