Kai perked up.
"Thank you," he whispered.
Tsukasa covered her nose. "Don't drink so much in the future."
"Mm," Kai nodded.
While he was still somewhat coherent, Tsukasa went home and made a cup of honey lemon water.
Her pet black cat, Iori, meowed at her, wanting to play.
"Not right now." Tsukasa shook her head at the cat.
Iori sighed, flicked its tail, and walked away in a sulk.
Tsukasa called after it. "I'll be right back."
Iori turned around, tail raised and swishing.
It seemed to be saying, "Hurry up."
Cats were much more fun than men. Tsukasa brought the honey water to Kai and then excused herself.
"Take care."
Kai stood up, swaying slightly.
Tsukasa nodded, walked out of the room, and gently closed the door. She glanced through the window and saw Kai with his eyes shut, resting his head against the wall.
It was really worrying.
But that was all she could do.
When Kai woke up the next morning, there was a lingering sweetness in his mouth. He smacked his lips, savoring the memory of that honey water.
...
That day, while Kai was working on a color draft, Heishi called, sounding suspiciously pleased with himself.
"Going again tonight?"
He didn't specify where, assuming Kai would understand.
Heishi rarely went to high-end clubs since they were expensive. But now that the company was footing the bill, he was more than happy to enjoy himself alongside his manga artist.
"No," Kai said flatly.
"Eh?!" Heishi was genuinely baffled.
He tried to talk him into it a few more times, but Kai shut it down every time.
"Fine, fine." Heishi sighed, unable to understand what had gotten into Kai. The man had been having the time of his life last night.
Had he entered some kind of sage mode?
"Kazuki Takahashi wants me to ask if you're still visiting his studio tomorrow."
"Of course I am," Kai replied.
The next day, May 8th, he arrived at Takahashi's front door.
"Seems like the Fujima mess didn't get to you." Takahashi was waiting outside, a smile on his lips as he studied Kai with satisfaction.
"It got to me a little," Kai admitted. "But not enough to make me regret drawing Death Note."
"That's all that matters."
Takahashi stepped aside and invited him in.
...
"I heard from Takahashi-sensei that someone's visiting the studio today."
Inside the studio, one of the assistants spoke up.
"Has to be Kanzaki, the one who draws Death Note," another chimed in.
Shin Horikawa's ears perked up. "When is Kanzaki getting here?"
The moment he spoke, the other two assistants looked at him in surprise.
Horikawa was the senior assistant at Takahashi's studio. Word was he'd been working as a manga assistant for over a decade.
He was always diligent, head down and working while everyone else chatted. He'd never landed a serialization of his own, but he was a genuine pillar of Jump's behind-the-scenes workforce.
So hearing him actually initiate a conversation caught the others off guard.
"Should be any minute," one assistant said, glancing at the door. "Takahashi-sensei just went out to meet him, didn't he?"
Horikawa couldn't help feeling a rush of anticipation.
He'd read the Death Note one-shot, and it had genuinely stunned him.
Even with the artist's obvious lack of experience, the manga had delivered a storytelling impact that was rare to come by.
He was deeply curious: as a complete newcomer, how did Kanzaki have that kind of creative vision?
It was enough to distract even someone as focused as Horikawa.
Fortunately, it wasn't long before Kai arrived.
...
The person standing before him was brimming with energy, and his eyes were darting around the studio with undisguised curiosity. He really did look like someone in his early twenties with no professional manga experience.
Horikawa nodded and was the first to stand up.
"Welcome, Kanzaki."
Takahashi looked mildly surprised for a moment.
But he quickly understood what was going through Horikawa's mind.
As a late bloomer who didn't create Yu-Gi-Oh! until his thirties, Takahashi's mindset before serialization had been very similar.
Working hard but getting no recognition from the magazine. Watching younger artists succeed one after another. That gnawing feeling of wanting to understand where you fell short.
Wanting to acknowledge the talent of those who came after you. To study them and learn.
"Hello."
Kai shook the outstretched hand and then addressed the room. "Sorry for the intrusion."
"Don't worry about it," one assistant said warmly. "I'm cooped up in the studio all the time and barely talk to anyone from the outside. Honestly, it's nice to have a visitor."
"Seriously."
Kai handed over the snacks he'd brought, and the assistants lit up, immediately dividing them amongst themselves.
While they were distracted, Takahashi walked Kai through the staffing structure of his studio.
Horikawa knew the ins and outs better than anyone and filled in the gaps from the side.
"Characters should be drawn by the manga artist personally. That's what readers focus on. Leave backgrounds and grunt work to the assistants."
"Assistants work roughly ten to twelve hours a day. You need to provide lunch and dinner, and cover their commuting costs."
"Know their strengths. People who are good at backgrounds should draw backgrounds. People with steady hands should handle screen tones."
"If you spot small mistakes on a manuscript page, let them go. Weekly serialization is all about deadlines. Being too much of a perfectionist will make it impossible to finish on time."
Kai wrote everything down carefully in his notebook.
"Keep some fun little distractions in the studio to help everyone decompress. Oh, and speaking of which, I've heard that Togashi plays mahjong and video games with his assistants during serialization. I'm honestly jealous he has the time for stuff like that."
Should he write that down too?
Kai hesitated, then jotted it down anyway.
At that point, Takahashi's train of thought started wandering.
"I heard that one sensei takes his assistants hiking on their days off to unwind, and another one goes to bars with his assistants to drink and cry together."
Kai listened closely. He was beginning to understand that the relationship between a manga artist and their assistants was deeply personal. It was like action stars and their stunt teams. To succeed, you needed your own crew.
Assistants adapted to the manga artist's habits and amplified the expressive power of the work.
Ordinary assistants just met deadlines. The right assistants acted as force multipliers.
Kai thought of Yuta. Having his old partner by his side was like a fish finding water.
"There's a manga artist at Kodansha who's really into politics. Who knows, maybe he'll run for office someday."
Takahashi kept going.
"What about you, Takahashi-sensei?" Kai snapped back to attention. "What are your hobbies?"
"Me?" Takahashi scratched his hair. "Probably swimming and going to the beach."
Kai couldn't help himself. "Be careful with that, yeah?"
"Right." Takahashi nodded.
The conversation had drifted miles from where it started. Horikawa, sitting nearby, frowned.
Were all manga artists like this?
No wonder he, the focused one, could never make it.
...
After Takahashi finished explaining how the assistant workflow operated, Kai rolled up his sleeves and spent the rest of the day working as an assistant, helping draw Yu-Gi-Oh!.
At this point in the series, Yu-Gi-Oh! had only barely touched on cards. The focus was still on depicting short, dark games.
"Why not draw more card game chapters?" Kai couldn't help asking. "Blue-Eyes White Dragon is incredible, and if I remember right, the card-focused chapters had really strong results."
Takahashi looked a little reluctant. "I want to explore more possibilities. All kinds of games are interesting."
Kai frowned.
"The potential of card games is on a completely different level. They can form their own system. Monster cards, spell cards, trap cards..."
"Once readers can buy the merchandise and use the actual cards to battle each other, it'll trigger a massive trend."
Kai was speaking in theory, but Horikawa's jaw was slowly dropping.
In all his years as Takahashi's assistant, he had never once thought about any of this.
So this was the gap between him and Kanzaki. It wasn't skill. It wasn't work ethic.
He lacked the instinct to see where the real story was hiding.
_______________________
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