The alarm didn’t ring. There were no more deadlines, no more meetings. Okamura stared at the ceiling from within the futon laid out in his four-and-a-half tatami room. His series had been canceled, no collected volumes published, and his rent was falling behind. Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to quit being a manga artist.
On a small desk crammed into a corner of the cramped room, countless idea notes lay scattered. Yet each one seemed to have run out of steam midway—unfinished. He’d draw something, toss it, sigh, and repeat. Day after day.
“…I’m hungry.”
He checked his wallet. A few coins and some receipts. Throwing on a hoodie, Okamura shuffled out to the nearby convenience store. He’d applied for a night shift job recently, but was fired on the spot after repeatedly messing up at the register.
When he walked in, the door chimed and a straight-backed clerk greeted him with a “Welcome.” It was her. Plain uniform, black-rimmed glasses. Not flashy in the slightest, but her smile oddly stuck in his memory.
“Cup noodles again? You really should eat some vegetables, you know.”
For some reason, that single comment struck a chord in Okamura’s chest. When was the last time someone had shown him any concern? He nodded vaguely, added hot water, and trudged back home.
Back in his room, he cracked open a window. A faint breeze mixed with the stagnant air of the four-and-a-half tatami space. Suddenly, her smile popped into his mind.
“…I see.”
Okamura hurriedly opened a sketchbook. An idea had come to him: a clumsy girl working at a convenience store and a worn-out ex-manga artist, and the strange bond that forms between them. Fiction—but maybe just a little bit real.
His hand holding the pen began to move, for the first time in ages. Precisely because no one expected anything of him now, he could draw something honest. He could start over, as many times as it took.
A few weeks later, the one-shot manga he submitted for a rookie award caught the eye of an editor.
“You’ve got something. I think you can draw more.”
After hanging up the phone, Okamura sat still for a while, unable to move.
That night, when he went to buy another cup of noodles, the same clerk smiled at him again and said,
“You look a little brighter today.”
Blushing a bit, Okamura replied,
“Yeah… something good happened, just a little.”
The room still held the remnants of old dreams. But now, he had the will to start picking them up. Slowly, step by step. This wasn’t a reset—it was a starting line.
