The Dream Code: Yume no Kodo [Light Novel] Vol. 1 – Page 5

The Dream Code – Volume 1 – Chapter 1: Nihon Dream

Page 5

^{Mitsuru Shinadin as Kanzaki Tahiru – Year 2026 [The Dream Code]}

Fifteen months. Fifteen months since he, Mitsu, the fifteen-year-old survivor from the ashes of 2047 – had awoken in the body of Kanzaki Tahiru, a man thirty-seven years his senior in the year 2025. The initial disorientation, the desperate struggle against the alien memories and desires, had slowly, almost imperceptibly, softened. It hadn’t been a surrender, not exactly. It was more of an… understanding. Kanzaki’s life, his quiet existence, his profound shyness, his world of words and imagination – it was all Mitsu had now. To fight it would be to fight himself, to fracture the fragile hold he had on this new reality.

He found himself sitting at Kanzaki’s cluttered desk, the familiar scent of stale coffee and aging paper a comforting presence. The laptop screen glowed, displaying the final proofs of Kanzaki’s novel. The Dream Code. The title felt eerily prescient. Mitsu traced the words with a fingertip, a faint smile touching his lips. Kanzaki’s dream, a manuscript filled with fantastical journeys and hidden meanings, was about to be published. And Mitsu, the boy who had lost everything, was the one making it happen.

“He wouldn’t have wanted it to just sit here gathering dust,” Mitsu thought, the inner voice a quiet echo of Kanzaki’s own gentle spirit. The mature, often melancholic thoughts that surfaced in his mind were Kanzaki’s, and Mitsu had learned to embrace them. It had been uncomfortable at first, these vivid, detailed fantasies about girls Kanzaki had never met, a shy man’s longing amplified by a lifetime of solitary introspection. Kanzaki imagined meeting them, sharing quiet moments, perhaps even a future he never dared to pursue. Mitsu had initially recoiled from the intensity of these daydreams, feeling them too mature, too… foreign. But Kanzaki had never been intimate with anyone. His fantasies were his only outlet, a bittersweet escape. Mitsu couldn’t erase them; that would be erasing Kanzaki. Instead, he integrated them, letting them color his understanding of the man whose life he now inhabited. He felt a strange kinship with Kanzaki’s shy longing, a shared yearning for connection that transcended their age difference.

Sometimes, especially when he slept, the lines blurred completely. He’d wake with a start, the remnants of Kanzaki’s dreams clinging to him like morning mist. He’d feel a surge of Kanzaki’s inherent laziness, a desire to simply drift back into slumber. The face staring back from the small bathroom mirror might momentarily appear older, etched with the weariness of now thirty-eight years, before the youthful spirit within reasserted itself. He’d sometimes see Kanzaki’s face in his reflection, a ghost of the man he inhabited, and for a few disorienting moments, he’d question who he truly was. Was he Mitsu, the fifteen-year-old emissary from a ruined future, or was he Kanzaki, the introverted writer with dreams of extraordinary abilities, of vanishing into thin air or unleashing blasts of energy like those he’d seen in old anime?

“Just let it be,” Mitsu told himself, the thought forming with Kanzaki’s quiet resignation. “He’s lived his life. These are his dreams. It’s… okay.” He felt a surprising peace in this acceptance. Kanzaki’s world, his habits, his unfinished stories – Mitsu was living them, fulfilling them in a way the original Kanzaki never could. And in that fulfillment, there was a peculiar happiness. The publication of the book felt like a tribute, a way to honor the life he had inadvertently inherited.

Last night, however, something profound had shifted. The dream had been different. It hadn’t been one of Kanzaki’s elaborate fantasies of flying or fantastical powers. It had been a dream from his past, from 2047. The girl. The one with the paper bearing the year “2025” scribbled on it. She had been there, her smile warm and inviting, her voice a soft melody in the dreamscape. “Mitsu,” she had said, her eyes shining, “you made it. I’m not very far.”

He had woken with a jolt, the words echoing in the silent room. The girl. Ava. He knew her name now, the knowledge blooming in his mind as if it had always been there. She was more than just a face from a dream; she was central to his mission, a soulmate in a destiny he was only beginning to understand. And she had spoken to him, to Mitsu, not to Kanzaki. The dreams he had dismissed as mere fragments of his trauma from 2047 now felt like something more, a connection forged across time.

“She said she’s not very far,” he mused, his gaze drifting to the window. The Tokyo sky was a muted grey, a typical late July day. “What does that mean? Is she in Tokyo? Is she even aware of who I am? Or who she is to me?” A spark of hope, brighter than any Kanzaki fantasy, ignited within him. His purpose, which had felt so distant and intangible, suddenly seemed to be drawing nearer.

The idea of meeting her, of finding the girl from his dreams, was both exhilarating and terrifying. He was living as a thirty-eight-year-old man, a man who was deeply introverted and had never so much as held a girl’s hand. Ava, he now knew, was only fifteen. He would be sixteen in spirit, but Kanzaki’s age would be his public face. How could he possibly navigate this? He could only trust that destiny, the same force that had brought him here, would orchestrate their meeting.

He picked up a worn paperback from the desk, a collection of Kanzaki’s favorite short stories. He’d often lose himself in these during the day, finding a temporary respite from his dual reality. But today, his thoughts were consumed by Ava. He wondered what she looked like in the flesh, if her smile was as warm as it had seemed in his dream. He wondered if she, too, felt this strange, inexplicable pull, this premonition of a connection that defied logic.

He decided then and there. He wouldn’t force Kanzaki’s life to change, but he would allow himself to search. He would honor Kanzaki’s solitude and his dreams, but he would also honor the fragmented whispers of his own mission, and the hope Ava represented. He would live as Kanzaki, write Kanzaki’s stories, and perhaps, just perhaps, fate would guide him to Ava. He looked out at the bustling city of Tokyo, a world oblivious to the dangers that lay ahead, a world where a fifteen-year-old boy from the future was about to search for his destiny, and his soulmate. The stage was set, not for grand pronouncements, but for a quiet, fated collision.