Today is Surya's fourth day of working part-time in the convenience store.
Before this, he had never tried to make money independently on his own.
Of course, the "he" here refers to the original owner of the body that Surya is currently occupying.
Because a week ago, this body belonged to someone with nothing but good looks.
Just a pretty face attached to a purposeless existence, drifting through life without direction or ambition.
The kind of person who attracted attention for their appearance but had nothing substantial beneath the surface.
Now occupying this body is a brand new soul which is coming from modern India, from another world of course.
Now that we have seem to mentioned the original owner if the body let us talk about his story of the boy...
The original Surya was weak it would be a understatement he was little withdrawn.
He had very few friends, he has no opinions or goals of his own, he always remain muddle-headed and drifting with the flow of the life.
Teachers barely remembered his name despite his striking appearance.
Classmates knew him by sight but not by personality. He was present but not really there, existing in spaces without making an impact on them.
If it is that it is still acceptable but he has poor academic performance too and not a very capable student, and had no special skills to show off in front of others.
His report cards were a sea of mediocre grades, the kind that suggested neither complete failure nor any particular effort.
He participated in no clubs, joined no sports teams, displayed no hidden talents that might redeem his academic shortcomings.
He was similar to a very handsome loser without any lucky encounters in life.
Surya's parents divorced when he was young and he lived with his father.
But his father was a bad man, and by bad means really bad.
He was an alcoholic and a gambler to his bone.
After losing his entire fortune and wealth, he began to borrow money from loan sharks at high interest rates.
The kind of people who sent men with brass knuckles and baseball bats when payments were late.
The kind of debt that compounded weekly, turning thousands into tens of thousands with brutal mathematical efficiency.
He was able to never fulfill his responsibilities as a father.
It was probably at the beginning of last year that Surya's father did the most worthy thing in his life for his son...
Want to know what he did well he....died.
Yes, it was an accidental car accident.
According to the police report, he had been drunk when he wrapped his motorcycle around a street pole at three in the morning.
The impact had killed him instantly.
At least there was that small mercy, that he had not suffered.
Indian families especially middle-class ones, are generally keen on buying insurance even people like Surya's father bought it for them.
His unexpected death meant that Surya, who was the only beneficiary left in the family, received nearly 100k dollars in accident compensation.
Of which nearly 80k out of the 100k was used to pay off high-interest loans of the Banks.
The loan sharks had circled like vultures the moment the insurance payout was announced, waving contracts and threatening legal action.
The original Surya, overwhelmed and terrified, had simply paid them to make them go away.
This prevented the son from paying for his father's debts in future.
The remaining 20 thousand dollars belonged entirely to Surya.
But 20 thousands dollars is really not a lot in daily life. Not in a city like Delhi, where prices climbed higher every year and expenses multiplied faster than anyone could track.
What seemed like a fortune at first glance evaporated quickly when faced with the reality of living independently.
For example, Tuition for Surya's current school which is named Delhi Public College, is about 10,000 dollars a year.
Adding in daily expenses, 20,000 dollars will probably only last until he graduates from high school.
Rent for the small apartment, electricity bills, water, internet, transportation costs, school supplies, emergency medical expenses.
The list went on and on, each item chipping away at the total until the cushion of safety looked more like a thin thread.
So, now that this transmigrated "Surya" had traveled through worlds, after taking some time to adapt to the new environment and roughly calculating the economic situation.
He immediately made the decision to get a part-time job to supplement the household income.
Let us talk about the original owner again.
A week ago, the original owner made the first confession to a girl in his life.
The result was that the girl politely gave him a kind rejection. She had been gentle about it, which somehow made it worse.
There was no anger, no disgust, just a soft smile and a "I am sorry, I do not see you that way" that left no room for hope or misunderstanding.
With such a face with a charm of 8 points, he was still rejected by the high school student, which can only mean that the original owner's life was really a complete failure.
When even your strongest asset cannot carry you to success, what does that say about everything else? The rejection had not been about his appearance.
It had been about him, about the emptiness behind the pretty face.
After the confession was rejected, the original owner was sad and dejected.
After much brooding, he chose to commit suicide by taking sleeping pills that night.
He had left no note, made no final phone calls. He had simply swallowed the entire bottle with a glass of water and laid down on his bed, hoping not to wake up. And he had gotten his wish.
Then there was a new "Surya" who awakened.
Anyway, looking back at the original owner's life experience over the past decade, it can be summed up in ten words:
Helpless when facing trouble, and annoying in doing nothing.
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Surya's working hours at the convenience store are from 7pm to 10pm every Monday to Friday.
Salaries are paid weekly at 150 dollar per hour, and most of the time the daily work consists of the usual mundane tasks of the store like restocking shelves, manually managing the accounts in the the register, and cleaning the store.
It is honest work, but hardly exciting to anyone. Scan items, stack cans, wipe down surfaces, smile at customers.
The same routine repeated night after night until it became automatic, his hands moving through the motions while his mind wandered elsewhere.
They worked like this until 10 o'clock, when Surya clocked out for the day.
After changing back into his school uniform in the small staff room, he heated up a 20 dollar meal box in the microwave to eat.
One of those pre-packaged dinners with rice, dal, and vegetables that you can find in any convenience store across the city.
This was not exactly fine dining, but it was one of the genuine perks of working here that made the job bearable.
The microwave hummed as it worked, the smell of spices and reheated rice filling the small room. It was not fresh, not home-cooked, but it was hot and filling and free.
Every day, meal boxes, bread, samosas and other foods that had passed their sell-by date needed to be discarded according to health regulations.
Rather than waste perfectly edible food, the store management allowed staff to take these items for free either to eat during their shift or take home for later.
The expiration dates were conservative anyway. Food that was technically expired yesterday was usually fine for another day or two. The store could not sell it, but they could give it away.
It was essentially free dinner for them, disguised as waste management.
For Surya, who lived alone and was carefully stretching every dollar until graduation, this benefit was more than just convenient.
It was a lifeline that helped him save money for more important expenses of his life.
Every meal he did not have to buy was money that could go toward tuition, toward books, toward keeping the lights on. In a budget measured in hundreds rather than thousands, every saving mattered.
After slowly finishing his meal box in the quiet store and savoring the simple comfort of hot food after a long day, Surya picked up his worn school bag and prepared to head home.
The bag had seen better days. The fabric was fraying at the corners, one zipper stuck halfway, and the strap was held together with safety pins in two places.
But it still functioned, still carried his books and supplies, and replacing it would cost money he did not need to spend.
"See you tomorrow, Surya!" Sharma called out cheerfully from behind the counter, settling in for his night shift that would stretch until dawn.
"Yeah, see you tomorrow," Surya replied with a tired but genuine smile.
Stepping out of the air-conditioned store and into the evening air, he was surprised by how the night wind in late spring carried an unexpected chill.
The temperature had dropped considerably since sunset. What had been pleasant during the day now had an edge to it, cutting through his thin school shirt and raising goosebumps on his arms. He should have brought a jacket, but hindsight was useless now.
There was no moon or stars visible in the sky tonight, just the endless sprawl of city lights and flickering neon signs casting their colorful glow across the darkened streets, creating that familiar urban twilight that made the city feel both alive and strangely lonely.
Light pollution had stolen the stars from Delhi long ago.
The sky was not black but rather a murky orange-gray, reflecting the glow of millions of bulbs and screens back down onto the city below. Somewhere up there, stars were shining. But here, they were invisible.
Surya ran his tongue across his lips, still tasting the lingering flavors of the simple meal box nothing fancy, but filling enough after a long day of work and school.
"Another day finally done," he murmured to himself, adjusting his bag strap and starting the familiar walk home through the quiet residential streets.
His apartment was about fifteen minutes away on foot. Not far enough to justify the expense of an auto-rickshaw, but far enough that his legs ached by the time he arrived each night.
The streets were mostly empty at this hour, just the occasional car passing by and the distant sounds of televisions playing through open windows.