"JACKPOT OF FLESH"
Osaka
It was another grey, hazy morning in Osaka - the kind that smelled of stale beer, car exhaust, and fading ambition. The city pulsed with life, indifferent to those it chewed up and spat out. Among the countless wandering souls was a man named Jack Mikan, half-drunk, three cigarettes deep into his morning, and a debt collector's wet dream.
At twenty-eight, Jack had the kind of charm you couldn't teach. Overly charismatic, sharp-witted, and socially magnetic, he could light up a room with nothing but a crooked grin and a half-assed joke. Strangers loved him. Women admired him. Bartenders knew his favorite drink without asking. But beneath the surface of that gleaming smile was a man unraveling, thread by thread.
Jack had once been a golden boy. A double-degree holder - a Bachelor's in Nursing, a Master's in Psychology. The kind of student professors bragged about. The kind of man his father, a stiff-collared tycoon from Tokyo, once pinned his hopes on. But dreams rot faster than fruit in a broken fridge. After college, Jack didn't chase a career - he chased the thrill. Cards. Booze. Women he never loved. Nights that bled into mornings.
He didn't just fall off the wagon. He torched it, pissed on the ashes, and danced around the flames with a bottle of sake in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
He lost everything. His father disowned him. His mother pretended he was dead. His two brothers and three sisters moved on, successful, clean, and respectable. Jack? He was the family ghost. The black sheep who stained the family name of Mikan.
Yet even at rock bottom, Jack had style.
That morning, he wore a wrinkled button-up halfway tucked into torn jeans, sunglasses hiding bloodshot eyes, and shoes scuffed from too many restless walks. He clutched a crumpled lottery ticket in his right hand - the one thing that still gave him hope. It was a joke when he bought it. A dare to fate. He scribbled the numbers while tipsy in a pachinko bar, laughing as he imagined himself escaping debt by sheer dumb luck.
And then… the impossible happened.
As he stumbled past a crowded plaza, a loudspeaker blared the winning numbers. Jack squinted at the ticket, muttered them aloud, and paused.
His hands trembled.
No fucking way.
He read them again. One. By. One.
He had won.
Jack Mikan had actually fucking won.
His jaw dropped. For a moment, everything stopped - the noise, the stress, the weight of his ruined life. He dropped to his knees on the pavement and let out a laugh that turned heads. A man who had known nothing but loss for years had finally caught a break. The impossible had become reality.
He sprinted, panting and ecstatic, to the address listed on the lottery site. A posh, heavily guarded building near the harbor. He barged into the office, waving his ticket like a lunatic.
"The winner here! I'm here to claim my prize!" he shouted, his eyes wide with a mix of euphoria and disbelief.
A sharply dressed man behind the front desk smiled. "Mr. Jack Mikan. We've been expecting you."
Jack followed him into an elevator, heart hammering. The kind of moment people dream about - the come-up, the reward for enduring hell. He imagined paying off his debts. Buying a flat. Maybe calling his mother. Maybe proving to his siblings that he wasn't a waste.
But as the elevator doors slid open, his fantasies came crashing down.
His smile became upside down in an instant.
Because inside the grand lounge weren't piles of cash, gold bars, or oversized novelty checks.
There were women. Ten of them.
All stunning. All different. All staring at him.
"What the… fuckity fuck?" Jack muttered.
A tall man in a white suit approached, smirking like a devil out of a fairy tale.
"Congratulations, Mr. Mikan. You've won our grand prize: Ten companions — each selected specifically for you."
Jack blinked. "I… I thought this was a money prize."
The man's grin widened. "This year's jackpot is… unconventional. You've won not just women - but loyalty. Skill. Beauty. Danger. Pleasure. Companionship. Every man's fantasy."
Jack looked from one woman to the next. A redhead with piercing eyes. A petite girl with a sinister smile. A voluptuous woman in a kimono, arms folded. A tomboy with bandages on her knuckles. A shy girl hiding behind a book. A dominatrix. A maid. A singer. A hacker. A sniper.
Ten women. Each more surreal than the last.
"What the hell am I supposed to do with them?" he asked, overwhelmed and confused.
"Live," the man said. "Survive. Evolve. This is your new life, Jack Mikan."
Jack stepped back. His addiction-rattled brain spun. "This is some fucked up Truman Show hentai bullshit."
And yet… he didn't walk away.
Because somewhere deep in that broken man's heart, a tiny flame reignited. Maybe this wasn't a curse. Maybe this was fate playing its most twisted card yet.
Jack Mikan - the gambler, the addict, the failure - had won a harem.
And nothing would ever be the same again.