Chapter One
2024
The manager narrowed his eyes at the handwritten résumé for a long moment of silence. Then he looked up. "How old are you, Soukichi-kun?"
"Eighteen, sir."
"So you were born in 2005 or 2006?"
"Yes, sir."
"Which one?"
Yuta blinked confusion. "I'm sorry?" he asked.
"When were you born?" the manager asked. His tone was becoming a little impatient.
"December 21, 2005," Yuta hastily responded. "So I'll be turning 19 this year."
The manager hummed and sat up a little straighter in his chair. "Haven't gotten a handwritten résumé from a teenager for a few decades. Do you have access to a computer at home?"
"…Mildly," Yuta said after a moment. "Mana and I can access the internet on our phones."
"Mana?"
"My little sister," Yuta clarified.
"Ah yes, Soukichi-san mentioned something about that," the manager mused. "Your cousin said that your sister and you lost your parents and moved to Tokyo to find quick work."
"That's correct, sir. My cousin has been very generous to the both of us."
"Are either of you in school?"
"No, sir."
The manager rubbed his chin, his brow furrowed. "I'm a little confused," he said finally. "How a young man like yourself in this day and age doesn't have a number card. Or a bank account. Do you have a criminal record, Soukichi-kun?"
Yuta locked his jaw. "No, sir," he said quietly. "I'm just trying to make an honest living for my sister and I."
"But how can I, in good conscious, employ you?" the manager asked. "My company does direct deposit and you don't have a bank account. Your lack of a number card has made it very difficult for me to run a background check on you. All I have is the word of your cousin, who's been a mentor and good friend to me for over forty years. Quite frankly, Soukichi-kun—you are like a ghost. Hiring you seems like it would bring me more trouble than good."
Yuta sat up straighter. "You don't need to employ me on a contract basis. I'm okay with working and being paid under the table. But I very much need a job, sir. I cannot rely on my cousin's charity forever. I want to take care of myself, and my sister." He planted his hands on his thighs and bent his body forward. "Please, sir! Please give me this chance!"
Silence lingered in the office for a long time. Yuto kept his body bent forward and his eyes were squeezed shut. Please! Please…!
"You're in luck," the manager said finally, and Yuta straightened. "We're behind schedule with my project. And I know that Soukichi-san wouldn't let me down. I'll agree to bring you on, Soukichi-kun."
Yuta gasped in relief. "Thank you—"
"But it will be on an unofficial basis," the manager said. "You will be paid under the table and you will not be listed on the employee roster. If the company is audited, you will be shown the door, Soukichi-kun. And if I have to downsize, you will be the first to go."
Yuta nodded and offered his hand for handshake. "I understand, sir. Thank you."
The manager accepted the handshake. "Do yourself a favor and get a number card, Soukichi-kun. And create some sort of electronic footprint like a bank account. It will open employment and housing opportunities for you considerably, so you won't continue to be a burden to your cousin."
Yuta nodded, not offended by his words. "I understand, sir."
"Mana, I'm home!" Yuta called out as he entered the apartment.
"I'm in here!" Mana called from the kitchenette. Yuta tried not to roll his eyes as he slid his shoes off. Not even a proper greeting. She's probably glued to her phone like usual.
Yuta entered the kitchenette to see Mana sitting at the dining room table, her head bent over her cell phone. She looked up and smiled when she saw Yuta standing in the doorway. "How did the interview go?"
"I got the job," Yuta said sheepishly. He collapsed in the chair in front of her. "However they seemed reluctant to hire me."
"Why?" Mana asked him. "You have work experience. Decades of work experience."
"But they don't know that," Yuta said. He lounged in the chair and tilted his head towards the ceiling. He sighed heavily. "Soukichi-san's son was right. I don't know why I didn't listen to him."
"About what?" Mana glanced between Yuta and her phone screen.
"Getting work used to be easy," Yuta said, tilting his head back down to look at her. "I used to be able to hop from job to job. Sleep outdoors and pay for inn rooms when I earned enough money. But because of—this." He gestured to her phone. "I'm unable to do it anymore."
Mana looked down at her phone in alarm. "M-My phone did it?!" She abruptly dropped it onto the table.
"Not your phone, Mana," Yuta reassured her. "Technology in general. Technology tracks people. Technology is replacing currency, it seems. Since the millennium started, I haven't been able to use cash for anything. Not for inn rooms, or train tickets, or…" he shook his head. "And every job runs background checks on candidates. The government now tracks citizens from number cards. I come from a time before number cards existed, but…"
"But you have over 500 years worth of work experience," Mana said defensively. "You have more work experience than everyone in Tokyo!"
Yuta managed a chuckle. "That won't come up in a background check, Mana. And if it did, then it would only cause us problems."
"M-Maybe I should get a job, too? I can't help!"
Yuta smiled bemusedly. "Do you remember what happened in Otofuke, Mana?"
Mana blushed straight to her ears and she rapped her fists on the table in. "Yuta, that was over twenty years ago! I won't make that kind of mistake again!"
"Mana, you set fire the a kitchen of a McDonald's—"
"Not on purpose! And the place didn't burn down, did it?! Wait, that happened in 1998! So that was way over twenty years ago!"
It was lucky that they were having this conversation in the privacy of their apartment and not out in the open, as such a conversation would have earned them stares. Yuta had the physical appearance of an eighteen-year-old boy, and Mana had the physical appearance of a fifteen-year-old girl. Anyone who would have heard their conversation would have dismissed them as immature children with overactive imaginations.
But they were not children. They hadn't been children for a very long time. However…immortality had frozen their ages. They had remained the same ages they had eaten mermaid's flesh…and had survived.
"Let me take care of things," Yuta said finally. "The Soukichi's own this apartment anyway and they are allowing us to use it for however long we want. But I don't think it's a good idea for us to remain in Tokyo for long."
"Why not?" Mana asked, picking up her phone again. "I'm starting to like it here."
"There's too many people in Tokyo," Yuta said. "And the city is highly advanced with technology. If we linger here for too long, too many people are going to get suspicious of us."
Mana hummed in disappointment and looked at her phone. After a few moments she screamed and launched out of her chair. "YUTA!"
"What is it?!" Yuta bolted out of his chair and raced to her side. "Mana, what's wrong?!"
"What is this?!" she shrieked, showing Yuta her phone. Yuta saw that she had the app TikTok open, and it was playing a video. It showed an overcast sky…and a flying saucer floating in the middle of the sky. "T-That's an alien, isn't it?!"
"Mana, that's a fake video," Yuta sighed, rubbing at his eyes and shaking his head.
"It's not fake, Yuta! How can it be fake?!"
"Look at the sky around the UFO," Yuta said, tracing his finger around the saucer. "Do you see how it's pixelating? They filmed the footage first, and then inserted the UFO after. We've seen that in old sci-fi movies, remember?"
"Oh." Mana grabbed at her chest and heaved out a sigh of relief. "That's good! That's really good! What if aliens tried to kidnap us?!"
"Don't think about it." Yuta abruptly took the phone from her. "It's almost dinnertime. No phone during dinner, remember?"
"But it's not dinnertime yet!" Mana protested.
She may not be fifteen anymore, but she still sounds like a fifteen-year-old, Yuta thought sheepishly.
"What are we having for dinner, anyway?" Mana asked.
"Your choice," Yuta said. "It's your celebration today, after all."
Mana gasped, and her eyes went wide as he put his bag on the table. "You mean—!"
Yuta smiled as he pulled out a small box wrapped in pink wrapping paper and tied with a golden ribbon. He held it out to her. "Happy Birthday, Mana."
Mana squealed, and tears filled her eyes as she rushed over and gave Yuta a hug. "You remembered! Oh, thank you so much Yuta!"
Truthfully, they did not know their own birthdays. Yuta had long forgotten the day that he was born, only remembering that it was in the winter season. And Mana only knew that she was born in summer. So they each had selected a designated day in the summer and winter respectively to celebrate their birthdays. It was small, but they enjoyed it. And it gave them some normalcy.
"I want to eat cheeseburgers," Mana said eagerly as she pulled. "Can we get them?"
"Of course." Yuta pulled out his own phone. "Three cheeseburgers for you, right?"
"I don't eat that much!"
Yuta's brow rose in response, and Mana flushed and pouted. Yuta managed a laugh as he looked up a burger place that delivered.
We can make this work. I know we can. I just have to somehow catch up with the changing world…
One week later…
"It's a hoax!"
"No, it isn't! It happened live!"
"The police aren't involved! It's got to be a hoax!"
Yuta looked up from his sandwich. It was lunchtime and he heard two coworkers a table away arguing. One of them was waving his phone. They both looked like they were in their twenties, but…something about their conversation caught Yuta's attention. He left his lunch and went over to their table. "Excuse me?"
"Oh, new guy!" the man with the phone exclaimed. "You think it's real, right?"
Yuta didn't bother hiding his confusion as he took a seat at their table. "What do you mean?"
"You don't know?" the second man asked incredulously. "How?! It's been all over the internet for the past two days!"
Yuta shrugged. "I've been too busy working."
"You have a good head on your shoulders," the first said. He showed Yuta his phone screen. "There's some wild shit involving her!"
Yuta saw in the screen that it was open to an online news article. A very beautiful young woman wearing an excessive amount of makeup, wearing a revealing dress, and posing seductively was at the top of the article. "Who's that?" he asked.
"You must be living under a rock, new guy," the first man sighed, shaking his head. "That's Natsu Ai! She's an extremely popular streamer on Twitch!"
"She livestreams a cooking show, where she cooks dressed in lingerie and body suits," the second man scoffed. "She is what is called a "thot", new guy."
"So…what happened with her?" Yuta asked.
"A couple of nights ago she did her cooking show, and it went completely off the rails," the first man said. "Apparently she made brudet with this new "exotic fish", but the moment she ate her cooking she—"
"It's a hoax," the second man insisted. "This is just a ploy for Natsu Ai to bring attention to herself."
"What exactly happened?" Yuta asked.
"Damn!" the first man shouted, tapping his phone screen in frustration. "They removed the video!"
"Then it really is a hoax," the second man sighed. "I told you so?"
"Please tell me what happened in the video," Yuta pressed. Dread was starting to well up inside of him, but he knew he needed to know. But he was still unprepared for what his coworkers told him.
"She ate the stew, and turned into a monster."
"Her name is Natsu Ai?" Mana asked him.
"Yes," Yuta said, gesturing to her phone. It was the evening and they were seated side by side on the couch in their apartment. "What comes up when you type in her name?"
Mana shook her head. "Lots of people have filed a missing person's report on her. There's conspiracy theories, and—oh! I think this is part of the video!" She pointed to the screen.
"Part of? Not the full stream?"
"Let's see." Mana, clicked on the video link, and immediately got a pop up saying the website was blocked. "Turn on the VPN," Yuta said. "Soukichi-san said we can change our country's location with it."
Mana did so and scrolled down the list of countries on the list. "Where is Paraguay?"
"I don't know," Yuta answered honestly.
"I'll choose it, then." Mana selected Paraguay on the VPN and then went back to the link when she reloaded the page Yuta was relieved to see the website load. "Load the video quickly," Yuta said. "We don't know how long it will be available."
Mana clicked the play button. It showed Nastu Ai dressed in a pink negligee as was scooping the brudet from the pan and into a bowl. She was standing in a luxurious kitchenette. "Are you ready to see me eat this delicious feast?" She asked the camera. The camera appeared to be on a tripod, and when she dipped forward her breasts almost spilled out of the top of the negligee. Yuta quickly covered Mana's eyes, but when he saw chat responses on the side of the screen from people watching the live Twitch stream he covered the screen instead.
"Why is she dressed like that?" Mana wondered out loud.
"I don't know," Yuta said. They watched Natsu Ai pick up the bowl and soup spoon and sit down at the din. She gave a coy smile to the camera as she picked up a soup spoon. "Ittekimasu."
Yuta felt his heart in his throat as Natsu Ai took a scoop of the brudet and lifted the spoon to her mouth. He thought he saw a piece of fish on the spoon, but it was soaked in the red sauce and not easily distinguishable. They watched as Yuta and Mana sucked the spoon into her mouth and let out an inappropriate groan of approval.
Mana made a face. "This is gross. Why would anyone watch a girl cook and eat food? It's so stupid."
Yuta didn't respond, only holding his breath as Natsu Ai ate a few more spoonfuls of the brudet. After a few bites she smiled. It almost looked like a smirk of triumph. "This is the meal I've ever—"
Her voice suddenly broke off, and her face contorted into shock and pain. Natsu Ai sucked in a breath, and hovered a hand over her mouth. A moment later she made a lurching sound and pitched forward, vomiting of a copious amount of blood.
Both Yuta and Mana gasped loudly in unison as Natu Ai scrambled out of her chair, clutching at her throat. She looked like she was suffocating; the skin of her face turning purple. The chat bar on the side rapidly filled with comments from live viewers asking if she was all right.
Then Natsu Ai screamed—and the scream turned into a hideous roar as her beautiful skin burst off her body. Her eyes bulged as her physique grew in side and her body twisted and deformed. She continued to scream and howl and she brought her hands down upon her dining table, smashing it in half. The chat bar continued to rapidly fill with comments as she began a rampage in her home, filmed briefly by her camera until she knocked it down, and the live feed was finally cut.
Yuta and Mana sat frozen in horror, their mouths gaping but not making a sound. They knew what they had just witnessed, but they couldn't form it into verbal words. But they knew. They knew what happened to Natsu Ai.
She had eaten mermaid's flesh…and turned into a Lost Soul.
I don't know Yuta and Mana's birthdays. I headcanoned that Mana was born in the summer because that was when she was fed mermaid's flesh, and it's clearly the summer season during that arc. Yuta being born in winter is my headcanon based on Mana being born in summer, as he says in the arc that he was going to turn 500 years old that year.