Work Text:
It was four in the morning.
Rohan looks at the clock on the wall: he's almost done with his manuscript.
He only has a few panels left while he calmly outlines his own line, staining the leaf in the right spots - mixing the ink with the white character of the page. He makes some additional sketches in the last part, feeling tiredness fall on his shoulders.
When he finishes the small sketch of an ordinary face, his eyes flicker when he sees his newest character drawn on the panel, winking at him.
Rohan rubs his eyes, thinking that maybe he was just too tired. In the end, when there were only a few last details in the main scenario of his manga chapter, the artist faces his creation again. That same easy on the eyes man on the leaf, with his blue circles staring at him as if they were waiting for him to find and wrap him in his ink. Rohan got lost in that, too, at some point along the way. He dips his hands into his manuscript, realizing that it's much deeper than he had imagined.
The instant he realizes, his entire body is on the other side. There is a significant amount of proportional black and white trees around it and a high mountain circling the horizon. The man praises his fine brushstrokes on his own body, embroidered on 0.4 mm mechanical pencil. He felt it would go out at any moment, when the stranger shook his hands. He's there, gesturing to him, almost as if he's alive, right next to Rohan.
He pulls his hands away, bringing him across the valley. There are other characters on the way, at least a dozen of them: all employees of a large textile factory that Rohan had to design to alienate his new story. He let the young man with the tuft take him, weaving a wry smile on his face and highlighting the moment when Rohan's hands were shaky and lazy on paper. He would need to fix it, eventually.
The mangaka was submerged in his chest after that, as if someone else's heartbeat was real and not just onomatopoeia written in graffiti. The sunset line formed in the sky, and Rohan thought he should say it. He should warn that Josuke was going to die soon, and that this was part of his script. He couldn't erase it from all events, because it took time in his work. He couldn't get rid of all his masterpiece, let alone freeze in time the way the lovely coloring of Josuke's eyes fit into the world near him.
He saw him peel in a couple of minutes, unable to say anything in his illustrious absence of speech. The balloons disappeared as he tried to scream, almost missing the warmth of Josuke's ink on his lips, playing with his trembling strands and thin inconsistency.
When Rohan opened his eyes, he was hunched over his desk. The manuscript was still there, waiting to be finished. He closed his eyes again, yawning as he struggled to end it all.
As soon as the clock struck again, Rohan placed his papers in his huge fax machine, watching as Josuke slowly moved away from him, flying into some other type of editorial system.