"Takumi, Takumi! Stop bending over and get up now! It's our turn for graduation photos. If you keep it up, Ishida-sensei is going to give you a scolding." The voice, charged with urgency, resounded in his ears just as he was beginning to come to his senses.
"Two dead otakus over there, come quickly!" someone shouted from the back of the courtyard.
Takumi shook his head, still dizzy, and looked around with cloudy vision. He was on a neglected playground, surrounded by uniformed students. Some adults struggled with outdated cameras. Everything indicated that they were in the middle of a graduation photo shoot.
Beside him, a chubby boy with giant glasses and a nervous expression called out to him impatiently.
"Idiot!"
Takumi's eyes widened. Kenta-kun? His classmate in third grade?
Without thinking, he blurted out: "It's a real ghost!"
The collective laughter did not take long to erupt.
"What the hell is wrong with you! Ishida-sensei is already frowning. Move before we lose our turn!" Kenta-kun grabbed his arm and lifted him up as if he weighed nothing.
"Huh?" Takumi looked at him incredulously. 'Why do I feel more... boy?' 'Wasn't he already a university student? High school... this seems secondary.'
He turned sharply. A stern-faced man was watching him from above. With a list in his hand, he tapped him lightly on the shoulder.
"Takumi Sato, you can't even behave during a simple graduation photo?"
Ishida-sensei. The same teacher he had in third grade. And Kenta-kun, also the same. Nothing had changed.
'What's going on...? ¿Turned... to the past?'
The scene, the uniforms, the date... Today was the day of her high school graduation photo.
"Mom!" His face suddenly decomposed. 'This was the day of the accident. The day Mom...' I didn't have time to understand how I had come back. Only one thing mattered now: 'I have to avoid it. I won't let it happen again.'
He pushed Kenta-kun without a second thought and ran at full speed towards the bike rack.
"Wait! Takumi! Don't you want the graduation photo!?" shouted Ishida-sensei from behind.
Takumi turned sharply. His gaze was a blaze.
"I don't have time for that, sensei! Do what you want with the damn photo."
The entire yard froze over.
"Psychopath!" "He went crazy!"
Only Kenta-kun was still watching the figure moving away. Takumi's gaze still haunted him.
"Since when has he had a look like that?" he muttered to himself. "Wasn't he just as shy as I was...?" Something didn't fit. "No... I probably imagined it."
"Come on, let's ignore that and get on with the photos!" ordered the director, with a tense face. He clapped his hands on the list and began to regroup the students.
May 15, 2014. It was less than a month before the high school entrance exam in Saitama prefecture. Takumi Sato's life, in his previous existence, forked just that day. His mother would die in a car accident and he would be adopted by another family...
He never imagined having a second chance. This time, I wouldn't waste it. This time, he wanted to save her. 'Mom... This time I'm going to make you live happily.'
His mother, Aiko, worked in a packaging factory, operating an assembly line. I left every night at ten o'clock. But when Takumi arrived pedaling in a hurry, the employees were already out the door. That day, as in his previous life, the factory had closed earlier due to lack of product.
Just then, Aiko appeared pushing a woman's bicycle. His voice made him stop.
"Takumi-kun, what are you doing here?"
His face, although young, was furrowed with wrinkles from the effort of the years. He wasn't even forty, but hard work had left its mark. And yet, for him it was exactly as he remembered it.
"I came to pick you up," Takumi replied, forcing a smile as his eyes filled. "I heard they would close early today due to lack of inventory."
Aiko looked at him, surprised. 'How did you know?' But he did not manage to ask, because several workers approached with curiosity.
"Aiko-san, is it your son?"
"Yes," she nodded. "Takumi-kun, say hello to the aunts."
"Hello, aunts," Takumi said, with a sincere smile.
"What a polite child!" "Did you tell me I was shy? If it's a charm!" "Mine never comes looking for me." "Mine doesn't even bring friends home. He is ashamed that they know that I work in a factory."
The women began to chat as usual, between laughter and complaints of daily life.
Aiko was surprised again. She had only asked her son to say hello out of courtesy, but he did so naturally, without looking away. Before... he barely responded when someone spoke to him.
As they said goodbye to the group, mother and son walked calmly down the street.
"Weren't graduation photos supposed to be taken today?" asked Aiko. "When do they give you the diploma?"
"I don't know... probably after the high school entrance exam," Takumi replied, still with a smile. "Mom, can we walk back?"
She nodded immediately. His son never asked for things like that. Always so locked up. So quiet. But that night I was... different. And she noticed it.
They walked together until they reached a collapsed intersection of people.
"What a tragedy..." "They say the car lost control and crashed into that store. Luckily there was no one on the street." "But those who were inside... I don't think they'll make it out alive."
Sirens, murmurs, cell phone lights. A chaos. Takumi felt a leap in his chest. He knew everything. Too good.
'Here it was. Here I saw her for the last time...'
In his previous life, a novice driver had stepped on the gas by mistake. His mother was the victim.
But now...
Now she was alive.
"It's dangerous, Takumi-kun. Don't get close, let's go now."
Aiko frowned at the crowd of onlookers. He didn't want his son to see such a strong scene. He took his arm and pulled him away without looking back.
Takumi returned home in silence, as if floating. Only when he walked through the door and slumped into the chair did his mind begin to collect thoughts. 'He did not die. This time, mom is still alive.'
In his previous life, after losing it, he was adopted by an unknown figure who sent money every month, but never showed his face. He always suspected who was behind it, but he never found answers.
Now that I had another chance, I didn't think I would depend on anyone. Nor did he want to return to that mediocre existence. He had a dream that he could not fulfill before. This time, he would succeed. It would make his mother happy.
The problem was how to start. He couldn't play the lottery—he couldn't even remember any winning numbers. The obvious path was to study, graduate, get a good job... but he was fifteen years old. It would take him at least seven more. 'By then, I will have lost all advantage of being reborn.'
"Takumi-kun, at the table," Aiko called as he served dinner.
He decided that he would think better with a full stomach.
Dinner: sautéed pork with peppers and grated carrots. Simple dishes, yes, but with that warm flavor that I had missed so much.
"Delicious! Mom, really... I'm going to marry someone who cooks like you."
"Get married? If you still don't even grow a beard." Aiko laughed as she poured him another piece of meat. Then, as if remembering something, he stood up suddenly.
"Oh, right, I almost missed it... You should watch the newscast. They're going to take questions about current issues on the entrance exam, remember?"
He turned on the television and turned on the channel.
"I'm sure the same old news...," Takumi murmured, chewing half-heartedly.
The voice of the presenter filled the room.
"This afternoon, the Hokkaido District Supreme Court held a public hearing on the 3.12 case of maritime smuggling. The investigation dates back to 2012..."
"Pff! Cough, cough—"
Takumi spat out the rice and began coughing.
"What's wrong with you!?" Aiko ran for water and tapped him on the back. "Swallow well, Takumi!"
After drinking, he nodded. "I'm fine."
"What a scare you gave me..." She sighed and went to get the mop to clean.
But Takumi no longer listened to her.
'Hokkaido District...? But that was normal. Then why was I so alarmed?'
"Mom, I'm done."
Without waiting for an answer, he took the dish to the sink and went straight to his room. He looked for a history book and leafed through it desperately.
What he found baffled him.
Japan was still Japan. Everything was the same. But something didn't fit. When looking for information about manga and popular culture... The pieces were not there.
Dragon Ball. Naruto. One Piece. Detective Conan. The King's Avatar. Nothing.
They did not exist.
"It can't be..."
He dropped into bed. His hands trembled.
'This is not the past. It's a parallel world!' 'And I... I'm still me.'
"What the hell is this?"
He pulled his hair, overwhelmed. If he was in another reality, what good was it to have been reborn?
But then, a spark shook him.
'If this world never knew the comics I loved... then I can create them.'
He recalled how, during his childhood, while his mother worked endless shifts, he took refuge in old second-hand comics. Drawing was his only constant.
After losing his mother, even that was not enough. He isolated himself. He dropped out of school. He was paralyzed by the paper.
Only one woman helped him up... years later.
"Yes..." His eyes sparkled.
'I still know how to draw, can't I?' 'And if no one has known those mangas here... I can start them from scratch. I can bring you something you've never seen.'