If I Had . . . Then: Still Another Life

By Mari Yamaoka

Mika Yamada is a single never married contract office worker.
She lives in a small rental studio apartment. She often wonders what her life would have been if she had behaved differently 'then.' She received a time machine from her "future relative" on her 40th birthday. She went back to the past and behaved differently then her present life changed. She continues to live an altered life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543946857

Book preview

10  Today

Prologue

Mika Yamada is a contract office worker who recently had her 40th birthday. She lives in a small studio rental apartment in Tokyo, and spends her days commuting back and forth to her office.

She used to be a full-time employee, but when her old company restructured, she lost her job. After a couple weeks of job-hunting, she started working her current position doing contract clerical work.

Mika, who is still single despite her best efforts, received a time machine on her 40th birthday from her future relative. She goes back to her past to re-do her life, in hopes of finding herself in a better situation.

* * *

According to the 4-dimensional space-time theory, time is in a state in which multiple temporal spaces with different frequencies overlap 4-dimensionally, and they all co-exist simultaneously.

If a person puts herself in a powerful electromagnetic field, her body frequency may change. As a result, she may be able to time slip, sort of like changing the channel on the television.

* * *

The time machine Mika received consists of a headset, which reads memories from the brain, and a controller that produces the powerful 3D electromagnetic field that makes the time travel possible.

Mika returned to the fork of her life when she was 25, when a sincere, but not very attractive college classmate named Toshihiko, suggested they marry and have children. She was not interested then, but after so many years spent alone, she decided to give him another chance. When she returned to the present, she found herself as a housewife, living in a suburban single-family home. However, she had also become a shopping addict, and had large debts. Toshihiko, who turned out to be her husband, got into a struggle with a loan shark YAKUZA who harassed Mika for her inability to repay her debts. He was stabbed with a knife and died from loss of blood.

In order to prevent Toshihiko’s death, Mika went back to the time fork and rejected his proposal, just like she had in her original life. In the present, she was single once more, and back in her tiny urban studio, which felt even smaller after living in her house with Toshihiko.

At the work office, she overheard some of the younger female workers speaking ill of her. Mika was sick of working in the same office as them. If only she was rich, and didn’t have to work for a living.

So she decided to go back in time, to an arranged blind date with a wealthy man named Junichi, 9 years her senior. In the past, she declined his invitation to a second date because he was plump and not her type. This time, she attentively listened to her date’s boasting about his success, and met him again for a drive on his Mercedes sports car along Shonan Beach.

When she woke up, she found herself in a luxurious bedroom in a coastal villa with a swimming pool that might have belonged in a hotel resort. She examined her large walk-in closet, where she found plenty of designer clothes, bags, and jewelry. A maid brought her breakfast in bed. Finally, she’d found the life she deserved as Junichi’s wife!

However, the mother-in-law told Mika that there isn’t enough beef in the fridge, which is Junichi’s favorite. Mika was a bit annoyed at first, but then realized it’d be fun to go grocery shopping in a chauffeur-driven car.

Chapter 1

Grocery Shopping

Mika and her mother-in-law arrive at an upscale supermarket.

Once they get inside, Mika pushes their cart, while her mother-in law picks the groceries and throws them inside. It’s sort of a fancy market, and as such, prices are higher than at ordinary stores.

Beef costs 3,500 yen per 100g, or about 3.5 ounces. The mother-in law picks the most expensive cut, which costs 22,000 yen (about US$200).