Tokyo — a city where dreams and exhaustion look the same from far away.
From the top of Senvidia Tower, the lights stretched endlessly, painting the sky in gold and violet.
Kaizen Ryou Aizawa, twenty-five, stood quietly near the edge, watching the city that once felt like a miracle. Now, it only felt... predictable.
The world called him a prodigy — the youngest mangaka to reach international fame.
His manga, "The Girl I Met Online," had shattered records, winning awards, adaptations, and endless applause.
Yet Kaizen didn't feel joy or pride.
He only felt a strange distance — as if all of this was happening to someone else.
Behind him, the glass door slid open.
A woman stepped out — Lyra Watanabe, his girlfriend and co-founder of Senvidia.
Her silver hair caught the last rays of the sunset, glowing faintly.
"Kaizen," she called softly, "you skipped the afterparty again."
He didn't turn around. "Crowds make it hard to breathe."
Lyra sighed but didn't argue. She walked up beside him, her tone half gentle, half teasing.
"You won Best Global Manga again. You could at least smile."
Kaizen looked out at the horizon. "I smiled once. The world didn't notice."
Lyra chuckled faintly. "You really know how to sound poetic and depressing at the same time."
He almost smiled — almost — before his phone buzzed in his pocket.
The screen flashed: Manajit Ghosh.
He answered.
"Yo, Manajit. Been a while."
"Kaizen…" The voice on the other end was uneven. "You heard about Simi Manna?"
Kaizen's brow shifted slightly.
That name felt buried — from another lifetime.
Simi. The girl who first read his rough sketches during science tuition.
The one who said, 'You should draw a story about people who meet online.'
His first reader. His first supporter.
The silent inspiration behind The Girl I Met Online.
"What about her?" he asked quietly.
"She's gone," Manajit said. "Killed… last night. Some random psycho, they say."
Kaizen didn't speak for a few seconds.
His reflection in the glass window looked calm — too calm.
"I see," he finally said. "That's… disappointing."
Manajit sounded surprised. "That's all?"
Kaizen looked out at the fading sun. "There's nothing I can say that would change it."
He hung up before his voice could waver.
Lyra tilted her head. "Bad news?"
He just nodded once. "Someone I used to know."
That night, Kaizen returned to his Tokyo apartment — the place that looked more like an art museum than a home.
Canvases leaned against every wall. Half-finished sketches covered the floor.
At the center stood a seven-foot canvas, hidden beneath soft lamplight.
It showed only half of a girl's face, her eye looking toward the distance — delicate, haunting, incomplete.
No one knew who she was.
Not even Lyra.
Kaizen stood before it, expressionless.
His hand hovered near the brush, then stopped.
He whispered to the empty air,
"Disappointing... yeah. Maybe everything is."
Outside, the wind howled faintly.
And for a split second, his right eye glimmered red — then turned normal again.