DESTROY

September 14 — 11:47 p.m.

Rei Kurose had always believed that an empty room was more honest than a crowded one.

An empty room didn’t pretend to like you.

It didn’t ask how your day had been when it didn’t actually want to know.

It didn’t smile because it was afraid of what would happen if it didn’t.

Most importantly, it couldn’t leave.

Rei stood in the middle of her new apartment, staring at the boxes surrounding her.

Six of them.

She had counted them twice.

Not because she cared about the number.

Because counting was easier than unpacking.

The apartment was smaller than she had imagined. Not unpleasantly small. Just quiet.

The kind of quiet that made every sound feel deliberate.

The refrigerator hummed somewhere in the kitchen. Pipes clicked inside the walls. A car passed outside, its headlights briefly sliding across the ceiling before disappearing.

Rei looked toward the window.

The city was still awake.

Thousands of windows glowed across the buildings opposite hers, each one containing a life she knew nothing about.

Someone was probably arguing.

Someone was probably crying.

Someone was probably kissing the person they had spent all day pretending not to think about.

Someone was probably packing a suitcase.

She wondered how many people were looking out of their own windows at that exact moment, wondering whether they had made the right decision.

She wondered how many of them were pretending they hadn’t.

Her phone vibrated on the kitchen counter.

Once.

She ignored it.

Again.

Rei glanced at the screen.

Mina.

Of course.

She walked over and picked up the phone.

Mina : Are you alive?

A small smile appeared on Rei’s face.

She typed.

Rei : Unfortunately.

The response came almost immediately.

Mina : So you’re alive enough to be annoying.

Rei : It’s one of my strongest qualities.

Mina : Did you unpack?

Rei looked around the apartment.

One box was functioning as a table.

Another was functioning as a chair.

Her mattress was still on the floor.

She looked back at her phone.

Rei : Define unpack.

Three dots appeared.

Disappeared.

Appeared again.

Mina : Rei.

Rei : What?

Mina : You moved in today.

Rei : I’m aware.

Mina : Then why are you still surrounded by boxes?

Rei glanced at them.

“Because they’re loyal,” she murmured.

She typed:

Rei : I’m getting to it.

Mina : That’s what you said four hours ago.

Rei smiled.

She could picture Mina’s face.

The slight frown.

The impatient tapping of her fingers against her phone.

The way she always looked at Rei as if she could see the answer before Rei had decided whether to give it.

Then another message appeared.

Mina : Are you actually okay?

Rei stopped smiling.

There it was.

The question underneath all the other questions.

Her thumb hovered above the keyboard.

People rarely asked what they really wanted to know.

They asked whether you were tired.

Whether you’d eaten.

Whether you were angry.

Whether you were happy.

And you gave them the appropriate answer.

Fine.

Yeah.

I’m okay.

Don’t worry.

Nothing happened.

You learned the right answers eventually.

The problem was that sometimes someone asked the wrong question.

Are you actually okay?

Rei locked her phone.

She placed it face down on the counter.

Silence returned.

She preferred it.

At least silence never demanded honesty.

She sat on the floor beside the largest box.

There was something written across the top in black marker.

OLD.

Rei frowned.

She didn’t remember labeling it.

She pulled the box toward her and began peeling away the tape.

The cardboard made a soft ripping sound.

Inside were things she hadn’t seen in years.

An old scarf.

A notebook with a bent cover.

A dried flower pressed between two pages.

A bracelet with a broken clasp.

A perfume bottle containing almost nothing.

And three photographs.

Rei picked up the first one.

Four people stood beneath a summer sky.

Everyone was smiling.

Including her.

She stared at her own face.

She looked happy.

That was interesting.

She couldn’t remember being happy that day.

She remembered the place.

The heat.

What she had been wearing.

Someone complaining about the sun.

She remembered laughing.

But she couldn’t remember why.

Rei turned the photograph over.

Nothing.

No date.

No names.

Just white paper.

She ran her thumb across its surface.

People talked about memories as if they were photographs.

Something permanent.

Something accurate.

They weren’t.

Memory was closer to a story.

Every time you remembered something, you changed it.

You forgot details.

You invented explanations.

You softened things that hurt.

You exaggerated things that didn’t.

Eventually, you weren’t remembering what happened.

You were remembering what you had decided it meant.

Rei looked at the photograph again.

Maybe that was why she kept it.

Not because she missed those people.

Not because she wanted to go back.

Maybe she simply wanted proof that she had once been someone else.

Someone who could stand in the middle of a crowd and believe she belonged there.

Her phone vibrated again.

She didn’t reach for it.

Another vibration.

Then another.

Finally, she sighed and picked it up.

Mina : I’m serious.

A second message appeared.

Mina : You don’t have to tell me everything.

Rei stared at the screen.

Then:

Mina : Just don’t disappear on me.

Something inside her tightened.

Not painfully.

Something quieter.

Something older.

She typed:

Rei : I won’t.

She stared at the words.

Then deleted them.

She tried again.

Rei: I’m here.

She pressed send.

The message showed as delivered.

For some reason, that felt like enough.

12:16 a.m.Rei placed the photograph back inside the box.

She closed the lid.

For several seconds, she remained sitting on the floor.

The apartment was still unfamiliar.

The walls were still empty.

The silence still felt too large.

But there was something else now.

Something she hadn’t expected.

Relief.

Not happiness.

Not sadness.

Relief.

The kind that arrives when you finally stop waiting for something to happen.

Rei leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes.

Maybe this is what freedom feels like.

She opened her eyes.

Or maybe this is what loneliness feels like when you finally stop pretending it’s temporary.

She hated that thought.

Mostly because it sounded true.

She stood and walked toward the window.

Her reflection appeared in the glass.

Black hair falling over her shoulders.

Tired eyes.

A face that looked calmer than she felt.

For a moment, she didn’t recognize herself.

Then she smiled.

Not because she was happy.

Because she had learned that sometimes a smile was simply the easiest expression to wear.

“Good,” she whispered.

Her reflection stared back at her.

“Let’s start over.”

Outside, the city continued moving.

People were going home.

People were leaving.

People were falling in love.

People were falling apart.

People were making promises they would eventually break.

People were convincing themselves that this time would be different.

Rei watched the lights below.

She had always admired people who could leave without looking back.

She had never understood that looking back wasn’t the opposite of leaving.

Sometimes, it was the only way to know what you had escaped.

She turned away from the window.

The apartment was dark now.

Quiet.

Empty.

Honest.

Rei switched off the last light.

And somewhere between one life ending and another beginning, she made the first mistake of her new life.

She believed she was starting over.

She wasn’t.

She was bringing herself with her.