Drake slowly opened his eyes.
His head felt like it had been split open with a sledgehammer. His mouth was so dry it felt like he hadn’t drunk anything but energy drinks for a week. He was lying on a thin mattress right on the floor, feeling a hard, cold surface under his back. The room was almost empty — just a couple of worn cardboard boxes in the corner, an old wooden table, and a large rectangular mirror on the wall. Dim morning light filtered through thin, darkened curtains. This was not his apartment. Not his life.
“…What the fuck?” he croaked.
He tried to sit up. His body obeyed far too easily. Too powerfully. The muscles responded firmly and elastically, completely unlike his own trained but familiar body. Drake looked down at his hands. Wide palms, long strong fingers, visible veins. These were not his hands.
His heart began to pound faster.
He stood up. His legs were longer, his center of gravity higher, his movements more confident and heavy. The floor creaked under his weight. Drake took a few steps across the creaky linoleum and stopped in front of the mirror.
And froze.
Staring back at him from the mirror was Kurosaki Ren.
Extremely tall — easily over 190 cm. Broad, powerful shoulders, defined chest and abs, every muscle looking as if it had been carved from stone. Lightly tanned skin, messy dyed blond hair after sleep. His face… handsome, but with a predatory, vicious squint. Sharp cheekbones, cold eyes that even now looked like they were already calculating how best to break someone.
Drake slowly lowered his gaze lower.
The body was perfect for an alpha high schooler. Strong arms, broad chest, narrow waist, and powerful thighs. And below…
“Fuuuuck…”
Even in its half-aroused morning state, the cock looked impressive and threatening. Thick, heavy, with a noticeable vein running along its entire length. Large head, long and powerful shaft. Even at rest, it looked imposing. Drake involuntarily swallowed. This was a body created to dominate, to take, and to break.
He raised his gaze back to the face. Handsome. Very handsome. But in the eyes — that same malice, cynicism, and cold confidence he remembered so well from the game. The face of a person who had known from childhood what the bottom was like and had decided it was better to drown others than to drown himself.
Drake pressed his palm against the mirror. Cold glass. Real.
“This… is me? I’m Kurosaki Ren now…?”
Drake was still standing in front of the mirror when it began.
At first — a slight burning in his temples. Then — a sharp, scorching pain, as if someone had driven red-hot rods straight into his brain. Memories flooded in, without asking permission.
He collapsed to his knees and clutched his head.
“Aaaargh!!”
The pain was so intense that everything went dark before his eyes. One after another, foreign images surfaced in his mind:
Little Ren sitting in the corner of a dirty rented room while his mother, Kurosaki Aki, moaned under yet another client. Her hoarse, tired voice: “Watch and remember, Ren. This is life. Women are goods. Men are those who pay or take.”
Schoolyard. Older boys kicking him, shouting: “Son of a whore! Your mom sucks dick for 2000 yen!” He lies in the dirt and stares at the sky, feeling hatred growing inside him.
Him beating someone. Fists covered in blood. Someone crying beneath him. He feels a strange satisfaction.
His mother lying on the floor. A needle still sticking out of her vein. Eyes open but seeing nothing. Ren stands over her and feels not grief, but cold relief. Finally, she won’t embarrass him anymore.
And the last piece — transferring to a new school. The last of his money. Dyed hair. Tan. He stands in front of an ordinary high school building and thinks: “No one here knows who I am. Here I can start over.”
The pain intensified. Drake curled up on the floor, groaning and pounding his fist against the linoleum. He felt not only Ren’s memories — he felt his emotions. Hatred. Resentment. Hunger. All of it poured into him, mixing with his own consciousness.
“Stop… enough…” he wheezed. “I’m not him… I’m not…”
But the memories didn’t stop. They kept flowing until Drake realized one terrible thing:
He hadn’t just received the memories.
He was becoming them.
Ren’s body was accepting him. Fully. The pain gradually began to subside, leaving behind a heavy, oppressive emptiness. Drake slowly rose to his feet, breathing heavily. His head was still buzzing.
He looked in the mirror.
Kurosaki Ren stood before him. Tall, muscular, with cold eyes. But now Drake knew — this was no longer just a foreign body. This was him in Ren’s body.
He had just crossed over. Tomorrow he would have to go to a new school — his third year. And he knew who was waiting for him there. He knew because that knowledge was now his.
Drake slowly ran his palm over Ren’s face. Over his face.
“I… I am you now,” he said quietly in a low, unfamiliar voice. “Goddamn it…”
Now Drake understood.
“Ren… he couldn’t have become anyone else in those circumstances,” he whispered softly, still on his knees. “I… I wouldn’t have been able to either. We… we are one now.”
He felt two personalities slowly merging. His own knowledge, values, hatred of netorare — and Ren’s cold, predatory nature. They weren’t fighting. They were merging. Drake gained all of Ren’s skills, memories, charisma, and strength. And Ren… gained his morals and disgust for what he used to be.
Drake slowly stood up. His legs no longer trembled.
He looked in the mirror.
A handsome, predatory face. A tall, powerful body. He now knew that tomorrow he would go to a new school. An ordinary one, but already full of possibilities. The girls were waiting for him there. Haruto was waiting for him there. The entire world he could now change… or break.
Drake (or was it already Ren?) stood in the middle of the room, still trying to come to his senses. His head was buzzing, but the memories no longer burned his brain as intensely. He looked around.
The apartment was tiny and shabby. Old worn linoleum, peeling walls with damp spots, one small window. Besides the mattress on the floor and a couple of boxes, there was almost nothing here. This was clearly temporary housing for someone who had just moved.
“Alright…” he muttered in Ren’s low voice. “Since I’m here… I should at least clean up a bit.”
He began acting on autopilot. First, he pulled some clothes out of the boxes — black shirts, pants, a few school uniforms. Then he found an old broom and rags. Ren’s hands moved confidently and strongly — he quickly swept the dust, wiped the floor, and arranged things in the corners. Since the apartment was small, after an hour and a half it already looked more or less decent. Not luxury, but at least not a dump.
Drake wiped the sweat from his forehead and sat down on the edge of the mattress. His body ached, but pleasantly — from physical work.
“School tomorrow…” he said quietly. “Third year. A new start for this bastard.”
He reached for the old smartphone lying on the table. It wasn’t his iPhone — a cheap, worn-out device. Drake opened the banking app.
The balance was 18,450 yen.
“…Seriously?” he smiled bitterly. “Only eighteen thousand? That’s less than two hundred dollars. Moved here with practically nothing… What a poverty.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes. Now he truly understood why Ren had been so full of resentment. The move, his mother’s debts, her death, the attempt to start a new life with practically zero balance. It explained a lot.