The gasp tore out of him like something birthed from violence.
Sora's body jackknifed upward, hands scrabbling at his throat, nails digging into skin that should have been bloated and waterlogged but wasn't. His lungs expanded with a sound that was half-scream, half-sob, hoarding oxygen like a miser clutching coins. The muscle memory of drowning clung to him, phantom water filling spaces that were suddenly, impossibly empty.
Air flooded in. Sweet. Clean. Alive.
Holy fuck.
The world crashed over him in waves.
Sound first. Not the muffled silence of underwater death but the living roar of Tokyo. A siren wailed somewhere in the distance, its pitch rising and falling like a mechanical banshee. The rhythmic clack-clack-clack of a train rattled past on elevated tracks he couldn't see. Traffic hummed below, a constant growl of combustion engines and impatient horns. The city breathed around him, aggressive and utterly alien to the cold silence of the lake.
His vision cleared next. Dust motes danced in a shaft of sunlight streaming through a window, each particle suspended in golden light. Tatami mats pressed rough against his palms. The sharp chemical bite of fresh paint mixed with cardboard and something else, something that smelled like new beginnings wrapped in cheap packaging.
Boxes. Sealed cardboard boxes stacked against bare walls.
Sora scrambled to his feet, legs shaking like a newborn deer's. His hands came up to his face, fingers probing skin that was dry and warm and completely intact. No wounds. No cold. No lake water dripping from his hair.
Where the hell am I?
He moved through the apartment like a thief casing a joint. The space was small even by Tokyo standards. A main room bled directly into a kitchenette so compact the term felt generous. Two burners. A refrigerator barely larger than a microwave.
The only proof that someone lived here sat in those sealed boxes, brown cardboard monuments to a life he couldn't remember packing.
His foot caught on something. Sora glanced down at the miniature counter and froze.
A manila folder.
The folder opened with a whisper of paper on paper, revealing documents that felt like they'd been printed just for this moment.
Rental Agreement. The words sat at the top in bold typeface, professional and utterly mundane.
Tenant Name: Sora Amamoto
That was his name. His actual fucking name, not some randomly generated identity the universe had slapped onto his resurrected corpse.
Date of Birth: August 8th
Wrong. His birthday was in April. The 23rd.
This Sora was born in August. Under the sun. A Leo, if you believed in that cosmic bullshit.
Same name. Different life.
His eyes tracked down the page, scanning through address details and building codes until they hit the payment section. The words there refused to process on the first read. Or the second.
Rent Status: PAID IN FULL
Duration: Six (6) Months
Sora read it a third time. A fourth. The numbers didn't change.
Six months. Half a year. One hundred and eighty-three days of guaranteed shelter. For someone who'd spent his entire existence balancing on the knife's edge of homelessness, six months was an eternity.
His hands started shaking.
Nothing is free. Nothing. What's the fucking price tag on this?
Something fell out of the folder. A key. Simple brass, worn smooth in places, with a number etched into the bow.
Sora's fingers closed around it. He clutched it tight enough to hurt.
The bathroom called to him with sudden urgency. He needed to see. Needed to know who the hell lived behind this name, in this body, in this life that felt like it had been tailored specifically for his ambitions.
The tap squeaked when he turned it. Water splashed into the sink, each drop hitting porcelain with sounds that echoed too close to lake water closing over his head. Sora cupped his hands under the stream, let the cold pool in his palms, then brought it to his face.
He braced both hands on the sink's edge, fingers white-knuckled against cheap ceramic. Lifted his head.
[Image]
The mirror showed him a stranger.
No. Not a stranger. Himself, but someone had cranked every dial past reasonable limits. If his old face had been an eight out of ten on a good day with flattering light, this was something else entirely. This was the kind of face that stopped conversations mid-sentence.
The blond hair caught sunlight streaming from the bathroom's tiny window and turned it into liquid gold. It fell across his forehead in artful disarray that would photograph like a goddamn magazine spread.
His eyes were the same green he remembered. Emerald, people used to say when they were trying to be poetic. But these eyes held depths his old ones hadn't. Sharper. More intense. They glinted with something that walked the line between dangerous and irresistible.
The bone structure of his face had been refined. His jaw cut a cleaner line. Cheekbones sat higher, more defined. His lips were the kind artists spent hours trying to capture on canvas and usually failed.
Sora slowly traced the angle of his own cheekbone with one finger. Drew it down to his lip. The face in the mirror mirrored the motion.
A smile spread across his reflection's face. Slow. Predatory. Beautiful in the way poisonous flowers were beautiful.
The universe had handed him the exact tool he needed. Not hope. Not kindness. A blade sharp enough to carve his name into the industry's flesh and make it permanent.
This face? I can use this.
Then a sound shattered the silence. High-pitched. Aggressively cheerful. The kind of bubblegum J-pop ringtone that should be illegal before noon.
Sora's head whipped toward the main room. His heart, which had just started to settle, kicked back into overdrive.
Someone's calling. Someone knows this number. This life.
He tore into the nearest box with zero grace. Cardboard lid ripped open, packing material exploded outward in a shower of foam peanuts and bubble wrap. The ringtone kept blaring.
Second box. Third. He was a man possessed, shredding through his new life's belongings like a junkie searching for a fix.
The phone sat in the fourth box, nestled between folded clothes. Sleek. New. Screen glowing with notification.
Missed Call from 'Shades'
Who the fuck was Shades?
The screen lit up again before his thoughts could finish forming. Incoming Video Call... 'Shades'
His thumb moved on instinct. Accepted.
The face that filled the screen was chaos given human form.
A man, way too close to the camera. Dark sunglasses that hid his eyes. His grin split his face like he'd just heard the world's best joke and couldn't wait to share the punchline. A ridiculous navy bow tie sat crooked at his throat. Behind him, cars passed. Pedestrians walked. The street right outside the building.
[Image]
"SUPERSTAR! THERE YOU ARE! I WAS STARTING TO THINK YOU'D BEEN ABDUCTED BY ALIENS, WHICH, HONESTLY, IS A VIABLE MARKETING ANGLE WE SHOULD EXPLORE!"
Sora's mouth hung open. Words died somewhere between his brain and his vocal cords.
The man squinted at the screen, head tilting like a confused puppy. "Wait. Your hair's a mess. Your eyes are all puffy." He gasped. "My god. Did you just wake up? It's almost noon! The early bird gets the worm, my beautiful, beautiful songbird!"
He shifted the phone, and Sora caught a glimpse of the building's entrance. His building. The man was literally standing outside.
"I'm right here! Buzz me up! We have a universe to conquer!" That manic grin somehow widened. "Chop chop!"
The call ended.
Sora stood in the wreckage of his apartment, surrounded by torn cardboard and scattered belongings, clutching a phone he'd never seen before. The blank screen reflected his face back at him.
What the hell did I just agree to?