Yongen-Jaya at dusk had a gentle yet poignant beauty, with its Showa-era buildings floating in a grand expanse of light and shadow.
Kurusu Akira walked past a video store, holding an empty mineral water bottle, and entered this weary old street. The shop window, plastered with historical drama posters, vaguely reflected his figure, and he could hear the ticking of a retro grandfather clock inside.
It was as if time had begun to flow backward, an ancient and weathered aura seeping out from every sun-drenched crack in the bricks, drifting before him and merging with the descending afterglow into a hazy mist of light.
In a trance, he felt as if he had walked into that society filled with countless bubbles, endlessly festive yet endlessly desolate.
On nearby walls, various advertisements for adult products and special services were plastered, with exaggerated, restricted-rated photos paired with simple, crude artistic fonts and phone numbers, creating an excessively greasy visual effect.
These flyers, weathered by wind and rain, had bubbled and faded, the faces of beautiful women becoming distorted and bloated under the cover of the bloody mist, like corpses that had been immersed in water for a long time.
Kurusu Akira looked around, then suddenly shivered, instinctively slowing his pace.
He walked down the narrow, spring-like street, yet it felt as if he was treading on a lonely graveyard, with cherry blossoms dotted on the distant rooftops in the evening, their soft pink fading in the grand light and shadow of dusk.
The street was sparsely populated, and the occasional pedestrians walked with their heads down, sometimes briefly stopping for a few seconds at a certain intersection or corner, as if mourning an invisible tombstone.
Kurusu Akira brushed past them, holding the mineral water bottle as if clutching a bouquet of white lilies, and delved deeper into Yongen-Jaya, the red and white awning of the "LeBlanc" coffee shop instantly coming into view.
He squeezed the mineral water bottle tightly, making a "crackle" sound.
In that instant, Kurusu Akira understood where the "tombstone" he was to visit truly lay.
"Amamiya Ren." He whispered the name.
Then he approached the frosted glass door of the shop and grasped the cold metal doorknob.
As the shop door opened, the middle-aged man who was wiping down a table straightened his back and let out an almost imperceptible sigh.
Sakura Sojiro pinched the earpiece of his glasses and squinted at Kurusu Akira standing at the door.
"You finally came."
Kurusu Akira saw the instrument case and backpack placed on the dining table closest to the shop door. He placed his plastic bottle next to them, then bowed deeply to Sakura Sojiro.
"Thank you so much, Sakura-san."
"The person you should truly thank is right here."
Sakura Sojiro stepped aside, revealing Iseri Nina, who was scratching her head over a workbook at the dining table.
"She's my friend's daughter, and she'll be staying with me for a while, studying in Tokyo from Kumamoto…" Sakura Sojiro turned to Iseri Nina. "Iseri, come over and meet Amamiya Ren. You two will be classmates."
"Is she also transferring to Shujin?"
"Yes, the transfer procedures will probably be finalized in the next few days."
As they spoke, Iseri Nina had already left her seat and stood somewhat awkwardly behind Sakura Sojiro.
Kurusu Akira took off his glasses, then bowed deeply to her with a serious expression. "I am Amamiya Ren. Thank you very much for your help."
Iseri Nina was flustered for a moment, then she also bowed deeply to Kurusu Akira. "Um, my name is Iseri… Nina…"
A country girl, not having seen much of the world, arrived in Tokyo for the first time. She encountered a gloomy handsome man whose looks rivaled a morning drama protagonist, and he seriously thanked her—
Iseri Nina's brain had already crashed.
She had never seen such a scene growing up. Those handsome and pretty classmates had always been the center of attention in her class.
They would never, ever abandon their dignity and status as "normies" to thank a peer so solemnly and seriously.
But by the time she came to her senses, Kurusu Akira had already walked out of LeBlanc without a word.
Sakura Sojiro looked at Kurusu Akira's retreating figure, at the school uniform he hadn't changed since yesterday… He couldn't help but want a cigarette.
So he instructed Iseri Nina, "Help watch the shop. If there are customers, call me."
"Sakura-san, are you going to find Amamiya-san?"
"I just feel a little uneasy."
"You are worried about Amamiya-san, aren't you!"
"Of course I'm worried. That child seems to have gone through many terrible things."
"Then aren't you worried he might make some irrational decisions?!" Iseri Nina's emotions suddenly became agitated.
She herself had decided to leave school and family and travel alone to Tokyo for her studies precisely because of various unfortunate circumstances.
Sakura Sojiro looked for cigarettes and a lighter while walking to the shop entrance.
"Iseri." He pressed the cigarette pack in his hand, turned to look at the girl who seemed to empathize with Amamiya Ren, and said slowly, "Amamiya is actually different from you."
"The first time I saw him, he was penniless, his phone's contact list was empty, and he only had one set of school uniform. At 10:30 at night, hungry, he sat alone at the entrance of an abandoned internet cafe, talking to himself—but just one look was enough to know that he had the resolve to take charge of his life."
After speaking, Sakura Sojiro scratched his hair as if troubled. "Sorry, I said some strange things to you."
Then he pushed open the shop door and left.
Through the door, a faint "click" of a lighter's trigger being pressed could be heard.
Flames shot up, igniting the tobacco, and a wisp of gray-white smoke ascended into the light of the setting sun, then slowly dissipated.
----------------
Two figures dressed like yakuza squatted by a park bench, smoking. The fragmented, dense shadows of leaves poured down, like a fishing net covering their faces.
Kurusu Akira, carrying his backpack and a guitar case, entered their sight.
In their eyes, this was a thin, weak boy, full of gloomy thoughts, throwing a tantrum and running away from home.
So the green-haired man waved at Kurusu Akira.
"Hey, kid, stay away from here! If you have problems, go home and talk to your mom!"
Kurusu Akira looked around for a while. Mothers played with their children on simple playground equipment, old people with canes chatted next to spray paint… Only here was the quietest.
"Give me one too." Kurusu Akira decisively chose to join them.
The two who were smoking immediately exchanged glances, then grumbled as they stubbed out their cigarettes on the flowerbed behind them, patted their butts, and left.
"Are you an idiot! What's a stinky kid doing learning to smoke like an adult? If you can study, study properly, don't smoke… You don't look like a student at all!"
Actually, they had already voluntarily given up the bench and walked out of the park, uninterested.
"Thanks." Kurusu Akira was a little surprised, then placed his backpack and guitar case on the bench.
Perhaps because the cigarette was half-smoked and then extinguished, or perhaps because he genuinely didn't want to see Kurusu Akira again, the green-haired man raised two middle fingers above his head. "You better never let me see you again!"
His friend next to him turned back and added, "Remember to apologize to your mom and dad after you're done crying, and then study hard! Otherwise, you'll end up like us… Hey! Matsusaka-bro, why are you kicking me?!"
Kurusu Akira sat down, leaning against the bench, his gaze somewhat inexplicable.
Go home, huh…
If only he could go back.
He picked up his backpack with mixed feelings and unzipped it.
Changing clothes haphazardly filled most of the backpack's space, followed by proof of residence, student ID, phone charger… After a careful search, besides various small items, there was also a thick notebook, like a photo album.
The notebook was old, its cover yellowed and covered in dense scratches. "Amamiya Family" was written on the cover.
Kurusu Akira picked up the student ID. The ID photo was strange; a very handsome boy, yet his face was gloomy before the camera, as if attending a funeral.
He stared into the camera with dull, empty eyes.
It was as if he pierced through the photo, through the confines of time and space, and met Kurusu Akira's gaze.
"Does this mean 'life is meaningless'?"
Kurusu Akira carefully read the text on the student ID.
[Private Shujin Academy High School.]
[Class D, Second Year, Amamiya Ren.]
"Amamiya Ren…" He repeatedly muttered the name.
'So, is this "me" in the parallel world already dead?'
'Why did I not find any wounds on my body when I transmigrated?'
'Is it because of some so-called supernatural event?'
'It's really annoying.'
Kurusu Akira put down the student ID and opened the notebook with "Amamiya Family" written on it.
Inside were dozens of laminated photos and notes, many with hiragana and katakana written on them, either sloppily or neatly.
At the very front were family photos of a happy family of three at an amusement park and an aquarium.
Following that were Amamiya Ren's elementary and middle school graduation photos.
The boy in the photos smiled brightly.
Looking at that face, which was identical to his own childhood face, Kurusu Akira stopped flipping and couldn't help but take a few deep breaths.
If there's smoke, smoke; if there's alcohol, drink. As an adult, he instinctively thought this, but there was neither smoke nor alcohol around him.
He had no choice but to suppress the gloom in his heart and continue flipping through the notebook.
After the seemingly harmonious family photos, a few pages were torn out of the notebook, and then it began to be used as a diary.
Kurusu Akira held what appeared to be diary entries, estimated their thickness, and as his breathing gradually stabilized, he began to secretly read Amamiya Ren's life up to the present day.
The timeline began from the spring break after middle school graduation.
Amamiya Ren was once a person with a wealthy family and a happy life.
Because his parents ran a real estate company in Tokyo and had substantial capital, many of the company's affairs didn't require their personal involvement, so they could always take a lot of time to accompany their child in the countryside.
Amamiya Ren grew up under his parents' meticulous care, with a cheerful personality, a love for music, and a dream of becoming a rock musician.
With his parents' support, he was able to own his own phone and computer, as well as an expensive electric guitar and a complete set of equipment. He could also fly to concerts across Japan during every holiday, visiting famous bands to learn relevant knowledge and techniques. He hoped to form his own band in the future and have many people enjoy his music.
This was better than Kurusu Akira, whose original family background was very ordinary. He only bought his first phone, even a flip phone, before graduating from middle school by working odd jobs in his spare time.
He continued reading.
Such a happy life did not last forever; Amamiya Ren's family soon experienced a huge upheaval.
In 2020, a terrifying infectious disease spread wildly across the globe, causing widespread panic throughout Japan, and the development of all industries took a sharp downturn.
The company suddenly became busy, many ongoing operations and projects came to an abrupt halt, the capital chain broke, and there were endless holes to fill.
Amamiya Ren's parents borrowed a lot of money for this, even selling and mortgaging many assets, then drove to Tokyo with this huge sum to save their company, which was on the verge of bankruptcy.
And once they left, they never returned to Amamiya Ren's side.
A private hospital in Tokyo sent Amamiya Ren a text message stating that resuscitation had failed.
In that terrifying plague, the boy who lost everything overnight stood alone by the landline phone.
Calls demanding debts came like a storm, and the house, car, and furniture were forcibly auctioned off.
The only thing the boy could keep was the electric guitar that had accompanied him for three years of middle school.
Sure enough, every photo and note tucked into the subsequent diary entries were proofs of debt, listing the names and contact information of creditors.
Even after selling all their assets, the Amamiya family still owed nearly ten million in foreign debt to various "friends and relatives."
Even if the boy mustered the courage to continue living, self-interest would always make people overstep moral conscience.
There were even debt collectors who hired gang members to block the school gate to demand money from him, making every day of his school life pass under the sympathetic, mocking, and fearful gazes of his classmates. Some who had previously envied him even took the opportunity to kick him while he was down.
After enduring various forms of bullying and humiliation inside and outside school, Amamiya Ren ultimately chose to abandon his studies in Hoori, blocked and deleted all contacts on his phone, sold his tube amplifier and limited edition headphones, and traveled alone to Tokyo by train.
It seemed that the debt collectors realized their excessive behavior, or perhaps influential people in the Hoori area intervened to mediate.
In any case, after Amamiya Ren arrived in Tokyo, he was never harassed by them again.
...
The content thereafter merely documented the difficulties of renting a place and studying in Tokyo.
However, even until the end, the diary did not describe how Amamiya Ren died, or why he died in a restroom next to a barbecue stall.
Anyway, by the time he transmigrated, only his will was supporting this weak body.
For a moment, Kurusu Akira truly wished that he could live happily in another dimension in his place—
Of course, it was only for a moment. After all, no one would truly want their own perfectly good life to be replaced by another.
Kurusu Akira rubbed his palms, then closed the notebook.
He neatly packed all his belongings back into his backpack, then stood up to leave.
Amamiya Ren was truly an unlucky, pitiful child.
Kurusu Akira thought.
'Of course, he's definitely not as unlucky as me.'
Six years of facing life and death, painstakingly training his Persona to an invincible realm, and making a name for himself as a "Phantom Thief" around the world, with a cute and beautiful Velvet Room attendant by his side.
He could be said to have achieved success in his career and was accomplished at a young age.
Just as he was about to eliminate the supernatural phenomena causing serious social harm in America and receive the exorbitant commission from the White House…
Then, just by flushing the toilet, his more than twenty years of life were crushed and flushed down the drain.
'Whoever orchestrated this, you better hope I don't catch you.'
Kurusu Akira picked up his guitar case, thinking with a grim expression, then walked out of the park.
As he passed the fountain, a pale profile was reflected on the shimmering water surface.
Feeling something inexplicably, he instinctively lowered his head to look at himself in the water. In those deep gray eyes, dark blue flames seemed to burn.
The "Kurusu Akira" in the water, amidst the spreading ripples, appeared to be filled with guilt and sadness, then forced a smile.
As if saying:
"This tattered life, I'll leave it to you from now on."
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