Scenovela
KOEN
← Someone Stood in the Alley I Drew

7Ep.. Deadline

The email that came after three days was, of all things, an offer to serialize. A small platform. Still, what Siu had wanted for years. An inbox stacked with rejections, and at the end of it, a first single line: 'We'd like to work with you.' One condition—a finished first episode within three days. On the third day since he had locked his pen in the drawer, of all days.

— On the third day since he'd locked the pen away, of all days.
— On the third day since he'd locked the pen away, of all days.

Don't. The offer comes the exact day you swore to stop. What if the power… is dangling bait so it won't let you go?

But this isn't the power. It's just me, drawing by hand. Without true feeling, nothing becomes real. I'll empty my heart and draw like a machine. Just this once. Only once.

…Promise me. Don't put any feeling in. Not a single panel. And above all, never while thinking of someone.

Siu drew. All night, holding his breath. His hand moved while his heart stayed locked. When feeling threatened to rise, he stopped and splashed cold water on his face. Panel by panel, businesslike.

— He drew with an emptied heart.
— He drew with an emptied heart.

Done. The world did not heave. Nothing happened. “…It worked.” I did it—on my own, without being devoured. The smile froze when he looked at the last panel again. A panel waving to the reader. 'Thank you for reading.' In the corner of that panel stood a girl with her back turned. A black bob. A diary held against her chest. He could not remember drawing her in. Why he had drawn her, he knew even less. And yet that one panel—he had drawn it with all his heart. Because he truly was grateful.

— Why he had drawn her, even he did not know.
— Why he had drawn her, even he did not know.

The world heaved, once and hard. Someone who had been in the deepest, warmest place slipped out of him. What was the name. The one he called every day. The one who carried a diary. Who scolded him, who wrote him down… who was it?

And the world arranged itself to match that panel. The count on his serialization page, stalled in double digits for three years, passed four figures overnight—on a first episode he had not even posted. 'Thank you for reading'—that one panel had been true, so the alley made real what the panel held. Readers. What he had wanted for years arrived in a single night. And the one person who had ever read him went out on the same night.

— That name… what was it?
— That name… what was it?

His phone rang. Two letters glowed on the screen. A saved name. And Siu, in the end, could not read them.