Chapter 3: [Chapter:2][Well, at least I got a house now]
"Now where did I end up this time?"
Looking at the familiar yet unfamiliar surroundings I found myself in, I sighed softly.
"A house…and a surprisingly clean one."
Just then, foreign memories appear within my mind. There was no pain, no sudden voices and images, and certainly no movie of someone else's life playing before me.
One moment, I was still Aesar Hyde, and the next…
"Tanaka…my name is Tanaka."
I blinked as I walked towards a nearby mirror, and looked at the reflection of my body.
"Thin…fair…anime-like…"
Jet black hair, fairly large black eyes, a lean build on the slightly shorter side of the spectrum…
Yup, this is the Tanaka from 'Tanaka-kun Is Always Listless' alright.
"Heh? I'm forgetting my original looks?"
I blinked in confusion as I realised I no longer recalled how I looked before.
"At least I still remember my name…but I guess I'll forget it soon too?"
Becoming someone else, forgetting my own life, my past, my identity…
It surprisingly didn't make me panic. And I'm sure Cael wasn't the reason for that.
"Is it because our personalities match so well?"
It was surprising, really. Of all the anime characters I know, and I know a lot mind you, being unemployed makes people get a lot of hobbies and spend a lot of time in those hobbies too, Tanaka had always been one of the people that struck me most.
While not to the extent as he was shown to be in the anime, I was extremely lazy too. I didn't really bother people, nor was I meddlesome. I was the kind that minded my own business as long as I could, just like Tanaka. I didn't like noise, and enjoyed peace and quiet.
I was pretty honest too, I didn't really like to lie. Or rather, you could count the number of ties I lied in my life with three or four hands.
And the last three interviews I flopped when they asked my sleeping schedule, to which my answer was "I sleep for around 12 hours a day, but I can sleep for 25 hours a day if I get the chance."
Apparently, they didn't like that I was cracking a joke in the middle of a serious interview, this asked me to leave.
It was an honest and genuine answer, though…
Anyway, that's something else I and Tanaka have in common. I love sleep.
"Now that I think about it, did she choose Tanaka because of how similar we are?"
Food for thought. After all, if I was forced to fuse with someone like Alucard or Madara, although that would have been pretty awesome, I don't think the fusion would have gone so smoothly. Our personalities were almost opposite.
But me and Tanaka…
"There isn't a distinction anymore. I, am Tanaka."
Well, more like 13 year old first year middle schooler Tanaka, but I am he nonetheless.
Just as I thought so, I catch sight of a slightly bizarre smartphone placed beside my bed.
Why do I call it bizarre? Well, for one, it was thin. Like, ridiculously thin. It almost looked like ten or so sheets of paper bundled together. Luckily, it wasn't too thin to the point where it would cut my skin, but still.
It was also smooth, smoother than diamond in fact. I once had the opportunity of coming across of large piece of polished diamond, shaped to form letters. Some rich dude's name. I don't know why anyone would want literal diamonds shaped to form their name, but hey, I'm not judging.
And the smartphone in my hand was smoother that those letters. And yet, strangely, it didn't slip off my hand even when I held it carelessly.
It was also hard. Unlike what it's appearance might make it look like, thin and delicate looking as it was, hammering it against Tanaka's bed, or rather, the wooden frame of my bed, made the wood crack while the smartphone remained perfectly fine.
And I also noticed that my physical strength was unexpectedly increased quite a lot. Neither in my previous life nor in this one, and yes, I'm already subconsciously thinking of Tanaka as a new life that I myself lived and experienced, was I really athletic.
And the smartphone didn't have any logo or buttons or even a camera, just a smooth glass screen on one side, smooth and rounded edges, and an equally smooth glass panel covering the back. It was also pure white in colour. White is my favourite colour, by the way. I don't like black, looks too dark and depressing and edgy for my taste. I like white, pure, soft to the eyes yet also bright and sunny looking. You can never go wrong with wearing white. Except when you're out playing in the dirt.
But that's enough about my favourite colour and dress code.
Bringing it up to my face, the smartphone seemed to have acknowledge my gesture as the screen lit up.
Unsurprisingly, the Home Screen was different from other smartphones. The background was a moving image of the Universe, dark, yet also colourful, with white, yellow, and red suns and a myriad stars and even distinct black holes with grey asteroids and colourful planets and golden cosmic dust swirling around them littered seemingly following no pattern, yet altogether forming a peaceful, mesmerising image, one that would cause a person to sink more and more into it the longer one looked at it.
And there was a single icon on the screen, which also happened to be greyer out, with a white ring visible on it.
Tapping it, a prompt appeared on the screen.
[[Installation in progress.]]
A small window popped up beside the icon, showing the progress.
"This…is quite slow…"
Looking at the decimals slowly increasing, it didn't take me much effort to quickly calculate how long it would take to get installed fully.
All those torturous math classes do have some value, after all.
"0.00000105% per second…0.00006341% per minute…0.003805% per hour…0.09132% per day…so 1,095 days in total…which happens to be exactly 3 years."
365 days a year, for three years, happens to be a total of 1,095 days. It was either a coincidence, or that woman Cael telling me I need to wait till I'm sixteen before I can use my own smartphone.
Either way, I didn't really care. Besides, I had more urgent things to do.
*knock* *knock*
"Onii-chan, are you awake? It's time for school."
Like going to middle school again as a former university graduate with a double PhD in Psychology and Criminology.
Life is full of surprises, isn't it?
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