It was quiet. Deafeningly so. Even with the squeals of people he didn’t know, even with the words of the doctor who cared for them, it was painfully quiet. No engines. No generators. No fans. No commuters. No chains. No gears. Nothing but emptiness.
He opened his eyes slowly, blinking away a too-bright light, before pushing himself up gently, piecing together the fragments of his memory. He lived. He lived? He shouldn’t have lived. He died. And then…a dream? Hallucination. Delusion. Ayame. Who? The kid. A callused hand pressed against his chest. His heart was still pumping. Another hand lifted up his bedsheets, before, with a grimace, he looked down towards his torso.

No scars to indicate an injury. But he remembered what it felt, his organs spilling out as his body [i]popped[/i] against the force of the truck. Bile rose up his throat, bitter and burning, but he forced it down. It’d be gross if he threw up here. Gross and disgusting. Just like how his mouth was now. He grabbed a bowl of water by his bed and chugged it down.

Ew, it tasted hella metallic and minerally. What fresh hell was this?

Right, it was the hell that Ayame tossed them in. Goddamnit, he wanted a girlfriend, but he didn’t want to die and go to another world to get one.

Katsuo wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat up, leaning over to a bedside stool to pull his phone from the back pocket of his trousers. A finger tap and it opened up, revealing an empty space where many apps once cluttered. There went his dating apps. His mobile games. His contacts lists. His Youtube account. His calendar. His notes. His playlist. The $70 that he loaded onto his Google Play. His photos. All that remained was…two new apps, and the default background that he never bothered to change.

‘About Me’ and ‘Pictopedia’.

Katsuo sighed, then smiled. The afterlife was a trashy light novel, and the goddess was a Narou author. The fate of a Japanese teenager like him, huh? What’s next? He pressed the ‘About Me’ app and actually laughed. A light novel isekai with game-like elements. Some people would actually [i]kill[/i] for this sort of opportunity, wouldn’t they? His eyes had been closed when the doctor and her assistant were in the room, but he was pretty certain their voices sounded cute, and what fragments of memory he could compile in relation to his hallucination-delusion made Ayame out as devastatingly attractive as well. So…three for three so far, sweet.
But others couldn’t see the world so positively, huh.

After all, they did just [i]die[/i].

Turning to the source of the sobbing, Katsuo’s eyes widened slightly at the presence of a foreigner with a punk rock hairstyle. Not all Japanese after all? Or maybe she was in Japan for work? Tourist? Stop thinking, goddamnit. He awkwardly swung his legs over the edge of the bed to face her, his own sheets draped over her body for a modicum of modesty before he said, with a smile that felt like it contradicted his concern, [b]“H-hey, so, uh…dehydration is bad, so…do you want water?”[/b]

Wait, no.

[b]“I mean, like,”[/b] he shook his head. He definitely shouldn’t touch her, yeah? This wasn't a drama, after all. [b]“Are you alright? I mean, it’s clear that you aren’t, but like…we’re stuck in this together so I guess I feel like I should say something anyways? Unless you’re not, uh, from Earth?”[/b]

Water. Yes. Water. He grabbed her bowl of water (it [i]was[/i] for drinking, right?), and stuck it out in her general direction.

[b]“Have a drink first. I think it helps? Not that I’m an expert or anything, so…yeah…oh yeah, fair warning, this actually tastes worse than mineral water, so...fair warning?”[/b]