They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. But all he saw… was hers.The headlights were too bright. The bus came too fast. And everything in him screamed to stop time.He didn't even know her name. Just a girl — maybe sixteen — standing too far into the street, earphones in, waiting to die.His body moved. His mind stayed behind. There was no plan. No thought. No hesitation.Only instinct. One second, he was a nobody. The next… he was already dead. Twelve hours earlier, the world was normal. Or at least, it pretended to be.Tokyo pulsed like a living thing — electric, impatient, always hungry. The rain came down in cold waves, tapping the hood of Rin's jacket like static trying to get in. Streetlights buzzed overhead, flickering yellow through the fog, while steam rose from the grates like the city was quietly exhaling.
He walked alone. Like always. Hands in pockets. Music in. Eyes down. Rin Kaido. Nineteen. Invisible. And he liked it that way. People talked too much. They chased things that didn't matter. Likes. Status. Being seen. He never cared for any of it. He cared about silence. About moving unnoticed. About slipping through cracks like smoke.He was good at it too — the kind of kid teachers forgot to call on. The kind no one remembered leaving the room. He lived in the quiet space between seconds. Until today. Until her. He first noticed her on the train. She had that kind of presence you weren't supposed to have. Not in a place like this.Not in his world. She was sitting alone, head tilted against the window, black earbuds in, hair stuck to her cheek from the rain. A sketchbook sat in her lap — open to a page she hadn't touched in a while.Rin should've looked away. He always did. But something about her felt… out of place. Like she didn't belong here. Like maybe he didn't, either.
She got off three stops after him. He never thought he'd see her again. Until the moment the world broke.They were crossing opposite sides of the street — a small backroad near the edge of the city. He recognized her too late. She stood too close to the curb, music blaring in her ears, lost in whatever world she escaped to.The headlights turned the corner.The bus was too fast. Her body didn't react. But his did. Rin didn't know why he ran. He just did. He shoved her backward, hard —and then came the impact.Bone-crushing. Nerve-ending. Final.
He never had a chance to survive the impact. The last thing he saw was her stumbling forward after the life-saving push. She turned around, only to see Rin's lifeless body a few meters away from the bus. She wanted to save him but it was already far too late. He's dead. Or that's what everyone saw. But in Rin's eyes. The world turned black, yet, the next moment it was coming back. But, this was not the world in which he lived his entire life. No, this was some foreign world, or realm. One in which he was surrounded by nothing else than screens flashing one sentence at him. One simple question. ˝Do you want a second chance?˝. He couldn't move, he could only speak. He was quiet for a few moments, which to Rin felt like an eternity. He finally gathered up the courage to speak, only one word, yet that one word was a decision maker.The screens pulsed."Do you want a second chance?"
The sentence blinked in unison on every display — a thousand identical phrases floating in a void of black. No sound. No wind. No shape.Just endless emptiness, lit only by that eerie, glowing question.Rin couldn't move.Couldn't feel his body. Only the weight of the question pressing against his chest like gravity in reverse. What kind of question was that? A second chance at what?
Life?
Existence?
Something else entirely? He tried to speak — nothing.
His throat burned, but no voice came.
He didn't even know if he had a body anymore. Only awareness. Consciousness adrift in this hollow space. The sentence repeated again. "Do you want a second chance?" This time louder. Sharper. Demanding. He hesitated. Memories flickered. His tiny apartment. Cold ramen. Grey skies.
The girl's face — blurry, wide-eyed, the sound of her scream as he hit the pavement. Did he want to go back to that world? To being invisible?Or… was this something else? The void began to rumble. The words glitched violently, flickering red, then black.
"Do you want a second chance?"
"Do you want a second chance?"
"DO YOU WANT A SECOND CHANCE?"
"Yes," Rin finally said.
The moment the word left him, the entire world shattered. The screens exploded in silence — shards of light splintering outward, spiraling like glass caught in a hurricane. And through the chaos… a figure emerged. A silhouette.
Tall. Unmoving. Wrapped in shadows deeper than night.
Eyes glowing like coals. A voice that didn't come from its mouth, but from inside Rin's skull.
"Then it's done.
Your soul is no longer yours.
It drifts in ash and silence... bound to me.
Welcome, Rin." The ground beneath Rin vanished.
He plummeted.