I woke up to silence.
Not the silence I knew—the kind that pressed down in my old apartment, heavy with loneliness and the faint hum of a broken fan. No, this silence was… wrong. Too clean. Too still.
My eyes opened to a ceiling I didn't recognize. Smooth white, not cracked, not water-stained. I jolted upright, heart hammering. The room around me wasn't mine.
Bookshelves. A neatly folded blanket at the corner. A desk with papers stacked tidily. Sunlight bled through pale curtains, soft and warm. It was almost… peaceful. But the sight twisted my stomach into knots.
Where the hell am I?
I shoved the blanket off and staggered out of bed. My legs wobbled beneath me, lighter, shorter somehow. I had to grip the wall to keep from falling. Even my own body felt… alien.
My hands pressed against the surface, and I froze.
These weren't my hands.
My breath hitched. The skin was smooth. No faint scars from the clumsy burns and cuts I'd carried since childhood. The fingers were leaner, the nails cleaner, almost perfect.
"What…?" The word slipped out before I could stop it.
And that's when it hit me—my voice.
It wasn't mine. Higher, sharper. Younger.
I stumbled back, chest tightening. My pulse thundered in my ears. I had to know. I had to see.
I turned toward the window. Sunlight reflected off the glass, catching something pale. My reflection stared back at me.
And my blood ran cold.
Pink hair. Wide brown eyes. A boy's face—smooth, unfamiliar, yet terrifyingly real.
"Who…?" My throat constricted. "What…? What the hell…? W-Where am I-I…?"
I stumbled away, legs nearly giving out beneath me. My breathing came shallow, ragged. The walls closed in, pressing, suffocating.
"No, no, no…" My voice cracked as I backed into the bed frame. "This isn't real. This can't be real."
The reflection in the glass didn't change. He stared at me, as lost and panicked as I was.
I clawed at my hair, my chest burning. Wake up. Wake up already. This has to be a dream. It has to be.
But the air was too sharp in my lungs. The thud of my heartbeat too loud in my ears. This wasn't fading like a dream.
Desperate, I turned in circles, searching for something—anything—that could explain this. My gaze fell on the desk.
Books. A couple of pens scattered neatly. And a notebook left open, its edges curling slightly from use.
I stumbled toward it, legs unsteady, and snatched it up. The pages fluttered beneath my fingers. Lines of text scrawled in neat handwriting filled the sheets.
Words that were different, huh? … Japanese?
My hands trembled as I traced the characters. And yet—I understood them. Perfectly.
Dates. Class schedules. Assignments. Scribbled notes.
Then, at the corner of a page, a name.
Itadori.
I froze. Slowly, as if afraid that my body might collapse if I moved too quickly, I turned my head back toward the reflection in the window.
Pink hair. Brown eyes. A teenager's smooth face.
And the Japanese notebook I could read without effort.
"Pink hair… brown eyes… Japanese… and the fact that I can even read it."
The realization struck like a blade sliding between my ribs.
"No w-way…" My lips trembled. "No way, no way, no way."
The notebook slipped from my hands, crashing onto the desk before sliding to the floor.
"This… this isn't real." My knees buckled, and I caught myself on the chair. My breaths came in sharp bursts, every inhale cutting like glass.
"This has to be an illusion. A dream. Some kind of sick trick." My voice rose, breaking into a half-scream. "Am I hallucinating now? Has my depression gone this far? That I'm seeing this—this—nonsense?"
I pressed my palms hard against my temples, squeezing my eyes shut. For a moment, I thought I could still feel the weight of my old life pressing on me—the emptiness of nights spent staring at cracked walls, the gnawing hollow that had become normal. That life had been painful, yes. But at least it had been mine.
This? This was madness.
I forced my eyes open again. The boy in the glass stared back at me still. His lips parted, his face pale.
My face.
The room spun, tilting dangerously. I pressed both hands against the desk to steady myself, chest heaving.
"No… this isn't me," I whispered hoarsely. "It can't be me."
But the reflection didn't lie.
And deep down, a sickening thought crawled through the cracks of my denial.
What if it is?
"First calm down… calm down… calm down." I muttered to myself, beating lightly at my chest with trembling knuckles, trying to ground myself. "Hoo… haa… hooooo…" My lungs filled with shaky breaths, air hissing out as I forced a rhythm. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
A few minutes passed like that.
Finally, my pulse slowed just enough for me to think, though my legs still trembled as if they could collapse at any second.
"T-This is either…" I swallowed hard, words cracking. "Either I have totally lost it… or I am in the deepest fuckhole possible."
Slowly, I pushed myself upright. My legs quivered beneath me, weak and uncertain, and I half-stumbled back onto the bed, sitting heavily on its edge. The mattress dipped, steadying me.
I buried my face in my hands, dragging them down slowly. My voice was a broken whisper.
"L-Let's th-think it through f-first."
My gaze drifted toward the fallen notebook. The name scrawled across the page. The face in the window.
A shiver ran down my spine as the words slipped out, quiet but clear.
"Am I really… in Jujutsu Kaisen?"