It should've smelled like fresh takoyaki—crisp, sizzling batter filling the air—and the city's hum outside should've felt grounding. Instead, everything felt off. The sounds were distorted, like a scratched CD looping the same broken tune. Yuki sat at the table, chopsticks poised over her dish, while Alepou leaned back stiffly across from her. His eyes flickered down Yuki's chest and back up in a disjointed loop—typical Taiyo behavior, sure—but something wasn't right. Yuki whispered, "Guys… doesn't it feel like something's wrong?" The world around them seemed empty.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized the wooden table felt unnaturally smooth, the air carried an overpowering scent—everything seemed like a counterfeit version of reality, as if this place weren't even real. "Yeah," Alepou murmured, his eyes darting around, "like a dream you can't wake up from… or like a script repeating itself." And then—an error.
Like a glitch on an old VHS tape, the shop's edges flickered. The neon lights outside bent and merged, their hues blurring together. Laughter from passersby came a beat too late, voices warped and out of sync. Yuki gasped, "What the hell was that?!" With wide eyes, Taiyo snapped out of his daze. "D-did the walls just… distort?" No one answered—another malfunction had gripped the world.
In the chaos, Alepou's instincts kicked in. "I'm checking on that old man," she declared, voice trembling. In the corner lay the unconscious old man from earlier—the one who'd accused Yuki of stealing—knocked out by Alepou, his body flickering like static, his face twisted into a grotesque, unnatural grin.
Then came a harsh, crackling sound—as if reality itself were glitching out. The world froze. The shop's neon hues bled together. Taiyo's face went blank; his body stilled. Yuki's chopsticks hovered mid-bite, and even Alepou became immobile. Then—RESET. In an instant, they were back at the table: same spots, same cuisine, the same eerie déjà vu.
"No way…" Alepou muttered, anxiety thick in her voice. "Did we just… reset?" With trembling hands, Yuki dropped her chopsticks. "We reset. We actually just… reset." Taiyo's face turned pale as he whispered, "I remember. We already lived this moment."
They were trapped, reliving more than just the last few minutes. And then—out of the corner of her eye—a shadow. An indistinct figure loomed at the storefront, motionless and watching. In a burst of panic, Alepou shouted, "RUN!" But before anyone could react, another glitch seized the world.
Corruption flooded in. In a desperate bid, Taiyo activated his appraisal skill on the shadow, but his vision filled with a wall of corrupt symbols—a cascade of errors that sent shivers up his spine. "No… this isn't normal…" he murmured. The shadow didn't breathe or move; it just watched. Then—everything broke.
A memory overwrite was underway. Yuki felt her thoughts slip away, replaced by a sudden, eerie impression that she'd never left her room. Her voice turned flat and robotic as she whispered, "Why should I go outside? It's better in here… it's safe." Meanwhile, Taiyo's tone warped as he began spouting anime catchphrases. "Sugoi! This is just like my favorite isekai!" he exclaimed, his words laced with abnormal passion. Alepou's voice, too, shifted—soft, playful. Leaning forward, she said, "Yuki, you'd be such a cute waifu…" Yuki flinched, "WHAT?!" Alepou only grinned, though it wasn't truly her face. "You're so soft and delicate… I could totally make you mine." Yuki's heart pounded in confusion as time slipped by again.
Still in the grip of this surreal freakout, Taiyo found himself staring at Yuki's breasts once more. Alepou snarled, "Seriously, dude?!" Then, in a clumsy, almost comical moment, she stumbled—landing squarely in Taiyo's lap. For a heartbeat, time seemed to stop. Yuki watched in disbelief as Taiyo's very essence seemed to drift away from his body. And then—the last sound Yuki heard was a garbled whisper from somewhere beyond reality: "Processing…"
To be continued.