In the end, Hiroko stood on the snowy slope, screaming into the mountain air where he had fallen. “O-genki desu ka? Watashi wa genki desu!” (How are you? I am fine!)

It was a lie, of course. She wasn't fine. She was a ghost haunting her own life, searching for a version of the man she loved that hadn't been claimed by the mountains. But when the reply came—ink on paper, a physical breath from the beyond—the world fractured.

"Dear Itsuki Fujii," she had written. "How are you? I am fine."