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The dog-headed villain laughs, canines flashing red under the super blood moon bathing the city in its gloomy light. “Is this all you’ve got?” he asks mockingly. “A pathetic little stick and a kitty?”
“I have love on my side!” Nathaniel declares, hands shaking even as he levels his magic wand at the gloating villain. “A power you’ll never understand—because monsters like you will never understand the human heart!”
“Then see if you can defeat me!” the villain arrogantly exclaims. “We’ll see who wins—your love, or my secret power!”
“You can do it!” the little calico cat meows by Nathaniel’s feet. “Believe in yourself!”
A soft head rubs against Nathaniel’s trembling leg, even as the villain laughs and launches himself into the air, and then—
Will Nathaniel Montgomery save the world again… or will the villain defeat our righteous hero? Find out in next week’s episode of Magical Boy M!
“I wish they’d stop leaving cliffhangers in the anime,” Kenma mutters as the cheesy voiceover segues into the anime’s ending theme. “It makes people think the manga’s just as bad.”
Kenma glances down at the inked draft in front of him, five arcs and several chapters ahead of the episode he’d half-watched, and sets his pen down so he can switch off the TV.
Most other mangaka would draw in a studio—the company’s offered him assistants to assist with his drafts, and they’ve set aside a studio for him in case he ever changes his mind—but Kenma pats his table with a fond little smile on his face. It’d been on this table that he’d sketched out the concept for his first manga, after all, so how could he abandon it after all these years?
From a high school graduate with vague dreams of professional gaming to Puddington Cat, one of the industry’s most secretive mangaka—if someone had told him, all those years ago, that he’d be drawing for a living? Kenma would’ve probably ignored them and gone back to his gaming, but now…
How long has it been since he’s pulled an all-nighter to play new releases? How many all-nighters has he pulled to meet his deadlines instead? Maybe it would’ve been simpler to be a pro gamer, Kenma thinks—but then he shakes his head and stumbles as he gets up from his seat.
As nice as it’d be to play on the world stage someday, he has a steady income from all the royalties to Magical Boy M, I’m Nyat a Shapeshifter! and Assassin Volley. People could say what they liked about his three quirky manga series (and he can mourn all the holidays he would’ve gotten as a pro gamer), but Kenma’s no longer that idealistic teenager who’d dreamt of dominating League of Legends.
At least I can draw manga for longer, Kenma reassures himself as he shuffles into the kitchen, and smiles as he gets himself a cup of water.
The smile abruptly disappears when a loud bang startles Kenma into dropping his cup.
Thankfully, the water mostly splashes into his sink—but the walls are thin in Kenma’s cheap apartment complex, and whoever’s outside is probably an elephant in disguise. The floor vibrates ever so slightly with their stomping or jumping or whatever they’re doing, muffled curses filtering in through the thin walls, and he sighs as he drags a hand down his face.
As much as he wants to pretend there isn’t an elephant at his door…
Kenma shuffles to the door, eases it open a crack, and glares balefully out the gap.
But the man swearing at a misshapen box isn’t one of Kenma’s neighbours, and Kenma’s glare falters when the man jerks his head up and notices him. They stare at each other for long moments, neither side saying a word—until Kenma shuts the door with a quiet click.
It’s a face that’s all too familiar but shouldn’t be in front of his door. It’s a face that shouldn’t exist, because Nathaniel Montgomery was the by-product of an eight-hour gaming marathon and six expired pudding cups—except the face staring back at him had been male, blond-haired and blue-eyed. The face that’d stared back at him was the exact same one he’d been labouring to perfect for the past three years, and it should be impossible.
Kenma opens the door wide, rubs his eyes and blinks several times—but Nathaniel’s face is still staring quizzically back at him.
“You’re—”
“Monoma Neito,” the real-life version of Kenma’s manga protagonist says in a too-loud voice, “and if you ask me to transform into a magical boy, I’m going to use your head to mop my floor!”
Instantly, Kenma takes a step back and brings his hands up.
Something flashes across Nathaniel’s—Monoma’s face at that, but he turns away with a huff before Kenma can figure out what it is. “Relax, I’m not going to actually do that,” Monoma sighs as he nudges his box with an idle toe, but it’s not until Kenma lowers his arms that he darkly adds, “not unless you ask me to cosplay that pastel idiot.”
“Idiot?” Kenma asks before he can help himself. “Nathaniel’s not that bad.”
“Oh god, you have watched Magical Boy M,” Monoma mutters under his breath, before he narrows his eyes at Kenma and asks, “How would you like to be mistaken for an anime character all the time?”
He was a manga character first, Kenma wants to protest, but one look at Monoma’s pronounced sneer is enough to make him swallow his words. “I’ve never been compared to one,” he says instead, but takes another step back when Monoma’s entire face darkens.
“Well, it’s terrible,” Monoma informs him through gritted teeth. “Do you know how many random pubescent teenage girls have tried to sneak pink ribbons into my hair? Some weird fan stalked me home so they could sneak into my room at night and take my measurements, all because they wanted me to wear their self-made cosplay without my permission!”
“That’s… interesting,” Kenma tells Monoma when he stops to gasp for air.
Apparently, it’s not what Monoma wants to hear.
“Interesting,” he hisses, and then shrieks, “Interesting?! Why don’t I find someone to draw you in an emasculating manga and see how you feel?!”
Kenma fumbles for the door as Monoma storms towards him with murder in his eyes—but Monoma’s only taken two steps before he pauses mid-step. It’s a surreal scene made all the more surreal by his facial spasms and the foot that begins trembling mid-air, but before Kenma can shut the door in Monoma’s face…
Monoma takes a deep breath, turns his back to Kenma and says, “Anyway, I am not a magical boy and I would appreciate you remembering that.”
Kenma’s fingers twitch on his doorknob as he watches Monoma pick up his misshapen box and trudge to the neighbouring apartment, but Monoma nudges the door open and doesn’t emerge after a few minutes. He’d never once asked for Kenma’s name, hadn’t even really done much beyond expressing his towering disdain for Nathaniel Montgomery and all things Magical Boy M—
But Kenma rubs his eyes again, shuts the door behind himself, and wanders back to the draft that needs inking. What an interesting person indeed, Kenma thinks to himself—and by the time Kenma’s stomach starts grumbling for food, there’s a thin stack of loose-leaf pages filled with rough sketches for a new arc.
“Oh, you must be kidding me,” Kenma hears as he’s climbing the last few steps to his floor. “What do I look like to you lot—some sort of portable food dispenser? Does my cologne smell of catnip to everyone but me, perhaps?!”
The speaker’s back is towards Kenma when he exits the stairwell—but it’s not hard for him to see who it is, even with the cats draped over his thighs and shoulders. It’s the first time Kenma’s seen this many cats in one location, but for them to be clinging to someone as noisy as Monoma?
“No, I do not have a sardine in my pocket!” Monoma scolds an inquisitive feline nosing at his jacket, and Kenma snorts before he can help himself.
Monoma’s head whips around, eyebrows scrunching and mouth opening wide in the beginnings of another loud complaint—but the rest of his body tries to turn as well. The rest of his body that’s squatting, weighed down with at least four full-grown cats and quite liberally dusted with cat fur—
And it’s no surprise at all that he falls heavily on his side, crying out even as cats yowl and scramble for freedom around him.
It’s so absurd that Kenma snorts again, but he’s crouching to lend a hand before he can stop himself. “Are you okay?” Kenma finds himself asking, and it’s such a stupid question that he winces at it.
Monoma stares at his hand for so long that Kenma almost thinks he’s hit his head—but when Kenma begins drawing his hand back, Monoma quickly latches onto it. “I’m surprised you didn’t just leave me to get up by myself,” he says in lieu of a response to Kenma’s question. “It’s not as though I was nice to you when we first met.”
His voice is so neutral that Kenma arches a brow at him, but Monoma’s too busy getting up to look at Kenma’s face. “So I guess you live in the apartment next to mine,” Monoma adds in his oddly neutral voice, and Kenma’s other brow rises too.
Nathaniel Montgomery is naïve and a little slow, prone to laughter in awkward situations and good cheer in all others—but it’s clear that Monoma Neito is nothing like Kenma’s impulsive creation, and Kenma crosses his arms with a light nod.
“Yes, I’m Kozume Kenma,” he tells Monoma.
And you’ll probably do worse things to my head if you ever found out I was Puddington Cat.
But Monoma Neito’s not a mind-reader—just as he’s not a magical boy—and he looks at Kenma with eyes that soon curve in a slight smile. “I hope we get along from now on,” he says in a voice so normal that Kenma almost thinks Monoma’s not the one speaking, but then a cat twines around Monoma’s legs.
Kenma can count the number of times a cat’s approached him without any coaxing on one hand, but Monoma only sighs before patting the cat on its head. Another cat approaches him before Kenma can open his mouth, even as one more squeezes through a gap in the railing, and soon there’s three cats purring and rubbing themselves against Monoma’s shins.
“Are you a cat whisperer?” Kenma breathes almost noiselessly—but Monoma hears him and looks up with an odd smile on his lips.
“I wouldn’t know about that, Kozume-san,” Monoma replies with a little laugh, “but if you had me choose between a magical boy and a cat whisperer? Then I’d rather get swamped by cats any day.”
Kenma cradles his hands around the half-empty mug, gaze lowered to the fragrant tea inside even as his heart thuds in his chest. There’s no sound from the person in front of him—not beyond the quiet breaths and the soft susurration of flipping pages—but it’s not until Kenma’s almost done with his tea that Akaashi finally looks up.
“Has anything good happened to you lately?”
Kenma blinks at him, fingers tightening ever so slightly on his mug.
“Don’t worry, I’m just curious,” Akaashi adds with the faintest of smiles, taking off his glasses and folding them beside Kenma’s drafts. “It’s not as though your work wasn’t good to begin with, but there’s…”
Akaashi hums and taps his fingers on the edges of Kenma’s latest spread, carefully avoiding the drying lines of ink on the pages. It’d taken half a day to sketch it out and almost an entire day to ink and colour Nathaniel and the three cats rubbing against his shins, and Kenma’s hands twitch from the memory of his cramping hands.
He’d enjoyed blending together volleyball and martial arts in Assassin Volley and drew cats to his hearts’ content in I’m Nyat a Shapeshifter! He’d accompanied Nathaniel Montogomery for the past two years, nurturing his airheaded protagonist from an awkward middle-schooler to an overpowered Gary Stu…
But as Kenma smiles a little from the memory and takes a sip of his tea, Akaashi says, “There’s more soul to your work now. It’s like… you’ve gone from observing Nathaniel to becoming his friend.”
Kenma almost chokes and drops his mug.
Because this is Akaashi saying that—the very same Akaashi that defended his decision to work on his manga alone, in the comfort of his own home, without assistants or other external help. He’d taken in a no-name mangaka with dreams three sizes too big, turned down offers to edit for more popular serialisations as I’m Nyat a Shapeshifter! had slowly gained traction, and stuck with Kenma through the cancellation of Assassin Volley and the conception of Magical Boy M.
Akaashi had never complained—and Kenma will always be grateful for that—but they had both known that Magical Boy M could never compete with Assassin Volley in Kenma’s heart. Popularity had nothing to do with passion when it came to Kenma’s work, so for Akaashi to see his passion grow after Monoma Neito had come into his life…
“Oh,” Kenma whispers, and pretends his misty eyes are from the steam rising up from his mug.
“It’s different, but I think your readers will like this new arc,” Akaashi continues placidly, like he can’t see Kenma half-hiding behind his mug. “Let me know if you need an extension or any other help, okay?”
He doesn’t ask further questions about Kenma’s new fit of inspiration. He doesn’t offer words of comfort or other meaningless blather, like other people might at the sight of Kenma’s misty eyes. It’s one of the many things about Akaashi that Kenma’s grateful for—beyond their professional lives and the other obvious factors—and Akaashi doesn’t say a word when Kenma gives him an entire box of frozen apple pies before he leaves.
Become Nathaniel’s friend? Kenma thinks, long after Akaashi’s left and he’s alone in his apartment once more. I guess you could say I did.
And when Monoma comes knocking minutes later, a cheese wheel in one hand and fancy French wine in the other, Kenma lets him in with a little smile neither of them notice.
“Do you know what my cousin said to me? Do you know what my cousin did?!”
“I’m not sure I do,” Kenma tries to say—
But Monoma’s throwing his arms in the air and shrieking, “She tried to frame me for her crimes and get me arrested! Me, a perfectly law-abiding citizen! And then she tried to ask me to bail her out, on top of that, like she thinks our familial relationships mean something after her betrayal!”
Kenma leans back as subtly as he can when Monoma lets his arms flop down, chest heaving and eyes faintly bloodshot—but then Monoma yells, “Her parents are baboons! Her entire family are baboons!”
Somebody else might’ve let Monoma continue venting, but Kenma’s lips twitch before he says, “So you are, by definition…”
Monoma swivels around to stare at him.
“A zookeeper,” Monoma primly replies, though his smile is a little less smug than it should be. “Someone has to keep them all in line, if they’re all brainless animals.”
Kenma’s helpless to do anything but snort in response. It’s in moments like these, when Monoma’s angrily chewing on his wedge of cheese and muttering curses under his breath, that Kenma wonders how he ever mistook Monoma Neito for Nathaniel Montgomery.
“But enough about me,” Monoma hums when he’s done sulking, waving an airy hand about. “How’s your day been, neighbour? I thought I saw a friend waltz out of your door earlier—it’s nice to know you have friends other than me!”
“Mm,” Kenma mumbles, just to see Monoma puff his cheeks and make a thoroughly disgusted noise at his refusal to speak. When Monoma’s done with his little hissy fit, though, Kenma shrugs and adds, “It was alright.”
Monoma makes another disgusted noise and rolls his eyes so hard that Kenma’s amazed they don’t roll right out of his head. It’s easy to forget that Monoma’s not a manga character—even if he’s vastly different from Nathaniel, his frequent bouts of melodrama make Kenma wonder, sometimes.
“You are not going to die if you speak more than ten words at a time, Kenma,” Monoma tells him after another aggrieved bite of his cheese, “and really, it’s not like you’re a secret agent or anything of the sort.
“Unless…” Monoma lets his words trail off as he squints at Kenma, but shakes his head after a moment. “Someone with hair like yours? No, definitely not covert enough.”
“What do you think I am, then?”
It’s meant to be an offhand question, but Monoma sizes Kenma up with a cool, considering gaze before muttering, “A job that suits a homebody. Your friend walked away with a satchel too, and I always see pens and paper littering your apartment… an artist? Or perhaps a writer?”
Kenma can’t stop his eyes widening in time, if the triumphant noise Monoma makes is anything to go by. Thankfully, he hasn’t guessed exactly what Kenma does—but for all that Monoma is entertainingly prissy, there’s more to him than his dramatics and his odd physical resemblance to Nathaniel, and Kenma is all too aware of it.
It’s the reason why he neither nods nor shakes his head. It’s also the reason why he nudges an elbow to the uncoloured drafts of Magical Boy M he hadn’t gotten around to cleaning up, just so they’re a little further out of Monoma’s line of sight.
Unfortunately, they’re still in Monoma’s line of sight—and before Kenma can drop his mug and slap a hand over the incriminating pages, Monoma crows in triumph and dives for them.
“Hide something from me? I don’t think so, Pudding-head!” Monoma yells, swiping the pages and taking off across the room in a loud cackle. “You might be a cryptid to the rest of society, but I will—”
Kenma watches Monoma cut himself off, blink at the pages he’s holding, then flip through them with increasing speed. He knows exactly what they contain—meticulously lined panels of Nathaniel in all his magical-boy, pastel glory, in a style too distinct to be mistaken for anyone’s other than Puddington Cat’s—but he can’t break the deathly silence in his apartment.
Monoma is not exactly a friend Kenma would’ve chosen to make… but as Monoma looks up, Kenma finds himself averting his gaze and shrinking into himself.
“Kenma.”
Kenma doesn’t move a muscle.
“Kozume Kenma, look at me.”
Kenma squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head—if his slight twitch can even be called that.
Three heavy footfalls, a rustle of paper, and then—
“I cannot believe I never connected the dots.”
Kenma ducks his head, expecting a slap to the head at any moment—but then Monoma laughs in an odd voice he’s never heard before. It’s so odd, in fact, that Kenma finds himself peeking through his fringe before he’s aware of it, but the expression on Monoma’s face is even odder.
He’s not visibly angry, for one. He doesn’t even look disgusted, and Kenma thinks he’ll never reach the end of the list of things Monoma’s disgusted by.
For whatever reason, Monoma looks excited, and Kenma blinks as Monoma throws his head back and laughs again. In between his bouts of laughter, Kenma hears Monoma exclaim, “Your hair looks like a pudding and you’re obsessed with cats. You looked so offended when I called Nathaniel a pastel idiot—I just thought you were yet another diehard fan of Magical Boy M, but you were the creator all along!
“All this time, and Puddington Cat was right under my very nose!” Monoma collapses into his seat, hiccups, then fans his face with Kenma’s drafts—which Kenma would really rather he not do, but what can he do about it? “Oh Neito, you complete and utter fool.”
“Are you… angry at me?” Kenma asks, when Monoma continues to switch between laughing and staring silently off into space. “I mean,” he adds in a tiny voice, shrinking into himself again when Monoma pins him with an intense look, “you, uh, don’t like Nathaniel much.”
“Well, you’re right,” Monoma says after a very long pause, “I don’t like that pastel idiot. But now that I know who you are…”
A hand falls on Kenma’s shoulder and squeezes it gently.
“Let’s discuss the finer points of Nathaniel and Magical Boy M, shall we?”
Nathaniel pillows his head on his arms and stares listlessly out the window, more interested in the falling sakura petals than his literature teacher’s droning voice. It’s a beautiful spring day—but here he is, stuck inside with lessons that don’t interest him, and his eyelids begin drooping.
“Nathaniel,” a distant voice calls to him. “Nathaniel Montgomery, are you listening to me?”
Nathaniel’s eyes fall shut… but they spring wide open seconds later, just as everyone else’s in the room shuts and heads thud onto desks—or the floor, in the unfortunate teacher’s case.
“I can’t believe the Sandman almost had me,” Nathaniel mutters as he jumps up from his seat and the pen in his hand lengthens into a magical wand, “but I won’t let him off now! Not after he’s attacked my beloved school!”
A flick of his wrist to open the window, a quick apology for his table—and then, as Nathaniel leaps onto his table and somersaults out the window—
Will Nathaniel Montgomery be able to defeat the Sandman, or will the world fall into eternal sleep? Don’t look away—Magical Boy M will be back after a short break!
“You’re right,” Monoma says in between mouthfuls of popcorn, “they really do like leaving cliffhangers on the anime. I’m not sure I’d want to audition for the live-action adaptation if it means condoning this sort of shoddy production.”
“I heard the director will be different,” Kenma quietly offers, “and it’ll be a live-action film, since films are cheaper to produce.”
“You have no idea how the film industry works, do you?” Monoma asks, sighing and giving Kenma a pitying look.
Kenma shrugs and busies himself with his apple pie. It’s not like he’ll ever go into acting—or any other position in the film industry, short of becoming an old-school animator—so why should he bother? When Monoma gives him the evil eye for his silence, though, Kenma sighs and mumbles, “Don’t care.”
“Well, you should,” Monoma huffs. “Your good friend—the one that could’ve charged you royalties for using his life story but chose not to out of the goodness of his heart, mind you—will be making his debut in the film industry soon! And all for your manga, too!”
“Mn,” Kenma eloquently replies.
Monoma mutters something that sounds like you are not going to strangle him, Monoma Neito, you need this job after the zookeeper one fell through, but Kenma waits until Monoma’s quiet again before he says, “I guess I could speak to the director.”
Instantly, Monoma perks up and gives Kenma a brilliant smile.
“But you know you’ll need to cosplay as Nathaniel to act as him, don’t you?” Kenma asks, before Monoma can so much as thank him aloud. “And you might get more stalkers breaking into your home to put pink bows in your hair.”
There’s a moment when Kenma can see Monoma’s sensibilities war with his desire for riches and fame, but then Monoma shakes his head and exclaims, “You think you can dissuade me from my big break? As if such petty concerns will hold me back!”
It’s not just Monoma, though—as his neighbour and what might possibly be his closest friend, Kenma will inevitably get caught up with the media if Monoma does end up famous. This is vastly different from being Puddington Cat, a reclusive mangaka whose only link to the industry is his tight-lipped editor, or even applepi, the faceless gamer that once took an amateur LoL tournament by storm.
Helping Monoma get cast for the live adaptation of Magical Boy M could very well destroy his peaceful life, but after everything Monoma’s done for Nathaniel?
Kenma sighs, finishes off his apple pie, and smiles lightly to himself. He would’ve never thought his life would become like this after he’d been disturbed by stomping outside his apartment…
But it could be worse, Kenma thinks, and shushes Monoma in time to catch the rest of the episode.