For a moment, I glanced around to find her and shook my head.
âDid she go back to her parentsâ house? Iâve rejected her, havenât I?â
Intense regret washes over me.
I go to the kitchen and wash my face.
The toothbrush she used is missing.
There is no cup either.
âDid she take her personal belongings home too?â
Turning on the tap, I fetch water with both hands and drink it.
I canât help it because I donât have the cup I usually use.
In addition, the sleeping bag, the silver tray, the expensive-looking dishes and, finally, even the rubbish, all traces of her presence have disappeared from the house.
However, it is only her personal belongings that are missing.
My futon in a corner of the room, my laptop, bank book and other valuables are left untouched.
âThatâs thorough. ââIn the first place, did a high school girl confine me really? Or is it just my delusional existence?â
When it disappears so cleanly, such doubts arise.
âHow rude of me to doubt her existence, no matter how depressed I am.â
I wave my hands, splash water into my face and laugh at the silly ideas.
I turn my feet to the front door to go to the convenience store to get some breakfast.
As I sit down in the hallway and put my foot into my left shoe, I realise.
âNo. Can I really laugh it off?ăIf I think about it calmly, itâs not impossible, is it? Or rather, there are many events that make more sense if I think of this as my fantasy.â
A JK fan who just happens to show up where Iâve fallen ill, nursing me and supporting my creative work.
Does such a convenient existence actually exist?
Wouldnât it be more natural to think of it as a delusion?
âBut if itâs a delusion, thereâs no need to threaten me with a knife or lock me up, is there? It could more conveniently be a cat-eared maid serving me, couldnât it?â
I stare at the inorganic concrete of the entrance and think.
âPerhaps it reflects my abnormal mental stateâŚâ
A month ago, I was pretty out of my mind.
I was aware of it and my editor pointed it out to me softly.
My desperate state of mind, which prevented me from drawing manga, might be materialised in the form of threats with a knife and confinement in chains.
It makes sense if I think about it that way.
âNo, the washing machine and the fridge, they are still here.â
I put my shoes in the doorway and go back to my room.
I open the door of the fridge to check the inside.
Thereâs hardly any food in there anymore.
âAh, but the billing address is my account. Konata said ăoursă but at least itâs in my name.â
In other words, there is no objective evidence to show that I didnât order the appliances myself.
âIf she was a shop assistant at the shop where she bought the clothes, I might remember her face. But I donât know which shop she went to. All other online retailers are placed and distributed.â
I donât know anyone who can testify to this [Konata] existence other than myself.
Iâve never even seen her interacting with anyone other than me.
âWhat if I contact the schoolâŚbut thereâs no way theyâd tell a complete stranger about the students they have enrolled. Am I out of my mind?â
I clench my fists and bang them on the closed fridge door.
It hurts.
Unquestionably, this is reality.
âIf Konata is my delusional character, what âsheâ told me was actually my compliment to my own storyboard, wasnât it? It was all self-praise. No wonder the editors are so critical.â
I go back to my room and open the drawing tablet.
On reviewing it again, it is badly done.
Itâs all my own work, and of course itâs a self-righteous storyboard.
A hypothesis that I really donât want to come up with.
But now that Iâve come up with it, I canât pretend it didnât happen.
All the circumstantial evidence supports the non-existence of this person.
âIf indeed Konata is my imagination. I wonder if Iâll never see her again.â
The worst imaginations are now haunting me.
My heart is going cold, as if it had been doused with ice water.
Itâs possible that I wonât see her.
No, I donât want to.
I absolutely hate the idea of me not being able to see her anymore.
Even if she is an illusion of my own creation, I want to see her.
âWhy do I want to see her?ăWhy do I want to cling to her? Do I want to thank her? Or do I want to apologise?â
No, itâs different.
If I wanted to thank her for helping me with my creative work, I would have told her many times.
If I wanted to apologise, I shouldnât have been so unfaithful and rotten from the beginning.
I see. IâmâŚ
âBefore I knew it, this thing was growing inside me.â
Iâve realised.
Thatâs how I honestly feel now.
I just want to tell her how I feel.
Bururururu
My phone beeps in response to my shaking body.
âA DM through SNS?â
Open.
The senderâs account name is blank.
The text is only two words.
âLate.â
Attached is a single selfie.
It must have been taken in a hurry. The face is only visible from the mask down and the picture is a little blurry.
But there is no way I could have mistaken her for anyone.
âKonata! She wasnât my imagination.â
My heart is filled with relief.
âHahahahaha, Konata, you did it!ăYou went to school!â
I smile and look up at the ceiling.
Iâm really happy.
Perhaps, I feel even more elated than I did when I won my first serialisation.
âTh,thatâs right. Reply. Quickly. I need to tell her how I feel.â
I impatiently swipe repeatedly to string together faltering sentences.
Just before I tap âsendâ, I stop my index finger a millimetre before the screen.
âIs this really what I want to do? Is this really OK? Iâm sure she went to school with a lot of courage. And Iâm just going to get away with one tap like this?â
No, no.
Thatâs not the best I can do.
Iâm not a poet, Iâm not a novelist.
Iâm a mangaka.
[A bit late]
Learn more
Pause
Unmute
If I want to tell her, the only way is through manga.
Thatâs the best sincerity I can show her.
And now, the story I should drawâŚ
ââŚ..The story of a manga artist who was locked up by a high school girl.â
This is all I have.
I donât need a storyboard.
There is no need to come up with new ideas.
The memories are all stuck in my head.
I have to draw a full, honest picture of what I couldnât say, what I wanted to say and what I should have said.
This is just a short manga.
And itâs a silly young manâs argument.
âOh, I think Konata did mention her permission.â
ăIf you like, you can use me in your manga.ă
I remember what she said that day.
I laughed it off at the time, though.
âHonestly, I should have done exactly as she told me.â
Chuckling, I put down my phone.
With the drawing tablet, I start a new blank page.
Thereâs nothing else for me to draw on.
But thatâs okay.
At the end of opening Pandoraâs box, there is still hope.