The silence inside the cramped wooden house was thick enough to choke on. No wind slipped through the crooked shutters, no footsteps disturbed the night outside. Only the ragged, uneven breathing of a young boy filled the dim space.
He lay sprawled across the cold, dirt-packed floor. His thin frame shivered every few seconds, as though the earth beneath him were draining away what little warmth he had. Pale moonlight filtered through a crack in the roof, falling across his face and illuminating the most striking thing about him,
White hair.
Snow-white, stark even against the darkness, a genetic oddity that made the villagers whisper behind closed doors.He looked eleven… maybe twelve.Fragile.Alone.
Then,
A violent shock tore through his skull.
"ghh!"
A guttural cry escaped him as he lurched upward, clutching his temples with both hands. His small fingers dug into his skin, desperate to contain the explosion detonating inside his head. His vision pulsed white. His breathing hitched. His body trembled uncontrollably as he writhed against the floorboards.
The pain was too big, too sharp to be a normal headache,This felt like something forcing its way in.
And just as suddenly as it arrived…
It stopped.
The agony drained away, leaving behind a cold, hollow space.
A space that filled, instantly, violently, with memories that were not his.
Not from this body.
Not from this world.
Memories of fluorescent office lights…Blinking monitors…Late-night deadlines…Isolation so deep it carved hollows into a soul…
He gasped softly, his hands falling away from his head.
He knew this life.
He knew this person.
He was Ishiki.
A man who had once lived in modern Japan, a ghost in a gray suit, drifting through a corporate landscape that forgot him as easily as he forgot to sleep.
In that other life, Ishiki had been nothing remarkable. A quiet, unassuming office worker who clocked in, clocked out, and vanished into the blur of city crowds.No friends.No family.No one is waiting at home.
Just a tiny, rented room filled with silence.
His only companionship came from glowing anime screens, bright, heroic worlds that contrasted cruelly with his own dull existence.
Naruto had been his escape.His comfort.His anchor.
A story about an orphan who refused to stay invisible… something Ishiki could never bring himself to do in his own life.
A bittersweet smile formed on his young lips as memories sharpened.He remembered today,The last day of his previous life.
During a short break at work, hunched over his cheap smartphone, he had finally finished the final episode of Naruto. He watched Naruto marry. He watched Naruto become Hokage. He watched a lonely boy achieve everything he had ever dreamed of.
For the first time in years, Ishiki had smiled, genuine, gentle, fragile.
A fleeting moment of warmth.
But warmth doesn't last in a cold world.
He had returned to his desk to find a mountain of overtime dumped onto him, work his cheerful, social coworkers avoided before heading out to a Thursday-night party he, as always, was not invited to.
He didn't get angry.He never did.
He simply smiled that same quiet, self-deprecating smile… and worked.
Hours blurred. His fingers numbed. His eyes stung.
Then the pressure behind his eyes spiked.His nose began to bleed.His vision dimmed.He collapsed face-first onto his keyboard, the final punctuation mark of a life no one would truly remember.
And then…
He woke here.
In this tiny wooden house.In this young, frail body.In a world where danger waited outside every door.
The boy slowly lowered his hands from his temples, breathing steadily as the throbbing faded.
"So…" he whispered, his voice hoarse, unfamiliar."That's how I died in my previous life."
The words hung in the air, cold and metallic.
"Alone and lonely."
The phrase escaped him with a hollow ring, and a wry smile tugged weakly at the corner of his lips.
It almost felt comedic,Dying overworked and unnoticed, right after watching a fictional hero achieve his dreams.
He saw it clearly now, the thread of tragedy that wove through both of his lives.
A corporate drone who vanished without a sound…And a lonely boy in a fragile world of violence…
Both isolated.Both powerless.Both forgotten.
But this time,This life,
Something was different.
Because now, inside this child's trembling hands, this weak body, this quiet existence…
He carried two sets of memories.Two lives' worth of pain.Two lives' worth of resolve.
And somewhere deep in his mind, beneath the fear and confusion, a small spark flickered,
Hope.
Not loud.Not bright.But present.
The boy, this new Ishiki, exhaled softly and let his past settle into place. The pain was gone, replaced by clarity.
He was no longer just the lonely office worker.
No longer just the white-haired child.
He was both.
And he would not waste a second life.