Ryouma died reaching for a can of soup.
Not even good soup. Store-brand minestrone, the kind that came in dented cans at the back of the discount shelf. He'd been standing on his kitchen counter in socks—already a mistake—stretching toward the top cabinet where he'd shoved all the things he bought on sale and then forgot about.
The counter was laminate. His socks were cotton. Physics did the rest.
His last thought wasn't profound. It wasn't a flash of his life or a moment of clarity about what really mattered. It was: Oh, this is going to hurt.
Then his head hit the corner of the kitchen table, and it didn't hurt at all.
The thing about dying unremarkably is that you have a lot of time to think about it afterward.
Ryouma wasn't sure how long he floated in the dark. There was no light, no sound, no sense of having a body. Just... awareness. The kind of awareness you have at 3 AM when you can't sleep and your brain decides to replay every embarrassing thing you've ever said.
I died reaching for soup, he thought. That's going to be on my headstone. "Here lies Ryouma Tanaka, 32, taken from us by discount minestrone."
Except there probably wouldn't be a headstone. Who would pay for it? His parents were gone. He didn't have siblings. His coworkers would find out when he didn't show up for his shift at the convenience store, and they'd say something like "Oh, that's sad" and then hire someone else.
His landlord would be annoyed about the security deposit.
That was the worst part, Ryouma decided. Not the dying—everyone died eventually. But the fact that his death would be an inconvenience. Someone would have to clean out his apartment. Someone would have to deal with his stuff. The half-finished cup of coffee on his desk. The laundry he'd been meaning to fold. The library books that were already overdue.
I should have returned those books, he thought, and felt genuinely bad about it.
He'd always been like that. Worried about the small things. The kind of person who apologized when someone else bumped into him. Who left exact change plus tip even at self-service restaurants. Who picked up trash that wasn't his because, well, someone had to.
His therapist—back when he could afford therapy—had called it "chronic responsibility complex."
His mother had called it "being a good boy."
Ryouma had called it exhausting.
But he'd never been able to stop. Even when he was tired, even when no one noticed, even when it didn't matter. He'd see someone struggling with groceries and carry them up four flights of stairs. He'd stay late to help the new hire figure out the register. He'd give his umbrella to strangers in the rain and then get soaked walking home.
Not because he was kind. Not really. He just... couldn't walk away. Couldn't see someone who needed help and pretend he didn't notice.
It had made his life smaller. Quieter. He'd never traveled because he was always covering someone's shift. Never dated because he was too tired after work to go out. Never pursued the things he wanted because there was always someone who needed something more.
And now he was dead, floating in the dark, and his biggest regret was overdue library books.
Pathetic, he thought, without much heat. I'm pathetic.
But even as he thought it, he knew he'd do it all again. The helping. The carrying. The staying late. Because what was the alternative? Walking past people who needed help? Pretending not to see?
He couldn't do that. He'd never been able to do that.
Maybe that's why I died alone, he thought. Maybe that's what I deserve.
"You don't deserve anything."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It wasn't loud, but it filled the darkness completely, the way water fills a glass.
Ryouma tried to respond and discovered he didn't have a mouth. Or a body. Or any way to indicate that he'd heard anything at all.
"You're thinking very loudly," the voice continued. It sounded... tired. Not old, exactly, but worn down. Like a teacher on the last day before summer break. "And you're wrong. About deserving things. That's not how any of this works."
Who are you? Ryouma thought, as loudly as he could.
"Does it matter?"
Yes?
"Why?"
Because I'd like to know who I'm talking to?
There was a pause. Then something that might have been a sigh.
"You died," the voice said. "Stupidly. Reaching for soup. And now you're here, in the space between, and I'm supposed to process you. Send you on to whatever comes next. Reincarnation, void, paradise, punishment—there are options. Bureaucracy. You understand."
Not really, Ryouma thought.
"No one does. That's fine. The point is, you're dead, and I'm here to move you along, and normally this takes about six seconds. But you've been here for—" Another pause. "—approximately four hours of subjective time, thinking in circles about library books and whether you were a good person."
Was I?
"What?"
A good person.
The voice made a sound that definitely wasn't a laugh, but might have been adjacent to one.
"You died reaching for discount soup because you were too tired to cook a real meal because you'd worked a double shift covering for someone who didn't even thank you. You spent your last paycheck on groceries for your elderly neighbor. You apologized to the table you hit with your head. So no, you weren't a good person."
Ryouma felt something sink in his non-existent chest.
"You were just a person," the voice continued. "Who helped when you could. That's not goodness. That's just... what you did. And now you're dead, and it didn't matter, and you're worried about library books."
It matters to the library.
"The library will be fine."
Someone will have to pay the late fees.
"They'll waive them. You're dead."
That's not fair to the other patrons.
The silence that followed was very long.
"You're serious," the voice said finally.
Yes?
"You're actually concerned about late fees. Right now. While dead."
Someone has to be.
Another pause. Then:
"Okay. Fine. You know what? I'm not supposed to do this. There are rules. Procedures. A whole system. But I've been doing this job for longer than your species has had language, and I am tired, and you're worried about library books, so—fine. You want to help people? You want to carry things that aren't your responsibility? You want to apologize to furniture?"
I didn't mean to—
"Here's your second chance. No cheat skills. No divine blessing. No system interface. Just you, human, in a world that will break you if you let it. And when you inevitably try to save everyone—because you will, because you can't help yourself—remember that I gave you exactly what you asked for."
I didn't ask for anything, Ryouma thought, but the darkness was already dissolving, pulling apart like cotton candy in water.
The last thing he heard was:
"That's the problem. You never do."
Ryouma woke up crying.
Not sobbing—just tears, running down his face in the automatic way that happens sometimes when you sleep wrong. He was lying on his back in grass, staring up at a sky that was the wrong color blue, and his first thought was:
I'm alive.
His second thought was:
I need to return those library books.
His third thought, as he sat up and looked around at the forest that definitely wasn't his kitchen, was:
Oh no.