There are two kinds of death. The death of the body, and the death of the soul.
The first is simple. It's an ending.
But the second can live alongside a person for years, unnoticed by anyone.
Somewhere in Japan, two young people had been carrying this "death of the soul" for a long time, each in their own way.
They had never met. Never spoken. Likely never even breathed the same air.
And yet, they were connected. By something that didn't require meeting—that quiet sense of being left behind while the world kept moving forward.
The first had been shut inside his room for over a decade.
A shut-in. His prison wasn't locked—it was built from the fear that had followed him since childhood.
The four walls knew his habits. Knew his breathing. Even knew his defeat. More intimately than any person ever could.
Honestly, he'd stopped fighting long before he realized it. When bullying takes everything, even will becomes a luxury you can't afford.
The second one... just existed.
For eighteen years, he'd moved through life on momentum alone. As if tracing the outline of someone else's existence.
Eating. Sleeping. Studying. That was it.
His parents died when he was eight. And with them, something that would never return disappeared—the ability to feel.
He visited their grave every year, but no tears came. Not because he was strong. Because there wasn't enough pain left to break anymore.
Two incomplete lives.
Two souls drifting on obligation. Not desire.
But fate—that capricious thing that intervenes without asking—had prepared a "one more time" for them both.
Not a promise. Not salvation. Just a possibility.
...The kind that could change everything.
Could two people who'd never truly lived learn to live when their paths finally crossed?
Could they break free from mere survival and become something more—someone who could move the world?
This is their story.
And like any story worth telling, it begins at the exact moment a heart that had slept far too long decides to wake.