The hiss of oil in the pan was louder than the conversation in the dining area. Grease sizzled as a worn spatula scraped across the bottom of a dented skillet. The narrow kitchen was stifling—steam clung to the faded paint of the walls and fluorescent lights buzzed with the tired pulse of a place that hadn't been updated since the 90s.
Ken Tamagawa, age 26, wiped sweat from his brow with the shoulder of his grease-stained shirt. Another plate of stir-fried noodles with cheap beef and overcooked bok choy. He knew it was bland. Knew it needed more balance. But he couldn't tell you what was missing. He just… couldn't taste it.
Maybe more salt? Or vinegar? he wondered, then shrugged. Whatever. They're drunk and hungry. They'll eat it.
He slid the plate into the window and hit the bell.
"Order up!"
Nobody answered.
The dining room was nearly empty—only one old man at a corner table nursing warm sake beneath a flickering ceiling light. The only waitress on duty had long since disappeared to the alley for a cigarette break.
Ken leaned on the counter and sighed.
This is it, huh? Twenty-six years old, college dropout, apprentice cook at Taka's Place—a restaurant even roaches considered a health hazard.
His fingers tapped idly against the linoleum counter. He wanted to be a chef once. A real chef. Like the kind who gets their own segment on Netflix. But you can't exactly season food when your taste buds are shot.
It wasn't always this way. As a kid, he loved food. Experimented constantly. Then came the car accident—head trauma, partial anosmia, nerve damage to his olfactory system. He lost more than just his sense of smell. Taste dulled, flattened, until everything was just… "fine."
Fine. That's all I am. Not terrible. Not great. Just… forgettable.
After flunking out of culinary school—thanks to the dean's son slipping on one of Ken's sarcastic jokes like it was a banana peel—he found himself jobless, blacklisted, and deeply in debt. His best friend, Tanaka, pulled strings and landed him a gig at his uncle's failing restaurant.
And now I work 12 hours a day for barely minimum wage, cooking food I can't taste, in a place even rats are trying to escape.
By the time he cleaned the grill, locked up, and stepped outside, it was already past midnight. The city's neon lights glowed dully in the summer haze, casting the empty street in shades of blue and orange. He pulled his thin jacket tighter as a breeze swept up dust and the faint smell of fried oil clung to his skin.
Ken walked home. Past the shuttered convenience stores. Past the graffiti-covered walls. Past the drunks arguing outside the bar.
He barely registered the blinding headlights.
Huh?
The screech of tires.
The deafening blast of a horn.
Truck-kun?
WHAM.
He was weightless. Floating. His limbs flailed as the world twisted into a smear of color and sound.
And then…
Silence.
---
His eyes opened to the sound of birdsong.
Light streamed through a window—a window framed with heavy wooden beams. The air smelled like lavender and sun-dried linen.
He blinked.
The ceiling above him was low, painted white with uneven brushstrokes. The bed beneath him was soft, covered in hand-stitched quilts. A clay jug sat on a nightstand next to a flickering candle.
He sat up too fast. Pain exploded in his skull.
"Ugh—what the hell…" he muttered.
His voice—high, young.
He stared at his hands.
Small. Pale. Thin fingers.
"W-What the hell?!"
He scrambled to the edge of the bed and caught his reflection in a dusty wall mirror. Staring back at him was a boy—maybe eight years old. Tousled dark hair. Wide brown eyes. A sharp nose he didn't recognize.
He touched his face slowly, breath hitching.
"This isn't… me."
His heart pounded. Every nerve was electric. He stumbled to his feet and ran to the window.
Outside was a stone street where horses clopped past wooden carts. People bustled in tunics and cloaks, bartering in a language that sounded oddly familiar but archaic. A stone fountain trickled in the square, and the buildings looked like something out of a Renaissance painting.
He looked down at his body again. The small hands. The baggy shirt.
"I've been… isekai'd?"
The word rolled off his tongue with disbelief.
He burst into nervous laughter.
"No way. No freaking way. I got Truck-kun'd? Is that seriously a thing? This can't be real. This has to be a dream. Or a coma hallucination or something."
But it felt real. The breeze on his skin. The wooden floor beneath his feet. The distant sound of a blacksmith's hammer. The birds chirping above the eaves.
A tear slid down his cheek.
For the first time in years, he felt something other than emptiness.
A new body.
A new world.
A new start.
"…Holy crap," he whispered.
He took a shaky breath and stared out the window.
"This might actually be my second chance."
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