An Abrupt Start

"An unfamiliar ceiling, hold on a moment... I'm homeless! Woah–!" A figure inside the sheets yells, falling to the side as their panicked breaths subside soon after. "…Huh?!"

His hands clutched his throat. "My voice?! Don't tell me…"Tangles of long bright red hair fall into view. Simply brushing it away with a quivering finger, he says, "I'm a girl?!"

That was the start of a new life for one of Earth's previous residents, Kia, pronounced Ki-Yay — A moniker so American that it came from a movie catchphrase, a manly name for someone who was now… a woman.

Kia had to go through the necessary steps to acclimatize to this new reality which meant speedrunning through the stages of grief. 

"No, no, no, no, no… this can't be happening! There's no way that bogus website did this! First, it's the 3rd housing crisis, and this time it's getting transmigrated into an anime?! It's a dream… it's all a dream…"

Pinching himself in the arm, Kia felt a stinging pain. "It hurts! Fuck! Fuck! It's all that piece of shit's fault! G O D! I saw all the signs… a preacher in the middle of the street, a cross falling in front of me while I was walking to the nearest free wifi zone, and an ad that advertised something about a church… it was all there! Ugh! Is this why people stay away from Florida? You get transmigrated by an old ass phone? This is fucked up!"

Kia starts pacing the room, gnawing on his knuckles and alternating biting his fingernail. "What if I said sorry? Look, I loved living off public welfare and feeding the pigeons seeds. Would you strip off a man's luxury like that? …Hahahahaha…"

Crouching to the floor, he rocks back and forth with a widened gaze. "I can't live like this. I just wanted the free Starbucks when finishing that personality test… I didn't actually want to be here. Heroes and Villains fighting are the last thing I want to get involved in. I'm going to fucking die here…"

He stood in silence, taking any kind of indication that anyone was actually listening to him. "Fine, be that way."

Standing up, defeated, he goes back to the bed and sits. "I'll just calm down… I have to see the bright side. I have a home now… not that it matters. I loved those pigeons, man. They were my homies, always taking a shit on some random dude on the streets, it's the only friends I had. Maybe it won't be so bad? …Man, I'll relax by grabbing my tits."

His hands rose to grasp his chest, only to feel… empty. "I'm pathetic. What am I even doing? Am I so worthless that I see gratification in this? I didn't drop out of college to be this stupid."

All of those comments he made on the internet finally went full circle. 

When the personality test asked him what he wanted to be, he answered a celebrity, specifically one on the internet. Kia always saw influencers with extravagant amounts of wealth, pulling off millions of views in videos or seeing hundreds of people throw away money to some PNG with a voice. 

He should have suspected something was up when the personality test next asked him 'Do you deserve better than them when you give no effort?'. Of course, he answered crudely — sending a link to a website with gore on it as a joke. He also answered that it was obviously easy for anyone to be an influencer, especially if they were a girl.

The irony wasn't lost as Kia would have to refer to himself as a female from today on. Even if he tried getting back a semblance of what little dignity he had left by making people call him a dude, he'd guess that G O D made it impossible to make the body he inhabited be mistaken as a man. 

Kia scratched his head in irritation. "I need a walk… maybe get some seeds and find if pigeons live here. Where even am I? The MHA universe doesn't just have Japan as full of superpower dudes, right?"

A sudden knock startled Kia, unused to the existence of a semi-permanent home. "Excuse me? Is anyone home?" 

The man spoke Japanese. 

Kia understood it, dashing any hope that he was somewhere else far away from where the plot happens. "Of course, I can understand a foreign language that easily. I knew it… G O D had a hand in this. I sense a foreboding that is suboptimal."

Kia walks to the door, noting along the way that the place he had was furnished to a degree. Reaching the door, he answers, "I'm here!" as loud as possible before opening the door. "Sup?"

Outside, a middle-aged man in casual clothing asked back. "English? America?"

Well, that was a problem. How the hell would he speak Japanese? Probe some memory in the body he occupied? 

"No," he replied, still in English. Maybe he could channel his inner weeb and– "No!" he replied, this time in Japanese. 'It worked!' he exclaimed to himself inside his head, not noticing the odd look he was receiving from the man in front of him.

Raising an eyebrow, the man asked, "Miss? Are you okay?" 

Kia quickly responds back, now used to speaking in Japanese, he guessed it was an effect of being transmigrated. "No, I'm fine. What's up?"

"You are 4 months behind payment. You still have a week before I have to kick you out, sorry for the trouble but I won't tolerate squatters here. I gave you enough time, I hope you have the money."

"...Can you hold on for a second? I'm going to do something really quick."

"Sure."

The sound of a closing door followed… then a few seconds later… "DAMN YOU, G O D!" was heard in English.

The man coughed awkwardly. "Ahem. Are you okay in there?"

Kia opened the door with a faint smile. "Yeah… haha… look I don't have any money to pay you now so can I just leave in advance?" Kia was accustomed to the wandering life anyway. 

Unexpectedly, the building owner's tone shifted into empathy. "No need to do that. You can still stay here for the remaining week. You still have to pay me back though."

"...Huh?" Kia was dumbfounded. 

"Did you forget? You didn't have anything to pay for your other 3 months so you asked me for a loan."

"Wait, I thought I didn't pay anything in the past 4 months?"

"Those are different months, it's the 3 months before the 4 months. You stopped borrowing after 500,000 Yen."

"What."

"I don't know what else to tell you." The landlord sighed. "Even if you don't pay rent, you still owe me from your loan. Can I have the number of your workplace? If you want you can pay me back in installments."

At this point, Kia's soul had already left his body. "I- I don't think I have a job. Can I just pay with… something else?" 

Yep, he lost all of his dignity — even if he only had 10% left. 

The landlord shook his head. "Listen, Tamago. Would your parents want you to act this way? Don't go around desecrating yourself like that. It might be an easy way out for you but the consequences last longer than being behind in rent. I heard you speak English, you could try tutoring? Just don't resort to that kind of thing, it'll drive you to… ahem… bad thoughts."

"Huh?! I'm not going to kill myself!"

"That's what everyone says. From my perspective, you've got all the reason to."

With a silent goodbye, the landlord walked away, leaving Kia to process what he just said. Kia closed the door with a soft click before retreating back to his bedroom. 

"Shit," Kia uttered. "As if I didn't try already." With a stern look at the ceiling, he sauntered over to the wardrobe across his bed and looked inside. "A few casual clothes, good. I guess I'll clear my head for a while. Also… Tamago? My name here is seriously Egg. I'm not using that damn name, G O D." 

Taking what looked like jogging pants and a t-shirt, Kia changed, not even stopping to admire his new body. He walked out to the great outdoors, feeling the heat of the sun and the harshness of the brightness. "I hate debts. I'm not going to run away like a coward not paying them. I wonder if there's a local convenience store nearby…"