Dead Hours — Say It, Page 7
By Suha · Published
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Transcript
A dense six-panel comedic ladder. A tired night nurse in scrubs sips coffee; an insomniac student in glasses holds two energy drinks; an old man in a flat cap leans on a cane. Each gives a different verdict. Kaito (name tag KAITO) scribbles frantically on a blank notepad; Rin (name tag RIN) films. NURSE: In love? No. She's just the only one awake when you are. STUDENT: That's literally what love is, though. OLD MAN: In my day we'd be married nine years by now. KAITO: That's four verdicts. None of them agree. RIN: the data's beautiful. KAITO: A fact can't have four values.
Image description
Six panels: a nurse, a student, and an old man each give contradictory verdicts on the couple; Kaito despairs over four disagreeing answers while Rin films.
About this chapter
3-something A.M. A drunk regular announces to the whole store that Kaito and Amano Yuki — the night-bus driver who stops in on her 3:12 layover — are obviously in love. Unable to make himself deny a thing that happens to be true, Kaito treats the claim as a factual error to be corrected: he collects contradictory, unverifiable verdicts from the night regulars (a tracksuit can-collector, a nurse, a student, an old man) and even phones head office out of pure displacement, three times opening his mouth to deny it and three times failing. When Yuki arrives and is told what was said, she answers flatly — "Yes. Obviously. So?" — and Kaito finally agrees out loud. They stand there having admitted it with nothing whatsoever to do about it, because her layover is thirteen minutes and then she has to go drive a bus. She leaves at 3:31. At dawn Kaito says the rest of it to an empty doorway, and Rin — who filmed the whole confession — quietly decides not to post it. A self-contained deadpan Dead Hours comedy: Kaito gets the correct answer and nothing else.