March 1, 2033 | 11:30 AM | Phayao, Thailand

  “That Mook kid is unemployed; he’s been back home for a year now,” the voice of ‘Aunt Maew,’ a neighbor, drifted into the house, intentionally loud enough for anyone inside to hear.

  “Really? What happened?” another woman chimed in, her voice dripping with curiosity.

  “I’m telling you! I heard he got fired. He must have done something terrible.”

  “I don’t think so. Mook always seemed like such a good kid.”

  “Good kid? Please... someone told me he used to be so verbally abusive to his girlfriend that she finally dumped him.”

  “Oh wow... that bad, huh?”

  Inside his second-floor bedroom, Mook sat in front of his computer by the window. Usually, it was a spot for a nice breeze, but today, the wind carried nothing but the sharp, biting stings of neighborhood gossip. Mook sat motionless, his hand trembling slightly on the mouse—not out of anger, but from a crushing sense of shame he couldn't find a way to vent.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Mook began frantically hammering on his keyboard, playing games to drown out the world. After his unjust termination, he had crawled back home like a loser. The failures of his past had carved a deep-seated fear in his heart that even he couldn't fully understand. It made him terrified to face the outside world or even apply for a new job. So, he chose to lock himself in a virtual world, a burden to his mother day after day.

  Thud!

  Mook slammed his finger onto the keyboard as he lost another game. He shut everything down and sat in the dim silence. The quiet of the room began to take hold until he could hear the frantic yet weary thumping of his own heart. The gossip, though distorted, stabbed him deep because the core of it—the fact that he was “unemployed”—was an undeniable truth.

  For nearly a year, he had watched his bank balance slowly dwindle to zero. His last savings, which should have been his safety net, were gone, along with his hope. Every time he opened his screen to click the job application button, an unexplainable fear would surge up and hold him back. His hands would shake, and his breath would catch in his throat, as if the four walls of this room were the only safety left, and the world outside... had no place for a loser like him anymore.

  “Mook!” the shout of ‘Mild,’ his mother, came from the front of the house. “Come help me carry some things, son.”

  A middle-aged woman with an exhausted face and deep lines of toil stood there, doing her best for her children even as her body began to protest.

  “Coming, Mom!” Mook replied and rushed downstairs.

  At the front of the house, Mild limped toward her son with a pained grimace. “Ouch... my knee is acting up again. Mook, carry these four sacks of rice to the granary for me, okay?”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Yes...” Mook replied, looking at his mother with a heart full of guilt. Because he had no money to support her, his mother had to return to heavy labor, causing her chronic knee pain to flare up once more.

  After moving the rice sacks, he hurried to check on his mother, who was resting on the sofa. “How are you, Mom? Should I put some ointment on it?”

  “No need. Just sitting for a bit will make it go away,” his mother brushed it off, pointing to the back. “Go get me some cold water.”

  Mook obeyed, his voice low. He looked at his mother’s back—she had endured so much for him this past year. His incompetence was becoming a visible burden every single day. He brought her the water and went back up to sit aimlessly in front of his computer.

  Creak... Creak...

  The chair legs rocked to the rhythm of Mook’s shaking legs. Stress began to spike until various insults started echoing in his head: ‘Fat,’ ‘Failure,’ ‘Can’t even take care of your mother,’ ‘Burden.’ The dark memories gnawed at his mind until it reached a breaking point... a moment where a fleeting thought emerged from the darkness: ‘If I were gone, Mom would probably be better off... If only I didn't have to wake up to this tomorrow.’

  In that impulsive moment, Mook grabbed a cheap brainwave reader he had bought online with his last bit of money and connected it to his computer. He used to use it just to record his brain activity on the days he felt happy. But this unsafe-looking device had another function that normal people avoided... it could send artificial brainwaves back into the head.

  Before this, he had never dared to use it because of the frequent reports of people dying from such experiments. But today, the desire to escape reality was far greater than the fear of death.

  Tap. Tap. Tap!

  Mook entered the commands. He copied the code from the day he was the happiest in his life into the black command prompt and hit ‘Send’ immediately.

  “Ah...” Mook let out a moan of pure satisfaction. A perfect sense of happiness washed over his soul as if he were being reborn. The bitterness from moments ago vanished instantly. Mook was so excited he began to stutter. “W-we... we’ve created a machine for artificial happiness!”

  He looked around frantically, his suicidal thoughts replaced by a flicker of hope. “I’ll make a video for social media. Maybe an investor will be interested!”

  ***

  Several weeks later...

  May 5, 2033 | 01:00 PM

  “Hmph...” Mook let out a scoff of disappointment as he looked at the screen. The video he had worked so hard on had only a hundred views over the past two months. No one was interested. It was so different from those celebrities who got millions of views just by showing their handsome faces. This world was truly cruel to someone like him.

  “Aaaaah!” a loud scream erupted from the front of the house.

  “Mom!” Mook rushed down to find Mild collapsed on the floor, clutching her knee in agonizing pain. “Mom! Are you okay?!”

  “I’m fine, son... just help me up...”

  “If you leave it like that without immediate treatment, your mother will never be able to walk again.”

  A deep, powerful voice echoed from the gate. A man in a perfectly tailored black suit stood there, his presence as majestic as a dragon. His sharp, Japanese features were stern and commanding. He spoke Thai with a clear Japanese accent that carried a strange, undeniable weight of authority.

  “Who are you?” Mook supported his mother, staring at the stranger with suspicion.

  “Tokamiya Saito... If you want the money to treat your mother, delete that video and come talk to me.”

  Tokamiya Saito has appeared! What do you think his real motives are? And can Mook really trust a stranger who asks him to delete his only "hope"?