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3 A.M., rain on the dead-hours store. Doing his nightly count of the steaming oden pot, Kaito tallies nine simmered pieces where there should be exactly eight — one extra item is floating in the broth that he never put there and cannot name. Unable to sell a thing he can't identify, unable to let the pot's count stay unbalanced before the morning broth-change, and unable to fish the piece out because it keeps sinking and hiding behind the daikon, Kaito declares quiet war on one egg and spends the entire dead shift trying to remove the extra one before dawn, spiraling over how a pot he tends every night could gain a piece from nowhere. All night the ladle dips to the identical dead-eyed beat of the piece slipping away as he mutters '...missed.' A ladder of night-shift regulars each name it differently and none can be verified — the tracksuit regular says it's always been there, a drunk salaryman insists it's the lucky one and demands to buy it, a cheerful jogger swears the pot is basically empty. Rin quietly livestreams the whole vigil as 'Kaito vs Oden,' with one flicker of near-sincerity — that he's the only person alive who'd guard a soup like it's a life — before raising her phone again. Near dawn, hollow and defeated, Kaito finally stops chasing the piece and, serene, lifts the ladle just to skim the pot clean — and catches it at last, the running beat inverting into pure elation as he lifts one plain egg free. Then the reveal Rin planted in the first minute pays off: she dropped one extra egg into the pot on camera at ten o'clock just to watch how long the count would haunt him, so the mystery was hers the entire time. Unable to bear letting his hard-won egg go to waste, Kaito moves to eat it — and Rin plucks it and bites it on camera. 'Kaito vs Oden — six hours' hits four hundred thousand viewers; Kaito gets nothing, not even the egg. Dawn light fills the spotless store exactly as the night began — and Kaito's first count of the fresh pot comes up one over again, Rin's phone already raised, already live.
第 1 頁
Page 1 (splash panel). A wide establishing shot of a quiet Japanese convenience store in the dead of night. Rain streaks the dark windows; the street beyond is empty. At the hot-food counter a large rectangular stainless-steel oden pot steams gently, its compartments full of pale simmered pieces — eggs, daikon rounds, triangular konnyaku and fish cakes on sticks — in brown broth. Behind the counter stands Kaito (32, messy black hair, tired eyebags, light shirt under a dark striped store apron, name tag KAITO), calmly holding a long ladle over the pot with faint contentment. Kaito (thought): "3 A.M. Rain. Nobody coming." Kaito (thought): "The best part of the night."
第 2 頁
Page 2 (three panels). Panel 1: Kaito leans over the steaming oden pot, lifting the pale pieces apart with his ladle, tallying under his breath. Kaito: "...six. seven. eight." Panel 2: A tight close-up on the pot surface. The ladle nudges the pieces apart, and one extra pale piece bobs up among the eggs and daikon rounds. Kaito: "...nine." Panel 3: Kaito freezes mid-motion, his eyes narrowing to a flat deadpan stare, ladle still in hand over the pot. Kaito: "There should be eight."
第 3 頁
Page 3 (single held panel). Kaito stares hard down into the steaming oden pot, his tired face faintly mirrored in the dark broth, one pale piece bobbing on the surface. Rin speaks from off-panel. Kaito: "Something's in my pot." Rin (off-panel): "It's soup. Things are in soup."