Kou Majima exited the subway station and scanned the crowd.
This was his first time taking the subway to Oumi Town Station, and he knew nothing about the area.
'Kanzaki-sensei said someone would come pick me up, but where are they?'
His appearance was hard to miss.
He had a golden mohawk sitting on top of a round head. Plenty of people were flowing in and out of the station, but every one of them gave him at least a meter of clearance.
Among everyone present, nobody stood out more than him.
"That's really something. When Kai told me, I thought he was exaggerating."
He didn't have to wait long before someone tapped him on the shoulder. "You must be Majima, right?"
"That's me." He bowed. "You must be the senior assistant on Kanzaki-sensei's team. Sorry to trouble you with the pickup."
"Don't worry about it." Yuta Kawata waved his hand. "I only just got here myself."
He suddenly realized it wasn't appropriate to call Kai by his first name in front of the new hire, so he adjusted.
"Kanzaki-sensei's place is nearby. Let's walk."
Majima nodded. "Sure."
On the way to the Fujin home, Yuta couldn't help but say, "I was expecting someone loud and rough. Didn't think you'd actually be easy to talk to and pretty polite."
Majima touched his mohawk.
"I was a real piece of work back in the day. Ran with biker gangs, raced people on the streets in the middle of the night."
"And now?" Yuta asked curiously, then caught himself. "Sorry."
"It's fine, there's nothing I can't talk about." Majima replied with a small smile. "Three years ago, my dad got seriously sick. I couldn't afford the hospital bills. If our relatives hadn't each chipped in, he would've..." He took a deep breath. "After that, I got my act together. Enrolled in a cram school, learned to draw manga, worked odd jobs, became an assistant. And here I am."
Yuta pointed at his hair. "You're not going to change it?"
"This?" Majima replied. "When I finally make something of myself, I'll shave it off."
The mohawk was his way of keeping himself hungry.
"I see." Yuta nodded, understanding.
Majima asked in return, "What about you, Kawata-senpai? Why'd you get into assistant work? You must want to be a manga artist yourself, right?"
Yuta shook his head. "I'm an ordinary guy with no special talent. It's enough to follow behind a genius."
If it weren't for Kai, he'd still be back in the countryside farming.
Not that there was anything wrong with farming. But coming to Tokyo and seeing this vibrant, massive world had opened up horizons he didn't know existed.
"That's a weird thing to say, Kawata-senpai." Majima scratched his head.
...
Fujin home.
A young man sat across from Kai, having come to work as his assistant.
"My name is Shouta Amasaki, from Sapporo. I came to Tokyo with the dream of becoming a manga artist."
"I heard from Editor Heishi that Kanzaki-sensei is a genius with transcendent talent. Being able to work in your studio as an assistant is just incredible!"
He was gesturing wildly, talking nonstop.
"With your guidance, Kanzaki-sensei, I'm sure I'll learn so much."
"But I'll be honest, it's kind of embarrassing. I'm really not that good at drawing. I'm basically a beginner."
"If I slow you down, please fire me. Don't hold back. I can take it!"
Before Kai could get a word in, Amasaki had poured everything out in one breath.
The quiet home became very noisy.
"Alright, alright, I got it." Kai made a calming gesture in the air and rubbed his temples. They were throbbing. "Let's wait for Majima first."
Not long after, Yuta arrived with Majima.
Amasaki's mouth fell open the moment he saw the mohawk.
"So... so..." He couldn't get the words out for a long time.
Kai tried to help. "So strange?"
"So cool!" Amasaki slapped his thigh and launched into a stream of praise. "I can feel your contempt for the world, your dissatisfaction with this whole era. A spirit of rebellion just radiates off of you. I see the liberation of the individual, pure self-expression! I see peace and love! It's truly amazing."
Kai stood off to the side, baffled. "How come I don't see any of that?"
Majima looked extremely uncomfortable, like a recovered chuunibyou patient forced to watch someone in the peak of a severe episode.
"It's just a normal hairstyle." He smoothed his hair down and answered as plainly as possible. "You're reading way too much into it."
"Oh." Amasaki seemed to accept that.
But when it came time to draw backgrounds for Death Note, he still kept stealing glances at Majima, as if trying to catch some hidden flaw.
"Sensei, I'm finished."
Feeling the constant stare on the back of his neck, Majima completed the background Kai had assigned and handed the draft over quickly.
"Kanzaki-sensei, I'm done too!" Amasaki raised his hand.
"If you're done, bring it here." Kai sat in the main seat, nodding as he examined Majima's work.
"Yes!" Amasaki jumped up from his stool and hurried over. "Here you go."
Kai kept his eyes on Majima's drawing. "Just leave it there."
Then he said to Majima, "Your fundamentals are really solid. You'll have no problem working as an assistant."
"Thank you, Kanzaki-sensei!" Majima bowed deeply. "Please take care of me from now on."
"No need to be so formal."
After Majima, Kai turned to Amasaki's drawing.
"Whoa." He couldn't help himself.
"This is really well done."
Amasaki had drawn a bird's-eye view of a modern city.
The carefully arranged skyscrapers, the faintly visible streets below, the deliberate interplay between detail and open space. It was all executed with a level of skill that went far beyond what Kai had expected.
This was a serious test of compositional ability and perspective.
The skill Amasaki displayed was significantly better than Kai's own.
For an assistant this talented, shouldn't he be paying double the normal rate?
"Amasaki, have you worked as an assistant before?"
"No..." Amasaki's shoulders slumped. "Is my drawing that bad..."
"What manga do you usually read?"
"Well," Amasaki said, perking up slightly. "I've read Slam Dunk, Berserk, and Akira. I've also studied some animated films, learning from animators like Koji Morimoto and Hiroyuki Okiura."
"They're all so incredible. The detail in their work, the atmosphere they create. It hit me like a wall the first time I saw it. Like looking at real art."
"A beginner like me can't even begin to compare. I can't do anything..."
Kai looked embarrassed. He had never dared to compare himself to those masters either. Those people were national treasures. Untouchable by ordinary artists.
"Stay," Kai said. "The daily rate is 10,000 yen. Sound fair?"
"Ten thousand yen?!" Amasaki's eyes went wide. "That's so much!"
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