"What do you think happens when we die?"
Reika’s voice was calm, distant, as if she were asking about the weather.
I gnced at her from across the table, the soft glow of the café’s dim lighting reflecting off her dark hair. The city hummed outside, the neon signs flickering against the rain-slicked streets, but inside, it was quiet—just the low murmur of conversation, the faint clink of coffee cups.
"That’s pretty morbid for lunch conversation," I said, stabbing at my food with my chopsticks.
She rested her chin on her hand, amethyst eyes unreadable—a color so striking, yet so easily dismissed as a trick of the light.
"It’s not morbid," she corrected. "It’s just something I think about a lot."
That was Reika Tachibana.
Brilliant. Detached. Always thinking about things in a way no one else did.
She had always been a little bit different—not in the obvious way, not in the kind of way that made people uncomfortable, but in a way that made her seem like she was only half here. Like part of her was always somewhere else, just out of reach.
I had known her since high school, and in all that time, she had never quite fit into the world the way everyone else did. She wasn’t antisocial. She wasn’t cold. But she always looked at things from an angle no one else considered.
She was the kind of person who would get lost in thought at a museum for hours, staring at ancient relics like they were whispering secrets only she could hear.
The kind of person who read scientific journals for fun, but also believed in things beyond logic—not out of faith, but because she refused to accept that reality was as simple as people cimed it to be.
Smart enough to see the world for what it was. Strange enough to question why it had to be that way.
"So?" she prompted, swirling the straw in her iced coffee. "What do you think?"
I sighed. "I don’t know. I guess I’ve never really thought about it."
She gave me a half-smile, the kind that always made me feel like she knew something I didn’t. "That’s because you don’t like thinking about things you can’t control."
"And you do?"
"It’s the only thing worth thinking about."
I rolled my eyes. "Great. You’re going to become one of those people who disappears into the mountains to achieve enlightenment, aren’t you?"
She ughed softly. "No, I’d get bored. But..." She tapped her fingers lightly against the table. "I just think... the world feels small sometimes, don’t you?"
"We live in Tokyo."
"That’s not what I mean."
She tilted her head slightly, gaze shifting toward the window, watching as the rain dripped down the gss.
"Doesn’t it feel like there’s something bigger out there? Like we’re only seeing a fraction of what actually exists?"
I hesitated. The thing about Reika was—she didn’t ask questions unless she already had an answer in mind.
"You don’t mean space, do you?"
She shook her head. "No. I mean... something closer. Something we can’t see, but is right there."
"Like ghosts?"
A small smile. "Maybe."
I groaned, running a hand through my hair. "And this is why you don’t have many friends."
"I have you," she pointed out.
"Yeah, yeah. Lucky me."
She studied me for a moment, and I could tell she was about to say something else, something that would probably keep me up at night thinking about it.
But then—her phone buzzed, snapping her out of whatever strange train of thought she had been riding.
She blinked, looked down, and sighed.
"My professor just reminded me about that paper I haven’t started."
"The one due tomorrow?"
"The very same."
"You’re ridiculous."
"I prefer ‘brilliant under pressure.’"
She finished the st sip of her coffee, grabbed her bag, and stood.
"Come on, let’s go."
"Go where?"
She smiled. The same way she always did—like she was already five steps ahead of me.
"There’s this old temple I read about. It’s supposed to have something weird inside."
"Reika—"
"You’ll like it," she assured me.
I sighed, grabbing my jacket.
"You owe me dinner after this."
"If we find something cool, you’ll thank me."
She had been right.
We had found something.
And I would never see that version of her again.