Chapter 5: The Crash Landing

Friday.

The holy grail of the week. The finish line that every student drags their lifeless body toward with the desperation of a man crawling through a desert. For most people, Friday means karaoke, arcades, or sleeping for twelve hours straight. For me, Kenji, it means something entirely different. It means the deadline is here.

I am walking down the hallway like a zombie that has been reanimated with cheap coffee and anxiety. My school bag feels like it contains bricks, but it is actually something much heavier. It is the finished manuscript for the latest chapter of Twilight-Senpai. The brown envelope inside is practically burning a hole through the fabric. I am tired. I am so tired I can hear colors. The fluorescent lights overhead are humming a tune that sounds suspiciously like my editor screaming at me to hurry up.

"Just ten more meters", I tell myself, my feet shuffling against the linoleum floor. "Just get to the gate, get to the post office, and then you can collapse into a coma until Sunday noon".

My brain is fuzzy. It feels like someone stuffed it with cotton balls. I am not paying attention to the world around me. I am navigating by muscle memory alone, which is a terrible idea because my muscle memory is about as reliable as a chocolate teapot.

"Kenji, move!", a voice shouts from somewhere down the hall.

I don't react fast enough. My reflexes are currently buffering on 99%.

I turn the corner near the science lab, hugging the wall like it is my only friend, and then-

WHAM.

It happens in slow motion. First, there is the impact. It feels like I hit a wall, but a soft wall. A wall that smells incredibly nice. It smells like vanilla and expensive shampoo.

"Kyaa!"

"Oof!"

Physics takes over. Gravity, being the cruel mistress that she is, decides that neither of us deserves to stay standing. I go down. Hard. My butt hits the floor with a bone-shaking thud. My bag, which I forgot to zip up properly in my sleep-deprived haze, flies open. The brown envelope slides out, the seal pops, and the contents spill.

But the person I hit is having an even worse time. She drops everything she is holding. A massive stack of papers goes flying into the air, raining down on us like a snowstorm of white confetti.

I sit there for a second, shaking my head, trying to clear the cartoon stars from my vision. My tailbone is throbbing.

"I am so sorry!", a voice says. It is melodic, high-pitched, and laced with panic. "I was in a hurry and-"

I look up.

My breath catches in my throat.

It is Aoi.

She is on her knees across from me, rubbing her forehead. Her long purple-black hair is messy, spilling over her shoulders. Her purple eyes are wide and shimmering with unshed tears from the impact. Even in this chaotic, ungraceful position, she looks like she is posing for a magazine cover. She radiates a sparkling aura that makes the dusty hallway look like a stage.

"Aoi-san?", I stammer. My voice cracks.

She blinks, focusing on me. "Kenji-kun?", she asks.

My heart does a weird flip. She knows my name? Since when? We have been in the same class since middle school, but I am pretty sure I am just a background texture to her. Like a tree. Or a desk.

Then, the panic sets in. It hits me like a bucket of ice water.

The floor.

The floor is covered in papers. My manuscript. The original inked pages. The ones with the secret plot twists that the entire internet is dying to know. And mixed in with them are her… whatever she is carrying.

"My scripts!", she gasps, her eyes widening in horror as she sees the mess. She scrambles forward on her hands and knees.

"My… homework!", I lie, loudly and badly. I lunge forward, grabbing pages at random.

We are both grabbing papers frantically. It is a frenzy. Our hands brush against each other. Her skin is soft and warm. It is exactly like a scene from a shoujo manga, except instead of romantic bubbles floating around us, I am sweating buckets and terrified she will see the title page of my manga.

"Sorry, sorry!", I mutter, snatching a sheet of paper from under her knee.

"It is my fault!", she says, grabbing a piece of paper near my hand.

I grab a sheet that looks like mine. It has black ink lines and panels. I sigh in relief and pull it closer.

Wait.

I blink, adjusting my glasses.

This isn't my drawing style.

I look closely at the paper in my hand. It looks like a script for a drama, with lines of dialogue highlighted in pink and yellow. But in the margins… there are doodles.

Lots of doodles.

They are cute, chibi-style drawings. There are little cats, sparkles, and… a boy?

I squint. It is a doodle of a boy with messy black hair and sleepy eyes. He is holding a pen.

Is that… me?

No, not me. I look closer. The character is wearing a cape. It is the main protagonist from The Crimson Valkyrie. It is the hero from my novel. But the way she drew him… he looks weirdly like me. Same messy hair. Same sleepy eyes. Same posture that suggests he wants to go to bed.

And written next to the little chibi head, in cute, bubbly handwriting with little hearts: "Twilight-Senpai's mind is so beautiful <3".

My brain short-circuits. A loud buzz echoes in my ears.

Aoi, the top idol, the most popular girl in school, doodles fan art of my character in her drama scripts? And she thinks my mind is beautiful?

"Give me that!", a voice shrieks.

Aoi snatches the paper from my hand with the speed of a viper. Her face is turning a bright, violent, nuclear shade of red. It matches the color of a ripe tomato perfectly.

"Did you see it?", she demands, her voice squeaking about three octaves higher than usual. She clutches the script to her chest like it is a state secret.

"See what?", I say, my voice trembling. I hold up a page of my manga I just retrieved to hide my face. "I didn't see anything. I am blind without my glasses. Even though I am wearing them".

She narrows her eyes at me, looking for a lie. But then her gaze drops to the paper I am holding up.

I follow her gaze.

I look at the paper in my hand.

I look at the paper in her hand.

We both freeze.

She is holding page 32 of my manuscript.

It is the most important page. It is the climax of the current arc. It is the page where the hero finally takes off his mask and reveals his secret identity to the princess. The inking is pristine. The cross-hatching is detailed. The emotion in the hero's eyes is something I spent four hours perfecting last night.

But there is no author name on it yet. Just the art.

"This style…", Aoi whispers. Her anger vanishes, replaced by something else. Awe? suspicion?

She brings the paper closer to her face. Her eyes dart from the paper to my face, then back to the paper.

"This inking…", she murmurs, tracing a line in the air with her finger. "The way the hair flows… the shading on the jawline… this looks just like…"

My heart hammers against my ribs. It is so loud I am sure she can hear it. Thump-thump-thump.

She knows. She is a super-fan. She recognizes the strokes. She recognizes the specific way I draw hands.

I have to do something. I have to derail this train before it crashes into the station of Truth.

"It's fan art!", I yell.

It comes out way too loud. It echoes down the empty hallway.

Aoi jumps, looking at me with wide eyes. "Huh?"

"I draw fan art!", I continue, rambling at high speed. "I am a huge fan! Of Twilight-Senpai! Just like you! I mean- not that I know you are a fan! But I am! I practice copying his style every day! I want to be just like him! Haha! Isn't that crazy?"

I snatch the page back from her hand, shoving it violently into my brown envelope. I am crumpling the edges, but I don't care. I just need it out of her sight.

"Fan… art?", she repeats slowly. She tilts her head to the side. Her bangs fall over her eyes. She looks suspicious. "But… that level of detail… Kenji-kun, that didn't look like a copy. The ink was still fresh. And the paper… that is G-pen nib pressure. Are you-"

"I have to go!", I scream, scrambling to my feet. I almost trip over my own shoelaces. "Bathroom emergency! Explosive diarrhea! It is happening right now! Bye!"

"Explosive what?", Aoi asks, her face twisting into a mix of confusion and disgust.

I don't answer. I clutch my bag to my chest like a lifeline. I sprint down the hallway. I run like the demons of hell are chasing me. I turn the corner so fast I almost drift like a race car.

I don't look back.

I can't look back. If I look back, I might confess everything just to stop the awkwardness.

If I did look back, though, I would have seen something interesting.

Aoi is still sitting on the floor. The hallway is quiet again, the dust motes dancing in the afternoon light. She is slowly gathering her scripts, her face still slightly flushed.

Then, she sees something.

Lying on the floor, near where my bag had exploded, is a pen.

It isn't a normal ballpoint pen you buy at the convenience store for 100 yen. It is a sleek, silver Copic Multiliner SP. It has an aluminum body and a very fine 0.3mm nib. It is a tool for professionals.

And on the clip of the pen, there is a tiny, distinct scratch. A scratch shaped like a lightning bolt.

Aoi picks it up. She holds it up to the light. The silver glints.

She stares at the scratch. Her memory clicks. She remembers a photo Twilight-Senpai posted on Twitter three months ago. A photo of his desk. A photo that showed this exact pen, with this exact scratch, resting on a manuscript.

She stares at my retreating back, which has long since disappeared around the corner.

A strange light enters her eyes. It isn't the innocent look of an idol anymore. It is the sharp, calculating look of a detective who just found the smoking gun.

"Fan art...", she whispers to herself, testing the words on her tongue.

She grips the pen tight. She brings it to her chest.

"Interesting".

A slow smile spreads across her face. It is a mischievous, dangerous smile.

"Very interesting".

She stands up, dusting off her skirt. She puts the pen in her pocket, right next to her heart.

The hunt is on.