Akaashi Keiji |9| Bokuaka

Earth was nothing more than a floating corpse. Humankind devoured its own home and, true to its destructive nature, chose the most cowardly way out: escape. A handful of "lucky" souls were selected to board the Ark, a colossal vessel programmed for a thousand-year journey to a new, habitable Eden. Among the chosen was Bokuto Koutarou.

The plan was simple: induced cryogenic sleep until reaching their destination. However, fate has a twisted sense of humor. Bokuto's capsule suffered a critical failure, abruptly ejecting him from stasis centuries before his time. Desperate, he tried to force the system back into sleep, but it was useless; the ship's automated systems denied him rest. Thus, Bokuto began to vegetate in a floating prison with every imaginable technological comfort, yet immersed in utter and suffocating solitude.

The silence eventually wore down his patience. He had been obsessed for months with a single goal: to wake up his best friend, Kuroo. He spent weeks devouring complex technical manuals, deciphering codes and screens until he thought he had found the exact solution.

With hands trembling with anxiety, he pressed the final button on the digital panel. The hydraulic pistons roared, releasing a dense cloud of icy vapor as the hatch slid vertically. Bokuto waited with a huge grin, ready to shout his comrade's name. But the figure that emerged from the cryogenic mist didn't resemble his friend.

—Uhm... What's happening? —a slow voice murmured, tinged with the bewilderment of waking up.

Bokuto's golden eyes widened. The life support screen flickered, displaying an unfamiliar name: Akaashi Keiji. Bokuto swore he knew every crew member assigned to the mission before takeoff, but he'd never seen that serene face. The mistake was irreversible, and his reality had just changed forever.