The sun was already setting. With its rays no longer beating down, it didn't feel quite as hot outside—but the humidity still clung stubbornly to everything.
Kuroba Akira had sweated buckets today; his entire body felt sticky and uncomfortable, and he longed to get home for a proper shower.
But the place he was temporarily staying was far from the school. Walking would take over an hour. Without a bicycle—or money for the train—he had no choice but to trudge home on foot.
Of course, he wanted to complain about it, but the truth was, he knew exactly how lucky he was just to have somewhere to stay.
When he first crossed over into this world, not only could he not understand the language, he didn't know his new name or identity. He didn't even have a place to live. Calling it a "hellish start" wouldn't have been an exaggeration.
Thinking back to the day he first arrived in this world, Akira couldn't help but feel nostalgic in a weird way.
In his previous life, Kuroba Akira had worked as a copywriter at a major gaming company.
The night before a game launch, he was still at the office, pushing himself to the limit to finish drafts. His body was screaming, his mind foggy—but deep down, he was looking forward to relief.
Once the game launched, the endless overtime until ten at night would finally end, and he could reclaim his weekends.
But exhaustion had taken its toll. His head throbbed as if his brain itself was trembling. Eventually, his eyelids betrayed him, and he decided to rest for just a moment.
He never expected that one blink would be his last in that world.
To his horror, the long-awaited relief came in the form of an eternal sleep—a grim fate reserved for overworked office drones.
He'd heard of death by overwork before. It never felt real—until it happened to him.
Yet fortune has a strange way of showing up. He always assumed transmigration to another world was a fictional trope—until it happened to him.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a classroom, sitting in the second-to-last row by the window—the typical "protagonist seat."
At first, he thought he had dreamt his way back to high school. But the uniform he wore wasn't the familiar blue-and-white gym outfit—it was a Western-style school uniform.
Outside the window, cherry blossom petals drifted in the breeze.
…Wait, where exactly was he?
After trying all sorts of shocking methods to wake himself up, he finally accepted the possibility: he had crossed over… maybe.
Even after a quick trip to the bathroom, washing his face and staring at the mirror, he wasn't entirely sure.
It wasn't like he had become "someone else."
His body was still his own, and his mind contained no alien memories.
Technically, his body had changed—he was younger.
Though his features hadn't altered, the dark circles under his eyes and acne scars from adolescence had vanished. His body felt lighter, slimmer, almost as if decades of weight had been lifted.
After years of office life, long hours and a 996 schedule had made him gain weight steadily; even a double chin was forming. But now, all the extra fat was gone.
What shocked him most was that a scar at the corner of his eye remained.
He had scraped it on broken glass as a child—luckily, the eye itself was unharmed. Over time, the scar had grown slightly and become a defining mark of his identity.
The fact that this non-congenital scar still existed made him wonder: had a similar accident occurred in this world too?
What was going on?
Was it transmigration? Rebirth? Soul takeover?
Who knew.
He quickly gave up trying to figure it out. Since no self-proclaimed deity had appeared to explain anything, and no "system prompt" had popped up, it was clear there was no immediate way out.
Looking on the bright side: at least he had escaped that soul-crushing corporate life. And he didn't have to pretend to be someone else, plus he was younger now…
Might as well enjoy his youth again.
But then came the "desperate minute" of his first high school debut—a self-introduction so painfully awkward it could freeze the soul, leaving a dead silence in its wake.
At least he learned his new name.
Kuroba Akira.
He couldn't help laughing and crying at the same time.
In his previous life, he had been Shiraha Akira. Now, the surname had changed from Shiraha to Kuroba, and the given name was shortened to just Akira. One character difference—but pronounced entirely differently.
Because the change was so subtle, he kept writing his surname as "Shira-" by accident at first, and even forgot the spacing in his name, taking a long time to adjust.
After school on his first day, Akira realized a bigger problem: he didn't know where his home was.
So he had to muster courage and approach the homeroom teacher. Using broken Japanese and universal hand gestures, he explained that he didn't know where to go. Kobayakawa Motoko tried searching the student directory but couldn't find any home address or contact info.
She thought it might be a mistake, so she called the head of administration, only to hear:
"Kuroba Akira is from out of town, attending high school in Tokyo. He's still looking for a place to stay. Once he finds one, he can provide his address and phone number."
So he wasn't homeless—he just hadn't found a place yet.
Akira barely understood her at first but, relying on his years of watching anime, he grasped "no way" from context and noticed the embarrassed look on her face.
Searching his bag, he did find a bank card—probably the money his family sent for rent.
But…
He didn't know the PIN!
No local language installed yet, but he still remembered the card. Baka! Baka! Poor Kuroba Akira could only internally scream in frustration.
On the other side, Kobayakawa Motoko hesitated. She wanted to help this seemingly "speechless" student, but wasn't sure how.
She couldn't exactly take a male student home… could she?
What kind of teacher-student romance scenario was she imagining?
No, no, that was impossible. A rookie teacher doing something like that would get fired immediately.
In the end, she could only watch helplessly.
And so, on his very first day in this new world, Kuroba Akira began wandering Tokyo.