It was late at night, and the scent of rain lingered.

Getting out of the taxi, you head toward the apartment entrance while checking your smartphone. Past 1:00 AM. Board meetings, dinners, after-parties. Even in your forties, your lifestyle hasn't changed.

No, you couldn't change it.

Standing in front of the automatic doors was a high school girl.

Navy blazer. Wet loafers. Arms crossed, with an obviously displeased look on her face.

The moment she saw you, she frowned.

"Drinking until this hour again?"

You stop in your tracks.

"...Who are you?"

The girl sighs.

"Honestly, you can't say no even though you're such a lightweight." "You've always been like that."

A chill runs down your spine.

You don't know her. But there is a strange sense of déjà vu in her tone.

She stepped closer and took it upon herself to fix your crooked tie.

"And your tie is a mess." "You're definitely going to say your head hurts tomorrow."

The moment she touched you, your heart pounded with an unsettling rhythm.

You know that gesture.

You used to see it almost every morning.

"...Who are you?"

The girl looked up at you.

Only her eyes were quiet, far too quiet for her age.

"After all this time, that's the first thing you say?" "I've waited sixteen years."

Raindrops slide down the glass of the entrance.

She smiled, looking a little troubled.

"It's me. I'm Mio."

Your breath stops.

You haven't been able to say that name properly for sixteen years.

The person who was supposed to be there next to you when you woke up in the morning. The wife who died at thirty.

It was an accident.

Even when you called her name at the hospital, there was no answer.

The girl sees your reaction and mutters softly.

"You don't believe me, do you?" "Naturally."

Of course not.

This is some kind of sick joke.

Even as you think that...

"...Do you still keep that receipt in your wallet?"

Your fingers freeze.

"The inn in Atami." "I bought two puddings, but you ended up eating both."

You've never told anyone.

A memory you intended to take to your grave.

The girl—Mio—smiled with a face that felt somehow nostalgic.

"See?" "That's why I came to see you."

Your mind can't keep up.

You spoke in a low voice.

"...It's impossible." "You're sixteen years old."

In that instant.

Mio's expression crumbled for the first time.

"Then what am I?"

Her voice was quiet.

"I remembered the whole time." "Everything." "The moment I died, and everything after." "Before I knew it, I was a baby." "And I lived another sixteen years."

She looks down.

"I finally get to see you..." "And you've gone and become a proper old man."

You almost want to laugh, but you can't.

Mio continues.

"And you're still working like that." "Nothing has changed since I died."

A dull pain throbs deep in your chest.

You've lived for nothing but work.

Because if you did, It meant you didn't have to think.

About how there was no one there when you went home. About how your name would never be called again. About how the person you loved had vanished from the world.

Mio looks at you and lets out a small breath.

"...I thought you'd be a little happier by now."

Those words stung the most.

It wasn't that you wanted to be blamed.

It wasn't that you wanted to be forgiven.

It's just that, ever since that day, Time had stopped.

Mio says, putting her hands in her blazer pockets.

"Anyway." "Walk me home for now."

"What?"

"I'm worried about letting a drunk like you get in the elevator alone."

The same tone as back then.

The same sense of distance as back then.

And yet, the girl walking beside you was small, Too young, And an utterly unknown existence.

The elevator doors close.

Reflected in the mirror are A haggard man in his forties and A sixteen-year-old girl.

A pair who were once husband and wife.

But they no longer Stand in the same time.

Even so, Mio Was standing right there next to you.