As the city lights flickered on and neon signs bathed the streets in color, Tokyo quietly stepped into another night.
They say every spring rain brings warmth, and after a chilly morning cooled by evaporating rain, the night air now felt surprisingly mild.
Megumi Kato walked out of karaoke with her classmates.
After saying goodbye to two friends who still had the energy to go shopping, she linked arms with her friend Rinko Ohashi and headed toward the nearest station.
"Hey, Megumi, want to grab something to eat? Didn't you have a bunch of meal coupons for places around here?" Rinko asked.
The suggestion made Megumi's heart stir.
Karaoke had been fun, but it had drained her energy, and her body was screaming for fat and carbs.
Just hearing Rinko mention food brought images of takoyaki, tonkotsu ramen, and skewers dancing through her mind.
Her pink tongue unconsciously brushed her lips.
She was about to say yes—but reason quickly screamed that if she indulged now, she'd definitely regret the extra pounds tomorrow.
"You'll gain weight, you know, Rinko. Weren't you just complaining yesterday morning that you've already put on two kilos this month?" she deflected, trying to talk her friend out of it—and herself along with it.
"Ughhh, don't remind me!" Rinko groaned dramatically.
If they weren't holding hands, she probably would have crouched down on the spot in despair.
Megumi let out a quiet breath of relief.
If they'd really gone for late-night snacks, she knew she'd be the one crying about it tomorrow.
And then—
"Ahh, this is exactly the time for ramen!" Rinko announced triumphantly, slurping a bundle of noodles like a vacuum cleaner before sighing in bliss.
Megumi stared at the steaming broth and inhaled the rich, fatty aroma. She had to admit, her friend was absolutely right.
The soul of tonkotsu ramen lay in its pork bone broth—thick, creamy, and satisfying.
But if it got too rich, the unpleasant porky smell would overwhelm it.
That's why the choice of richness was key.
Megumi had gone with the lightest option.
Eating ramen at this hour was already sinful enough—if she'd ordered the thick broth, tomorrow she wouldn't just be wailing in regret, she'd be rolling on the floor.
She stirred the surface with her spoon, breaking the oil slick, then raised it to her lips.
The broth was hot, but the warmth melted into her chest, chasing away the cold dread of weight gain that had been clinging there.
The unique comfort of the oily soup tugged a soft smile onto Megumi's face.
Under the pale yellow light, her delicate features seemed even lovelier, framed in quiet contentment.
"Heh, I knew you wanted this too, Megumi," Rinko teased, nudging her with an elbow.
"But if it weren't for you, I definitely wouldn't have come!" Megumi protested.
"So what? We're high schoolers—our metabolism is insane. A couple pounds will vanish with all the stress of studying anyway. Studying's suffering enough," Rinko shrugged.
Megumi couldn't quite agree.
For her, studying—especially her private after-school tutoring—was one of the few joys that even tonkotsu ramen couldn't top.
(Well, except when Eriri joined in. Watching Eriri's suffering somehow made her own dislike of studying disappear completely. Misery shared was misery halved, after all.)
Besides, a ramen shop wasn't exactly a place she'd come alone, but with a friend it was different.
And with Rinko dragging her in so forcefully, she didn't have much of a choice anyway.
She took another sip of soup and, secretly, she was glad she hadn't let her "rational" side win.
"By the way, Megumi—you've seen the news about Hojou-sensei, right?" Rinko asked in a low voice between mouthfuls.
"Mm. I saw it," Megumi nodded.
Surrounded by endless recommendation algorithms—and given how often she actually met with Hojou Kyousuke—there was no way she could have missed the news.
Not to mention her overzealous cousin, whose chat feed was now overflowing with links and clips about it.
He'd already bombarded her with questions, desperate for inside information.
"So it's true? Is Hojou-sensei really going to write a pure love story this time?" Rinko asked eagerly.
Ever since reading that comment in Shūkan Bunshun where Hojou hinted his next work would be a beautiful romance, she'd been waiting impatiently.
She wasn't an otaku, nor a mystery buff, but The Devotion of Suspect X had struck a chord deep in her bones.
Ishigami Tetsuya's selfless, suffocating love for Yasuko Hanaoka was enough to fulfill any girl's fantasies of a perfect partner.
That was why Hojou Kyousuke's fanbase was such a complicated mix.
When he first debuted as a mangaka, his only fans were otaku—and otaku were notoriously fickle.
They weren't loyal to the author, only to the quality of the work.
If it was good, they'd buy; if it was bad, they'd tear it apart.
But idol fans were different.
They didn't love the work itself, they loved the person—and because of that, they supported the work unconditionally.
That created a whole new kind of fan dynamic, the kind advertisers loved.
Kisaki Tetta had played that game masterfully.
From the early days of promoting One Punch Man, he hadn't just marketed the series—he'd blurred the line between creator and creation, deliberately tying the author's image to the work.
The strategy worked brilliantly.
Hikigaya Hachiman was proof of that.
By leveraging the status of "Rampaging Angels" in Bunkyo, Kisaki painted Hojou Kyousuke as a sort of guardian figure, making him synonymous with One Punch Man himself.
The TV promos and online campaigns all pushed that image further.
Even later, with The Devotion of Suspect X, the trick continued.
Ishigami Tetsuya was deliberately written as plain-looking for narrative reasons, but thanks to Kisaki's spin, readers subconsciously projected Hojou Kyousuke's face onto him anyway.
As for the casual fans drawn in by flashy ad campaigns—well, their comments online spoke for themselves:
"Why doesn't Yasuko love someone as handsome and devoted as Ishigami?"
"Didn't they say there's going to be a movie? Hojou-sensei should play the lead himself!"
"Why didn't I have such a hot math teacher in high school?"
…and worse. Some of the comments were so ridiculous they weren't even fit to repeat.
In short, all those descriptions in the novel of Ishigami Tetsuya—his thinning hair, round face, prematurely aged look—the fans had completely ignored them.
In their minds, the protagonist had already been replaced by a handsome man who looked exactly like Hojou Kyousuke.
Well, it wasn't hard to understand.
Unlike manga, the magic of novels lay in imagination.
When readers put themselves in the hero's shoes, who wouldn't want him to be a tall, cool, devastatingly handsome guy?
And while criticizing Hanaoka Yasuko for not reciprocating, many of them were probably secretly projecting their own "idealized" selves onto the heroine.
And these kinds of fans were powerful.
Weekly Shonen High once ran a survey that left the entire editorial department stunned: a huge portion of the readers who gave Hojou glowing reviews admitted they only bought the magazine to read his work.
The moment his series went on hiatus, they stopped buying altogether.
In Japan, with its well-developed consumer data industry, statistics like these were easy to track.
Kisaki Tetta had even once sent Eikichi Onizuka to lurk outside bookstores to run similar checks.
Some young, fashionable office ladies even bought copies of manga magazines purely to support Hojou Kyousuke, despite never reading the rest.
On social media the effect was even clearer: sleek professional women who usually posted about business trips, luxury hotels, or racking up frequent flyer miles would suddenly share random news about Hojou Kyousuke.
To outsiders, it looked completely out of place, almost absurd.
If someone showed these results to Hojou himself, he'd probably shrug and say, "Oh, that's called breaking out of the bubble."
The term "going viral across circles" hadn't become mainstream yet, but the phenomenon was the same.
And for publishers, having an author like this was a dream: relatively low risk, because even if a book bombed, his fanbase would still buy.
Ohashi Rinko was clearly one of those fans.
She didn't necessarily buy magazines, but she owned every single volume of Hojou's two manga and his one light novel.
As for The Devotion of Suspect X, she had bought it multiple times—new release, reprint, collector's edition, special prize version—you name it.
And honestly? She hadn't even read all the manga.
She was simply buying out of pure love.
Katou Megumi pressed her lips together, resisting the urge to laugh bitterly.
At karaoke earlier she'd already been pestered by her cousin and sister about Hojou, and now Rinko had joined in.
If she didn't know anything, that would be one thing—but unfortunately, she really did know.
Her connection with Hojou-kun wasn't limited to after-school tutoring.
Sometimes she'd send him problems outside of class too.
Sure, other classmates could have helped her, but for some reason, she always preferred asking Hojou-kun.
Even when she already knew the answers, she still wanted his explanation.
And yesterday, while asking him a "question," she had casually brought up whether they'd be having an evening session.
That was when she found out what he was working on.
He'd even shared the drafts of his new novel and manga with her, asking if she had any suggestions.
Suggestions…? Well, her "understanding" of mysteries and manga pretty much began and ended with Hojou-kun's works.
Still, she'd spent the whole night reading through both drafts, so much that she couldn't focus at all in class today.
Looking at the steaming bowl of ramen in front of her, Megumi sighed softly and answered at last:
"As for the novel… I don't think it's exactly a romance. Or, well… maybe it kind of counts?"
She had almost said "definitely not a romance," but then remembered how she had asked Hojou-kun something similar. His reply had been:
"If someone weighing 372 pounds can land a perfect husband who's brilliant in both brains and brawn, that's not romance—that's science fiction. So this book is a sci-fi romance!"
She had burst out laughing alone in her room, and later, during class, she had even dreamed about it—dreaming that she herself had turned into a giant, ridiculously fat girl.
Maybe not 372 pounds, but absurdly heavy nonetheless.
If her childhood paper sumo dolls had been that big, they would have been unstoppable.
In the dream, she was living in a shabby, drafty thatched hut with a downcast, struggling writer version of Hojou-kun.
They had to grow vegetables and chop firewood just to scrape by.
And yet… she was happy.
Incredibly, ridiculously happy.
So happy she laughed out loud in her sleep, just like when she got a message from him in real life—until Rinko shook her awake, saving her from being caught by the teacher.
Even awake, the smile wouldn't leave her face.
Dreaming of a chubby version of herself and a skinny, worn-down Hojou-kun—how could they be so poor, yet she still grew so fat?
Was it because he gave her all the good food? It was exactly like he said—sci-fi romance indeed.
Her usual calm and collected demeanor had cracked, though only Rinko, sitting beside her, had noticed.
"…So, yeah. I guess it's more like a sci-fi romance," she admitted with a smile.
"Sci-fi romance?" Rinko tilted her head.
She'd seen rumors online saying it was a love story, or a mystery, or even a horror novel (Kisaki was clearly stirring controversy on purpose).
But not once had she heard anyone call it sci-fi.
Still, her best friend had the privilege of actual after-school tutoring with Hojou, so her info had to be more reliable than the internet.
"Like… Sword Art Online? That kind of sci-fi?" Rinko asked eagerly.
A gamer saves the world, wins the girl, all with VR headsets and full-dive technology—what could be more sci-fi than that?
Megumi shook her head. "Nope, not like that at all~~"
No matter how Rinko begged, she didn't give up more details.
Hojou hadn't told her to keep it secret, but it just felt wrong to spread his work around before it was ready.
So she quietly chose to keep it to herself.
"Anyway, it's not just a novel," Megumi added with a smile. "Hojou-kun is also publishing a manga. I think it's exactly your type. This time the magazine you buy will definitely be worth it."
Rinko's eyes went wide. "Wait, what?! He's doing a manga too? That's not just some rumor?"
"Nope~ It's real. I've already seen the first chapter. It's a romance manga."
Megumi wasn't sure about the novel, but the manga? That was undeniably a romance.
This time, Rinko didn't ask for spoilers.
She knew her best friend's personality well enough—sweet and easygoing most of the time, but stubborn as a rock on certain things.
So instead, she just whined dramatically:
"Ughhh, I'm so jealous. I wanna be friends with Hojou-sensei too! I wanna get after-school tutoring, I wanna text him late at night about secret stuff, I wanna dream about him during class naps—"
"I do not!" Megumi blurted, cheeks flushing.
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