When you wake up in a body that isn't yours, the first thing you should probably do is scream.
I didn't.
I just sat up slowly, blinking at a ceiling that wasn't mine, and thought:
"Did my ceiling shrink overnight?"
Because the last thing I remembered was concrete, car horns, blaring music from some idiot's car stereo, and then….BAM. Nothing. The void. Roll credits.
Now?
Plain white paint. A dangling light bulb socket that looked like it belonged in one of those low-budget horror films. The faint smell of detergent mixed with lemon, which was suspicious because my old sheets smelled like three-day-old instant noodles and regret.
This wasn't my bed. This wasn't my ceiling. And when I caught my reflection in the mirror across the room…
That wasn't my face.
The boy staring back had messy black hair that screamed "forgot to brush," light brown skin that looked like the halfway point between "tans easily" and "melanin-dealer premium package," and sharper features than I ever had. His eyes were alive in a way mine hadn't been for years.
He looked like…a bootleg anime protagonist.
Which made no sense.
"Oh hell no," I muttered. "This is some isekai nonsense. Did Truck-kun finally collect me? Did I not pay my isekai insurance?"
I slapped my cheeks. Hard. It stung. Still here. Still real.
Great.
And then someone banged on the door.
"Kai! Are you awake?!"
The accent was thick.….It sounded Nigerian?
The kind of accent that didn't just ask if you were awake, it threatened you into consciousness.
My brain short-circuited. Nigerian dad? I didn't have a Nigerian dad. I didn't have any dad who stuck around.
The door opened a crack, and a small head popped in. A boy. Maybe twelve years old. Permanent bedhead, wide grin, pajamas with, of course—football prints.
"Oh good, you're up!" the kid chirped. "Dad said if you didn't get up soon he'd drag you out like a sack of rice."
I stared in confusion. "…Who are you?"
The boy frowned like I'd just asked him to explain algebra. "What do you mean, who am I? I'm Kenta. Your little brother."
Little brother.
Me. Having a little brother.
The only little brother I'd had in my old life was a broken PlayStation controller I used to throw at the wall when FIFA robbed me of a win...
But this kid, Kenta….looked so sure, so casual, like me not recognizing him was the weird part.
"You okay, Kai? You look like you saw a ghost," Kenta said, squinting at me. Then he shrugged. "Hurry up, or Dad'll kill you. Breakfast is ready."
And he was gone, just like that.
Leaving me sitting on a stranger's bed, in a stranger's room, with anime posters of Naruto, One Piece, and Dragon Ball Z on the walls, trying not to freak out as a surge of Memories that definitely weren't mine began to trickle in slowly….
Apparently, I was Kai Phillips now.
And apparently, I had a little brother….
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Breakfast didn't make things better.
The kitchen was small, the table a little wobbly, but it smelled incredible. Toast, scrambled eggs, beans, and tea, classic British setup, but with a twist of spice that gave away our heritage.
At the head of the table sat the man.
Dark skin. Cropped hair. Broad shoulders. Faded work uniform that said: I don't have time for nonsense. His expression was calm, but his eyes were sharp, like he could see through excuses before you even made them.
This was Ade Phillips. My new father, according to my memories and the Office ID I caught a glimpse of on his shirt.
And yeah....he terrified me.
He glanced up briefly as I sat down, then back to his plate. "Eat," he said simply. "You've got school in an hour."
School. Again with the school.
I stared at him. Then at my plate. Then back at him. Was this man seriously expecting me to just nod and act like everything was normal?
Meanwhile, Kenta was eating like a shonen protagonist mid-training arc. He crammed beans onto his toast, stuffed half into his mouth, and grinned at me with cheeks bulging. "Bro's acting funny this morning, Dad. He looked at me like he didn't even know me!"
Ade's fork clinked against his plate as he set it down and leveled me with his eyes. "You sick?"
Panic mode: activated. "Uh….yeah. Headache. Slept funny."
He studied me for two terrifying seconds, then nodded once. "Take paracetamol. No excuses at school." And just like that, he went back to eating.
That was Ade Phillips. No-nonsense. No mercy. The kind of dad anime protagonists have right before a tragic backstory arc.
I picked at my food, still trying to process everything. A family. A father. A younger brother. A body that wasn't mine.
And the worst part? It felt…real. Too real.
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The walk to school with Kenta was a mix of confusion and torture.
"So, Kai, did you watch the new My Hero Academia episode? Oh wait, you passed out early like a grandpa. Man, you missed it, Deku was insane! I swear if you don't catch up, I'm spoiling it for you."
I groaned. "Kenta. It's too early for spoilers."
He grinned. "Then hurry up and watch it, bro. Otherwise I'll tell you who cries, who powers up, who loses an arm—"
"Kenta!" I clapped my hands over my ears. "If you spoil anything, I swear I'll… I'll…"
"You'll what?" he asked, smirking.
"…I'll Naruto-run to school and embarrass you in front of your classmates."
His face dropped. "You wouldn't."
"Try me."
We walked in silence for a minute after that. Victory.
But then my eyes caught something that killed the mood.
The pitch.
Green grass, morning dew, and a group of kids already running around, kicking a ball like their lives depended on it.
My stomach twisted.
Football.
The cursed sport. The endless cycle of running and sweating and shouting, all for what? To kick a ball into a net? For glory? For "fun"? Fun, my foot.
Football had ruined my life once already. Literally. And now, in this second life, it had found me again.
I glared at the pitch like it was my mortal enemy. "Not today," I muttered under my breath. "I'm not falling for your trap."
And then fate laughed in my face.
One of the kids mis-kicked the ball. It bounced off the fence, rolled across the ground, and came to a stop—perfectly—at my feet.
I froze.
The cursed sphere of pain and cardio was back.
"Oi! New guy!" a voice shouted from the pitch. "Pass it here!"
I froze. The ball rested innocently by my foot, round and silent.
Kenta nudged me. "Go on, Kai, just kick it."
I didn't move. My brain was screaming alarms. Red flag. Red flag. Stranger alert. This is how it starts. This is the cursed event trigger.
Instead, I crouched slightly, staring at the ball like it might sprout teeth.
"Nope."
Kenta frowned. "What do you mean, 'nope'? It's literally just a ball."
"Exactly." I narrowed my eyes. "And you know what happens in anime when the protagonist conveniently interacts with a ball-throwing stranger? Instant friendship. Instant destiny. Next thing you know, I'm stuck in some football club arc sweating buckets for the sake of 'character growth.'"
Kenta stared at me like I'd grown two heads. "It's not that deep."
"It's exactly that deep." I stood up straight, dusted off my trousers as if rejecting destiny itself, and took my brother by the wrist. "Rule number one of surviving high school: don't talk to strangers. Rule number two: never touch suspicious spherical objects. That's how curses start. Haven't you seen Jujutsu Kaisen?"
Behind us, the boy laughed. A loud, unbothered kind of laugh that grated on me precisely because it sounded so… free. "You're a funny one! I'll remember you!"
Great. Now I was memorable. Just what I didn't want.
Dragging Kenta with me, I muttered all the way across the field. "Stranger danger. Football propaganda. I'm not falling for it. Nope. Not happening. Over my dead body..."
And just like that, I walked away from Ethan Hunt.
Yes. Ethan Hunt. That was actually his name.
The universe had jokes.
And deep down, I already hated how much he sounded like trouble.
"…What kind of discount Mission Impossible name is that?"
I thought as I hurried to school.