REVERIE: Are we the two who found destiny?

Chapter 1 - A Girl Can Dream

"Oh my God! That was such a good movie! I can't believe we stalled it for so long." said Aiko.

"I know!"Rin said excitedly, "but I wish the father didn't have to die. He was my favourite character!"

It was close to midnight when the girls just finished "Train to Busan", a movie about a viral outbreak that led to a zombie apocalypse. Rin was disappointed that her favourite character had to die when the movie almost reached its end.

"I better get going, mom's gonna be furious." Aiko said hurriedly as it was getting too late.

"You literally live next door, chill. And you informed her beforehand."

"You know my mom. Or, am I talking to zombie Rin?"

Rin walked her best friend to the door and bid her a goodnight before she retired to her bedroom. Rin was like any other college kid. At the age of 22, she was a mass media student at The University of Tokyo while Aiko was a student of Modern English Studies at the Department of English where Rin's mother worked as Head of Department. When Rin chose Media over English, her mother had been furious and so began the saga of nagging her almost every semester when Aiko topped her class each time. Rin's mother, Mrs Takeuchi, was certain that Rin would do much better than she did in Media if she had taken up English. After two years of college, Rin got used to it and decided that she would top her class at least once before graduation to prove herself.

Rin and Aiko had been friends for the longest time. They lived next door to each other in the suburbs of the Roppongi Hills, Tokyo. Being only half-Japanese, Aiko was like her guardian angel who had been helping her for as long as she could remember. Aiko was brought up in a modern Japanese family where spoken English was highly encouraged. For Rin, who was not very fluent in Japanese due to English being the household language, it made things a lot easier for her. Rin's father was Japanese while her mother was Mizo. Her parents met when Rin's father, Haru Takeuchi, went to India for a global conference and the two immediately hit it off. A few years later, they got married as soon as Rin's mother got a job in Japan.

That night, sleep could not come to Rin immediately. Her disappointment over the movie's ending almost kept her up all night until she finally fell asleep a couple of hours later. During her sleep, she saw a dream where she was the director of the movie. Strangely, she felt she had control over her dream self. Almost like a lucid dream. The only difference was that it did not feel like a dream to her. In the dream, she made the ending of the movie to her liking; her favourite character surviving the zombie apocalypse. There was a crashing helicopter whose propeller the actor used to cut off his arm that was infected with the zombie virus. Hence, the rest of his body was safe from infection and was reunited with his daughter, whom he had been desperately trying to protect.

Rin missed the morning bus to the university as she overslept the next morning. She thought of skipping the day entirely because she dreaded the alternative to the college bus.

"Rin, when was the last time I drove you to college? It's been ages. You're worried over nothing. I can wait for you." Rin was breaking her fast with scrambled eggs and toast as her mother was getting ready to leave. "You can attend from second or third class."

"Mom, no. I'm not doing that again. I can go with Aiko. She takes the train."Mrs Takeuchi owned a Bentley Continental GT and it never failed to catch attention every morning as it pulled over in the parking lot. The first and last time her mom drove her to college was the inauguration day during her freshman year. Rin was surprising shy as opposed to the field of study she had chosen. When she was not working on projects, she was too shy to handle any amount of attention from people she barely knew.