Chapter 1: The Death of an Otaku
They say the world ends when you least expect it. For Akira Yamada, it ended between shelves of microwavable soba and a dying fluorescent light.
It wasn't a dramatic ending. No epic music. No flashing screen. Just the same beeping register tone and the faint smell of instant curry cups heating in the back.
At twenty-nine, Akira was a skeleton wrapped in tired flesh. He stood behind the counter of a midnight konbini in inner Tokyo, posture hunched, shoulders permanently slouched from years of shrinking into himself. His uniform hung awkwardly on his lanky body—he'd lost weight again. No time for meals. No appetite for life.
His eyes were dull, ringed with shadows carved by endless nights and long shifts. His once-vibrant black hair now fell in clumps over his forehead, greasy and half-washed. His hands trembled slightly, a side effect of caffeine overload and sleep deprivation.
He used to look different—used to feel different.
Back then, Akira had been a walking encyclopedia of One Piece trivia, a proud shut-in otaku who'd spent his teen years buried in anime, manga, and plastic figure displays. His room had once looked like a Shueisha museum.
But life doesn't reward dreams. Not the kind that stay in your bedroom.
His parents died in a car crash during his final year of college. One moment, he was cramming for his exams; the next, he was identifying their bodies under white sheets. The silence afterward was louder than any grief he could've imagined. No siblings. No extended family that stuck around. Just bills, a barely-finished degree, and the suffocating weight of needing to survive.
His anime blog became a luxury he couldn't afford. The figures were sold. The posters taken down. One by one, his childhood heroes left him—until he was alone, just another faceless man in a convenience store apron.
"Grow up," people had told him.
So he did. He gave it all up. Passion, community, imagination—boxed away and replaced with responsibility.
He thought maybe, if he gave everything, life would start making sense.
It didn't.
Tonight was his second double shift in a row. The manager didn't show. Again. His knees ached. The old backlight on the register flickered in and out like a bad omen.
Outside, rain lashed the pavement. Tokyo was quiet, except for the occasional taxi sliding past. A young man in a suit was hunched near the vending machine, lighting a cigarette under his umbrella.
That's when it happened.
The doors opened fast—too fast. Two men burst in, faces hidden by motorcycle helmets.
"Everyone down! Open the damn register!"
Akira froze.
One of them had a bat. The other, a knife.
He didn't think—couldn't think.
An old woman at the ATM screamed. The young man with the cigarette tried to flee but got shoved to the floor.
The bat-wielding man pointed at Akira. "Hey, clerk! You deaf?! Open the drawer or I'll open your gut!"
Akira moved. Slowly. Calmly. Like he wasn't even there.
He'd seen moments like this before—on news clips, in movies, in games.
But not like this. Not real.
He tapped in the override code. The drawer popped open with a ding.
Then he saw it—one of the robbers was panicking, pacing, gripping the bat tighter. Twitchy. Drunk, maybe. Or high.
Behind them, the old woman tried to crawl toward the exit.
The knife-wielder turned.
"I said, don't move!"
He raised his hand.
Akira reacted.
A stupid, automatic, reflexive movement—stepping between the blade and the old woman.
The flash of steel was brief.
Then pain.
Then nothing.
Then… air.
Not air from a dusty Tokyo alley.
But sharp, briny wind.
Salt on his tongue. A cry—seagulls?
Akira coughed, sputtering water. He was face-up on a drifting plank of wood, bobbing gently on a turquoise sea that stretched as far as his eyes could see.
No skyline. No towers. Just endless sky and warm sun.
He sat up, groaning. His shirt was torn, but there was no wound. No blood.
His arms? Still shaking.
But he was alive.
"What… the hell?" he whispered.
A distant voice cut through the waves.
"Hoy! You awake, boy?"
Akira turned his head, squinting against the sunlight.
An old man stood waist-deep in the shallows near a small fishing skiff, waving a long oar above his head. His beard was sun-bleached, and his wide straw hat flapped in the breeze. Behind him, a sleepy island sat on the horizon—palm trees, rocky cliffs, and smoke rising from a chimney somewhere inland.
"Don't just float there like a dead jelly!" the man shouted. "You'll get fried like squid!"
Akira blinked. Salt stung his eyes.
Not Tokyo.
Not even close.
He touched the side of his face. It felt real. The sun felt real. The sea—too damn real.
And the old fisherman? He looked like he walked out of a hand-drawn panel. Like a background NPC in a filler arc.
Akira let out a laugh.
Short. Bitter. Disbelieving.
"No way…"
The sky was too blue.
"…No damn way."
To be continued…