[Shining (Warrior)]: "He said that?"
[Shining (Warrior)]: "Don't listen to his nonsense, it's totally untrue!"
Eriri Spencer Sawamura's face darkened as soon as Kani Nayuta asked if she was going to collaborate on a manga with Kasumigaoka Touji.
How dare that guy mention it to other people?! And even spread such shameless false advertising...
Flip the table! (╯゜Д゜)╯︵┻━┻
[Kani Nayutag (Shield Warrior)]: "Eh? But he told me that... ( ゜ー゜.)."
Kani Nayuta was speechless. Kasumigaoka Touji wasn't seriously messing with her, was he...?
Besides—
Even through just a chat screen, she could feel that guy's ridiculous creative energy overflowing. The sheer confidence. The bravado.
[Shining (Warrior)]: "I did say that if his story was interesting, I might consider turning it into a manga, ( ﾟ ﾟ )."
[Shining (Warrior)]: "But this guy—this total amateur—had the guts to say he wanted to create a theme manga for his own song! Who does that? It's so sketchy!"
[Yamada-sama (Archer)]: "Honestly, I think that's pretty cool!"
[Yamada-sama (Archer)]: "Even if it doesn't turn out amazing, just doing it is kinda cool in itself!"
[UMR (Assassin)]: "Exactly, exactly~!"
[UMR (Assassin)]: "Making a manga based on a song… That's new! You're breaking new ground here!"
[Shining (Warrior)]: "You two, stop encouraging him, you bunch of bakas! _○＃(・∀・)３〜)."
[Gabriel (Priest)]: "..."
Another day, another moment of being completely out of sync with the group—!
[Kani Nayuta (Shield Warrior)]: "Shining, I'm super curious what a theme manga for 'unravel' would even look like, ( ﾟ ﾟ )."
[Yamada-sama (Archer)]: "Me too~."
Yamada Elf was thoroughly entertained. It wasn't her drawing it, after all.
[UMR (Assassin)]: "Curious +1!"
[Gabriel (Priest)]: "Same here."
Even Gabriel had joined the bandwagon.
[Kani Nayuta (Shield Warrior)]: "See? Even Gabriel's on board! Don't you think it's time to show some enthusiasm? =＾ω＾=."
[Shining (Warrior)]: "Even if you say that…"
Eriri's mouth twitched as she stared at the chat. Why are her gaming buddies always like this? So easy to make trouble when you're not the one drawing!
[Shining (Warrior)]: "Fine!"
[Shining (Warrior)]: "Since everyone is being so persistent, I'll be generous and lower my standards!"
Lowering standards?! In your dreams! There's no way I'm indulging his nonsense! (╯゜Д゜)╯︵┻━┻
...
"Yosh! That should do it for now!"
Having just finished the part where the protagonist receives "food" from the manager, Kasumigaoka Touji stretched and finally put his pen down.
He glanced at the bottom-right corner of the screen. Past 9 p.m.
Time really did fly when you were in the zone.
He twisted his neck, gave a light stretch, then walked around the room to loosen up before returning to his desk.
Afterward, he meticulously checked for typos, polished dialogue, and fine-tuned scene details.
Satisfied with the draft, he sent the file over to Eriri Spencer Sawamura.
Unfortunately, Eriri was smack in the middle of her nightly activity period. After all, post-nine was her peak gaming time.
She barely spared the file a glance.
Only around ten o'clock, once she was done for the night, did she finally open it up.
"Tokyo... Wait, what's this kanji again?"
Eriri Spencer Sawamura blinked when she saw the filename.
The title was completely foreign to her—not in a mysterious or cool way, but in a way that made her feel like her brain had just short-circuited. It was almost as if the author had deliberately chosen a name to mock her intelligence.
"Tch… what even is this?"
Without a second thought, she copied the title and opened a new tab to search it up. She wanted to figure out how to even pronounce the character names and what on earth the title meant.
"Wait… 'Ghoul'? What kind of chuuni nonsense is that?! There's not even a proper word like that in Japanese!"
She stared at the screen, feeling her frustration bubble. Creating your own vocabulary? Really?
"Hmph~ Just what kind of weird story is this, Kasumigaoka Touji-san?"
Everything about it screamed pretentious, or worse—overly complicated. She could already imagine herself pausing mid-sentence to look up strange terms, kanji, or lore. A story like that sounded exhausting.
Still, Eriri smirked. "Hehe… alright then. If it's trash, I'll roast it to ashes. Don't go crying when I pick apart your precious little 'masterpiece,' Touji-san!"
Feeling slightly more awake than before, thanks to the anticipation of a good rant, she clicked open the file.
The first line hit her like a curveball:
[Initially, Kaneki Ken just wanted to fall in love… (bddc)…]
[—Touji.]
"Eh…? A romance? The protagonist is named Kaneki Ken?"
She furrowed her brows, now genuinely curious. The next section seemed to be a synopsis:
[In the streets of Tokyo, a man-eating monster called a 'Ghoul' is quietly expanding its influence into the human world.]
[A normal college student, Kaneki Ken, was on the verge of death after being hunted by a Ghoul. Doctors performed an organ transplant to save him, but the donor was, unbeknownst to them, the very Ghoul that attacked him. After waking in the hospital, Kaneki soon realized that something was… wrong.]
[Foods he used to love now tasted like ash. Days without hunger gave way to unbearable emptiness. And soon, the only thing that could make his stomach growl was the scent of flesh on the passersby in the street—thus, his nightmare began.]
"...Huh?"
Her voice came out in a whisper, her earlier smugness replaced by a flicker of intrigue.
Without noticing, she had leaned in closer to the monitor. Her bright blue eyes scanned every line, and before she knew it, she was neck-deep in Touji's strange little world.
Next came a series of detailed world-building notes. What was a Ghoul? How did they survive? What powers did they have? The tone was serious, yet filled with dread.
It was all so fresh—so different from the usual light novels she read or worked on.
"This… isn't bad, actually." She adjusted her seat slightly.
Her interest was piqued. Her hands moved on their own, scrolling down to the main text.
Kaneki Ken, alongside his friend Hide, was hanging out at a quiet café called 'Anteiku.' The atmosphere was cozy, the conversation casual. They were talking about the recent news reports on Ghouls.
Then, a bit of light teasing—Hide poked fun at Kaneki and tried to match him with a cute café worker. The moment was warm, almost slice-of-life in tone.
Eriri blinked.
Wasn't this supposed to be a horror story?
She had been ready to pick apart plot holes and complain about clunky dialogue, but something about Touji's writing was annoyingly good.
Each word seemed to drip with atmosphere. The descriptions were rich, not overdone but emotionally charged. The characters felt real. Even the banter between Kaneki and Hide was filled with unspoken depth.
It was like watching a movie inside her head.
And then—
A new song started playing from her playlist.
[Tell me, please tell me, what is the secret within? Who exactly is inside my body…]
The delicate vocals of a young boy—raw, ethereal—floated through her headphones.
It was "Unravel."
The very moment she reached the scene where Kaneki, freshly released from the hospital, tries eating food—only to retch in agony, unable to digest anything.
As he walked the streets, starving, the faces of the people around him began to morph into something terrifying.
Food.
Meat.
The hunger was unbearable.
Kaneki rushed into a restroom, trembling, looked into the mirror—and saw his left eye had turned black and red.
"...!"
The timing was so uncanny that Eriri froze.
The haunting lyrics. The scene. The weight of Kaneki's despair. It was like her soul was being pulled into the story.
Goosebumps rose on her arms.
Her lips parted slightly, her breath hitched, and her wide blue eyes were glued to the screen. For a full minute, she forgot to even blink.
Kasumigaoka Touji's story had reached into her chest and squeezed something tight.
"…W-What the heck… was that…?"
For a while, Eriri could only sit there in silence, staring at her screen.
Not as a critic. Not as a creator. But as a reader.
And in that moment, she finally understood something.
Touji wasn't just writing a story.
He was showing her a world—
—and daring her to survive in it.