Lin Mo opened the door to his rented apartment, and the familiar smell of mildew hit him. He kicked off his shoes and flopped onto the sofa, about to open his phone and scroll through short videos, when the scene before his eyes suddenly twisted like a crumpled sheet of paper. He yawned and slowly sat up. “Here we go again. Where am I this time?”
The distortion lasted only three seconds. When his vision cleared, Lin Mo found himself still sitting on the sofa, but everything around him had changed completely.
He was no longer in his cramped little rental. He was in a spacious, bright Japanese-style apartment. The pale beige wooden floor gleamed, and the shelves against the wall were packed with manga and game discs. An unfinished strawberry daifuku sat on the coffee table beside a glass of ice-cold cola. Outside the window stood row upon row of apartment buildings. The convenience store downstairs glowed with warm yellow light, its sign reading “FamilyMart,” unmistakably Japanese in style.
Lin Mo stared in surprise, then looked down at his clothes. He was still wearing the same work jacket splattered with milk foam, but now he had a set of keys in his hand, with a tiny Pikachu plush dangling from the keychain. He stood up, walked over to the bookshelf, and casually pulled out a manga. Its cover showed a cute girl in a pink hoodie with twin ponytails. The title was Himouto! Umaru-chan.
