“Oh, is that right? You’d think you would’ve asked more about what she looked like than her personality, in that case.”
“I guess I got a little sidetracked by all the great stories you were telling. Rest assured, I was planning to ask about her appearance as well.”
“C’mon, there’s gotta be something more to it than that, right? I mean, these are all things you could have asked over the phone.”
“I disagree. I always prefer to have more involved discussions in person—it’s more efficient.”
“…You’re spilling your coffee.” Anzu froze and abruptly stopped stirring. Then, biting her lip anxiously, she lifted the spoon out of the cup and set it gently on the saucer.
“Look, Hanashiro. I’m not trying to grill you here…but are you sure there isn’t something you’re not telling me? Some other reason you called me here today?”
She didn’t respond.
“Listen. I don’t want either of us to walk into that tunnel tomorrow with any lingering regrets or uncertainties. So why don’t you come right out and say it? Whatever it is, I promise I won’t think any less of you.”
Anzu looked at me, eyes wavering nervously. It was clearly something she was very reluctant to discuss. I sat straight and braced myself for whatever it might be, resolved to keep calm and listen even if it was something I didn’t want to hear.
Anzu took a long, long sip of her coffee, then opened her mouth. “…Have you ever heard of Giorno Monthly?”
“Huh?”
Of all the things I might have guessed she was about to say, that certainly wouldn’t have been among them. Giorno Monthly was a manga periodical aimed largely at an older audience. I’d leafed through it a few times at my usual barber shop; it featured a wide variety of more mature genres, from dark fantasy to adult contemporary slice-of-life. In general, you could always tell that the authors had a really unique creative vision with every story they published.
“Yeah, I’m familiar. What about it?”
“…Four times a year, they do this thing called the Rising Star Competition, where they take original manga submissions from aspiring artists and select one winner for actual publication.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And, well…I actually entered my own story in this spring’s competition a few months back. They finally published the results in this month’s issue, which went on sale today.”
Aha. That explained why Anzu had made us wait until August 2nd to do our expedition into the Urashima Tunnel. I’d found it highly odd that she picked the 2nd over the 1st, but now I understood; Anzu had wanted to see the results before we left. That made sense, of course. Obviously, if she did win, it would be pretty unfortunate for her to vanish for several years without ever knowing.
Wait… Hang on a minute.
“You’re not about to tell me you won, are you?”
“No, no. I definitely lost.”
“Oh… G-gotcha.”
“But,” Anzu continued before I could offer my condolences, “as it turns out, there was an editor on the publishing team who really took a liking to my submission, even though it didn’t win… And they got in touch with me to ask if I’d be interested in working on a manga together.”
“…Wait. S-seriously? So your story’s gonna get published after all?!”
“No, not exactly. It just means that I’ll have my own editor now, who I can work with on any hypothetical future projects. However, I haven’t heard anything more than that…”
“Wow. Your own editor, huh…”
The idea was so foreign to me that it was starting to feel like I wasn’t worthy of existing in Anzu’s orbit anymore. When I made eye contact with her, it looked almost as if she was being rapidly pulled away from me, like one of those stretching corridor scenes in horror movies. Vertigo effect.
“So, uh… What does this mean, exactly? Now that you’ve got an editor, where do you go from here? Y’know, it’s funny, I read a lot of manga, but it feels like I know shockingly little about how it’s actually made.”
“Well, the vast majority of people keep entering competitions until they win one. In theory, I’d keep writing manuscripts, send them to my editor for review, make adjustments based on their feedback, and hopefully improve the end product as a result… At least, that’s how I assume it goes. I’m not much of an expert myself.”
“So is that what you’ve decided you wanna do now?” I asked. Maybe I was pushing too hard, because her brow furrowed slightly.
“This isn’t about what I ‘want.’ All it means is that there’s an editor out there who likes my work, which is kinda cool. That’s it. End of story. Doesn’t change my plans in the slightest.”
“Well, the ‘plan’ was to head into the Urashima Tunnel tomorrow… Are you sure you’re still cool with that?”
It was entirely possible that we’d be leaving the world we knew behind for months, even years. Something told me Anzu’s new editor wasn’t going to sit around waiting for her next manga for that long, and I didn’t know the first thing about the manga business.
“…That’s a ridiculous question,” said Anzu. “Do you seriously think I’d bow out at the last minute just because they randomly decided to assign me an editor? Sure, it’ll be a shame to pass up that opportunity, but who cares? The tunnel’s going to grant me something much more valuable than one measly editor. It’s not like this means I’ll have to give up writing manga for the rest of my life or anything either. Now that I know my work is worth something, I can double down on it as soon as we make it back out. So please—just let the editor thing go already, okay?”
If that’s really how you feel, then why do you look so distressed? I thought being a manga artist was the only thing you ever wanted. Aren’t you ecstatic to finally get some recognition from the pros? Are you really gonna throw away this once in a lifetime opportunity to make it big, just like that? Like hell you are.
“I think you should really give this more thought, Hanashiro. Let’s at least postpone the expedition for now.”
Anzu shook her head vehemently as though I’d asked her to break her moral code. “Absolutely not. It’ll only make it harder to let go in the long run.”
“Harder to let go of what?”
“Of everything. My manga career, my friendship with Koharu—all the dead weight tying me down that might make me reconsider going into the tunnel. The longer we put this off, the harder it’s going to be to cut those ties and leave everything behind. If we don’t kiss the world goodbye and launch the expedition right now, I’m afraid we never will.”
“Aw, c’mon. Don’t call your friend dead weight. And don’t talk about your manga that way. I know how important to you it is.”
“I mean, it’s just a stupid hobby…”
“Listen to me. I can tell you’re getting cold feet. You wouldn’t have called me here to talk if you weren’t. If you’re having second thoughts, then we’ve gotta seriously pump the breaks and reconsider our game plan.”
“Argh…” Anzu groaned, placing her elbows on the table and holding her head in her hands. Her bangs hung like drapes over the table as she let out a whine of distress. “I don’t know what’s best for me in the long run… What should I…?”