When Rei stepped onto the stage, it wasn't just the online audience that was stunned, even the well-connected industry veterans present at the ceremony were left bewildered.
Anyone in the manga world who paid attention to Shirogane had assumed she was a beautiful high school girl, just as fans had widely propagated online.
However, Hoshimori Group had never once promoted Shirogane as female.
They had only ever described him as a "genius high school student."
But after reading Five Centimeters per Second and Tonight, most fans simply couldn't imagine the creator being male.
And so the "Shirogane must be a girl" rumor spread everywhere.
Now, the venue was completely silent.
Shirogane? This boy…?
Even the normally composed Aira stared with her mouth half-open at the young man on stage.
Meanwhile, in front of the TV, Yui and Hana nearly dropped their laptop.
They set it on the floor and practically crawled toward the screen, desperate to find even the slightest mistake.
But…
"It really is Rei," Hana whispered, stunned. "His voice is identical."
"Rei… is Shirogane?" Yui said, disbelief written all over her face.
"If that's true… then why didn't he tell us?" Hana muttered anxiously.
After all, both of them were die-hard Shirogane fans. They constantly praised and adored Shirogane right in front of Rei.
Now, remembering all those moments, they felt embarrassed enough to dig a villa with their toes.
"He…" Yui tried to recall.
"He never actually hid it from us."
"Remember in second year? We went to buy Sakura-iro Weekly and ran into Rei buying the same issue."
"He joked that he was Shirogane."
"That was a joke," Hana said slowly, though her words lost strength halfway through.
"Sometimes," Yui replied, voice soft, "the truth is spoken as a joke."
A line from her favorite detective manga, Reverse-Time Detective.
Hana fell silent.
Across the country, countless High School Students from Rei's school were watching as well.
The reaction was instant, an online explosion.
"A man?! Shirogane-sensei is a man?!"
"No way. A male artist created a character like Hino? Impossible!"
"I can't accept this."
"This is fraud! Hoshimori Group lied!"
"No they didn't. They never stated Shirogane-sensei's gender."
"I was prepared for Shirogane-sensei to be plain-looking. But he's… actually handsome?!"
"He's not THAT handsome."
"Okay, in the entertainment world maybe not, but compared to most manga artists? Can you call him ugly?!"
"My brain's CPU just melted. Shirogane-sensei is a boy???"
On stage, Rei began reading his acceptance speech, he had memorized it beforehand.
It was almost identical in structure to the speeches given by the previous award recipients.
To Rei, this award wasn't something life-changing.
It was an honor, yes, but mainly something to add to his resume.He approached it seriously, but without unnecessary emotional burden.
However, the host clearly wasn't ready to let him leave just yet.
He had done his homework.
He knew what everyone in the venue, and those watching the livestream, wanted to hear.
So after Rei finished his speech, the host smiled and asked:
"This is truly unbelievable, Shirogane-sensei. To my knowledge, the internet has long believed that the manga artist Shirogane is a girl. May I ask why you never clarified this through Hoshimori Group?"
Rei glanced at the host. He understood perfectly that this was for showmanship.
But he detested being placed on the spot like this.
Still, since he was already on stage and the host had asked directly, he couldn't just turn cold and refuse to answer.
"I believe that as a manga artist, my only responsibility is to present my work faithfully to my readers. As for my personal information, those things aren't important. Whether I'm male or female doesn't affect the quality of my manga."
Rei gave a standard, modest answer.
The fans watching the broadcast were… not as calm.
"Shirogane-sensei definitely hides in some dark corner of the internet every week, laughing at us for thinking he was a girl!"
"Stop talking, the more I think about it, the more embarrassed I get!"
"I only helped him fight online every week because I thought he was a girl!"
"I've been played. From now on, anyone who doesn't show their face is automatically male."
Even though they were shocked, the tone online was mostly teasing rather than angry.
Meanwhile, the host on stage clearly sensed that Rei's answer didn't satisfy the audience's curiosity, so he smoothly shifted the topic.
"I remember when Shirogane-sensei's Five Centimeters per Second was released as a single volume, it received strong support from Aira, who won the Annual Manga Award tonight. She even publicly said she was a fan of your work Tonight. Now that both of you have won the two major awards this evening, do you have anything you'd like to say to her?"
The host handed Rei the microphone with a grin.
"I'm very grateful to Aira for her support," Rei replied politely. "I'll take her as my role model and work hard to catch up."
"Ohh? Taking Aira as your role model? Working hard to catch up?" the host said with a smile.
"But Aira is only twenty-three, and she's already won the Annual Manga Award. So does that mean, Shirogane-sensei… you plan to win it even earlier?"
This was a deliberately loaded question.
No matter how Rei answered, his words would be splashed across tomorrow's headlines.
Show timidity, and he'd look weak.
Show confidence, and he'd look arrogant.
The host expected him to give another safe, polite response.
But what Rei did instead was, raise the microphone and say, softly:
"Yes."
A single word.
Below the stage, Aira raised an eyebrow.
Several top manga artists and industry veterans leaned forward with sharp interest. This was not what a new artist was expected to say.
Winning the Annual Manga Award was vastly different from winning the New Manga Artist Award.
It meant competing against every single published manga artist in the entire country.
A newcomer should have shown humility. He should have said something like, "I still have a long way to go, but I aim for the top."
But Rei just said;
"Yes."
The host froze for several seconds before snapping back into professional mode.
Excellent.
This young man wasn't "unshakably calm" after all, he was giving the host fantastic interview material.
"How old are you this year, Shirogane-sensei?"
"Sixteen."
"Then you have seven years to achieve the goal you stated here tonight."
"Yes," Rei nodded. "That's correct."
"And… at what age do you estimate you'll achieve this goal?"
"Seventeen." Rei replied calmly.
"H–H-how old?"
The host's tongue nearly tied itself into a knot.
"Seventeen," Rei repeated.
"Next year, if this awards ceremony is held on the same day, then on this very day next year, my new manga Hikaru no Go will win the Annual Manga Award, just like Aira did today."
The entire venue fell silent.
Below the stage, Misaki clenched her hands tightly. Her eyes were fixed on Rei, but they were no longer calm, something within them had shifted.
Miyu's heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear anything else. For a moment, she felt as if she were the protagonist of a manga, standing on that stage, bathed in the spotlight.
The words Rei spoke were bold, dreams she herself would never even dare whisper.
Yet he spoke them openly, clearly, confidently.
And she felt… envy.
Because right now, Rei stood on that stage like he belonged there.Mockery, disdain, shock, admiration, it didn't matter what the audience felt.
None of them could interrupt him.
At that moment, in this enormous hall, Rei was the undisputed protagonist.
Meanwhile, watching the livestream on their laptop, Yui and Hana were trembling.
"Rei, what is he saying?!" Hana almost shouted.
"If he says something like that and doesn't achieve it, wouldn't that become a giant black mark on his life? He'll be laughed at for the rest of his career! He should be… more cautious."
"But why should someone with ability be cautious?" Yui replied quietly, staring at the screen.
"If you don't even believe your own work can win the Annual Manga Award… will it really win?"
Hana was stunned into silence.
As for Shirogane's online fanbase...
They had been shocked earlier when they discovered he was male.But now?
After hearing Rei's declaration, the chat exploded with excitement.
Deep down, whether Shirogane was male or female didn't matter much.
And in a community filled with young readers, bold confidence was magnetic.
Rei's words were exactly like something spoken by a manga protagonist.
"That's right!"
"Shirogane-sensei, I support you!"
"Incredible. This is the most explosive interview statement I've heard from a manga artist in years."
"This is Shirogane-sensei, who, at sixteen years old, made a triple leap through the top magazines, won the New Manga Artist Award, and now declares he'll win the Annual Manga Award at seventeen!"
"He's the shounen protagonist of the Japan manga world!"
"Teacher Shirogane, go for it! We believe in you!"
Not everyone was impressed, of course.
"Heh, next year we'll see this clown's downfall."
"Aira's fans, sit down. You don't get to speak here."
But overall, the reaction was electric.
On stage, the host's eyes were shining, he opened his mouth, clearly wanting to ask more questions…