Chapter 129 - 131: The Public Cut

Chapter 129: Chapter 131: The Public Cut

Haruki learned about the cancellation before breakfast.

Not from Mizuno.

Not from Suzune.

Not from Rika.

From the internet.

Which was exactly the worst way to learn anything important.

At 7:42 AM, his phone showed three missed calls, fourteen messages, and one trending headline.

Major Sponsor Withdraws From Rising Creator Collaboration Project

He sat on the edge of his futon and read the headline twice.

Then a third time, because the first two readings did not improve it.

The article did not mention him first.

That was almost worse.

It mentioned Hoshino Arata.

Then the rejected adaptation deal.

Then the sponsor’s "strategic reevaluation."

Then the collaboration project.

Then, buried near the bottom, came the part that made Haruki’s stomach tighten.

Several participating creators, including Threadless Gate creator Haruki Sato, may face reduced promotional placement.

Reduced promotional placement.

A clean phrase.

A corporate phrase.

A phrase that meant: less visibility, fewer interviews, smaller campaign slots, weaker recovery timing.

It was not fatal.

It was not career-ending.

It was simply another cut.

Small enough to deny.

Deep enough to bleed.

His phone rang.

Mizuno.

He answered.

"You saw it," she said.

"Good morning."

"Don’t waste humor on me."

"Understood."

Her voice was sharp today. Not angry. Sharpened. There was a difference, and Haruki was learning to respect it.

"The sponsor pulled funding last night. The team tried to negotiate until two in the morning."

"Nobody told me."

"You were not useful at two in the morning."

Fair.

Painfully fair.

Haruki looked at the article again. "How bad?"

"Bad enough to hurt. Not bad enough to kill the project."

"That sounds familiar."

"Your career is developing themes."

He almost laughed. Almost.

Mizuno continued before he could respond. "Emergency production shift. The campaign is moving from sponsor-led promotion to creator-led proof."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning less talking. More output."

For once, the instruction felt clean.

Work.

Not statements.

Not interviews.

Not reputation repair.

Work.

At nine-thirty, Haruki arrived at Studio Hall B.

The building had transformed overnight.

The polished workshop space now looked like a disaster zone. Tables had been rearranged. Whiteboards stood in the middle of the room, covered in campaign drafts and release schedules. Cardboard boxes of printed sample pages sat near the entrance. Someone had taped a paper sign to the wall:

NO BRAND PANIC UNTIL AFTER LUNCH

No one obeyed it.

Creators argued near the windows. Editors moved between groups with tablets. Marketing staff looked like they regretted their career choices.

Aoi Kisaragi stood at the central board, sleeves rolled up, marking timeline changes with brutal efficiency.

Sora sat on the floor assembling sample packets while complaining loudly about manual labor.

Rika stood near the far table, speaking into two phones at once.

Suzune passed Haruki without slowing.

"You’re late."

"I’m early."

"Wrong emotional timing."

She shoved a folder against his chest and kept moving.

Haruki opened it.

New campaign plan.

Creator-led preview event.

Live drawing session.

Joint release booklet.

Short interviews removed.

Long-form work showcase added.

The shift was obvious.

Less personality.

More craft.

The project was trying to survive by proving the creators mattered more than the controversy.

Good.

No.

Necessary.

Across the room, a younger creator dropped a stack of printed pages. They scattered across the floor. Two people cursed. Someone stepped on a character sheet. Sora laughed until Aoi Kisaragi threw a marker at him.

The marker missed.

Barely.

Haruki put his bag down and joined the cleanup.

No one gave a speech.

No one thanked him.

They just handed him pages.

That felt better.

For the next four hours, the collaboration became physical work.

Trimming sample pages.

Checking print quality.

Reordering creator slots.

Fixing layout errors.

Preparing display boards.

Haruki’s hands became smudged with ink, glue, and something that might have been coffee.

He did not check forums once.

At noon, Aoi Kisaragi stood beside him reviewing the Threadless Gate sample spread.

She pointed at one panel.

"This one."

Haruki looked.

Ren and Miyu in the service corridor, both exhausted, both angry, neither forgiving the other.

"What about it?"

"Use this as your display centerpiece."

"It’s not the most visually impressive panel."

"No."

She tapped the page. "It’s the most honest."

He disliked how quickly the answer landed.

Aoi continued, "The audience already knows you can draw intensity. They need to see you can stop running from discomfort."

No dramatic pause followed.

A volunteer dropped a tape dispenser beside them and swore under her breath.

Aoi picked it up, handed it back, and resumed marking the spread as if nothing had happened.

That was probably why her advice worked.

It arrived inside work.

Not above it.

At three, Rika gathered the core team.

Her expensive coat was gone. Her hair was tied back. A smudge of ink marked her wrist.

For the first time since Haruki met her, she looked less like an heiress and more like someone trapped inside a deadline.

"Listen," she said.

The room did.

Not because of her family.

Because she sounded like she had earned the right that day.

"The sponsor withdrawal hurts us. We cannot pretend otherwise. The press will frame this as project instability. They will connect it to Arata, adaptation politics, and Haruki’s reputation arc."

Several eyes turned toward him.

Not accusing.

Not comforting.

Just aware.

Haruki did not look away.

Rika continued. "So we change the story before they finish writing it. Tomorrow’s preview event becomes work-focused. No defensive statements. No apology tour. No mystery. No controversy bait. Pages. Process. Creators."

Sora raised a hand.

Rika ignored him.

Correct decision.

Haruki expected the system to appear.

It didn’t.

That absence felt strange.

Then useful.

Some moments did not need measurement.

At five-thirty, the first disaster happened.

A printer jam ruined thirty copies of the showcase booklet.

Not delayed.

Ruined.

Pages smeared. Covers warped. Ink bled across Aoi Fujimura’s sample spread.

The room froze for half a second.

Then everyone moved.

Aoi Kisaragi took the damaged stack. Suzune called the printer. Rika contacted the venue. Sora recruited three creators to reassemble packets manually. Haruki found himself cutting replacement inserts with a dull blade and a ruler that kept slipping.

At some point, he sliced the edge of his thumb.

Not badly.

Enough to bleed.

He wrapped it with tissue and kept working.

No one noticed.

Then someone did.

Suzune stopped beside him, looked at the tissue, and placed a small bandage on the table.

No comment.

No expression.

Then she left.

Haruki looked at the bandage.

The cat notebook had not been forgotten.

He smiled despite himself.

By night, the booklet crisis was not solved.

It was contained.

A much less satisfying category.

The team had enough packets for the first half of the preview event. The rest would be completed tomorrow morning if the replacement prints arrived on time.

If.

A dangerous word.

Haruki left Studio Hall B after ten.

His back hurt. His thumb stung. His clothes smelled like ink and sweat.

His phone finally buzzed.

Yui.

How bad was today?

He considered saying fine.

Deleted it.

Typed again.

Sponsor pulled out. Project almost collapsed. I cut my thumb. We made half the packets.

Her reply came a minute later.

That sounds awful.

Then another.

Also more like your real job than most meetings.

Haruki laughed in the empty street.

She was right.

Again.

Above him, the studio windows still glowed. Inside, people kept working. Creators. Editors. Assistants. People whose names readers might never learn.

His career was not being saved by genius tonight.

It was being held together by tape, replacement prints, bad coffee, and exhausted people refusing to quit.

For the first time, Haruki understood the public disaster had finally peaked.

Not because everyone saw him fail.

Because everyone could now see whether he showed up afterward.

Tomorrow, the doors would open.

Readers would come.

Industry observers would come.

Sponsors might watch from a distance.

And Threadless Gate would not be defended by explanations.

Only pages.