"Wow, impressive. Your new manga is already sixth in the popularity rankings after only two weeks."
Miyu said it casually, but her expression was complicated.
She tried to speak as if she were the one in first place and Rei was the one in sixth. But deep inside, she was comparing herself.
Her own first serialized work? It debuted near the bottom, fell to second-last place in just two weeks, and only clawed its way into the top ten months later.
Yet Rei? Two weeks, and he was already sixth.
She wasn't jealous, at least, that's what she told herself, but she definitely felt a sting of frustration and a bitter sense of unwillingness to lose.
After all, she became a manga artist years earlier than Rei. There was no way 5 Centimeters Per Second was going to surpass her, right?
"Thanks," Rei replied, carefully scanning the ranking sheet again.
Miyu tucked her hair behind her ear and added:
"By the way, when your royalties come in, you should finally buy yourself a phone. It'll be easier for my sister to contact you."
"Yeah. I've been planning that."
The two of them leaned against the rooftop railing, looking down at the students eating lunch on the playground below. A light breeze passed through the open space, lifting the sounds of laughter.
Rei felt strangely dazed.
In his previous life, struggling alone as an adult, he had fantasized countless times about returning to high school.
Now he really was back in high school. And not just that, he was a high school manga artist.
"What's so fun about watching people eat?" Miyu teased.
"Every time we come up here at lunch, you stare at them like you forgot how lunchboxes work."
"Brainstorming manga ideas?" she added with a smug grin.
"When you graduate, you'll miss this view more than once."
"You talk like someone in their thirties," Rei laughed.
"Seriously though, about that new manga you mentioned before… how's the progress?"
"Oh, the first chapter is done. The second is almost finished."
"What? Already? And you don't even have assistants?" Miyu stared at him as if he were a cryptid.
"Drawing manga takes talent. Drawing quickly takes even more talent," Rei said lightly.
Miyu's eyebrow twitched. A wave of pure rivalry surged inside her.
She had two assistants living near her villa.
Every day she shuttled finished drafts to them for post-production work. Even then, the three of them together weren't as fast as Rei.
Time passed quickly. When lunch break ended, Rei returned to class.
And the, before he even sat down, he heard the chatter.
"Akari…"
"Takaki…"
"5 Centimeters Per Second…"
"Shirogane…" (Rei's pen name)
The readers of his manga weren't just Hana and Yui, several classmates were leaning around a desk, arguing excitedly about the latest chapter.
In the current manga market, where romance series often followed repetitive formulas, 5 Centimeters Per Second might not have been the most commercial, but it was undeniably unique.
It was true in Rei's past life. And it was true in this world as well.
"Here he comes, our great manga artist!"
Hana waved dramatically the moment she saw Rei entered the room.
Ever since she learned he also bought Sakura-iro Weekly, Hana had been calling Rei that name, half-joking, half-teasing him for claiming he was the author of 5 Centimeters Per Second.
The funniest part was that everyone assumed it was… just a joke.
As always, once anime fans discover "their people," the conversation flows like a broken dam.
"Rei, did you read 5 Centimeters Per Second yesterday?" Hana asked, eyes sparkling.
The little group of shoujo-manga-loving girls turned toward Rei. They'd heard Hana say that one of the boys in their class actually read the same magazine, a rare phenomenon.
"Yeah," Rei nodded.
"Perfect," Hana said, leaning in.
"We were discussing what'll happen next. Yui and I think it's definitely going the long-distance-relationship route. But Touma and Yuki think their parents will magically move back to Tokyo one day and then the two of them can date properly."
"So what do you think?"
Rei blinked.
"There are eighteen manga in Sakura-iro Weekly. Why are you all fixated on this one?"
"Because," Hana huffed, "High Score Romance and A Sad Tale are already in their final arcs. The leads confessed, everything's honey-sweet, nothing to speculate about.
And the rest of the magazine is predictable. But 5 Centimeters Per Second, we genuinely can't guess what will happen next!"
Rei couldn't help but smile.
"But I'll tell you both your theories are wrong," Rei said calmly. "Totally wrong. And spoilers are the most evil thing an author can do. So I won't say anything. But what you want to know will be answered in a few weeks."
"Pfft—!"
The entire little group burst into laughs.
Rei had slipped perfectly into Shirogane-mode, the mysterious author teasing his fans. They all assumed he was just role-playing for fun.
"I remember," Hana said, snickering, "when you recommended the manga to me, you called it super sweet, right?"
"So based on that, you're saying in a few weeks it'll suddenly turn depressing and painful, right?"
"Uh."
Rei froze.
Huh? She guessed that?
"If the plot really goes that way, then I seriously need to think about Shirogane-sensei's true identity," Hana muttered.
"Don't overthink it," Rei coughed lightly.
A flicker of guilt crept up his spine. There was no way he could reveal who he really was.
Both 5 Centimeters Per Second and his next work, Tonight, Even If This Love Disappears from the World, had emotionally brutal endings.If anyone knew he was Shirogane, some overly-invested fans might literally chase him down the hallway.
Four girls in his own class already read Sakura-iro Weekly. How many students in the entire school had picked up the issue this week?
Out of 800,000 copies sold, how many were bought by teenagers exactly like these?
The thought alone made Rei's scalp tighten.
No wonder Miyu kept her identity secret, a high school mangaka could easily get mobbed.
"What are you panicking for?" Yui teased. "Afraid the plot won't match my prediction, so you'll lose your 'great manga artist' act?"
"Yeah, yeah!" Touma Saitō and Yuki Kondō chimed in, grinning.
Rei stared at them helplessly.
They were just messing around.
Half these people couldn't even remember what they had for lunch yesterday.
There was no way they'd remember some dumb joke from weeks ago.
Case closed, Ignore and survive.