Ryu Kuroda hated rankings. Unfortunately, he checked them every morning. The contradiction annoyed him.
The browser loaded automatically — a habit, a bad one, years old at this point. The New Creator Rankings appeared onscreen. His series sat first. Again. No surprise there; Blade Campus Rebellion had spent nearly three weeks dominating the category. The audience kept growing, the comments kept climbing, the algorithm kept favoring it. Everything looked good.
So why was he irritated?
Ryu leaned back in his chair. The answer sat at rank thirty-one. Threadless Gate. The series wasn’t threatening him — not remotely. Its audience was a fraction of his, its growth slower, its visibility lower. Yet he kept opening it. Again. And again. And again. That alone annoyed him — a creator’s attention was valuable, and he disliked wasting it.
His apartment looked very different from Haruki’s. Larger, cleaner, professional. Awards on one shelf, published volumes on another, draft pages covering the wall by his desk. Three years of creation had turned the room into a workplace instead of a hobby space.
A notification appeared — his editor. Not Mizuno, a different one. Meeting at 2 PM. Don’t be late. He ignored it, then immediately marked it important. His editor would complain otherwise. Another habit, another annoyance.
He opened Threadless Gate instead. Chapter Four — the one where Ren lost. He reread the final pages, not because he needed to, but to verify something. The comments section was active — readers angry, frustrated, invested. Good. Very good. The loss worked.
Most beginner creators avoided losses. They feared disappointing readers, and Ryu understood why — the first negative comment always felt personal, the tenth felt educational, the hundredth felt inevitable. The lesson usually arrived eventually. Haruki appeared to be learning it faster than most, and that was what caught Ryu’s attention. Not talent — talent was everywhere. Persistence. Adaptation. Those were rarer.
A message window opened. His editor again, this time without warning.
You’re reading that series again, aren’t you?
He stared, then typed: Maybe.
I knew it. Annoying — his editor had entirely too much confidence.
It’s interesting.
A few seconds passed. Then: No.
He frowned. No?
That’s not why you’re reading it. Another message followed: You’re reading it because it reminds you of yourself three years ago. Then: You were obsessed with feedback too. Then: You were terrified of losing readers too. Then: You also thought rankings would make you happy.
Ryu closed the chat immediately. Some conversations were healthier left unfinished. The problem was that the editor wasn’t wrong. Three years ago he’d checked rankings constantly. Three years ago every criticism felt catastrophic. Three years ago every small success felt enormous.
Now success felt normal, and that bothered him — not because success was bad, but because adaptation never stopped. Humans adjusted to victories far too quickly.
He checked analytics. 12,481 readers. A ridiculous number, one he’d once considered impossible. Now it felt ordinary, and that annoyed him too.
At noon he left for his meeting. The publishing office occupied the seventh floor of a glass building overlooking central Tokyo, and the reception staff recognized him immediately — another thing he hadn’t quite adjusted to. Fame remained strange. Minor fame, but fame nonetheless.
His editor waited in a conference room — Saito Kenji, thirty-six, overworked, sharp-eyed, dangerously observant. The meeting started normally: sales, growth, future Chapters. Then Saito asked, "What do you think of Threadless Gate?"
Ryu nearly laughed. "You’re obsessed."
"No." Saito folded his arms. "I evaluate competition."
Fair. Annoying, but fair.
Ryu thought it over, then answered honestly. "The creator learns quickly."
"Agreed."
"The story still has weaknesses."
"Agreed."
"The protagonist needs stronger pressure."
"Agreed." A pause, then Saito smiled — which immediately worried him.
"What?"
"I contacted Mizuno." Of course he had; editors talked, that wasn’t surprising. What worried him was the smile. "She likes the creator." No surprise there either. "She thinks he could become professional."
That was more interesting.
"Not immediately," Saito added.
"Obviously."
"But eventually."
The room went quiet. Ryu looked out at the city — cars moving below, people crossing intersections, creators drawing pages, readers consuming stories, the industry turning over as usual. A strange thought crossed his mind: a year ago he would’ve disliked hearing that. Competition meant risk, risk meant uncertainty. Today it felt different — the industry needed more creators, more good ones, more stories, more growth. Maybe success changed people after all.
The meeting ended shortly after. On the train home, Ryu opened Threadless Gate one more time. The latest comments were still debating Ren’s loss. Good. Readers cared, and that mattered more than raw numbers.
His thumb hovered over the message button, then stopped. He’d already contacted Haruki enough — the creator needed room to grow, and constant advice would only build dependence. A lesson he’d learned painfully himself. He locked the phone.
Outside, Tokyo rolled past the train windows — buildings, stations, billboards, millions of lives moving at once. Somewhere among them, a new creator sat in a small apartment trying to finish the next Chapter.
Ryu smiled slightly — not because he expected Haruki to catch him, not because he expected some dramatic rivalry, but because the climb itself was interesting. Every creator remembered what it felt like standing near the bottom of the mountain.
Even after they’d reached the top.