Prologue
I don’t believe in God. If he really exists, he must be some kind of cruel screenwriter.
No doubt he’s filming a mind-numbingly boring reality show, starring a washed-up, middle-aged man with nothing to show for his life. The ratings must be immeasurably low.
Ken Sato, age forty-two.
That’s my name, the protagonist of this mediocre tale. The main stage for the current show is the Daily Smile convenience store on the Route 8 bypass.
It’s deep in the night, 1:07 AM. In the empty store, the hum of the old air conditioner and the low groan of the refrigerated display cases echo softly. The white fluorescent light illuminates the dark stains on the floor and the sludge in my heart with equal, merciless clarity.
“Ken-san, this ‘Devilish Cheesy Pork Kimchi’ tastes sinfully good, for real. Whoever came up with it is a genius.”
Satonaka-kun, my shift partner, said this while gazing at the boxed meals slated for disposal.
He’s a twenty-year-old university student, belongs to the pop music club, has a nice girlfriend, and a future that shines like a rainbow. At least, that’s how it looks through my jaded eyes. There isn't a shred of malice in his words—just a blend of pure curiosity and the casual cruelty of youth.
“...Well, I guess even the devil does a good job sometimes.”
I gave a listless reply while cleaning the coffee drip machine. My technique, I had to admit, had reached the level of a master. It was one of the few skills I’d acquired in four years of working the graveyard shift.
“You know everything, don’t you, Ken-san?”
“Knowing something and being able to do something are two different things.”
“Whoa, is that, like, a famous quote?”
Satonaka-kun laughed without a care in the world. To him, I’m just an interesting older guy who knows a few things and whose life is a bit of a mess.
He’s not wrong. But he’s not right, either. He doesn’t know that when I was his age, I had no doubt that my future was like an all-you-can-eat buffet of choices. And he doesn’t know that some people, when they finally go to fill their plate, find that the only things left are pickled relish and ginger.
“By the way, Ken-san, what happened with that thing you were talking about the other day? That, uh, cryp-to-curren-cy?”
“Cryptocurrency,” I corrected him.
During my break, sitting on a hard chair in the back room, I stared down at my smartphone screen. Red and green candlesticks flickered up and down, frail as an electrocardiogram. What you could call my entire fortune, the last of my money, had been converted into digital data, fighting for its life, 24/7, on a violently stormy sea.
If only I’d had this much knowledge, and just a little bit of money, back then. I couldn’t help but think it. If I’d had money, maybe I could have shown her a better “future.”
“The pool I’ve thrown it into with DeFi yield farming is stable at a 12% APR. I’m using that as collateral to borrow other tokens and putting those into staking. I’m using leverage, but I’m still a good ways away from the liquidation line…”
“Ah, uhm…”
Satonaka-kun’s eyes darted about, like he was facing an incomprehensible mathematical formula. I figured as much. The language I was speaking now didn’t function as Japanese in this convenience store. It was a spell only I could understand, a prayer, and my only hope.
“You really do know your stuff, Ken-san! You must really love cryptocurrency. I can tell how serious you are about it.”
Satonaka-kun’s voice echoed through the empty store.
A democratic financial system with no centralized authority. That’s cryptocurrency. The program is the law, an absolute rule that no one can tamper with. The era of depositing money in a bank for some joke of an interest rate like 0.0-something percent is over.
I taught myself the mechanics of this world. It was the only rope ladder I had to escape this gray reality. While young guys like Satonaka were absorbed in their club retreats and dates with their girlfriends, I was here, witnessing the eve of a revolution that would overturn the world's financial system from its very foundations.
—Or so I tried to comfort myself, but the reality was just too pathetic.
All the money I’d managed to invest in crypto over these four years was about 600,000 yen. There’s only so much you can scrape together from a 1,200-yen-per-hour convenience store job.
If I had just bought in during the early days, I would have been a billionaire by now. But I only became aware of this world after the public had already gone through one bubble, and after it had burst. I was the clean-up crew after the festival was over.
As if to mock my prayers, the chart drew a long, red candlestick. My unrealized gains dropped by several thousand yen in a few minutes. A chill ran through my heart.
“...Well, I guess it’s better than buying a lottery ticket.”
I shoved the phone into my pocket and laughed self-deprecatingly. “R-Right!” Satonaka-kun replied, forcing himself to agree. His kindness only accelerated my misery.
Two in the morning, no customers. While mopping the floor, my mind inevitably dives into the past. It’s become a habit.
Twenty years ago. The year 2005.
I was a twenty-two-year-old university student, a little older than Satonaka-kun is now. I was enrolled in the law faculty, but I had no intention of ever becoming a lawyer. Back then, I wasn't afraid of anything. I truly believed that time was infinite and that possibilities stretched out to the horizon.
And Misaki was always there.
My girlfriend.
She was in the same faculty, a girl who was like the sun. When she smiled, it felt like the mood in the room would brighten by a few degrees. She laughed louder than anyone at my stupid jokes.
On the way home from the university, we would share a single pair of earbuds, one for each of us, listening to a band that was popular at the time. "Let's make this our theme song," she said, giddy as a child. Even now, when that song plays unexpectedly on the radio, I'm hit with a pain like my heart is being squeezed in a fist.
When job-hunting season arrived, I swam against the current. While everyone else donned black recruitment suits, I was lining up at a pachinko parlor in a worn-out t-shirt. “I want to be free for a little longer,” I’d boast. Looking back, I was just scared of joining the adult world.
Even so, Misaki gave me a small pouch. "For good luck," she said. Inside was a small crystal she’d had blessed at a shrine.
"You can become anything, Ken. I know it."
She truly believed in my potential. I was the one who couldn't live up to that faith.
“Ken, are you really going to be okay?”
Misaki asked one day, her face clouded with worry.
“I’ll be fine. It’ll all work out,” I answered, with nothing but baseless confidence. I’ll be fine. It’ll all work out. It was like magic dust sprinkled by youth. But its effects vanished the moment I received my diploma.
After graduation, I became a freeter. Misaki got a job at a small publishing house. Our daily rhythms drifted apart, and the time we spent together gradually dwindled. When we did meet, all I did was complain about my part-time jobs. She would just nod along, a tired look on her face.
Then, one winter day just before my twenty-fifth birthday, she told me it was over.
“I’m sorry. I can’t wait anymore.”
She said it at our usual family restaurant, her eyes fixed on the glass of water on the table. I could tell she was holding back tears. “I wanted to support your dream…” she whispered in a fading voice.
“I can’t be with someone who has no future.”
Those words pierced straight through my chest. I couldn't say anything back. I had no words to offer.
What if, back then…
What if, back then, I had clutched the charm she gave me and gone job hunting like everyone else?
What if, back then, I had listened more seriously to her worries?
What if, back then, instead of acting tough and saying “I’ll be fine,” I had taken her hand and said, “I’m scared, please help me”?
Ah, what a pointless question. There are no "ifs" in history. And in the historical record of my life, a trash novel that no one will ever read, there are certainly no pages for "what ifs." There are only irreversible choices and their inevitable consequences.
In the seventeen years since Misaki and I broke up, I have been on a slow but certain tumble down a hill. I bounced between several jobs, grew tired of dealing with people, and before I knew it, I had become someone who lived with only the bare minimum connection to society: the graveyard shift at this convenience store.
"Ken-san, thanks for your hard work. It's morning, so I'm clocking out."
Five in the morning. The sky outside had begun to lighten, and Satonaka-kun emerged from the back room, his steps slow as he looked my way.
"...Ken-san, you were thinking about her again, weren't you?"
"Oh, uh, yeah."
Satonaka-kun and I have been partners on the graveyard shift for several years now. I must have told him about Misaki a few times.
"You regret it, huh?"
"...Of course I do. It’s been almost twenty years, but I’ve never forgotten. You’ll end up like this too if you lose your current girlfriend, Moto-kun. You'd better treasure her."
"...Yeah, thank you. I can feel it from you, Ken-san…"
"Yeah. See you."
"See you next week."
He had no way of knowing that the hours of "sleep" I was about to face and the hours of "activity" he was about to begin belonged to completely different worlds. Satonaka-kun seemed to ponder our exchange as he disappeared through the automatic doors.
The morning sun streamed in through the glass. Its light mercilessly exposed my worn-out uniform and the deep, dark circles under my eyes.
“...I want to go back.”
The whisper escaped my lips, meant for no one.
What I had told Satonaka-kun was from the heart. Nearly twenty years had passed, but not a single day went by when I didn't think of Misaki.
I want to go back twenty years. I want to sit on that bench by the fountain on the university campus one more time and really listen to what she had to say. I want to tell her something real, not some baseless “I’ll be fine.”
Back to that time when Misaki was still smiling next to me.
I want to go back and do it all over again. I won't mess up this time. Never again.
A common, clichéd, and impossible wish.
That day, too, I dragged my exhausted body back to my apartment and collapsed onto my bed without even taking a shower. Just before my consciousness faded, I thought I felt a faint vibration from the smartphone in my pocket. Maybe the price of my crypto had gone up a little. But I didn't care anymore.
Oh, God.
Or Buddha.
Or maybe the anonymous genius who single-handedly created this new financial system.
God, Buddha, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Please, I’m begging you.
Give me one more chance at this hopelessly checkmated life.
Please, give me a continue.
That absurd prayer drifted through my mind just as I fell asleep. It was the last clear thought I had as the forty-two-year-old Ken Sato.
My body sank into a dark, heavy slumber, as if being dragged down to the bottom of a deep body of water.
And when I next awoke…
The world would grant my foolish prayer in the best way imaginable, yet in the most inexplicable manner.
But I had no way of knowing that yet.
