The Colopl Next office in Ebisu was sleek and corporate — glass walls, branded signage, a reception area with a display case of figurines from their game franchises. Mike was shown into a meeting room on the fourth floor by an assistant who offered him green tea and a business card holder he didn’t need.
Sehun Jang arrived two minutes later. Early thirties, slim, well-dressed in a way that split the difference between Tokyo corporate and Seoul cool. A Zainichi — Japanese Korean, Mike would learn — who carried himself with the quiet precision of someone used to operating in two cultures at once. His handshake was firm, his smile polite but measured. Friendly, but not truly friendly.
“So, Mike — Ryota tells me you’re building a crypto game on Solana.”
“That’s right. A strategy RPG with on-chain assets and a player-driven economy. We have a working prototype and Solana’s ecosystem team is backing us.” Mike said it as though the full weight of the blockchain was behind him. In reality, he had a handshake grant from Anatoly and a prototype built by two high school kids in an Oakland bedroom. But he planned to make the claim real by November, when Anatoly had invited him to the Solana developer conference.
“Interesting. We’ve never invested in crypto games before at Colopl Next. The regulatory landscape in Japan is… complicated.” Sehun paused diplomatically. “What makes your game different?”
Mike walked him through Fury’s mechanics — the NFT characters, the tournament system, the breeding loop. He leaned into the Japanese narrative layer he and Kevin had built, the samurai-inspired character classes, the feudal storyline. Sehun nodded politely but didn’t seem particularly moved.
Mike pivoted. “The bigger play is the metaverse layer. The game isn’t just a game — it’s a world. Players build identities, own virtual assets, interact socially. The crypto infrastructure is just the plumbing underneath. What users experience is a living, persistent virtual space.”
Sehun’s posture shifted. He leaned forward slightly — the first sign of genuine interest.
“That’s actually relevant to something we’re tracking,” he said. “One of our portfolio companies was recently acquired by Naver — the largest tech company in Korea. They built a metaverse platform called ZEPETO. It already has millions of users, mostly in Asia. Teenagers, young adults. Very strong in avatar-based social interaction.”
Mike had heard of ZEPETO before — people called it the Roblox of Asia. He didn’t know much beyond that, but the name carried weight.
“If you’re serious about the metaverse angle,” Sehun continued, “I could make an introduction to the ZEPETO team. They’re always looking for developers building in the space.”
“I’d appreciate that. Thank you.”
Sehun pulled out a card and slid it across the table. “Also — are you familiar with G-STAR? It’s the largest gaming conference in Korea. Held in Busan every November. If you’re building in this space, you should be there. I can help arrange access.”
November. Solana conference. G-STAR. Mike’s calendar was filling up with events that, just a week ago, he couldn’t have imagined attending. He nodded politely and accepted.
As he stood to leave, Sehun shook his hand again. “You’re quite young for this, Mike. How old are you?”
“Sixteen. Almost seventeen.”
Sehun raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Mike was getting used to that reaction.
The cab ride from Ebisu to Azabujuban took fifteen minutes. Mike spent them staring out the window, thinking about ZEPETO and Naver and the threads that were starting to weave together. This Japan trip was turning out to be potentially very meaningful — far more than the cover story he’d pitched to Tom.
But the meeting he was heading to now was the one that actually mattered.
Frontier’s office occupied the third floor of a modest building near Azabujuban Station. No towering skyscraper. No marble lobby. No waterfall features. The entrance was clean and understated — white walls, a simple logo behind the reception desk, the faint antiseptic scent of a working laboratory. It felt less like a corporate office and more like an actual biolab. Pristine, transparent, nothing ostentatious or flashy. The opposite of everything Mike had seen in Tokyo so far.
The woman who greeted him was somewhere between her late thirties and late forties — it was hard to tell. She had a quirky energy about her, short hair pinned back, glasses on a chain around her neck, and a thick Japanese accent that required Mike to concentrate on every syllable.
“Werukamu to Frontieru,” she said, bowing. “I am Yamada. Komyuunikeeshon deparutoment.”
She led him to a small meeting room and launched into what was clearly a rehearsed overview — when Frontier was founded, their focus on exosome-based regenerative therapies, their clinical partnerships, their vision for the future of medicine. She spoke slowly and carefully, pausing to find the right English words, occasionally substituting Japanese when she couldn’t. Mike nodded along, but none of it was new. He’d read all of this on their website.
What he needed was the man who had masterminded all of this.
“Yamada-san,” Mike said, during a pause in her presentation. “Is Mr. Toyota in the office today? I’d love the opportunity to meet him, even briefly. His work on exosome applications is really what inspired me to learn about this field.”
Yamada-san’s expression tightened. She smiled, but the warmth drained from it. “Toyota-shacho is very busy person. He is not available for meeting today.” She shuffled her papers and redirected to a slide about Frontier’s partnership with Osaka University.
Mike’s heart sank. This was a dead end. Thirty minutes with a comms officer and a slide deck he’d already memorized. He’d flown eleven hours for this.
Then, through the glass partition of the meeting room, he saw him.
Walking down the corridor. Gray hair, sharp cheekbones, a tailored dark suit. Moving with that same quiet purpose Mike had seen in an alley on Divisadero — and on a massive LED screen in a dream about Shibuya. Mitsutaka Toyota. Alive. Younger. Walking right past the door.
Mike stood up so fast his chair scraped the floor.
“Sumimasen — Mike-san, please—” Yamada-san started, but Mike was already at the door, pulling it open, stepping into the corridor.
Toyota-san was ten paces ahead, turning a corner. Almost out of sight.
“Sir!” Mike called out. His voice echoed off the white walls and seemingly into oblivion. This was not how it was going to end. He had to do something, say anything, to get Toyota’s attention. “Exosomes can save the world. We will have a global pandemic in a few months!”
Toyota-san stopped.
He turned slowly. His eyes found Mike — a sixteen-year-old kid in a wrinkled button-down, standing in the middle of his company’s corridor, breathing hard, having just shouted a prophesy one would expect to hear in an asylum.
Behind Mike, Yamada-san appeared in the doorway, flustered, bowing and apologizing in rapid Japanese.
Toyota-san raised a hand. Yamada-san went silent.
“Who are you?” he asked. His English was accented but clean, the way he remembered it.
Mike’s mind raced. He needed a story. Something true enough to hold, emotional enough to land.
“My name is Mike Friedrich. I’m from California. My mother died when I was a baby — an incurable condition. I grew up researching anything that could have saved her. That’s how I found exosomes. That’s how I found Frontier. And that’s how I found you.” He paused. “I’m only in Tokyo until tomorrow. I know this is completely out of line. But I would be truly honored to have the chance to speak with you sometime — even just a phone call. What you’re building here could change everything.”
Toyota-san studied him for a long moment. His expression was unreadable — not cold, not warm, just deeply observant, as if he were cataloging Mike the way a scientist catalogs a specimen.
Then he opened his mouth dryly.
“I’m sorry for your loss. But I don’t appreciate baseless comments wildly thrown to get attention. If you have something to propose, I will consider it without prejudice.” He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a business card, and extended it between two fingers. “Email my office if you have anything concrete. We will see.”
Mike took the card with both hands and bowed — deeper than necessary, clumsier than he would have liked, but sincere.
Toyota-san turned and continued down the corridor without another word.
Two hours later, Ryota’s Bentayga pulled up outside the Frontier building. Mike climbed in holding the business card like it was made of gold.
“How’d it go?” Ryota asked.
“Better than I could have hoped.”
They grabbed coffee at a café near Azabujuban Station. Ryota talked about $SHIB — he’d been thinking about it nonstop since the ramen conversation. He’d need a developer for the token contracts, the launch mechanics, the community infrastructure. Mike was the obvious candidate.
“I’m in,” Mike said. “When you’re ready to move, I’m ready to build.”
Ryota grinned. “Also — keep building on Solana. Our fund is betting heavily into it. If you build good stuff, more funding will come.”
They finished their coffees. Ryota checked his phone, then looked at Mike.
“So how old are you again? Sixteen?”
“I turn seventeen tomorrow, actually.”
Ryota stared at him. “Wait — what? It’s your birthday tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“And what are you doing tonight?”
“Uh… I don’t know. Maybe some ramen?”
“The hell you are. Shut up and follow me.”
Ryota pulled out his phone and dialed. Mike had a sinking feeling he knew exactly where this was going.
Hours later, Mike and Ryota were sprawled across the black velvet sofas of the private room at Magic Eden, surrounded by empty bottles and the wreckage of what had been a very enthusiastic birthday celebration. The vintage Krug was gone. The Glenmorangie Signet was critically wounded. Two PST pizza boxes lay open and empty on the marble table, with fully conquered deliveries of yakitori and gyoza completing the ornamentation.
Tiffany was sitting on Mike’s lap, her arms draped around his neck. They’d been making out for what felt like an hour. Mike’s sixteen-year-old body was in full rebellion against his twenty-three-year-old brain, which was trying and failing to maintain some semblance of rational thought.
“Is this… not illegal?” Mike mumbled against her lips.
Ryota, voice thick and slurred from across the table, waved a hand dismissively. Yu-san was asleep on his shoulder. “It’s all fine in Japan. Just enjoy.”
Mike was fairly certain that was not an accurate summary of Japanese law, but he was also fairly certain he was too drunk to care.
As his eyelids grew heavier and the room began to tilt, Tiffany kissed him gently — softly, almost tenderly — and leaned close to his ear.
“Don’t forget about me,” she whispered, “when you launch your NFT venture.”
Mike’s last conscious thought, before the whiskey pulled him under, was that he was perhaps getting far too involved in the future of this universe.
End of Episode 10