VOLUME 1 - EPISODE 11 - [CONTENT WARNING: MA26+]
[NARRATOR: Some things are made because they need to exist somewhere outside the person who's been carrying them. Some things are made because carrying alone stops being sustainable and the only alternative to putting it down wrong is putting it down on paper. Riyura has been building something since graduation. An autobiographical manga — not literally autobiographical, not names and dates and events, but emotionally true in the specific way that things are true when you stop positioning them and let them be what they are. Tonight he shows it to Yakamira for the first time. Tonight Yakamira reads something that contains his own death and says: don't change it. Because it happened. Tonight the comedy returns in the specific way it returns when it's genuine — loud and real and earned rather than armor. And tomorrow at the workshop, Riyura shows something so honest that Hitomi's management fails for longer than a second. Longer than it has ever failed before. And Sakura, watching from the corridor window with her clinical efficiency and her void and her three words written in a notebook, writes a different kind of note. And files it. And sends it. Welcome to the manga that tells the truth. Welcome to when honest things cost the people who encounter them something they didn't expect to pay.]
PART ONE: THE FIRST CHAPTER
He showed it to Yakamira on a Friday evening.
Not dramatically — just: here, I finished the first chapter, read it when you want. Left it on the kitchen table while Yakamira was doing something else. Made tea. Sat at the window looking at the campus. Let the reading happen without watching it happen because watching it happen would have been too much.
Yakamira read it in the kitchen.
The chapter was about a school. Not Jeremy High specifically — not the name, not the principal with the long name, not the specific impossible events. But the emotional truth of it. The kid arriving with his cheerful armor and his bow tie and his comedy reflex. The specific quality of a place that accepted broken things without requiring them to be fixed first. The finding of people who chose each other. The slow, painful, imperfect process of learning that performing survival was different from actually surviving.
And the brother. There was a chapter about the brother. About death. About two months of impossible suspended animation. About the specific horror of a preservation technique that kept someone between death and life while their consciousness experienced dying on repeat. About coming back. About what coming back meant for the person who came back and the person who had been waiting.
The chapter didn't name it psychic abilities. Didn't name the preservation technique. Used different words — the kind of words you used when you were telling the emotional truth of something impossible rather than the literal truth. But the shape of it was unmistakable to anyone who knew the shape.
Yakamira read it in complete silence.
He took longer than the chapter warranted. Riyura sat at the window and drank his tea and looked at the campus cherry blossom trees — patient in the evening light, doing what they always did — and waited.
When Yakamira finished he put it down on the table. Sat for a moment with his hands flat on the surface. Looking at the middle distance with the expression that appeared on his face when he was processing something that had arrived at a level that his analytical framework didn't entirely cover.
"Well?" Riyura said. His voice came out slightly less casual than intended. "It's honest," Yakamira said. "Is that good?" "For this kind of thing it's the only thing that matters," Yakamira said. He paused. "The section about the brother."
"Yeah," Riyura said.
"The dying on repeat," Yakamira said. His voice was exactly what it always was — measured, precise, the analytical register that was his default. But underneath the measurement something was doing something. "That's accurate."
"I know," Riyura said. "I can change it if—"
"Don't change it," Yakamira said immediately. Firm. No pause to consider. "Don't change it. It happened. It should be in there." He paused. "It's the truest section in the chapter."
Riyura looked at him. At his brother, impossibly alive, silver-haired and analytically composed and occasionally, unexpectedly, capable of receiving genuinely difficult things without requiring the difficulty to be softened. "It was mostly terrible," Yakamira said. "What I experienced. I've said that before."
"Yeah," Riyura said.
"But being in that chapter—" Yakamira paused. "Being in something honest. Being in the true version of what happened instead of the version that gets managed into something smaller." He looked at the chapter. "That's—that's the right place for it. For all of it. The true place."
"The true place," Riyura said. "Yes," Yakamira said.
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: He doesn't cry. He never cries. I've seen him cry once — at the hospital, briefly, when he thought nobody was watching. But he doesn't cry and I don't expect him to and the fact that his hands were flat on the table for two minutes after he finished reading is enough. That's Yakamira's equivalent of being moved. The stillness. The hands flat. The looking at the middle distance while something processes that the analytical framework doesn't have full coverage for. I made the true version of something that happened to him and he said: don't change it. That's — that's the whole thing. That's what honest work is supposed to do. Not create approval. Not create the warmth of an arbiter saying interesting-but-not-quite-there. Just: recognition. This is the true thing. This is the right place for the true thing to be.]
"There's something else," Riyura said.
"The comedy," Yakamira said. He'd turned to the last section of the chapter. The part that Riyura had written in the specific mode that had been returning over the past months — genuine, earned, the real personality rather than the armor.
In the chapter the cheerful-armor-kid discovered, after everything, that the comedy hadn't disappeared when the armor came off. It had just — changed. Become something different. The same impulse toward humor but no longer running from pain. Running alongside it instead. Acknowledging the pain was there while finding the thing in it that was genuinely absurd, genuinely worth laughing at, because sometimes the only honest response to the specific ridiculousness of surviving impossible things was to find it funny.
"That part is the most honest part," Yakamira said. "More honest than the dying on repeat section?" Riyura said.
"Different honest," Yakamira said. "The dying on repeat section is honest about what happened. That section is honest about who you are now." He paused. "The comedy that came back. The genuine version." He looked at Riyura. "You're different than you were at Jeremy High."
"I know," Riyura said.
"Not less," Yakamira said. "Different. More settled in what's real. More capable of sitting with difficult things without immediately converting them." He paused. "The chapter shows that. The arc from the armor to the genuine thing." Another pause. "It's genuinely good work—it actually reminds me of that character you created back when you were still working on your manga before coming to Cherry University. Around that time, you made the decision to pause your work so you could focus on learning more about the craft, and honestly, I think that was the right choice.
From what I could see, it wasn't just about improving your skills—it was also about understanding yourself better. You always seemed aware, even if you didn't say it outright, that there were gaps in your knowledge of the manga industry. And after working on that project for so long, especially while handling work for other people, it became clearer that you wanted something more—that you wanted to grow beyond where you were.
I remember thinking that if you truly felt that urge to improve, then you should follow it. And when you actually committed to that path, it made me genuinely happy. Before that, you seemed really exhausted—like you were pushing yourself too hard while carrying a lot of pressure and doubt at the same time.
Choosing to step back and learn, even knowing you still had a lot to work on, took a lot of awareness and honesty. And I won't sugarcoat it—you were still struggling with certain things, and there were definitely areas where you lacked experience. But at the same time, it was clear that you wanted to learn, and that mattered more than anything else.
More than anything, I could see that drive in you—the willingness to keep improving and to understand everything the craft has to offer. That's what made all of it feel worth it. And because of that, I made the choice to join you at Cherry University.
I wanted to see your growth with my own eyes again—to watch you keep moving forward and becoming better. I'm genuinely proud of your work, the risks you take, and the effort you put into everything you do. It means a lot to me to see my brother continue moving forward after everything you've been through, especially after the whole 'mask' phase, and to see you grow not just as a manga creator, but as a person.
You dedicate yourself fully to your work—not just to one manga, but to multiple projects, both your own and for others—and that level of commitment really shows. Seeing you improve doesn't just impress me, it makes me happy. I like watching you grow, not only in your craft, but in who you are overall.
You're continuing to shape your work in a way that truly fits who you are, and it's helping you move forward in life. That's why I believe choosing Cherry University was the right decision—it gave you the space to grow into the person you're meant to be.
And honestly, I think I needed some of that too. I needed time to learn and grow in my own way, and being here helped me realize that. Looking back on it, I'd say it was all worth it.
So… keep going. You're a great brother, Riyura. Even though I don't talk much, I felt like now was the right moment to say this. I'm really glad to see you continue to improve—not just as Riyura Shiko, but as my brother as well.
I'm also glad our friends ended up choosing the same university. Who would've thought we all had the same place in mind? I guess sometimes friends really do think alike—and this is the perfect example of that.
And honestly, I can tell you're glad it all worked out too—not just having our friends here, but also being able to focus on improving yourself, and even me being here alongside you. So… thanks, I guess. Just doing what a brother should—looking out for you, while also trying to grow myself.
And when you return to the manga industry someday, I hope you keep creating great work—for yourself and for others. But honestly, I already know you will, brother."
"I'll do something with the arm in the next panel," Riyura said. Yakamira looked at him. "What arm?"
"Figure in panel seven," Riyura said. "The arm is wrong. Proportion issue. Miyaka told me it looked like a medical problem." Yakamira looked at the chapter. At panel seven. At the arm. "It does look like a medical problem," he said.
"DYNAMIC," Riyura said. A pause. Then Yakamira said, completely straight-faced: "It's not dynamic." "It's impressionistic—" "It's a proportion error," Yakamira said. "SUBARASHĪ SAYS IT'S DYNAMIC—"
"Subarashī also believes aggressive positivity is a valid heroic technique," Yakamira said. "His aesthetic judgment is not—" "IT IS A VALID HEROIC TECHNIQUE—" "It's not a technique," Yakamira said. "It's a personality trait he has mislabeled as a technique."
Riyura stared at him. Then he laughed. The real laugh — the genuine one, the one that came from the actual personality rather than the armor. Loud in their small apartment. Completely unconcerned with whether it was the appropriate volume for a Friday evening.
Yakamira looked at him. Then, briefly, the corner of his mouth moved. Not a laugh. Not quite a smile. Something between them that was entirely Yakamira and entirely enough.
"The arm stays wrong," Riyura said. "The arm stays wrong," Yakamira agreed. "It's in the true place."
PART TWO: THE WORKSHOP — NEXT THURSDAY
He showed a different chapter.
Not the first one — that was for Yakamira. A second chapter. Made in the specific mode that the first had opened in him — the honest mode, the hand-moves-before-management mode. A chapter about Osaka. About walking through a city that held his father's history in its streets. About making tea correctly. About direction rather than threshold. About getting completely and thoroughly lost for forty-five minutes while thinking about corruption and guilt inheritance and a cat on a wall that had no interest in stopping' being annoying.
The comedy was in it. Genuine. The cat scene, the ramen-or-hardware-store confusion, Yakamira finding him and saying: You made at minimum four wrong turns. All of it. Honest and painful and genuinely funny because sometimes the most honest thing about carrying something heavy was that you walked into walls while doing it.
He set it in the center of the workshop circle. The room looked at it.
He watched the room look at it. The first read. The second. The specific quality of attention settling when people encountered something that didn't fit the established categories.
Then he watched Hitomi look at it. The assessment moved across the page. The reading. The processing. And then — The management failed.
Not for one second. Not for the brief controlled crack that had appeared before. Longer. Four, five seconds of something genuine moving through Hitomi's face before the composure reasserted itself. Something that looked like — not recognition exactly. Something more complicated than recognition. Something that arrived alongside recognition and added to it.
The specific expression of someone who had been reading other people's grief for three years from behind the management layer and had suddenly encountered grief that looked exactly like his own and didn't know what to do with the encountering.
The cat. The forty-five minutes lost. The making tea correctly. The direction rather than threshold. The specific quality of someone carrying something heavy and walking into walls while carrying it and finding the walls and the walking and the carrying genuinely, honestly funny.
Hitomi looked at the page for longer than anything he'd looked at in the workshop. Longer than any submitted work across two years of sessions. Then the composure returned. The management reassembled. The calibrated warmth appeared.
"This is—" He paused. The pause was different. Not the curated pause of someone selecting their feedback. The genuine pause of someone who was still catching up to their own reaction. "This is the most honest thing you've shown."
"Yeah," Riyura said. "The comedy," Hitomi said. "The getting lost. The forty-five minutes." He paused again. "It's not — it's not using humor as armor. It's—" He stopped.
"Using it alongside the pain," Riyura said. "Both at the same time. The pain is real. The getting lost is also genuinely funny too. Both true simultaneously." Hitomi looked at him.
Five seconds of something behind his eyes that was entirely unmanaged. The specific look of someone who had been carrying grief for three years through the management layer and had just been shown that grief and comedy could coexist. That you didn't have to choose between the honest pain and the genuine laugh. That both could be in the same chapter.
"That's—" Hitomi started.
Then a student across the circle said something — a question about the composition of one of the panels — and the moment ended and Hitomi moved toward the question with his calibrated warmth and the workshop continued its usual rhythm.
But the five seconds had happened. Riyura had seen them. They were real.
PART THREE: THE CORRIDOR WINDOW
Sakura was watching from outside.
Not dramatically — she was passing the building on her way from her literature seminar to the library. She saw the workshop room light through the window. Saw Riyura inside. Saw her brother's face.
She stopped.
She watched through the glass for thirty seconds. Long enough to see the five seconds of unmanaged expression on Hitomi's face. Long enough to see what the manga page had created. Long enough to understand that something had happened in that workshop that had reached the before-version in a way the before-version hadn't been reached in three years.
She watched her brother's face do the thing she'd been trying to make it do since Cherry University began. The crack. The real thing briefly present. The management reassembling too slowly to fully contain it.
She stood at the corridor window and watched this for thirty seconds. Then she pulled out her notebook. Wrote something. Brief. Clinical. The specific efficiency of someone noting an observation for strategic purposes.
She walked to the library.
Sent a message to Hitomi: The workshop. I saw from outside. The manga page. The five second window. Noted. The trophy moment is getting closer. He's getting through the management layer. We need to accelerate.
Then she sat in the library and opened her literature notes and worked with the specific focused attention of someone for whom other things were running in the background and the background was the point.
Across the campus in Pan's bakery Miyaka sat with her sketchbook open and her pencil in her hand and the small wrong thing from the library session sitting in her heart alongside everything else she'd been accumulating.
She drew Karagi Sakuranbo. Not his face — she'd never seen it. Just the shape of a person. The older brother who had died at twenty-three. Who had taken the loan and worked past the sustainable point and kept going because stopping would mean admitting the thing he couldn't admit.
She drew him between Hitomi and Sakura. Between their two versions of grief. The nihilistic mirror on one side. The hollow automaton on the other. And between them the specific shape of a person whose death had created two completely different kinds of damage.
She sat with the drawing for a long time. Then she drew one more thing in the corner. Small. The question that had been forming since the library.
If the grief is real and the before-version is real and the weaponized deployment of both is also real — what do you do when the person you're trying to reach and the system trying to destroy you are the same person?
She held the pencil over the page. Didn't write an answer. Didn't have one yet.
Just sat with the question in Pan's bakery in the Osaka afternoon. The bread warm. The tea present. The anchor doing what anchors did — holding while the thing being held figured out what it was.
EPILOGUE: THAT NIGHT
Hitomi's apartment. 1 AM. He read Sakura's message. Read it again. Put the phone face down.
Went to his desk. Opened the private folder — the seven pieces, the desk drawer things. Looked at them in sequence. Then looked at the drawing he'd made after the gate page workshop. The two figures. Distant from each other. On opposite sides of the frame. Looking toward the same thing in the middle.
He opened a new page. Drew something.
A different configuration. Not two figures distant from each other. Two figures both walking toward the same thing from different directions. The same destination arrived at from completely opposite starting points.
He looked at what he'd made. Put it in the drawer. Sat in the dark apartment for a long time.
His phone was face down with Sakura's message on it. The trophy moment getting closer. Accelerate. The clinical efficiency of her and the specific coldness of it and the plan running its background operations while he sat at his desk making desk drawer things that nobody was supposed to see.
He thought about the manga page. About the getting lost part. About forty-five minutes lost in Osaka while carrying something heavy. About grief and comedy existing in the same chapter because they were both true simultaneously.
About Karagi. His brother. Twenty-three years old and a heart that gave out from too much sustained weight. About whether grief and the thing you built on grief could exist in the same person while both being real.
He sat in the dark and felt the thing he couldn't name and the drawer held what it held. Outside the campus the cherry blossoms fell in the 1 AM quiet. Patient. Indifferent. Present.
Falling at the precise pace required regardless of what was happening underneath them.
TO BE CONTINUED...