It all started three years ago, in the slightly stuffy, chemical-scented air of our high school chemistry lab. I wasn't exactly a star student, often finding the patterns in the ceiling tiles more interesting than the periodic table. But that day, things changed. That was the day I was paired with Rina.
Rina. Even now, saying her name feels like a soft warmth spreading through my chest. Back then, she was just the quiet, focused girl from the front row, the one whose notes were always perfectly neat and whose hand shot up with the right answer before anyone else could even process the question. When Mr. Harrison announced our lab pairings, and my name was called alongside hers, a weird mix of dread and a strange, fluttery excitement hit me. Dread because I was sure I'd somehow mess up and drag down her perfect score. Excitement because, well, it was Rina.
Our first experiment involved mixing some brightly colored liquids that were supposed to produce a specific, boringly predictable precipitate. I remember fumbling with a beaker, nearly sending it crashing to the floor. Rina, without a word, just calmly reached out, her fingers brushing mine for a fleeting second as she steadied the glass. "Careful," she'd said, a tiny smile playing on her lips. Her voice was softer than I expected. That was it. That was the moment. The world, which usually felt a bit fuzzy around the edges, sharpened its focus right on her. The bunsen burners, the bubbling concoctions of other students, the droning voice of Mr. Harrison – it all faded into a blurry background. There was just Rina, her dark eyes surprisingly kind, and the faint, clean scent of soap that clung to her.
From that day on, "lab partners" slowly, easily, morphed into "study buddies." We'd meet in the library, surrounded by towering shelves of books that smelled of old paper and dust. Then it became "friends," sharing cheap ramen after school or walking home together, our conversations drifting from homework to silly jokes to our dreams for the future. Rina, I discovered, wasn't just smart; she was funny, curious about everything, and incredibly easy to talk to.
The years flew by in that comfortable rhythm. Then came my eighteenth birthday. We were at the local park, sitting on an old wooden bench under a sky dusted with so many stars it looked like spilled glitter. The distant city hummed, a soft counterpoint to the chirping crickets. We weren't talking about anything in particular, just enjoying the comfortable silence that had grown between us. Then, Rina turned to me, her eyes reflecting the starlight. "Kaito," she began, and the way she said my name, a little hesitant, a little breathless, made my heart skip. That night, Rina wasn't just my best friend, my lab partner, or my study buddy anymore. She was something more, something wonderful.
Life with Rina was like seeing the world in high definition for the first time. And the world, it seemed, was getting progressively weirder.
We talked about everything, Rina and I. School, our families, what movies to watch, and, increasingly, the strange things being reported on the news. One evening, curled up on my couch with her tablet illuminating our faces in the dim light of my living room, she brought it up again. "Have you seen the latest on those… metallic beans?"
She was talking about the mysterious objects that had started appearing all over the globe. They were smooth, seamless, and undeniably metallic, shaped somewhat like a giant kidney bean. Some were the size of a small car, others slightly larger. They'd just… show up. One day a farmer's field in Iowa would be empty; the next, one of these silent, enigmatic pods would be sitting there as if it had sprouted overnight.
"Another one?" I asked, leaning closer to look at the news article on her screen.
"Yeah, this one in the Australian outback," she murmured, scrolling. "And get this, some of the older ones they've managed to, well, crack open? They're filled with this weird, translucent goo. No one knows what it is."
The truly baffling part was their age. Archaeologists had unearthed similar objects in ancient ruins, tangled in the roots of centuries-old trees, their metallic surfaces surprisingly untarnished. Carbon dating placed some of them as being hundreds, even thousands of years old. Yet, others had appeared just weeks, or even days, ago.
"It's like they're not all arriving at the same time, but… appearing from different times?" I mused, trying to wrap my head around it.
Rina nodded slowly, her brow furrowed in that cute way it did when she was deep in thought. "And then there's this other thing," she said, tapping the screen to a different article. "People reporting broken pieces of metal just… appearing inside their houses. Like, one minute you're watching TV, the next, there's a jagged piece of unidentifiable metal on your coffee table. Some look like shrapnel, twisted and torn."
The images showed random, sharp-edged fragments. No explosions, no break-ins. Just… there. The news anchors sounded bewildered, experts offered vague theories, but no one had any real answers. The world felt a bit like a badly written sci-fi novel sometimes.
"Do you think they're connected?" Rina asked, her voice soft, her eyes searching mine. "The beans and the metal bits?"
I looked at her, at the genuine curiosity and a tiny flicker of unease in her expression. I didn't have an answer. The world was throwing curveballs, strange and unexplainable things that made the future feel less certain, more chaotic. But looking at Rina, her presence a steady anchor in the growing weirdness, I felt a sense of calm.
"I don't know," I admitted, taking her hand. "But whatever it is, we'll figure it out. Or at least, we'll be confused about it together."
She squeezed my hand, a small smile returning to her face. "Sounds like a plan."
The world was definitely getting stranger, filled with metallic beans from who-knows-where and mystery shrapnel appearing out of thin air. But with Rina by my side, even the unknown felt less like a threat and more like an adventure waiting to unfold. An adventure I was glad I wouldn't be facing alone.