Takahashi Ren was unlucky. If a bird flew over his head, it would definitely bestow a gooey gift upon him. If there was a banana peel on the road, he’d most certainly slip on it. If he traveled on the train, there always would be too many people, and he would always get accused for molesting women (even though he hated touching others in any way). Nobody would ever believe him, and he even got arrested once, as a result of which he had to do community service throughout high school, instead of working at a part-time job like a normal person.

When he was still going to school, somehow he would always miss the assignments his teachers gave. The tests he wrote would always test him on different topics then what he was studying for. He was always a favorite for both teachers and students to bully him. Furthermore he had dyscalculia (which made math classes and getting anywhere on time a total bitch), and was introverted. People liked to assume that his silence meant that he looked down on others, and didn’t hesitate to teach him a lesson for it.

Things weren’t that much better at home either. His mother died in childbirth, and his father was a scummy drunkard who liked to blame him for his wife’s death. He would often beat him in his stupor and scream ‘fucking murderer’ at him.

Ren was very much looking forward to graduating from high school, becoming an adult legally and getting the hell out of his childhood home forever. Surely everything would be better in college.

But it wasn’t.

When Ren finished reading through all of his rejection letters, he went inside his shoddy apartment, packed enough clothes to last him for a week, along with some toiletries, canned food and stole all of his father’s hidden cash (the old man didn’t trust the banks to keep his money safe). He didn’t even think it through, numb as he was. His body moved on it’s own, going through the motions like a robot. After briefly considering to burn down his apartment, he slammed the door with a loud ‘bang’, broke his key inside the lock – just to spite the old man – then left and never looked back.

He went to an internet cafe first (he didn’t have a smartphone as his father said that a lazy bum like him, who never worked for anything in his life, didn’t deserve one), to Giggle¹Giggle is your friend lol where the nearest homeless shelter was. Afterwards Ren also looked up workplaces where they hired homeless people too.

He kept his head down and worked hard. Well, he tried. None of his jobs lasted long. He tried being a gardener at a park – the flowers he painstakingly raised somehow got ruined before an important statue unveiling ceremony – Ren was blamed for it and got fired. He attempted to work as a delivery man – thugs beat him up to steal the pizza, but when they realized the pies had anchovies on as toppings, they spat and stomped on them – naturally Ren got the boot for it. Then he was a construction worker – the equipment at the site was faulty and a metal beam fell on his leg. The incident made the news, and it was revealed for all to see how unsafe everything was – Ren was kicked out without any compensation and since he had no insurance, he couldn’t be treated at a hospital, therefore his leg healed all wrong. And finally he became a cleaner at a gay brothel. This time he left by himself after he was raped by a customer. Because of his bum leg he couldn’t even get away. No matter how desperately he begged for help, his colleagues turned a blind eye to everything, because this particular customer was a scary yakuza to boot. Afterwards he went to a free clinic (that opened months after his leg healed crookedly), and had his torn rear treated. Instead of reporting his rapist (he also didn’t want to provoke a yakuza) he had himself tested for STDs. Which of course turned out to be positive for HIV.

The manager of the homeless shelter he was living at got notified of his current status of health, and apologetically asked him to leave. They didn’t want someone as unclean as him among their midst.

Ren got on the midnight train and thought of where to go next. He was considering taking shelter at the bathroom of the train-station, when a man boarded the train. It was very late, so it was only the two of them in the wagon. The man looked tired. He appeared to be a weary, overworked salaryman, except for his laptop bag he hugged to himself as he sat down.

A programmer, perhaps? Well, it didn’t matter. If only Ren could get his hands on that laptop, he could surely make a living eventually. When he was in middle school and then later in high school (whenever he wasn’t working at his community service) he taught himself programming. Even hacking a little bit. Anything to not have to go home to his hateful father sooner.

He pulled out a weathered baseball bat from his bag (he stole it in middle school to fight back against bullies, and swung it everyday imagining it was a samurai sword – his only amusement in his entire life so far), and wrapped his scarf around his head (to hide his face), and donned his gloves (to not leave any fingerprints), then slowly stalked towards the man. He carefully tried to hook off the bag from the man’s shoulder, but then he woke up.

‘Guess he wasn’t sleeping as deeply as he seemed… – mused Ren with a self-deprecating smirk. He ignored the man’s indignant yell, and swung his bat at his head. Ren willfully ignored the blood leaking out of the now fallen man’s head, and took the laptop bag off of him. He opened it, and put everything he didn’t need next to the man on the floor, leaving only the laptop with its power cable and tiny portable mouse. He also kept a slightly squashed sandwich wrapped in fol-pack.

He pulled the emergency break at the next stop, and briefly notified the driver that ‘someone was attacked and is bleeding’ using the intercom. Ren then headed out of the train-station, into the biting cold of winter. He didn’t spare another thought for the man he robbed and assaulted. It was survival of the fittest. Every man for himself.

Ren headed for the mall he frequented sometimes as a child. He remembered, that there always were a few shop spaces that were never bought by any brands and always stood empty. Even though the shops were closed and there were no people, the mall’s entrance was still open to provide access to its public toilets throughout the night. Ren went in and looked for a particular empty store space he recalled from his childhood that was never used. After a bit of searching, he found it half hidden at the end of a basement floor hallway. And it was still unused, abandoned and empty.

Ren used a hairpin to pry open the lock on the glass door (a trick he picked up at the shelter) and entered. He looked around, and tried to turn on the light. Nothing happened. He fished out a lighter from his jacket pocket (stolen from the brothel), and flicked it on to look around. The room was small for a store and dusty. There were cables sticking out of the wall here and there. There were two doors opening from the back, and he went to open them. The heavier door led to an empty storage space with empty containers and shelves lined up next to the walls neatly, though covered in dust. The other door led to a small office space, an even smaller kitchen and restroom, and a tiny dressing area with lockers. He found the main switches to turn on the power in the store, which he did immediately. Now he could turn on the naked light bulbs hanging limply from the ceiling. He had access to water in the kitchen and in the restroom. He used the latter to relieve himself, though he didn’t have toilet paper and his butt got dusty.

He sat up his sleeping bag in the office, than quickly turned on the laptop. Though it took Ren a few tries he eventually managed to break through the password. He checked if he could connect to the internet – he could – and afterwards promptly broke into the CCTV system and deleted the footage about himself entering the mall and breaking into the shop, and replaced it with a looped recording of the empty halls of the building. Afterwards he closed the shop's glass door with his hairpin, turned off the master switch – lest the building management notices the use of extra power – then he washed himself in the restroom sink, and changed into his least smelly clothes. Ren crawled into his sleeping bag and went to sleep holding his slightly bloody baseball bat.

Ren has lived in that store room for over a decade until AIDS took him. He managed to find honest programming jobs via freelancer sites online. He was eventually able to create a bank account and a mailbox, where he could order stuff to, like his credit card his bank provided. Ren had himself insured as soon as he could so he could buy HIV medicine. When he had enough money, he approached the mall’s management to let him rent the store room as a ‘private storage space’. He even payed taxes.

He kept the furnishing minimal (but he did buy a futon with actual bedding, a portable heater and stove, and a small table, chair, and a couple of utensils), and kept everything meticulously clean. He shopped for food and necessities at the mall, and washed his clothes at the washing service store. He hooked up a tap on the restroom sink that had a flexible shower head and a faucet, so he could wash his hands and himself as he wished (the excess water could flow down a drain sank into the floor).

Ren lived the depressed and sad life of a shut in. He didn’t dare leave his store room unless absolutely necessary. He dreaded triggering his bad luck, failing again at everything, always fearing that he would lose his sanctuary one day. And he also profoundly hated people in general. Though he shut himself in, for the first time in his life he felt liberated and even though he was alone, he never felt lonely, especially after he bought his goldfish from the pet store. He spent his days working online, watching anime, reading light novels and aquascaping for his goldfish.

When his HIV medicine stopped working and his illness progressed to AIDS²Read how this works at this link., a common cold took him after a week of agony in the middle of the night. As he felt his life leaving him he glanced at his goldfish one last time. He hoped someone would find them soon and feed them. He hoped he would be at peace finally.

But his hopes were betrayed almost instantly.

At first there was only darkness. Then he felt an intense pressure squeezing him. He tried to open his eyes but found that he couldn’t do it, nor could he hear anything. He felt wet and cold and uncomfortable. On the plus side his bad leg seemed to work just fine. He suddenly felt something sharp, like teeth, grab his neck and drag him on the hard ground to a soft, warm, fluffy surface, that was rising and sinking rhythmically. Something rough and strong and wet swept across his face.

...Is this a tongue…?

[Welcome to the world Fortima 7!]

[You have been chosen through a lottery and won the once in a lifetime chance to be reincarnated into a world of magic, Fortima 7, the seventh planet in the Fortima solar system.]

[Would you like to look at your status?]

[YES/NO]

…

...Huhh?

MikciTheGreat

Guess who Ren is! If you guessed ML then you were right! :D