17: The Intimidating Man

—While I was reading the manga magazine, it had somehow turned into a picture book.
That picture book started to glow and pulled me in, locking my body in place. I couldn’t move at all.—

Tom slapped both cheeks with his hands as hard as he could.
If this was a bad dream, he sincerely wished he could wake up right now.

“So, where were you rushing off to?”

The man’s voice snapped Tom back into reality.
He tried to suppress the tremble in his voice and quickly answered, as if to push away the unease building up inside him.

“I’m looking for someone!! I was late for our meeting, and… she’s probably sitting on the swing by herself…”

“Oh? And who might that be?”

“She’s my childhood friend. Her name’s Rena. But she’s been missing since the other day—”

That’s when Tom noticed the contradiction in his own words.
Yes, he was searching for her—but there was a big difference between “missing” and “not being at the meeting spot.”

“Hm? So you’re saying… she went missing because you were late?

That’s quite a mystery… A very intriguing tale indeed.”

“I’m sorry… I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore…”

“No, wait. That’s a story worth hearing. If I go by the limited info you’ve given me, I’d say this:
She got stood up and was so mad she stormed off. But maybe—just maybe—she actually likes you.
And she was thinking, ‘If you really care, then come find me, darling!’”

“Pfft! Come on, there’s no way Rena would ever say something like that!”

Tom couldn’t help but laugh at the man’s absurd interpretation.
The unique spin hit just the right chord with his wannabe-novelist mind and helped ease the fear that had been tightening his chest.

“Thank you. That really helped. I’ve been through a lot lately… mentally, I was kind of falling apart.
But after laughing a little, I feel way better. Though, yeah, your story had a lot of leaps in logic! Still, it was fun.”

“No, we’re going with that version. I’ve decided.”

In that moment, the man’s sharp eyes pierced through Tom.
Tom’s body froze as if it were suddenly weighed down by lead—he couldn’t move an inch.
His fragmented memories started connecting one by one, becoming clearer with each passing second.
And from somewhere in the distance, a strange, unsettling static buzzed in his ears.

“You are the newest resident of the Picture Book World.
I’ll be expecting a good story from you.”

That eerie noise echoed like a sign—A sign that Tom had just stepped into another dimension.