Chapter 2 REFLECTION OF THE PAST

The next morning, Juliette awoke before her alarm. Her eyes darted to the mirror even before her feet hit the cold wooden floor. The room in the reflection was empty. Still. But she waited.

She brushed her hair, sipped on her espresso, and sat by the mirror like someone waiting for a letter. And just as the last note of dawn colored the Parisian sky, he appeared.

Ren.

His hair was a bit tousled today. He wore a simple gray sweater. He waved first.

She waved back, cheeks tinged pink.

This time, she wrote first:

WHERE?

He replied:

KAMAKURA.

Then added:

NEAR TOKYO. SEASIDE. QUIET.

She scribbled:

PARIS. NEAR SACRÉ-CŒUR.

Ren's eyebrows lifted. He smiled and drew a tiny Eiffel Tower.

They began to exchange more-pictures of their surroundings, memories, little pieces of their days. Juliette showed him her grandmother's old cat, Noir, who promptly pawed at the mirror curiously. Ren laughed and held up a sketch of a crane flying over the sea.

She learned he was an illustrator. He worked from home, often drawing for children's books. His grandfather had been a soldier in World War II, and the mirror had come into his possession during the war. The same war her great-grandfather had fought in.

"Strange coincidence," she wrote.

Ren's smile softened.

"Not a coincidence," he wrote back. "Mirror chose us."

Juliette stared at the words, something ancient and heavy settling over her heart. Could it be true? Could this mirror have waited decades to bring them together?

Later that day, she visited the attic. Among her grandmother's things, she found a faded letter. A letter written by her great-grandfather during the war. In it, he described finding a 'shard of enchanted glass in the forest,' and how 'looking into it made him feel as though someone was staring back.'

Juliette clutched the letter to her chest.

This was bigger than them.

That night, she sat before the mirror again. Ren was waiting, holding a lantern sketch with both their names woven into the design.

She held up her own drawing: two hands meeting through glass.

And underneath it, one word:

DESTINY.