Stolen Identity
During university lunch breaks, I, Shota Ito, always occupied the exact same bench to eat my meal. I was an unremarkable man, thoroughly blended into the background. I possessed no extraordinary talent, nothing to boast about to others, yet I was entirely content with that tepid, predictable existence. I had no way of knowing that such normalcy could be pulverized in a single, fleeting instant.
That afternoon, I was in the classroom, languidly organizing my lecture notes. With some time remaining before the next period, I was gazing vacantly out the window when a voice cut through the silence.
“Hey, do you have a minute?”
I turned. A stunning woman stood there. Long, cascading hair, a brilliant smile—the kind of presence that drew envious stares from every male in the vicinity. Her name was Misaki. Even at a glance, it was obvious she belonged to a completely different echelon of the world than I did.
“Are you… talking to me?”
Startled, I managed to force the words past my lips. I couldn’t fathom a single reason why she would approach someone like me.
“Yes. I have a small favor to ask.”
Misaki stepped closer with an innate fluidity, as though I had been waiting for her all along. Then, she began to speak in a saccharine, melodic cadence.
“To be honest… I’ve been facing some difficulties lately. If you don’t mind, I could really use your help.”
Ensorcelled by her words, I found myself nodding along before I could rationally process the situation. She spoke of severe financial destitution. She claimed she couldn’t rely on her family, couldn’t secure a stable job, and was barely surviving on whatever meager daily wages she could scrape together. Listening to her narrative of isolation and helplessness, a profound sense of sympathy gradually took root within me.
“I had no idea things were that difficult for you…”
I only held a minor part-time job, but compared to her bleak circumstances, I considered myself fortunate. As if peering directly through my naive empathy, Misaki smiled.
“It has been. But the moment I saw you, I knew you were someone I could trust. That’s why I have a specific request…”
Her words pulled me deeper into her orbit, stripping away my caution. That very evening, I found myself walking through the city streets alongside her. Completely absorbed in her conversation, I didn’t realize until it was too late that she had guided me into a desolate, dimly lit alleyway.
“We should be safe from prying eyes here… right?”
Misaki murmured, turning her face toward me with a smile. But there was a chilling abnormality laced within that expression, causing a sudden spike of dread to ripple down my spine.
“Safe… What do you mean by that?”
The instant my anxiety flared, her face hardened into absolute severity. Without warning, she thrust something metallic against my skin.
“Put this on, will you? Consider it… a brief experiment.”
Before I could decipher the strange, unsettling apparatus, it was pressed into my palms. In that exact fraction of a second, the horizon violently inverted. My center of gravity dissolved, the world spun on a sickening axis, and my consciousness rapidly bled away into darkness.
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