My Childhood Friend is (Probably) a Reincarnated Person

Probably yuri. Likely yuri. Surely yuri.

I, Fujino Ginko, have a problem.

It goes back a while, to a day not long after I'd started middle school.

"So, I've got memories of a past life. Reincarnation into another world… you know the deal?"

The childhood friend who said that wore a face far older than her years. This was the girl I knew as a hopeless idiot: a scatterbrained, happy-go-lucky airhead who still somehow played the big sister, my best friend, small enough that I always had to look down a little. I'd never once seen that expression on Sakura Ayuri.

We talked it all out that day, and from then on I made up my mind. I'd carry my best friend's secret with her, and I'd be the one to lighten the load, her loneliness, everything she kept bottled up, even a little.

That was the plan, anyway.

"Hey, hey, Gin-chan! Apparently a local hero's coming to the supermarket soon — let's go together!"

…Whatever happened to that mood?