The smell of Ether and Omen invaded Richard's senses.
The first thing Richard felt was stillness—a suffocating, coffin-like quiet that pressed against his ears until his heartbeat grew loud enough to frighten him. It was the same silence that haunted his previous life: the sterile hush of hospital corridors at dawn, the soft weeping of machines, the unholy calm that preceded bad news.
His eyelids trembled open.
White.
Everything was white.
The ceiling lights were recessed into pale panels, glowing like cold moons. A faint scent of antiseptic drifted through the room, sharp enough to sting his nose. To his right, a heart monitor pulsed in an almost lazy rhythm. Curtains of dull blue hung half-drawn around the bed, their fabric wrinkled like tired skin. A television was mounted to the wall opposite him, muted, flickering through daytime programs he couldn't focus on.
A hospital room.
Again.
The realization struck him like a second collision.
Richard sucked in a sharp breath and winced as his ribs tightened, memory flooding in all at once—the rush of the street, the blur of motion, the glossy black hood of a car cutting into his vision, the hollow sound of impact as his body lifted from the asphalt. Tokyo's noise had swallowed his scream whole.
"Idiot…" he muttered hoarsely.
"Absolute idiot."
He clenched his fists into the thin blanket. After being gifted a second chance at life—after escaping a fate where he had wasted away in a bed, watching the world through windows and screens—he had still managed to step blindly into death's path.
A bitter laugh scraped its way out of his throat.
Then he noticed something wrong.
He slowly lifted the blanket.
No shattered bones.
No grotesque bruising.
Only faint abrasions along his forearm and a dull ache in his shoulder, like he had slept badly rather than been struck by a moving vehicle.
His breath caught.
"That's… not right."
A car had hit him. He remembered the impact. The violent certainty of it. And yet his body lay intact, almost untouched, as though the world itself had flinched away from finishing the job.
Confusion tangled with relief, relief curdled into unease.
His emotions churned wildly—gratitude battling disbelief, fear gnawing at the edges of wonder. The hospital room felt suddenly too small, its sterile walls closing in on him like the echo of his former prison. He pressed his palm to his chest, grounding himself in the proof of life: the warmth beneath his skin, the stubborn rhythm of his heart.
Then—
An image surfaced in his mind.
A woman, standing over him before the world went dark.
Long blue-tinted silver hair, eyes sharp and assessing, posture calm even as chaos unfolded around her. She had looked at him as if she had already measured his worth, even as she acted with worry.
Richard's eyes widened.
Goosebumps rippled violently across his arms.
"No way…" he whispered, a strange, breathless laugh escaping him.
"No, no, no, did that really happen…?"
His lips moved on their own, muttering in disbelief, the way a fan might whisper the name of a legend when seeing them in the flesh. His chest tightened with excitement so sudden and irrational it bordered on hysteria.
The door creaked.
Sound bled into the room like a blade sliding free of its sheath.
Richard's head snapped toward the entrance.
She stepped inside.
The woman from his fading consciousness walked in with unhurried grace, her presence warping the air around her in a way that made the room feel smaller, tighter, more aware of itself, with seductive curves that almost seemed unholy.
Her long blue-tinted silver hair fell in controlled waves over her shoulders, catching the hospital light with a soft, pearlescent sheen. Her skin was porceline with massive swaying jugs rhythmically announcing her womanhood.
Her one uncovered eyes were sharp and knowing, the kind that seemed to peel layers from a person without ever raising their voice.
She moved with the easy confidence of someone who knew exactly how much attention she commanded—and accepted it as her due.
Richard's heart slammed against his ribs.
This wasn't just resemblance.
This was reality intruding on fiction.
One of the prominent first-grade sorcerers of the world he had once watched from another life now stood three steps from his hospital bed, very real, very alive.
He stared.
Wide-eyed.
He felt the heat and response below his waist.
Shameless.
He allowed his imaginations to run wild.
He imagined her unclothed.
He imagined her moaning and crying out his name.
His fantasies made manifest.
Mei mei was right in front of him. Richard couldn't belief it.
The circuits of his brain was about to burn out in overload, as he continued to stare.
Mei tilted her head slightly, brows knitting together, taken aback by the intense gaze of Richard.
"…Do I know you?"
The question was calm, but her eyes were wary.
Richard, broken from his stupor, swallowed. Hard.
"No," he said quickly, voice cracking just a bit. "I mean—no, sorry. You just… have one of those faces. Hard to forget."
The corner of her mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but not entirely neutral either.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, glancing at the monitors. "You stepped into traffic. That kind of thing usually ends badly."
Her tone softened, just enough to sound polite. "You might consider filing a lawsuit. The driver was shaken. Thought they'd killed you."
Guilt flared in Richard's chest.
"I'm sorry," he blurted. "That was my fault. I wasn't paying attention. I won't… I won't do something like that again."
She studied him.
Not the way doctors did.
Not the way nurses did.
She studied him the way a hunter might study unfamiliar prey.
Then she lifted her chin and pointed toward the far corner of the room, where the wall met the curtain's shadow.
"Do you see anything… strange over there?"
Richard's gaze followed her finger.
The air there was wrong.
It wavered, as if heat shimmered through it, and within that distortion lingered something like a silhouette—a passive, malformed presence clinging to the wall, barely moving, its existence defined more by absence than shape.
A curse.
His stomach tightened.
He forced his face to remain calm. "Yeah. I can see it."
Her eyes sharpened instantly.
Interesting.
That single word seemed to echo in her expression.
"Most people can't," she said slowly. "You don't look injured enough to have survived what happened to you. And now you're telling me you can see that thing."
Silence stretched.
"What's your family name?" she asked. "Your lineage?"
The question landed heavier than it sounded.
Richard hesitated, then exhaled.
"I don't know it," he admitted. "I don't know any of them. I grew up in the system. Orphanages. Shelters. My family's… dead. Or gone. Same thing, I guess." He lied.
The woman's gaze didn't soften—but it deepened.
"And where are you going after you're discharged?"
He gave a humorless laugh. "Nowhere. I don't have a place."
For a moment, she said nothing.
Then, with a shrug that somehow carried the weight of a decision already made, she spoke.
"You can stay at my place. Temporarily."
Richard's breath caught.
He knew her reputation—her pragmatism, her transactional view of relationships. So he responded with equal honesty.
"I'll help with whatever you need. Cleaning, errands, anything. I'm not useless."
A pause.
Then a nod.
"Rest," she said. "I'll arrange things. We have… more to talk about."
She turned to leave.
Her steps were unhurried, her posture composed, and yet every movement carried a dangerous elegance that made Richard painfully aware of sensations he had not been able to feel in his previous life. Heat stirred in his chest and a primal hardness burned below. This unfamiliar, sharp longing, filled Richard with curiosity.
He clenched his jaw, forcing the thoughts down.
Focus.
The door closed softly behind her. His eyes glued to her bouncy behind, before they receded completely.
Richard exhaled and turned his gaze to the television.
The date sat in the corner of the screen.
May, 2018.
His breath hitched.
One month.
One month before everything starts to spiral into blood and curses and catastrophe.
And then he saw it inscribed on the medical machine by his bedside.
Shibuya General Hospital.
Richard stared at the words, sweat breaking along his spine.
If this world followed the same cruel rhythm he remembered…
Then he wasn't only early.
He was in the worst city in the world.