Sumeragi Foods’ headquarters, the large conference room.

President Reiko, myself, Hibiki, Karen and a group of creators from a major advertising agency had gathered there and a commercial composition meeting was underway.

However, the meeting was going completely off the rails.

“Then, Proposal A. ‘When Wizard Jō waves his staff, instead of a pumpkin carriage, golden fried rice appears!’—a fairy-tale route—”

“Rejected. I’m not a wizard.”

I shook my head immediately.

“Then Proposal B. ‘Butler Jō gently welcomes you home after a long day at work and feeds you fried rice with an ahh’—a soothing concept—”

“What am I, a host? Rejected.”

The storyboards presented by the agency’s ace planner all stayed within the bounds of ‘existing men.’

Sparkling pastel-colored backgrounds.

Sweet lines. Forced-looking smiles.

Bang!

President Reiko struck the mahogany table with her fan.

“That’s wrong! Completely wrong!”

She stood up and glared at the planners.

“What I want is something more like… the ‘wild heat’ we saw in that test kitchen! This kind of children’s recital-style direction is an insult to Jō-sama!”

“E-even so… when it comes to commercials involving men, the standard theory is to emphasize cuteness and cleanliness—”

The agency staff exchanged troubled looks.

It was understandable. They had no ‘precedent.’

When it came to men, the fixed idea that they were ‘to be protected’ or ‘to be dressed up’ was deeply ingrained.

“…Um.”

As the discussion hit a dead end, Hibiki raised her hand.

“Instead of explaining it in words, it might be faster to just show you this.”

Hibiki connected the tablet she had brought to the projector.

“This is something I filmed the other day as Jō’s ‘acting reference material,’ capturing his usual cooking scenes. Of course, with his permission.”

“Hey, you’re really going to show that?”

“Yes. To make you understand that your appeal doesn’t exist within carefully constructed fiction, this is the best way.”

The video was projected onto the screen.

What appeared there was not a stylish set or a studio, but a lived-in kitchen full of everyday life.

The person on screen was me.

Right after a bath.

Wearing nothing but a worn black tank top.

My hair was slightly wet, my unshaven stubble left as it was.

There was no BGM.

All that echoed were the roaring gooooo of the stove and the violent clang clang of metal.

On screen, I wasn’t smiling at all.

With sharp eyes like I was slaughtering prey, I stared relentlessly into the contents of the wok.

Sweat dripped from my forehead and thick veins rose along my neck.

My biceps contracted as I hurled the heavy iron wok into the air.

Golden grains of rice flew upward, white steam rising.

The camera captured it all in vivid detail.

Splattering oil. A serious gaze. Rough breathing.

Not acting, but the scene of a male creating ‘food’ in order to live.

When the footage ended, the conference room fell silent, as if water had been poured over it.

“……”

None of the female agency staff spoke.

All of their cheeks were flushed, their breathing slightly heavy.

Some unconsciously loosened the collars around their necks.

“…How… raw…”

One creator murmured in a daze.

“This isn’t staged sexiness… this is ‘life’… no, ‘the act of a male’…”

They seemed to instinctively understand just how flimsy tailored butler outfits and wizard costumes were.

Scrape.

The agency’s creative director—a stern-looking woman with black-rimmed glasses—stood up.

She grabbed the Proposal A and B documents in front of her and tossed them straight into the trash.

“…We don’t need a background.”

Her eyes shone with a creator’s madness.

“The pastel kitchen set, the refreshing BGM, the product explanation lines… all of it is in the way. Noise.”

She turned to the whiteboard and began violently scribbling with a black marker.

“The concept is ‘black.’ The background is complete black-back ‘black background.’”

“Black… you say?”

“Yes. We eliminate all unnecessary information. What we prepare is a single spotlight, a wok and Jō-san.”

The director continued passionately.

“With a 4K high-speed camera, we’ll lick every detail—Jō-san’s dripping sweat, the ridges of his muscles and the dancing grains of fried rice. Extreme close-ups.”

“What about sound!? The BGM!?”

“We don’t need it. We’ll capture only the sound of the wok being swung, Jō-san’s breathing and the juwaaa sizzling sound in high quality. That’s the ultimate music.”

At that proposal, President Reiko leaned forward.

“…That’s it!”

She snapped her fan open.

“That ‘black’ is exactly what will make the golden fried rice and Jō-sama shine the brightest. Wonderful. Let’s go with that.”

“Thank you very much!”

The agency team and the client firmly shook hands.

Completely left behind, I scratched my cheek.

“…Hey. Show the fried rice more than my face, okay? It’s a food commercial.”

“What are you saying?”

The director pushed her glasses up and declared flatly.

“You, who make the fried rice, are the main dish for the viewers.”

“…Yeah, yeah.”

And so, an unprecedented commercial shoot was decided.

No set. No BGM. Almost no lines.

All there would be was footage of a middle-aged man endlessly swinging a wok in a black space.

At the time, I had no way of knowing that this commercial, created through this ‘ultimate subtraction,’ would later shake the television industry of this world.