"Try me."
Tetsuya bit back, his entire body tense.
She held his gaze — and for a moment — he felt like he was looking not at his girlfriend, but at the empty space between galaxies.
"You know how Yuria-chan talks about God? The one she prays to?"
Tetsuya's mind stuttered, struggling to connect the dots.
"What does her religion have to do with this?"
"Everything and nothing."
Mari's brow furrowed, as if she were genuinely struggling to translate an impossible concept into human language.
"Think of her God... He's like a character in a story. A very powerful and important character who can do amazing things inside the story."
The air in the room grew thick, heavy with unspoken implications. A primal fear — cold and sharp — began to crawl up Tetsuya's spine.
"And... what are you?"
He managed to choke out, the words tasting like ash.
"Telling you is the easy part, Tetsu. Believing it is where it gets difficult."
She said softly, her voice losing its usual cheerful lilt.
"You're a philosopher. You chase absolutes. What if I told you that you've been dating one?"
Tetsuya's mind went blank. The words were simple, but the meaning was an abyss.
"Wh—What are you saying?"
She met his terrified gaze with an unnerving calm. Her own eyes were filled with a deep, bottomless empathy, as if she was the one comforting him.
"You know all those concepts you love to debate?"
She began, her tone now quiet and deliberate, as if she were carefully laying out the pieces of a bomb.
"The Unmoved Mover of Aristotle. The Prime Cause. The single self-sufficient entity from which, all other things derive their existence."
The air grew thin. The dust motes seemed to freeze mid-air. Tetsuya felt a vertigo so intense he thought he would be sick — a primal fear that had nothing to do with exams or his future.
"That's me."
She said — her voice dropping to a near whisper — a confession that cracked the very foundations of his world.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Tetsuya's mind was a frantic kaleidoscope of fractured thoughts.
"Unmoved Mover. Prime Cause. God."
His Mari? The girl who tripped over her own feet? Tetsuya's brain finely tuned to detect paradoxes — was now face to face with the ultimate one.
He wanted to dismiss it as a cruel prank. But Mari's eyes — those deep placid eyes — held no mirth, no deception. Only a profound ancient knowing that sent a shiver down his spine. She wasn't lying. She was simply stating a fact that resided outside the realm of human comprehension.
Mari simply looked at the wilting petunias in the pot she was still holding. The petals were a pale sickly grey, drooping despondently. The leaves were yellowed and brittle. A plant on its last breath.
There was no flash of light or ethereal hum. A yellowed leaf shifted. The colour deepened, vibrant green flooding back into its veins. It perked up, becoming impossibly verdant. Then the green spread like a silent tide, flowing down the stem, into the other leaves. The wilting petals of the flower blushed with a sudden purple, firming, unfurling, as if rewinding time.
In the space of a single breath, the dying plant in her hand was no longer dying. It was vibrantly alive. It looked more real than any plant Tetsuya had ever seen.
Tetsuya stumbled back. His breath hitched in his throat. His entire body screamed, his mind convulsing against the undeniable. It was an act of pure creation happening right before his eyes, from nothing to everything.
Mari looked at the now thriving plant, gently placed it back on the windowsill.
"See, Tetsu? It's just what I do. But it's also not me. Does that make sense?"
She said, turning back to him, her expression soft — almost apologetic.
"No. Of course it doesn't. My head doesn't get it either. It's just the way I am born. The way I choose to be. It always has been. It always will be.
"This isn't real. I'm dreaming. I have to be."
Tetsuya lifted his left hand. His palm faced upwards. With his right hand, he extended his index finger. This was the classic foolproof reality check. In a dream — the flimsy architecture of the subconscious would yield. His finger would pass right through his palm.
He stared at his hand, then at his finger, then back again. He took a steadying breath. He pushed. His fingertip met the skin of his palm. And stopped.
There was the familiar pressure of flesh against flesh. The slight give of the skin, followed by the hard resistance of the bones beneath. His finger did not go through. He tried again. The same result.
He looked up from his hand, his gaze finding Mari's across the room. She was still standing by the windowsill, bathed in the orange light of the setting sun. The few meters of classroom floor separating them felt like a chasm between two separate realities. His — governed by logic and cause-and-effect. Hers — governed by... what?
He didn't see her move. There was no blur of motion. It was a glitch in spacetime localized to a petite high school girl.
One moment, she was there. The next, she was here.
Right in front of him, her shadow falling over his shaking hands. The air she displaced smelled faintly of cherry blossom shampoo and the impossible void. Her hand gently closed over his.
Her warmth was immediate, grounding. It was the same familiar warmth he knew so well.
"I'm sorry, Tetsu... I know this is scary."
She whispered, her voice laced with a genuine sorrow.