Chapter 1 – The Guy Who Crawled Out of the Page
Narrator: Noa Aizawa is just trying to survive another miserable day at her dead-end TV job when something impossible happens. While sketching her usual fantasy boyfriend in the back room, her drawing starts to glow and then move.
Before she can run or scream a strange half-buttoned man literally crawls out of the paper and onto the floor. But this isn't Ren, the dreamy guy she's been drawing for months. This one calls himself Reno and he immediately tries to flirt with a mop.
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The commercial for spicy noodles was playing over a segment about rising funeral costs.
Noa Aizawa didn't even flinch anymore. She just muttered, "Not again," and smacked the console hard enough to pause the horror show on screen.
Her job sucked. The equipment sucked. Her coworkers were ghosts. And the station? Probably dying a slow, embarrassing death on channel 38. She was 23, chronically underpaid, and had memorized the emergency ad folder better than her own birthday.
After cleaning up the fifth technical disaster of the morning, she shoved a chair against the studio door, slipped behind the curtains, and exhaled hard. Her sanctuary wasn't glamorous it was a supply room filled with broken tripods and expired instant coffee but it was quiet and most importantly private.
She pulled out her sketchbook the only reason she hadn't snapped and thrown a mic at someone.
There he was, Ren page 42. Her personal masterpiece. Sharp jawline, gentle eyes, hair that always fell just right no matter how messy she made it.
He was the kind of man who'd offer you soup when you're sick, not just his unsolicited playlist.
"Let's fix your collarbone today,"
she muttered, grabbing her pencil
but something was weird.
The graphite shimmered just slightly. Like the paper had static or heat.
She blinked Rubbed her eyes.
Touched the page and immediately regretted it.
The paper was warm.
Then it pulsed.
Then it *hummed.*
"No. Nope. Hell no," she said, backing away.
Too late.
The lines on the paper swirled like spilled ink in water. Ren's face twisted distorted his smile widening unnaturally his eyes blinking at her.
And then a *hand* burst out.
Noa screamed and chucked her entire sketchbook across the room.
It hit the wall the hand followed. Then an hen a head.
In five very illegal seconds, a man rolled out of the page and flopped onto the floor like a spilled mannequin.
His shirt was half-drawn, half-fabric. His legs looked like they'd been assembled in a hurry by someone drunk.
He looked up at her and grinned.
"Sup."
Noa's mouth moved, but no sound came out. Her brain just played static.
The man sat up stretched.
Cracked his neck.
"Man, that was tight, You ever try crawling through a two-dimensional plane? My shoulder's not designed for origami."
She still said nothing, He stood. Looked around like a tourist, Then his eyes locked onto the mop in the corner.
"Yo, is this guy single?"
Noa snapped out of it. "WHO—WHAT THE HELL—"
He turned to her, clearly proud of himself. "Name's Reno. Not Ren. *Reno.* You drew me with less finesse but more flair."
"I did *not* draw you!" she shouted.
"Sure you did," he said, picking lint off his half-drawn sleeve. "Well, parts of me. The rest improvised. You've got a weird imagination by the way.
You gave me a mole shaped like a tiny fish."
Noa was already backing toward the door, heart racing, head spinning.
She reached for the knob. Then someone knocked.
A voice called out: "Noa? You in there? We need you at Studio B, now!"
Noa panicked. She looked at Reno.
Reno smiled.
He was holding the mop like it was a date.
She whispered, "Hide."
Reno winked. "Under the table? Inside your soul? Behind your trauma?"
"*Just freaking vanish!*"
The knob turned.
And then Reno did a cartwheel into a pile of boxes.
Noa straightened, threw her sketchbook over the mop and tried to look extremely not crazy as her boss opened the door.
"Everything okay in here?" the boss asked.
Noa smiled way too wide.
"Totally, Nothing weird. Just me and cleaning."
Behind her, something sneezed.