The Devil’s Bargain: A Mid-Life Exchange
Keisuke Sato, 40 years old. A salaryman exhausted by twenty years of the daily grind. Sitting on a park bench after work, he let out a heavy sigh. “I’ve had enough. This endless loop between the office and my house… If only I could go back and do it all over again.”
“Hey, Mister.”
A clear, youthful voice cut through the air. He looked up to find a girl in a high school uniform. “What… Who are you? It’s late.”
“You want to start over, right?” Her eyes were unnervingly calm, as if she were reading his soul. “I’ll give you my body and my life. You can start over as me. A high school girl.”
Half-doubting but desperate, Keisuke grabbed the hand she offered. “Fine. Let’s do it.”
“Heh. It’s a deal, then.” A flash of blinding white light consumed his vision.
The Grotesque Reflection: The 40-Year-Old “Schoolgirl”
When Keisuke opened his eyes, he was in a simple girl’s bedroom. A uniform hung on the wall. “This is it! My new life!”
He scrambled out of bed but felt a sudden, familiar heaviness. He stumbled to the mirror and froze. Reflected back was the face of a middle-aged woman—his own age—dressed in a sailor suit.
“Wh-What is this?! This isn’t a girl’s body! I’m still forty!”
The uniform was real. The hair was styled. But the face was marked with wrinkles and age spots. He hadn’t regained his youth; he had simply been dropped into the life of a teenager while keeping his aging flesh.
The Classroom Hell: Breathless Youth
He had no choice but to attend school. To his horror, the classmates accepted him as a “new transfer student” without question.
“Morning, Sato-san!”
“M-Morning…”
The real nightmare began in P.E. class. “Alright, everyone! One-thousand-meter run!” the teacher shouted.
Keisuke was in despair. Ten meters in, his knees began to wobble. Fifty meters in, he was gasping for air. “I… can’t… I’m going to die!”
“Sato-san, you’re so slow!” his classmates teased.
(Shut up… I’m forty years old!) he screamed internally, clutching his knees as his lungs burned.
Music class was another humiliation. His lung capacity was so diminished he couldn’t even blow a recorder properly; it only produced a faint, pathetic rasp. In the hallways, when girls invited him to take “purikura” photos, he fled in shame. Every time he saw his reflection—a 40-year-old woman in a pleated skirt—he felt like a tragic farce.
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