The little girl pointed at the top shelf of the convenience store cooler, her voice bright in the fluorescent glare. "Papa, the one with the tuna!"
Tetsuya watched the father lift her easily, letting her grab the onigiri herself. The child's delighted laugh cut through him. He turned to the coffee machine, but the lights were wrong today—too sharp, leaving purple afterimages when he blinked.
Monday mornings in Midorigaoka were all families and purpose. Mothers walking children to the station, salarymen checking watches, everyone moving with the confidence of people who knew their bodies wouldn't betray them. Tetsuya joined the flow toward the station, his laptop bag heavy with unmarked essays about the nature of suffering.
The Toyoko line platform was already packed. He wedged himself into the car, gripping the overhead strap as bodies pressed in from all sides. His free hand found the plastic tag in his pocket—white cross on red, the universal symbol that something was wrong with him. He'd pinned it to his bag once. A high school girl had stared at it for three stops before offering her seat with such exaggerated pity that he'd wanted to disappear.
The train lurched. A pregnant woman entered at Jiyugaoka, her badge prominently displayed. Within seconds, three people stood to offer seats. She smiled, chose one, thanked them. So simple.
The tingling started at Nakameguro. Just fingers at first, then crawling up his arm. He counted stations: Daikanyama, Ebisu, Hiroo. If he could make it to Roppongi, he'd be fine. The déjà vu would pass.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are being held due to congestion ahead."
The train sat between stations, sealed windows trapping recycled breath. The tingling reached his shoulder. A businessman's phone played the news: "Quantum Synapse Dynamics announces expanded trials for revolutionary neural implant..." The words seemed to echo, as if he'd heard them before, would hear them again.
At Waseda University, he made it to the lecture hall with twelve minutes to spare. Room 203, Modern Religious Thought. Twenty-three students registered, maybe fifteen would show. He arranged his notes on the podium, hands only slightly trembling.
"Today we discuss the First Noble Truth of Buddhism: dukkha." His voice was steady, professorial. "Often translated as suffering, but more accurately described as dissatisfaction, unease, the inability of life to provide lasting satisfaction."
A student in the back yawned. Another scrolled her phone behind a propped-up textbook.
"The Buddha taught that this suffering stems from impermanence. Everything changes. Nothing remains stable." The fluorescent lights hummed. That familiar feeling crept in—he'd said these words before, would say them again, was saying them now in infinite recursion. "Even our consciousness is not fixed, but a series of arising and passing moments, like frames in a film creating an illusion of—"
The skip.
One second he was standing, the next gripping the podium. The students' faces had changed position slightly, like a film missing frames.
"Professor Hayashi?"
"Where was I?" His tongue felt thick. "Ah yes, suffering. The Buddha identified three types..."
He managed twenty more minutes before dismissing class early.
The faculty lounge was nearly empty—just him and Professor Tanaka grading papers. Tetsuya poured coffee with careful concentration. His hand was someone else's hand. The cup was impossibly far away, then too close.
The seizure hit as he turned from the machine.
The cup shattered first—porcelain shards and coffee spreading across linoleum. Then his knees buckled. The last thing he saw clearly was Tanaka's face shifting from annoyance to alarm.
He came to with Dr. Yamamoto's face above him. They'd worked in the same building for three years, exchanging nods in hallways. Now Yamamoto's hands were gentle on his shoulders, keeping him from sitting up too fast.
"Easy, Hayashi-san. You're okay."
The other professors had formed a careful perimeter, close enough to show concern, far enough to avoid entanglement. Someone had thrown paper towels over the coffee.
"I'm fine," Tetsuya managed. "This is normal."
Yamamoto helped him to a corner chair. The others gradually returned to their papers, performing absorption in their work. Yamamoto stayed, pulling a chair close.
"How often?"
"Twice a month. Sometimes more."
"Medication?"
"Three different ones. This is actually an improvement."
Yamamoto was quiet for a moment. "There's a trial. My department is consulting on it. QSD—Quantum Synapse Dynamics. They're not just suppressing seizures, Hayashi-san. They're rewriting how the brain handles neural storms."
"I've tried experimental treatments before."
"Not like this." Yamamoto pulled out his phone, showed him a video of neural mapping. "They use quantum coherence to predict seizure patterns, then insert synthetic memory bridges to prevent the skip. Forty-three participants so far. Thirty-eight are seizure-free."
"The other five?"
"Withdrew for personal reasons. No adverse effects."
Sunday. His parents' house in Chiba, a fifty-minute train ride that felt like traveling backward through time. The same entrance where his shoes had sat for eighteen years. The same smell of tea and old tatami.
His mother had started the sukiyaki early. She ladled extra meat into his bowl without asking, the way she'd done when he was sick as a child.
"You look tired, Tetsu-chan."
"It's fine, Mom."
His father didn't look up from the TV. "That new drug working?"
"It's fine, Dad."
They ate in familiar silence. On screen, a news segment about advancing Japanese medical technology. The reporter mentioned quantum computing, neural interfaces, a new tomorrow.
"Second helping?" His mother was already filling his bowl.
The egg cooked slowly in the hot broth, yellow center barely containing itself. Tetsuya watched it tremble with the bubbling liquid, always about to break but somehow maintaining its shape. For now.