Volume 1 - CH 29

29th day of confinement

Translated by SoundDestiny

Edited by Kaepinned

When I wake up in the morning, Konata is gone.

‘Where did she go?’

For a moment, I glanced around to find  her and shook my head.

‘Did she go back to her parents’ house? I’ve rejected her, haven’t I?’

Intense regret washes over me.

I go to the kitchen and wash my face.

The toothbrush she used is missing.

There is no cup either.

‘Did she take her personal belongings home too?’

Turning on the tap, I fetch water with both hands and drink it.

I can’t help it because I don’t have the cup I usually use.

In addition, the sleeping bag, the silver tray, the expensive-looking dishes and, finally, even the rubbish, all traces of her presence have disappeared from the house. 

However, it is only her personal belongings that are missing.

My futon in a corner of the room, my laptop, bank book and other valuables are left untouched.

‘That’s thorough. ──In the first place, did a high school girl confine me really? Or is it just my delusional existence?’

When it disappears so cleanly, such doubts arise.

‘How rude of me to doubt her existence, no matter how depressed I am.’

I wave my hands, splash water into my face and laugh at the silly ideas.

I turn my feet to the front door to go to the convenience store to get some breakfast.

As I sit down in the hallway and put my foot into my left shoe, I realise.

‘No. Can I really laugh it off?　If I think about it calmly, it’s not impossible, is it?  Or rather, there are many events that make more sense if I think of this as my fantasy.’

A JK fan who just happens to show up where I’ve fallen ill, nursing me and supporting my creative work.

Does such a convenient existence actually exist?

Wouldn’t it be more natural to think of it as a delusion?

‘But if it’s a delusion, there’s no need to threaten me with a knife or lock me up, is there? It could more conveniently be a cat-eared maid serving me, couldn’t it?’

I stare at the inorganic concrete of the entrance and think.

‘Perhaps it reflects my abnormal mental state…’

A month ago, I was pretty out of my mind.

I was aware of it and my editor pointed it out to me softly.

My desperate state of mind, which prevented me from drawing manga, might be materialised in the form of threats with a knife and confinement in chains.

It makes sense if I think about it that way.

‘No, the washing machine and the fridge, they are still here.’

I put my shoes in the doorway and go back to my room.

I open the door of the fridge to check the inside.

There’s hardly any food in there anymore.

‘Ah, but the billing address is my account. Konata said 『ours』 but at least it’s in my name.’

In other words, there is no objective evidence to show that I didn’t order the appliances myself.

‘If she was a shop assistant at the shop where she bought the clothes, I might remember her face. But I don’t know which shop she went to. All other online retailers are placed and distributed.’

I don’t know anyone who can testify to this [Konata] existence other than myself.

I’ve never even seen her interacting with anyone other than me.

‘What if I contact the school…but there’s no way they’d tell a complete stranger about the students they have enrolled. Am I out of my mind?’

I clench my fists and bang them on the closed fridge door.

It hurts.

Unquestionably, this is reality.

‘If Konata is my delusional character, what ‘she’ told me was  actually my compliment to my own storyboard, wasn’t it? It was all self-praise. No wonder the editors are so critical.’

I go back to my room and open the drawing tablet.

On reviewing it again, it is badly done.

It’s all my own work, and of course it’s a self-righteous storyboard.

A hypothesis that I really don’t want to come up with.

But now that I’ve come up with it, I can’t pretend it didn’t happen.

All the circumstantial evidence supports the non-existence of this person.

‘If indeed Konata is my imagination. I wonder if I’ll never see her again.’

The worst imaginations are now haunting me.

My heart is going cold, as if it had been doused with ice water.

It’s possible that I won’t see her.

No, I don’t want to.

I absolutely hate the idea of me not being able to see her anymore.

Even if she is an illusion of my own creation, I want to see her.

‘Why do I want to see her?　Why do I want to cling to her? Do I want to thank her? Or do I want to apologise?’

No, it’s different.

If I wanted to thank her for helping me with my creative work, I would have told her many times.

If I wanted to apologise, I shouldn’t have been so unfaithful and rotten from the beginning.

I see. I’m…

‘Before I knew it, this thing was growing inside me.’

I’ve realised.

That’s how I honestly feel now.

I just want to tell her how I feel.

Bururururu

My phone beeps in response to my shaking body.

‘A DM through SNS?’

Open.

The sender’s account name is blank.

The text is only two words.

“Late.”

Attached is a single selfie.

It must have been taken in a hurry. The face is only visible from the mask down and the picture is a little blurry.

But there is no way I could have mistaken her for anyone.

‘Konata! She wasn’t my imagination.’

My heart is filled with relief.

“Hahahahaha, Konata, you did it!　You went to school!”

I smile and look up at the ceiling.

I’m really happy.

Perhaps, I feel even more elated than I did when I won my first serialisation.

‘Th,that’s right. Reply. Quickly. I need to tell her how I feel.’

I impatiently swipe repeatedly to string together faltering sentences.

Just before I tap ‘send’, I stop my index finger a millimetre before the screen.

‘Is this really what I want to do? Is this really OK? I’m sure she went to school with a lot of courage. And I’m just going to get away with one tap like this?’

No, no.

That’s not the best I can do.

I’m not a poet, I’m not a novelist.

I’m a mangaka.

[A bit late]

Learn more

Pause

Unmute

If I want to tell her, the only way is through manga.

That’s the best sincerity I can show her.

And now, the story I should draw…

‘…..The story of a manga artist who was locked up by a high school girl.’

This is all I have.

I don’t need a storyboard.

There is no need to come up with new ideas.

The memories are all stuck in my head.

I have to draw a full, honest picture of what I couldn’t say, what I wanted to say and what I should have said.

This is just a short manga.

And it’s a silly young man’s argument.

‘Oh, I think Konata did mention her permission.’

『If you like, you can use me in your manga.』

I remember what she said that day.

I laughed it off at the time, though.

‘Honestly, I should have done exactly as she told me.’

Chuckling, I put down my phone.

With the drawing tablet, I start a new blank page.

There’s nothing else for me to draw on.

But that’s okay.

At the end of opening Pandora’s box, there is still hope.