August 24, 2015. Opening balance: ¥415,000
Final balance: ¥1,010,400 Change: +¥595,400 in one trade.
8:17 a.m. JST
Aria hadn't slept.
Not really.
Her body had spent the night horizontal, sure, but her brain had been doing laps around a digital coliseum, watching numbers fight to the death.
It was the morning of August 24th, and somewhere across the Pacific, the market was still asleep. Blissfully unaware of the panic queued like a virus in the pipeline.
In Tokyo, the first garbage truck of the day hissed by below her apartment.
The sound was oddly soothing. Routine. Domestic.
A reminder that some people still lived in a world where the only thing to worry about was whether the recyclables were sorted properly.
She stood at the window in her oversized hoodie, a paper cup of convenience-store coffee going cold in her hand, and stared out at the slate-colored sky.
Inside her laptop, AAPL puts were already up 38%.
She hadn't sold.
"Not yet."
There was something primal about it,
like watching a tsunami build from a high tower, knowing you're safe until you're not.
The urge to cash in was clawing at her throat, but another voice whispered louder:
"Let it fly."
Her phone buzzed on the tatami. Another voice note from Yuji.
She didn't even glance at it this time.
Instead, she turned to her notebook and wrote:
"Today's the jump." "Don't blink."
9:03 a.m.
Chatwork pinged. A soft ding that sounded like it belonged in a kindergarten, not a battlefield.
Kobayashi again.
"Aria-san, please double-check client template B-4. It's not rendering correctly."
She stared at the screen for a second too long. Then typed:
"Will do."
She wouldn't.
Let them fire her. Let them cut her loose.
She had already clocked out of that timeline.
11:12 a.m.
Ramesh caught her on the stairs.
"You look wired," he said, wiping his hands on a curry-stained towel. "Did you finally rob a bank?"
Aria smirked. "Just waiting for the vault to collapse on its own."
He whistled low. "Ah. The gambler's patience. Most dangerous kind."
"You ever seen a million yen appear in real-time?"
"I've seen it vanish. That counts?"
She laughed. The kind that comes from just past the edge of sanity.
"Come by later," he said. "I'll save you your usual."
"Make it extra spicy."
"Thought you'd say that."
10:26 p.m. JST
9:26 a.m. EST
The market was five minutes from open.
Her hands were sweating, though the air conditioning was on.
She adjusted her posture. Spine straight, legs crossed, left hand poised on the mouse like a sniper's finger.
The broker's UI refreshed. AAPL pre-market down 9.8%.
"Come on. Crack it. Crack the floor."
She watched the order book like it was gospel.
Bid walls are melting. Ask stacks rising like teeth.
Volume blooming.
And then, open.
AAPL gapped down hard.
Her puts exploded in value.
¥415,000 → ¥670,000 → ¥830,000…
She stopped breathing.
10:35 p.m. JST
AAPL hit the circuit breaker.
Frozen screen.
Vol halted.
Forum threads lit up in screaming capslock:
"BLACK MONDAY 2.0??" "SPY -6% WTF??" "VIX HALTED" "MY PUTS ARE PRINTINGGGGGG"
Aria didn't scream.
Didn't cheer.
She just stared.
Inside her chest, something was humming. A low, radioactive thrum that no one else could hear.
She reached for her pen.
"If this is a dream," she wrote, "don't wake me. If it's a trap, I'll bite the hand."
10:23 p.m.
Her laptop screen cast a cold, flickering glow across the room.
She hadn't moved in hours.
The air in the apartment was stale with the scent of instant coffee and static electricity.
Aria's fingers hovered above the keyboard like they were waiting for a cue.
The options chain blinked. Green everywhere.
Her puts on AAPL, bought at ¥415,000 total entry, was up 87%.
Unrealized gain: ¥362,000.
She was almost at ¥800,000.
She hadn't sold. Not yet.
Because the real blood hadn't come.
At 10:30 p.m. JST sharp, the bell rang in New York.
Her screen glitched. Too many streams, too many feeds.
Apple opened down 12.5%. Halted within minutes.
The S&P futures crashed into a pit.
The Nikkei, closed but twitching on overnight orders, showed proxy carnage.
Aria barely blinked. Her pupils were dialed in like a sniper's scope.
The candle was long, thick, and red.
The kind that traders screenshot and tape to their walls.
In one window, StockTwits exploded into chaos:
"Circuit breaker hit!!" "Where's Fed?!" "WTF just happened" "#BlackMonday2"
She didn't react. No exhale, no smile.
Only her cursor moved, dragging the window aside.
Beneath it, her brokerage account refreshed.
Current balance: ¥1,010,400
She had crossed it. One million yen.
Aria stood up too fast. Her vision greyed at the edges.
She stumbled into the bathroom, leaned over the sink.
Cold water.
Face, hands, neck.
The reflection staring back was flushed, twitchy, and her hair stuck to her temples.
Not the Aria who'd filed client tickets last week.
Not the Aria who let Yuji decide what wine to pair with soba.
Her hands gripped the ceramic.
She had done it.
She wanted to scream.
Instead, she laughed. Sharp, silent, bitter.
"I did it," she whispered. "And no one fucking saw."
Back in the main room, the CRT buzzed like a ghost. She muted it.
A message from Yuji blinked on her phone, unread. Her stomach twisted.
She swiped it away.
Another window. Her trades. Still climbing.
¥1,030,000. ¥1,048,000. ¥1,059,200.
She closed her eyes.
This was euphoria, she thought. But also madness.
In the silence, she thought of that convenience store clerk.
"You're the only one who tells yourself the truth."
Was this it? Was this her truth?
Her war chest had exploded.
But now what?
Ramesh's voice echoed faintly from memory:
"My father never lost a piece without a plan. He also never won."
She wasn't her father.
She was the storm.
And tomorrow? She would come back for more.
Aria sat frozen, not by fear, but by the clarity of the numbers.
¥1,010,000.
It wasn't a dream anymore.
It wasn't theory, nor simulation.
She had done it. Not in a metaphorical sense. Not in a "someday I'll make it" voice whispered into a pillow.
She had made it.
Seven days ago, she was a half-dead contractor with ¥20,000 in her account and a note telling her not to fuck it up.
Now, she had breached the seven-digit mark.
She stood up so fast she knocked over her chair.
The room was still the same. Beige walls, peeling posters, the damp smell of the aging sink.
But the air had changed. It was thinner. Or maybe she was just breathing differently.
She turned off the laptop. Walked barefoot to the balcony.
Below, Tokyo moved as if nothing had happened.
A couple argued at the vending machines.
A salaryman stumbled in drunk joy, yelling into his phone.
The city blinked in neon. Lawson blue, pachinko red, ramen yellow.
She watched them like a god exiled to Earth.
Then her phone buzzed.
Rina: "Aria, you online? Kobayashi's asking if you can join the 3 pm sync with the client."
She laughed. Out loud.
A real, ragged laugh.
She typed back:
"Tell him I'm dealing with a million yen problem."
Rina didn't respond.
Maybe she was screenshotting it.
Aria didn't care.
She opened the window wide, letting in the city noise like a wave.
She leaned out slightly. Eyes wide, lungs open.
Then, her stomach growled.
Right. She hadn't eaten.
Back downstairs at Ramesh's curry shop, she was quiet.
This time, he didn't ask anything.
He just handed her the plate, steaming and fragrant, with extra turmeric and ginger.
The way she liked it.
"You have the eyes of someone who just walked away from an explosion," he finally said.
She chuckled. "Didn't walk. I danced."
He nodded, as if he understood.
Aria took the first bite. The flavors exploded. Sharp, earthy, alive.
She closed her eyes.
For a moment, she wasn't thinking about candlesticks, delta decay, or whether she should've held a few more minutes.
She was just… eating.
A win this big didn't need a parade.
Just curry, and a mouth that still knew how to taste joy.
Still.
Somewhere deep, a voice whispered:
"Seven days in. Twenty-three to go."
She opened her eyes.
And smiled.
The next trade would be even bigger.
Aria didn't know when her breathing had started to match the chart rhythm.
Candle. Gap. Wick. Surge. Halt.
Her heartbeat followed it like a metronome. One beat late. One beat early. Never on time.
The screen blinked once. A temporary freeze on her broker app.
She didn't panic.
She smiled.
"This," she whispered, "is the taste of too much."
The Apple puts she'd bought for pennies were now worth more than her entire 2015 annual salary.
Her unrealized profit hovered at ¥1,050,000, flickering like a candle caught in the wind.
She finally clicked "Sell."
Not all of it. Just most.
A flash of regret stabbed her as the order was confirmed.
But it passed, like a lightning bolt too fast to burn.
The silence after the trade felt heavier than the noise before it.
She didn't scream. She didn't laugh.
She just stood up, walked to the window, and let the breeze hit her face.
Tokyo's night was the same as always. Convenient. Indifferent.
Somewhere below, someone was crying into a phone.
Someone else was finishing a cigarette.
Life continued.
Aria leaned against the frame and pulled out her phone.
Yuji's messages were unread.
Mei hadn't replied in days.
Her chat groups were full of panicked traders, half of them rage-posting, the other half pretending to be prophets.
She typed a new note:
"I made it. Day 7. One million yen. But the market didn't clap. No one clapped."
She stared at it.
Then deleted it.
Instead, she wrote one line:
"Day 7. Game changed. So did I."
She saved it.
Closed the app.
And finally, finally, she let herself fall backward onto the futon.
The world spun.
Not from exhaustion.
From momentum.
She wasn't done. She hadn't even started.
"The day after a storm is always the most dangerous. Because that's when people think it's over."