“The tea is getting cold,” she said, staring into the smooth surface that reflected her face like a mirror. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the tatami floor of her small apartment.
I watched as Yuki lifted the ceramic cup with both hands, her delicate fingers wrapped around its weathered exterior. We had been meeting like this every Thursday for the past three months, ever since I returned—or perhaps “reawakened” is a better word.
“Do you remember,” she began, her voice soft but steady, “the first time we had tea together?”
“Which first time?” I asked, though I knew exactly what she meant. The memory was as clear as the liquid in my own untouched cup.
She smiled, the kind of smile that carried both joy and sadness. “The original first time, of course. Before everything changed.”
I nodded slowly. It was strange, carrying two sets of memories—the life I had lived before, and this new existence I had been granted. The tea shop where we first met had long since closed, replaced by a convenience store that glowed with harsh fluorescent light through the night.
“I’ve been thinking,” Yuki continued, setting down her cup with precise movement, “about why you came back. Why you remember everything when no one else does.”
The question hung in the air between us, as tangible as the steam rising from our cups. I had asked myself the same thing countless times since awakening in this second life with full awareness of my previous existence.
“Maybe,” I ventured, “it’s not about why I came back, but what I’m supposed to do with this knowledge.”
Yuki leaned forward slightly, her dark eyes intent. “And what have you decided?”
“I haven’t,” I admitted. “Sometimes I think knowing everything that will happen is more of a curse than a blessing. The smooth surface of life gets rippled every time I try to change things.”
She reached across the table and touched my hand, her fingers warm from holding the tea cup. “Perhaps that’s exactly the point. Maybe you’re not meant to change things, but to understand them better this time around.”
The sun had nearly set now, painting the room in shades of amber and purple. In my previous life, I had let this moment slip away, had stood up and walked out of her apartment and her life. The memory of her expression that day had haunted me until the end.
“The tea is getting cold,” I said, echoing her earlier words, but this time I lifted the cup to my lips and drank deeply. The liquid was perfect—not too hot, not too cold, just as smooth as the surface had appeared.
Yuki’s smile widened, understanding dawning in her eyes. “Sometimes,” she said, “the most significant changes come not from altering events, but from changing how we experience them.”
As darkness settled around us like a comfortable blanket, I realized that perhaps this was the true purpose of my rebirth—not to rewrite history, but to fully live the moments I had once let slip away, as smooth and precious as the tea we shared.