Chapter 2:

Chapter 2: Seventeen Again

Replay Again

Yuki woke to the smell of laundry detergent she hadn’t used in years. The kind her mother bought because it was cheap and “good enough.” She blinked at the ceiling, confused. Her old room’s ceiling had a tiny crack shaped like a crooked smile. She remembered staring at it during every teenage meltdown.

And there it was. The crooked smile.

“…No,” she whispered.

The blanket felt lighter than the thick, adult one she used. The pillow was flatter. The air conditioner rattled like it always had when she was seventeen. Her heart thumped hard against her ribs.

She sat up fast.

Her room was exactly the way she left it a decade ago. The desk piled with textbooks she had absolutely not missed. Posters she had no adult justification for. A half-finished origami crane. The mirror across from her bed—

Had her reflection in a school uniform.

“Okay,” she said out loud. “This is either a dream or I’ve died. And if I died, I want a refund.”

She stumbled to the mirror. A much younger version of her stared back. No faint eye bags. No stress lines. Hair too smooth to be natural. The kind of face that still believed in happy endings.

Yuki grabbed the sides of the dresser to steady herself.

“Nope. Nope, nope. Absolutely not.”

She slapped her cheeks. Hard.

They stung.

Still seventeen.

Great. A nightmare that committed to realism.

Her mother’s voice floated up the stairs. “Yuki, you’ll be late!”

Yuki nearly collapsed. She hadn’t heard that voice in that tone in years. Her throat tightened. She wanted to run downstairs and hug her, but she couldn’t even understand what was happening.

“Okay, brain. You win. This is too much for a Tuesday morning.”

She forced herself to move.

---

Ren woke up gasping.

Sunlight cut through curtains he remembered fighting with every morning because they never closed properly. His room looked like the museum exhibit of Poor Teenagers Who Don’t Clean: comics stacked badly, notebooks half-open, a cup with pens and maybe one dead insect.

He looked around slowly.

“…This is concerning.”

He stood, joints surprisingly flexible. Suspiciously flexible. Then he caught sight of his reflection in the wardrobe mirror.

A lanky seventeen-year-old stared back.

Shaggy hair.

Ridiculous bedhead.

Uniform slightly too big.

Ren froze.

“Right. This is a dream. Obviously. My brain is tired. Divorce, stress, existential dread… The usual.”

He gave Dream-Ren a nod.

“Impressive detail.”

He poked his own cheek.

It hurt.

He poked harder.

It hurt more.

He slapped himself.

Ow.

Ren rubbed his face.

“…My dreams are getting violent.”

He paced his room.

Same old posters.

Same cracked window corner.

The old clock that ticked too loudly.

And then the worst realization hit him like a speeding truck.

If he was seventeen—

If this room was real—

If this wasn’t a dream—

Then Yuki was also seventeen.

Future-divorced Yuki.

Mother-of-their-kids Yuki.

The woman he loved so much he destroyed it without meaning to.

Ren sat down on his bed.

Very slowly.

Very carefully.

“…Yeah, I’m definitely having a mental breakdown.”

His mother called from downstairs, “Ren! Breakfast!”

He winced. Her voice sounded younger. Happier. Before everything went wrong in her life too.

Ren’s chest tightened. This was too real to process. He needed air. He needed explanations. He needed therapy, ideally the type that worked by slapping reality into place.

Instead, he grabbed his bag and bolted.

---

The school gate looked the same. Students chatted loudly. The courtyard smelled like wet chalk and bad decisions.

Yuki arrived at the same moment Ren did.

Their eyes met.

Several things happened at once:

• Yuki’s soul left her body and screamed into the void.

• Ren forgot how breathing worked.

• Every embarrassing memory of their teenage years slapped them across the face.

She pointed at him. “You’re—”

He raised both hands. “Not dead. I checked.”

“That’s not what I— You— We—” Yuki sputtered.