Chapter 3:
Ink Dreams
“Alright, now that we’re all settled in, let’s talk shop folks!” Both me and Kei turn away from the doujin we'd been looking through to watch Sami. She grabs a notebook and pen from off the table. “Now then, Yuta, tell me, what kind of story do you think would work best for a manga?” I gulp. Ugh, this is bad. I rub my forehead. She can't be asking about what kind of story works best for manga, that's pointless. No, she wants me to spit off an idea for her. Ugh, I wish it were that easy.
I can’t pinpoint anything I really wanna write about. Maybe it’s just because today has been such a roller coaster? That would make sense, but no, I'm really always like this. It's all just random ideas from anything I feel inspires something inside me. Whatever, knowing why I have no ideas doesn't save me from the fact I have no ideas.
“I…don’t have anything at this moment.” I admit, my head shying to the side.
“That’s fine. Hmm…alright, how do you get most of your ideas?” Sami asks, folding her left leg over her right. Oh, okay, cool, a question I can answer.
“From anything. Same goes for most people, I think.” I shrug.
“Okay, and how do you develop stories from there?” She asks.
“I…just write.” I stutter out, suddenly losing any ounce of confidence in anything I could say.
“You just write?” Sami doesn't seem to believe it. It looks like a laugh wants to escape her lips, but seeing my face, she finds that she has to.
“Yeah. I put on music and write till it’s done.” This answer seems to stun lock her. She leans back, takes a deep breath, and sits back up.
“What usually brings you ideas? Like, if you were making a graph, what would make up the biggest piece of pie?”
“Maybe…it’s hard to explain.” I rub the back of my neck. How do I explain something as vague as idea creation? Like, okay, coming up with ideas makes sense, but the process of getting there, in my case at least, is sort of...confusing.
“Try me.” She insists.
“Alright, sure.” I turn my head to look out the window. Outside, the sun has begun to set. The sky is a beautiful orange. Just like that, something clicks in my head. “Ok, so, imagine…the feeling of this moment.” Sami puts the pen to her lips before getting up and walking to my side. I watch her face. She seems confused, not quite getting it.
“The sun is setting.” She states.
“It is. What do you feel?” I ask.
“Hmm…what do you feel?” She masterfully dodges the question. She must not feel like playing along. I sigh in my head. At least let me lead the experience a little. Whatever.
“Like a boy who’s lost their best friend, and is warring with himself between the memories they shared and the fact he’ll never see her again.” I move closer to the window, watching intently. “I feel like melancholy has come to tear me apart.” It's true. Watching the sunset, feelings of self-hatred and loneliness and...melancholy...they fill me up.
Something unpleasant flashes through my mind. I shake it away.
“Yuta.”
“Huh?” I turn back and see a line written in the notebook;
The story of a boy struggling with a tragedy in his past every time he sees the sunset.
“I think I get what you mean. Is this the kind of thing you start with?” She asks as her brother takes a seat at the table and begins sketching. I bite my tongue. It's a usable idea, but for some reason, it hits too close to home.
“It depends on how passionate I feel about it. I have ideas like that all the time, not all of them are worth writing about. Sorry, I have to ask for you to wait for me to come up with a good one." I say, rubbing my arm.
“That’s fair. It’s a pretty basic idea, even if it could be taken a lot of different places. Just, uhm, don't take too long coming up with something, okay?” Sami nervously says.
"Eh? Is there a time limit I'm not aware of?" I ask.
"Well...there is a convention on Saturday, and I was hoping to have something done...by then...you know?" She giggles awkwardly as I feel my blood leave my face.
"You're kidding, right?" I ask.
"N-nooooooo~." She responds, her hands coming together apologetically.
"...uhm, I think that's a little unreasonable." I argue.
"U-unreasonability is a strength for manga creators like us!" She says. I sigh in return. Great.
"Alright. But If we don't have anything by that time, I don't want you blaming me for it. Deal?" I ask.
"Deal!" She gives me a thumbs up. Inside myself, I hold in a groan. This girl may end up being a real pain on my psyche.
Sami looks over at the clock attached to her oven. It reads 6:00 PM. Jeez, have I really been here for four hours already? Guess I read a lot of doujins, hehe. “Do you have anybody waiting at home?” She asks. A pang of something hits my heart, making me gulp. Maybe one person...? No, he'd never care if you came home or not...
“No.” I look down, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.
“Perfect. I’ll make dinner, you start doing what you gotta to brainstorm.” Dinner? I look back up and see her smiling face. "What? It's only polite to cook for guests, especially when they're doing so much for us." She says.
"Uhm...yeah, right." I agree. With that, she places the notebook and pen in my hands and walks off to the kitchen area. I feel a strange warmth inside my body. When was the last time I had a dinner that wasn't instant ramen or convenience store food? Maybe...was it when he cooked me that apology hamburg? It tasted as bad as his attitude. Uncle...I shake my head.
I force my attention to move to something else. If I luck out, it'll hopefully give me some inspiration. My eyes lock onto Keisuke, still sketching. I find myself spacing out to the sight of him drawing. It looks so good. The difference in quality between his work and his sister's isn't all that far, and the style is much more classical manga as opposed to her very detailed, Asano-esque illustrations. I sit down next to him, just...watching his pen glide across the page.
“Whatcha workin on?” I ask. He stops, looks over at me, and seems confused.
“Uhm, what you’re drawing now. I’m curious what it is.”
“Oh. Just a thing. Don’t worry about it.” He proceeds to look away, his cheeks turning red. Oh, a shy fellow? Well, I take that as a challenge friend.
“Alright…it looks cool is all.”
“Cool?” Suddenly, my words become more intriguing to him. It's too easy! My words are impossible to ignore!
“Yeah, cool. Is it a doujin? I feel like I’ve seen the characters before…oh, hey, is this a Time Change Infinite doujin?” I ask. He seems stunned, before a smile forms on his face. Quite frankly, it's a pleasure to see someone else reading such a niche light novel.
“You read it too?” He asks, excitement pouring out of every word.
“Hell yeah! Since I was in elementary school. Jeez, It’s been around for that long…it’s super good. Icarios has got to be one of the best depictions of a god in fiction.” It's true. The dude is like, a perfect recreation of the myth of Zeus, untainted by any of the softer depictions made in future times (not that those are necessarily bad, but, you know, I don't see them as preferable.)
“Exactly! Oh god, that scene during the Angel’s Rain arc?! When he told Man ‘My tears are all you deserve,’. Peak storytelling. Volumes 7-12 were peak, really. But since volume 25, I’d say he hasn’t put out a bad volume.” His enthusiasm is infectious. I soon find myself right there with him, recalling all the best moments I can think of. From the first arc's awakening of time melding, to the most recent volume's fantastic conclusion to the Heaven's End arc. Probably one of my favorites, though, is the scene with two people communicating between earth and hell.
"You remember? It was volume 17, and they were about to begin their assault on the sixth demon king, when Maki gets a call from his dad in hell. They have a moment before hell is destroyed? That scene messed me up hard when I read it." I say, sniffling just at recalling it. Kei starts to do the same.
"Probably the best moment in the Devil Kings Invasion arc." He says, and I nod.
Just the idea of talking with someone important to you before the world ends. It's so...pleasant.
At that moment, something clicks. I freeze. Wait...oh god, I think I have something! I scramble to open the notebook and click the pen. Frantically, my hand begins writing out a synopsis. I feel the boy I was just talking to looking over my shoulder, and am only broken from my frenzy when I am finished. Looking over it, relief and happiness overcome me.
“Keisuke?”
“H-huh?” He seems scared by my words, but my smile manages to calm him down.
“Thanks.”
“N-no problem?” He shrugs his shoulders when Sami, dressed in an apron, pushes herself between us to read what I’ve written.
“The hell?” She takes the notebook and reads it over and over.
“So? What do you think?” She looks up from the notebook and at me. A determined fire has filled her eyes.
“I think we have ourselves a manga plot.”
…
Two men facing the end of the world from a crashing alien spaceship meet on an online messaging board and become lovers before they're obliterated.
That's the jist of it, anyways. Pretty cool, right?
Dinner was a bowl of rice with beef and an egg on top, with some soy sauce added for flavor. It was a delicious meal after a surprise victory.
Well…after some discussion, it was only a small victory, despite my idea being fire.
“I only see us making a one shot out of this.” I admit.
“Yeah, well, there’s no rush for a series. It would be good for us to practice working together before going into something like that.”
“So understanding.” I joke before taking another bite of food. So good. So different than the food I'm accustomed to. "Considering you sprung a surprise deadline on me though, I'd say it's only fair that we have such a simple beginning to our career together."
“I'd say I'm pretty reasonable, for one.” She corrects before shoving rice and egg in her mouth. "Secondly, you're right, it would be good to make sure we work well together before committing to something serious. Though, I know you can make quality. It's only a matter of how quickly you can pick up scripting and storyboarding."
“Well, regardless of any potential troubles, I say this should end up as a damn good one shot.” I say.
“Too early to say. I like the idea of two loners conversations while the world ends, but it could easily become super boring.” She, again, negates my words.
“You chose me. Have faith.” I seem to give her an answer she agrees with, and the rest of dinner is finished peacefully.
…
I began writing the script for the one-shot once dinner was done. Keisuke and Sami both showed me some of their old scripts to give me a good idea of what I should do for this one. For one, it's best to have an outline before going in. Knowing the plot points and how many pages you'll be working with beforehand is a massive timesaver, especially for something that needs to be done in time for a convention two days from now. The seventh sounds so painfully close.
After some talking, we agreed that 20 pages was a good amount of pages. 60 is preferable for something like a one shot, but again, we don't have much time, and the story has the potential to get really boring if it drags on for too long. Two birds one stone. So, I finished the outline pretty quickly. For a short story all the basic plot beats feel pretty obvious. Once that was done, I finally began scripting. The biggest issue is really just the tedium of it. A part of me yearns for the simplicity of my web-novels, but this project is way more high stakes. This thing is gonna be SOLD, it has to be great.
I reach around page 10 when a thought appears in my head.
“Hey Sami.”
“Hm?”
"Do you...uhm...do you have guardians coming round?" I ask.
"Oh. No. My parents are usually out for long amounts of time doing death marches. It's usually just us here." Sami laughs a little to lighten the tension of her words. I feel as though a connection between us has finally snapped into place. Uncle. Dad. Mom. My fists clench.
"That sounds lonely. " I say.
"I-It can be. It's not like I can bring any friends here, they'd be super judgey about our use of space, you know? And boys usually just try to get in my pants, even when my brother is around. Isn't that creepy? Hahaha!" She starts to sound uncomfortable.
"Well...I'm lonely too, actually." I admit. She seems surprised by that. "So...let's make sure we're less lonely together from now on." I say. Her eyes widen. For a moment, I feel time around us slow as I feel her eyes soften.
"I...I would like that...Yuta." She whispers, before giving me her prettiest smile yet.
All I can think is how much I wanna see that smile every day.
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