Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi «90% Hot»

It was his manuscript. From ten years ago.

“Interesting,” Takano said, holding the manuscript like a weapon. “Because this was submitted by a new talent. She claims she found it in a used bookshop’s free bin, thought it was ‘passionate but clumsy,’ and added her own ending. She wants us to publish it as a collaboration.”

Ritsu wanted to strangle him. But late one night, alone in the office, he found an old sticky note inside the manuscript’s envelope. Not his. Takano’s handwriting, years old, faded: “You threw this away. I kept it. Always.” Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi

Ritsu felt the floor drop. His teenage angst, his first love’s betrayal, his secret dreams of becoming a mangaka—all of it, now with a stranger’s ending.

Before he could hide the evidence, his boss, the terrifyingly competent Takano himself, strolled over. “Onodera. What’s that?” It was his manuscript

Panic prickled his skin. He had thrown that story away—literally tossed it into a trash bin outside the school library after his then-boyfriend, Masamune Takano, had broken his heart. How did it end up here? And why was it submitted to his department?

That resolve shattered on a rainy Tuesday when a manuscript landed on his desk. “Because this was submitted by a new talent

The story was published. It became a surprise hit, praised for its “raw emotion and surprising humor.” And Ritsu, despite himself, started doodling again—not for Aya, not for Marukawa, but for the boy who had fished his broken heart out of a trash can and held onto it for a decade.