Day 1 – August 18, 2015
The sun had shifted, casting a harsh yellow stripe across the tatami.
Aria Lin sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by everything she owned in this timeline. It wasn't much. The iPhone was warm from overuse; the flip phone lay useless beside it, a relic even for 2015. The stock brokerage form looked freshly printed, but dusty around the edges, like someone had printed it weeks ago, then forgotten it on the table. Beside them: exactly ¥20,000 in crisp bills.
She checked the iPhone again.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015.
Her thumb hovered over the weather app, then swiped to Notes instead.
She began typing:
Day 1
Time: August 18, 2015.
Cash on hand: ¥20,000.
Phone: iPhone 5, no passcode.
Accounts: TBD.
Residence: one-room apartment, Tokyo, shit neighborhood.
Status: alive.
A small laugh escaped her lips.
Status: alive.
That alone felt surreal.
She got up and did a slow walk around the room.
The place was barely ten paces across. A futon. A scratched-up kotatsu table. One rice cooker. One half-dead houseplant. No washer. No AC. A CRT television buzzed faintly in the corner, stuck on NHK. The volume was too low to make out words, but the banner at the bottom of the screen read something like:
"Volatility in Shanghai market causes jitters abroad."
Aria stared at the text for a long time.
She didn't need sound.
She remembered that week—not the details, but the weight. The world had started to crack along the edges. China would fall first. Then the fear would ripple. Fast.
And then August 24 would happen.
She grabbed a pen and her brokerage form.
It was for a Matsui Securities account. Printed, but unsigned. She examined it like a relic. Her old handwriting was neater back then. Younger. Full of hope or maybe just caffeine.
A sticky note fluttered out from the back. On it, in all-caps block letters:
YOU NEED TO OPEN THIS ACCOUNT BEFORE THE 20TH.
MARKET WILL BLEED. BUY THE BLEEDING.
She sat down again, this time at the kotatsu, and started building a new note.
THINGS I REMEMBER:
- S&P 500 crashes on August 24.
- Flash crash in early morning US time.
- Nikkei drops hard around same time.
- Shanghai leads the panic.
- Certain small-cap Japanese stocks rebound fastest.
- Don't trust memory 100%.
- Volatility = weapon.
She paused.
There were gaps. So many gaps.
She remembered the fear, not the tickers.
She remembered crashing charts, but not the setup candles.
Still. That was more than most people had. She could work with that.
The fridge had a half-rotted onion and a bottle of barley tea.
She drank straight from the bottle, wiped her mouth, and squatted next to the low cabinet under the TV. Inside, she found a stack of receipts, some kind of bank passbook, and an unopened envelope with the Matsui logo.
Her stomach rumbled.
She checked her wallet: ¥3,210 in coins and small bills. She counted everything twice.
If she was careful, she could stretch food for three days. After that, she'd need capital gains or a miracle.
No miracles. Just tape and guts.
Back at the table, she drew a grid on a new note:
30-Day Profit Target: ¥10,000,000
Starting Capital: ¥20,000
Gap: ¥9,980,000
Time: 30 days
Stage Plan:
Day 1–3: Open account, pick targets.
Translation: Fill forms, stalk charts, act like you've got more than 20,000 yen to your name.
Day 4–6: First trades.
Small scalp trades, ETFs maybe. Hit-and-run style. Nothing sexy. Just survive.
Day 7–15: Compound.
If any trade made money, she'd double down. Ride rumors, play news, dodge earnings landmines.
Day 16–25: Full send.
Margin on. Safety off. It's not gambling if you know the outcome. (She didn't.)
Day 26–30: Exit.
If she was ahead, close positions and disappear. If she wasn't… well, let's not finish that thought.
She stared at the list.
Then she wrote another line under it:
Don't die.
She underlined it twice.
Then, for the first time, she allowed herself to process what this "plan" really meant.
"I've got thirty days," she whispered. "So I break it down into phases."
She imagined explaining it to someone else—maybe her past self, the one still naïve enough to think time travel came with cheat codes.
That evening, she sat with the CRT on again, now a little louder. A news anchor was reporting something about the Nikkei futures falling slightly after China's market turmoil.
The visuals cut to traders in Tokyo wearing loose ties and blank stares.
She remembered being one of those people. Eyes glued to monitors.
Thinking money was everything, then losing it all and realizing—money was breath.
Lose enough, and you forget how to breathe.
She pulled the covers up around her legs.
Somewhere outside, a scooter zipped down the street. The world was still turning.
Aria closed her eyes and whispered,
"Day one done. We go tomorrow."