"AYATO!"
An infuriated superior slammed a clipboard onto Ayato's desk.
"Dozing off again? With this quality of work?!"
He smacked the clipboard hard twice onto Ayato's head.
"I am so sorry! So sorry!"
A pleading Ayato tried to apologize.
"If you do not turn in something worthwhile, consider your ass gone!"
The superior left Ayato's working station. Ayato found himself sighing loudly when his boss was out of reach to hear it. Working at this company was killing his spirit, luckily it were all about to change soon.
A new large project was coming up, and Ayato had planned to demonstrate the perfect solution for it. It was a long schemed plan which required months of previous work. Ayato had poured his heart out for the blueprints and the rest of the plan which was carefully structured for months to follow.
Ayato went to the break room to grab a cup of coffee, and slightly hummed. All years of accumulative depression were soon behind him.
"You look happy Ayato, must be nice…"
A sighing co-worker of the same working rank on the ladder sighed and grabbed his shoulder.
"Ah… Morning Arata! Yeah I got something coming up that I think will change my life around!"
Ayato greeted his fellow co-worker while taking a sip.
"Ahhhhh…. I have nothing to turn in! I think I will be fired soon! Senpai, please help me!"
Arata pleaded with a two handed gesture.
"Sorry, my hands are tied too…"
Ayato apologized with one hand facing up horizontally as a humble and honest gesture. There was no time left to worry for those in the same boat as him. Someone had to be fired, and Ayato wanted to make he was not the one. Hurriedly he went back onto his computer and fine tuned all the remaining parts left before he could finalize and review it all.
The time grew late and Ayato gasped once everything was done. It was time to clock out, after all, tomorrow was the big day for the project presentation that would change his life.
Upon leaving the office, Ayato glanced a last time at the empty desks. It was so peaceful and quiet at night. Hopefully tomorrow, his fruits of labour would come into fruition and help him feel at peace as he does now. Since Ayato was the last one to leave, he turned off the office lights and locked the door behind him.
The walk home felt tranquil. It just seemed different tonight, looking people in the face was not as scary anymore. Even people on the streets appeared friendlier. A few odd glimpses were cast towards Ayato as he seemed to skip every once in awhile, which was slightly creepy. It was his own way of showing a unique way of happiness for a twenty-three year old.
Ayato appeared as if he were older than he looked, being unshaved and growing out his bangs, to cover the dark circles under his eyes.
"FINALLY!"
A loud sigh was let out by Ayato when he had reached the front door of his complex apartment. Ayato got in and began his daily night routine, a nice
soothing shower into heading to the fridge with a wet towel thrown on his head to slowly dry his hair. A bag of chips and some light beer was in order.
It was all prepared for him to sit in front of his PC and log onto to play his favorite MMORPG game, Ancient Magic Online, or AMO for short. The hour grew late and Ayato fell asleep happily playing his favorite game in high hopes for his up and coming promotion beckoning on his mind.
The dream felt like a breeze, he found himself holding hands with the working version of himself and the online version. All of them were holding hands and swinging by in a circle laughing in the midst of a meadow. However all of a sudden the entire environment shifted, it all became dark and a cold wind blew. All flowers withered and a loud noise approached the young main character.
"AYATO! Do you ever think you could succeed? A failure son like you?"
A loud omnipresence frightened Ayato to his very core.
"I am sorry. It all my fault. Please forgive me, mother!"
He pleaded on his knees and head smashed into the ground for the most core Japanese customed apology.
"You think your apology can bring me back to life?"
The overwhelming presence began to take a shadowy shape of a much familiarized scene. A woman hanging from a rope tied to the ceiling upon a young boy's home arrival. Ayato felt excruciating pain, it all flooded back to him, the abusive times with his father being drunk, his mother being left by him.
Both blaming him for being born. A series of bad grades and beatings from his mother. Daily complaints how she tried to raise on her own and what a failure of a son he was.
After remembering his mother's death, he remembered the foster care. How they made him feel and compared him to their real kids. That he was just a fund of money. Ayato remembered it all too well, it made him shiver. The rushing fear of being out of place from time to time, every year since a young age. It only stopped at graduation when he decided to take a common job and work his way up, but even the working agencies had their unique abuse of harassment.
"STOP!"
Ayato yelled and woke up by falling off his chair. On the ground his phone fell alongside him out of his pocket. 7:47?! Ayato got immediately up, only thirteen minutes left before he had to be at work!
"Shit… I am going to be late! A nightmare plaguing me at my most important day!"
He rushed towards the front door in the same clothes he had slept in and sprayed deodorant on everything.
"Shit… Shit!"
He kept cursing while dashing through the morning crowd. After a thirty minute run of pure fatigue, Ayato was finally in the elevator to his floor, panting all out. The time was 8:19. Upon the elevator doors opening and Ayato running to the conference room, a round of applause was heard through the entire corridor.
"Good work Arata! Really good work! All right, we will settle for his idea! Good job all!"
His superior clapped his hands loudly with a pure smile on his face, the one thing Nagisa wanted to make happen himself to work towards that promotion.
"Wa-aait!"
A panting Ayato shrieked.
"I have my idea as well, please, just hold on a second."
He tried to move towards the computer in the room to pull up his files which was transferable from everyone's PC if you had the correct login.
"Do not bother, you came in late and we have already settled. You are fired, Ayato!"
His superior spoke again.
"But… let me just show you, I might have a better idea than this!"
Ayato turns around points towards the projected screen with the blueprints for Arata's idea showing. His jaw dropped and face became cold.
"Do not think you can top Arata here anyway."
Someone else butted in.
"Th-that is my i-idea!"
Ayato blurted out.
"How… did you steal it?"
He looked at Arata shockingly. People shook their heads.
"Do not lower yourself Ayato, accept reality, you are fired. Arata has done well presenting this idea. Do not shame yourself further by making false claims."
The superior shook his head continuously with his arms held up in a fashion to question Ayato's supposed distasteful behaviour.
"No… no… let me explain… here I will show you!"
Ayato promptly rushed and logged in to find the folder with all the saved data timestamps of the idea and blueprints being his, dating months back. Ayato gulped. They were nowhere to be found. It was like they never existed, his login had been sucked dry out of all data for his last past months of accumulative work.
"See? Empty! I always told you to stop slacking! I was right in saying you are fired earlier!"
A mad superior now filed his complaint over the patheticness of his employee's display. Ayato looked around the room. No one seemed to believe him, and in the background, there was one too familiar face grinning, Arata. Arata was smiling in the back with a large evil grin, which was long drawn on the edge's of his mouth with a taunting expression as to say 'Look how pathetic looking you are!'.
Ayato dashed through with tears filling his eyes and arrived in front of the grinning Arata.
"You ba-astard!"
He punched with all his might Arata's face in, and another one to try and dislocate his jaw. Arata fell on the ground in a painful anguish. Ayato then hastily kicked him in the middle of the legs. A sweet agonizing scream was heard from his fellow ex co-worker whom much deserved it. People then began to react late and held Ayato down.
"I wi-ill sue-eee you, Ayato!"
A crying and pissed Arata wailed on the ground. Ayato was held down for a few minutes before he was escorted to pack his things up and immediately leave the premise.
What resembled like an empty ghost of a shell began to clean up his things at the office. Arata really stole it his data, and Ayato can not even prove it. A final scratch around the old computer which felt nostalgic that they had to now part,
since it belonged to the company. That is when Ayato felt a small crack, a forceful usb chip was entered in the wrong part of the computer and it had ruined one of the entries.
"Ha-ha…"
Ayato let out a small laugh. If he had only rationally checked the computer he might have proven it with the security footage that Arata was nearby his desk last night, fiddling underneath in a blind spot. It was all too late now…
"Hurry up and pack your things!"
A man named Takero spoke.
"Takero… say… do you think it is a beautiful day outside to die today?"
Ayato let out another maniacal laugh. Takero looked perplexed at the person who had thrown him a peculiar question. Takero began to scratch his temple.
"Pardon me, but what do you mean?"
He confronted Ayato's question head on while being a cautious and semi-scared of the posing question or coming answer.
"Ah… nothing…"
Ayato responded and both of them laughed it off awkwardly. After a brief matter of seconds, Ayato gazed upon the window. It appeared it was not safety proofed, something he had assume all along. All of the sudden, just the small details seemed to matter that much more. He reached his hand out and unlocked the large window wide open. If it was opened enough, a human could fit through it, or at least that was an recurring thought for Ayato.
"Ayato… are you okay?"
Takero glanced over worriedly for the person who had stopped gathering his things and opened a window.
"Yeah… just need some fresh air, still processing through my decisions in life."
A forced smile on Ayato's end answered.
"Is that so?"
Takero sighed and closed his eyes in relief for a seconds. In this small window, Ayato reached out the window and was tilting over. It was the twenty-seventh floor.
"Takero… can you let our superior and Arata that they are low lifes and I hope both them and the company crumble, thanks!"
Ayato peacefully smiled to the Takero who had opened his eyes and realized the person in front of him was in the position of something dangerous.
"Ayato-oo!"
Takero's hand attempted to reach Ayato before he had leaned over fully and allowed his body to tilt past the point of supporting him not from falling over.
"Ahh… I lived a good life…"
A crying Ayato sobbed and reminisced sarcastically in mid-air.
"All the pain, it will end soon. No more anguish of my past, no more pain either of it, nor the shit I had to deal with both in school and after."
Ayato yelled out moments before his body had collapsed onto a parked car in the parking lot. Ayato's last thoughts were, this way, at least his misery would come to an end. In addition the company would have to suffer the rumors and ramifications of suspiciously arising actions surrounding his death to ruin their image. Lastly that there were no friends or family to miss him, or being able to sue on the company's end for his actions.
"I feel nothing… have I reached the after life yet? Wait… there is light…"
A slow of ray of light shone and blinded Nagisa. The strength of the light was rather weak. however it was like his eyes had not yet adapted to any kind of light, or that it is how it felt like.
When his eyes had finally gotten used to his newfound surroundings Ayato found himself embraced by a woman who looked worn out.
"Emiko, you have a son!"
An unfamiliar person next to her in an estranged language which Ayato failed to comprehend.
"Look at how frail he is, a rare blonde hair and mysterious green eyes."
Emiko responded happily.
"It truly looks like he is out of this world, he resembles nothing like his parents."
The other person laughed.
"So frail… almost girl kind of looking… I think I will call him Nagisa!"
A smiling Emiko named Ayato.
"Nice name, I think it will suit him well!"
It was around this time Ayato understood that this person appeared a doctor. His miniaturized and helpless body, while being weak to rays of light, it appeared he was a newborn and he had been reincarnated or something.
"Nagisa… my sweet… little Nagisa…"
Emiko warmly embraced Ayato who know understood his new name was at least, 'Akito', given by a person who seemed to be his new mother. Akito let out a welp and tears dropped from newborn's cheeks, it was a warmth that had been absent through his entire past life.