A month and a half ago, five days before the accident, there was an evening voice call.
Ritsu and Eitai were playing a game together on voice chat, exchanging tactics and chatting.
Their conversation during the game was a messy mix of normal callouts during fights—Ritsu’s deadpan “Armor shattered, he’s low” when trading shots—and aimless chatter while looting.
It was usually Eitai doing most of the talking, with Ritsu throwing in an occasional “mm-hmm” or “yeah.”
Eitai would jump from a newly released game to the anime he was currently watching, then to a voice actor’s new role, and loop back to the show itself.
“Hey, have you watched that one, The Opposite? The romance anime that just came out this season?”
“No, busy.”
“I order you to watch it right now. Episode three is especially good. The female lead’s line, ‘You’re so cute,’ totally hooked the male lead.”
“Mm.”
“Hey, are you even listening to me?”
“There’s a fight between two teams on the right, and the zone is closing soon.”
“Fine, fine. Make sure to watch it next time… Hey, wait for me! I’m joining the sky dive!”
“We’ll talk when I have time.”
“Sigh, alright, alright.”
After that, their game ended when they got sandwiched by multiple squads attacking.
Ritsu logged off early because he had work the next day.
Later, they chatted about random things on LINE.
Eitai asked how work was going, and he said, “Not bad.”
He asked Eitai how he was doing, and Eitai said, “Same as usual.”
A few days later, three days before the car accident, they had their last conversation on LINE:
“That new anime I mentioned during our game the other day is amazing. Did you watch it? It’s that romance one called The Opposite.”
“Busy. I’ll watch when I have time next week.”
“Alright, alright. Everyone’s busy. Busy is good.”
“Don’t forget to take care of your lonely otaku friend.”
After that, Ritsu really was busy for three days, but he did manage to find time to watch all three episodes.
He thought the quality was average.
He used to love ACG, but work had put that hobby on hold.
That didn’t mean he’d lost interest in the culture, and Eitai’s recommendations were usually solid—he trusted the guy’s taste.
Then three days later, Eitai died.
—
Today, Haruka mentioned that anime in the interview.
And what she said was, “I only watched the first three episodes.”
The third episode.
Eitai was also on the third episode.
“I started watching anime out of boredom while I was hospitalized.”
—A perfectly normal reason.
Reasonable and believable.
Hoshino Haruka really didn’t watch much anime before.
Ritsu knew her entertainment preferences too well.
Haruka liked those cheesy romance dramas.
Not the high-end, complex kind that delved into social issues.
The cheesy kind where the male lead was the hottest guy in school and captain of the most popular sports club, the female lead was an ordinary but kind transfer student, they met under cherry blossoms, got tangled in an astronomical misunderstanding that stretched over dozens of episodes, and finally confessed at the cultural festival fireworks display.
Ritsu once couldn’t help asking her, “You’re an idol yourself, why do you watch idol-themed dramas? Don’t you think, ‘This is way too different from reality’?”
Haruka answered matter-of-factly, “How is that the same! Watching someone else play an idol and being an idol yourself are completely different experiences! Like, you work at an agency, but you still watch those workplace dramas—”
“I don’t watch workplace dramas.”
“Liar! Last year I caught you watching that Hanzawa Naoki show.”
“Market research. I just took a quick look. Not my type.”
“Then what do you like watching?”
“…Nothing.”
“You’re so boring.”
Anyway, it was certain that Haruka liked romance themes.
Her watching a romance anime while in the hospital made perfect sense logically.
From a management perspective, Haruka’s public image had no “otaku” label before.
But showing a little bit of relatable humanity—like “even idols watch anime”—could actually help bridge the gap with younger audiences, as long as it was controlled.
The key was not to go too deep: saying “I’m watching a romance anime” in public was a plus; saying “I analyzed the difference in this voice actor’s performance between this show and their previous work” was a minus.
So the fact that Haruka watched an anime wasn’t a problem, whether from a logical or a management standpoint.
The problem was her demeanor while talking about it.
Ritsu was standing about two meters behind and to the side of Haruka during the interview.
From that angle, he could clearly see her profile and overall body language, but she couldn’t see him.
When Editor Sato asked, “What did you watch?”
Haruka mentioned the name of that anime.
She got the name wrong, but she described the plot correctly.
And when she talked about the plot, her speech sped up, her eyes lit up, and her whole body leaned forward slightly—that kind of “I can’t help it because I really like it” posture.
He had seen that posture before.
Not on Hoshino Haruka, but on Matsumoto Hidetoshi.
Every time Eitai talked about an anime he liked on the phone, his voice would unconsciously rise half a tone, his speech would speed up until he was almost muttering to himself, his logic would jump from one character to a scene to a comparison with another work, and he’d get so excited he’d forget to breathe.
Haruka’s state today wasn’t identical, but it was about fifty or sixty percent similar.
Except compared to Eitai’s manic mode, Haruka, with her looks and voice, came off a bit cuter when talking about it.
When Ritsu saw that scene at the interview, a slight chill ran down his back.
‘Why only the first three episodes? This anime has already updated to episode eight…’
It was like suddenly catching a whiff of a perfume exactly like someone who died in a completely unfamiliar room.
You know that person is gone.
You know it’s just a coincidence.
But your body reacts faster than your reason.
“Hah, what are you thinking?”
Ritsu put down his phone and leaned back against the seat.
Haruka just watched a romance anime.
She happened to stop at episode three.
She happened to get a little excited when talking about it.
That’s it.
A sixteen-year-old girl watched a new anime, thought it was good, and excitedly talked about it for a bit.
What’s so strange about that?
Every day in Japan, hundreds of thousands of people are following this anime.
Those who watched three episodes and liked it probably number in the tens of thousands.
Those whose speech speeds up when talking about a good anime are in the thousands.
‘This is just a coincidence of probability, not some paranormal event.’
Moreover, Haruka has always liked romance genres.
It’s perfectly normal for her to get absorbed in a romance anime.
The only thing that’s not very “Hoshino Haruka” is that she didn’t watch much anime before.
But people’s interests definitely change.
After a month in the hospital, bored out of her mind, she could watch anything.
As for why only episode three, either she watched it a few days before being discharged, or she started on a whim, found it uninteresting, and stopped, since she didn’t watch much anime before.
What am I even thinking about?
Furthermore…
Ritsu leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
—Matsumoto Hidetoshi is already dead.
His body lay in the morgue for three days, then was cremated.
His ashes were placed in a simple urn, temporarily housed in an ossuary at some temple.
Since Eitai had no family cemetery, and Ritsu had neither the time nor the energy to handle purchasing a grave, it was a temporary arrangement.
He planned to take care of it properly—find Eitai a suitable resting place—once Haruka’s comeback affairs were settled.
Eitai’s apartment had also been cleared out.
Ritsu contacted the property management company and asked them to handle it: personal items packed and stored, the property left to await inheritance proceedings.
The tenants of Eitai’s rental properties were notified of the landlord’s death, and the management company was temporarily overseeing things.
A twenty-nine-year life, reduced to a few procedures, a few documents, a few phone calls.
Ritsu shifted his gaze back to his laptop screen.
There were still a few emails to read, and a new one had just arrived.
Tomorrow’s schedule and Haruka’s dance evaluation were waiting.
Haruka was also waiting.
“…What are you saying?” he muttered to himself, his voice very low.
“Don’t overlap the living with the dead, you idiot. That’s disrespectful to both.”
“Eitai has been gone for a long time. Don’t use him.”
Ritsu shook his head, his fingers landing back on the keyboard.
The sound of typing echoed in the quiet office, steady and rhythmic.
In the drawer, Eitai’s phone lay quietly, its screen dark.
The silver-haired girl on the lock screen continued to smile at that screen no one could see.