— Chapter 1: The Last Exam
The classroom clock ticked louder than it should have.
Ren Takahashi sat hunched over his desk, eyes locked on the notes he had rewritten a hundred times. His final exams were only days away, the kind of exams that determined which universities would even glance at his application.
His friends had already mapped out their futures: doctors, engineers, lawyers. Ren? He didn't even know what he wanted for lunch tomorrow.
But expectations were chains. His parents had already chosen his path for him. Work hard, don't slack off, and you'll succeed. That was the mantra drilled into his head since childhood.
Yet when he looked back at his seventeen years, he couldn't remember a single moment that felt like his own. Not once had he ever defied or gone against their wishes. Every important decision ever had always been planned for him.
---
That night, walking home from cram school, Ren's thoughts were interrupted by a gunshot followed by loud screams.
He turned a corner and froze.
A small crowd ran past him as he approached the scene. A man with a pistol was waving it wildly inside a convenience store, the cashier trembling behind the counter. A couple of customers cowered near the shelves.
Ren's heart hammered. Should I just walk away. Call the police. This isn't your problem dammit, why are you so concerned.
But for some reason, his legs moved forward. Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe it was stupidity. Or maybe, deep down, Ren just wanted—for once—to make a choice no one expected of him.
"Hey!" he shouted, grabbing a bottle from a nearby rack and throwing it. It smashed against the robber's shoulder.
The man turned to see Ren there standing ready to brawl but a few moments later only one sound was heard.
BANG!!!
Pain exploded in Ren's chest.
He staggered, collapsing to the floor as the sound of screaming blurred into nothing. His blood pooled warm beneath him. He had never felt anything like this, such pain, such agony.
---
As his vision dimmed, memories flashed—textbooks, exams, lectures, endless nights at his desk. A suffocating cycle.
Was this all I lived for? Just grinding away for grades? Putting on act as the perfect son just to please my parents? Why me?
For the first time in his life, regret burned hotter than pain. He had never laughed until his stomach hurt. Never chased a dream that was truly his. Never lived for himself.
And now, he never would.
His eyes closed.
"I guess this is where it ends"
---
Darkness.
Then… light.
When Ren opened his eyes again, he wasn't in the convenience store. He stood in an endless white void, his wound gone. He felt completely normal almost as if he was alive again. Out of nowhere a figure in the light appeared before him. Floating before him was a woman too beautiful to be real—hair like silver silk, eyes like twin moons, radiating both warmth and divinity. Almost like—a goddess.
"Ren Takahashi," she said softly. "Welcome to the afterlife."