When he opened his eyes, he saw a ceiling that was white, smooth, without stains, without cracks, without the dampness that had marked the ceiling of his apartment. He blinked twice and sat up slowly, his back stiff from having slept in a wooden chair.
It was a classroom.
Rows of empty desks, a green chalkboard at the front with some leftover chalk marks that no one had erased, and windows on the right with the curtains half-drawn, letting in morning light that illuminated the dust floating in the air. There was no one else, just him, sitting at one of the desks in the back, wearing a school uniform he didn't remember putting on.
He stayed still for a few seconds, staring at the classroom.
'Where am I?'
He stood up and his legs responded without issue, but something was wrong. He felt different, lighter, and his movements required far less effort than they should have.
He raised his hands in front of his face and studied them: they were young hands, without the marks of years working at a convenience store, without the dry skin from spending hours under the artificial light of a counter. They were a teenager's hands.
He closed them into fists and opened them again.
'This isn't normal.'
He walked to the chalkboard while his footsteps echoed alone in the empty classroom. He searched for something, anything that would tell him where he was or what day it was. The marks on the chalkboard were half-finished math problems, with no name, no visible date. He checked the teacher's desk, which was empty except for a piece of chalk and an old eraser.
He approached the windows and looked outside.
A school courtyard, with basketball courts, some trees on the sides, and students wearing the same uniform he had on walking in groups, talking among themselves, completely normal. The sun was low, indicating it was early morning.
'A high school.'
He thought.
'Am I in a high school?'
That made no sense at all.
The last clear image he remembered was the cold floor of the convenience store, the white ceiling light, the pain in his side, his coworker's face crying as she held something in her hand. After that, a voice, a black screen, and nothing more.
He tried to recall his name.
The name he had lived with for nearly thirty years. He searched for it with the certainty that it was there and the frustration of not being able to reach it. All he found was silence where an answer should have been.
'What's my name?'
He went back to the desk where he had woken up and checked the backpack hanging on the back of the chair. Inside were notebooks, a pencil case, and a school planner, so he opened the planner. On the inside cover, written in neat handwriting, it said: Takeshi Fujimoto. Class 2-B.
He read it twice.
'Takeshi Fujimoto? Who the hell is that!?'
He didn't recognize it as his own. He had no memories, no familiar feeling attached to it. It was just a name written in a planner, but it was the only name he had, so he accepted it.
He closed the planner and put it back in the backpack.
He looked around the still-empty classroom again. The other students were still outside, and he had no clear reason to be inside here alone, without remembering how he had gotten there.
'I wonder if I should go out, maybe find someone who can tell me what's going on.'
Before he could decide anything, the classroom door opened.
Takeshi turned around.
It was a young man, roughly the same apparent age as him, though something in the way he moved didn't quite match that. He walked unhurriedly toward the center of the classroom, hands in his pockets and a calm expression on his face.
He had black hair and red eyes—not the red of colored contact lenses, but a red that looked like it had always been there.
He looked directly at Takeshi and smiled.
Takeshi said nothing, just waited.
The young man stopped a few steps away from him and looked him up and down with the same smile, taking his time.
"Nice!"
He exclaimed.
"You're already awake!"
"Who are you?"
Takeshi asked. His voice sounded younger than he expected.
"A god."
The young man replied, as if it were the simplest answer in the world.
"And you are Takeshi Fujimoto—at least, that's what you are now."
Takeshi stared at him without moving.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I brought you here."
The god walked toward one of the desks and looked at it without sitting down, simply resting a hand on the surface.
"I've been watching you for a while—your life, your decisions, the way you thought, the way you reacted—and I came to the conclusion that you were perfect for what I want to do."
"Perfect for what?"
The deity lifted his gaze and looked him straight in the eyes again.
"For this."
He made a wide gesture with his hand, indicating the classroom, the windows, the courtyard outside.
"For this world I created. I needed someone with certain characteristics, and you had all of them, so here you are."
Takeshi felt something cold in his chest. It wasn't fear yet, but the discomfort of hearing something he didn't understand, yet which sounded completely serious.
"I didn't ask to be here."
He said.
"No."
The god admitted.
"You didn't ask, but you weren't going to stay alive in the other place either, right?"
He said it without cruelty, just as a fact.
"You were on the floor of a store, so that was already over."
Takeshi didn't respond.
"Well, I should also admit I had a little hand in making your coworker want to kill you, but minor detail, minor detail."
"Wait, what did you just say?!"
"That doesn't matter anymore… what's important is…"
The deity stepped away from the desk and walked around Takeshi, the smile never quite leaving his face.
"Welcome, Takeshi Fujimoto."
He said.
"Starting today, you'll be the entertainment for a lot of people."