"Mmm... ah... oh yeah...! Klein, is it... okay... for us to be doing this... to Peter?"
"Sss... ha... don't worry about... the details... you already... betrayed him... so just focus... stop thinking about it!"
A quarter of an hour later, Ryan sat sprawled across the sofa like a crime scene, cigarette dangling from his lip, watching Maya pull herself together on the other side of the room.
His thoughts drifted, slow and unhurried, back to that night six months ago.
It was a dark and stormy night.
Thunder cracked once — sharp and sudden — splitting the silence wide open.
And somewhere in a cramped apartment bathroom, Ryan stood with his pants around his knees, left hand death-gripping a wad of toilet paper, right hand clutching his waistband.
A few minutes later, with a grunt of effort... finally.
Ryan closed his eyes. Pure, transcendent relief washed over him.
When he opened them again and took in his surroundings, he nearly launched himself through the ceiling.
If his pants hadn't been around his ankles, he would've bolted.
He'd been so focused on the task at hand — both hands, technically — that he hadn't noticed a single thing about where he was.
Who in the world transmigrates while on the toilet?!
(Those of you with dirty minds — corner. Now. Think about what you've done.)
Ryan sat very still for about a minute, processing.
He'd transmigrated.
...Seriously?
Was the Cosmic Transmigration Department running on a shoestring budget? No dramatic lightning bolt, no ethereal voice, no convenient blackout? Just — poof — mid-squat, new world?
This sloppy?
He transmigrated because of a particularly stubborn... effort in the bathroom?!
Was this a joke? Was there no dignity left in the universe? Was there no justice? Were there no laws?
A blockage at the exit somehow launched him all the way into a parallel dimension?!
Fortunately, Ryan had one ironclad personal philosophy: wherever he fell, he'd lie there for a moment and then figure it out.
Go with the flow. Roll with the punches. Accept the hand dealt.
So he finished up with the paper, flushed the toilet, washed his hands thoroughly — a man had his standards — and accepted, with remarkable calm, that his life had fundamentally changed.
Ryan pushed open the bathroom door and stepped out.
The smell hit him first: old wood and cheap cleaning spray, layered together into something that smelled like "broke but trying."
He stood in what could generously be called a studio apartment.
Ten square meters, give or take. The room served as bedroom, living room, dining room, and home office simultaneously — and managed to be mediocre at all four.
A sofa bed dominated most of the floor space. Against the opposite wall stood a low wooden cabinet, its paint peeling at the corners, topped with an ancient CRT television whose antenna jutted toward the ceiling at a hopeful, crooked angle.
The window was small. The afternoon sun squeezed through it like it was apologizing for showing up, casting a thin wedge of light across a floor worn smooth and shiny from years of use.
But here was the thing — the place was clean. Spotlessly, almost defiantly clean.
The floor looked scrubbed. The items on the cabinet were neatly arranged: a stack of thick textbooks, a mug with a chipped rim, a small pile of grocery store coupons organized by expiration date. The sofa cushions were straightened.
Beside the window stood a small square table propped level by folded cardboard wedged under one leg. It served as desk and dining table both. A copy of Intermediate Microeconomics lay open on it, margins packed dense with neat handwritten notes.
And beside the textbook — a photo frame. The glass was slightly fogged.
Ryan picked it up and wiped it clean with his sleeve.
The photo showed a younger version of Klein — the original owner of the body Ryan currently occupied — sandwiched between two smiling parents. The man had an East Asian face, wore wire-rimmed glasses, and had the look of someone who read for fun. The woman beside him had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a grin that could light up a room. Behind them stretched the sun-drenched lawn of what looked like a university campus.
The classic sacrificed-at-the-start parents.
Ryan stared at the photo for a long moment. Broken apartment, dead parents, bank account emptier than my ambition — yeah, this is the standard orphan-protagonist starter pack, alright.
He set the frame back carefully.
The memories flooding in from Klein's life filled in the rest. His parents had died in an accident during his freshman year of high school — an ordinary, senseless tragedy that left behind a small inheritance and this room. Klein had stretched that money across odd jobs and sheer stubbornness all the way to his junior year of college.
No crushing student debt, at least. That was something.
The transmigration itself? Mundane to the point of insult. Klein had caught a cold he couldn't afford to treat. Then came a full day of manual labor, followed by a long walk home in freezing rain. His immune system waved the white flag somewhere between the bus stop and the front door, and that was that.
And into that vacancy stepped Ryan — a guy from another world who had quite literally pushed too hard in a bathroom and ended up here.
When it rains, it pours. Fate kicks you when you're down and laughs while doing it.
People always said losing your parents early unlocked some hidden power, some protagonist's blessing.
Ryan had been waiting for it.
And waiting.
For a whole month — washing dishes, running deliveries, hustling odd jobs, scraping by — living a life so identical to Klein's that he'd started to wonder if transmigrating had been a downgrade.
He was starting to think he'd just switched dimensions to continue being a workhorse with worse weather.
Then his phone rang.
A voice came through — slightly nervous, familiar in a way he couldn't immediately place.
"Hey, Klein. It's Peter. Um... about the internship next semester, I had some questions. Could we maybe meet up and talk?"
Peter.
Ryan didn't think much of it. Common name. Probably nothing.
He agreed to meet at a coffee shop near campus and showed up expecting to help some random classmate figure out internship applications.
What he got instead was a tall, lanky guy with glasses, curly hair, a plain jacket, and the kind of expression that said I really hope this goes okay. The guy spotted him through the window, gave an uncertain little wave, and pushed through the door.
Ryan watched him cross the room and thought, absently, this kid looks exactly like he should be playing Spider-Man in a movie.
Their eyes met.
Ding!
The sound rang through his skull like a clear bell — not in his ears, but somewhere deeper, behind his eyes, right at the center of his thoughts.
A semi-transparent screen flickered into existence on his retina, faint blue light overlaid perfectly across reality like a second layer of the world.
[Ding!][The Myriad Worlds Supreme Lucky Draw System is now online.]
[Marvel key plot character detected: Peter Parker][Identity: Future Spider-Man. Iron Man's unofficial godson. Queens' friendly neighborhood hero.][Current Status: Civilian.]
[First plot character contact confirmed. Reward: One Lucky Draw!][Would you like to begin?]
Ryan's brain stalled for exactly half a second.
Then:
"DRAW! Obviously draw! What am I supposed to say, no? Do you have any idea how I've been living this past month?! Dishes! Deliveries! Rain! Where have you been?!"
[Ding!][Processing your draw. Please wait...]
A compass materialized on the glowing blue screen, its needle whipping through possibilities at dizzying speed — like it was savoring the moment, dragging out the suspense on purpose.
Then it slowed.
Then stopped.
[Ding!][Your reward is...]
[End of Chapter 1]
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