Before the void, there was noise.Before the chains, there was silence.
The train hummed through tunnels of steel and shadow.
Outside, the lights of Tokyo blurred like falling stars — streaks of red, amber, and pale blue smearing the rain-soaked windows. The glass trembled faintly against Rei's temple. He didn't move.
Even the soft chime of the next station, Ōmori, barely pulled him back.
He blinked. Exhaled. Pulled his bag closer.
Another day ended.
The train doors slid open with a hiss. A gust of cold air swept in — laced with the scent of wet concrete and vending machine coffee. Rei stepped out, his shoes scuffing against the yellow edge of the platform. He paused, glanced upward.
Clouds hung heavy over the city — bloated and brooding — like gods that forgot how to speak.
He liked it that way.
Ōmori was quieter than Shibuya. Fewer tourists. More laundromats than bars. The kind of place where neighbors bowed politely but never asked your name. Rei preferred it here — away from the noise, the shine, the weight of being noticed.
His apartment was a ten-minute walk from the station. He moved on autopilot, umbrella unopened despite the drizzle. Neon signs flickered overhead — tired convenience stores, ramen stalls, shuttered arcades. A salaryman vomited quietly into a drain while a vending machine beeped cheerfully beside him.
Rei walked past him like a ghost.
His building was a gray cube sandwiched between a love hotel and a parking lot. He climbed three flights of stairs, keys already in hand. The door clicked open to a room barely big enough for breath.
A bed. A desk. A window that never opened fully. That was it.
And in the corner — his PC.
He slipped off his shoes, dropped his bag, and let his body fall into the chair like a falling leaf finally allowed to rest.
The hum of his custom tower kicked on. The screen lit up. He opened the same folder he always did.
Tales of Astralfall.
An old RPG. Pixel art. Turn-based combat. A world of dragons, ruins, and dying gods.
Rei had beaten it six times.
But tonight, he started over.
The familiar title screen faded in with that same melancholic piano riff — soft, aching, nostalgic.
He played for hours.
He wasn't grinding for stats. He wasn't rushing the story.
He was… remembering.
Not something he had lived — but something his soul ached for. He wandered the pixel fields, the crumbling ruins of an in-game kingdom, and stared too long at the places where nothing moved.
Some nights, he wondered:Did the game make him lonely, or did loneliness make him love the game?
His stomach growled.
He looked at the clock.
01:14 A.M.
He sighed, slid his hoodie on, and left again — down the narrow stairs, past the flickering hallway light, into the damp street.
The nearest Lawson convenience store was three blocks away. A blue beacon in the dark. Always open. Always bright. Inside, it smelled like microwaved pork and floor cleaner.
Rei moved past the drinks, ignoring the sour chu-hi cans and weak coffee. He went straight to the bread aisle.
There it was.
カレーパン.Curry bread. His favorite.
He grabbed two. Then a cup ramen — tonkotsu-flavored — and some cold tea.
At the counter, the clerk didn't speak. Just scanned. Bagged. Bowed.
Rei bowed back. Plastic bag in hand, he stepped into the night.
He didn't rush home.
The streets were empty. Rain drizzled like the world itself was tired. Somewhere far above, a plane blinked red as it moved through cloud.
Rei stopped at the vending machine near his apartment.
Not to buy anything.
Just to listen.
The low hum. The quiet buzz of fluorescent tubes. The soft whisper of wind between buildings. The world… breathing.
He used to imagine that something waited just beyond the city — not a person, but a place. Somewhere far from glass towers and noise. A place with trees. Or snow. Or sky that wasn't crushed by light.
A world where the stars looked back.
He went home.
Boiled water. Ate ramen by the window. The curry bread was too soft, a little oily. He liked it that way. He watched the steam curl upward and vanish.
Then back to the screen.
More stories. More ruins. More silence.
He slept at 3 A.M.
No dreams.
Only the sense — faint and impossible — that something was watching him from the other side of the glass.
Later, when he would awaken in a world that was not Japan — in chains, in flame, with power carved into his bones — Rei would sometimes remember that night.
Not because it meant something.
But because it was the last time the world was quiet.
The last time his name was still his own.
And the last time he looked in a mirror and saw only a man.
He once bought curry bread beneath a blue sign.Now, the gods remember him by another name.The Void remembers all things.