Early in the morning, at the Osaka train station, Haruki Suno waited by the ticket office with a sign in hand.
"Editor-in-chief... do we really have to do this?"
He was clearly uncomfortable. People looked at him, and he felt like he looked like a lost apprentice.
Kurosawa, sitting on the side with a newspaper on his knees, laughed as he heard it.
"Didn't you read that manga?"
Haruki nodded. "Of course. It's excellent. But he's not a famous mangaka yet. You didn't need to come and meet him yourself."
"Your gaze is very short, Suno-kun."
Kurosawa lowered the newspaper with a serious expression.
"Do you know what that manga represents? This industry does not survive without talent and effort. He's a rookie... and yet, he delivered a manuscript above the professional level. You don't see that every day."
Both knew well that the publishing market suffered from a lack of new authors capable of creating stories and drawing them themselves. A complete mangaka was rare. And Takumi was only fifteen years old.
The detective genre he had chosen, moreover, was not easy. It required logic, acuity and knowledge. Most authors avoided that terrain.
And yet, that manuscript was well narrated, it had rhythm, structure, visual expressiveness. It was technically sound. It was brilliant.
Kurosawa looked at his watch. "They are almost there. Don't get distracted."
Soon after, the crowd began to leave the station amidst suitcases, bags and crossed footsteps. Haruki tiptoed up slightly. I didn't want to lose the boy by accident.
"Excuse me, are you from Hinotori Publishing?"
A youthful voice approached him. In front of the poster, a thin teenager with a backpack looked at him serenely.
"I am Takumi."
Kurosawa stood up instantly. He evaluated the young mangaka carefully.
Takumi wore white clothes, as did the woman who accompanied him. There were no signs of ostentation, but his eyes... They were clear, firm, and calm. Kurosawa felt that he was not facing a student, but someone with years of experience contained in the body of a young man.
It was hard to explain. He smiled bitterly. And he approached.
"Hello. I am Kurosawa, who called you."
The first impression was excellent. They shook hands.
Then he turned to the woman who was with him.
"Ma'am? Is that okay?"
"My mother got a little dizzy during the trip," Takumi explained calmly.
"I understand. Our publishing house is nearby. He can go to the office to rest, if he wants."
They all got into a black car. Haruki drove, Kurosawa went in the front seat.
"Five sheep, five sheep, run fast...!"
The childish tone of the phone broke the silence just before they started.
"Wait a minute, I have to listen." Haruki put on the brakes again, took out his cell phone.
"Yes? Master Tomato? … Ah, the originals... I'm sorry, I forgot."
He covered the microphone with his hand, turned to Kurosawa.
"Boss, Master Tomato's new chapter is ready. Can I stop by it before I go to the office?"
Tomato was a professional mangaka who had been serializing for years in Weekly Shonen. That they called him "maestro" was a sign of respect for his career.
Kurosawa frowned.
That Haruki... He even forgot the day of manuscript collection.
"Tell him you'll see him tomorrow."
He turned to Takumi. Today the most important thing was to sign the contract. Nothing should stand in the way.
"But boss... Master Tomato has been very irritable lately. She has just been divorced. Won't he be upset if we ignore him?"
"That's your problem!" growled Kurosawa. "And besides, how can you think of talking about another author in front of Takumi!"
He was furious. Originally, he thought that Haruki could be the editor in charge of Takumi. But he was no longer so clear. An editor who doesn't know how to detect talent... it is not suitable for cultivating it.
—
At the publishing house, Kurosawa took Haruki and pushed him away right away. Another attendant led Aiko to the break room.
There, they prepared a breakfast for him. After eating, he felt better.
He looked around. It was in a glass-enclosed room, separated from the hustle and bustle by transparent walls. From there you could see an active office: at least five rows of desks, twenty editors moving among piles of papers. The walls were covered with illustrations and posters of published manga.
"Are you feeling better, ma'am?"
A gentle young man with glasses and a wad of leaves came in smiling.
"Much better. Thank you for breakfast," Aiko replied, with a slight bow.
"My name is Yuta Sakai. The editor-in-chief is talking to Takumi about the terms of the contract. He asked me to show him something in the meantime."
He put the manuscript on the table.
"Please take a look at it. His son drew it."
Aiko took it carefully. I had never read a manga. He turned a few pages awkwardly.
"I don't understand much... is this drawing okay?"
"Of course it's fine!" said Yuta with conviction. "There are few original manga with this quality. Both the stroke and the content... Please look more carefully."
She flipped through a few more pages. "Well... it seems so."
Yuta noticed his skeptical tone and pursed his lips slightly. She turned to the last page of the chapter and left it open in front of her.
"What do you think of this picture?"
Aiko looked down. And he was speechless.
Although I had never read manga, that cartoon was... beautiful girl. The boy drawn there had a deeply human gaze. There was doubt in his eyes, as if he was caught between impossible decisions. It made you want to know what was wrong with him.
"I'm going to take a better look at it..."
He took the leaves with new interest. This time, he read it from the beginning.
"Your son is a manga genius, ma'am. I should know."
Yuta adjusted his glasses. With a single image, Takumi captured the curiosity of whoever looked at him. That was not common. It was no coincidence.
Of course, talent only shines if it is refined. The real value was in the story.
Aiko continued reading. And it didn't take long for her to be surprised.
"He... Did you really draw this?"
I had always thought that Takumi only doodled as a child. His drawings were chaotic. But now... These pages were full of logic, rhythm, emotion. There was something special about detective manga. He seemed to have an intelligence behind him so clear that it was intimidating.
For the first time, her son seemed like a stranger to her. But that did not mean that he rejected it. He only regretted not having had the time to notice it sooner.
He felt guilty.
Yuta noticed his silence and sighed with relief. He hadn't realized Takumi was only fifteen, but the editor-in-chief had insisted: win the mother's approval.
"Well, let's talk royalties." He opened a folder on the table.
Aiko looked up, suddenly alert. She knew little about manga, but she did understand money.
"How much do you pay?"
"If it's serialized, it's roughly twenty pages a week at ¥4,000 per page. If it's later collected into a tankōbon, royalties 5 to 10%, depending on the deal I negotiate with the editor-in-chief."
"That much?!"
Aiko felt her head spin. Twenty pages a week at ¥4,000 each meant ¥80,000 per week—almost ¥320,000 a month. That was easily five to six times her husband's exhausted monthly wage.
She didn't fully grasp how volume-royalty accounting worked, but she understood this clearly: her son had a future. And she no longer needed to worry about tuition. In an instant, all her fears evaporated.