[He turns away, and for a second she thinks, that was too much. Maybe it was too much. Maybe she pushed too much, demanded too much. He's not a little kid anymore. He's older than her, even. It leaves her wondering how this would go, if they were any two other people, instead of themselves. How would this go, if he were just a guy, and she were just a girl, and she hadn't pushed him out of a window on a warm August night and then died at the hand of a killer's knife and waited around fifteen years to see him brought to justice?

(He doesn't remember any of it, and for as much as it hurts, there's one second when she thinks to herself that it's better that he doesn't, because her mind fills in the blanks with something that might have been — if he'd asked his parents after, where's Reimi, why doesn't she want to play with me anymore, and four years old is far too young to have to be confronted with a truth like that.)

But then he sighs, and the sound jostles her out of her preoccupying thoughts, and it turns out it wasn't too much, after all.

She adopts a carefree tone, lighter than she really feels, but determined to make this easier on him, when she's already asked so much already.]

Hmm, maybe you'll just have to think of it as research. I think I'd make a pretty good manga protagonist, don't you? The thrilling adventures of a ghost girl in outer space! I bet there's tons of stuff you could do with that.