Life as a Black Hole

The cicadas were a little early that year; Akihiro could hear their chirping from the front of the shop as he tried and failed to focus on the manga panels in front of him. Beneath it all, though, was that dull aching pain that came with impatience, and that day seemed to carry more than enough reason to feel it.

His alternate form of entertainment, watching the ramen joint across the street, proved no better; foot traffic had dried up and wouldn’t get moving again until the dinner rush.

All the work the regulars had dropped off he’d finished with already; most malfunctions were easy enough fixes. It just depended on knowing what balanced with what, how the components fit together. Wands, amulets, daruma dolls, talismans, pocket-watches, they all pretty much operated on the same system of dichotomy; earth cut through water, fire tempered metal, and so on and so forth.

There had been one recent item that had given him some trouble, a metal casing that seemed to fit over an arm; it reminded Akihiro of a kote. But he managed to figure out its inner workings over the last week; now all he had to do was give it a test run to make sure his implementations stuck.

Dad would’ve just used it already, he thought, flipping a page. And probably destroy the place. His father, when he was still around, had a tendency to forget himself. And his kid, but that was neither here nor there.

It was about five minutes before Akihiro figured he’d bash his head against a telephone pole to stimulate some feeling back into himself when the newest issue of Shonen Leap plunked onto his tankoban volume. Junnosuke slapped his hand down on the cover.

“You gotta read this, Hirokun,” he said, his smile a little more eager than usual.

“I was sort of already reading something.”

“No, no, you gotta.”

“All I gotta do is pay taxes and die,” Akihiro murmured, shoving the magazine away. “My interactions with you are optional.”

Junnosuke tsked, flipping through the pages. “So stiff. Anyway, guess who drew this new series? And guess how high it ranked!”

“If it’s anybody we went to high school with I’m throwing you in front of a bus.”

“This is a pedestrian avenue,” Junnosuke said, not looking up. “Ah, here she is! Look.”

Akihiro peered over the submission; it was from Reika Yamaguchi. Neither of them had, as far as he knew, spoken to her in ten years. He didn’t even know she had been interested in manga.

“Great, so one of the only metal agents we know also got lucky enough to get published in Leap. You wanna put the bullet in between my eyes or should I?”
“Look at how good the art is,” Junnosuke said beaming, as if he was the one who drew it. “I heard she didn’t even go to art school.”

“I’m failing to see how this is stopping me from shoving you in front of a train.”

“You said it was a bus.”

“Accidents happen everywhere.”

“Right. Okay, so look,” Junnosuke said, flipping through more pages. “There’s a newcomer contest. Not a ton of yen for it, and it’s just for a one-shot, but three entries actually get published.”

“And?”

Junnosuke looked perplexed. “You don’t want to submit anything?”

“Even I wanted to, I don’t have anything to submit.”

“Still?”

“What do you mean still?”

“You haven’t been working on anything?”

Akihiro held his arms out. “Just this.”

Junnosuke peered past the open window at the front desk and at the shelves and workshop in the back. “I meant manga, dude.”

“I prefer to focus on the thing that pays my bills.”

“But this isn’t a replacement for it.”

He can’t understand it. How could he?

Akihiro handed the magazine back to him. “For those of us that can’t shoot fireballs or break mountains in half or whatever, you make do with what you can. Drawing stupid pictures is great and all, but it doesn’t keep the lights on. And besides…” Nobody liked my stupid pictures enough anyway. “Grandpa’s not exactly the picture of health right now.”

“Oh, no. Is everything okay with him?”

“Arthritis,” Akihiro said, shrugging.

“C’mon man, you had me worried.”

“Well, for this, you need fine motor controls and finger dexterity.” It was something his father had told him once before knocking yet another shelf over. But it’s not like the old man’s gonna come back and take over for me.

Junnosuke collected the magazine. “Well, if you’re really that opposed to it…” He flashed another grin. “I’ll just have to annoy you twice as much.”

“You want to get shoved during morning or evening rush hour?”

“Big talk for a guy who knows I can shoot fireballs or whatever.”

“You can barely start a campfire.”

“That’s a totally different skill set.” He checked his watch. “Aw, crap. Gotta go. Look, just work on a name at the least and I can tell you if it’s something people would actually read. See ya!”

Akihiro watched him go, that familiar sense of numbness settling in his chest, and rested his chin his hand; the spring air was balmy, but not that even could rouse him from his listlessness. Why’d Junnosuke have to go and show him the life he wasn’t living? Everything swirled around this small corner of existence, sucking in all the good and letting nothing else back out. Naturally, his mind wandered for someone else to put the blame on; surely if somebody had told him what to do, he wouldn’t be here. He’d be working in a studio, surrounded by assistants, nudging dangerously close to the deadline his authoritarian editor had placed on the next chapter.

With a look back at the shelves, he found in himself a sort of impertinent frustration; he was only here because of his father. It was his father who abandoned everything and left Akihiro with the bag. It was his father who swindled him out of magic. It was his father who brought him into this life of being a black hole, where he hadn’t seen light in years.

If I ever get the chance to knock some sense into that old man…

The bell on the front counter rang. Akihiro turned around to see a graying man in his early sixties smiling at him. He looked remarkably like his father.

“Good morning,” the man said. “I’m here to collect an order.”

He rummaged through his pockets, presented a slip with the order number. It corresponded to the kote; Akihiro frowned at the paper, then glanced up at him.

“This was a pretty complicated request,” he said as he got up. “Lot of circuitry. And beta titanium alloy isn’t something I see much, either.”

“It’s for a complicated sort of magic.”

“You a metal agent?” Akihiro asked as he retrieved the item.

The man offered a weak laugh, holding his left arm. It looked like it was shaking. “Agentless, I’m afraid. I’m just a researcher.”

He really is like Dad, Akihiro thought as he laid the kote down on the counter. “I haven’t given this a final test run, but initial—”

“That’s quite all right,” the man said, placing a bundle of yen in the payment tray. “Will eighty thousand cover it?”

“It’s only seven-thousand and forty-five,” Akihiro told him. “And I’d really suggest a trial run before you use it. It’s a volatile—"

The man’s arm shot up as the shaking became more violent; he grabbed hold of his elbow and tried in vain to lower it.

“You all right?”

“I’m sorry, Hirokun,” the man said. A strange, ethereal glow emanated from his arm, like a microcosm of the Milky Way. It churned and swirled about for a second before it suddenly straightened out and burst forward.

What felt like the entire weight of a planet slammed into Akihiro’s chest, sending him flying into the back wall of the workshop.

So that is Dad, he thought as he lost consciousness.