Chapter 1 - Endgame
The glow of the monitor was the color of sleeplessness—cold, unwavering, merciless.
Akio Hukitaske sat hunched over his desk at Enshin Games Inc., the hum of machines merging with the dull ache behind his temples. The walls were a pale gray, the same color as his skin under the fluorescent lights. Half-drunk coffee sat congealed beside his keyboard, a monument to forgotten lunches.
He blinked at his screen.
Another line of code. Another error message. Another sigh.
It was 2:43 a.m.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the sun rise without being inside this building.
Around him, the office was alive in that half-dead way of all Tokyo tech firms—the quiet scurrying of exhausted bodies, the clack of keys, the shuffling of shoes, the mechanical laughter from a coworker trying to stay sane. The air conditioner wheezed out recycled fatigue. Someone coughed in the corner; someone else muttered "just five more minutes" for the tenth time that hour.
Akio rubbed his eyes, his fingers trembling. His cursor blinked like a mocking pulse.
He used to love this.
Used to dream of making games that inspired people. The kind of worlds that made you forget your pain for a while. But now, at thirty-two, his world had shrunk to this cubicle—one seat in a gray hive of forgotten dreamers. His reflection in the monitor looked older than his years: pale, hollow-eyed, the look of a being who'd spent a decade trading time for deadlines.
The memory of a younger Akio flickered briefly in his head—fourteen years old, wide-eyed, talking excitedly about becoming a pharmacist, about curing diseases and helping people. His parents had laughed and told him it was just a childish fantasy. So he'd buried it under "practicality" and gone into tech instead. Games paid better. Games were safe.
Safe.
The word mocked him now.
"Akio!"
The voice tore through the office. His boss, Kurobe, a being who looked like he'd been carved from stale caffeine and anger, stomped toward his desk. His tie hung loose, his eyes bloodshot.
"Where the hell is the patch update? You were supposed to fix the memory leak last night!"
Akio swallowed hard, trying not to look at the half-eaten convenience store sandwich on his desk.
"I—I'm still debugging it. The system keeps freezing when—"
Kurobe slammed a hand on his monitor. "Excuses! You've been on this for two weeks! You think the company pays you to sleep?"
"I haven't slept," Akio muttered.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, sir."
The boss's voice rose again, echoing through the fluorescent nightmare. "I don't care if you have to stay here another three nights. This update goes live tomorrow. If it crashes again, you're done."
Then came the final jab—the kind of words that left invisible bruises.
"You're thirty-two, Akio. You're replaceable. The new interns work faster than you do."
And just like that, Kurobe turned and left, barking orders at someone else before disappearing into his glass office.
Akio sat perfectly still. His stomach churned. He could feel the pulse in his neck hammering faster than his thoughts. Around him, nobody said anything. They just kept typing, pretending not to notice.
He'd seen this scene a hundred times—someone getting yelled at, humiliated, broken down until they were too tired to even quit. Tokyo's corporate system was efficient at one thing: squeezing the humanity out of people.
Hours blurred. Code blurred. His body became a machine that refused to shut down.
When the sun finally rose outside, he barely noticed.
By 10 a.m., the office was full again—new shifts, new deadlines, new ghosts. Akio's head throbbed. He dragged himself to the vending machine for his fifth canned coffee of the day, the taste like burnt plastic and regret.
He stared at his reflection in the metal. His eyes were bloodshot, his lips cracked, his tie stained.
This wasn't living. This was survival on autopilot.
Then came the meeting.
Then came the "budget cuts."
Then came the envelope.
No ceremony. No warning. Just a slip of white paper placed silently on his desk.
Termination.
He read it once. Twice. Three times.
It didn't register.
Someone was talking to him, maybe HR, maybe a coworker offering pity. The words blurred together into static. All he could see was that one word printed in black ink: termination.
No severance. No apology. Just the end.
He packed his things slowly—old sketches, a photo of his team when they still smiled, a small figure of a dragon from his first game. The office lights hummed overhead. Nobody looked at him. That was the unspoken rule.
By the time he stepped outside, Tokyo's evening rain had begun. The city lights smeared against the slick pavement like a watercolor painting.
He walked.
No destination. Just walked.
His umbrella broke in the wind halfway down Shibuya Crossing. He didn't care. He was already soaked. The letter crumpled in his pocket; his other hand clutched a cheap bottle of whiskey.
The streets were alive with motion—salarymen rushing to trains, couples laughing, neon signs promising food and escape. Akio's footsteps echoed hollowly through it all. He felt invisible, and maybe that was a relief.
He ended up in an alley behind a ramen shop, the steam from the vents fogging the air around him. He slumped against the wall, rain dripping from his hair, the whiskey bottle half-empty.
"All of this…" he whispered to himself, voice hoarse. "All these years… for nothing."
His words vanished into the rain.
He thought of his parents. Of the friends he'd lost touch with. Of the fourteen-year-old kid who once dreamed of helping people, now replaced by a figure too tired to help himself. His heart tightened. His vision blurred. The city pulsed faintly in the distance, unaware of him, uncaring.
Then came the footsteps.
Soft. Even. Measured.
A shadow lengthened over the puddles.
Akio looked up.
A person stood before him—young, maybe mid-twenties, dressed immaculately in a black suit and red bow tie. Not a wrinkle, not a spot of rain on him. He smiled, polite but unsettlingly still.
"You look like someone who's done with life," the stranger said, his voice smooth, practiced. "I know the feeling."
Akio snorted weakly. "Do you now? Then you'd better leave before you catch it."
The person crouched beside him, unfazed. "No need. I'm not afraid of endings. In fact, I rather enjoy them."
Akio squinted. "What the hell do you want?"
Instead of answering, the stranger pulled something from his coat—a syringe filled with liquid that shimmered in impossible colors, like oil and lightning had merged.
Akio tensed. "What is that?"
The persons grin widened, almost childlike. "A chance."
He said Akio's name—full name, perfectly pronounced.
"Akio Hukitaske, age thirty-two. Programmer. Terminated at 6:42 p.m. tonight. No family, no partner, no future plans."
Akio's blood ran cold. "How the—"
"You've been selected," the stranger interrupted, eyes gleaming with manic joy. "For something special. Something reborn."
Before Akio could move, the syringe plunged into his neck.
"Wait—!"
A surge of pain exploded through him. It was fire and electricity and drowning all at once. His body convulsed; his vision fractured into a thousand shards of light.
The last thing he saw was the stranger's expression—serenity breaking into hysteria.
"It works!" the person shouted, laughing into the storm. "It works!"
Then the world shattered.
Akio felt his heart stop. Then start again.
He fell backward, weightless. The rain faded. The sound of Tokyo disappeared.
And then—
Nothing.
Fourteen Again
Light.
Warm, blinding light burned through his eyelids. Akio groaned, his throat dry, his head pounding like a hangover from another life.
He sat up slowly, expecting concrete, rain, pain. Instead, he found soft sheets and the faint smell of laundry detergent.
He blinked.
The room around him was small and familiar in a way that hurt. Faded wallpaper, a desk piled with notebooks, a cheap chemistry set on the shelf. Posters of vintage science magazines on the walls.
He knew this place.
No.
He remembered this place.
He stumbled to his feet, the floor creaking under him, and crossed to the mirror.
The reflection staring back was not the person who'd collapsed in the alley.
It was a child.
Smooth skin. Sharp eyes. Messy blue hair that refused to stay flat.
Fourteen.
He was fourteen again.
His breath caught. His pulse thundered.
"What… what the hell…"
He grabbed at his face, his arms, his stomach. His body felt light. Healthy. No stiffness, no pain, no exhaustion. The weight of years had vanished.
The calendar on the wall read April 12, 2009.
A day after he'd lost everything.
A lifetime before he'd ever had it.
Akio staggered back onto the bed, clutching his head.
The stranger. The syringe. The light.
"It worked," he whispered.
He didn't know whether to laugh or scream.
Memories rushed through him—his old job, his failures, every humiliating meeting, every ignored dream. They tangled with old memories of school, of friends he hadn't spoken to in years, of dreams of medicine and chemistry.
A strange calm settled in his heart.
Maybe this wasn't punishment. Maybe it wasn't a trick.
Maybe it was… a second chance.
He looked down at his hands again. Small. Unscarred. Capable.
The world outside the window looked different now—not gray and lifeless, but alive, glowing with the energy of a life not yet wasted.
He crossed to the old desk and picked up his childhood chemistry set, brushing off the dust. His heart raced. He remembered how fascinated he'd been by medicine back then—how he'd mixed harmless powders pretending to make cures for imaginary diseases.
He smiled faintly.
"Becoming a pharmacist…" he murmured. "Guess I wasn't wrong to want that."
The thought filled him with something he hadn't felt in years: purpose.
He glanced in the mirror again—an old soul trapped in a young body.
"This time," he said quietly, "I won't waste it."
He grabbed the old school bag by the door, stuffed it with notebooks, and slung it over his shoulder.
The morning light outside was sharp and golden, the streets echoing faintly with distant laughter. As he stepped out, the air felt cleaner. His steps were steadier.
He was still Akio Hukitaske—but not the one who had broken under Tokyo's overwork machine. This Akio carried the memory of that pain, and it would guide him, not chain him.
For the first time in years, he felt alive.
He looked up at the sky, eyes narrowed against the sunlight.
"Alright," he said with a crooked grin. "Let's do it right this time."
The door closed behind him.
And somewhere, far away, a figure in a bow tie wrote something into a leather-bound notebook.
"Subject A: Awakening successful."
He smiled.
"Now, let's see what you'll become."
[To be continued in Chapter 2: Back to School, Back to Dreams]