Table of Contents

Color Gallery
Table of Contents Page
Copyrights and Credits
Title Page
Chapter 1: April 1st, 3 p.m.
Chapter 2: April 5th, 6 p.m.
Chapter 3: April 4th, 6 p.m.
Chapter 4: April 3rd, 6 p.m.
Chapter 5: April 2nd, 6 p.m.
Chapter 6: April 1st, 6 p.m.
Final Chapter
Afterword
Creator Profiles
Newsletter
 HAVING ANGUISHED AND LANGUISHED till I could anguish no
more, I grew fed up with the notion that overanalyzing my
anxieties would do me any good and turned my head toward the
sky as if to mark a clean break from this pessimistic spiral. To my
surprise, the azure expanse of air above was every bit as clear and
tranquil as the serenity of mind I craved. A lone black kite painted
figure-eight shapes against the firmament, its doleful whinnying
call ringing out from on high as it scanned the earth for its next
meal. Beside it hung the receding moon, still and placid in the
morning sky like a single drop of spilled milk.
I sucked in a nourishing breath of crisp, coastal air to provide
my weary brain with a fresh supply of oxygen. Nostrils now
lubricated from the sting of brine on the breeze, I picked up the
slightest hint of plum blossoms amidst the usual scent of sea salt.

It was the spring before my final year of high school. I was

seventeen.

I brought my gaze back down to the road ahead and

resumed my homeward saunter along the coast while waves
crashed against the seawall beside me. It was by no means the
most direct way home, but that suited me just fine—I needed the
extra time to think.
I thought back to last night—that fateful occurrence that had
been the catalyst for all of this but also an ending of sorts for me
in particular. The reality of it all still had yet to fully set in. I could
only play back the events of the night before over and over in my
head, asking myself ad infinitum whether this was truly the ending
I wanted or if there was something more I could have done; a
different choice I could have made, a better outcome. The more I
thought on it, the more it began to feel like my mind was being
swallowed up by quicksand, each attempt to break free only
dragging me deeper into a mire of my own regret.
I nevertheless continued trying (and failing) to cram my
disparate thoughts into a single cohesive shape that I could wrap
my head around, until before I knew it, I was standing outside the
door to my house. I strode through the entryway, kicked off my
shoes, and headed straight for my room without even announcing
my return. I couldn’t muster up the willpower to do much of
anything, so I threw myself down on the bed and tried to expel the
unending flood of distressing thoughts with every labored sigh that
passed through my lips. It wasn’t long before the feelings of
exhaustion began to set in. It made sense, given that I hadn’t
slept a wink since the night before last.
No sooner had I closed my eyelids than did a stream of
memories begin to flash against their undersides in quick
succession, like a series of slides on an overhead projector—
memories of Akari, and of the past few days we’d spent together.
She’d be laughing in one, crying the next, blushing up a storm in
yet another. As these images played out against the backs of my
eyelids, like individual freeze frames in time and space, I realized
just how blessed I’d been to share each of these precious, fleeting
moments with her. Just having her in my vicinity—speaking,
listening, existing—was enough to make me feel content with my
sorry little life. That was exactly why, regardless of the choices I
might have made, or the ones I’d make in the future, I swore to
myself I’d do whatever it took to—

Before I could finish that thought, my mind finally

succumbed to my body’s pressing demands for sleep, and I lost
consciousness.
 FOR THE FIRST TIME in nearly two years, I was sitting aboard
a small but familiar passenger ferry, letting the slow undulations of
the waves rock me gently from side to side. From my seat by the
window, I could survey almost the entire indoor seating area.
There were a hundred-and-some-odd seats on this vessel, if
memory served, yet you could count the number of actual
passengers on one hand. I glanced up at the old hanging wall
clock and noticed that it was 3 p.m. on the dot, meaning it had
already been well over six hours since I left Tokyo. With my elbow
braced on the windowsill for support, I rested my head against my
palm and let out a short, wistful sigh.
I’d run away from home, and for a pathetically clichéd
reason, no less. Try as I might to purge the unpleasant thoughts
from my mind, they came rushing back after every attempt. I was
partially at fault, to be fair. It wasn’t okay for me to have skipped
out on my spring break supplementary classes, and I only
worsened things by trying to cover it up with a lame excuse when
my dad caught me red-handed playing hooky at a local bookstore
(I’d tried to play it off as though the pulpy sci-fi novel I was leafing
through was, in fact, teacher-recommended studying material for
its practical applications of physics concepts).
Those two initial blunders aside, I genuinely believed the
vast majority of the fault landed on my father’s end of the table.
As far as I was concerned, the way he lashed out at me as soon
as we got home—calling me a waste of his money, a “high school
dropout in the making,” a disappointment to the family, and just a
plain-old hopeless case—was extremely uncalled for. A lot of it was
straight-up verbal abuse.
I knew it was wrong to skip out on my classes. I fully
admitted that. It was my father, though, who insisted I take
supplementary courses in the first place. I certainly wasn’t
enthused about the idea of having to spend my spring break in
school, but he wouldn’t hear otherwise. Yes, he had indeed been
footing the bill for my tuition and living expenses, but it was
always his idea to invite me to live with him in Tokyo. Yet I simply
stood there, eyes downcast, letting him verbally berate me for
what felt like hours on end, all the while resisting the urge to call
him out on just how unreasonable he was being. That last, almost
casual quip he made—I doubted he thought before saying it, to be
honest—was the final push over the edge:
“I knew it was a mistake to bring you back to Tokyo with
me.”
That single line hit me so hard, it felt like I’d been bashed
over the head by a baseball bat. After two or three seconds of
dumbfounded silence (maybe it was longer, actually—hard to say),
I stomped off to my bedroom and slammed the door behind me.
Ignoring my dad’s incessant yelling, I crammed a few changes of
clothes and some bare necessities into an overnight bag, and as
soon as I woke up the next morning, I ran out the front door. More
than half a day had now passed since the altercation, yet thinking
back on it still made me grind my teeth in frustration.
“…Stupid asshole,” I cursed under my breath, the hot air
fogging up the window pane.
I knew it wouldn’t do me any favors to keep reliving these
events on a loop inside my head, so I chose to abandon this line of
thought and gaze out at the open ocean, its waves shimmering
brightly beneath the midafternoon sun. The deep blue waters were
fairly choppy today, causing the little ferryboat to rock back and
forth and teeter from side to side. It was actually beginning to
make me feel a little bit seasick, though it was possible the
turbulence had nothing to do with that. I might have brought
the nausea on myself by way of anxiety alone.
I stood up from my seat even so and headed toward the
front of the ship to get some fresh air. The moment I stepped out
onto the deck, a blustery wind snatched up the hood of my
sweatshirt and sent it flapping furiously against the back of my
neck. The early spring air felt slightly icy against my skin, more so
than it would without the added wind chill, but it gave me exactly
the refreshing jolt I was looking for. The frigid breeze snapped me
right out of my depressive cycle; I was already feeling more alive
again.
I looked around, but there were no other people standing
out on the windswept deck. With measured steps, I made my way
toward the bow, where I leaned over the railing at the front of the
ship. Straight ahead of us, I could see our destination: the tiny
remote island I once called home, yet hadn’t even visited for two
entire years. Sodeshima.

We soon made port at Sodeshima Harbor. I slung my

overnight bag over my shoulder and prepared to disembark. As
soon as I stepped off the ferry and exited the harbor, however, I
spied someone I recognized walking down the sidewalk on the
other side of the street. Though his hair was a bit longer than it
had been two years prior, I could have recognized that dusky crew
cut and imposing stature anywhere. I’d spotted Akito Hoshina.
Back when I lived in Sodeshima, he was about the closest
thing to a celebrity the small island could claim. With his
extraordinary athleticism and baseball skills, he single-handedly led
our no-name high school’s baseball team to nationals at Koshien—
an achievement that made him the talk of the town for quite some
time. He was the guy that every young boy on the island wanted
to grow up to be, myself included. Considering he was three years
my senior…he must be twenty years old by now. I wondered what
he was up to nowadays. We’d had a couple of very brief
interactions in the past, so I considered calling out to say hi, but
by the time I made up my mind, he’d already disappeared into the
ticket office for the outbound ferry. I’d officially missed my chance.
“…Oh well. Maybe next time.”
I’d make a point to be more assertive in approaching him if
another opportunity arose, I decided. I turned away from the
ticket office in the direction of the one place I knew would put me
up for a while: my grandmother’s house.
After passing through the few blocks of tourism companies
and traditional-style inns that centered around the harbor, I
headed inland up the steep and narrow residential streets. Though
I was born in Tokyo, I’d spent the majority of my life in Sodeshima.
I now lived a life indistinguishable from any high-school-aged
Tokyoite, but it was here in Podunk Sodeshima that I attended
elementary and junior high, my most formative years. Sodeshima
was more of a hometown to me in that respect than Tokyo would
ever be. One could practically say that this wasn’t a case of me
running away from home but a kind of homecoming…not that that
distinction changed anything.
Speaking of things not changing, I thought to myself as I
glanced up and down the streets of Sodeshima, noting the
surprising lack of much development over the past two years.
Everything was for the most part exactly how I remembered it.
Nothing but old Japanese-style houses lined the streets of these
neighborhoods, with nary a modern building in sight. This was a
level of eerie stasis that went way beyond evoking nostalgia,
straight into the realm of mind-numbing stagnation.
After hoofing it uphill for close to ten minutes, I came to a
stop before a two-story wooden house with the nameplate reading
FUNAMI posted on its gate. I was home. As I struggled like always
with the rickety door that fit poorly in its jamb, I called into the
house, and my grandmother quickly walked out from the living
room to greet me.
“Welcome home, Kanae,” she said, the deep wrinkles in her
face stretching and shifting into the form of a broad and soothing
smile. She was already in her late eighties but stood upright as
ever, arrow-straight. By all accounts, she was extremely spry for
her age; her excellent health was the one thing I was grateful to
see had stayed the same over the past two years.
“Hey, Grandma,” I smiled back. “Long time no see.”

Before I let myself get dragged into a long conversation, I

headed upstairs to set my things down. I stepped into my old
bedroom to find that everything—my bed, my bookshelves, my
desk—was almost exactly the way I left it two years ago. The only
noticeable difference was that someone had been cleaning it
regularly, as there wasn’t a speck of dust to be found. My bed had
also been dressed in a thinner springtime comforter now that
winter was over, which was presumably my grandmother’s doing.
I set my overnight bag down on the floor and then exited the
room. Heading back down the stairs, I made a quick pit stop in the
traditional Japanese-style sitting room to pay my respects at my
late grandfather’s altar and let him know I’d come home before
heading into the living room. I sat cross-legged on a floor cushion
at the low dining table across from my grandmother and cut right
to the chase.
“So, yeah. Like I told you over the phone this morning, I’m
probably gonna be staying here for a little while,” I began.
“Because of that little kerfuffle with your dad, I take it?” she
replied.
“Yeah… Wait. Did I already tell you about that?”
“No—he gave me a call not long after I got off the phone
with you. Said you might be heading this way and to keep you out
of trouble if you did.”
“Oh, he did, did he…?”
“Sounds like your old man’s got you all figured out,” she
teased, cackling like a mischievous storybook witch. That my
father had so easily predicted my every move filled me with an odd
mixture of shame and indignation.
“…Knew I should’ve run away somewhere else.”
“Oh, please. As if you’d even have anywhere else to go!
Besides, it’s not like you have anything better to do with your
spring break, do you? Just take it easy here in Sodeshima for a
while. The big festival’s coming up, you know!”
“I’m not going to that stupid thing, Grandma. You know I
hate big crowds.”
“Yet you still wanted to live in Tokyo. I’ll never understand it.”
“That’s a totally different kind of crowded, Grandma,” I said
dismissively, picking a mandarin up off the table and beginning to
peel back the skin. Before I could pop the first slice of orange into
my mouth, I heard the front door rattle open.
“I’m hooome—Uhhhh, what?”
Sure enough, it was my little sister Eri who now stood in the
living room doorway with her mouth agape. She’d grown a bit
since last I saw her two years ago—which would make her
fourteen now, come to think of it. Her once-frizzy braids had
developed into something more hip: a low-hanging side ponytail.
What drew my eyes more than anything, though, was her sailor-
style schoolgirl uniform. My little Eri had ditched her dorky red
elementary school backpack and was now a full-blown teenager. As
her older brother, it was definitely a strange feeling.
“Hey, Eri,” I said. “Been a while, huh? You back straight from
a club meeting or something?”
“Why are you here?” she replied tersely, her eyes narrowing.
“Wow, okay. That’s one way to greet your loving brother you
haven’t seen in years, I guess. Didn’t Grandma tell you I was
coming?”
“She did. I’m asking why you’re here.”
Her words were sharp. It was clear that she wasn’t happy to
see me—which I could understand. She’d resisted the idea of me
moving to Tokyo to the very last. We left off on fairly negative
terms two years ago, and I hadn’t tried to get in contact with her
since.
“C’mon, don’t glare at me like that,” I said. “This is a reunion
worth celebrating, right? Here, sit down and eat one of these
mandarins with me.”
“Last time I checked, those aren’t yours to give away,
Kanae.”
Now that one stung. Granted, it wasn’t the first time she’d
called me by my actual name, but she only tended to use it when
she was extremely pissed off at me. All the rest of the time, it was
“Big Brother.”
“Anyway, you didn’t answer my question,” she demanded.
“What brings you back here to Sodeshima? State your business.”
“I don’t have any business. I just ran away from home, so
I’m gonna lay low and mooch off of you guys for a while.”
“How long is ‘a while’?”
“Maybe a week or so. It’s April 1st now, so…maybe until the
8th?”
 “I see. And why did you run away from home, exactly? Did
you get in a fight with that deadbeat?”
I turned back to look at my grandmother across the table,
but she shook her head. Apparently, Eri had guessed that one all
on her own—she was a sharp kid. I had no reason to lie, so I
fessed up.
“Yeah, that’s about the size of it,” I replied. “You got it in
one.”
“See, this is exactly why I tried to stop you from going with
him. I told you that man isn’t right in the head.”
“Yeah, well… You may have been right about that. Definitely
regretting it now.”
“See? You never should’ve gone to live with that deadbeat in
the—”
“Eri,” my grandmother cut in. “Stop calling your own father a
deadbeat.”
Eri puffed out her cheeks and scowled at this rebuke.
“Well, I’m not gonna call him my father, that’s for sure. Not
when he hasn’t done anything to deserve it…” she grumbled.
I could definitely understand where Eri was coming from.
Originally, the four of us—me, Eri, my dad, and my mom—all lived
together in Tokyo. When I was six, and Eri was barely three, our
parents got divorced because it came to light that my mother was
having an affair. I never heard all the dirty details, but suffice it to
say, my mother had completely lost any potential attachment she
had to our family. She was more than happy to foist full custody
off onto my father.
Mind you, I wasn’t sure whether my father actually wanted
custody of the two of us or not. I preferred not to think too deeply
about that. The fact of the matter was that he didn’t waste any
time in sending us to live in Sodeshima with our grandmother
while he stayed in Tokyo, where he proceeded to neglect us
altogether for nearly a decade. I totally got why Eri felt he was a
deadbeat, seeing how he hadn’t lived with us since she was
practically too young to remember. To Eri, he was hardly any
different from any old stranger off the street.
I never felt that way about him, myself, at least not through
my junior high years. When he asked my eighth-grade self
whether I’d be interested in going to high school in Tokyo, I took
him up on the offer and moved to the big city right after
graduating from junior high. To be clear, though, my decision had
less to do with me wanting to rekindle any sort of father-son
relationship and more to do with me becoming just generally
disenchanted with Sodeshima on the whole.
“Come on, now, Eri. Have a seat with us,” my grandmother
pleaded gently, and Eri obliged, sitting down right beside her. “I’m
going to go brew some tea for us; you kids feel free to catch up a
bit while I’m gone, okay?”
Eri nodded silently as my grandmother pushed herself up and
headed over toward the kitchen. I sat across from my sister, who
was now hanging her head low in shame. She’d always been a
huge Grandma’s girl, so it probably came as a shock for her to be
chided like that. As far as Eri was concerned, Grandma and I were
the only family she had, so it made sense that she was so
desperate to stop me from moving to Tokyo. I actually felt quite
sorry for her when I framed it that way.
“Aw, c’mon. Don’t let it get you down,” I tried to reassure
her.
“Says the guy who started it… This sucks,” she pouted.
“Why don’t we change the subject? You’re in junior high
now, huh? Hard to believe. Doing any sports or after-school
activities?”
“Like you even care. How come you never called or came to
visit in the past two years, if you’re so curious about my life?”
“Well, I mean…it felt kinda awkward, y’know? Especially after
you fought tooth and nail to stop me from moving to Tokyo.
Wasn’t sure you’d wanna hear anything I had to say.”
“Wow, I didn’t know you were such a wuss,” she sneered.
“Yes, talking to people can be pretty awkward sometimes, Kanae,
but that doesn’t mean you should go cutting a family member out
of your life. I can’t believe you’re so dense. We’re not even talking
common courtesy here—it’s just common sense.”
“Sheesh, did you really miss me that much?”
“Huh?” she scoffed. “What are you, stupid? Of course not.
See, this is exactly what I’m talking about: you have a chronic case
of always picking the worst possible thing to say in any tough
situation. I’m guessing you probably don’t have many friends over
there in Tokyo, do you?”
“Excuse you?” I snapped, more annoyed that she was right
than anything. “Look, I’ll admit that I should’ve tried to stay in
touch. Sure. The same can be said for you, y’know! You knew my
phone number. You could’ve called me up whenever you wanted,
but you didn’t.”
“Sorry? Why should it be my job to reach out to you when
you’re the one who ran off and ditched us? Anyone with half a
brain would agree that it was your job to bury the hatchet, Kanae.
You really don’t have a sensitive bone in your body, do you?”
“This has nothing to do with me being insensitive, and you
know it. Anyway, would you quit saying my name in that
condescending tone of voice? ‘KUH-NYE.’ You sound stupid. It’s
time for you to grow out of this little rebellious phase and go back
to calling me ‘Big Brother’ like a good little sister. Or should I say,
‘Big Bwudder’?”
“Ew, what?! You mean when I was, like, five?! Don’t make
me puke. If anyone’s going through a rebellious phase here, it’s
you. Aren’t you a little old to be running away from home ’cause
Daddy made you mad?”
“Sh-shut the hell up! You don’t know what happened! He
forced my hand!”
“Oh, please. You probably just got caught skipping school,
and he called you out on it!”
“It wasn’t school! It was just a supplementary course,
okay?!”
“Would you two knock it off already?!”
 My grandmother’s booming voice reverberated like a clap of
thunder as she reentered the living room, carrying a tray with
some cups and a small teapot.
“Eri! Stop trying to get a rise out of your brother like that!”
“Wha… No, he was the one that…” Eri stammered.
“And you, Kanae! You’re her older brother; you’re supposed
to be the mature one here! You can’t let yourself be so easily
provoked!”
“…Fine. Whatever you say, Grandma,” I sighed, then stood
up from the table and headed for the doorway.
“Where are you going?” she called after me.
“To cool off for a bit,” I replied without even looking back at
her, then quickly slipped my shoes on and stepped out the door.

“Welp, I sure didn’t waste any time making things

awkward…”
I muttered to myself as I made my way back down the hilly
road outside our house. How ridiculous was it to have gotten
myself in another argument less than an hour after I arrived here?
Eri was one hundred percent right about me, and there was the
proof. I didn’t want to admit it to her, so I got heated and tried to
deny it.
I was kind of a loner at my high school in Tokyo. That was
already the case when I was at junior high here in Sodeshima,
though, so I couldn’t blame it purely on the culture shock. My
relative lack of social skills meant I didn’t have many friends
growing up, but then, in eighth grade, there was an incident where
I stood up for another classmate who was being bullied that
caused all the “cool kids” to start ignoring me and spreading nasty
rumors behind my back. Eventually, even the bullied kid I’d stood
up for jumped on the bandwagon out of fear that they might turn
their attention back on him. It was at this point that I first
developed some (admittedly pretty mild) trust issues.
Still, it wasn’t as if I learned nothing from that unfortunate
experience. The most important lesson my junior-high years taught
me wasn’t anything from the curriculum, but that insulating
yourself in an echo chamber of people who are too afraid to speak
out or go against the grain only breeds narrow-mindedness. That
was why I was so eager to take my father up on his offer to move
me to the big city. My primary goal was to get away from insular,
single-minded Sodeshima. I figured that in a place with as much
diversity as Tokyo, the city I’d originally been born in, I was sure to
find somewhere I could belong, some group of people who would
accept me into their niche. Alas, those hopes were quickly dashed.
At first, people at my new school were extremely interested
in me because my remote island lifestyle was something they
couldn’t even fathom. Their curiosity didn’t last for very long. My
natural awkwardness shined through soon enough, and my
difference in life experience made it hard to relate to my fellow
classmates, so I gradually became an outcast all over again. Then,
after I failed a few tests in a row, some students started treating
me as though I was some illiterate country bumpkin. There was
nothing good about my time there. I persisted anyway, in the
hopes that one day I’d meet someone who would be willing to
accept me the way I was. Instead, my frustration continued
to build and build, I grew more and more impatient, and with the
incident last night, it all reached a boiling point.
“I knew it was a mistake to bring you back to Tokyo with
me.”
When those words left his mouth, it felt like the entire city of
Tokyo was sneering at me, ridiculing me for thinking I would ever
fit in. I couldn’t bear to stay a moment longer, so I ran away to my
grandmother’s house in Sodeshima as quickly as I could. Now here
I was, running away from the place I’d run away to.
“Man, I wanna go home…”
Not to Tokyo nor Sodeshima—to some undefined concept of
the word “home,” to some place out there where I could feel like I
belonged. Where on earth that place might be, I didn’t know.
Probably somewhere beneath cool linen sheets on a brisk spring
morning, where I could sleep the day away in spite of the world.
While I knew full well that that was a pipe dream, I still didn’t feel
like going back to my grandmother’s house anytime soon. Luckily,
there was plenty of daylight yet remaining, so I decided I’d wander
around the island for a bit.
I moped around feeling sorry for myself for a while, until
eventually I came to the concrete path that ran along the coast.
There I was greeted by a powerful gust of saltwater wind that
made my little hairs stand on end—both on the back of my neck
and inside my nostrils. As with most small islands, the winds
around Sodeshima were pretty intense all year long, mainly due to
the lack of any significant land barriers to impede them. The open
ocean was where strong winds were born, after all, which made
Sodeshima a sitting duck right in the middle of the tempest.
As I walked along the shoreline, bracing against the blustery
gale, I eventually came upon a young girl sitting on the waist-high
seawall, her legs dangling out over the ocean as she gazed in
longing toward the mainland. She wore a thin, slightly oversized
sweater and a pair of plain, black comfy-casual pants. Her washed-
out chestnut hair was styled in a shaggy, mid-length bob, and I
could tell just from seeing her face in profile that she had a
smooth bronze complexion. Except I already knew that her hair
was only so washed-out because of chlorine bleaching, and that
her skin color was not the result of any artificial tanning but the
natural pigment she’d been born with. Her name was Akari
Hoshina. She was the younger sister of the island’s star athlete,
and also my best friend growing up.
“Aka—huh?”
I started to call out to her but then stopped short—because
as the first syllables were leaving my lips, I noticed that there were
tears streaming down her cheeks. There was something
captivatingly natural about the way she was crying too—she wasn’t
sniffling, wasn’t making any attempt to wipe her tears away, and
hadn’t even blinked as far as I could see. I had to second-guess
whether calling out to her now was truly a good idea. Still, I
couldn’t very well walk right past and pretend not to notice her, so
I slowly walked up behind her and called her name once I was a
few feet away.
“Akari…?” I asked. She immediately whirled around, so fast
that the centripetal motion sent teardrops flying off her cheeks.
 “K-Kanae-kun?!” she said, gasping with genuine surprise as
she shot up to her feet on the raised part of the seawall. “Wh-what
are you doing h—ah, wagh!”
“Whoa, careful there!”
Perhaps due to how quickly she’d stood up, Akari lost her
balance right away and nearly fell backwards into the ocean.
Thankfully, my emergency reflexes kicked in. I shot forward to
wrap my arms around her thighs (which were at eye level) and
pulled her back in. For a split second, I could feel her body heat
against my cheek, even through the thick cotton fabric. As soon as
I made sure she’d regained her balance, I pulled away with
urgency. That was one brash maneuver on my part—even if it was
just to make sure she didn’t hurt herself. As I stood there,
desperately praying that I hadn’t made things ten times more
awkward, she hopped down from the seawall and brushed sand off
the butt of her pants.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “You startled me, is all.”
“Yeah, my bad. I shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that.
You all right?”
“Yep. A little frazzled, but beats falling to my death! Thanks
for the assist!” she grinned teasingly. She didn’t look like she was
planning to hold my jamming my face between her legs against
me. As I let out a sigh of relief, I remembered what I meant to ask
when I first saw her.
“Hey, Akari? Not that it’s any of my business, but…were you
just crying a minute ago?”
“Huh? Ohhh, yeah, uh… My pollen allergies have been really
acting up lately, you know how it is. Kinda annoying, but what are
ya gonna do? Ah ha ha…”
She rubbed the corners of her eyes with her fingertips as she
tried to laugh it off, but it hadn’t looked like a case of pollen
allergies to me. I was convinced that there must have been
another reason she was crying, maybe over something bad that
happened today. Even if that had been the case, I wasn’t brazen
enough to try to drag it out of her. Especially when this was our
first time seeing each other in two years. I decided it might be
best if I changed the subject.
“…Well, so long as you’re doin’ okay, I guess. Anyway, it’s
good to see you again!”
“Yeah, good to see you too! We haven’t really seen each
other since graduation, have we? You home for spring break?”
“Yeah, more or less. Planning to be here in town for a week
or so.”
“Cool, cool. Plenty of time to get a little R&R in, right?”
“Yup, that’s the idea,” I said uninterestedly, then looked
down at Akari’s legs. “So what’s new with you? I’m betting you’re
still on the swim team?”
“I mean, yeah… What about it?”
“Oh, nothing, I just, uh… I could tell from your thighs, that’s
all. No way they’d be that tight if you weren’t getting some kind of
workout in every day.”
Akari stared at me like a deer in the headlights for a solid
five seconds and then suddenly burst out laughing.
“Ah ha ha ha! I’m sorry, what?! Who are you, and what have
you done with Kanae-kun? Or did all the red-light districts over
there turn you into a massive creep?!”
“What?! C-c’mon, that wasn’t that creepy, was it?! I mean, I
guess I see how you might take it as… Okay, yeah, it sounds pretty
bad, doesn’t it? Look, forget I said anything! Sorry.”
“Nope, too late now! I’m calling you ‘Kanae the Thigh Guy’
from now on! Or how ’bout this: ‘The Femur Fetishist’? …Wait, no!
I’ve got it! ‘The Crural Connoisseur’! Ha ha ha ha!”
“Please, no. I will do literally anything.”
The two of us sat down on the seawall, facing inland this
time, and shot the breeze for a good, long while. Akari was not
only my closest childhood friend but also my very first crush. There
wasn’t a specific moment or anything that made me fall for her—it
was more like one of those things that you just kinda realize after
a while. Sadly, my hopes came crashing down one day in junior
high when I overheard her say something to another girl in
our class:
“Me and Kanae-kun? Not a chance. We’re just friends. There
are zero feelings there, believe me.”
I tried to convince myself it was a good thing I found out
before I confessed to having a crush on her and made a fool of
myself—key word being “tried.” After that, we maintained the
status quo and never grew beyond platonic friends, until eventually
we went our separate ways when the time came to move on to
high school. It wasn’t uncommon for childhood friends like us to
grow apart after a while—how many people could say their best
friend at eight was still their best friend at eighteen? Not many,
and I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that. For me, it
was enough that we could get together and reminisce about old
times like this every once in a while. I couldn’t wish for
anything more.
“Man, oh, man, Kanae-kun,” she said after a while. “I’ve
gotta say, I’m relieved to see the big city hasn’t changed you all
that much. Here I was half expecting you to come back with your
hair dyed and a whole bunch of crazy piercings.”
“Please tell me you don’t think that’s how everyone in Tokyo
looks,” I groaned.
“Well, no, obviously. But it’s one of the fashion capitals of the
world, right? Bet you ran into all sorts of cute girls and models and
whatnot, didn’t ya?”
“I mean, maybe compared to Sodeshima, yeah.”
“Oh yeah? Do tell. You got yourself a little girlfriend over
there, big guy?” she asked, turning her head to the side to look up
at me from below so she could gauge my reaction. Part of me
wanted to say I did, for the sake of sheer bragging rights, but if
she were to call my bluff it’d only make me seem more of a loser
than I already was. She would never let me live it down, either.
I decided to answer honestly.
“Nope, I sure don’t. Sorry to disappoint, but my social life
over there has been preeetty boring so far.”
 “Yep, figured as much.”
“Wow, okay. Didn’t realize I was getting roasted here,” I
grumbled sarcastically. Akari snickered. I decided to turn the
spotlight on her, even though I knew it wouldn’t be much in the
way of payback. “You haven’t changed one bit either, you know
that?”
“Really? You don’t think?”
“I mean, your hairstyle’s exactly the same, for one thing.
I could tell it was you from a mile away.”
“…Really? I feel like I’ve changed a lot…” she mumbled to
herself before looking dejectedly down at the ground.
If that was really how she felt, then surely something about
her must have changed. I gave her another good once-over;
obviously, puberty had done its work on her, but something told
me that wasn’t what she was referring to. And on the off chance it
was, I had no idea how I was meant to respond to that.
I brought my gaze back up to her face, which was when I
finally noticed something about current Akari that junior-high Akari
definitely lacked, albeit a pretty minor detail: there were faint black
circles under her eyes. As I stared at them, wondering if perhaps
she hadn’t been getting much sleep lately, she brought her own
gaze up to meet mine, and our eyes locked.
The old me would have surely looked away immediately. Hell,
I would have expected the new me to do the same…but I couldn’t.
There was something in Akari’s eyes—some fathomless, murky
darkness, as if someone gathered a skyful of rolling black clouds in
the midst of a thunderstorm and somehow distilled them directly
into her pupils—and it made it impossible for me to look away. Like
I needed to find out what it was, or it might consume me too. In
the end, Akari was the one who looked away first.
“…Okay, you can stop staring now. This is officially awkward,”
she announced.
“Huh? Oh, uh… Sorry. I didn’t mean to,” I flustered, turning
away as the embarrassment set in at last. I tried to sneak another
peek at her out of the corner of my eye and saw that her face had
gone beet red too. A few moments passed, and then she jumped
up to her feet with a “Hup!” and spun around to face me. Then she
tucked her hands behind her back and leaned forward, bringing
her face closer to mine.
“Hey, um. Kanae-kun?”
“What’s up?”
“Have you decided what college you’re going to next year?”
“Yeah—U of I. But you knew that already.”
The high school I was attending now was a feeder school
specifically for U of I hopefuls. My admittance would be
guaranteed so long as I didn’t get held back a grade.
“Yeah, I know… Just thought I’d double-check since we
haven’t talked in a while, y’know? Anyway, I should probably start
heading home.”
“Okay. Hope I see you around.”
Akari flashed me a quick smile, then trotted off. I remained
seated there on the seawall for a moment, stretching out my back.
That was the first time in a while I’d talked to another person for
such a long time, and it felt good. Somewhere in the tiniest
recesses of my mind, however, the thought of that darkness I’d
sensed lurking in her eyes kept gnawing at my brain.

I pulled out my cell phone to check the time. It was 5 p.m.

I still wasn’t ready to go back and face Eri, so I decided to kill time
for a little while longer. I slid my cell phone back into my pocket
and stood up, doing a few arm stretches as I pondered over where
to go. Then I spied a plum tree in the front yard of a nearby
house. Its deep red flowers caught my eye and made me realize I
hadn’t seen any cherry blossoms yet this spring. Since today was
April 1st, they should be in full bloom—and I knew the best spot on
the island for cherry blossoms was the temple grounds outside of
the Sodeshima Shrine. Thinking that might be a good way to kill
another hour or so, I chose to make my way over there.
 I took my time walking down the vacant streets and enjoying
the pleasant spring air. When I passed by the old tobacco shop, I
saw a police officer on a bicycle at 12 o’clock, pedaling his way
toward me. As soon as he noticed me standing right in his
trajectory, he slammed on the brakes. He was one of the few law
enforcement officers stationed on the island—a man in his late
thirties with an oval-shaped face.
“Well, look who it is,” he said with a mischievous grin.
“Thought I recognized you. Long time no see, huh?”
He hadn’t changed one bit either—still the friendly jokester
he’d been when he first came over from the mainland, way back
when I was in elementary school. Everyone on the island loved
him, kids and adults alike.
“Yeah, it’s been a while,” I replied.
“You visiting for spring break? Man, I miss being a student.”
“What, police officers don’t get a spring break?”
“Heck no! You kidding me? They work us year-round till we
can’t take it no more. It’s a rough life, believe me,” he complained.
I was about to make a quip about how he couldn’t be that busy if
he had the time to stop and make small talk with me, but then he
went on: “Heck, I just got done handling another stupid call.”
“Oh yeah? Some sort of incident?”
“Yeah, nothing serious, though. Couple of crotchety old folks
got into a bit of an altercation up at the shrine. Had to go over
there and break it up.”
“Oh, I was on my way over there now. Were there a lot of
people there?”
“A pretty decent number, sure. The Sodeshima Senior
Society’s having a meetup there today. Think they’re playing some
croquet right now, if you wanted to go up there and join in.”
I gagged. Suddenly, I’d lost all interest in seeing the cherry
blossoms.
“Yeah, thanks but no thanks… I’d have to be pretty
desperate to want to spend my spring break knocking balls
through hoops with people five times my age. No offense.”
“Ouch, kid. I mean, I get it, but ouch.”
“Man, aren’t there any events aimed at people my age
around here? If they don’t start trying to appeal to a younger
demographic, this island’s gonna be a ghost town before you know
it… What with the declining birth rate and all.”
“Weh-heh-hell! I see someone’s been studying up on social
politics over there in the big city. ‘Demographic,’ huh? That’s a
pretty big word for a guy your age!” the officer exclaimed with a
hearty chuckle.
“All right, I’d better get going,” I said, turning on my heels so
that I wouldn’t have to endure him talking down to me a moment
longer. I walked off in the exact opposite direction of the shrine,
determined not to let my precious spring break go to waste.

After waving the officer goodbye, I wandered aimlessly

around the island for a while. I didn’t want to risk bumping into
any senior citizens, or even any of my old classmates, so I chose
one of the least-trafficked roads on the island and began making
my way down it. Before I knew it, I was walking through alleyways
in between rows of old, dilapidated houses. This part of town was
virtually in ruins; none of the islanders I knew ever came around
these parts anymore.
There’d been a fairly booming mining industry on Sodeshima
about fifty years ago, which apparently increased the tiny island’s
population by several orders of magnitude for a time. Once the tin
supply dried up, though, a majority of the populace moved over to
the mainland, leaving entire neighborhoods of empty houses in
their wake.
When I was a little kid, every grown-up I knew tried to warn
children not to go playing in this part of town, sometimes saying it
was too dangerous, other times claiming it was haunted by ghosts.
I’d always been a good boy and done as I was told, so this was
actually the first time I’d set foot on these streets. The further in I
went, the more obvious it became that all of these houses had
been deserted. There were weeds poking up out of the concrete,
and you could tell at a glance that most of these buildings hadn’t
even been entered in decades, let alone lived in. Yet while I
grieved for the island’s ever-decreasing population, I also couldn’t
help but enjoy the streets’ eerily tranquil atmosphere. This kind of
absolute peace and quiet always calmed me down, and even more
so now that I lived in a place where I had to bump shoulders with
people every day just to walk down the avenue.
I saw that the sun was now beginning to set, yet still I
pushed onward, heading deeper down the labyrinthine
backstreets. After passing through a particularly narrow alleyway, I
came out into an open clearing where a small, abandoned park still
stood. There was a rusty swing set, a jungle gym adorned with a
big sign that read “KEEP OFF”, and a sandbox full of weeds; all
these elements combined to exude a bittersweet aura of nostalgia
as they sat there, forgotten, waiting for the day they’d be
demolished. A day that never arrived. It had likely been many
years since the laughter of children at play was heard here. In
stark contrast to the sorry state of the playground equipment, the
park itself was surrounded on all sides by strikingly vivid cherry
blossom trees—along with a single, massive tree right smack-dab
in the middle of the park—all of which were in full bloom.
“Whoa… This is crazy…”
The majestic blossoms were so overwhelmingly gorgeous
that they seemed magnetizing, and my feet started moving toward
the central tree of their own volition. Each step forward brought its
majestic grandeur and radiant vitality into a sharper, clearer focus,
to the point that I genuinely wondered if this single tree might be
the true culprit responsible for sapping all the life from this area—it
was that breathtaking. A shallow layer of fallen petals formed a
moat-like ring around its trunk that crunched beneath my shoes
with each successive footfall. As I drew closer and closer, a sudden
gust of wind sent a flurry of fresh petals dancing and fluttering
through the amber evening skies. For one fleeting moment, the
park was draped in a soft pink veil, and the rich scent of cherry
blossoms filled my nostrils. It was like several years’ worth of
spring scenery, all condensed and refined into a single instant.
 Man, I had no idea this place was even here. Talk about a
hidden gem… Hm?
I stood there, marveling at the splendor of it all, and as I did,
I caught a glimpse of a small wooden structure hidden on the
other side of the tree. Circling around to get a better look revealed
that it was an old miniature shrine, so small that the tip of its roof
only rose about a meter off the ground. On its front face were a
small set of double lattice doors, one of which was hanging open.
Curious, I crouched down to take a peek inside, but all that lay
within it was a single rock that was about the size of a rugby ball.
A deep fissure ran right down the center of it. I could only assume
this was some sort of sacred relic: a stone thought to hold spiritual
power, or at least religious significance to whoever built this tiny
shrine to house it. For whatever reason, I felt weirdly entranced by
the little rock. I reached out a hand to feel the texture of the thin,
dark crevice in the middle of it.
Just then, an unexpected burst of sound came blaring into
my ears, and my heart nearly jumped out of my chest. Even after
reflexively pulling my hand back, it still took me a few moments to
calm down enough to realize what it had been. A melody muffled
in static. Greensleeves. It was the six o’clock chime that played out
over the island’s emergency loudspeakers every evening. Still, I
was surprised by how close it sounded, so I straightened up and
took a look around. It didn’t take me long to find the source of the
siren: one of the aforementioned loudspeakers was perched atop a
telephone pole in a corner of the park. No wonder it was so
deafeningly loud.
I always hated this melancholic melody when I was growing
up on the island, and I still hated it now. I didn’t like how
effortlessly it could pull at my heartstrings and put me in a
bittersweet mood, even when I had nothing to feel sad about or to
yearn for.
The mystery solved, I crouched back down and reached my
hand out to touch the stone inside the shrine once more. The
blaring loudspeaker had definitely shaken me up, but not to the
extent that I lost interest in the strange rock altogether. As the
loud melody continued to blare through my ears, I slowly brought
my hand closer and closer…until eventually, my fingertips landed
on the jagged crevice. The moment they did, something electric
shot through my body like a static shock, and my consciousness
shut off in a single blip—like my mind was a TV and someone had
abruptly pulled the plug.
 INTERLUDE I

THINKING BACK ON IT, I realized that Kanae and I had been

friends for more than ten years now. I couldn’t remember when
our first interaction was, exactly. I guess our friendship had a lot to
do with the fact that my last name (Hoshina) came right after his
(Funami) alphabetically, so we’d often get grouped together and
placed next to each other on the class seating chart. So naturally,
we grew more comfortable talking to one another over time. It
also probably helped that since there were so few kids in our
school, we pretty much stayed together with the exact same class
all throughout elementary school and junior high.
I always loved hearing what Kanae had to say. Because he
lived in Tokyo before he moved to Sodeshima, he knew all sorts of
things I didn’t and would tell these crazy stories that always
sounded unbelievable to younger me—like about how everyone in
the city power walks everywhere all the time, or how in Tokyo,
there’s a mini-mart on every street corner. I was spellbound
whenever he talked about it, hanging on his every word, never
wanting to miss even a single unimportant detail.
Still, my initial impression of him was that he was some
regular, smart kid who also happened to be a very good storyteller.
It wasn’t until second grade that my perception of him began to
change. At the time, I was kind of an introverted kid, and a
grumpy pessimist, to boot. I haven’t really changed on either front,
mind you, but back then I had virtually no social skills to speak of
—which was probably why things ended up playing out the way
they did.
It was lunchtime, and I’d finished eating my food. I was
flipping to the correct page in my schoolbook when one of the
boys in class came up to me and shoved his finger right in my
face. I could still remember his exact words:
“Hey, you. How come your skin looks so dirty all the time?”
I couldn’t say a single word. My biggest insecurity back then
was my naturally darker skin, and how I didn’t look like the other
girls. I sat there, unable to try to think of a comeback. I must have
been in shock, to be completely honest. The boy noticed this,
which only emboldened him further, so he proceeded to deal the
finishing blow:
“I mean, when was the last time you took a bath? Never?”
I felt my face go red hot. To make matters worse, the boy
said it in a loud enough voice that it echoed through the
classroom, and now everyone around was looking straight at me. I
could hear snickering coming from various directions, broken up by
whispers like “Ew, gross,” and “Dare you to go sniff her.” I did
remember hearing one girl telling people to knock it off, but the
majority of kids had already made their choice to take shots at me.
Meanwhile, I was so frustrated and mortified that all I could do
was sit there, biting my lip and looking down at my feet. No matter
how hard I tried to stay strong, I couldn’t block out their cruel
words, and eventually tears began to well up in my eyes. Right as
the dam was about to burst, I felt someone grab me brusquely by
the arm.
“C’mon, let’s go,” they said.
I was in disbelief—it was Kanae. At the time, I never would
have expected him to jump to my defense like that.
“I said, come on!” he implored again.
There was a hint of anger in his face and voice that made me
quick to obey. He dragged me out of the classroom the second I
was on my feet, and paid no mind to the jeers from our fellow
classmates as he pulled me down the hall at a brisk pace. I could
still remember the feeling of his hand gripping my wrist as he led
me down the outdoor staircase—firm to the point of being painful.
It wasn’t until we reached the landing that we came to a stop, and
he finally let go of my arm.
“Okay, I can’t hear them following us anymore,” he said
matter-of-factly.
The very next instant, I gave in and broke down, and all the
tears I’d been holding back came cascading down my cheeks like a
waterfall. Kanae was visibly confused and panicked by this,
stumbling over his words as he tried to ask me why I was crying.
Between sniffles and sobs, I told him exactly how I felt:
“I hate my stupid body. I hate it.”
“Aw, c’mon. Who cares what those idiots say? They’re trying
to mess with you, that’s all.”
“But now everyone thinks I’m gross and I stink!”
“Trust me: you’re not gross, and you definitely don’t stink.”
“You’re just saying that! Don’t lie!” I said, raising my voice so
high that Kanae recoiled a bit. He didn’t even let that deter him,
though. He shook his head and tried to reassure me.
“I’m not lying…”
“Yes you are! You probably think my skin’s dirty too, don’t
you?! You think I’m some…some nasty girl who doesn’t know how
to take a bath!”
With that, I plopped myself down on the ground with my
head between my knees, covering my face with both hands. As the
tears came streaming out, an intense wave of regret washed over
me. I was rational enough even then to tell Kanae wasn’t lying,
and yet I still lashed out at him, and why? Because I couldn’t
fathom why he was being so nice to a misfit like me. That
confusion meant I couldn’t accept his kindness as genuine. The
more I thought about it, the more guilty I felt. I should never have
taken my anger out on the one person who went out of his way to
rescue me from that situation, no matter my logic. So I cried and I
cried, until I could cry no more, and the guilt gave way to self-
loathing. But then, when I lifted my head again, I saw that Kanae
was still standing there in front of me. His gaze met mine. I could
see the genuine concern for me in his eyes.
“A-are you okay, Akari?”
“…Yeah.”
“Look, I’m not good at this stuff, but…cheer up, okay?”
“…Okay.”
All I could muster were one-word, noncommittal responses.
Kanae clearly was not satisfied with this, because he continued to
stutter and fumble his words as he tried desperately, albeit in vain,
to make me feel better. Eventually, after a moment of silence, his
face lit up as though he’d hit on a brilliant idea.
“Hey, Akari. Give me your hand for a sec,” he said
confidently.
“Huh…?”
I had no idea what he had in mind, but I held out my right
hand regardless as instructed. He proceeded to grab it and, after a
hesitant pause, crammed my fingers straight into his mouth.
“Eek?!” I gasped, yanking my hand back in surprise. At first,
I was utterly dumbfounded as to why on earth Kanae would ever
do such a thing, but then he looked me straight in the eye to say
something that would stay with me for the rest of my life.
“See? You’re not dirty at all,” he proclaimed with confidence.
Then, in a slightly more bashful tone, he added: “…I mean, I sure
couldn’t taste any dirt, at least.”
My jaw dropped. There was a long pause—and then I started
laughing hysterically. Kanae looked down at me like I was a crazy
person, but I couldn’t help myself. I mean, I’d heard people
describe things like linoleum floors as “so clean you could eat off of
them,” but to actually put someone else’s hand in your mouth, just
to prove it wasn’t dirty?! It was so absurd, I couldn’t take it! I
laughed so hard that tears were coming out of my eyes again—so
hard that my stomach started to hurt, and I completely forgot why
I felt sad in the first place. The next thing I knew, I was in love.
 WHEN I SNAPPED BACK to my senses, the first thing that
registered in my brain was the somber melody of the six o’clock
chime flowing into my eardrums. Then, as soon as the long-
hanging final note of Greensleeves fell silent, all the turmoil and
confusion came rushing back into my mind like a shot of
adrenaline.
What the hell just happened to me?
I’d never passed out before in my life, but these symptoms
sure seemed to fit the bill—all my thought processes came to an
abrupt halt without a hint of prior warning, and then the next thing
I knew I was someplace completely different, scrambling to figure
out how I got there. To be more specific, I was no longer standing
beneath the big cherry blossom tree at the abandoned park—I was
down by the coast again, sitting on the seawall with my back to
the ocean. Right in front of me stood the island’s resident patrol
officer, holding his bike at his side as he looked down at me with
concern.
“Hey, you all right, kid?” he inquired. “C’mon, say
something.”
“…Officer?” I mumbled drowsily.
“Uh, y-yeah? I’m still here, pal… Didn’t go anywhere,” he
joked, but with an awkward laugh that said he was as confused as
I was. Not that there was anything strange about him stopping to
talk to me, of course. I was still floundering to figure out how I got
here and how long he’d been standing here in front of me.
“So, uh… Is there something I can help you with?” I asked,
trying to be nonchalant.
“Whaddya mean? Thought we were makin’ small talk.”
“We were…? For how long?”
“…You sure you’re all right, kid? We’ve been chatting it up
for, like, the past five minutes. Did you have a stroke or
something?”
Five minutes? I definitely wasn’t sitting here talking to him
for that long… At least, not that I could remember. I took another
look around to confirm what I already knew: this was not the last
place I remembered being. This was the Sodeshima seawall, not
the abandoned park with the cherry blossom trees. Weirdly
enough, the sky was still the same deep orange it had been when
I last looked up at it—so I couldn’t have been out for that long. I
fumbled around for my cell phone, wanting to check the time, but
it wasn’t in my right-side pocket like it was supposed to be.
Panicking, I tried to remember if I’d simply forgotten it at home
but then belatedly realized that I was already holding it in my left
hand. Relieved, I was about to press the button to make the
screen turn on when another question took hold of my mind: If I
was passed out, how could I have pulled my cell phone out of my
pocket?
And that wasn’t the only thing that didn’t add up—the
clothes I was wearing now were totally different from the ones I’d
been wearing earlier. I specifically remembered sliding my hoodie
on this morning, but now here I was wearing a regular crewneck
sweatshirt. One that definitely did belong to me, for the record,
but I had no memory at all of changing into it. Or was it possible
that I’d somehow been wearing the crewneck the whole time and
simply mistaken it for my favorite hoodie this morning? Surely not.
They weren’t even the same color.
“Hey, c’mon, kid! Don’t clam up on me again,” the officer
said, calling me out for getting distracted. I quickly shot my head
up to look back at him.
“Sorry, officer. I’m a bit confused, I guess. About what time it
is, and the clothes I’m wearing… Stuff like that.”
“If you say so… Well, I can’t help you with your wardrobe,
but you should know what time it is, at least. Think about it: Didn’t
you hear the six o’clock chime go off?”
“Huh? Oh, riiight… Yeah, okay. Must have slipped my mind…”
That only raised more questions in my head, but I decided to
leave it at that and shove my cell phone back into my pants pocket
so as not to seem like I didn’t believe him. And to give the guy
some credit, I had heard the six o’clock chime while I was sitting
here—but I’d also heard it back at the abandoned park. Which
shouldn’t have been possible, unless I was somehow magically
teleported here in the blink of an eye… No, even then, the officer
claimed I’d been sitting here talking to him since at least 5:55. So
what the hell was going on? No matter how hard I racked my
brain, I couldn’t come up with any sensible explanation for it.
“Look, kid,” the officer began, “if you aren’t feeling too hot,
I’d be happy to give you a ride home. Or take you over to the clinic
to get checked out, if you’d prefer.”
“No, no—you don’t have to do that… I can walk myself
home. Thanks, though.”
“You sure? Well, okay… Look, I know it’s been a rough few
days, but try not to overthink things, all right? It wasn’t your fault,
and you did everything you could. Anyway, I’ve gotta get going,
but I’ll see you around.”
“Wait, huh…?” I stammered as he straddled his bike and put
one foot up on the pedals.
“Oh, and one more thing,” he added, looking back over his
shoulder at me. “No more late-night rendezvous for a while, yeah?
I know you’re young, but you’ve gotta dial it back.”
And with that, he pedaled off. I sat there for a good, long
while trying to figure out what he meant by “late-night
rendezvous,” and how it had been a “rough few days,” but I
honestly had no idea what he could be referring to. Still, it seemed
like he was genuinely concerned about me, so I must have really
looked like I was at the end of my rope. Which wasn’t that far from
the truth, in honesty—I hadn’t felt this confused and gaslit in a
very long time. The struggle to wrap my head around it was
starting to make my vision blur. It felt like I was being made the
victim of a cruel joke.
That thought gave me pause. What if it really was some
prank? Today was April Fools’ Day, after all. Maybe someone
predicted that I’d finally be coming back this spring break and got
the whole island in on some super elaborate plan to make me feel
like a crazy person… No, there was no way. I shook that ridiculous
conspiracy theory from my mind. I needed to stop overthinking
this—it was making my brain hurt. Plus, it was getting dark out. It
was about time I made my way home.
 By the time I made it back to the house, the sun had
completely dipped beneath the horizon, and there was no longer
much light outside at all. When I opened the front door, Eri came
out from the living room in her school uniform, and we made eye
contact. It wasn’t until that moment that I remembered she and I
got into a fight earlier, and my stomach dropped. I wasn’t sure if I
should play it off like nothing had happened or be the bigger
person and open with an apology. But in the end, she broke the ice
before I could even make up my mind.
“You’re home pretty late. C’mon, hurry up and get inside,”
she urged.
“S-sure, one sec,” I replied.
She was acting perfectly normal; I couldn’t hear any hint of
anger in her voice. I always thought she was the type to never let
a grudge go, but maybe I hadn’t given her enough credit. I still
needed to apologize, though; it seemed like the right thing to do,
especially since I was the older sibling. I slid off my shoes and
stepped up into the hallway, stopping Eri as she made her way
toward the bathroom.
“Hey, uh… Eri?”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“Listen, I’m sorry for all that stuff I said before. That was
really immature of me.”
“Huh? What are you even talking about?”
“You know. We got into that argument, and then I basically
stormed out of the house…?”
She squinted her eyes and looked at me dubiously for a
moment, then let out a soft “Ohhhh,” as if I’d refreshed her
memory on some irrelevant factoid she’d long since purged from
her mind.
“Yeah, don’t worry about that,” she said. “I’m over it.
Besides, I said some stuff I probably shouldn’t have too.”
 I was extremely taken aback by this response. This was the
same girl who would never dream of apologizing, or even back
down the slightest inch, no matter how mad you got at her. This,
more than anything else, drove home for me how much she’d
grown in the past two years. As I silently admired her newfound
maturity, Eri was seemingly getting impatient for some reason and
changed the subject.
“So, hey… Shouldn’t you be getting ready?” she asked.
“Oh, right, yeah. Sorry, I’ll get right on that… Er, ready for
what, exactly?”
“…Wait. You didn’t forget the wake is tonight, did you?”
“Wake? What wake? Did someone die?”
As soon as these words left my lips, she squinted at me yet
again. Only this time, it wasn’t a look of confusion but one of
reproach.
“Kanae. You’re kidding me, right?”
I decided to take her disrespectful tone on the chin this time
and answer as honestly as I could.
“No, I seriously don’t have any idea… It wasn’t anyone close
to me, was it?” I asked.
Eri hesitated a moment, then answered in a fragile, soft
voice:
“…It was Akito. Akito Hoshina. How could you even forget
that?”
It took my brain a solid few seconds to connect the dots
between the name “Akito” and the word “dead.” Once it did, my
mind went straight into denial mode.
“Wh-whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. Are you pulling my leg? I
saw him down at the ferry dock earlier today.”
“Huh?”
“Wait, I see what’s going on here. This is all just one big
April Fools’ joke, isn’t it? Very funny, you guys. But it’s really not
cool to lie about people dying, y’know. Feel free to give it a rest
now.”
 “…Kanae, what are you talking about?”
Her expression was graver than I’d ever seen it before. She
was looking at me as though she genuinely thought I’d suffered
some sort of brain damage. The next thing she said almost made
me start to consider that as an option, myself:
“It’s not April Fools’ Day anymore, Kanae—it’s the 5th. Akito
died four days ago. I dunno if you’re in denial or what, but you
need to snap out of it. Now could you please move? I need to fix
up my hair.”
Eri gave me a side-eyed glance as she squeezed past me into
the bathroom. I stood stock-still in the middle of the hall, unsure
what to believe anymore.
Was Akito really dead? And not only that, he’d been dead for
four days…? If that were the case, then who did I see down at the
harbor when I got here this afternoon? A look-alike? Or his ghost?
As if. Then I remembered something else Eri had said—that today
was actually April 5th. Now, I knew I was on spring break, and thus
could afford to lose track of the date a little bit, but there was no
way I could be four whole days off. I pulled my cell phone out of
my pocket in the hopes of vindicating myself, pressed a button,
and the screen lit up. My phone’s screen announced that it was
indeed April 5th, exactly as Eri had said.
“…No way.”
I ran into the living room, checking everything I could find
that might display today’s date—the TV, the newspaper, the electric
table clock—but each and every one of them said the same thing:
April 5th. Yet I still refused to believe it. Something definitely
wasn’t right here. This was going way too far, even for a very
elaborate prank. I left the living room and went looking for my
grandmother. I opened the sliding door to the Japanese-style
sitting room, where I found her rummaging through some
drawers.
“Hey, Grandma? Could I ask you something?”
“Oh, Kanae!” she exclaimed, turning around to face me.
“I didn’t know you’d come home. Good timing too. I was thinking
that for the wake, you could wear—”
“Grandma, what day is today?” I asked, cutting her off.
“Goodness. Where’s this coming from?”
“Just tell me, please.”
“Well, let’s see… It’s Thursday, so I suppose that’d make it
the 5th.”
“And that’s the truth? You’re one hundred percent sure of
this?”
“Assuming I haven’t gone senile yet! But yes, I’m sure. I can
swear it on your late granddad’s grave, if that’ll convince you.”
Okay. I knew my grandmother would never lie on her dead
husband’s name, so I guess that meant it really was April 5th,
without a doubt. I couldn’t find any hard evidence to the contrary,
and both my sister and grandmother seemed pretty adamant
about it. Maybe I really was the crazy one here.
“Man, what the hell is happening to me…?” I whispered.
It felt like the whole world was collapsing in on me. First I
pass out and wake up somewhere completely different, then I find
out Akito’s dead, and then they tell me I’ve got the date wrong by
several days…? This was starting to feel less like an elaborate
prank and more like a nonsensical nightmare. While I stood there,
clutching my head in my hands, my grandmother pulled a set of
black clothes out of the drawer and held them out to me.
“Here, you should change into these.”

My grandmother explained to me that proper funeral attire

for kids my age was to simply wear our normal school uniforms. I,
however, had run away from home, so I didn’t have my own
uniform with me. She graciously offered me my dad’s old uniform
from his days at Sodeshima High to wear instead. It was a
traditional all-black affair with a stand-up collar, and it happened to
fit me perfectly, much to my chagrin. Once we were all changed
and ready, my grandmother, Eri, and I started walking over to the
Sodeshima Community Center where the wake was being held.
The chilly night air was the perfect temperature to cool off my
overheated brain, and the travel time gave me a chance to try to
put some of my disparate thoughts in order.
I did some logical deduction while we walked and eventually
managed to convince myself of two objective facts. Number one:
today was not April 1st but April 5th. That was what all the
evidence pointed to, including two separate testimonies, so I had
no choice but to accept it as true. Number two: I had absolutely
no memory of the four-day period from 6 p.m. on April 1st to 6
p.m. on April 5th. Or in terms of actual events, there was a huge
gap in my memories between me touching that rock at the shrine
in the abandoned park and sitting on the seawall talking to the
island patrolman earlier. The only reason I knew both events
happened at almost exactly 6 p.m. was because in both instances,
I could hear the island’s six o’clock chime ringing out in the
background.
This meant that there was a ninety-six-hour period for which
my memory was completely blank. The first, and perhaps most
rational, explanation I could come up with was that I’d suffered
some sort of brain injury or neural malfunction. An amnesic
episode, or a case of early-onset dementia. Granted, I didn’t know
how rare it was for kids my age to come down with the latter, but
the former was extremely possible—it happened to kids who got
concussions all the time. I’d read so many books with amnesic
protagonists that I considered it a bit of a boring plot device, but
now that I was faced with the possibility of it happening to me in
real life? It was damn scary. The thought of having potentially
serious brain damage at such a young age was not an
appealing one.
The only other explanation I could think of was that it was
somehow related to that stone in the little forgotten shrine, only
because it legitimately felt like my mind and body were warped to
a different place and time the moment I laid my fingers on it.
Perhaps by simply touching the rock, I’d angered whatever god or
spirit was enshrined therein and fallen under some sort of curse. It
sounded pretty ridiculous, which may have been why I preferred it
to the possibility of major brain damage. Regardless of what
caused my memory loss, though, I needed to find out what
happened in that four-day interim—and the best way to do that
was to ask around. I jogged ahead a little bit to catch up with my
sister and matched her pace.
“Hey, Eri, can I ask you something?”
“…What do you want?”
“So I know this is gonna sound like a weird question, but
have I been spending a lot of time at home lately?”
“Huh?” she balked. “What kind of question is that? You’d
know better than me.”
“No, no, I know. I, uh, wanted to know if you felt like I was
spending enough time at home or not. If that makes sense.”
She looked at me suspiciously, clearly not buying this
explanation at all. I myself was fully aware that it sounded like a
pretty flimsy pretext, but I didn’t want to come right out and admit
that there was a four-day gap in my memory and risk her
potentially forcing me to go see a doctor. For now, all I could do
was chain one lame excuse into the next. Eventually, Eri answered,
though not before turning face forward again and breaking eye
contact.
“You’ve actually been going out a lot the past few days. One
or two nights, you didn’t even come home. Or at least, not until
after I was already asleep…”
This was valuable information. The fact that she noted I was
gone “one or two nights” told me that I had spent at least half of
the nights in my own bed, so it wasn’t as if I was leading a totally
different lifestyle. That still left a few unanswered questions, so I
needed more information.
“Do you know where I’ve been going?” I pressed further. “Or
if I was staying somewhere else on those one or two nights I
didn’t come home?”
“…Is there something in the water over there in Tokyo?
Some sort of brain-eating bacteria or something?”
“Huh? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
 “I’m saying you’ve been acting weird ever since you got
here,” Eri said, turning to look me straight in the eye once more.
“Normal people don’t ask questions like that. No joke, I really think
you should go to the hospital.”
“Oh, come on. Now you’re overexaggerating…”
“No, I’m not. Something is definitely wrong with you. It’s
obvious, Kanae.”
I averted my eyes from her piercing stare, fumbling for some
sort of excuse. This was exactly what I was hoping to avoid—but
now that she was already suspicious, maybe I should come clean
and tell her the whole truth: that I’d skipped ahead four days in
time. The problem was that if I did that, there was a very real
chance she’d drag me to the hospital, or tell someone that could,
and I didn’t want to make my grandmother worry…as much as
maybe I really did need to go get checked out.
“Quiet, you two,” my grandmother cut in. “We’re almost
there. Be respectful.”
Phew. Saved by the bell, I thought to myself as we
approached the community center where the wake was being held.
It was a fairly large open building, about the size of a small
gymnasium. A line of adults in mourning attire had formed in the
building’s usually vacant courtyard. I could tell that Eri still had
plenty more she wanted to say to me, but she obediently let it go
the moment we got in line.

After signing the guestbook, we headed inside. Once we

entered the spacious main hall, I spotted Akari wearing her
Sodeshima High uniform out of the corner of my eye. I knew that
she went to high school there, obviously, but this was the first time
I’d actually seen her in her uniform. She looked much more
ladylike and refined compared to when I saw her down on the
seawall. I thought about going over and saying hi, but she was
talking to a group of adults dressed all in black; it really didn’t
seem like the right time. I sat down next to Eri and my
grandmother in one of the many rows of metal folding chairs, then
looked up at the altar. Seeing Akito’s face up there in the picture
frame drove the harsh reality of his death home for me in a way I
hadn’t yet fully come to grips with. This was my childhood hero,
after all—he even came rushing to my rescue, once upon a time.
I was in the third grade, getting picked on by a group of
delinquent junior high schoolers. I was scared and surrounded,
when Akito happened to walk by. Despite being younger and
smaller than the bullies, he jumped fearlessly to my defense,
throwing punches left and right until the older kids ran off like
scared rabbits. I could still remember the little exchange I had with
him immediately after that:
“Next time, I don’t wanna see you standing there shaking in
your boots like that,” he scolded me. “Pisses me off. You know you
didn’t do anything wrong, and so do they, so don’t you dare let
’em get to you. Keep your head held high.”
“What if that makes them angrier, and they start hitting
me…?” I replied.
“Then you just grab a big ol’ rock, chuck it right at their
heads, and run like hell.”
At the time, I couldn’t believe the audacity of what he was
suggesting, but as time went on, those words became something
of a personal mantra for me. Whenever I felt uneasy or afraid, I’d
tell myself that if it really came down to it, I could always throw
rocks at their heads and run like hell. It was oddly reassuring to
me. Obviously, I knew it wasn’t really commendable advice, nor
had I ever actually resorted to that, but it still gave a scrawny little
kid like me the confidence he needed in order to not be afraid of
other people. I didn’t know how Akito felt about me or if he even
remembered that little interaction…but I still felt his loss pretty
deeply and wished he were still here with us.

After the incense lighting and sutra chanting was all said and
done, Akito’s mother took a stand before the altar to say a few
words to the congregation. Even from afar, I could see that her
face was haggard and emaciated. Her hair had lost its luster; her
eyes looked somewhat vacant. She looked as though she might
collapse at any moment, but Akari stood by her side to offer
support while she gave her remarks. The ceremony was officially
over after she finished her speech, so we all stood up from our
seats and began filing back out toward the entrance hall.
Apparently, the immediate family had prepared small thank-you
gifts for attendees, so the three of us got in line and slowly
advanced toward the reception desk. We were waiting for our turn
to come when I overheard the two people who got in line directly
behind us having a fairly blunt exchange.
“Looks like they’re not gonna feed us, huh? No refreshments
or anything…”
“I mean, what did you expect? That poor woman’s got
enough on her plate right now, especially as the lone breadwinner
in the family. Anyway, did you hear what the cause of death was?”
“Yeah, acute alcohol poisoning, right? Heard they got the
autopsy back yesterday…”
Alcohol poisoning, huh. In other words, he drank too much.
Though actually, I remembered learning in health class that in
most cases, it wasn’t actually the alcohol in the victim’s
bloodstream that killed them. It was choking on their own vomit.
I didn’t even want to consider that in further detail; the image of
Sodeshima’s star athlete spending his final moments like that was
too much to bear.
As the line moved forward, it eventually came to be our turn.
Akari and her mother were handing out the thank-you gifts
personally, so we gave them our condolences, and then I politely
accepted the small gift bag from Akari.
“Wow, look at you,” she whispered softly, scanning me up
and down as she handed over the little paper bag. “Wait, where’d
you get a Sodeshima High uniform…?”
“What, this? It’s my dad’s old one. Can’t wait to get home
and take it off, honestly. It’s super tight around the neck.”
“Ohhh, gotcha. Looks good on you, though… Really.”
As she emphasized that last word, her eyes suddenly began
to water. I wasn’t sure if I was reminding her of Akito in his
uniform or what—but I scrambled to pull out my handkerchief and
offer it to her. It was a good thing my grandmother had convinced
me to bring one along.
“Listen, uh… I know we haven’t really talked for a couple of
years, but if you need someone to talk to, you know I’m here for
you,” I said, cringing internally at how canned and predictable my
words must have come across. Akari seemed to take it as a
genuine offer of solace, as she gave a weak little nod while
dabbing the corners of her eyes with the handkerchief.
There were still other people waiting in line behind us, so we
said our goodbyes and made our way out of the building. Outside,
the night sky was crystal clear, and the air was cold enough that it
felt like winter still hadn’t left us completely. My grandmother
suggested that we start heading home, and so the three of us
quickly got to walking. We’d hardly even made it a block from the
facility when I heard footsteps running up on us from behind. I
turned around—it was Akari.
“Hey, what’s up?” I asked. “Oh, you don’t have to give me
back the handkerchief right now, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not that,” she said, catching her breath. “Listen,
um… There’s something I need to tell you, Kanae-kun.”
“There is?”
“Yeah. About what’s been happening with you the last four
days… Or what’s going to happen, I guess I should say.”
At first, I didn’t have the slightest clue what she was trying
to tell me. A moment later, the implications of her knowing
something about “the last four days” hit me like a truck. I
practically pounced on her, placing my hands on her shoulders.
“Wait, you know what’s going on?!” I demanded.
She squealed in surprise, but I paid it no mind. It wasn’t until
I felt her shoulders trembling that I realized how wildly
inappropriate it was for me to grab her like that. Immediately
regretting my actions, I tore my hands away.
“Oh, s-sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I just…don’t
know what’s going on, and…” I tried to explain.
 “No, it’s okay… I get it. I can’t explain everything to you right
here and now, so…” she trailed off, then brought her lips in close
to whisper in my ear: “Meet me in the old abandoned park
tomorrow at five in the afternoon. I’ll tell you everything you want
to know.”
She pulled her head back, said a quick “Okay, see you
tomorrow,” then turned around and started trotting back over
toward the community center. I watched her round the corner,
already sensing Eri’s suspicious glare burning a hole in the back of
my head.
“What was that about?” she demanded, right on cue.
“…Couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to,” I replied. Hey, it was
the truth. Under my breath, I added: “Hopefully I’ll find out
tomorrow.”

When I awoke the next morning, the first thing I saw was
my cell phone lying next to my head. I snatched it up and checked
the date and time. It was April 6th, at 8 a.m. I buried my face in
my pillow. Time hadn’t magically returned to normal overnight. It
was starting to seem like this really wasn’t a dream, much to my
dismay.
After we made it home from the wake last night, I quickly
took care of my nightly routine, then holed up in my bedroom. I
didn’t try to get any more information from Eri or my grandmother
about the last four days; I didn’t want to raise any red flags, but
my main reason was that I had a glimmer of hope to cling on to at
last, thanks to Akari.
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
If she could shed some light on this bizarre and terrifying
phenomenon that was happening to me, I’d be forever in her debt.
That said, I had no idea how on earth she could know about the
four-day gap in my memories, since I hadn’t told anyone about it—
and that wasn’t the only mystery, either. There were several other
gigantic question marks, like why she told me to meet her at the
old, abandoned park—a place that I didn’t even know existed until
I stumbled upon it after the last time I talked to her on April 1st. It
was possible she’d discovered it on her own, of course, but then,
how could she be so confident that I would know where it was?
Things weren’t adding up, and it was starting to give me a
headache. Given that I’d been working my brain virtually nonstop
since yesterday, though, that wasn’t a surprise. Perhaps the brain
could get strained or pulled from overuse, like any other muscle? It
was as good a reason as any to go back to sleep for a while, so my
brain could get some much-needed rest.

I awoke again sometime around noon and ate a light lunch

with my grandmother. She told me that Eri had gone off to the
mainland with a friend for the day, which came as a bit of a relief.
She’d been blatantly suspicious of me ever since last night, and I
didn’t want to get trapped in another interrogation scenario with
her. I did recognize, though, that all her prying was because she
was concerned about me. I was the one who gave her cause to
worry in the first place.
When we finished eating, my grandmother asked if I could
help her with something.
“I’ve been meaning to reorganize the attic,” she explained,
“but there’s so much clutter and so many heavy boxes that I’ve
been putting it off. A strong young man like you would be just the
helper I need.”
I still had plenty of time before I was supposed to meet up
with Akari, so I agreed to help. I used the little ladder we had in
storage to climb up into the attic. Thanks to the illumination
provided by a single undressed light bulb, I saw that there were a
bunch of cardboard boxes strewn around the musty storage space,
and each one looked pretty darn heavy. I began hauling down the
individual boxes my grandmother requested one by one. It didn’t
take long before I was sweating like a pig; after a while I even
accidentally knocked an entire box over and spilled its contents out
all over the attic floor. It had been filled with textbooks and other
reference materials.
“Must’ve been Dad’s,” I said to myself when I saw that they
were all IT-related. My father worked as a programmer in Tokyo,
and based on the amount of margin notes he’d taken, I assumed
they were probably from his college days. I picked up a
composition notebook at my feet and leafed through it. Each and
every page was packed from top to bottom with methodical yet
hastily scribbled notes in his trademark angular handwriting.
Attempting to read it hurt my eyes. I was about to close the
notebook and put it back in the box, when a single word circled in
red pen caught my eye. It appeared to be a technical computing
term, for which he’d written the definition underneath.

ROLLBACK
The process of restoring a database or program back to a
previously defined state, usually in response to some sort of critical
error. Helpful for salvaging data and preferences that have been
lost or corrupted due to user mistakes or system failure.

“Rollback, huh…” I said, letting the word linger on my lips for

a while. It had a pretty cool ring to it—though unless I decided to
go into IT, I had a hunch that I’d never get a real chance to use it.
I closed the notebook and put it back in the box.

By the time I was running through the abandoned part of

town, I only had a handful of minutes before five o’clock. Helping
my grandmother reorganize had taken way longer than I
anticipated, and now I was at risk of being late to my meetup with
Akari. I ran as fast as I could through the mazelike district,
occasionally tripping on potholes and uneven ground. The exit to
the narrow alleyway came into view shortly after 5 p.m. Finally
slowing my pace to a jog, I tried to catch my breath as I entered
the park perimeter.
Standing there beneath the cherry blossom tree was a young
girl in a Sodeshima High uniform, squinting her eyes as she looked
up at the rain of falling petals fluttering to the ground—almost like
she was showering in them. I knew at once that she was Akari
Hoshina, the girl I’d promised to meet here, and yet I couldn’t
bring myself to call out to her. It was such a breathtaking sight
that I forgot my purpose altogether, only able to stand there
captivated by its beauty. So when Akari noticed my presence at
last, and we made eye contact, I floundered.
“Hey! How long have you been standing there?! Let me know
you’re here, why don’tcha!” she said, laughing awkwardly.
“Y-yeah, sorry about that. I was just having fun looking at—”
I barely stopped myself before saying the word “you.” No
way could I pull off a cheesy one-liner like that without sounding
like a creep.
“Sorry, what was that? You were having fun looking at what,
now?” she asked, urging me to finish my thought as she cocked
her head in a cutesy, teasing manner. I had to come up with some
sort of way to salvage this, and fast. I was looking at, uh… Uh…
“Oh, no, I…I was having fun looking at old photo albums
with my grandma and lost track of the time. Hence why I’m a little
late… Sorry.”
Congratulations, Kanae. That was the lamest save in the
history of mankind.
“…Oh. Gotcha. Nah, don’t worry about it. I mean, you’re only
a couple of minutes late, if that,” Akari said with a warm smile—yet
I could hear the slightest hint of disappointment in her voice.
Maybe she’d actually been hoping that I would say I was having
fun looking at her…? Pfft, yeah right. I’ve gotta be overthinking it.
Akari suggested that we sit down, so I took a seat up against
the trunk of the tree. Holding her skirt taut, Akari sat down right
beside me, close enough that our knees were practically touching.
I was getting a little flustered by now. Needing to regain my
composure, and fast, I cleared my throat and got right down to
brass tacks.
“So, last night you were saying you could tell me everything I
want to know? You wanna elaborate on that?” I asked.
“Yeah, so basically, like… Ugh, where do I even begin?
Maybe it would be easier if you asked me some questions first?”
she suggested.
“You want me to do the asking? A-all right, um…”
 I had a million questions I wanted to ask her. Yet now that
she was putting me on the spot, I couldn’t seem to come up with a
single one. I did still want to ask her why she chose this park as
our meetup spot, and about the past four days in general, but
what other questions did I have for her? Let’s see, um…
“How come you’re wearing your uniform again today?”
“Ahaha… Seriously? That’s the most pressing question on
your mind right now? Gosh, you must really love these things,
huh?” she teased, popping the collar of her jacket to show it off.
“N-no, stupid. I, er, y’know…wanted to get the easy
questions out of the way first…”
This girl was really throwing me for a loop today, and I knew
exactly why. It was her mannerisms—they were all so much more
feminine, and far flirtier than I was used to her being. It was like
every little thing she did tugged at my heartstrings in one way or
another. Akari flashed an amused smile, then casually offered a
real answer to my question.
“I’m wearing it again today because I just got back from the
funeral. And unlike the wake last night, we actually had to go over
to the mainland for this one. I didn’t really have time to get
changed after we got back to the house, so I came here in the
same clothes.”
“Ah. Makes sense…”
If I’d been in a more rational state of mind, I could have
guessed that. It was pretty normal to have the memorial service
the day after the wake. I rebuked myself internally for not thinking
twice before asking stupid questions and then moved on to the
next one on my docket.
“Okay, that explains that. Moving on, then: Why did you
think that I would know about this park?”
“Well, because you were the one who showed it to me in the
first place.”
“What? When was this? I don’t remember that at all.”
“Yeah, of course you don’t. Because for you, it hasn’t
happened yet. But it will.”
 “…What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, totally unable to
see what she was getting at. Her face turned deathly serious.
“You’ve heard the phrase ‘quantum leap’ before, right?”
Now this took me by surprise. She’d dropped a bit of
terminology straight out of one of my favorite sci-fi novels.
“Yeah, it’s like…a form of time travel, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay. So…what about it?”
Akari looked me straight in the eye and told me point-blank:
“That’s what’s happening to you, Kanae-kun. You’ve leapt
through time.”
“…Huh?”
I couldn’t wrap my head around it at first. Not that anyone in
my position would have been able to hear “Hey, you’ve just
traveled through time” and immediately go “Oh, that explains it!”
However, I could at least tell that Akari wasn’t pulling my leg here.
The thought of her dragging me out to a deserted park right after
her only brother passed away—for the sake of feeding me a big fat
lie—was even more unthinkable than it being true.
“I know, it sounds crazy,” she went on. “I totally get that. It
was a hard pill for me to swallow too. But right now, I need you to
hear me out.”
A hard pill for her to swallow? Had she been time traveling
too? I was getting more and more confused by the minute, but I
needed all the information I could get. It wouldn’t hurt to at least
listen to what she had to say.
“…All right. Let’s hear it,” I agreed. Her grave expression
finally softened a bit.
“Okay, cool. Warning you in advance, though: This is gonna
get pretty convoluted. I’ll try my best to make it as straightforward
as I can.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
 “All right, so to make sure we’re on the same page here, the
main thing you want to know right now is why you don’t have any
recollection of the time period from 6 p.m. on April 1st to 6 p.m. on
April 5th, right?”
“Y-yeah, that’s exactly it!”
I wanted to ask her how the hell she knew that, but it
seemed like she still had plenty more to say, so I mentally shelved
my questions for later.
“Well, the reason for that,” she explained, “is that your
consciousness made a quantum leap between those two points in
time. Still with me?”
“My…consciousness? Not my whole body?”
“Correct. This isn’t like one of those old cartoons. You didn’t
accidentally step into a time machine and get physically sent
forward or anything like that. Only your mind made the jump…or
at least, that’s what I was told.”
I could feel a migraine coming on. That’s what she was
“told”? How was I supposed to believe her if she was reciting
something secondhand?
“Sorry, who ‘told’ you this, again?” I asked dubiously.
“Yeah, so like I was saying before… Actually, no. Let’s circle
back to that later. For now, I should probably try to stay on track
and explain things in order.”
Something didn’t sit right with me about how she seemed to
be dancing around certain subjects, but I decided to keep my
mouth shut and let her continue.
“So, I explained how you got into your current predicament.
Now I’ll explain what’s gonna happen to you going forward. This
part’s really important, so listen carefully,” she emphasized, and I
nodded. “Okay, so here’s how this is gonna play out: You’re about
to relive the past four days, one by one, in reverse order.”
“Um. How does that work?”
“Think of it like this: After every 24 hours, you’re going to be
sent back in time 48 hours. Kinda like one step forward, two steps
back. Oh, and it’ll always happen at 6 p.m. on the dot. You’ll
repeat this process until you’ve filled in the entire four-day gap in
your memories.”
“…Sorry, I think you’ve lost me. This is a lot to keep up with,
is all…”
“Yeah, it’s pretty hard to explain in words… Here, gimme one
sec.”
Akari picked up a thin branch from the ground and cleared
off a large patch of dirt. Then, using the branch like a writing
utensil, she wrote 4/1 (6PM) and drew a long arrow pointing
down from it. At its terminus, she wrote 4/5 (6PM) and then
used the branch to point at the arrow as she explained:
“So let’s say this represents the initial quantum leap you
made, right? You shot forward from six o’clock on the 1st to six
o’clock on the 5th. With me so far?”
“Yeah, and that’s why I don’t have any memory of the last
four days… Go on.”
From there, Akari drew an arrow to the right, where she
wrote 4/6 (6PM), then set the branch down and pulled out her
cell phone.
“Okay, so it’s April 6th now, and in about thirty minutes, it’ll
be six o’clock…and from there, you’re gonna get sent back to six
o’clock on April 4th.”
Akari picked the branch back up and drew an arrow
diagonally down and to the left, where she wrote 4/4 (6PM).
According to the diagram, once I reached the end of the 24-hour
period from the evening of the 5th to the 6th, I’d be sent back 48
hours to the evening of the 4th. I could see now why Akari had
explained it as “one step forward, two steps back.” Thanks to the
visual aid, it felt like I was finally starting to grasp the bigger
picture here.
“And then from there,” Akari went on, “you’ll have another 24
hours until you make it back to six o’clock on the 5th, at which
point…”
 “I’ll be sent back to six o’clock on the 3rd…?”
“Yeah, exactly. See, you’re getting it!”
Akari proceeded to sketch out the rest of the diagram—
repeating the one day forward, two days back pattern a few more
times—until she’d made it all the way back to six o’clock on April
1st, then finished off with one last horizontal line from 4/1 (6PM)
to 4/2 (6PM).
 “So, yeah,” Akari said, setting the branch back down on the
ground. “This is what I meant when I said you’ll be reliving the
past four days in reverse order. We’ve been calling it the ‘Rollback’
phenomenon.”
“…Wait. Rollback?”
I had a fairly good grasp of the process at this stage, at least
in concept, but the more I heard Akari explain, the harder it
became to believe. Every question she answered only raised two or
three more in my head.
“So, uh. Obviously, I have a lot of questions,” I began. “But I
guess for starters: Why six o’clock? No, more importantly, how’d
I get wrapped up in this weird ‘phenomenon’ to begin with?”
“I can’t say for sure…but I was told it might’ve had
something to do with you touching the stone inside that shrine. It
just so happened to be at six o’clock—there’s no special
significance to the time, I don’t think.”
“Oh… Right, the shrine…”
I’d totally forgotten about that, to be honest. I stood up and
went to take another peek inside the little shrine on the other side
of the big cherry blossom tree. The hefty rock with the crevice in
the middle was still there, exactly where I remembered it being. It
hadn’t moved.
“But I don’t get it,” I said. “How could touching a stupid rock
cause all this supernatural stuff to start happening? I mean, even if
it did have some sort of ‘magical powers,’ let’s say…this reliving
each day in reverse stuff is way too specific. It doesn’t add up.”
“…Well, this is my own personal theory,” Akari said, having
walked over to stand beside me, “but do you remember that time
in elementary school when they took us on a field trip up to the
big shrine on the island to learn more about Sodeshima’s history?”
“Oh yeah… I think I do remember that.”
It was sometime in fourth or fifth grade. They brought the
entire class out to the Sodeshima Shrine and let the resident
Shinto priest teach us for the day. I could still vividly remember
how cold the wood floors they made us sit on were.
 “Okay, so call me crazy, but didn’t they mention something
about how Buddhist monks used to make pilgrimages out to
Sodeshima in the olden days to undergo some sort of trial…?”
“I don’t remember that at all, personally, but… Are you
saying you think I might have accidentally brought some sort of
ancient ‘trial’ upon myself?”
“I mean, it’s no crazier than any other explanation we’ve
come up with, is it…?”
All right, now this is getting ridiculous.
“And what the hell am I being tested on, huh? By who? It
doesn’t make any sense. For another thing… How do you know all
of this, Akari? About the Rollback, and me touching the stone in
the shrine… I never told anyone about that, so how could you
know?”
I could feel my tone getting more and more impatient as the
questions kept piling up one after another. In the face of my
frustration, Akari simply looked at me—gently, with a hint of
genuine sympathy in her eyes—as if I were the one in need
of condolences here.
“I heard it from you, Kanae-kun,” she said.
“From me?” I balked.
“That’s right. Everything I’ve told you here today, you
explained to me yourself. In a past you haven’t experienced yet.”
Her words came out measured and slow, as if to make sure
each and every syllable hit home. I closed my eyes, pinched the
bridge of my nose, and let out a long, lingering sigh.
“Sorry, I need some time to think about all of this…”

After all those exhausting mental gymnastics, I felt like I

needed a cigarette—and I’d never smoked before in my life. I tried
my best to fully digest everything that Akari had told me. All of it
was still hard to swallow, but I would need to take it one bite at a
time.
The “Rollback” phenomenon, huh?
 I was familiar with the term, of course, since I’d learned it
earlier today from one of my dad’s old notebooks. It was obviously
a computing term, but it felt oddly apt for the concept of being
sent backwards to previous points in time. Akari claimed that I was
the one that explained all of this to her, which presumably meant
that I came up with the name for the phenomenon. There were
still a lot of aspects to this that I couldn’t completely wrap my
head around, but now I finally felt like I’d done enough mental
organizing to free up some of my brain’s processing power.
“Sorry,” I said, “but I’ve gotta be honest: I’m having a lot of
trouble coming to terms with the whole quantum leap idea and
you claiming it was me who told you this stuff. On the other hand,
I know you’d never lie about something like this, so I’m gonna try
my best to take you at your word.”
“Thanks. I really appreciate it,” she smiled. Her warm
expression reassured me.
“…Man, talk about bad timing, though, am I right? The one
week I’m back in town, and we get sucked into some otherworldly
bullcrap. Not to mention, you must be busy enough as it is, what
with your brother’s funeral and everyth—”
I trailed off, because at that exact moment, the final piece
clicked into place inside my head.
The Rollback phenomenon.
Akito’s death.
Think about it, Kanae—if you’re already gonna be going back
in time, then…
“…Hey, uh, Akari?” I asked. “Remind me, when exactly did
Akito pass away?”
“Sometime between midnight and two o’clock in the morning
on April 2nd,” she said matter-of-factly, as though she’d been
anticipating that question. “That’s what the autopsy said, at least.”
Okay, sometime between 12 a.m. and 2 a.m. on the 2nd. Got
it.
 Akari claimed I was going to relive everything from 6 p.m. on
the 1st through 6 p.m. on the 5th—and Akito’s death fell well within
that period. Assuming Akari wasn’t wrong about any of this, that
presented a very interesting possibility.
“Does that mean we could prevent Akito’s death from ever
happening…?” I asked.
“…Sure does,” she replied. Then she looked down at her feet
for a moment, scrunching her face up pensively before looking
back up to stare directly into my eyes. “Kanae-kun, I…I want you
to save my brother.”
Her words were so crystal clear in their conviction that they
knocked me off guard, and it put me in a bit of an awkward spot.
Keep in mind that I was still only half convinced that all this
Rollback stuff was even possible… Hell, maybe not even twenty
percent convinced. It was hard to jump up right away and say
“Sure, I’ll save your brother’s life for you!” when I still had so many
unanswered questions. But then, I couldn’t bring myself to say no,
either. Whether any of this was true or not, I couldn’t leave Akari
in the lurch during her time of need. I had to believe in the
sincerity I saw in her face.
“…All right. I’ll do whatever I can,” I said at last. Akari
nodded emphatically.
“Okay, so I told you the approximate time of death—between
midnight and 2 a.m. on the 2nd. He died of alcohol poisoning, and
his body was found in the empty lot behind the old tobacco shop.”
There was only one tobacco shop in all of Sodeshima. It was
a small, seedy place down a narrow side street, and I knew exactly
where it was.
“What was Akito doing there? Do you know?” I asked.
“The police thought he might have been, um, ‘relieving
himself’ in the empty lot. They found some traces in the vicinity
that supported that theory, I guess…”
Welp, that must have been an uncomfortable question for
her to have to answer. I felt kind of bad for asking. Still, if she was
right about all this Rollback stuff, then saving Akito’s life shouldn’t
be very hard at all. All I’d need to do was make sure he didn’t
drink any alcohol that day. Hey, even if I couldn’t do that, I knew
exactly where he would be and when. Now that I thought about it,
I’d never actually repaid the favor to him for saving me from those
bullies back in the day…which made this the perfect opportunity to
do so. Right now, I was the only one who could save Akito’s life.
“Okay, Kanae-kun. It’s almost time,” Akari said as she looked
down at her phone. I followed suit and checked my own. It was
5:57; if Akari was right, the next Rollback would occur in three
short minutes.
“Let’s see… So you said I’m gonna be sent back to six o’clock
on April 4th next?”
“Yeah. Pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure?!”
“I dunno what you want me to say, Kanae-kun. I don’t have
any proof of this stuff. I only know what you’ve told me yourself,
like I said.”
“Right… Well, fair enough,” I relented. I could tell that
hounding her about it wouldn’t do either of us any good.
“…I can tell you right now, though, that the Rollbacks do
occur. Or at least, you’ve given me more than enough reason to
believe they do,” Akari said. Her voice was as earnest as could be.
Just then, the wind picked up. A few anxious moments later,
it sent a cloud of cherry blossom petals spiraling through the sky
like a kaleidoscope of tiny butterflies. The swirling pattern of
pastel-pink blossoms shone beautifully against the amber evening
skies. There was no doubt about it—these had to be the most
gorgeous blossoms on the entire island. I stood there for a while,
gazing up at them in a state of zen, until I heard what sounded
like sobbing beside me. I turned to look and saw Akari covering
her face with her hands, her shoulders quivering. The sound of
soft weeping leaked out from between her fingers. It didn’t sound
like she was crying—she was crying. And this time, it was plainly
evident that these were no pollen allergy tears.
“A-Akari? You all right? Is something wrong?”
 “Hic… N-No, I…I j-just…”
“Wh-what’s gotten into you all of a sudden…?”
And yet, before I had the chance to learn the reason for her
tears, we were interrupted by the six o’clock chime. The sorrowful
starting notes of Greensleeves announced to us both that the time
had come and my anxiety accelerated.
“…Listen, Kanae-kun…” Akari said, practically choking the
words out as she lifted her disheveled, tear-drenched face to look
unflinchingly into mine. “I trust your judgment. So please… Take
care of past me, okay? The rest is up to—”
 INTERLUDE II

ALL MY MEMORIES of Kanae from our elementary school days

were still vivid in my mind, so vivid that every time I looked back
on them, it was like flipping through the pages of a beautifully
illustrated children’s book. Like, for example, this one interaction
we had back in the third grade on our way home from school. It
was a cool July afternoon, and we were sitting on the seawall like
we always did, whiling away the hours. We would often sit there
talking until the sun went down, usually about utterly trivial things:
a stray cat someone found near the shrine, a classmate of ours
who snuck his handheld game console into class, a book that one
of us had borrowed from the library. On that particular day,
though, I specifically remembered Kanae gushing to me about
something of actual import.
“Hey, so guess what?” he grinned. “A bunch of junior high
kids tried to gang up on me the other day, but then your brother
came outta nowhere and scared ’em off.”
“Whoa, really?”
“Yep. He was so cool, I’m tellin’ ya. Can’t believe he knows
how to fight, and he’s good at baseball… Wish I could be like him
someday.”
“You do, huh…?”
I never liked my older brother very much, mainly because he
was always picking on me, but even I had to admit that what
Kanae claimed he did was pretty cool. In fact, I was genuinely
quite proud of him for sticking up for the defenseless like that.
“Man, if only I had something I was the best at…” Kanae
mused.
“…I think you’re fine the way you are, Kanae-kun.”
“What, seriously? I feel like I should at least find some kind
of sport or special talent I can show off to people. But what…?” he
said, thinking aloud to himself before turning to face me. “You’re
so lucky, Akari. I mean, you’re already a really good swimmer.”
“I’m not that good at swimming…”
“Sure you are. Heck, didn’t you get the fastest time out of
our entire class the other day? That takes talent, right? Give
yourself a little more credit.”
“Yeah, maybe…”
It was true that I was a pretty good swimmer—but I never
liked pool days all that much, since they meant showing more of
my unconventionally pigmented skin than I had to already. But
hearing Kanae speak so highly of my skills made me really happy,
and it was at that point that I decided I was going to start taking
swimming more seriously.

Summer vacation rolled around, and I opted to sign up for a

more advanced swim class that the school pool offered. The
lessons were a lot harder than I expected going in, but they made
an obvious improvement to my lap times. On the last day of
summer vacation, my swim instructor came up to me and
suggested I consider enrolling in more formal swimming lessons at
a big aquatic center over on the mainland. He was adamant about
the amount of potential he saw in me and insisted that I should at
least talk to my family about it.
Mind you, I’d always fantasized about being able to take
lessons at a huge indoor facility like that. Such a huge pool felt
almost mandatory if you wanted enough space to swim your heart
out, and I was sure that lying on your back in the middle of a vast
pool of crystal-clear water felt sublime. But I’d pretty much given
up on the idea, figuring it was impossible given our means. I
already knew, even at that young age, that my family’s finances
were pretty abysmal.
My mother supported my brother and I on her own, ever
since my father died in a car crash when I was five. During the
day, she worked the register at the supermarket, and at night, she
mixed drinks at a local hostess bar. When I was really little, I pretty
much convinced myself that my mother was some sort of
superhuman that had evolved beyond the need for sleep—that was
how hard she worked, day in and day out. To this day, I had no
idea how or when she snuck in enough time to sleep. Needless to
say, I didn’t want to put even more stress on my mom’s plate, so I
opted not to ask her about the whole formal swimming lessons
proposition at all—or that was the plan, anyway, until my instructor
brought it up on parent-teacher conference night.
“I really think your daughter’s got talent, ma’am,” he said.
“I think it’d be a travesty not to enroll her in more formal training.”
My mother was a polite person who was quick to cave under
pressure, so she immediately agreed to his proposal, and before
long, I was enrolled in legit swimming lessons. Could I have still
pumped the brakes at this point? Absolutely. All I had to do was
say I was getting sick and tired of swimming or that I wasn’t
comfortable taking the ferry over to the mainland by myself. But I
didn’t, which says a lot about how much I really cared about not
overburdening my mother—as soon as it looked like it might
actually happen, I shut up real quick.
To be fair to myself, I worked myself to the bone when my
lessons began, training as hard as I possibly could so as not to let
the tuition fees and ferry ticket costs go to waste. As a result of
this, I became such a good swimmer that by sixth grade I came in
first place at the big annual district swim meet. I was honored for
this achievement at the next school assembly, and it was at that
point that the other kids in my grade started paying a lot more
attention to me, with some even wanting to be my friends. Since
athletic ability is pretty much the only thing that determines a kid’s
popularity in elementary school, I soon became the most popular
kid in class. No one dared make fun of me for my appearance
anymore.
This felt so good that I completely forgot the guilt I once felt
for putting additional financial strain on my mom, and I started
living my life to the fullest without a care in the world. Everywhere
I went, people showered me with praise—but the words that
meant the most, and gave me the strength to keep pushing myself
even harder, came from Kanae.
 “Man, Akari. You’re on fire lately,” he said on our way home
from school one day. “See, I always knew you had it in you.
I could tell you were destined for greatness way before anyone
else realized what a good swimmer you are!”
“Oh yeah? You knew it all along, huh?” I teased.
“Yep! Guess I’ve just got an eye for these things, heh-heh!”
he boasted.
“Wowie. You should be a talent scout or something.”
“Hey! Don’t be sarcastic with me!”
I giggled to myself; he’d caught me red-handed. In all
seriousness, though, I really was grateful to Kanae. If he hadn’t
spoken so highly of my abilities that day in third grade, I might not
have ever started taking swimming seriously like this.
“Thanks for everything, Kanae-kun,” I said in a meek and
quiet voice.
“The heck? Where’d that come from?”
“You always paid attention to me, even when no one else
would. It really means a lot.”
At this, Kanae dropped the braggadocious act and started
downplaying it—saying things like “Nah, I didn’t have anything to
do with it” as his face went beet red. In that moment, I really felt
like I was the happiest girl alive. If I could have sold my soul to
make sure those days would never end, I would have done so in a
heartbeat.
 MY CONSCIOUSNESS SNAPPED BACK to a different point in time
in an instant. When I lifted my head, I saw a large crowd of people
spread out all around me. I took in my first breath, and an
aromatic mixture of sweet and salty scents wafted into my nostrils.
And then came the sounds—the incessant crowd noises and,
somewhere off in the distance, the crooning melody of
Greensleeves.
Akari, who’d been standing beside me prior to the jump, was
nowhere to be found. It was just like when I was instantly
transported from the abandoned park down to the seawall—as if
the projector for the world around me had switched over to a
different slide in the span of a single blink. I was prepared for it
this time, at least, thanks to Akari’s explanation, but that didn’t
make it any less jarring to experience.
“You can’t be serious…” I muttered in disbelief.
Despite my astonishment, I couldn’t shake the residual
image of Akari’s tear-drenched face from my mind. What was she
so broken up about in that moment? Was she thinking back on her
brother’s death? Could I have unwittingly said something in poor
taste? Or was there some other reason…? I knew it would keep
eating away at me, but for now I decided to forget about it and
focus on regaining my bearings. If Akari was right, the Rollback
should have sent me back to six o’clock on April 4th.
Just as I was about to pull out my phone and check the time,
however, a man I didn’t recognize suddenly shot into my field of
vision. He was red in the face, and he looked to be middle-aged. It
was the abruptness that startled me more than anything else; he
hadn’t dashed in from the side or behind me. It was more like he
sprung up from below—like he’d been sitting directly at my feet,
then shot straight up to get right in my face.
“Hey! Whaddya think yer doin’, kid?!” he spat, his eyes
glaring up from beneath the bulging veins on his furrowed brow.
He was pissed off at me about something or other, that much was
evident—but I had no clue who he was. I’d never seen him before
in my life.
 “Er… Sorry, can I help you with something?” I asked
sheepishly.
“Huh?!” the man barked. I immediately knew that he was
drunk; his breath reeked of alcohol. “You want me to beat yer ass,
punk?! Don’t you play dumb with me!”
“Wh-whoa, hang on a minute!” I sputtered, taking a few
steps back as the man closed in. “Listen, I really don’t know what’s
going on here…”
The man repeated my words in an exaggerated, mocking
voice. Something told me he wasn’t about to listen to reason. Ugh,
what did I do to deserve this? First I was caught off guard by Akari
crying, then my mind got sent back into the middle of a big crowd
of people, and now I was being harassed by a man I didn’t even
know. This was way too much for me to handle all at once—I felt
at serious risk of losing my mind.
First and foremost, I needed to think of a way to get myself
out of this sticky situation. I knew my assailant had to be quite
drunk and thus probably wouldn’t be able to keep up with me if I
made a clean break for it. At the same time, I knew that running
away before I even figured out what I’d supposedly done to this
man wouldn’t sit well with me. It didn’t seem like he was going to
calm down enough to have a rational discussion with me anytime
soon, though—rather, it looked like he was gearing up to slug me
in the face. I didn’t have time to stand around weighing my
options at length. I took a few more steps back. The second
before I turned to make a run for it, a young woman with blonde
hair jumped in between me and the drunkard.
“Okay, that’s enough! Break it up! What seems to be the
problem here?” she demanded.
She quickly set about trying to calm the man down and
deescalate the situation, letting him know very politely how
disruptive he was being, that everyone was watching, and that he
should probably drink some water. She was clearly a pro. As I
stood there marveling at how she didn’t let him get even a word in
edgewise, she shot a glance over at me.
 “I’ll handle it from here,” she said. “You run along home,
okay?”
“Huh? Wait, but I…”
“Seriously, it’s fine. Think of it as my way of thanking you for
all your help.”
It was becoming increasingly clear that hanging around here
any longer was only going to make things harder for her. Total
stranger or not, I didn’t want to put her out any more than I
already had, and since I was already planning to make a run for it
anyway, I decided to take her up on her generous offer.
“All right, fair enough,” I said. “Thank you.”
I bowed my head to her slightly and then took off at an easy
sprint. Weaving my way through the crowd helped me to finally
realize where I was and subsequently why there were so many
people here. These were the temple grounds of the Sodeshima
Shrine. Judging from the massive crowd, as well as the various
food and entertainment stalls lining the main path leading up to
the shrine, I’d apparently been sent back in time directly into the
thick of Sodeshima’s biggest annual event: the Ocean’s Bounty
Festival. This didn’t help explain why I’d come there in the first
place, though. I was extremely uncomfortable in large crowds, so I
generally avoided the festival like the plague.
Who was that blonde-haired woman, anyway? I felt like I
might have recognized her from somewhere, had I not been too
preoccupied with the belligerent drunkard to get a good look at
her face. Still, she said that it was her way of thanking me “for all
my help,” so I must have assisted her with something over the
past couple of days. I was finding more questions than answers, as
usual, and it was starting to get really annoying. I felt like a new
hire that was being brought into a highly complicated position as a
replacement for someone else, only to find that my predecessor
had quit on mysterious terms without leaving any notes or
guidance for me—except in this case, that predecessor was myself.
I figured I should at least check the time. I reached into my
right-hand pocket where I usually kept my phone and was pleased
to discover that it was actually there this time around. I pressed a
button, and the screen turned on—it was April 4th, 6:05 p.m. Akari
was right, then—I had indeed been sent back 48 hours in time
from the evening of the 6th. Guess the Rollback is real, then, I
thought to myself. This time, it was surprisingly easy for me to
accept—though maybe it was just that my brain had gotten numb
to all the crazy things happening to me. Hey, it was a fair bit better
than feeling insane. I slid my cell phone back into my pocket and
headed off for home.

By the time I made it back to the house, I’d already decided

what my first priority there would be—gathering as much intel as I
could. When I entered the living room, I found Eri doing her
schoolwork at the table like the good student she was. It was the
perfect opportunity to ask her a few questions.
“Hey, Eri? Mind if I ask you a thing or two?” I asked.
She shot me a quick glance, then turned back to her notes.
“Sure, whatever. Make it quick,” she said.
“Awesome, thanks. I’ll get right down to it, then: Where do
you think I went today?”
Eri looked back up at me, one eyebrow raised in curiosity.
“What is this, some sort of trick question?”
“No, just answer honestly.”
“…I mean, you went to the festival, didn’t you?”
“Ding ding ding. Atta girl. Okay, next question: Do you know
why I went to the festival?”
“You were gonna help out at one of the booths, right? That’s
what you said yesterday, anyway…”
Aha. So I’d been helping them set up or something. That
would explain why that blonde-haired lady felt indebted to me—
she must have been on the planning committee or something. As
for why I agreed to help out, that remained a mystery, but at least
now I knew why I was there to begin with. I was scared she’d get
too suspicious if I asked her point-blank, so I decided to frame it
like a cute quiz show. It had paid off, apparently. Eri didn’t seem to
suspect a thing.
“Congratulations, young lady! You got every answer right! …
Okay, so there were only two questions, but still. Thanks for your
participation, and we’ll see you next time!”
As I made my dramatic exit from the living room, I heard Eri
mutter a single word under her breath: “Weirdo.”

Back in my own bedroom, I sat down at my desk and pulled

out a pen and a notebook from the drawer. Flipping open to a
blank page, I tried as best I could to recreate the diagram Akari
had drawn in the dirt when she was explaining the Rollback to me.
The incident over at the festival grounds left me a little out of
sorts, so I wanted to refresh my memory and make sure I hadn’t
lost any of what she told me. I drew the dates and arrows one by
one as she had, moving ahead one day, then two days back. When
I drew the last arrow to April 2nd, I set the pen down. Okay, yeah.
I’ve still got it down pat. We’re good.
“…Hey, wait a minute.”
As I looked down at the diagram, an old question resurfaced
in my mind. It was one that I’d tried to ask Eri about the night we
were walking to Akito’s wake.

What was I physically doing between 6 p.m. on the 1st and

6 p.m. on the 5th?

If the only part of me that made the quantum leap was my

mind, then that would imply that my physical self still experienced
those four days in their natural order. In other words, the body I
was in right now had already experienced all of the events that I
was about to “relive,” but my mind couldn’t remember them
because mentally, I was going through them in reverse order.
I grabbed my cell phone, thinking there might be something
recorded within it that could give me some hints as to how I’d
spent the previous few days. I figured it might be a bit of a long
shot, but when I tapped the Memos app, it opened up to a set of
notes I didn’t remember taking:

4/2: Found Akito’s body @ 6:30 PM in empty lot behind

tobacco shop & called police.
Est. time of death between midnight and 2 AM that morning.
Was drinking heavily earlier that night @ the Asuka Tavern,
~9 PM to midnight.

“The hell?” I muttered incredulously.

It was all specifics related to Akito’s death. The second bullet
point I’d already heard from Akari, but the other two were
completely new information to me. I scrunched up my forehead
and carefully reread each word, and then suddenly it clicked.
“Oh, duh!” I exclaimed as the light bulb flashed on in my
head.
I must have typed these notes out sometime between
six o’clock on April 1st and six o’clock on April 4th. To put it plainly,
this was information that my future self had left for me in the past.
That explained why there were details here that I hadn’t learned
yet. But with that being the case, I couldn’t help but wonder how
accurate this intel really was…aside from the stuff Akari already
told me, of course.
For example, the first bullet point seemed to imply that I had
initially found Akito’s body in the empty lot behind the tobacco
shop and reported it to the authorities. Akari told me the body was
found in that exact location, to be sure, but she didn’t say anything
about who found it. It seemed like a relevant detail to include if it
was me. Still, the fact that it was written here in my own cell
phone made me inclined to believe it was true. In which case,
there probably would be a record of me calling the emergency
hotline around that time. Upon realizing this, I hastily opened up
my recent call history.
 RECENT CALLS

Akari Hoshina - Yesterday - 7:56 PM

Akari Hoshina - Yesterday - 6:35 PM
Akari Hoshina - Yesterday - 5:32 PM
Dad - Monday - 10:24 PM
Home - Monday - 7:15 PM
119 - Monday - 6:30 PM
Home - Monday - 11:07 PM
Akari Hoshina - Sunday - 9:06 PM
Akari Hoshina - Sunday - 9:05 PM
Home - Sunday - 6:29 PM

Sure enough, there it was: a record of me calling 119 at

exactly 6:30 p.m. on Monday, April 2nd. It matched up perfectly
with the time listed in my notes, and since you couldn’t really forge
your call history, I had no choice but to accept the notes in my
phone as the real deal. However, I did find it somewhat peculiar
that I had logged so many phone calls with Akari over the past few
days—especially “yesterday,” when we’d apparently had three calls
within a matter of hours. Let’s see… Yesterday would have been
the 3rd, so… Maybe we made plans to meet up or something?
In any case, I now had a much better grasp on the
intricacies of Akito’s death. All that remained now was to establish
what I’d been doing for the past several days, but I could probably
figure that out pretty easily with some carefully worded questions
to Eri or my grandmother. As though she’d read my mind, Eri
yelled up at me from downstairs that very moment to let me know
that dinner was ready. When I stood up from my chair, I heard
something crinkle in my left pocket. I reached inside to discover a
mysterious, folded-up thousand-yen bill. Maybe I’d been planning
to use it to buy a snack over at the festival or something. I
unfolded the bill and slid it into my wallet, then headed downstairs.
 “Hey, Grandma, can I ask you something?” I asked after we
were done eating and she was washing dishes in the kitchen.
“What is it, dear?” she replied without even turning around
as she kept scrubbing away at the plate she was currently
washing.
“Do you remember how I’ve been spending my time since I
came back to Sodeshima?”
I was planning to talk to Eri at first, but then figured she’d
probably get suspicious as to why I was asking and decided to ask
my grandmother instead. My grandmother wasn’t a very skeptical
person in general, and she’d typically answer just about any
question in a straightforward manner without questioning the
asker’s intent. Unfortunately, it seemed I made a bit of a
miscalculation this time.
“I beg your pardon?” she said in puzzled surprise as she
turned to face me. “Goodness, that’s an awfully broad question.”
She was totally right. I should have narrowed it down a bit.
“Er, yeah, sorry. Here, why don’t we start with the day I got
here? April 1st. What sticks out most in your mind about me from
that day?”
“That was several days ago now, Kanae… Well, you got in a
bit of a fight with your sister,” she recalled, but that was something
I already knew. What I really wanted to know was what I did after
six o’clock that night.
“Right, Eri and I got into an argument, and I stormed out of
the house. What did I do after that, though?” I pressed her.
“Sweetie, why are you asking me these strange questions?
Shouldn’t you already know the answer to that?”
“Sure, of course I do… I was curious how much you knew or
remembered.”
“How would I know what you did after that? You didn’t come
home that night.”
“I didn’t?”
 “No, don’t you remember? You called back here to say you
were spending the night at a friend’s house. Really, dear—how is
my memory better than yours?”
Aha. That explained the record in my phone history of me
calling home that night. To be clear, I still had my grandmother’s
house registered as “Home” in my address book, even after
moving to Tokyo, because my father didn’t have a landline. But
what was this about me spending the night at a friend’s house? I
had no friends here in Sodeshima who would offer to let me stay
at their place—or in Tokyo, for that matter. Sure, there was Akari,
who I was fairly close with, but there was no way I’d spent the
night at a girl’s house. So where did I sleep that night?
“Whose house was it, anyway?” my grandmother asked
before I even had the chance. “Eri was wondering about it too.”
“Oh, yeah, um… Sorry, I’ll have to tell you later.”
“I beg your pardon? Don’t tell me you stayed the night at the
house of some ne’er-do-well your father and I wouldn’t
approve of.”
“No, no! It’s nothing like that… I don’t think.”
“You don’t sound very sure of yourself. You haven’t gotten
involved in any shady business, have you? If you’re in danger, you
need to tell us about it. If not me, then your father, at least…”
“Er, yeah. No, I get that. But I mean it—I’ll tell you as soon
as I can, okay? Bye.”
“The bathwater’s ready, so feel free to wash up!” she called
after me as I beat a hasty retreat from the kitchen. As I made my
way toward the bathroom, I felt a sudden haze of anxiety roll over
my mind like ominous black storm clouds.

After a quick hop in the bath, I returned to my bedroom.

I spent my entire time in the tub trying to figure out where I could
have possibly spent the night of the 1st but still couldn’t come up
with anything. I’d never spent the night at a friend’s house in my
entire life, as sad as that sounded—so for me to do so while I was
already running away from home seemed almost unthinkable.
There had to have been a very compelling reason why I couldn’t
go back to my grandmother’s house that night, and the fact that
the 1st was also the night Akito died made me wonder if perhaps
the two things were related.
No, that couldn’t be right. Not if the body wasn’t found until
the next evening. Still, I needed to find some answers as to where
I was staying that night. I didn’t want to leave any questions
unanswered before I made it back to the 1st, since then I could
give saving Akito’s life my undivided attention. Not that I had any
solid proof that the Rollback was going to take me back that far, I
guess, but I wanted to be ready in the event that it did. I’d need
to do some footwork around town once tomorrow hit.
I was about to jump in bed when I spied the notebook I’d
left laying out on my desk. I flipped it open on a whim and took
another look at the Rollback diagram I’d drawn in it earlier. Then a
thought occurred to me: When exactly was the Rollback supposed
to end? Akari’s diagram had finished off at 6 p.m. on April 2nd—
and yes, that would be when I finished filling in the four-day gap
in my memories—but what would happen after that?
I decided I probably shouldn’t think too hard about it,
though; I wasn’t going to find any answers that way. For now, I
needed some rest. My whole body felt extremely sore—maybe
from helping out at the festival, if what Eri said was true.
Obviously my mind didn’t remember doing any heavy labor, but my
body sure did. I shut the notebook and snuggled up under the
covers. In a matter of minutes, I was out like a light.

I was awakened by the sound of my cell phone vibrating.

I reached for it with one hand, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes
with the other. After my vision had time to adjust, I looked down
at the screen and saw the name “Akari Hoshina.”
“Akari…?” I grumbled drowsily, then answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“Oh, you did pick up! Hey, Kanae-kun! Sorry for calling you
at this hour. You were probably asleep already, huh?”
 “Yeah, I was… What time is it right now?”
“Oh, it’s about one o’clock. One o’clock in the morning.”
No wonder I still felt so sleepy.
“Why are you calling so late?” I asked, stifling a yawn. “Do
you need something?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t say I need anything. I was just
wondering if maybe, I dunno…” she mumbled, her voice growing
quieter and quieter. I pressed the speaker right up against my ear,
but even then it was too soft to discern.
“Sorry? I didn’t quite catch that…”
“Um… I was wondering if maybe we could meet up for a
little bit?”
“What, you want to hang out? Like, right now…? At one in
the morning?”
“Mm-hmm…” she answered in a weak little voice. I could
practically see the pleading puppy-dog eyes on the other end of
the line. This, too, was very unusual; the Akari I knew would never
call someone up this late at night, let alone ask to hang out. The
fact that she was doing it now led me to believe that something
must have been up. Concerned for her, I agreed right away.
“All right, sure thing. Just tell me where to go.”
“Wait, really? You mean it? …Okay, meet me at Central Park
in, like, twenty minutes.”
“Central Park. Got it. Guess I’ll see you there, then.”
“Yeah, see you in a little bit.”
Central Park was a small but popular park that sat a little bit
further inland. Generally, when someone from Sodeshima said
“meet me at the park,” that was the one they meant. I assumed
Akari had only specified so that I knew she wasn’t referring to the
old, abandoned park I discovered the other day.
After hanging up the phone, I hopped out of bed and
changed out of my pajamas into some sweatpants and a hoodie. I
knew it would only take me about ten minutes to get there, but I
decided to head out early anyway. Creeping down the stairs so as
not to wake the rest of the family, I snuck out the back door and
closed it quietly behind me. As the frigid night air caressed my
cheeks, any semblance of drowsiness I may still have felt shot
right out the window. Icy wind swept through the empty
neighborhood streets, chilling me to my core.
I set off at a light jog in an attempt to conserve my body
heat. Sodeshima’s neighborhoods had a lot of steep hills, so I
normally never tried to run through them unless I was in a real
hurry. I didn’t have many other options at this point—they got rid
of my bike when I moved to Tokyo, so unless I felt like borrowing
Eri’s, it was either run, or walk and turn into a human popsicle.
The scuffing of my sneakers against the pavement echoed
loudly through the streets in a staccato rhythm. Sodeshima was
awfully quiet at night this time of year. Whereas in Tokyo you could
never escape the constant hum of car engines whirring past, here,
the whole world seemingly came to a halt as soon as the sun went
down. Sure, you’d have the occasional obnoxious jerkwad zooming
loudly by on a motorbike, but those guys were the same no matter
where you went.
I was at the park before I knew it, though Akari was
nowhere to be found. I took a look at the tall street clock, its face
lit up by the nearby lamplight, and saw that I’d arrived almost ten
minutes early. I sat down to wait on a park bench, and the icy
metal quickly set about draining all of the heat I’d built up in my
flushed skin during the jog over here.
“…Brrr,” I shivered, belatedly realizing that I should have
worn another layer or two.
Nothing set the imagination running wild quite like the
anticipation of waiting for someone else to arrive. If I’d known I’d
get here this early, then it might have been a good idea to swing
by Akari’s place and pick her up along the way. Even if we did live
out here in the boonies, it was still dangerous for a young girl like
her to go walking around by herself at night. You never knew what
kinds of creepers were lurking in the shadows, and the lack of light
made it harder to see where you were going. I’d never had a late-
night meetup with a girl like this before, though, so I guess I
forgot to consider that aspect of it. Maybe it’d be a good idea to
call her and offer to come meet her somewhere closer, even if
she’d probably already left. Just as I was about to pull out my cell
phone, I noticed a shadowy figure standing at the entrance to the
park, and I could tell immediately from the silhouette that it was
Akari. I shot up to my feet and called her name. She came trotting
over the second she identified where I was.
“Hey, sorry,” she huffed. “Didn’t keep you waiting too long,
I hope?”
“Nah, you’re good. I just got here myself.”
Now standing under the lamplight, I could actually see what
Akari looked like. She wore a loose-fitting heavy cardigan, her
fingers poking out from the overlong sleeves and gripping the thick
fabric tightly. I felt a funny feeling well up inside my chest—there
was something exhilarating about meeting up in the dead of night,
especially since we’d never done anything remotely like this
before.
“Oh, okay. Anyway, sorry for dragging you out here so late,”
she said.
“Don’t worry about it. So tell me…”
I was about to ask her why she called me to meet up, when
all of a sudden, the image of her crying beneath the cherry
blossom tree at the abandoned park came shooting back into my
mind so that her tear-drenched face overlapped perfectly with the
one in front of me right now. I couldn’t get the sound out of my
head: her softly weeping as Greensleeves began to play while a
flurry of petals soared through the sky. I still wanted to know the
reason behind those tears, so I decided to pivot to a different
question.
“Why were you crying the other day?” I asked.
“Huh…? Crying? When was this?” she replied, staring back at
me in bewilderment.
“Don’t you remember? Right before the last Rollback, you—”
Then it hit me. We met in the abandoned park on the 6th,
and right now, it was only the 5th. Of course this Akari wouldn’t
know what I was referring to.
 “Er, n-never mind. Forget I said anything. Sorry, I guess I’m
still getting used to the whole Rollback thing…”
“Ohhh, gotcha… Yeah, it’s pretty hard to wrap your head
around.”
“No kidding. If you hadn’t explained it all to me, I’d probably
be curled up in the fetal position somewhere right about now.”
“Wait. When did I explain anything to you?” she asked, tilting
her head to one side.
“Oh, right. That was yesterday too… Er, I mean, tomorrow.
April 6th. You gave me the rundown at the abandoned park.”
“I did…? Huh. Weird,” she said, her face clearly indicating
that she was still confused but had given up on trying to decipher
my lunatic rantings. I could hardly blame her, really—imagine being
told about something you’d done on a day that hadn’t even
happened yet. After the past couple days, I could relate to the
feeling.
“Anyway, why did you want to meet up so bad? Did
something happen?” I asked.
“No, nothing happened… I couldn’t sleep, is all.”
“Oh, seriously…? How come?”
“I dunno,” she said, lowering her gaze. She brought a
clenched fist up to her sternum. “Just, whenever I closed my eyes,
I kept having these really dark intrusive thoughts… Like, of
someone I really cared about going somewhere far away or of
them one day deciding they didn’t like me anymore…stuff like that.
I couldn’t take it.”
These sounded like pretty vague, abstract anxieties,
especially for Akari. Still, I didn’t feel comfortable prying at what
seemed to be a pretty uncomfortable subject for her, judging from
her vulnerable expression. I didn’t know if this was all the same
“someone” she was envisioning in each of these episodes, like
maybe her brother, or some faceless entity standing in for the
world around her. Regardless, it was clear that Akito’s death had
really done a number on her mental state. And even if I didn’t
have all the details, she was clearly shaken up enough that she
couldn’t sleep and resorted to calling me in the middle of the night
so she’d have someone to keep her company. I felt I at least owed
her that much, as her longtime friend.
“All right. Then let’s talk for a while, why don’t we?” I smiled,
and Akari’s expression immediately softened into one of relief.
“…Thanks, Kanae-kun.”
“Don’t mention it. It’s fun to get outta the house sometimes,”
I said and then pivoted immediately into casual small talk. “So
what have you been up to today?”
“Today…? I didn’t really do all that much, to be honest. My
mom was on the phone pretty much nonstop making calls about
my brother, though.”
“What kinds of calls?”
“I think she was calling a bunch of different doctors from
some university hospital? Trying to get more information about my
brother, I guess.”
“Huh… That’s interesting,” I replied, not knowing what else
to say.
If Akito was already long dead by the time I found him, then
there was no way they transferred him there for treatment.
Meaning…they were probably doing his autopsy. I bit my lip,
realizing that I may have unintentionally reminded her of even
more unpleasant thoughts. Then, as I was scrambling to think of
something more uplifting we could talk about, an ice-cold gust of
wind came whooshing by. Now officially freezing, I rubbed my
upper arms in a futile attempt to make some heat via friction.
“Man, it’s cold out here,” I said. “Can we go somewhere
else?”
Back in Tokyo, there were 24-hour diners and fast-food
restaurants all over the damn place, but there was nothing of the
sort here in Sodeshima. The only business establishments that
would still be open at this hour were a handful of small bars and
pubs—and unfortunately, we were both still minors.
“…Well, it’s not heated, but I know one place where we can
escape from the cold,” said Akari.
 “Oh yeah? Where’s that?” I asked.
She looked me in the eye and said, without a hint of
sarcasm:
“Sodeshima High.”

After successfully scaling the front gate, the two of us

hopped down and made a beeline across the center of the vacant
athletic field. Ahead of me, Akari was walking with a confident skip
in her step, not even making the slightest effort to be sneaky
about it.
“H-hey!” I whispered harshly. “Are you sure we’re not gonna
get in trouble for this?”
“We’ll be fiiine,” she said, shrugging me off. “Our one security
guard goes home at ten o’clock. There’s literally no chance of
anyone catching us. Trust me.”
“Wait, for real? Do they just not care about people breaking
in, or…? Y’know what, never mind. But even if we don’t get
caught, this is still super illegal, right?”
Akari stopped in her tracks and turned around to look up
at me.
“Don’t think of it as illegal, think of it as an adventure! Don’t
you wanna go on an adventure with me, Kanae-kun…?” she
whimpered.
No, not the puppy-dog eyes… Anything but that…
“Fine, fine… You win,” I said, giving up. “At least we’re not
hurting anyone.”
“Yaaay! C’mon, let’s go!”
Akari’s face beamed with delight as she spun on her heels
and headed for the school building. It was no use—I’d have to go
along with this. Having crossed the field, we began circling the
perimeter of the main building. When we’d made it about halfway
around, Akari came to an abrupt stop in front of a frosted sliding
glass window. How she was planning to get in, I didn’t dare
imagine, but she quickly grabbed the window by the edges and
started rattling it around in its frame.
“Um, what exactly are you trying to do?” I asked.
“Hey, don’t give me that look,” she pouted. “When you think
about it, it’s kinda their own fault for never fixing the lock.”
“Wow. So you can open it from this side, just like that?”
“Uh, yeah? Didn’t you already know this?”
I was officially confused. How could I possibly know that?
I never went to school here.
“Oh, wait,” Akari exclaimed, slapping her forehead as if
struck by an epiphany. “Sorry, I’m stupid—of course you wouldn’t
know about that yet. Duh.”
For a moment, a huge question mark popped up over my
head, but then I quickly figured it out. Judging from her tone,
there’d been some moment over the past few days in which she’d
told me about the broken window lock, but it was one that I hadn’t
personally experienced yet. In which case, it made sense why she
thought she’d already told me, but I had no clue what she was
talking about. Upon realizing her blunder, Akari proceeded to
explain.
“Yeah, so basically, all these windows have sash locks, but
this one’s kinda janky, so the handle won’t turn all the way, and
the latch doesn’t engage. So if you kinda wiggle it around like this
and apply a little bit of horizontal pressure…” she said, then
proceeded to demonstrate. Sure enough, the window popped right
open, and she looked back at me with a smug grin. “Aaand presto!
See? Piece o’ cake.”
“Well, well! Color me impressed. You sure do know all the ins
and outs of this place.”
“Yeah, I mean, I would hope so! Been goin’ here for two
whole years now.”
Akari hoisted herself up onto the windowsill and jumped
inside. This still felt a little too close to breaking and entering for
my liking, but I followed after her anyway. Once inside, I realized
that we were in the girls’ bathroom. It was completely empty, but I
still felt like a bit of a trespasser in there, so I quickly shuffled out
into the main hallway.
“Whoa… Now this is pretty cool,” I marveled quietly to myself
—though even that was enough to echo loudly through the empty
corridor. The soft moonlight pouring in through the windows did
offer some illumination, but it was still very dark inside the school.
I looked down toward the other end of the hallway, where the only
thing I could see was the eerie spectral glow of the fire alarm’s big
red bulb. As someone who had no problem wandering through the
abandoned part of town, even I had to admit this was pretty
spooky. On the other hand, it was also kind of exhilarating—this
was the first time I’d ever snuck into a school at night. I hesitantly
started to make my way down the hall, but then a stressful
thought hit me.
“Aw, crap. I didn’t take my shoes off.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Akari, coming out of the girls’
bathroom just as I was kneeling down to unlace my sneakers.
“They let us wear our street shoes here, it’s no biggie.”
“Oh, for real? I had no idea. Never even set foot in
Sodeshima High before.”
“Then allow me to give you the grand tour!”
Akari strode off down the hall, and I followed after her. There
wasn’t a hint of trepidation in her step—on the contrary, she
seemed almost comfortable here.
“Sheesh, Akari. Slow down,” I said, strolling up alongside her.
“I mean, aren’t you scared at all?”
“Oh, please. This is a cakewalk compared to yesterday. Plus,
I’ve got you here with me, don’t I? What do I have to be afraid
of?”
“W-well, if you say so.”
I didn’t really know what to say to that. I wished she would
stop saying things that could be misinterpreted as flirting, though,
because I never knew how to react. What was this about
yesterday, anyway? Had we really gone out and done something
even spookier than breaking into the school at night? I couldn’t
even fathom what that entailed.
“Why, are you scared, Kanae-kun?”
“Who, me? Psh, as if. I’m just shakin’ in my boots a little bit,
that’s all.”
“So you’re terrified. Got it,” she snarked, then slowed to a
stop before a pair of mysterious double doors. “Oh hey, here’s the
library. You wanna check it out?”
“I mean, can we even get inside?”
“Let’s find out,” she said, then grabbed both door handles
and pulled hard, but they didn’t budge. “Well, shoot. It’s locked.”
“Yeah, not surprised,” I said with a wry smirk as Akari
scratched her cheek and laughed sheepishly. We proceeded past
the library and soon arrived at the main stairwell.
“You used to spend a bunch of time in the library, didn’t you,
Kanae-kun? Do you still read a lot of books?” she asked as we
were walking up the stairs.
“Not so much lately… Studying kinda eats up all of my free
time.”
“Dang, it’s that brutal over there, huh?”
“I’m struggling just to keep up, yeah. If I’m not careful, I
might get held back this year.”
“Seriously? That’s really surprising to me. You always had
such good grades in junior high.”
“Yeah, by Sodeshima standards, maybe,” I sighed as we
reached the second-floor landing. I continued ranting as I followed
Akari into the main hall: “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I thought I
was a pretty bright kid back then too. But once I got to Tokyo, it
was like all bets were off. So much competition there, y’know?
You’ve really gotta go above and beyond to stand out. It’s…stifling,
honestly.”
It wasn’t until after I finished talking that I realized I was
basically venting at this point. I felt bad. Akari wasn’t my therapist,
and it couldn’t be much fun for her to hear me complaining like
this.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to be a downer or anything,” I
apologized.
“No, no, it’s fine. Everyone’s got their own problems they’re
dealing with. Glad to know I’m not the only one… Oh, hey. Here
we are,” she said, coming to a stop in front of a classroom with a
big SECOND YEAR nameplate above the door. “Yep, that’s where I
was sitting up until a month ago! Pretty crazy stuff.”
She proudly pushed her pointer finger against the window,
while I pressed my forehead up to the glass and tried to get a
better look. For how big of a classroom it was, there weren’t that
many desks inside—maybe thirty at most.
“Wanna go inside?” she asked mischievously.
“If they locked the library, then I’m sure they lock up the
classrooms too.”
“You’re not wrong. But whaddya know—they left the window
above the door hanging wiiide open for us.”
“…This school really needs to tighten up its security.”
As I shook my head in disbelief, I heard a spry “Hup!” and
looked over to find that Akari had already stepped up onto the
neighboring windowsill, where she was now trying to hoist herself
up and through the small open window above the door. Right
when she was almost halfway through, she gave a sudden yowl of
pain.
“Hey, are you all right?” I asked as she lowered herself back
down into the hallway.
“Yeah, sorry…” she winced as she rubbed one side of her
lower back and waist. “Thought I’d be all healed up by now, but it
still kinda hurts from time to time.”
“Healed up? Did you get injured recently or something?”
“Oh, uh… Yeah, sort of. But I’m like ninety-nine percent good
now, so don’t worry about it. It’s really not a big deal.”
“You sure…?”
 Akari nodded, albeit with a rather melancholy expression.
Whatever had happened, it was obvious that she didn’t want to
talk about it, so I let it go and changed the subject.
“Okay, then why don’t I go in first and unlock the door for
you from the inside?” I offered.
“That’d be great, thanks.”
I climbed up on the neighboring windowsill, just like Akari
had, then wriggled my way up and into the classroom through the
higher window over the door. Inside, it felt even more spacious
than it had looked from the hallway. The smell of wood and fresh
wax flowed into my lungs as I scanned the neat rows of empty
desks. The pale blue moonlight leaking in through the
windowpanes bathed the tabletops in a faint, luminous glow.
I unlocked the door to let Akari in, and she stepped past me into
the classroom. After giving it a good, long once-over, she headed
over to a desk by the window and sat down.
“Yep, this was my spot. Have a seat, Kanae-kun,” she said,
indicating the desk in front of her as she ran her other hand over
the smooth wooden surface. I felt a little awkward treating myself
to a random stranger’s seat, but I reluctantly obliged. “Gosh, this
sure brings back memories, huh?”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I agreed. “It’s like we’re back in junior
high.”
“I’d rather go back to elementary school, personally.”
“Really? …I mean, I guess I can understand that.”
Now that she mentioned it, I couldn’t summon up many fond
memories from my junior high years whatsoever. I was always
being treated like an outcast by my other classmates, and getting
picked on, and then backstabbed by the few kids who pretended
they were on my side… It was awful. But even so, I still cherished
all of the time I got to spend with Akari back then.
“If you could go back to elementary school, what would you
do differently?” Akari asked, propping one elbow up on her desk.
“Good question,” I answered. “Probably study real hard from
day one and try to get into Tokyo U.”
 “What, that’s it? Bor-riiing.”
“Yeah? Well, what about you, huh?”
“Me? Mmm…” she pondered, folding her arms as she mulled
it over. I didn’t intend for it to be such an introspective question,
but I waited patiently for her answer, until finally, she had a
sudden flash of inspiration. “I’d wanna go on more field trips!”
It was such an anticlimactic answer after all that buildup.
I couldn’t help laughing.
“You do realize those aren’t exclusive to elementary school,
right?”
“Well, yeah—but we were supposed to go on a whole lot
more back then, remember? They’d always get canceled due to
rain or something.”
“Oh yeah, I do remember that. It was like the weather had a
vendetta against our class or something—always waited until the
morning of to turn nasty on us.”
“What’s that called, again? Murphy’s Law?” Akari muttered.
“Pretty sure, yeah,” I nodded.
“Hey, Kanae-kun… Do you remember that one field trip we
went on in fifth grade?”
“Fifth grade? You’re not talking about the one where you fell
face-first into that giant mud puddle, are you?”
“That’s the one!”
Now that brought me back. I lapsed into reminiscing about
that fateful day. As I remembered it, the entire class had gone out
on an excursion to hike up a small mountain over on the mainland.
It was our first field trip in a long time, so we were all having a
blast, Akari included—that is, until she slipped and fell deep into
the muck. I would never forget the total 180 her expression made
in that instant—from giddy elation to abject horror.
“But then you went and fell in right after me, Kanae-kun,
remember? How’d that happen?” Akari asked, and I realized I’d
totally forgotten about that part. After Akari slipped and fell, I
practically dove into the mud puddle right alongside her.
 “Oh, yeah… I think I just tripped on a rock or something.”
“You think?” Akari pressed, her eyes skeptical.
In actuality, I’d tripped and fallen over on purpose. Not
wanting to stand there and watch while everyone else in class
pointed and laughed at Akari’s mud-covered distress, I decided to
join her down there and hopefully take some of the negative
attention off of her in the process. That plan ultimately backfired,
though, since all it did was make everyone laugh even harder at
the both of us. Still, after all these years, I didn’t quite feel
comfortable revealing the actual reason to her, so I tried to paper
over it with a lame excuse instead.
“Well, I mean, it was a long time ago. Hard to remember
exactly,” I said.
“Oh, reeeally… Well, okay. Hey, that reminds me—speaking
of field trips…”
Akari and I carried on waxing nostalgic like this for a good,
long time. Here I was, sitting alone in an empty classroom at night
with the very girl I once had intense—though unrequited—feelings
for. One might assume that I would feel pretty nervous and antsy
in this situation, but right now, I was simply having too much fun
talking with her to care. It wasn’t until the little wall clock over the
blackboard struck 3 a.m. that a great big yawn escaped from my
mouth.
“Getting sleepy?” she asked.
“Nah… Not really,” I lied, determined to stay here and talk
with her for just a little longer. The truth was that I felt extremely
tired, and our conversation was kind of dying down—so I racked
my brain for other potential topics to bring up before she had a
chance to suggest that maybe we should call it a night. “Oh, yeah!
There’s something I wanted to ask you about.”
“Oh, really? What’s that?”
“It’s about the night that Akito died. Do you have any idea
what I was doing, or where I was that night after I said goodbye
to you down at the seawall?”
 As soon as the question had left my lips, Akari’s eyes shot
open as though I’d just caught her in a compromising position. She
seemed to be in genuine shock; her mouth hung open the slightest
crack, but no words came out. All I could hear was a long, shallow
breath. Concerned, I called her name again, and this time she
snapped out of it. Then, her expression warped into a smile that
was blatantly insincere.
“S-sorry, sorry. You’re talking about April 1st, right?”
“Yeah. My grandma told me I spent the night at a friend’s
house that evening, but I couldn’t think of a single friend who’d
post me up like that. Wondered if maybe you knew anything about
that.”
“Er… No, sorry. I only saw you that one time at the seawall
that day, so I wouldn’t know what you did after that…”
“Gotcha… Well, thanks anyway.”
Well, that was fruitless. If Akari didn’t know, then I hadn’t
the first clue who else I could ask. Neither Eri nor my grandmother
seemed to know either. I was trying to brainstorm other avenues I
could investigate when I heard Akari let out a tiny gasp beside me.
I turned to look at her and saw that she was covering her mouth
with one hand, meaning that I couldn’t quite make out her
expression.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, and she turned, slowly and
fearfully, to face me. Her brow was furrowed as if she’d realized
some grave mistake. After a few moments of silence, she lowered
her hand and flashed a weak smile in an attempt to reassure me.
“It’s nothing, sorry,” she said. “I had this sinking feeling
because I couldn’t remember if I’d locked the door on my way out
or not.”
“Oh, gotcha… Yeah, that happens to me all the time,” I
commiserated, even if I still thought that was a bit of overreaction.
I reiterated: “So you’re sure everything’s all right?”
“Yeah. I thought about it some more, and now I’m like
ninety-nine percent sure that I did lock the door, actually. So we’re
cool.”
 She shot me a carefree grin which finally convinced me that
it really hadn’t been anything more than that, even if I still found
her initial reaction a bit odd. I was probably overthinking it,
though. Akari stood up from her chair and stretched her arms out.
“All right, it’s getting pretty late. Or early, I guess. You ready
to head home?”
“…Probably a good idea.”
Though I still didn’t want to have to say goodbye, I knew we
couldn’t stay here forever. I rose from my own chair as well. I let
Akari leave the room first so that I could lock the door from the
inside, then I exited through the tall window the same way I’d
come in.
“Well, guess that’s the end of the grand tour, huh?” I joked
as we made our way down the hall.
“Yeah, not too much else to see,” Akari nodded. “Plus, all the
other classrooms are gonna be locked… Oh, but actually, there is
one more place I’d like to show you before we go. C’mere for
a sec.”
I followed Akari as she led the way up the stairs, past the
third floor, all the way to the roof-access landing. The only things I
could see up there were some stacks of student desks that weren’t
currently in use and the door leading out onto the roof, which was
secured with an ordinary padlock—meaning we couldn’t get
outside.
“This is what you wanted to show me?” I asked.
“Heck no. Gimme a little more credit, wouldja? It’s on the
other side of this door.”
Akari pulled two small lengths of wire from the inside of a
nearby desk. They looked like hairpins which had been yanked on
until they were relatively straightened out. Before I could even
register the implications of what she was about to do, she’d
already jammed the wires into the padlock and begun rattling
them around inside. In a matter of seconds, the lock was picked.
“There we go!” she exclaimed. “Well? Pretty sweet, huh?”
“Like hell it is! Where the heck did you learn to do that?”
 “I used to come up here a lot whenever I needed some
alone time. And, well… I always saw the padlock here, and
eventually I started to wonder how hard these things really are to
break, y’know? So I started practicing on it out of sheer boredom,
basically, but then I ended up figuring it out in no time flat.”
“You’ve got waaay too much time on your hands, kiddo.”
“What can I say? I’m a simple woman. I see a door, I wanna
open it.”
Akari did just that, and a bone-chilling gust of wind
immediately blew inside from the newly opened door. I stepped
through the doorway before taking a necessary moment to catch
my breath. A gleaming full moon hung in the cloudless night sky.
Beneath that were the sporadic dots of light from the fishing boats
out on the ocean and, far off on the horizon, the distant lights of
the mainland. The view was stunningly gorgeous. I felt like we
were standing at the center of a panoramic impressionist painting.
“Damn… Now that’s pretty,” I said in awe.
“Yeah, wow… It’s my first time being here at night, but even
I didn’t expect it to look this cool,” Akari agreed. Then, still gazing
up at the night sky, she began slowly tottering over toward the
edge of the roof. The protective fence around the perimeter only
came up to about waist height, so it didn’t completely allay my
uneasiness. The high school stood at such an elevated point on the
island that there was nothing around it to block the strong winds.
Yet Akari didn’t seem to care. She grabbed the railing with her
hands and leaned her upper body out over the edge.
“Hey, be careful over there,” I warned.
“Oh, I’ll be fiiine. Hey, come on over here, Kanae-kun,” she
implored me, but I was already well on my way. I took my place
next to her along the railing; my eyes soaked in the nightscape
sprawled out before us. Beautiful as it was, I faltered whenever I
looked down from this height. It was so dark out, I couldn’t even
see the ground below us. All I saw was a deep, black abyss.
I shivered.
“What, are you afraid of heights?” Akari inquired.
 “N-no,” I scoffed. “I’m a tiny bit cold, that’s all.”
“Oh, reeeally…” she said, eyeing me suspiciously. A moment
later, she made a mischievous grin, as though she’d devised a fun
new way to troll me. Without another word, she leaned in close
and pressed her shoulder right up against mine. For a split second,
I was extremely flustered by this. Then I decided to roll with it and
act like it didn’t faze me at all. I was determined not to let her win.
The fragrance of her shampoo drifted in the air between us,
tickling my nose.
“You know, this is my favorite spot in all of Sodeshima,” she
whispered in my ear. “It’s pretty during the day too. You can see
the ocean, and the whole island, and even all the way over to the
mainland.”
“Wow, yeah… That sounds really nice.”
“Doesn’t it, though? …Hey, look. There’s the Big Dipper,” she
said, pointing up toward the sky and tracing the contours with her
fingertip.
“Dang. The constellations are so easy to see from out here.”
“Can you not see many stars over in Tokyo?”
“You might be surprised, actually. The light pollution doesn’t
affect it as much as people tend to think.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. And the nightscape’s really beautiful too, of course. In
a way, it’s kinda like the starry skies and city lights all come
together to create one big, seamless gradient.”
“Huh… It sounds really cool when you put it like that,” she
said, then lowered her gaze back down to stare across the ocean.
She reached out a hand toward the distant mainland and
whispered to herself: “I’d love to live there someday.”
“Then do it.”
“I’m not sure I could make it in the big city like you.”
“Sure you could. You’ve just gotta put yourself out there,”
I said. “Heck, even if it didn’t work out, you could always come
and live with me, y’know.”
 Akari looked over at me, her eyes wide. I couldn’t blame her
—even I couldn’t believe the words that had just come out of my
mouth. I might as well have proposed to her. It took a solid few
seconds for the full implications to truly set in, but my entire face
flushed red in the instant that they did. I tried to backpedal a little
bit.
“Er, sorry. I didn’t mean that in a weird way or anything…”
My mind was like a spinning whirlpool of emotions made up
in equal measure of embarrassment and regret. I was so mortified,
I wanted to die. But before I had a chance to consider hopping
over the railing and putting myself out of my misery, something
happened.
Akari wrapped her arms around me, suddenly and without
warning. I was so startled by this that I completely froze in place,
unable to even hug her back. With her hands clutching the back of
my hoodie, she rested her head on my shoulder. The one-two
punch of her soft touch and sweet fragrance must have blown a
fuse in my brain, because for a minute, I forgot to even breathe. I
stood there, thoughts empty, letting myself be embraced by Akari
—unable to even freak out and ruin the moment. Then, eventually,
I felt her warm breath seeping through the fabric of my hoodie.
She was trying to say something.
“Please don’t ever hate me,” she begged.
Her voice was fragile and scared, like a lost child who’d been
left behind by their parents. I couldn’t tell what the significance of
these words was, or if there were any hidden undertones she was
trying to convey, but I knew there was only one way I could
respond.
“Of course not,” I said. “How could I ever hate you?”
I managed at long last to wrap my trembling hands around
Akari’s back. Tension continued to lock every inch of my body into
place, but somehow I managed to will my arms around her. I knew
it was the right thing to do. We stood there like that for anywhere
from a few seconds to a few minutes, until eventually, Akari gently
tugged herself away. Now, her faintly flushed cheeks were mere
inches from my face, so I could watch her bleary eyes twinkle in
the soft moonlight.
“Let’s go home,” she said softly.

The two of us continued making small talk on the walk back

to Akari’s place, almost as if the embrace we shared up on the
rooftop had been nothing more than a fever dream. We were
talking as candidly as we had been in the classroom an hour or so
ago, each of us taking turns recounting memories that we could
both laugh at or be astonished by. It felt so natural that it honestly
made me start to wonder if the rooftop incident really had been
nothing more than a figment of my imagination.
Still, I couldn’t stop myself from speculating as to why she’d
been so assertive in embracing me like that. Obviously, that was
intended as a show of affection of some sort—what I couldn’t
grasp was what kind of affection. For all I knew, that could have
been anything from a simple expression of momentary gratitude to
a confession of love. Without knowing where on that spectrum it
fell, I had no way of knowing the proper level of affection to
reciprocate with.
“Hey, Kanae-kun,” she said, breaking the silence.
“Wh-what’s up?” I replied. My voice cracked.
“Thanks for hanging out with me tonight. Something tells me
I’ll be able to get a good night’s sleep now.”
“Sure thing… Glad to hear it. Yeah, feel free to hit me up
whenever you need a friend to talk to.”
“Nice. I think I’ll take you up on that.”
Akari smiled at me—and that alone was enough to send a
euphoric rush coursing through my veins. That in turn made me
realize that it didn’t matter if I couldn’t tell where her head was at;
I was grateful to earn affection from her in any form. I decided,
then and there, to stop overanalyzing her emotions. From now on
I’d bask in the glory of whatever affection she felt I deserved. For
tonight, though, the end of our dreamlike encounter was drawing
near. Akari’s apartment complex soon came into view.
 “You wanna meet up tomorrow too?” I offered, half out of
concern for her, half out of my own desire to get as much quality
time together as possible.
“Sorry, I don’t think I’ll have time. What with getting ready
for the wake, and all.”
“The wake…? But that was… Oh, right.”
Akito’s wake was held on the night of the 5th. I was going
through the days in reverse, so I’d already experienced it, but it
hadn’t happened for Akari yet.
“Yeah, sorry. We’ve been running ourselves ragged the past
couple of days, trying to get things ready for the funeral… And I
can’t leave my mom to handle it all herself, y’know?”
“Hey, no need to apologize. You’ve got a lot on your plate
right now, I get it.”
“Thanks for understanding…”
Her expression turned glum, and she hung her head a little. I
ground my teeth together, wishing I hadn’t ruined the mood by
asking about tomorrow. Determined to salvage the conversation so
we could end off on a high note, I forced a chipper inflection and
tried to reassure her.
“Hey, don’t get too down on yourself about it! I’m gonna go
back and save Akito anyway, remember? Then everything will go
back to normal.”
“…Yeah, I know.”
“I know I can pull it off, just you wait. All I’ve gotta do is
make sure he doesn’t go out drinking that night.”
“…Right.”
This didn’t seem to do much to raise Akari’s spirits—if
anything, she seemed even more crestfallen now. Somehow, my
attempts to cheer her up had backfired, and I started panicking
internally. Her one and only brother died a few days ago. I should
have avoided bringing him up in conversation at all costs. I was
reprimanding myself for this critical judgment error when Akari
surprised me by deliberately continuing the conversation about
him.
“What was your impression of my brother, Kanae-kun?” she
asked, still looking down at the ground. “Do you still look up to
him, even now?”
“Man, that’s a tough question… Obviously, he was my hero
growing up, but nowadays? I wouldn’t say I ‘idolize’ him anymore,
per se. Not that I don’t still have a ton of respect for the guy!
I mean, how could I not, after he saved me from those bullies
back in elementary school?”
“Oh yeah… I totally forgot about that.”
“As for my impression of him, well…he always struck me as a
bit clumsy when it came to expressing his emotions and stuff like
that.”
“How do you mean?” Akari asked.
“Well, I remember this one time in third grade, I think it
was… He came up to me at the little candy store in town, and he
was like, ‘Hey, you’re friends with Akari, right? Do me a favor, will
ya?’ or something similar.”
“What was the favor?”
“He basically just asked me to look out for you, and be a
really good friend to you, and stuff like that. Because he felt like
he wasn’t really being a very good older brother and like the only
thing he was any good at was baseball.”
Akari stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face me.
“Hang on. He really said all that?”
“I mean, maybe in slightly less eloquent terms, but yeah. I
specifically remember him asking me to keep an eye on your
footing, ’cause he said you used to lose your balance and trip over
things a lot. He definitely cared about you in his own way, that’s
for sure.”
I remembered the encounter quite well, actually. Akito was
already renowned for his baseball skills by that point—he was
practicing with the junior-high team despite still being in
elementary school, and even played pinch-hitter for the island’s
amateur adult team. A local legend like him approaching me out of
the blue to ask that kind of favor was a memorable surprise.
“But I guess that’s how older brothers are, y’know? Always
looking out for their younger siblings, but they’re too proud to
admit it, heh. Me and Eri are the same way. Sometimes it feels like
all we ever do is bicker at each other! Hell, we got into a big
argument within minutes of me coming home the other day,”
I said, chuckling at my own pettiness. Then something struck me.
Akari wasn’t laughing along. Her expression was, if anything,
soberingly serious.
“My brother really said that about me…?” she asked, her
voice shaky. Something was clearly not right here, but before I had
a chance to ask what the problem was, she ran off toward the
apartment complex as fast as she could.
“H-hey, wait! Where are you going?!” I yelled, frantically
chasing after her. I managed to catch up right before she reached
the stairs, grabbed her by the arm, and twisted her around to face
me. “What the hell, Akari?! Why’d you run off like that all of a…”
My words caught in my throat when I saw that she was
sobbing profusely.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry,” she whimpered.
A chill ran through my entire body, and I let go of her arm
without a second’s delay. She dashed off up the stairs and into her
apartment with animal speed, as though she was terrified of being
seen like this and desperately wanted to escape from my gaze.
Even after I heard the door slam above me, I stood there at the
base of the stairs for a time, frozen in place.

After letting myself in through the back door, I crept up the

stairs and slipped soundlessly into my bedroom, where I collapsed
into bed without even changing out of my heavy clothes. I pulled
the covers up all the way over my head to shut out the world.
I should have been more than ready to turn in by this point, but
sleep still eluded me. The image of Akari’s tear-soaked face was
burning a hole in the back of my mind; I couldn’t shake it, no
matter how hard I tried.
I had my guesses as to why she’d broken down like that, of
course. We’d been talking at length about her newly deceased
brother, and I’d just revealed to her an anecdote that showed a
compassionate side of him she probably didn’t get to see very
often. It made sense for her to get a little teary-eyed about that—
and she probably only ran away from me because she didn’t want
me to see her crying. So I knew, rationally, that it probably had
nothing to do with anything I said or did…but it still felt like I’d
hurt her feelings.
“Man, I’m a dumbass…”
I really shouldn’t have let Akito’s name come up in any
capacity. Akari may have doubled down on the subject, but I was
in the wrong for bringing him up in the first place. I decided to
make a point of calling her tomorrow to apologize. Finished sorting
through the last of my thoughts, exhaustion crept up on me like a
thief in the night. I closed my eyes and drifted off into a deep and
wakeless sleep.

I slept soundly all the way until noon. After dragging myself
out of bed, I went downstairs and had lunch with Eri and my
grandmother, then headed back up to my room. According to my
alarm clock, it was past 1 p.m., and the date still read “April 5th” as
expected. I sat down on my bed, pulled my cell phone out of my
pocket, and gave Akari a call like I’d promised myself I would the
night before. After redialing twice, then thrice, she finally picked
up on my fourth attempt.
“Yes, hello?”
“Hey, it’s me. You got a minute?”
“Uhhh… Sure, what’s up? I can’t talk for very long, though.
We’re running around getting things set up for the wake tonight.”
“Yeah, no worries. I’ll make it quick,” I assured her, then
paused for a moment to gather my nerves. “So, I just wanted to
say sorry about last night. I, uh…know I said some things that
were probably pretty thoughtless, given what you’re already going
through.”
“What? No, no—you didn’t do anything wrong, Kanae-kun. If
anyone should be apologizing here, it’s me… Reminiscing about my
brother like that was a little…too much for me to handle last night,
that’s all.”
So my theory was right, then.
“Yeah, I getcha. It’s cool. How are you holding up today?”
“Oh, I feel way better after sleeping it off. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
I heard the sound of Akari swallowing her saliva on the other
end.
“Sometimes, it just feels like my heart can’t take much
more… That’s all.”
I was at a loss for words—it was like I could feel the depths
of Akari’s depression permeating through the speaker from the
other end of the line. None of the shallow condolences I could
think to offer would do anything more than feed the void. I had to
think of something more personal, more meaningful than empty
words—but before I could do that, Akari rushed out an excuse to
end the call and cover up her sorrow.
“Sorry, I need to get back to work. I’ll talk to you later,
okay?”
“H-hang on a second!” I blurted without even thinking of
what words might come next; I couldn’t bear to leave her in such
low spirits. After a moment’s hesitation, I mustered up the
steadiest voice I could manage and said: “Don’t worry yourself sick
over this, okay? I promise I’ll figure something out. I’ll find a way
to use the Rollback so that you never have to go through all this
heartache. Leave it to me…and try to hang in there for now. All
right?”
Despite my best efforts, the words came out as little more
than empty reassurances. They were all I could offer her right
now, though. All I wanted was to give her some sort of hope to
cling to, some light at the end of the tunnel. I didn’t know whether
that sentiment made it through to her or not, but after a while, I
heard what sounded like a tiny, halfhearted chuckle from the other
end of the line, muffled and slightly nasal.
“…Thanks, Kanae-kun. I’ll talk to you later.”
She hung up. I fell backwards onto the bed. Whether or not
that was actually laughter I heard remained up for debate, but I
may have succeeded at raising Akari’s spirits the tiniest bit after all.
Not that I expected the effect to last very long; she was still lost
and alone in a void of depression, the true depths of which I
couldn’t possibly discern.
I wanted to, though. I wanted to know how deep her sorrow
went, so that I could dive in and rescue her from it—no matter
what it might take. So then, what was I to do? It went without
saying: I would delve deeper into the past and save Akito’s life.
All I had to do was undo the source of all her pain, and she’d
go right back to being her old happy self again. Or more
specifically, she would never even have to go through the pain of
her brother’s loss to begin with. All of a sudden, I could feel a
warm and bubbling sensation building within my chest—a sense of
duty, a driving purpose. I now had a fire of motivation burning
within me, spurring me onward to save her brother no matter the
cost.
“…I’ll do it, Akari. You wait and see.”
I stood up from my bed and began ruminating over what my
first steps to that end should be. Right, I still need to do some
good old-fashioned investigating. I hadn’t figured out where I was
and what I was doing on the night of April 1st when Akito died—
last night had wiped away all memories of my plan to look into
that today. But how was I supposed to go about finding that
information? I’d already asked my grandmother and Akari, but
neither of them knew anything. Eri was a potential option, but
judging from what my grandmother told me, she wasn’t likely to
know anything either. I couldn’t think of a single other person who
might be able to tell me—my social circle was admittedly quite
small.
 Maybe a change of scenery would help me think of
something. I headed downstairs and slipped my shoes on, but
before I could walk out the door, my grandmother accosted me.
“Where are you going, Kanae?”
“Just out for a quick walk.”
“Well, don’t forget that the Hoshina boy’s wake is tonight.
Make sure to be home by suppertime, won’t you?”
“Will do, Grandma,” I replied, then shut the door behind me.

I knew walking around without a set goal in mind would be a

waste of time, so my plan was to take a look at two places I knew
for a fact were related to Akito’s death—both the bar he was
drinking at beforehand and the empty lot behind the tobacco shop
where his body was found. I knew exactly where both places were,
so I figured the next logical step would be to take a look at each of
them with my own two eyes. I headed down the route toward the
harbor, until eventually, I arrived at the Asuka Tavern—only to find
that there was a sign posted on the sliding entrance door that
announced they were “CLOSED TODAY.”
Thinking there might still be someone working (doing
inventory or cleaning, for example), it seemed like a good idea to
at least check inside; that way I could see if there was anyone I
could ask about that night. Sadly, the door was locked, so I was
apparently out of luck on that front. I looked at the sign posted
next to the door and saw that Thursdays were the only days they
were closed completely—they opened up at 5 p.m. on all other
days. I would just have to try again tomorrow. Giving up on this
lead, I left the bar behind and headed over to the empty lot where
Akito’s body was discovered.

It took me about fifteen minutes to reach the empty lot.

Flowers and other offerings had been laid out in tribute to the
deceased: a couple of bouquets, a few bottles of fruit juice. There
was no doubt about it now—this was the scene of Akito’s death. I
had to say, these were some pretty paltry offerings for a man
who’d once been the most famous person on the entire island.
The lot itself was so overgrown with weeds that you could
scarcely even see the ground. If you ventured a bit further in,
though, you could see a spot where a clearing had been made in
the overgrowth, which was presumably where the body had lain.
No, forget presumably. It must have been the exact spot where
Akito fell over due to alcohol poisoning and met his end.
I imagined what his last moments must have been like—his heart
stopping, all the color draining from his skin—and the thought
gave me chills.
I found myself wondering for a moment if I should go buy
something to leave as an offering for him too but rejected that
notion as soon as I thought it up. That would be akin to accepting
his death, and I had no intention of doing anything of the sort. As
such, I decided it would be a bad omen to do so, not to mention a
waste of my time. What I needed to focus on now was gathering
more information on the night of April 1st. I left the empty lot
behind.

I spent about another hour roaming around the island but

ultimately wasn’t able to gather anything of value. And no wonder,
considering I hadn’t tried to ask any of the people I’d passed on
the street about it. Could you really blame me? I mean, imagine a
random stranger out in public approaches you, trying to ask if you
knew their location from four nights ago—anyone would think they
were a crazy person. So instead I putzed around the island for a
little while, trying in vain to devise a way of investigating this that
didn’t involve cold-calling total strangers, but ultimately failing and
giving up. I sat down on the seawall and gazed out over the ocean
as I contemplated what to do next. The evening sky was already
painted in streaks of deep vermilion.
“Well, let’s see. If today’s the 5th…then that means I’ve only
got three Rollbacks left before I reach April 1st again, right?”
This meant I only had two more days to gather information
before I’d have to relive the night of Akito’s death, and I needed to
make them count. I listlessly watched the sun sink down below the
horizon, trying to think of how to make the best use of the time
remaining to me—when all of a sudden, I had a thought.
“…Hang on a second.”
Granted, it had nothing to do with preventing Akito’s death,
but it was an interesting prospect nonetheless—a way to take
advantage of the Rollback phenomenon that seemed so obvious, I
couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner. If I was moving back
into the past, then I could bring all sorts of information back with
me—I could even “predict” the future, in a sense. And what might
I be able to use that information for?
Well, I could make a whole lot of money, for one thing.
It was one of the first answers most people would give when
you asked them what they’d do if they had the chance to go back
in time. They’d bet all their money on horse races or buy a ton of a
valuable stock before the company ever made it big. There were
plenty of high-stakes gambling opportunities like that. The only
problem was, I had no idea how to go about buying stocks or
placing bets. There was really only one realistically lucrative option
for a kid my age: the lottery.
I did know how to play the lottery, at least, since I’d bought
a couple of tickets before. The Rollback would make it simple as
pie for me to hit the jackpot: all I had to do was look up the most
recent winning numbers now, then place a bet using those same
numbers after another Rollback or two. Bingo, instant piles of
riches.
…Holy crap. This might actually work.
I gulped down a mouthful of saliva. The thought alone was
enough to make my heart race. I decided to check the different
lotteries that were available on my phone, just for reference.
I needed to find one where the sales cutoff date and the date
when the winning numbers were announced fell within the
Rollback period, or else the strategy wouldn’t work. Luckily, I found
one that announced the winning numbers today—and it looked like
the cutoff date was only three days ago, just within range. It was
one where all you had to do was pick five different numbers, and if
you got them all right you’d win a payout of three million yen. That
was enough to buy a pretty nice car, and certainly enough for a
student like me to live off of for a few years. I scrolled down the
page eagerly to find the winning digits. I just had to memorize five
little numbers, and then I could secure a small fortune for myself.
It was more money than I could really even visualize; my hands
shook as I read the numbers aloud to myself several times, trying
as hard as I could to commit them to memory. Then I stopped.
Should I really be doing this?
Feelings of shame and guilt began to bubble up inside of me.
I knew deep down that what I was thinking about doing wasn’t
ethical. Sure, it would be an easy way to get rich quick—but was it
even appropriate for me to think about my own personal gain right
now, when Akito’s life was on the line? Something told me it
wasn’t. Unless…maybe that was a matter of moral perspective.
After all, I never asked to get dragged into this crazy supernatural
phenomenon. I might as well try to get something out of it…right?
I glanced down at the winning numbers again, but the guilt
was strong enough now that they didn’t even register in my brain.
At that exact moment, as my basest human desires were duking it
out with my moral barometer, I heard a voice call out to me from
behind. Despite the fact that I wasn’t doing anything technically
illegal, this still rattled me pretty good, and I nearly dropped my
cell phone into the ocean. I whirled around—it was the island’s
patrol officer.
“Wow, that was quite the overreaction, kid. Don’t suppose
you were watchin’ naughty videos on that phone of yours just
now, were ya?” he teased, lowering the kickstand on his bike
before hopping off and walking over to me.
“God, you scared the hell out of me,” I said, twisting around
so that my legs were back on solid ground facing the island.
“What’s the big idea?”
“Hahaha… Sorry, kid. Didn’t mean to spook ya or anything.
Saw you sittin’ there and wanted to chat for a little bit, that’s all.”
I clicked my tongue in frustration. How could someone have
such perfectly bad timing? It was honestly kind of impressive.
 “Aren’t you supposed to be on the clock?” I asked.
“Aw, c’mon. Checkin’ in with the islanders to see how y’all
are doing falls well within my job description. You sure you’re not
bitter about the other day?”
“Not sure what you mean.”
“You know—the way that detective from the mainland kept
grillin’ you like that. Couldn’t help thinkin’ it must’ve felt real bad
for him to treat you like a suspect and whatnot. Would’ve liked to
speak up in your defense, but you know how it is.”
“…Sorry, when was this?”
“Whaddya mean…? It was the day you found the body,
remember?”
Based on the notes I left for myself in my cell phone, that
must have been…the night of the 2nd, right? So it was something I
wouldn’t experience for another couple of days—but I didn’t want
to raise suspicion, so I simply pretended that I knew what the
officer was talking about and tried to pivot away from the subject.
“R-right, of course. Sorry, it’s just been a hell of a week,
y’know? It all kinda blends together,” I laughed. This casual
dismissal did raise one eyebrow’s worth of suspicion from the
officer, but then he accepted my excuse and nodded in agreement.
“Definitely. I’m sure that day especially must’ve been pretty
traumatic for you, huh? What with finding his body like that and
then gettin’ raked over the coals about it,” the officer recounted
with a small sigh. “So hey, did you hear they got the autopsy
results back?”
“Yeah. Acute alcohol poisoning, right?”
“Yep, you got it. So the lesson here, kid, is to always know
your limits. You go getting blackout drunk and passing out in
public this time of year, the cold’ll kill ya even if the alcohol
doesn’t.”
“Good thing I don’t drink, then… I’m still a minor, in case you
forgot,” I quipped back and then casually looked down at my cell
phone. It was rapidly approaching six o’clock. I needed to wrap
this conversation up so I could prepare myself for the next
Rollback.
“Oh yeah, and somethin’ else I was meaning to tell you, kid:
Do me a favor and don’t go meeting up with Akito’s little sister
after dark, all right? I let it slide this last time, but don’t let me
catch you two breaking curfew again. Capiche?”
Aw, crap. He must’ve seen me and Akari.
“Er, yeah, sorry about that. She really needed someone to
talk to last night…”
“Hang on—you guys did it again last night? Gimme a break,
kid. You’re just trying to start a scandal now, I tell ya.”
“Wait. What do you mean, ‘again’?”
“You guys were hangin’ out late on Sunday night too,
weren’tcha?”
For a split second, I thought I must have misheard him.
“Sorry, did you say Sunday night? As in…April 1st?” I asked to
confirm.
“Yeah. I saw you two together while I was out on patrol but
looked the other way. Sometime around one in the morning, I
think it was.”
That didn’t make any sense. Akari told me herself that she
didn’t see me at all that night after we said our goodbyes at the
seawall.
“And you’re positive it was me and Akari you saw?”
“I mean, it’s not like I’ve got photo evidence to prove it or
anything… Why, are you tryin’ to tell me that wasn’t you?”
He had to be mistaken. If I took his eyewitness testimony to
be true, then that would mean Akari was lying to me, and I knew
she would never do that. The officer’s eyes must have been
playing tricks on him, I concluded… Yet for whatever reason,
I couldn’t bring myself to say that to his face with a hundred
percent confidence.
I remembered how I’d asked Akari last night if she knew
what I was up to on the evening of the 1st and how she’d seemed
visibly shaken by the question. Not that that was irrefutable
evidence of her lying, mind you, but it did make me unsure of who
to believe. Before I could make heads or tails of it, the six o’clock
chime began to play. Greensleeves.
This was bad. I’d lost track of time and let the conversation
drag on all the way up to six o’clock, and now I was about to hit a
Rollback right in front of a live audience. Frantically, I tried to
brace myself for what was about to occur—if today was the 5th,
then I was about to get sent back to the evening of the 3rd, right?
“Hey, what’s the matter, kid? Why so panicky all of a
sudden?” the officer asked.
But it was too late.
 INTERLUDE III

AS SOON AS I GRADUATED from elementary school, I stopped

taking swimming lessons over on the mainland, because I knew
once I entered Sodeshima Junior High, I could just join the school
swim team…and that’s exactly what I did. It didn’t take any time at
all for me to ingratiate myself with the other members of the team,
possibly because most of them had already heard about the crazy
lap times I was getting as an elementary schooler. It felt like all
eyes were on me; the eighth and ninth graders all had high
expectations of me, as did my advisers, and the other seventh
graders all looked up to me as if I were invincible.
Being a part of a competitive team did more for my
swimming skills than I ever could have hoped. The only major
downside was that now, I had to stay late for swim practice every
day, which meant significantly less time to hang out with Kanae
after school. Heck, the only reason we got to spend any time
together at all was because he would hang back in the library and
wait for me to get done. As soon as practice was over, I was
always the fastest to get changed out of my swimsuit and back
into my school uniform so that I could dash out of the locker room
to meet Kanae over in the library, at which point he and I would
head home together. It was usually so late by then that we would
head straight home, but every once in a while, we’d stop by the
little candy store in town on our way.
I remembered how, on one such occasion, the two of us
were sitting next to each other on the bench right outside of the
candy store, drinking our respective bottles of Cheerio as the hot
setting sun in the western sky cast its final rays warmly against my
right cheek.
“Man, why does it feel like soda always tastes better in a
glass bottle—y’know what I mean?” I casually pondered aloud
when I was about halfway through my melon-flavored beverage.
“What, you never learned about this?” he asked. “It’s
because the carbonation dissolves some molecular component in
the glass that activates your taste buds. Everyone knows that.”
“Wait, seriously? So it’s not even the soda I’m tasting, but
the glass itself? That’s nuts!”
“Wow, you’re so gullible. I made that up.”
“Huh…? Oh, you were messing with me. Gotcha,” I said. My
voice echoed in the bottle as I brought it back up to my lips for
another swig. Then I looked over at Kanae, who was apparently
unsatisfied with this response.
“You really don’t get angry very often, do you, Akari?”
“I don’t?”
“Like, hardly at all. Most people get at least a little upset
when someone pulls their leg like that. I mean, when was the last
time you got really angry about something? Do you even
remember?”
I thought about it for a while but couldn’t think of any recent
instances. I could think of plenty of times when I probably should
have gotten mad, but I was the sort of person who’d sooner mope
and feel sorry for myself than lose my temper.
“Yeah, I’m not sure I ever get mad, really,” I said. “I don’t
like being confrontational…”
“Well, you probably need to work on that. People aren’t
gonna take you seriously if you never lay down the law. You might
be fine for right now, but once you’re in eighth grade, you’ve gotta
be able to exert your authority over the incoming seventh graders,”
Kanae declared, nodding as if in agreement with himself. “Hey, I
know! Why don’t you try getting angry at me, just for the hell of
it?”
“What, like, yell at you and stuff? No way. I don’t wanna do
that.”
“Aw, c’mon! Think of it as practice! Show me your worst,” he
said, turning his entire body to face me as he braced with
anticipation. I still didn’t feel comfortable with this at all, but I
decided to give it a good college try and raised my voice at him.
“H—hey, you…!”
 A moment passed, then Kanae snorted out an amused laugh.
“Sure, whatever. Guess that works,” he snickered.
“Wow, rude. See if I ever do anything for you again…”
My face was flushed red from the embarrassment of trying
something new—but I hadn’t hated trying it out. And as long as
Kanae was laughing, I knew that all was right with the world. That
was part of the reason I cherished even casual little interactions
like these. Like pictures in a photo album, I made sure to hold on
to each and every memory I had with him.

After the first few months of junior high, I started to notice

some changes in my class environment. For one thing, the
students had divided themselves up into two distinct factions:
those who were good at sports or socializing, and those who
weren’t. There was a massive divide between the two groups;
whichever one you were a part of determined the people you were
allowed to eat lunch with, as well as who you could talk to during
passing periods.
Though I had nothing to offer outside of my swimming
abilities, I was still inducted into the socialite faction through sheer
peer pressure, and as a result I spent my passing periods with an
entire posse of female classmates gathered around my desk. I
vividly remembered feeling antsy all the time in that classroom—
mainly because it left me with virtually zero chance to talk to
Kanae, no matter how much I wanted to. He was a member of the
“uncool” faction, after all. No matter how stupid and petty it
sounded now, everything really did feel like a popularity contest at
that age, so snubbing the “cool” kids to go talk to Kanae would be
like committing social suicide.
I still walked home with him after practice each day, of
course. That much never changed. Obviously, I wanted much more
than that, but I lacked the courage to break free from our socially
designated roles, not to mention the status quo of our current
relationship. Which, in retrospect, may have been the reason
Kanae ended up going the direction he did. It was from this point
on that a rift began to form between the two of us.
 One day, in the fall of our eighth-grade year, I walked into
the classroom and found that someone, or a group of people, had
written horrible things about Kanae all over the blackboard. They’d
written his name in big letters in the center of the board,
surrounded by things like “Loser,” “Everyone hates you,” and even
“Kill yourself.”
“What the… Who did this…?” I muttered in disbelief, standing
with my mouth agape at the front of the classroom. A moment
later, Kanae came walking in behind me and, without a single
word, began erasing all of the scribblings on the chalkboard.
I scrambled to try to help him, but he practically shouted me
down.
“It’s fine. I’ll do it myself,” he said. His tone of voice
conveyed the real message, which was “stay the hell away from
me right now.”
I was in shock. I wasn’t sure he’d ever told me off like that
before. Until that day, I had no idea that the male bullies in our
class had set their sights on Kanae. I asked one of my friends
about it later, and they told me it was because he’d stuck up for
another kid that they were bullying. Now that sounded like the
Kanae I knew.
Unfortunately, their harassment of him didn’t stop with some
mean words on the blackboard—they would often hide his shoes
and textbooks, and even convinced a lot of our other classmates to
ignore him completely. At first, Kanae was livid about all of this,
but after a while, he gave up and simply took the harassment as it
came. It was like something inside of him had died, or been
extinguished. All I could do was watch from the sidelines. They
were bound to make me their new target if I were to jump to his
defense, just like they switched to Kanae after he stood up for the
other kid. Besides…I didn’t want to do anything that might
accidentally damage his pride.
Frustrated as I was that I couldn’t do anything to help, I did
tell our homeroom teacher about the harassment at one point.
I was assured that the school would do something about it—but of
course they didn’t. I was left helpless to do anything but pretend
not to notice how my best friend was being bullied relentlessly—
some “friend” I was. The one sorry way in which I could try to
atone was by being as bright and peppy as possible for him when
we walked home together. I wanted to give him at least something
fun to look forward to each day.
Winter came around the bend soon enough, but nothing
changed. My swim team still had practice during the winter too.
We would go swimming at an indoor pool on the mainland once a
week, while the rest of the time we did all sorts of other basic
exercises and drills. They’d make us do laps until we were all run
ragged, and by the time practice was over, it would already be
dark outside. Kanae would wait for me in the library, undaunted by
the late hour, and we would walk home together in the bitter cold.
No matter how exhausted from practice I was, I always tried my
hardest to be as chipper and talkative as possible for his sake.
“Oh, man—so I read this manga the other day, right? And
it’s, like, unbelievably good,” I gushed.
“Uh-huh,” he nodded.
“It’s got this, like, understated sci-fi thing goin’ on, all about
this one girl on a journey through a post-apocalyptic world, but
boy, lemme tell ya, I was not prepared for that gut-punch twist at
the end.”
I waited, but Kanae didn’t say anything, so I kept going:
“Oh yeah, and in the afterword, the author says it was based
on an amateur comic book she wrote back in high school. How
crazy is that?! Imagine being so talented at such a young age. It’s
really cool to see female authors getting more and more—”
“Hey, Akari?” Kanae stopped in the middle of the sidewalk as
he cut me off.
“Yeah? What’s up?” I stopped walking as well so I could turn
to face him.
“You sure you’re not overdoing it lately? Seems like you’re
pushing yourself a little too hard.”
It was like I’d taken a bullet to the chest. Why would he say
such a thing? Was it really so obvious that I was overexerting
myself? I choked back the urge to ask such questions and instead
played it off like I had no idea what he was talking about. “What
do you mean? I’m not pushing myself at all.”
“…Well, okay. Sorry for jumping to conclusions. C’mon, let’s
go home,” he said and started walking down the sidewalk again.
I stood there for a moment in the dark, watching his lonely
silhouette grow further and further away from me, before chasing
after it at a brisk jog. I caught up to him in no time at all, yet from
then on, I increasingly felt that there was no way for me to close
the distance between our hearts. It was like the real Kanae had
long since gone somewhere far, far away from me, some place that
my hands could never reach.

A few weeks passed. One day during lunch hour, I was

innocently eating my food when one of the girls who always sat
around my desk asked a very leading question.
“So tell us, Akari—are you and Funami, like, a thing, or…?”
“Wh-what?! N-no, we’re not dating!” I blurted out in
adamant denial. It was only after the words had left my lips that I
realized my mistake. Praying dearly that Kanae hadn’t heard any of
that, I shot a quick glance over to his desk, but he wasn’t there. I
scanned the rest of the classroom as nonchalantly as I could, but
thankfully, he was nowhere to be found. I allowed myself to
breathe a sigh of relief.
“Really? But you guys walk home from school together every
day, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t automatically make him my
boyfriend.”
“I dunno… Seems pretty couplesy to me. I’ll say this, though:
you’ve sure got an interesting type, Akari. I mean, what do you
even see in that guy?” she asked, grinning from ear to ear.
Even back then, I knew that there were many different types
of smiles that people used for many different types of occasions.
Smiles of elation, smiles of relief—sometimes people smiled simply
to let the other person know they weren’t a threat. This girl’s smile
was one that I recognized on sight; it was the wry smirk of
someone who was mocking me for their own amusement.
“C’mon, tell us the truth,” she urged. “Have you guys kissed
yet? Or have you gone even further than that?”
My face went beet red as I pictured what she was suggesting
in my head. And then I got angry. It wasn’t that I hadn’t ever
imagined myself doing those kinds of things with Kanae before—
but the fact that she had the gall to broach that subject so
casually, as though he and I were puppets dancing for her
entertainment, flooded me with fury. How dare she spit on our
lifelong friendship like that? I kept my cool nonetheless, not
wanting to make a big scene, and simply told her calmly but
firmly:
“Read my lips: me and Kanae-kun? Not a chance. We’re just
friends. There are zero feelings there, believe me.”
The second I finished laying down the law, I heard someone
walking up behind me, the soles of their slip-ons squeaking against
the linoleum floor. I turned around to see Kanae standing right
behind me. I was too horrified to even speak. When had he come
back into the classroom? Had he heard that entire exchange? He
was clearly uncomfortable, judging from the way he immediately
broke eye contact with me and turned to scratch the back of his
head. Then he spoke up, and my worst fears were confirmed.
“Yeah, you heard her. We’re just friends. Don’t get the wrong
idea,” he said, then immediately went back to his own desk and
sat down.
The girl who’d been prodding me said only one word: “Bor-
riiing,” then lost interest and went back to eating her food. I picked
up my chopsticks again as well, but it was hard to keep eating.
None of the things I put in my mouth had any flavor anymore.

When school got out that day, and I was done with practice,
it finally came time to head home. Kanae and I made the same old
casual small talk we always did as we walked back together, but
our conversation that day was extremely vapid; far more so than
usual. It was like I was merely stringing words together to fill the
silence, and I assumed Kanae could see right through it. Still I kept
on, frantically running my mouth.
I knew I needed to apologize for what I’d said during lunch
and clear up that misunderstanding ASAP. The only thing keeping
me from doing so was my fear of the potential implications,
because telling him I didn’t mean what I said in class would be
akin to admitting I really did have feelings for him. I’d basically
have to ask him out, right then and there, or lose my chance
forever.
What if he said no, though? The thought alone made my
heart feel like it might split in two. There would be no going back
from that; even if I cleared up the misunderstanding, it would only
cast an awkward shadow over our friendship forever if he said no.
I couldn’t bear that. Ugh. What did I ever do to deserve this? I
found myself wishing we could go back to those carefree days in
elementary school, before all of this stupid social drama. I was lost
in my internal languishing when Kanae called my name.
“Akari, listen,” he said. There was a weight to his words that
told me things were about to get serious.
“Wh-what’s up?” I asked, bracing myself for the worst.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
My heart raced. What could it be? Was it about what
happened at lunch? Wait. What if he was about to confess his
feelings to me? Like, “I need to take back what I said earlier,” or
something like that. God, I would be over the moon! I’d probably
kiss him right then and there. Granted, I knew I probably shouldn’t
get my hopes up—but when he did drop the bomb, it was far
beyond anything I ever could have imagined.
“I’m thinking about moving to Tokyo,” he said. “Not until the
end of next year, of course, but I still wanted to give you a heads-
up.”
My mind immediately went blank. It went so blank that it
took me a while to even register the word “Tokyo.” That was…the
capital city of Japan, right? Thinking back on it now, I was pretty
sure the initial confusion was just a product of my mind
dissociating itself from reality. I stood there, dumbfounded, while
Kanae explained the rest.
“Long story short, my dad offered to let me come live with
him over there a while back. And I mean, you know how much I
always wanted to move back to the big city, right? So obviously
I said yes. Well, not that it’s set in stone or anything yet. I still
need to figure out what high school I’d be going to and whatnot…”
Then Kanae looked at me, as if to say, “What do you think I
should do, Akari?” But did it even matter? If I told him I didn’t
want him to go, would he stay here with me in Sodeshima?
Probably. Kanae was too nice to abandon someone like that. To be
clear, I didn’t want him to go; I wanted him to stay right here with
me forever. I wanted us to be able to sit and talk and drink Cheerio
and watch the sun go down together until we were both old and
wrinkly. I knew that I couldn’t ask him to abandon his dreams for
my benefit, even in spite of all that, so I tried my best to fake a
smile.
“If that’s what you wanna do, then I say go for it. You’ve got
my support, anyway.”
“…You mean it?”
“Of course! Besides, a smart guy like you deserves to be in
Tokyo. It’d be a real shame for you to be trapped here in
Sodeshima your whole life.”
“…Well, all right. If that’s how you feel, then I guess I’ll just
have to study real hard,” he said with a slightly apologetic smile.
I tried to build him up with a nonstop barrage of
reassurances, like “C’mon, you’ll be fiiine,” and “I know you can do
it,” and “If there’s any way I can help, say the word.” But in truth, I
was only saying these things because I knew I’d break down and
cry the moment I stopped talking. Not long after we said our
goodbyes, the six o’clock chime rang out over the island—the
melancholy notes of Greensleeves reverberating in harmony with
the sorrow I now felt inside my heart.
 SHOOT, I’M ALL OUTTA TIME, I thought to myself—but the
Rollback had already occurred, and the officer I’d been talking to a
moment ago was nowhere to be seen. What I saw instead was a
bunch of children at play, swinging on swing sets and building
great big mounds in a large sandbox. This was clearly a park, and
not the one in the abandoned part of town, but Central Park,
where I’d met up with Akari the night before. I was sitting on a
bench beside the main walkway. Behind my back, I could still hear
Greensleeves, but the tune was a fair bit louder now than it had
been before the Rollback. Assuming the phenomenon was still
keeping to the same pattern, then this was Tuesday, April 3rd, at 6
p.m. I’d jumped back yet again, deeper into the past, but that one
little sentence the officer said still lingered in my ears.
“You guys were hangin’ out late on Sunday night too,
weren’tcha?”
Sunday would have been April 1st, but I hadn’t seen Akari
that night—she told me so herself—which directly contradicted the
officer’s eyewitness testimony. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks
on him that night, or maybe Akari was the one who got it wrong…
I knew I had to get to the bottom of this mystery, but before I did
anything else, I needed to regain my bearings. Having ascertained
my location, I reached for my cell phone to check the time…
“Yeah, like I said, I really don’t know what happened to
him…”
…But then I noticed the lady sitting next to me. She was a
slender young woman, maybe about twenty years old, with long
hair that had been dyed blonde and a couple of different ear
piercings. She had a dog leash in her hand, attached to the collar
of a Shiba Inu sitting at the foot of the bench. She must have
stopped for a breather while out on a walk with her dog. I
recognized her from somewhere—she was the same lady who’d
rescued me from that angry drunkard at the Ocean’s Bounty
Festival. The thing was, I felt like I knew her from someplace else
long before that. Who was she? I thought about it some more as I
stared intently at her profile, until finally I was able to put a name
to the face.
 “Wait a minute. Hayase?” I asked.
“Yeah? What is it?” she said, turning to face me.
Now that I got a good look at her face from straight-on, I
was sure of it. She was Saki Hayase, Akito’s high school girlfriend
and student manager of the baseball team. I couldn’t quite tell at
first because she’d dyed her hair from its natural black color, but it
was her, all right. Now the question was: Why on earth were she
and I sitting on a park bench together? What had we been talking
about? It wasn’t like she and I had ever interacted before.
“…Um, hello? Did you want to ask me something, or…?” she
asked impatiently, furrowing her brow.
“Oh, uh… No, sorry. Don’t mind me.”
“Why so skittish all of a sudden? If something’s on your
mind, just say it.”
She was being awfully friendly—and I already knew from the
way she came to my rescue at the festival that she was probably a
very good person, even if she did look like a bit of a punk rocker
now. Since I was getting a little sick of beating around the bush to
try to avoid suspicion at this point, I decided to ask her point-
blank:
“Sorry, could you remind me what we were just talking
about?”
“Huh? Are you serious? You asked the question, and you
weren’t even listening to the answer? We were talking about Akito,
remember?”
We were? Had she and I been recounting old stories about
him or something? I found it hard to believe that I’d go out of my
way to ask one of his old girlfriends about him, but I had no way
of knowing what my intentions were. More than anything, though,
I wanted to know whatever it was she had just told me.
“Right, right. And what were you telling me about him,
exactly?” I asked innocently, not expecting it to be a major
problem. It was a shock when this caused all of the emotion to
drain from Hayase’s face in an instant. Her eyes turned sharp as
daggers.
 “You’re really gonna make me repeat all of that, huh?” she
said, with a sort of soft-spoken anger to her voice. Her imposing
demeanor won out over my curiosity, and I quickly backpedaled.
“N-no, it’s okay. I think I got the gist. Sorry for being
annoying…” I said, bowing my head in apology. Thankfully,
Hayase’s expression softened quite a bit after this, and she leaned
back against the bench as heavily as if she’d finished running a
marathon.
“It’s just…not a very pleasant subject, you know?” she said.
“I’d rather not talk about it more than we already have.”
Okay, now I was really curious. Why did the Rollbacks always
seem to happen right in the middle of important events and
conversations? I wished my future self had left me a note or
something saying I should try to be alone in a quiet place
whenever six o’clock rolled around. Hopefully I could at least
remember to do that next time.
“Mmnngh!” Hayase moaned, stretching her arms up over her
head. “Okay, I think that’s enough talking for one day. Now don’t
forget, you still have to hold up your end of the bargain! I’ll be
expecting you bright and early tomorrow!”
“Wait. Did we make a deal or something?” I asked, genuinely
confused.
“Uh, yeah?” she nodded. It was obvious that she was
starting to have concerns about my short-term memory, but she
thankfully gave me a refresher anyway: “You offered to help out at
the festival, remember? My family’s liquor store runs a big booth
there every year, from sunup to sundown. Only problem is, we’re a
little shorthanded this year…but you said you already knew that,
which was why you offered to help us out in the first place. That’s
the only reason I’m here talking to you right now. There—did that
refresh your memory?”
Wait a minute… Waaait a minute. Things were starting to
come together. Eri mentioned that I was helping out with a booth
at the festival during the last Rollback. This must have been what
she was talking about. But why did I offer to help out at the
festival? That seemed extremely uncharacteristic of me, especially
when I was already wrapped up in a supernatural phenomenon.
“Sorry, just to clarify: I offered to help you guys?” I asked.
“Yeah? That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time…”
Hayase answered.
She seemed pretty suspicious of the way I was acting at this
point, but it didn’t sound to me like she was lying about anything
she said. I could only assume that I had offered to help her out,
which seemed like an awfully irresponsible thing for me to do
when Akito’s life was on the line…but I didn’t have much of a
choice now. Maybe I could even learn a thing or two about what
we’d discussed here at the park today while I was helping her out
tomorrow.
“Right, of course. I remember now. Guess I’ll see you
tomorrow, then.”
“Okay, phew! Boy, for a minute there, I was starting to think
you hit your head on something and forgot all about it! Ah ha ha!”
Hayase clapped me on the back as hard as she could, and I
actually winced because of how much it hurt. The little dog at her
feet barked, stood up, and started wagging its tail impatiently,
ready to resume their walk. Hayase obliged and stood up from the
bench, then turned to face me.
“Okay then! I’ll see you on the temple grounds tomorrow
morning at six o’clock sharp! Wear some clothes you don’t mind
getting dirty, and don’t be late!”
Wait, did she say six in the morning?! Man, maybe I
should’ve faked amnesia to get out of it after all…

After waving goodbye to Hayase, I headed back home and

sat down on my bed upstairs. It was half past six—6:30 p.m. on
April 3rd. I needed to hurry and figure out what went down on the
night of April 1st. The officer claimed he’d seen me with Akari,
while Akari claimed she had no idea where I’d been after we said
our goodbyes down at the seawall. Obviously, these stories weren’t
consistent with one another, which meant either the officer or
Akari wasn’t telling the truth. It would be easier for me to assume
the officer was simply mistaken if Akari hadn’t also been acting a
little strange when I first asked her about it, which sowed some
seeds of doubt in my mind. At this point, I didn’t know who to
believe—and the only way to know for sure was to determine if
Akari was telling the truth or not.
Easy enough to say, but how exactly was I supposed to do
that? I couldn’t ask her the same question again, because she
would probably give me the same answer. Should I try to mislead
her into revealing it another way? If I could smoothly pivot the
conversation topic to that night, and Akari didn’t contradict her
previous alibi, then I could be relatively certain that the officer had
simply seen two other teenagers who weren’t us. I didn’t like
having to be conniving about this one thing, but it was probably
the least confrontational option, so I decided to go with it.
Right as I made up my mind, I felt my cell phone vibrating in
my pocket. It was Akari. Perfect timing, I thought to myself as I
answered the call.
“Hello?”
“Oh, hey, Kanae-kun. Sorry, I was really busy and couldn’t
pick up the phone. What’s up?”
“Huh? You called me.”
“What, no… You tried to call me, like, an hour ago, didn’t
you?”
“I did…?”
I had no memory of this, but then I thought about it and
realized that an hour ago would have been around 5:30 p.m.—
prior to where I ended up after the last Rollback, and therefore
something I hadn’t experienced yet. I didn’t know why I had
called, and there was really no way for me to find out, but that
didn’t matter too much right now, because this was the
opportunity I was looking for.
“Oh yeah, so hey—there’s something I wanted to talk to you
about, Akari. Is this a good time?”
“For me? Yeah, of course. What did you want to talk about?”
 “Okay, so here’s the thing…”
It was then that I realized I still hadn’t come up with a plan
as to how I would segue into the subject of the night of April 1st.
Crap.
“Kanae-kun? Are you still there?”
“Y-yeah, sorry. So listen, um…”
I needed to think of something, and fast.
“…Would you be interested in going on a picnic at all? I was
thinking it’d be really nice, what with the cherry blossoms in full
bloom and all.”
“Huh? A picnic?”
I could practically see her puzzled expression from the other
end of the line. Heck, I was pretty baffled by it, myself—why, oh
why had that been the first thing my mind jumped to? Was I for
real right now? “Hey, Akari! I know your brother died, but do you
wanna have a picnic?” It was more than a little insensitive…not to
mention stupid.
“S-sorry, I guess I didn’t really think that through. Just
pretend I never said anything.”
“…No, I think that sounds kinda nice, actually. Let’s do it.”
“Wait. You mean it?”
I was genuinely shocked. I thought for sure she would
politely decline the invite, especially since it came completely out
of the blue. I wasn’t prepared in the slightest for her to actually
say yes, but I couldn’t very well back out now, could I?
“All right, um… Sounds like a plan. Just gotta iron out a time,
then. Let’s see, I’ve got plans pretty much all day tomorrow, so…”
I trailed off, recalling that I’d agreed to meet up with Hayase
at six in the morning. And since the festival usually went until late
into the night, I was pretty sure they’d need my help all day. And I
couldn’t make it any later than that, because the next Rollback
would occur, which meant I only really had one option.
“Does tonight work for you?”
 “Ooh-hoo! A little late-night picnic, huh? Sure. Sounds fun.”
“Awesome. Do you wanna pick a time? I’m free all evening.”
“Hrmmm… Okay, how ’bout eight o’clock?”
“Works for me. I’ll come pick you up at your place right
around eight, then.”
“Cool beans. See you then.”
I hung up the phone. That certainly hadn’t gone the way I
expected it to, but hey, a picnic would be the perfect setting for us
to have a laid-back conversation about things. I bet that the cherry
blossoms would look awesome in the dark too. In my rush of
excitement-slash-jitteriness, I practically jumped up to my feet—
and my cell phone slipped out of my hand in the process.
“Whoops…”
I bent down to grab it but then noticed that the impact with
the floor had caused the screen to turn on. When I picked it up
properly, I was reminded that there was something I meant to
check on my phone. I swiped over and opened the Memos app,
where I found a note containing the same three bits of information
regarding Akito’s death that I’d seen previously.

4/2: Found Akito’s body @ 6:30 PM in empty lot behind

tobacco shop & called police.
Est. time of death between midnight and 2 AM that morning.
Was drinking heavily earlier that night @ the Asuka Tavern,
~9 PM to midnight.

The fact that the note was already here meant I must have
left it for myself on either the next Rollback, or the one after that.
I’d need to remember to do that at some point—who knew what
might happen if I forgot. But before I had the chance to start
stressing myself out about time paradoxes and whatnot, I heard
my grandmother calling me from downstairs. It was probably
dinnertime. I slid my cell phone back in my pocket and headed
down to the living room. For now, I would try to keep the Memos
thing in the back of my head.

I left the house shortly after finishing my meal. It was

freezing cold outside, but after deeply regretting my lack of layers
the night before, I remembered to wear an undershirt this time, so
thankfully it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I already let my
grandmother and Eri know where I was going to be tonight, as
well as my plan to get up early and help out at the festival
tomorrow morning. They both seemed awfully surprised by this—
probably because I’d never gone out to meet up with friends at
night in my entire life. Eri asked me who I was going on a picnic
with, but the thought of revealing that much left me a bit too
embarrassed. I just kinda dodged the question without answering
it.
After making my way down the dusky streets for some time,
I turned into Akari’s apartment complex. I didn’t feel quite brave
enough to go up and ring her doorbell, so I opted to call her cell
and let her know I was outside. In less than a minute, she
emerged from her second-floor apartment and came scampering
down the stairs with a large tote bag slung over her shoulder.
“Hey, Kanae-kun. Fancy seeing you here this evening,” she
said, greeting me with a giddy smile. It felt surreal to think that a
single night before, she’d been standing right in that exact same
place, but with tears streaming down her face. Though that
wouldn’t happen until tomorrow night from her perspective, so I
supposed that contrast was to be expected. The bright-eyed girl
standing before me right now had no way of knowing that in about
thirty hours’ time, she’d be breaking into the school with me, or
embracing me on the rooftop, or breaking down and crying outside
her apartment in front of me. So all I could really do was play it
cool and try not to make the mistake of bringing up Akito again.
“Hey, good to see you too,” I said. “Sorry again for inviting
you out on such short notice.”
“Nah, don’t mention it. I’ve been wanting to get out of the
house and see some cherry blossoms anyway. I really appreciated
the invite,” she smiled again—but I could somehow sense she was
putting on a brave face. It had been a mere two days since her
brother passed away, so there was no way she was already over
the grieving process. She was either forcing herself to seem okay,
or she was only coming along as a distraction to keep her mind off
the pain. She probably wouldn’t appreciate me prodding her about
it in either case, so I chose to keep acting casual and treating her
the same way I always did.
“Cool, glad to hear it,” I said. “Well then—shall we?”
We set off toward the temple grounds. The backstreets of
Sodeshima were in desperate need of more lampposts, yet despite
the dim lighting and gloomy atmosphere, Akari was practically
skipping through the neighborhood with a cheerful spring in her
step.
“So, what’s in the bag?” I asked, pointing to the large canvas
tote over her shoulder.
“Oh, y’know. Just the basic stuff. A picnic blanket, a couple
smaller blankets for if we get cold, and a little bit of food in case
we get hungry.”
If cringing had a sound, you could have heard my
embarrassment from a mile away. I’d invited her out on a picnic,
and yet I didn’t even think to bring any of the necessary stuff and
just showed up empty-handed on her doorstep. I should have at
least brought some sort of food item to contribute. I guess I
figured since it was already eight o’clock, she’d probably eaten
beforehand.
“Aw, shoot, my bad!” I apologized. “I should’ve brought
something too. Here, let’s swing by the supermarket real quick.”
“No, that’s okay. I made enough for both of us.”
Akari’s kindness and consideration was a warm balm for my
weary heart. I was eternally grateful to have such an angel for a
lifelong friend.
“Thanks… You didn’t go too overboard making food just for
this, I hope?”
“Gosh, no. I clumped together some rice balls, that’s all.
Don’t get your hopes up too high.”
 “Oh, they’re already way up there, I’m afraid. Don’t think I’ve
ever gotten to try your home cooking before, have I?”
“Aw, stop it,” she blushed, looking down at the ground. “Rice
balls don’t count as home cooking. You’re making a big deal out of
nothing.”
We reached the temple grounds before long. I was surprised
to see that there were actually quite a lot of people there, mostly
middle-aged, drinking alcohol and making merry. This was not the
quiet, secluded atmosphere I’d been hoping for.
“…Lot of people here, huh?” said Akari, clearly a little
disappointed as well.
“Yeah, I guess they must be pregaming for the big festival
tomorrow.”
“Oh, right. I kinda forgot that was tomorrow… Oh well. We’re
here now, I guess,” she shrugged. It was pretty obvious that all of
her enthusiasm had just crawled into a hole and died. Desperate to
salvage the situation, I mulled over our options for a minute before
offering an alternate solution.
“Y’know, we could just go to the old, abandoned park
instead,” I suggested. “No one would bother us there.”
“Wait… You mean the one in the run-down part of town?
With the little wooden shrine that you said you thought might be
the cause of the Rollback?”
“Yep, that’s the one. Why do you say it like you haven’t
already been there?”
“Because I haven’t… I’ve only heard about it from you.”
“Huh? But you were the one who invited me there the other
day when we—” I began but stopped myself short. I was confusing
the order in which I experienced events with the actual,
chronological timeline again. Akari wouldn’t experience that for
another several days—I really needed to get my head on straight
with this stuff. “Sorry, now I’m with you. Of course you haven’t
been there yet. But hey, now’s as good a time as any to take you
there, right? C’mon, let’s go.”
 I turned on my heels and headed off in the direction of the
abandoned park, and Akari—though quite bewildered by my
impulsiveness—followed close behind. As we made the long trek
over there, I couldn’t help but grumble internally about how
convoluted this whole thing was. How was I supposed to explain
the rules of the Rollback phenomenon to Akari one of these days
(so she could turn around and explain it to me on the 6th) when it
felt like I still didn’t even have a very good handle on it? When had
I explained it to her, for that matter? Judging by the fact that she
already knew about it now, it had to have been sometime prior to
6 p.m. on April 3rd. Maybe I should just ask her.
“Hey, Akari?”
“Yeah?”
“You remember how I explained the Rollback phenomenon to
you and all that jazz? When was that?” I asked, looking over at her
through the corner of my eye.
“Uhhh, lemme think. That was…two nights ago, I think?” she
recollected.
Okay, hold the phone. How could that make any sense? Two
nights ago would have been April 1st—but Akari had previously told
me that she and I didn’t meet up that night in any capacity. Did
she have the date wrong? Otherwise, I didn’t see how I could’ve
explained things to her on that particular night.
Wait, I’ve got it. This wasn’t necessarily a contradiction; I
could’ve explained it to her over the phone. My cell phone’s call
history did have a record of me calling her that night, if I
remembered correctly. I covertly pulled out my phone just to
double-check, and sure enough, there was her name: two calls,
back-to-back, shortly after 9 p.m. on April 1st. That was one
feasible way I could have explained the Rollback phenomenon to
her, for sure. But was it the way?
I tapped on the two calls for more information, thinking
perhaps I could discern something from the respective lengths of
each call. As it turned out, one of the two calls hadn’t gone
through at all, while the other one only lasted three seconds. This
pretty much nipped the phone theory in the bud. There was simply
no way I could have explained all the intricacies of the Rollback
phenomenon to her in a mere three seconds, and there was no
evidence of me texting her either.
In other words, we were essentially back to square one.
I really had to have explained things to her in person. Sure, it was
theoretically possible that I’d used my grandmother’s landline, or
gotten someone else to convey the message to her, but those
possibilities seemed so minuscule that I felt it was safe to rule
them out. Besides, the fastest way to get confirmation was to
simply ask the girl herself. I put my phone back in my pocket and
took a deep breath.
“Two nights ago… That would’ve been April 1st, right?” I
confirmed. “Did I explain it to you in person, or just over the
phone?”
“No, no. It was in person,” she answered without a second’s
hesitation.
I began to feel a little bit dizzy. There was no doubt about it
now—she had unequivocally stated that she and I met up on the
night of the 1st, directly contradicting what she told me before.
“…Okay, thanks,” I said, practically choking the words out as
my vision began to blur. Why would Akari lie to me about
something like that…? Or rather, why would future Akari feel the
need to lie about this one thing in particular? I had no idea, not
the slightest inkling. What did she have to gain or lose? What was
she hiding from me?
“Whoa!”
My manic thoughts were cut short by a sharp pain in my rear
end. I’d accidentally gotten my foot caught in a sewer grate, it
seemed, and had fallen backwards onto my ass as a result. It was
so dark outside, I didn’t even notice it. Man, I’m such a klutz.
Guess that’s one way to take the edge off of a disturbing
revelation, though.
“A-are you all right, Kanae-kun?” Akari asked. “Do you need
help standing up?”
 “Nah, I got it, thanks,” I assured her with a smile as I pushed
myself back up to my feet. There was still a stinging pain in my
backside, but I had a feeling that would go away pretty quickly. At
least I hadn’t broken anything. I wiped the dirt from my pants and
was about to start walking again when Akari stopped me.
“Hang on,” she said. “You’ve still got some gunk on you.”
She squatted down beside me and started patting the dust
off my pants—as if she were my mom or something. Feeling
awkward, I told her not to worry about it and tried to step away,
but she grabbed my pants by the hem and told me to hold still.
There was no escape now that she’d seen me fall over, so now I
had to live with the repercussions… I was so embarrassed, I could
feel the sweat making my undershirt cling to my back.
“Okay, that ought to do it,” Akari said, bouncing back up to
her feet with a smile.
“Th-thanks,” I said, then hurriedly shuffled off once more
toward the abandoned part of town. The closer we got, the more I
could feel my nails digging deeper into my palms. Damn it, man. I
didn’t want to have to suspect Akari of being a liar.

Breaking into the high school yesterday had been a fairly

atmospheric experience in its own right, but walking through these
abandoned streets at night blew it completely out of the water.
Though there were plenty of streetlights lining the sidewalks, they
were all unlit, meaning the entire area was draped beneath a veil
of absolute darkness. There were no sounds either, aside from the
occasional mewling of a stray cat off in the distance or the pitter-
pattering of a small animal’s footsteps scurrying away as we drew
near. This almost suffocating silence only served to amplify the
bone-chilling atmosphere.
We pressed on nevertheless, using the flashlight function on
my cell phone as our only beacon through the darkness. I had to
admit, I was scared out of my mind. Akari seemed to be in the
same boat this time around. She’d handled our midnight venture
into the school like a champ, but right now, she was clinging to my
sleeve like her life depended on it.
 “K-Kanae-kun? Are you sure this is the right way?” she
asked.
“Pretty sure…” I replied, though it was so dark I couldn’t be a
hundred percent certain. If it was, we should have been nearing
our destination any minute now…and sure enough, the exit to the
narrow alleyway soon came into view. That has to be it, I thought,
picking up the pace until we broke through out into the clearing.
Bingo. Before us lay the abandoned park, its plentiful cherry
blossoms blooming in splendor despite the complete and utter lack
of light. The gentle breeze plucked petals from their branches and
sent them flying through the beam of my cell phone camera light,
illuminating each one to twinkle fleetingly against the night sky.
“Whoa…” Akari marveled softly in wonder. Her grip on my
arm loosened as she walked toward the majestic tree in the center
of the park, almost as if in a trance. The sheer beauty of it all had
apparently overwritten her fear. “This is incredible, Kanae-kun… To
think this was here all along, right in our own backyard…”
“I know, right? I only discovered it a few days ago myself,
but I still can’t believe it.”
Leaving the flashlight on, I propped my cell phone up against
the jungle gym. This way it lit up the entire tree while also
brightening up the surrounding area enough to see by.
“See, what did I tell ya? Nobody’s gonna interrupt our picnic
here,” I joked.
“Yeah… You weren’t kidding…” Akari replied absentmindedly.
She was still gazing up at the tree, spellbound by its glory.
I decided to give her a moment to take it all in.
Circling around to the other side of the tree, I peeked inside
the small wooden shrine and saw that the large, cracked rock was
still sitting right where I’d left it. I caught myself wondering if
perhaps something would change if I were to touch it again, and
even began to reach out my hand, but then stopped myself,
realizing that there was a good chance it would only make an
already difficult situation even worse. If I knew we’d be coming
here, I might have brought a small offering to lay at the foot of the
shrine, I thought to myself as I walked back over to where Akari
was standing. But then I saw her, and I stopped dead in my tracks.
She was holding her right hand out at about eye level, letting
the petals fall right into her palm. Then, once she’d caught a few,
she lowered her hand down a bit, pursed her lips, and blew them
away with a single soft breath. As they fluttered down to the
ground, her lips curled into a gentle but ever-so-slightly
mischievous smile. It was an oddly captivating sight, both serene
and adorable at the same time, and I found it so alluring that I
decided to keep my distance for a while longer so as not to ruin
the moment. I stood there, watching Akari from afar, until
eventually she noticed me.
“…Kanae-kun? What’s wrong?” she asked.
“O-oh, sorry,” I said, snapping out of it. “I was just enjoying
—”
Once again, I stopped myself short before admitting the
truth.
“Just enjoying what?” she inquired, tilting her head curiously.
Man, talk about déjà vu. We had almost this exact exchange
a couple of days ago. The last time, I pulled a lame excuse out of
my ass and told her something about going through old photo
albums with my grandmother—and I remembered Akari seemed
strangely disappointed with that answer. Should I try to come up
with another excuse to hide what I truly felt again? …No. This
time, I would try to be brave and own up to what I really wanted
to say. It was the least I could do to repay her for the unwavering
affection she’d shown me up on the rooftop last night.
“I was just…enjoying the beautiful view,” I said, my tone
unapologetic and clear.
It seemed I’d still chosen my words too ambiguously.
“I know, right?!” Akari gushed, her eyes aglow. “This tree is
gorgeous, isn’t it?! Yeah, it definitely takes a minute to soak it all
in.”
My shoulders slumped as I realized she thought I was talking
specifically about the tree itself, not her. I couldn’t back down now,
though, or else I’d be a real coward. I mustered up my courage
and took a single step forward.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I said.
“Huh?” she blinked.
“I wasn’t looking at the tree, Akari.”
Yet even after tacking on this dead giveaway of a hint, Akari
still seemed confused at first. It took her a moment or two to catch
my meaning. When the gears finally did start to turn, her face
grew redder and redder by the second. She slouched over a little,
fiddling with her bangs as she looked off to the side.
“Oh… W-well, uh… Th-thanks, I guess?”
“S-sure thing.”
This was ten times more embarrassing than I was ready for. I
immediately started beating myself up internally. Way to go,
dumbass. Think you might’ve laid it on a liiittle too thick there.
How are you gonna follow that up, wise guy? We simply stood
there in silence for a while, Akari refusing to make eye contact
while I plumbed the trenches of my mind in desperation for
anything remotely decent to say. An ice-cold breeze tickled the
back of my neck, sending an electric chill down my spine and
breaking the moment at last.
“L-Let’s lay the blanket down, why don’t we?” I blurted out
after far too long. “It’s not much of a picnic if we’re standing up
the whole time.”
“R-right, good idea,” Akari agreed. “My legs could use a rest
anyway.”
Akari pulled the picnic blanket out from her bulky tote bag,
and together we laid it out at the foot of the tree. We both took
our shoes off and sat down side by side. It wasn’t the largest
blanket in the world, however, so our knees were practically
touching.
“Okay, so are you ready to try one of these rice balls or
what?” she asked.
“Oh, hell yeah,” I said. “Let’s pull those babies out.”
 Since I’d just had dinner a couple of hours ago, I wasn’t
actually very hungry, but I wasn’t about to voice that when she’d
gone to the trouble of making food for us. She pulled a small
plastic container out of the tote bag, set it on her lap, and
removed the lid, revealing two neatly packed rows of triangular
rice balls—about ten in total.
“Wow, you really went all out!” I said.
“Ah ha ha, thanks… Yeah, I hadn’t made them in a while, but
once I got started, I just couldn’t stop.”
“Well, I guess we’d better check out how they taste!”
I plucked a single rice ball from the litter. It was beautifully
shaped and still a little bit warm. I bit into it and was pleased to
discover some juicy bits of salmon inside. I wasn’t sure whether
she actually remembered salmon was one of my favorite foods or
it was a sheer coincidence, but it made me pretty happy
regardless.
“Oh yeah,” I nodded. “That’s really good.”
“You mean it?!” she beamed. “Phew, thank goodness. Feel
free to have as many as you like, okay?”
I proceeded to thoroughly stuff my face, though I made sure
to chew each bite thoroughly and with my mouth closed. I didn’t
want to let the love and care she poured into them go to waste.
Akari simply watched me chow down with a giddy smile on
her face.
“You’re not hungry?” I asked between bites.
“Oh, I’ll be having some. Don’t you worry,” she said—then
grabbed a rice ball, took a polite little nibble, chewed, and
swallowed. By the time she finished her first one, I was already
reaching for my third.
“Kinda reminds you of eating cafeteria food back in
elementary school, huh?” I asked.
“Mmyeah, I guessh sho,” Akari said with her mouth full.
“You were always the last one to finish your lunch, I
remember. Heh-heh.”
 Akari gulped down her current mouthful before responding.
“I mean, I was a shrimpy kid back then, with a tiny stomach
to match, y’know? It was honestly an ordeal just trying to cram
everything in there each day. Had to take lots of breaks.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like anyone was forcing you to eat it all,
either. I remember being really worried about you hurting yourself
back then—half the time, you looked like a chubby-cheeked
chipmunk choking to death. It’s not worth cleaning your plate if it
means having literal tears in your eyes by the end of it.”
“Hey, you know I don’t like wasting food! Though there was
that one time I puked it all up. Now that was a nightmare.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot all about that…”
“Wow, really? That surprises me, considering you stayed
behind to help me clean up afterwards.”
“…Wait, I did? Heh. Nice job, little me.”
We carried on like this, reminiscing about old times as we
munched on rice balls. After about another thirty minutes, the
container was empty. I was thoroughly stuffed by that point and
rubbed my bloated waistline with both hands.
“Phee-yew!” I said, exhaling hard. “That was really good.
Don’t think I could eat another bite, though.”
“Yeah, me neither. Want some tea?” Akari offered.
“Oh, absolutely.”
Akari pulled out her thermos and poured some tea into a
little cup; I could see that it had been kept steaming hot. I
thanked her and reached out to take the cup—and our fingers
touched for just a split second.
“Gosh, your hands are freezing, Kanae-kun.”
“Really? Pretty sure this is my normal body temperature.”
I glugged down the tea and handed the cup back to Akari.
She put it down, then reached out her own hands and wiggled her
fingers in a “gimme” gesture.
“Here,” she insisted. “Let me see.”
 “What, are you gonna read my palm or something?” I
quipped but held out my right hand regardless. Akari grabbed it
firmly with both of hers and pulled it in close, mere inches from
her face. The softness of her skin and the rolling, massage-like
movements of her fingers were more than enough to make my
heart beat double time.
“Yeah, you’re pretty cold, all right,” she said.
“W-well, you know what they say. Cold hands, warm heart.”
“Oh, is that how that works? Gotcha.”
I’d given a canned response on my part, but she took it as
genuine. Meanwhile, I was stuck in limbo, my eyes darting from
side to side without ever looking directly at her—I knew no matter
how uncomfortable I felt about this, wresting my hand away from
her would only make things ten times more awkward. I knew one
thing for sure, though. This method of hers was making my face
heat up way faster than it was warming up my hands.
Something I’d noticed but hadn’t really dwelled upon over
the past couple of days was how assertive Akari was being with
me, to the point that it would be very easy for someone to read it
the wrong way—especially after what happened last night on the
school roof. Perhaps something had happened between us in
the time period I hadn’t experienced yet which helped bring us
closer together. Though it must have been pretty abrupt, if so,
because there were only two days of Rollback left at this point.
“Hey, Kanae-kun. Do you still remember that time back in
second grade when you came to my rescue?” Akari asked,
snapping me out of my reverie.
“Huh? In second grade?” I replied. “Could you be a little
more specific?”
“You know, the time everyone was making fun of my skin.
You came up, grabbed me by the hand, and dragged me out of the
classroom.”
“Oh, riiight… I feel like I vaguely recall doing something
along those lines…”
 “Yeah? How ’bout the part where you tried to cheer me up
by sucking on my fingers?”
All of a sudden, the contours of the faint memory I’d been
reaching for at the back of my mind became crystal clear—and the
thick layer of embarrassment and regret it had been buried under
came rushing to the surface.
“Oh my god, why did you have to remind me of that?”
I groaned. “And here I tried so hard to block that awful memory
out of my mind…”
“Awful?! What?! I mean, yeah, it was a little cringeworthy…
But it meant so much to me at the time!”
“A little?! You don’t just shove other people’s fingers in your
mouth, Akari. Even a second grader should know better than
that…”
“Oh, please. It’s not that weird.”
Akari stared down at my hand for a moment, fixated, then
brought it in even closer to her face. Then, she opened her mouth,
and my heart raced. Was she really about to do the same thing to
me, just to prove it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of? For a split
second, I panicked, but no. All she did was purse her lips and blow
out a few slow puffs of hot air, so that her humid breath enveloped
my hand in a blanket of warmth.
“There. Did that warm you up?” Akari asked with a playful
grin.
“…Yep. I’m officially nice and toasty,” I surrendered.
“Heh-heh… Good.”
I had to resist the urge to let out a long and wistful sigh. I
was thoroughly content in this moment. Being together with Akari
like this felt so comfortable, so natural, that I nearly forgot the
reason I’d brought her here—to find out whether or not she was
hiding something from me. If I allowed myself to let that little
tidbit slip from my mind, I could fully immerse myself in the
happiness I was feeling right now. Too bad that it wasn’t an
option. I needed to clear up as many remaining uncertainties as I
could if I was going to prevent Akito’s death. There was no excuse
for me to leave any stone unturned when someone’s life was on
the line.
“Kanae-kun? What’s wrong?” Akari asked as I sat there lost
in thought, her voice tinged with concern. Her eyes looked so pure
and innocent, clear as a winter morning’s sky. After hemming and
hawing about it for much too long, I finally said screw it and asked
her point-blank:
“Akari, I really hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but…”
“Mm? What’s up?”
“You’re not hiding something from me, are you?”
“…Hiding something? Like what?” she asked, narrowing her
eyes.
“Like…what happened on the night of April 1st, for example?”
I could almost hear Akari’s heart skipping a beat. Or at least,
that was how it felt to me. Judging from the way her hands were
trembling, my question had obviously come as a huge shock to the
system. She slowly pulled her hands away from mine, and I
watched the vivacity drain from her face as she did so. This time, it
wasn’t just my right hand that felt exposed to the cold night air. My
heart did too.
“Kanae-kun, I…” she began, her voice a fragile whisper. She
didn’t finish her sentence, and so I waited. I was prepared to wait
as long as it took for her to complete that thought. After what felt
like an entire minute, she delivered, in a soft yet heart-wrenching
voice: “I can’t talk about that.”
I could hardly believe my ears.
“What do you mean, you can’t talk about it…? Are you
kidding me right now?” I pressed impatiently, not wanting to
accept that she’d been hiding things from me all along. “Great,
now you’re making me even more worried. I mean, if something
that unspeakable happened, don’t you think I deserve to know
about it in advance?”
“Please, just…”
 “No, you need to tell me. Or do you just not trust me? Is that
it?”
“O-of course I trust you!” she pleaded, raising her voice.
“Look, you’ll find out soon enough, all right? Believe me, it’s
nothing you need to know right now. So please, don’t say things
like that…”
Her voice was cracked and trembling, and her face looked
utterly heartbroken. It made me feel downright horrible, and a
wave of guilt crashed over me, as though I were a cruel pet owner
who kicked a helpless puppy out of the car and drove off.
“…Fine. Sorry I brought it up,” I said. It was a question that
needed to be asked, but I conceded that I should have found a
better way to go about it. Akari looked down at the ground and
shook her head weakly.
“No… I’m the one who should be apologizing.”
“…I said it’s fine.”
I picked my cell phone up off the ground and checked the
time. It was already after ten o’clock; we were officially out past
curfew.
“C’mon, let’s go home,” I suggested.
Akari reluctantly nodded, her eyes still downcast.

We hardly spoke a word to each other on the way back, and

the few brief exchanges we did have were so superficial that I
completely forgot what we talked about by the time we said
goodbye outside her apartment complex.
Immediately after I made it back to my place, I hopped in
the bathtub, submerged myself up to my shoulders in hot water,
and let out a weary sigh. I was officially exhausted. Maybe if I
hadn’t made an ass of myself by accusing Akari like that, I would
still be riding the emotional high of our otherwise incredible
evening, but that ship had long since sailed. This icky, grimy
sensation I was feeling deep inside could have been completely
avoided. I knew that no amount of scrubbing could wash the guilt
away.
 At least I managed to glean a few new tidbits of information
from this unfortunate experience: namely, that Akari was indeed
hiding something from me but that it was probably nothing too
earth-shattering or dire. She probably felt like she had good reason
to withhold that information from me for the time being, although
I couldn’t even start to imagine what that reason might be. I
resolved to stop being suspicious of Akari and believe in her
promise that I would find out soon enough. Obviously, I was still
highly curious about what she and I were up to on the night of
Akito’s death, but I knew forcing the issue any further would only
hurt our relationship.
I pushed myself up and out of the bathwater. Tomorrow, I’d
promised I would help Hayase out with her family’s festival booth.
I’d need to wake up early so I could head over to the temple
grounds by six in the morning, so I decided it would be best to
turn in for the night. Time to rest up for what would probably be a
pretty physically demanding day.

At about 5:30 a.m. the next morning, Wednesday, April 4th, I

stepped out of the house and made my way over toward the big
festival, still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. It was dark enough
at this hour to see the stars out, though the sun was just
beginning to peek its head up over the eastern horizon.
I made good time, arriving at the temple grounds slightly
earlier than six o’clock. There were already quite a few people
there getting things set up, along with a couple of apparent event
organizers darting around in traditional festival garb. I stood at the
entrance to the grounds for a minute, trying to take it all in, when
I heard a voice call out to me. I turned to see that the voice
belonged to Hayase, who was standing in the middle of a group
huddle with adults twice her age. I jogged over to meet her.
“Morning, Funami,” she waved. “Sorry to make you roll outta
bed so early.”
“Nah, it’s fine. But, uh…” I trailed off, glancing around at the
adults surrounding Hayase. There were four men and women, a
couple of whom might pass for being in their late twenties, while
the others were clearly in their forties.
“Oh, them? They’re the other helpers you’ll be assisting,” she
explained.
“Right, okay.”
For a single booth, this seemed like a lot of people. Was my
help really that necessary? I was dubious but introduced myself to
the other workers as Hayase instructed anyway. When I finished,
they proceeded to give their own introductions to me.
“Okay, now that you’re all acquainted, you can help us start
raising the canopy tents. Here, put these on,” Hayase said. She
was already walking away as soon as she passed a pair of work
gloves to me, so I slipped them on as quickly as I could while
trying to keep pace with her.
She brought us into a large storage shed on the temple
grounds, from which we hauled out the long metal framework
pieces that would form the skeleton of the booth. It took several
trips back and forth to get all of the hardware to where it needed
to be, but less than an hour later, we had three canopies set up
side by side, complete with triangular white polyester tent covers.
From there, we started unloading folding tables, cookware, and
signage from a van parked nearby. By about half past seven, the
booth was more or less finished. I walked out a short distance to
marvel at our handiwork from afar.
“Man, this thing’s huge…”
It looked less like what you tended to envision when
picturing a festival food stand and more like it could serve as the
central HQ for the entire event. Hayase apparently heard me
gawking and walked over to where I was standing.
“Yeah, my family goes big every year. Didn’t you know that?”
she asked.
“Not really,” I admitted. “I don’t usually take part in the
festival, to be honest…”
“What?! Well, you should! I expect to see you here every
year from now on, bub! But for today, I need you to work your
butt off!”
She clapped me hard on the back and walked off. I was
beginning to feel like I might have gotten myself in a little over my
head. Hayase soon called another group huddle where she doled
out tasks to each of us helpers: Some would be doing food prep,
while others would be taking orders and running the cash register.
I was assigned to work the back, where I would ensure ingredients
were well stocked, handle plating and packaging, and tend to
other odd jobs like that. This was, admittedly, not how I imagined
I’d be spending my precious spring break…especially not when I
should have been focused on saving Akito.

At around nine o’clock, the customers had started rolling in,

and things gradually got much more hectic. Now it was almost
noon, and the temple grounds were packed to capacity. The
Ocean’s Bounty Festival was Sodeshima’s biggest annual event, to
the point that even people from outside the island knew about it,
and so a huge influx of mainlanders would take the ferry over each
year to take part in the festivities. The festival’s main attraction
was the grand cavalcade of boats, which would leave port in the
early afternoon and circle the waters surrounding Sodeshima. At
the center of the procession was a magnificent replica of a
mythical treasure ship that was said to be piloted from the
heavens down into the human world by the Seven Gods of Good
Fortune. It offered its symbolic blessings unto the sea and prayers
of bountiful harvests and safe journeys for the local fishermen. It
never seemed all that cool to me, personally, but there was
obviously some sort of novelty appeal to the many festivalgoers.
More than anything, though, I wanted to be done with this
massive “favor” I’d signed myself up for. Ideally, I’d at least like to
be home before six, so that the next Rollback wouldn’t happen in
the middle of a bunch of confusing action again… Wait a minute. I
recalled the previous Rollback, when I found myself here at the
festival and realized that was exactly what was going to happen.
That drunkard was going to try to pick a fight with me, and then
Hayase would swoop in to the rescue. I still had no idea why that
guy got so angry at me, but I assumed I’d probably find out soon
enough. I never thought of myself as the type to go pissing off
random strangers, but…
“…Hang on.”
A new hypothesis floated its way into my brain. What if I
made a point of being somewhere far, far away from the festival
when the next Rollback occurred? There was no way I could get
accosted by that balding drunkard if I wasn’t even there in the first
place. Then again, that would change the future, and thus
everything I’d already experienced in the previous Rollbacks.
It would essentially create a time paradox.
Was that something I wanted to attempt, though? There
were plenty of books and cartoons in which people went around
changing the past all willy-nilly without a care in the world, but the
rules of fictional universes like that didn’t always apply to the real
world. In a certain sense, that was already what I was trying to do
here. My aim was to alter the past to prevent Akito’s death,
thereby creating a future in which there was never a necessity for
me to go back and try to prevent it, thereby creating a world in
which I didn’t prevent it, and so on, and so forth. This cyclical
pattern of contradictions was the very definition of a time paradox,
but I was in too deep now to get cold feet. I would have to give
my best effort and hope that was enough. I decided I’d give my
hypothesis a try and see what happened if I left the festival
grounds prior to six o’clock. Until then, I had work to do.

By 5:30 p.m. I could hardly even feel my legs. I was officially

beat. The multiple breaks they’d given us hadn’t made much
difference; this was much harder than I was prepared to work. I
wasn’t sure if I was getting paid for this or not yet, but it was
definitely the sort of extended manual labor that I should have
gotten paid for doing. I went searching for Hayase, hoping to ask
her if I could be let off the hook a few minutes before six o’clock,
when out of nowhere, I felt something warm and metal pressed up
against my cheek. It was Hayase, surprising me with a can of hot
coffee.
“Good hustle out there,” she said. “Here, take this. You’ve
earned it.”
 “Thanks,” I said, accepting the warm beverage. “So listen,
um… I’m really sorry to bail on you like this, but I should probably
be heading home soon…”
“Sure, no problem. I was just about to tell you you’re free to
go, actually. But come around back with me for a few minutes and
drink that coffee first, will ya? I wanted to give you a little token of
my gratitude before you leave.”
A token of gratitude, eh? What might that be?
I was pretty intrigued, so I followed Hayase around to the
back of the booth, where I immediately plopped down on the
ground to give my weary legs a rest. I cracked open the coffee can
and poured the warm liquid down my throat. It had the perfect
amount of sweetener, and to my parched throat it tasted like the
nectar of the gods themselves. After I’d downed almost half the
can in one gulp, Hayase hunkered down and took a seat
beside me.
“You really came in clutch today, Funami,” she said. “You
hardly made any mistakes at all, and you’re a damn quick learner,
besides. You wouldn’t happen to be interested in working at my
family’s liquor store after you graduate, wouldja?”
“Err… Maybe? Let me get back to you on that one.”
“Heh. Now there’s a ‘no’ if I’ve ever heard one. Don’t sweat
it, though, I was mostly joking.” Hayase pulled a pack of cigarettes
from her coat pocket, popped one in her mouth, and puffed it to
life with the help of a long-necked barbecue lighter. “Whew…
Looks like we had another successful year, huh? Hard to feel that
excited about it when all the proceeds are going straight to the
shrine, though… Oh, wait. You don’t mind me smoking, do you?”
“Nah, you’re fine,” I said.
“Okay, phew,” she exhaled, allowing herself to release the
smoke she’d been holding inside her lungs. There was an awkward
pause in the conversation after that, so I decided to take another
sip of my coffee. As I did, I glanced over at her out of the corner
of my eye. Now that I got a good look at her, I realized Hayase
was actually quite traditionally attractive in spite of her punk rock
exterior. I could see how a girl with her natural beauty could have
been Akito’s high school girlfriend, though being the student
manager of the baseball team likely didn’t hurt her chances either.
I was wondering what their relationship dynamic might have been
like when Hayase turned to look at me again.
“Well, thanks for all your help today,” she said. “You really did
me a solid, and you sure did a great job filling Akito’s shoes.”
“Hey, don’t mention it… Wait, what was that about Akito?”
“Oh, did I not bring that up already? Yeah, he was originally
gonna be helping us run the booth again this year, but then he
wasn’t able to for obvious reasons… We were gonna be a little
shorthanded until you showed up and offered to help.”
“Wow, that’s… Yeah, I had no idea…” I admitted. This
revelation filled me with a lot of complex emotions. “You two
must’ve stayed pretty close through the years, huh?”
“Nah, not really. Nothing like how inseparable we were in
high school, at least.”
“What was he like back then?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“Oh, man. He was the coolest kid in school. Like, pretty
much celebrity status. Everyone looked up to him, whether they
admitted it or not.”
“Yeah, for sure… I definitely remember that,” I nodded. Even
I knew all about him back then, and I was the biggest loser in my
junior high class.
“Oh, sorry, were you asking more about what he was like
behind closed doors? Yeah, I mean, he was pretty much your
standard teenage egotist, I guess. Very full of himself, extremely
competitive and a sore loser at the same time. He did walk the
walk, to be fair. Not sure I’ve ever known a harder worker than
him.”
“Huh. Interesting…”
“Well, until his shoulder injury, that is.”
“…Sorry?” I blinked, turning to face her.
“Huh? How come you’re acting like you’ve never heard about
this before?”
 “I’m serious. I’m not sure that I have…”
“Man, you’re a weird one. We literally talked about it
yesterday. You brought it up.”
Whatever she was referring to, it must have been something
I hadn’t experienced yet. I waited for her to finish disposing of her
cigarette butt in her portable ashtray before probing further.
“So how’d he hurt his shoulder?” I asked.
“Again, I already explained all of that to you. And like I told
you yesterday, this stuff really isn’t fun for me to talk about, so I’d
prefer not to have to repeat myself,” she said. Then she stood up,
pulled a thousand-yen bill out of her wallet, and passed it down to
me. “Here. I know it’s not much, but think of it as a small token of
my gratitude. Don’t spend it all in one place, now.”
“M-much obliged,” I said. A thousand yen for a full day’s
work? Seriously…? That’s hardly enough to buy myself dinner. I
resisted the urge to let out a heavy sigh and simply folded the bill
in half and slipped it into my pants pocket.
“Anyway, thanks again for all your help today. You really
saved my ass. We’d be happy to have you back, if you wanted to
help us out again next year.”
With that, Hayase waltzed off and let herself back inside of
the booth. I had absolutely zero intention of doing the same
amount of work again next year without proper compensation, but
I did appreciate the few new tidbits of Akito-related intel. I’d never
heard anything about a major shoulder injury. When did that
happen? Sometime after I moved to Tokyo? For a pitcher like
Akito, a serious shoulder injury could be enough to end his entire
athletic career. What really piqued my interest, though, was the
way in which Hayase had brought it up.
“Not sure I’ve ever known a harder worker than him… Well,
until his shoulder injury, that is.”
This, to me, made it almost sound like his entire personality
changed after the injury. I remained there on the ground for a
while, groaning as I tried to make sense of it all. Then it hit me—
I’d been sitting here far longer than I intended to. I checked my
cell phone, and sure enough, only five minutes remained until the
next Rollback. This was bad; I had to hurry up and get away from
the festival grounds if I was going to test my hypothesis.
I shot up to my feet and guzzled down the rest of my coffee
in one gulp, tossed the empty can in a nearby waste bin, and
made a beeline for the exit, being extra careful not to bump into
anybody as I ran. I was nearly there, and with plenty of time to
spare, when I heard a voice say the name “Akito” mere inches
from my ear. I stopped dead in my tracks. I knew I needed to get
going, but my curiosity was too strong to bear. I turned around
and saw two young men standing in line for yakitori skewers who
seemed to be discussing Akito. I could afford to spare a minute or
two, so I inconspicuously got in line behind them and
eavesdropped on their conversation.
“Yeah, he still owed me a pretty big chunk of change too,”
said one of the guys. “Guess I won’t be seeing that money ever
again.”
“Aw, seriously? He swindled you too?” said the other. “I
mean, I knew he’d run up some ungodly tabs at a number of bars,
but…damn.”
“Wait, are you kidding me? That’s what he used my money
for? Goddammit, Akito.”
“Well, I dunno, actually. Word on the street is, he got himself
involved in some pretty shady organizations over on the mainland,
if you catch my drift. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was in some
serious debt or even getting extorted.”
“Holy crap, man. How does a guy like that go from hero to
zero in no time flat? Yikes.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Akito, in debt to and involved with
the mob? No way. The Akito I knew would never stoop to being
such a lowlife. I found myself rooted to the spot, unable to stop
listening despite how ludicrous it sounded. If what they were
claiming was true, then I couldn’t help but wonder if it might be
related to how he broke his shoulder. I decided to stick around and
listen in on their conversation a little bit longer, but at that exact
moment, I heard the six o’clock chime begin to play.
 Uh-oh. Time’s up.
Hoping in vain that I could still make it out of the festival
grounds somehow, I took a few steps back so that I could turn
around—only to accidentally trip over the leg of another customer
who’d just gotten in line behind me. We both went falling
backwards in spectacular fashion. Immediately, I stood back up,
turned around, and tried to apologize.
“S-sorry, I wasn’t paying atten—”
My breath caught in my throat. I realized then that I
recognized the bright red, intoxicated face of the man on the
ground in front of me. He was the very same middle-aged
drunkard who’d tried to pick a fight with me right after the second
Rollback. He growled in pain, then glared up at me from where his
butt had hit the ground. This wasn’t looking good for me; at this
rate, we would get into the same exact fight all over again. I
needed to hurry up and apologize before—
 INTERLUDE IV

IT WAS THE FALL of our second year of junior high. I walked

home with heavy, plodding footsteps that evening, following the
gut-wrenching revelation that Kanae would leave Sodeshima for
Tokyo at the end of ninth grade. Trudging up the stairs, I unlocked
the door to our family’s apartment and let myself in. My brother
was still at baseball practice, and my mom was working her night
job at the hostess bar, so I was home alone at this hour, as per
usual. I slipped out of my shoes and walked down the dimly lit
hallway, the floorboards creaking beneath my feet. I dumped my
book bag on the ground in the living room, then hobbled over to
the bathroom so I could look in the mirror. My face was haggard
and pale, and I could even see some slight wrinkles on my
forehead. I was suddenly very grateful that it was so dark outside.
I would not have wanted Kanae to see me like this.
“Ha ha…”
My face looked so ridiculous, I couldn’t help but laugh at
myself. And as I did, all of the tears that I’d been holding back
finally broke free and began trickling down my cheeks. My laughter
slowly shifted into weeping, and then I fell to my knees, right there
in the bathroom. I couldn’t take it anymore. When at last there
were no tears left to shed, I got up, walked over to my bedroom,
and collapsed face-first onto the bed. I couldn’t even be bothered
to change out of my school uniform.
“Tokyo, huh…”
I pulled out my cell phone and searched “cost of living tokyo
transfer student.” Some cursory article browsing suggested that
living expenses would run me several tens of thousands of yen per
month at the very least, plus a couple hundred thousand for the
initial move, not to mention potential enrollment, textbook, and
tuition fees. I tried to add it all up in my head, but it quickly began
to feel pointless. It was futile for me to think I could ever afford to
live in Tokyo, and trying to work out the logistics would only give
me a migraine. I would simply have to come to terms with the fact
that after we graduated from junior high, I might never see Kanae
again—and yet the mere thought was enough to make me start
crying all over again, even when I thought my tear ducts had
already run dry. What in the world was I supposed to do?

The inevitability of losing my best friend loomed over me all

through the winter, and when spring came, Kanae and I began our
final year at Sodeshima Junior High. Our relationship remained in a
sort of stasis where all we really did was continue walking home
together, growing neither closer nor further apart. Then spring
turned to summer, and about halfway through the hottest months
of the year, I retired from the swim team, so I had a lot more time
on my hands that I could spend with Kanae.
Our junior high careers were rapidly drawing to a close by
this point. So naturally, I started trying to think of ways in which I
could stretch out my remaining time with him as much as possible.
Obviously, the easiest way to have all the time I wanted with him
would be to simply ask him not to move to Tokyo, but I could
never do that, not after telling him I would support his decision. It
wasn’t like I was his girlfriend, let alone a family member, so what
right did I have to complain about the educational path he’d
already chosen? All I could really do was sit there in anguish as
Kanae told me about all the arrangements he was making for the
big move.
“So hey, I finally picked what high school I’m gonna try to
aim for,” he told me on the way home after class got out one day.
“You know the U of I, right? Well, I’ve decided to take the test for
their official feeder school. Their watermark for acceptance is a
little high, but if I make it in, I’ll be able to just ride the escalator
system and coast all the way into college.”
Feeder school. Escalator system. These were both terms that
I was familiar with, of course, but they were concepts that were so
far removed from my lower-class means and unambitious
educational goals that they never registered in my brain whenever
I heard people talking about them—they would go straight in one
ear and out the other. All I could really offer him were vapid
encouragements like “Wow, good for you!” or “Don’t worry, you’ve
got this,” and it made me feel like a pathetic excuse for a friend.
When I got home that night, I looked up the high school he
was trying to test into. Kanae had mentioned that the barrier to
entry was “a little high,” but even that was selling it short. What
made my jaw drop even more than the acceptance threshold,
however, were the tuition costs. I could never, ever afford to go
there on my family’s income. The inescapable reality that I would
never be able to live in Tokyo with him was becoming so
overwhelmingly evident that it was like walls were closing in
around me, eager to crush what little hope I had left.
And yet still I cheered Kanae on, staying as supportive as
possible on the outside while in a state of constant suffering on the
inside. No matter how much time went by, this was one pill that
proved too hard for me to swallow, and before I knew it, it was fall
again. It was under those overcast autumn skies, right as the
winds began to grow colder, that my older brother broke his
shoulder.
I didn’t know how it happened. I was sitting alone at home
one evening when all of a sudden, my mom and brother came in
the front door together—a rarity in and of itself. My brother’s face
was white as a sheet. My mother looked downright heartbroken. It
wasn’t until later that I learned he’d had some sort of flare-up of
inflammation in his shoulder that was causing him an awful lot of
pain.
“It’s sounding like he’ll need to undergo surgery for it,” my
mother explained. “He might never be able to play baseball again.
He’s taking it really hard, so please try not to bring it up, okay?”
I nodded. She didn’t have to tell me twice; I knew better
than to kick the hornets’ nest on a touchy subject like that. My
brother had approached me earlier himself and warned me not to
tell anyone about his injury under any circumstances. The whole
thing didn’t really faze me all that much at the time anyway, as my
mind was much too preoccupied with Kanae’s imminent departure
to spare more than a passing thought for my brother. That is, until
one particular night when I was sitting at my desk doing
homework, and I heard him cursing angrily through my bedroom
wall.
“Damn it… God damn it! What did I ever do to deserve this?!
This is such bullcrap! I worked harder than anyone, goddammit…!
Baseball was the one thing I had left… The only thing Dad ever
said I was any good at… Ugh, why me…?”
This shook me up significantly. I couldn’t help but feel sorry
for my brother after that. I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that he
based his entire sense of self-worth on his baseball skills, what
with baseball being the only thing he ever truly loved and worked
hard at. I wasn’t only talking about the time spent during his
school career, either. I could remember him and my dad playing
catch outside our apartment each and every day back before he
was even in kindergarten.
I never liked my older brother very much. Ever since we
were little, he’d done nothing but pick on me. He also loved to
boss me around and would take his anger out on me anytime his
feelings got hurt in the slightest. I’d always tried to put as much
distance between me and him as possible for this reason, both
physically and emotionally. In that moment, though, I felt nothing
but sympathy for him. Unfortunately, that same moment marked
the beginning of my brother’s slow but steady decline. It was from
this point on that he started letting his entire life veer way off
course.

In the end, I wasn’t able to stop Kanae from moving to

Tokyo. He passed his entrance exam and got into the U of I feeder
high school, and arrangements were made for him to move in with
his father in the big city that upcoming spring. I, on the other
hand, couldn’t care less what high school I went to if I couldn’t go
to the same one as Kanae, so I settled on Sodeshima High since it
was the cheapest and closest option. When they announced the
results of our entrance exams, I was neither overjoyed nor
devastated. I felt nothing. Next came the day of our graduation
ceremony, and with it, the last day I would ever get to walk home
from school with Kanae.
 “You sure you don’t want to go to the end-of-the-year
party?” he asked me as we walked back from the ceremony. “I’m
sure your classmates and fellow swim team members were really
hoping to see you there.”
“Eh. I’m not into big parties like that.” I shrugged. “Anyway, I
figured it’d be nice to have at least one last chance to talk to you
before you go.”
“We go home together pretty much every day, though.”
“I mean, yeah. So what?”
“…All right, then whaddya say we have a little year-end
shindig of our own?”
We stopped by the candy store for the first time in months,
only to make an unfortunate discovery: the old vending machine
that had been parked out front—the one with the glass-bottled
Cheerio we always loved so much—had been taken away and
replaced with a newer, state-of-the-art model. This made me feel a
sort of profound, yearning sadness, though I couldn’t quite put my
finger on why. Maybe because I might never have the chance to
enjoy the flavor of dissolved glass molecules again.
“…You okay, Akari?” Kanae asked.
“Huh? What do you m—” I started to ask, but then I figured
it out. My voice was nasal and cracked; I’d started to cry without
even realizing it. “O-oh, sorry. I tried my best not to cry during the
ceremony, but I guess I couldn’t hold it back any longer…or
something…”
My lacrimal glands were getting awfully weak lately; I found
myself crying over the tiniest, most trivial of things. And once I got
started, it was nearly impossible to stop.
“Sorry,” I said, snot dripping from my nose. “I’m really
sorry…”
“Here, use these,” said Kanae, handing me a pack of pocket
tissues. I graciously accepted them and sat down on the nearby
bench to dry my eyes and blow my nose. Kanae took a seat next
to me, but he didn’t say a word. He sat there and waited patiently
for me to stop crying. Some year-end shindig this turned out to be,
I thought to myself. More like a funeral.
We sat there for some period of time—I didn’t know how
long—whiling away the early afternoon together. The skies
overhead were clear and blue, the wind through my hair cool and
crisp, and as we sat together my eardrums were tenderly caressed
by the lulling sound of rolling waves off in the distance. The
moment was perfect, and I knew this might be the last opportunity
I’d get.
Don’t leave me.
I just couldn’t bring myself to say the words.
 “REALLY SORRY ABOUT THAT!” I apologized in a flustered
voice, but it was too late.
The Rollback had already occurred, and now the rosy-faced
drunkard I knocked down seconds ago was nowhere to be seen.
My consciousness had been sent far away from the festival
grounds in the blink of an eye. I looked around and soon
discovered that I was someplace very familiar—standing near the
window in my own bedroom. I could just about make out the
sound of Greensleeves on the other side of the glass. I reached
down and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket to check the
date, almost by reflex at this point. The screen flashed on to tell
me that it was Monday, April 2nd, at 6 p.m. Feeling somewhat
defeated, I sat down on my bed and pinched the bridge of my
nose between my fingertips.
“Well, that didn’t work…”
In the end, I didn’t manage to apologize to the middle-aged
man after knocking him over, let alone remove myself from the
festival grounds. Unfortunately, I knew exactly what was going to
happen after that: he would try to start a fight with me, only to be
talked down by Hayase, meaning I was unable to test my
hypothesis about disconnecting the past from the future I’d
already experienced. I should have been a lot more careful.
I needed to not let myself get sidetracked by eavesdropping on
some random guys’ conversation and get the hell out of the
festival like I was supposed to. It really shouldn’t have been that
hard. I could only blame my own poor judgment.
The other possibility was that time paradoxes just didn’t exist
in the real world. The past was already set in stone, in other
words. Maybe our entire lives were predetermined, and there was
nothing I could do to escape from whatever fate had decided for
me. Though if that were the case, I could kiss any hope of saving
Akito’s life goodbye.
“…No way. Screw that noise.”
I clenched my fists as if to choke the life out of any potential
misgivings before they had a chance to take root. I didn’t have the
time nor mental acuity to sit around contemplating the true nature
of time and destiny. All I knew was that the timing of the Rollback
phenomenon aligned almost perfectly with Akito’s death, and that
couldn’t be just a coincidence. There had to be a reason I was
being sent back. I refused to believe that any higher power could
be cruel enough to send me back in time like this without giving
me a chance to change things. I alone had the power to prevent
Akito’s death. I needed to firmly believe that, or else I’d lose the
will to keep going like this.
I did, however, have some misgivings related to the
conversation I’d overheard back at the festival. All that stuff about
Akito being severely in debt or getting himself involved with
criminal organizations. I didn’t want to think he would stoop that
low, but those two guys sure didn’t seem like they were joking
around. I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.
“…Not that it really matters.”
Whether he was into some shady stuff or not, I still needed
to do whatever I could to save his life. I could find out if there was
any truth to those accusations after the job was done, by
confronting Akito himself about it.
I stood up from my bed to close the curtains, and my
stomach let out a sudden, burbling growl. Wow, I really need to
eat something, I thought to myself. Then I realized that these
went way beyond usual hunger pangs; I was absolutely starving.
How had I let myself go so long without eating? Strange, I thought
as I closed the curtains and turned on the lights. Only a moment
later, there was a knock on my door.
“Come in!” I yelled, and Eri walked in the room. “What’s up?”
“Um… Just wanted to tell you it’s almost time for dinner,” she
said skittishly.
“Oh, okay. Thanks for letting me know,” I said, standing up
from my bed to go downstairs. Eri made no indication of wanting
to leave and instead remained firmly rooted to the spot. “Sorry,
was there something else you needed?”
She looked pensively up at me for a moment, then gathered
the nerve to ask what was on her mind.
 “…So you’re not still mad at me?”
“What? Why would I be?”
“Well, I dunno… You kinda stormed out of the house after
that fight we had yesterday… And then you didn’t come back home
until this morning, and even then, you just holed up in your room.
I thought maybe you were still angry…”
Stormed out of the house? What the heck is she… Oh, right!
She must have been referring to the argument we had when I got
here on April 1st. I put together a rough chronological sequence of
events in my head: Shortly after disembarking from the ferry, I
went back to my grandmother’s house, immediately got in a spat
with Eri, then left the house and stayed at someone else’s place
that night. Then, I apparently came home sometime on the
morning of April 2nd but stayed cooped up in my room until right
now, when Eri came to check up on me. Yep, that seems about
right.
“H-hello…? See, I knew it. You are still upset, aren’t you?” Eri
said nervously.
“Nah, you’re overthinking it. Relax. I wanted to apologize to
you, actually. Really wasn’t cool for me to blow up on you like
that.”
The tension visibly drained from Eri’s shoulders as she
breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well, okay then. That’s all I wanted to say,” she said, then
turned to walk out the door.
“Hey, wait up a sec,” I cut in, grabbing her by the arm. “I
had a question for you, actually: do you know where I was staying
last night?”
“No? Why would I?” Eri replied, one eyebrow raised with
suspicion.
“…Yeah, okay. Never mind, then. Sorry for the weird
question.”
On that note, we both stepped out into the hallway, and Eri
went on ahead of me. But just as I was about to walk down to the
living room behind her, I was hit by a sudden wave of anxiety. It
felt like I was forgetting something important. But what? I pulled
out my cell phone and checked today’s date again. It was Monday,
April 2nd, and the time was 6:20 p.m…
“Oh, crap!”
I ran down the stairs like a bat out of hell and put on my
shoes as fast as I could.
“Hey, what’s with the big rush?” Eri asked, poking her head
out from the living room.
“Sorry, can’t talk! And I need to borrow your bike!” I shouted
back as I slammed the door behind me. Straddling Eri’s bicycle—
which I already knew she didn’t usually keep a bike lock on—I took
off at full speed toward the old tobacco shop. With everything that
had transpired over the past couple days, I nearly forgot about the
note I left myself regarding how I was supposed to find Akito’s
body in the empty lot there tonight. Obviously, he would already
be dead, since the autopsy estimated he passed shortly after
midnight, but I wasn’t about to let his body rot out there in the
elements even if I couldn’t actually save him until the next
Rollback. Plus, the authorities needed to know.
After about a ten-minute bike ride, I rolled up to the front of
the empty lot. It was overgrown with tall grass and weeds to the
point that nothing seemed out of place at first glance, but when I
stepped off my bike and actually started trudging through the
reeds, I quickly spotted a large black lump lying on the ground
further in. It was the corpse of a man who had apparently keeled
over face down.
“Akito…” I muttered. No response came, naturally. His lifeless
body was so still, it could almost be mistaken for a discarded
mannequin. His ghastly pale skin was what ultimately forced me to
accept that there was no longer a person living inside this lump of
flesh, at which point I averted my eyes, feeling like I’d seen
something I shouldn’t have.
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 119, reported the
situation, and followed the operator’s instructions. As soon as I got
off the phone with her, I opened my Memos app. Sure enough, the
note about where and when I had discovered Akito’s body wasn’t
yet written, so I typed it in right then and there for the benefit of
my past (or future) self.

“4/2: Found Akito’s body @ 6:30 PM in empty lot behind

tobacco shop & called police.”

Only a few minutes after I called it in, the paramedics arrived

on the scene. From this point on, everything started to feel like it
was happening in fast-forward. They asked me a bunch of
questions, then checked his pulse, breathing, and pupils. A little
while later, one of the paramedics came over and talked to me.
“Are you an acquaintance of the victim’s?”
“Yeah, more or less…”
“…Well, I’m very sorry to say this, sir, but I’m afraid there’s
nothing we can do. The police are going to want to examine the
scene, so please don’t go anywhere just yet,” the man explained
politely before dialing the police department. Only about five
minutes later, an officer from the Sodeshima substation showed up
at the empty lot on a moped. He was an older policeman, and the
superior of the friendly patrol officer I knew so well. I remembered
the latter referring to this older man as a “sergeant” in the past.
The sergeant told me to stay put for a moment before he
jogged over to take a look at the body. A little while later, my
favorite patrol officer showed up behind him on a bicycle. This was
the first time I’d ever seen him with a no-nonsense look on his
face instead of his usual affable smile. After checking in with his
superior officer for a bit, he came over and spoke to me.
“Well, I’d say it’s good to see you again, Funami, but I’m
sorry it had to be under these circumstances…” he said, his
expression pained and full of worry. “Won’t be long before a crowd
starts to form here. Let’s head over to the substation so we can
talk in private, yeah?”
The officer turned and started pushing his bike in the
direction of the Sodeshima substation. I raised the kickstand on
Eri’s bike beside me and followed suit. When we got there about
ten minutes later, the officer opened the door and indicated for me
to sit down in a simple wooden chair over in the corner of the
room.
“Okay, so I’m gonna have to ask you a lot of questions, but
it’s all just basic police stuff. Gotta cover our bases, y’know? So
don’t take it personally,” the officer explained as he sat down in a
rolling office chair across from me.
He proceeded to ask me a bunch of very specific questions
about how I’d found Akito’s body and what the scene was like
when I got there. I answered each one completely honestly and in
as much detail as I could. The only white lie I told the entire time
was when he asked me why I’d been passing through that area
near the empty lot—I told him it was purely a coincidence. In my
defense, something told me that saying “I came back from the
future so I knew where his body was gonna be” would be asking
for trouble. When he was done questioning me about the
discovery, he had me verify my current address and phone
number, as well as what high school I was attending.
“Cool, so…are we done here?” I asked when that was over.
“’Fraid not. We’ve got a detective on his way over from the
mainland right now. He’ll probably want to question you as well.
Might grill you a little harder than I did, so it could take a while,
just FYI.”
“In that case, do you mind if I call home real quick and let
them know where I’m at?”
“Oh, by all means. Go right ahead, chief.”
With his permission, I called home, and my grandmother
picked up. I gave her the rundown and let her know that I
probably wouldn’t be home until late. She seemed pretty worried
at first but appeared to calm down when I told her to make plenty
of extra food at dinner because I’d be very hungry when I got
back. Shortly after getting off the phone with her, a middle-aged
man in a suit walked into the substation, and the patrol officer
immediately stood up to greet him. I could only assume this was
the aforementioned detective. He was a gaunt and gangly man,
about a head taller than me. He seemed like he might not be in
excellent health at a glance, but his eyes were undeniably sharp
and discerning.
“Hey, folks.” he said. “You the kid who discovered the body?”
I nodded, and the detective briefly introduced himself, then
sat down in a nearby chair and started asking me a lot of the same
questions the patrol officer just got done asking. His tone of voice
was equally casual too, yet there was something much more
intimidating about him; it made me feel way more nervous. We
traded questions and answers back and forth for a little while, until
eventually he asked one that made me clam right up:
“And if I might ask, why were you passing through that
specific part of town, exactly?”
I knew I couldn’t tell him about the Rollback, so my only
option was to repeat the same lie I’d told the patrol officer.
“Kinda felt like riding my bike down that street, sir,” I said.
“Only found him by pure coincidence.”
“But the body was pretty deep in there, behind a fair bit of
undergrowth, no? You must have awfully good eyes to be able to
spot something like that while passing by on a moving vehicle.”
“I mean, true… But I guess I was riding pretty slow.”
“Oh, you were, huh? Okay,” the detective said, his eyes
narrowing quite a bit. “So you mentioned to my colleague that you
knew Mr. Hoshina—is that correct? Was he a friend of yours? What
was your overall opinion of him?”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d say we were friends, but…I certainly
had a very high opinion of him. I really looked up to him as a kid.”
“And yet you don’t seem very shaken up by his untimely
demise. Why is that?”
“I am, sir. Believe me.”
“So you’re telling me that you were just randomly out on
your bike, just randomly happened to ride by that empty lot, and
just randomly happened to notice Mr. Hoshina’s body—do I have
all that right?”
 His beady black eyes peered down at me, suspicious. I felt a
cold sweat beginning to form on my back. I was shaking internally,
but I somehow managed to suppress it and nodded in affirmation.
“…That’s correct, sir.”
There was a long period of silence after that. Neither of us
spoke a word. But I refused to incriminate myself anymore, and
thankfully, the detective did relent and break the silence
eventually.
“All right, moving on…”
He resumed questioning me as though nothing had
happened. When the interrogation finally drew to a close, he asked
me to explain what my plans were going forward and said that the
police might stop by my house over the next couple of days, and I
may even be asked to come and answer some questions over on
the mainland if need be. I told him I understood, though in reality
I wasn’t really paying attention anymore at that point. By the time
I was allowed to leave the substation, it was already nine o’clock
at night.

Despite how utterly famished I had been a few hours ago,

now that I was actually home and had a plate of warm food in
front of me, I just couldn’t work up much of an appetite. Probably
because I couldn’t get the image of Akito’s lifeless body out of my
brain. Both Eri and my grandmother were very careful not to ask
me anything about it, but I could tell from their expressions and
tones of voice that they were dying to know more—and they had a
right to know, to be fair. I wasn’t in the mood to talk, though, so I
took a quick bath and decided to hide out in my bedroom. I felt
bad, realizing that I hadn’t really spent much time with the family
this week—I was either out and about or holed up in my room for
most of it. But if they knew what I was going through, I was sure
they’d understand.
I rolled under the covers and looked up at the ceiling, where
I could almost see a faint image of Akari’s face. By now, she’d
probably already heard the news of Akito’s death. She was
probably in a state of shock with her hands clasped over her face,
shaking in disbelief. I was obviously worried about her, but I
decided to leave her be for right now. With things like this, people
usually needed a little time to come to terms with it themselves
before they were comfortable talking about it with someone else.
I yawned. It was a little early, but I felt about ready to turn
in for the night.
Then I got a phone call. It was my dad. My mind raced back
to the day I ran out of the house on him, and that negative
association made me hesitant to answer the phone. Still, I knew
ignoring him would only get me in more trouble in the long run, so
I reluctantly picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Heard you got yourself wrapped up in a bit of an incident.
Is that true?”
No preamble, no nothing, he just dove right in. I assumed
my grandmother must have told him about what happened with
Akito.
“That’s a bit of an overstatement, Dad. They brought me in
to ask me some questions and that was it. It was an accident, not
a murder.”
“So you really did find a body, huh…?” my father sighed
wearily. “Sad to hear what an unsafe and run-down place
Sodeshima’s become. Dead bodies just lying around on the
streets…”
This pissed me off a little bit. I totally agreed that Sodeshima
had fallen into a pretty sorry state in recent years, but I could tell
my father was hunting for an excuse to trash talk the island and its
people. He loved to talk as if they were all a bunch of backwater
hicks. I wouldn’t stand for it.
“It has nothing to do with what ‘kind of place’ it is, Dad. This
was just a series of unfortunate events, plain and simple.”
“You say that now, but I’m telling you…”
“Tokyo’s pretty unsafe too, y’know. Lots of less-than-pristine
areas in big population centers like that.”
 “…Yeah, I guess that’s true. Fair point, son.”
Now this I was surprised to hear. My father almost never
acknowledged the value of anything I had to say about social
issues and whatnot. I figured that maybe he was feeling a little
bad for all the things he’d yelled at me before I left, but it quickly
became clear that in actuality, he was just trying to pivot to a
different subject.
“Anyway, enough about that. Now listen. I want you back
here in Tokyo ASAP.”
I groaned. Of course that was the real reason he was calling.
“…Yes, Dad. I’ll be home before spring break is over, don’t
worry.”
“You’d better be. Speaking of which, I hope you’ve been
doing your spring break homework.”
My heart sank. I’d wanted to completely forget everything to
do with school when I ran away, so I hadn’t even put it in my
overnight bag. I’d need to either finish it really fast after I got back
to Tokyo or turn it in a little bit late. Not that I could tell my father
that.
“Yeah, I’ve got it handled. Quit worryin’ so much.”
“Quit worrying? That’s pretty rich, considering how—”
I felt a lecture coming on, so I hung up the phone. Probably
for the best, I told myself. Still, the thought of having to
do homework again after I went back to Tokyo was not a pleasant
one. Then the school year would start up again, and I’d have to
study for all-new classes, with harder material, and harder
exams… Thinking about the unending stream of hard work that
was in store for me made my bones ache. I dove face-first into my
pillow, hoping to drown out these thoughts before they made me
too depressed.

April 3rd, 10 a.m. I climbed out of bed and opened the

curtains. It was another beautiful day. Come to think of it, there
hadn’t been a single day of cloudy weather since I arrived on the
island. Weather like this made me itch to go out and take a hike up
a mountain or something, but I knew I had work to do here. This
was my last day to figure out what happened, and what I was
going to do, on the night of April 1st—because in just eight hours,
at six o’clock tonight, I was finally going to be sent back there. To
the night of Akito’s death.
In a certain sense, these next eight hours would be like one
final stretch of prep work before the big day. I wanted to be as
prepared and as psyched up to save Akito as I possibly could be.
That being said, I already knew his approximate time of death,
where he died, and what he was doing beforehand. I had to think
of other things that I still needed to do… Oh, right. I was going to
write down the rest of the notes in my Memos app. Not so that I
wouldn’t forget them, mind you, but so that future me would have
them for his reference. I pulled out my cell phone and tapped my
way to the note in question, then added the remaining two bullet
points underneath the one I’d typed out yesterday.

Est. time of death between midnight and 2 AM that morning.

Was drinking heavily earlier that night @ the Asuka Tavern,
~9 PM to midnight.

There—that ought to do it. I wasn’t one hundred percent

sure if I’d used the exact same wording as the way I’d originally
seen it written, but I was pretty sure I got close enough. As I
closed the app and locked my phone, a thought flashed into my
head.
“Oh, right. I was supposed to go ask around at the bar…”
I’d already tried to go there and see what they could tell me
about Akito on the 5th, but they were closed for the day. I
definitely needed to take care of that before the next Rollback, or
I’d have no way of knowing if the notes I just wrote down for
myself were even accurate. I recalled that the Asuka Tavern
opened at five o’clock most days, which would leave me an hour
before the next Rollback would occur. Plenty of time to ask a few
questions; there was no need to rush. I decided to take it easy for
a while and just try to get myself mentally prepared for April 1st.

I checked my phone—it was 4:30 p.m.—and then slipped it

back into my pocket. I grabbed the handle on the sliding door to
the Asuka Tavern, pulled it to the side, and it rattled right open.
The bar didn’t open for another thirty minutes, but I figured there
might be someone here early to set up for the night. I walked
inside. It was a cozy little joint, with just five or so tables aside
from the bar counter seats. Hearing me enter, an older gentleman
in an airy kimono-style top and loose-fitting trousers sprang out
from the kitchen to greet me. Presuming him to be the proprietor
of the establishment, I apologized for the intrusion and stated my
purpose.
“I just wanted to ask a few questions, if that’s all right with
you…”
“Questions?” he asked. “Look, I gotta get ready to open up
shop here at five, kid.”
“It won’t take long, I promise. Please hear me out,” I
begged, bowing my head.
“…Fine, fine. Just make it quick,” he said impatiently, so I got
straight to the point.
“Well, it’s about Akito Hoshina…”
Immediately, the man frowned, and his voice grew deeper
and darker.
“…Were you a friend of Akito’s, kid?”
“Y-yeah…” I faltered unconvincingly.
“…Well, I sure don’t recognize you,” he grumbled after
looking me over for a moment, then turned away from me. “Sorry,
but I already answered a bunch of questions for the police, and I
don’t feel like talkin’ about it anymore. Gonna have to ask you to
leave now.”
“W-wait a minute!” I cried out as he walked away. “Just one
or two questions, I swear!”
 The man refused to listen and disappeared back into the
kitchen. What was with that attitude shift? The moment I
mentioned Akito’s name, it was like he turned into a brick wall.
Maybe he was still reeling from the death of a regular like Akito,
and that was why he got irritated when a stranger like me came
sniffing around asking questions about him. If that were really the
case, I wasn’t about to back down now. I wasn’t some rando; I’d
taken Akito’s death as hard as he had. I exited the bar temporarily,
waited around outside for its standard business hours to begin,
and then went back inside the moment it turned five o’clock.
“Hey, come on i—Oh, you again. Don’t you have anything
better to do, kid?” the owner said from behind the counter, visibly
annoyed from the moment he saw me. I remained undeterred and
walked right up to the counter to sit down directly in front of him.
“No Akito talk this time, sir,” I said. “I’m here as a customer.
One iced oolong tea, please.”
I was very glad I brought my wallet—the only question now
was how long I could ride this bluff. The man sighed, then silently
poured my iced tea into a beer mug and clunked it down on the
bar in front of me. I grabbed it by the handle and downed it in one
go, so fast that I couldn’t even taste it. It just cascaded straight
down into my stomach. I wasn’t even thirsty in the first place. The
barkeep looked at me in silent awe as I slammed the empty mug
down on the counter in front of him.
“…Gimme another one,” I said.
The man frowned but poured me a refill all the same, albeit
while watching me very dubiously. He set the new glass down in
front of me. I chugged it in one go again, though this time, it was
a lot more painful and took me about twice as long to glug it all
down. I slammed the mug down once more.
“A-another one…” I burped.
“All right, all right. Don’t hurt yourself, kid,” he said,
scratching his head with a heavy sigh. “What was it you wanted to
ask me about?”
Phew, he caved. I was very grateful that I hadn’t just forced
down two full mugs in vain. I gulped down another burp, as my
stomach threatened to return its contents to sender, then asked
what I’d come here to ask.
“Was Akito here on the night of April 1st?” I asked.
“Yeah, he was. Got here around nine and stayed till about
midnight. Kept to himself, just drinkin’ alone the entire time. Not
sure if it was exactly nine o’clock or not, but I know for a fact he
left at midnight, because that’s when we always close. Had to kick
him out so I could go home for the night,” the man explained.
Then his face turned grim. “Probably would’ve tried to reach out to
the poor guy if I’d known this was how things were gonna turn
out, but I guess hindsight’s always twenty-twenty…”
Now I understood why he’d been so initially hesitant to talk
with me. He was probably feeling pretty guilty for having served
Akito all that alcohol. I felt bad for asking, but at least now I knew
for a fact where he would be and when. Thinking that should be
more than enough to save the man’s life, I decided to hold off on
asking any further questions.
“…Thanks for answering, sir. That’s all I needed to know.”
I looked up at the menu posted on the wall and saw that the
cost of one oolong tea was three hundred yen, tax included. Pretty
pricey, but I stood up in front of the register and handed the man
six hundred yen regardless.
“Just three hundred’s fine,” he said. “I know you didn’t want
to drink that second one.”
“Wait, but…” I protested, yet the man had already finished
ringing me up for a single glass. He was a good person, I could
tell. I wasn’t exactly rolling in money, either, so I took him up on
his kind offer and told him I really appreciated it.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “I mean, what’s another three
hundred yen, right? That’s like chump change compared to the
massive tab your boy Akito racked up here.”
“Huh?” I replied, seizing up. Akito had an unpaid tab here?
“Here’s your change, kid. Have a nice night.”
“S-sorry, just real quick… Did you say Akito had an unpaid
bar tab here?”
 “Oh, you bet your ass he did. Hate to speak ill of the recently
deceased, but boy, did that guy love to string me along. Same
thing happened the night he died, actually; told him it was time to
pay up, and he sorta shrugged me off. So I told him again, more
firmly this time, and he totally blew up, actin’ like I was saying he
wasn’t good for it, et cetera. It was all I could do to talk him back
down.”
“Wow, seriously…?”
This was a huge shock to me. I couldn’t imagine Akito
behaving like that in my wildest dreams. If he really did have
massive unpaid tabs like this, like those guys at the festival were
gossiping about, then maybe the stuff about him being involved
with some shady organizations wasn’t mere speculation either.
“Oh, hey! Come on in!” the owner yelled over my shoulder. I
turned around to see that a new customer had walked through the
door. Seeing this as my cue to exit stage right, I thanked the man
politely for his help and left the building.

The sun was already beginning its descent in the western

sky. It would probably be dark outside after another hour. There
were now just thirty minutes left until the next Rollback, but I had
pretty much all the information I needed to save Akito at this
point. When I got sent back to 6 p.m. on April 1st, I’d know exactly
what I needed to do.
It was pretty simple, actually: I would set myself up outside
of the Asuka Tavern before nine o’clock and wait for Akito to get
there, then convince him not to drink that night in whatever way I
could. That was it. I didn’t see any room for error, really…aside
from these new and somewhat concerning revelations about his
character. While Akito had always been very prideful and
competitive, he had always struck me as a good person at heart.
According to that barkeeper, at least, my impression of him must
be wildly out of date.
I might have been able to shrug this off as an overstatement
if not for what Hayase told me at the Ocean’s Bounty Festival, that
his personality change coincided with some sort of serious
shoulder injury. That was one thing that remained a complete
mystery to me. How had he injured it, and how had he changed as
a result? I couldn’t help wondering. I really needed to find out the
truth. If only I could talk to Hayase real quick, I thought to myself,
then realized that I could probably get just as good of an
explanation from Akito’s little sister. So I dialed up Akari…but she
didn’t answer the phone. Maybe she was too busy helping her
mom out with funeral preparations or something.
It looked like trying to reach Hayase was my only option.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know her phone number, and there were
less than thirty minutes left until the next Rollback. I did know
where her family’s liquor store was located, but whether I could
actually make it there in time was a different story. Maybe I
could look up their phone number online, and…
…No, wait a minute.
I recalled the previous Rollback. Hayase probably wouldn’t be
at the liquor store right now. She would be out walking her dog in
Central Park. And I only knew this because I woke up there in the
middle of a conversation with her. If I ran as fast as I could, it’d
take me no more than ten minutes to reach the park. While it did
mean playing right into the hands of fate yet again, it was crucial
that I had a chance to speak with Hayase. And so I sprinted off
toward the park.

True to my original estimate, I reached Central Park in just

under ten minutes. I scanned the area and spotted a young
woman walking a Shiba Inu right by the entrance to the park. Sure
enough, it was Hayase. I called out her name from across the
park, and she spun around to look at me. I jogged over to her,
took a moment to catch my breath, and then got straight to the
point.
“Listen, um… There’s…something I need to ask you…” I
panted.
“O-okay? That’s fine, but, uh… Are you all right there,
buddy?” she asked, taking a few steps back. I couldn’t blame her.
Imagine being suddenly accosted by some random guy running
over to you, all out of breath and looking desperate as hell. I tried
to collect myself some more before continuing.
“I wanted to ask you a few questions about Akito,” I said.
“Wait. Akito Hoshina?” she clarified.
“Yes. Could you tell me how he changed after his shoulder
injury, by any chance?”
She froze up; I saw the corner of her mouth twitch ever so
slightly.
“Sorry, no thanks,” she said. “I don’t even know who you are,
and I really don’t feel like thinking about all that stuff right now.
You’re gonna have to ask someone else.”
“Wait, but…” I stuttered, yet Hayase had already turned her
back and resumed walking her dog. I didn’t have time to find
someone else to ask, though, with the Rollback fast approaching.
So I ran up in front of Hayase, cut her off, and bowed my head to
her. “Please! It won’t take long, I promise.”
“No means no, kiddo,” she responded tersely.
Begging wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I needed to find
some sort of bargaining chip… Wait, I know exactly how to win her
over! Duh!
“Aren’t you in a bit of a bind right now, though?” I asked her
knowingly. “I hear you’re short on people for your booth this year.”
“How do you know about that?” she replied, her eyes wide
with genuine surprise.
“Just something I heard through the grapevine. Anyway,
here’s my offer: You answer a few questions about Akito for me,
and I’ll help out at your booth tomorrow. I can be your errand boy
or do whatever you need me to do. Happy to work from dawn
until…well, the early evening, at least.”
Hayase looked me over suspiciously for a while. Then, after
mulling it over a bit, she began to give me a makeshift job
interview.
“What’s your name? And how old are you, exactly?”
“Kanae. Kanae Funami. And I’m seventeen.”
 “And how did you know Akito, exactly?”
“He was…my hero, back in the day. Even saved me from a
group of older kids that were bullying me, once upon a time.”
“Oh really?” she muttered as she continued to size me up.
Finally, after an agonizingly awkward silence, she nodded as if to
say I’d passed the inspection. “So you’ll really help out at our
booth tomorrow, huh?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“It’s gonna be backbreaking work, you know. And I can’t pay
you anything for it.”
“Fine by me.”
“Okay then. Sounds like you’ve got yourself a deal. C’mon,
let’s have a seat,” she said, walking over to a nearby park bench.
She seemed willing to talk at long last. I thanked her profusely and
followed her lead. I took a seat beside her and got right down to
business.
“So when exactly did Akito injure his shoulder?” I asked.
“I think it was in September of our senior year,” she
recounted. “It was right at the tail end of summer, just after we
got back from nationals at Koshien.”
If Akito was a senior, then…I must have been in ninth grade.
I was probably too busy getting ready for the entrance exam for
my high school in Tokyo to pay much attention to anything else,
explaining why I never heard about it at the time.
“Anyway, I remember him keeling over during practice one
day, clutching his shoulder in pain. Then the next day, we all found
out that he’d apparently done permanent damage to it. They said
it was probably due to overuse and that the inflammation was so
bad he’d probably need to stop playing baseball altogether… The
whole team was in shambles over the news, I tell ya.”
“Wow. It was really that serious, huh?”
“Yeah, none of us could believe it either. But obviously, it was
Akito who took the news the hardest. He’d always been extremely
careful to stretch before practice and whatnot every day, because
he really had his sights set on going all the way to the majors. He
was even getting scouted by a few teams, and he loved to talk
endlessly about which one he might choose if he had his pick of
the litter. So I think it hit him really, really hard. And, well…the fact
that he’d put so many years of hard work into refining his game
probably only made it that much more crushing.”
At this point, Hayase’s face grew dark.
“At first, he tried to play it cool, like it didn’t even bother him
at all. That was really hard to watch. Then, as winter rolled
around…that’s when he really started to lose it. He was always a
pretty short-tempered guy, but now he was downright violent. If
he ever heard that anyone was talking smack about him, he’d just
go up and punch them right in the face, no questions asked.
People were really afraid of him. No one even wanted to say his
name anymore, out of fear that he might take it the wrong way.”
This conversation was starting to seriously depress me. Akito
had been putting in the work toward being a professional baseball
player each and every day since I was in elementary school. I
could only imagine how devastating it was for him to hear that
he’d never be able to wear that pitcher’s glove ever again. As
unfortunate as it was, I could totally understand how that could
turn a man violent. Gripping my knees with both hands, I asked
Hayase my next question:
“…I’ve also heard rumors that Akito got himself involved with
some less-than-reputable types of people over on the mainland. Is
there any truth to that?”
“Oh, yeah… I’ve heard those ones too. I honestly don’t know
if there’s any validity to them or not, but let’s just say I wouldn’t be
too surprised. Even back in high school, he had a bad habit of
borrowing money from our classmates and never paying it back.”
“Wow. Gotta admit, I have a hard time imagining that.”
Hayase let out a heavy sigh.
“Yeah, I really don’t know what happened to him,” she said.
“He started making one stupid decision after another, until
eventually it killed him…”
 There was a heavy hint of regret in her voice, and I had no
idea what to say in response. That may have been a good thing in
its own way, because she kept on talking to fill the void. It was as
though she were at a confessional or something.
“I always looked up to Akito too, y’know,” she went on. “Ever
since we were in elementary school. I remember I used to bring
sports drinks and lemon slices down to him in the dugout way back
when he was in little league, just trying to get his attention. This
was long before I was ever team manager, by the way. I’d go with
him whenever he’d travel to big tournaments or anything, even
then. And then in high school, I finally worked up the courage to
ask him out, and we became boyfriend and girlfriend, and things
were really great…for a while.”
Hayase pressed one hand to her forehead.
“But the moment he injured his shoulder and couldn’t play
baseball anymore, I couldn’t figure out how to interact with him. It
was like he became a totally different person, and I was starting to
get scared… Eventually, I had to distance myself from him like
everyone else.”
All I could really do was sit back and hear her out. I knew
the Rollback would hit any minute now, but I couldn’t bring myself
to interrupt her in the middle of this heartfelt venting session, no
matter the circumstances.
“I couldn’t totally turn my back on him either, y’know? Even
then. I mean, it was really hard to see the guy I always looked up
to and had a crush on growing up reduced to such a miserable
wreck… Then the other day, I worked up the courage to reach out
and ask if he wanted to help out at my family’s festival booth this
year. He did kinda grumble and complain about it at first, but I
can’t tell you how happy I was when he finally said yes. I mean, I
still didn’t expect him to ever go back to being the old Akito again,
but it did make me think there might be some hope for him yet…
So the fact that he went and died right before the festival? It felt
like the universe was playing a cruel joke on me. Still, I mean, it’s
not like there was any guarantee he’d turn over a new leaf, right?
Some folks might argue it was a good thing he left this world
before he ever did anything truly unforgivable. At least we didn’t
have to watch him turn into a full-on criminal, y’know?”
“C’mon, don’t say that,” I cut in, shaking my head. No matter
how far off the beaten path Akito’s life might have strayed, he
didn’t deserve to die for it. Hayase sort of glowered at me for a
second, before sharply turning her face to look straight ahead once
more.
“…Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point,” she conceded. “No one
deserves to die so young. Man, though, with all the nasty rumors
I’ve heard about him…it’s just hard to feel a whole lot of sympathy,
I guess. Like, obviously there’s the stuff we already talked about.
He was seriously in debt, was getting linked to criminal
organizations, and so on. Some of the other rumors are way more
disturbing than that. Like, for example…

“I heard he’s been physically abusing his little sister, Akari-

chan.”

“…Huh?”
Her words nearly flew right past me. They kept reverberating
in my head, but I couldn’t parse them. My brain knew each word’s
individual meaning but refused to accept the implications of what
they meant when placed together in that particular order.
“Sorry, did you just say he’s been…”
…beating his sister? I tried to ask, but before I could get the
words out, I was interrupted by the staticky, low-fi melody of
Greensleeves coming out of a nearby loudspeaker. It only amplified
my anxiety. Akito couldn’t have seriously been abusing Akari,
right…? I refused to believe it; it had to be a rumor, some sick joke
cooked up by someone who never liked the guy. But on the off
chance that it was true, I would—
 INTERLUDE V

FOR THE FIRST FEW MONTHS of my high school career, I

floated through life apathetically, without any real sense of
direction. At the insistence of my teachers and upperclassmen,
I did join the swim team, but I was basically running on fumes at
that point, and I didn’t achieve any standout records like I had in
junior high. I had a hard time being mentally present during class
too, so I’d often get scolded by my teachers for spacing out.
Without Kanae there to greet me in the morning, going to school
was empty and meaningless. There was a gaping hole in my heart,
through which I could feel his absence each and every day, like an
icy wind. If I could only see him again…or even just hear his voice
over the phone, or get a text from him, then maybe… Well, it
wouldn’t fill the void, but maybe it would at least calm that wind
for a while. Too bad. He never got in contact with me.
At first, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, assuming he
probably just needed some time to adjust to his new environment.
Then one month became two, and still I hadn’t heard a word from
him, so of course I started to get worried. There were multiple
times when I told myself I should reach out to him myself, but I
could never bring myself to hit that call button or send that text
message.
“We’re just friends. Don’t get the wrong idea.”
I couldn’t get Kanae’s words from that fateful day in junior
high out of my head. I knew he was trying to get that other girl to
lay off me, but his words still coiled their way around my heart like
a serpent that refused to let go. Every time I thought about trying
to get in contact with Kanae, that one little remark would rear its
ugly head, bare its fangs, and bite down. Its paralyzing venom
would course throughout my entire body, rendering me unable to
do a thing. So I never did. Instead I staggered through day after
day of monotony, constantly teetering back and forth between
anxiety and resignation. The only way I could even tell that time
was still passing was by the ever-increasing number of drafts in my
unsent messages folder.
Then one night, in the summer of my freshman year, my life
reached a turning point. For whatever reason, I felt compelled to
go out for a run that evening. Maybe I hoped it would distract my
brain from the feelings of emptiness and isolation, or maybe it was
just that I had an overabundance of energy I needed to expel
since we didn’t have practice that day. There were any number of
possible explanations. All I knew was that I felt a burning desire to
go out and run, and so I did. About an hour in, I’d run half the
circumference of the island, leaving my whole body drenched in
sweat. I needed a break to catch my breath, so I sat down on the
seawall and let the cool night breeze blowing in from the open
ocean bring my body temperature back down. Across the sea, I
could see the dazzling lights of the mainland glowing like fireflies,
and a sudden impulse struck me.

That’s where I need to be. Over there.

It felt like a flame had been ignited inside my chest. My body

was burning up all over again, and I couldn’t bear to sit still a
moment longer. I sprinted as fast as I could all the way back
home, and as soon as I got there, I started looking up information
on moving to Tokyo.

After school the next day, I asked my homeroom teacher

point-blank:
“What do I need to do to get into the U of I?”
It felt like my only remaining option at this point. Since
Kanae was already going to the university’s official feeder school,
his college choice was pretty much set in stone. And if I could
graduate with high enough marks to get accepted to the same
university, he and I could be together again at last. Hence why I
was asking my teacher about it, even though I knew I was vastly
underestimating how hard that would be. I couldn’t fight this new
urge inside me, and I didn’t want to fight it, either. I knew if I
didn’t start making moves right now, there was a very good
chance I’d never see Kanae ever again.
“I’ll be honest…you may want to lower your sights a little bit,
based on your current grades. And even if you did manage to test
in, that’s still a very expensive school, you know. Have you talked
with your mother about this at all?” my teacher asked. The
response was about as unfavorable as I’d anticipated, but I
refused to give in.
“No, but I will,” I declared.
“Listen, I know this really isn’t any of my business, but…I
don’t think you fully grasp the financial burden you’d be placing on
her. Your mother’s a very hard worker, but I just don’t think a
private school like that is in the cards for you. If you really have
the drive to study hard and want to get into a good college, there
are plenty of reputable public universities that are a lot closer.”
“Sorry, but my mind’s made up. I want to go to the U of I,”
I asserted firmly.
“…Okay,” my teacher said after a moment’s hesitation, not
without sympathy. “If you’re that dead set on this, then I’ll try to
help you out. Though all I can really offer is advice.”
I was then given the basic rundown on what I had to do in
order to make my college dreams a reality. I paid close attention to
every word, and by the end, I had a pretty good idea of what my
action plan needed to include. It was pretty simple, actually.
Everything boiled down to three things: my academics, my
extracurriculars, and my personal finances.
The academics part went without saying. If I couldn’t
actually get accepted, then the rest would all be in vain. My
teacher told me that I should also aim to earn some major
accolades during my high school swimming career, because
universities took things like that into consideration as well. Such
achievements might even help me earn financial aid of some sort.
Still, even if I miraculously scored a full-ride scholarship to cover
my tuition costs, that wouldn’t cover my moving costs nor my
everyday living expenses, so I determined that I’d need to start
working part-time as soon as I could.
It would be a long and arduous road, to be sure, but now
that I at least knew what I needed to do to get there, I was
starting to feel a lot more optimistic. I thanked my teacher for the
advice and walked out of the classroom. If I managed to outswim
the heck out of everyone else on the team, then it would be a
piece of cake for me to get an athletic endorsement, and maybe
even a scholarship. Thank goodness I’d stuck with one sport for so
long. True, I’d been sort of slacking off on it ever since I got to
Sodeshima High, but from this point on, I’d need to give it my all.

When I got home after practice that day, I found my brother

watching TV on the living room couch with his feet up on the
table. I knew Mom had asked him to stop doing that. I chose not
to engage and simply walked right past him toward the bathroom.
Then he called out to me, stopping me dead in my tracks.
“Hey. Go buy me a soda real quick,” he ordered.
His voice was monotone; he didn’t even make eye contact
with me. Mind you, my brother had always bossed me around,
even back when we were little, but he’d only grown more and
more demanding since his shoulder injury. It used to be relatively
small things like “fetch me the remote” or “go run some bathwater
for me,” but lately he’d begun to treat me like I was his personal
maid, telling me to “go get dinner ready,” or iron his laundry, and
stuff like that.
To be clear, I definitely sympathized with what he must have
been going through after having to quit baseball. But I also deeply
resented him for what a loathsome person he’d become. Basically
all he’d done since graduating from high school was sit around on
the couch and watch TV all day, or go out and do who knows what
with his deadbeat friends, only coming home when he felt like it.
He showed no interest in getting a job or going to college and yet
had the gall to turn around and ask our mom for cash at every
opportunity. As far as I was concerned, he didn’t have a
respectable molecule, let alone bone, in his body.
 “Hey. You deaf or somethin’?” he barked, glaring at me
impatiently.
Usually, this was the point where I would back down and
begrudgingly do as he said, but that wasn’t going to fly from now
on. Not when I needed to study as much as I possibly could at
home to make my dream of moving to Tokyo a reality. If I kept
doing every little menial task my brother demanded of me, I’d be
wasting tons of valuable time. It was time to lay down the law, I
decided, so I tried to tell him no in a way that wouldn’t set him off.
“Sorry, no can do. I’ve got a lot of homework I need to do
tonight,” I explained.
His eyes shot wide open. Then he grabbed the remote
control on the coffee table and threw it right at my head without
any hesitation. I shrieked as it crashed against the wall mere
inches from my face, sending the battery cover flying through the
air.
“Do as I said, you little brat. Don’t think you’re hot stuff just
’cause you’re the fastest doggy paddler in the kiddie pool,” he spat,
then grabbed his drinking glass and threatened to throw that as
well. I whipped both hands over my head as a defensive reflex.
“A-all right, jeez… I’ll go buy your stupid soda…” I said,
practically running back through the living room. Without even a
chance to change out of my school uniform, I scuttled out of the
apartment. My entire body was shaking. I never would have
expected him to actually start throwing things at me for refusing to
be his errand girl. He’d never done anything like that to me before;
the brother I’d come to loathe was beginning to actively terrify me.
I made my slow way down the steps toward the nearest vending
machine as tears of dread and despair welled up in the corners of
my eyes.

The next morning, I told my mom that I wanted to go to

college in the big city. I explained that I knew our finances were
tight, but I assured her she wouldn’t have anything to worry
about, because I’d handle my tuition costs either through
scholarships or student loans. I told her I planned to get a part-
time job in the near future, too, to cover the costs of living on my
own. She gave me her seal of approval and said she’d see if she
could get me a job at a local traditional-style inn that she knew
paid a fairly decent hourly wage. Her eyes were full of shame as
she apologized for not being able to offer more assistance than
that, but I told her it was more than enough.
Now that I’d decided what college to aim for, I had an excuse
to contact Kanae at last. With butterflies in my chest, I giddily
drafted up a long-winded message to break the news to him…but
in the end, I didn’t send it. My better judgment told me it might
seem a little creepy and overbearing to say I was already planning
to go to the same college as him when we weren’t even halfway
through our freshman year. I decided to hold off until the spring of
our senior year, a much more natural time for people to have
settled on what their ideal higher education path would be.
Whether Kanae knew it or not, though, I’d just taken my first steps
toward moving to Tokyo.

The following year and a half, leading up to the present day,

were easily the most grueling months of my entire life.

As the summer of my freshman year drew to a close and

autumn set in for good, everything started to blur. My only real
memories from that time were of being completely and utterly
exhausted from the cycle of work, study, swim, day in and day out.
I couldn’t afford to slack off on any of these three pillars of my life,
either, so it was my sleep schedule that took the hit. I started
nodding off in the middle of class as a result, often missing a lot of
important lecture material. I did okay in the mornings, but after
lunch, it was a struggle to stay awake long enough to copy down
notes from the blackboard. I persisted anyway, fighting
desperately against the urge to sleep so it wouldn’t affect my
grades.
When the school day was over, I could finally allow my brain
some rest. It wasn’t much of a reprieve, admittedly, because I had
to run straight from the classroom down to swim practice. The
format hadn’t changed much since my time in junior high. We still
swam in the school’s outdoor pool during the summer and did
physical training during the colder months, with one day a week
set aside to go swim at an indoor pool over on the mainland. The
only thing that had changed was the difficulty. Our new swim
coach was a real disciplinarian and would work us to the bone
each and every day. There was never a single day when I didn’t
walk out of practice feeling like a crushed bag of chips.
Even after that, I still had to go to work at my part-time job.
I had to wring every last drop of energy from my limbs like a ratty
old dish rag to keep smiling as I greeted and served the inn’s
guests. It was still an unfamiliar working environment to me
despite my efforts, and since I was always at the height of my
physical and mental exhaustion by that point in the day, I slipped
up on the job more times than I cared to admit. Sometimes I
would get lectured by my older part-time coworkers, and other
times I’d even get yelled at by angry guests on some sort of
“customer is always right” power trip. On nights like that, I would
lock myself up in the bathroom for a while and have a good, long
cry where no one could hear.
Typically, I’d be so utterly exhausted by the time I got off
work that I could fall asleep standing up. And yet, even then, my
day wasn’t quite over. I had to go home and study on my own time
to prepare myself for the university entrance exam. As soon as I
made it home, I grabbed a bite to eat, took a quick bath, and then
tried to hit the books for at least two hours each night.
Supplementary studying was essentially mandatory for me, as the
core Sodeshima High curriculum was not nearly adequate to get
into a prestigious school all on its own. After those two hours were
over, I summoned up my final ounce of remaining energy to
hobble across the room and crawl into bed, where I immediately
passed out. If the next morning was a school day, I would do it all
over again, and if it was the weekend, I’d either go straight to
work or to swim practice. I never gave myself any days off.
You’d think I might get used to this rigorous schedule after a
while, but no. Every new day was like a fresh hell. I carried on
living like this even so, never giving myself any time to second-
guess my decision or mope about how awful I had it. My mind and
body were both equally worn out. Never in a million years would I
have thought that it could possibly get even worse.

I remembered having a dream one time. In this dream I

walked to school, made my way up to the classroom, and Kanae
was there…at Sodeshima High.
“Hey, Akari. How’s it goin’?” he said.
“Kanae-kun?! Wh-what are you doing back in Sodeshima?!”
I asked in disbelief as I slowly made my way over to his desk.
“Oh, yeah. The high school I was going to shut down,
actually. So I decided to come back here.”
“W-wow, that’s crazy…” I said. Then all the strength drained
from my body at once. I collapsed to my knees right there in the
middle of the classroom.
“You won’t have to push yourself so hard anymore, Akari,” he
said, reaching down to help me up. “We can just take things slow
and enjoy ourselves like old times.”
“Yeah… I’d like that,” I said, taking his hand and letting him
pull me back up to my feet. Then we went up to the roof of the
school and ate lunch together. I was so happy, so relieved, and so
excited that I couldn’t stop talking. Kanae sat there with a smile on
his face, listening to every word.
“Akari,” he interrupted at one point, staring deep into my
eyes as he brought his face in close to mine. I froze up like a
porcelain doll, too astonished to move an inch. He brushed his
hand gently against my cheek and then pulled it away again.
“You had a little bit of rice on your face,” he said.
“O-oh, is that all? Sheesh! Tell me that before you start
comin’ in hot next time! Ah ha ha…” I teased, laughing it off. The
laughter quickly segued into tears. Because I knew by that point
that it was all just a dream. That sooner or later, I was going to
have to open my eyes and face another day of my waking
nightmare. And yet, I still didn’t want to let go of this moment. I
wanted to stay here with Kanae and hold on tight to every last
second I could get. Even if it was all a lie.
 “Don’t cry, Akari,” he pleaded.
And I tried. In that moment, I would have done anything for
Kanae. The problem was that he’d asked for the one thing that I
couldn’t possibly grant.

“…Hey, Hoshina-senpai! Wake up!”

Wearily, I became aware that someone was shaking me by
the shoulders. I cracked my eyes open and saw one of the
younger girls from the swim team staring back at me as though I
were causing a public disturbance to embarrass her.
“We’re back in Sodeshima. It’s time to get off.”
“…M’kay,” I mumbled drowsily. I thanked her for waking me
and rose from my seat. I would often doze off on the ferry ride like
this, the slow undulations of the waves beneath the boat lulling me
to sleep. I stepped off the boat and out of the harbor, then
stretched out my arms and took in a deep breath. All around me
were the sweet scents of spring.
I was a sophomore now. Advancing a grade level didn’t mean
my hectic schedule had gotten any easier, sadly. Every day
remained a perilous balancing act between school, swimming, and
work…but I did feel like I’d started to make progress. Slowly but
surely, my grades were getting better, and I had a pretty nice
chunk of change saved up. My swimming career was similarly on
the upswing.
My teacher said I might even be able to apply for an athletic
endorsement from the U of I, explaining that it was an alternate
way for students who achieved great feats in specific sports to
gain priority admission without enduring the rat race of traditional
applications and public endorsements. In my case, all I’d really
need to do to qualify was make it to nationals in swimming. The
good news was that there was much, much less competition for
those applying for athletic endorsements compared to general
admission. They usually came with a pretty hefty scholarship, to
boot. As someone whose family was strapped for cash to start, this
was a pretty attractive option, so I reallocated some of my time
and mental resources from studying to swimming. In order to
compete at the national championship tournament, I’d first need to
win big at the district preliminaries which were held only once per
year in the summer. As a sophomore, I had two chances left. I
knew I’d have to push myself even harder than I already had been
to make it there, but I was determined to claim that sweet, sweet
scholarship money.
I worked myself to the bone, getting my crawl stroke time as
low as I possibly could. I watched the numbers dwindle smaller
and smaller, along with the amount of sleep I got each night. To be
fair to myself, that wasn’t entirely due to me practicing all the time.
It was largely because of my brother. Lately, my brother was
bringing his friends back to the apartment about once every three
days. Since my mom worked late into the night, he and two or
three of his buddies would hang out in his bedroom, getting drunk
and cracking jokes until the early hours of the morning. All night, I
was subjected to vulgar cackling, juvenile hooting and hollering,
and unrepentant stomping. It was so loud that there was literally
no escaping it. I’d try to pull my comforter up all the way over my
head to shut out the noise, but the walls of our apartment were so
thin that their booming voices and howling laughter still made my
eardrums throb painfully all through the night. Being unable to get
the sleep I so desperately needed, even for the few short hours
my stressful schedule allowed, was torture. As the night drew on,
and the sleep deprivation got worse and worse, I started to get so
agitated and restless that it felt like I might go crazy.
“Ugh, just shut up already…”
I curled up in a ball under the covers and tried my best to
think about something more pleasant. Like how when I moved to
Tokyo and saw Kanae again, it might be nice for us to go
somewhere fun together. Maybe the aquarium or an amusement
park. I didn’t really care where, honestly, as long as I could be
with him. There were so many things I wanted to talk to him about
too. I wondered if he’d joined any clubs at his new school, what
kind of friends he had, and…whether he’d already found a
girlfriend. What would I do if he had? The thought of him having a
girlfriend who was way cuter and funnier than me made me sick to
my stomach, but it would explain why he hadn’t been in contact
with me. Ugh, I hate this. I should just text him and ask so I know
for sure. Yeah, I’m gonna do that. But wait… What if he says yes?
How will I even respond? Gah, okay, no. I need to stop letting my
pessimistic imagination get carried away. I willed my brain to shut
itself off so I could get what meager amount of sleep I could.

A few months passed. Before I knew it, it was June, and the
national preliminaries were right around the corner. I remembered
coming home one day after eleven at night, totally exhausted from
practice and work. But before I hopped in the bath, I pulled my
bankbook out of my desk drawer and flipped it open. I glanced
through the list of deposits to see that my savings were really
starting to add up. Once I deposited today’s paycheck, my account
would break the long-awaited million-yen barrier. That was more
than a year’s worth of living expenses already! I did feel a little bit
miserly, standing there wringing my hands (figuratively) over how
much money I had, but seeing the numbers add up gave me the
push I needed to keep going. I did some math in my head, trying
to figure out how many more months of work I’d need to do to hit
my original goal, when all of a sudden, the door to my bedroom
swung open.
“Whoa!” I cried out as I dropped my bankbook on the floor in
a startled panic.
“Hey, Akari. My buddies are coming over later,” said my
brother. “Gonna need you to go out and buy some snacks for us.”
I couldn’t believe it. The gall—the sheer audacity. He’d
barged into my room without permission—without even so much
as knocking—and now he was demanding I go play errand girl for
him again. I wanted to scream. Who the heck did he think he was?
Despite all this, I couldn’t bring myself to talk back out of fear that
he might start throwing stuff at me again. So I bit my lip and knelt
down to pick my bankbook up off the floor. Once I returned it to
my desk drawer, I grabbed my wallet and stomped out of the
house without a word.
“And be quick about it too!” my brother yelled after me.
I was seething. This last remark nearly pushed me over the
edge. Still, I did as I was told, went out and bought the stupid
snacks my brother always told me to get, then came back to the
apartment. My brother snatched the grocery bags out of my hands
the second I came through the door, then immediately returned to
his room without even a single word of thanks.
Late that night, right as I finished up my studying and was
getting ready to crawl into bed, my brother’s friends showed up at
the house—almost as if they’d planned it that way just to prevent
me from getting even a wink of shut-eye with their stupid,
obnoxious antics. Only this night, they actually went a little bit
further than that.
“Hey, you’ve got a little sister, don’t you, Akito? Akari-chan,
right?” asked one of my brother’s friends. Again, the walls were so
thin that I could hear each and every word.
“Yeah, and? What about her?”
“Oh, I just thought I saw her around town the other day.
She’s gotten pretty cute, man. Is she over there in the room next
door right now?”
My blood ran cold. My body seized up in primal terror. I felt
an intangible evil gnawing its way into my chest, tracing its icy
tongue along the contours of my heart.
“Wanna invite her to chill for a little while?” said his other
friend.
“Hey, good idea. Go tell her to come over here and get
wasted with us, Akito. Lord knows we could use some chicks
around here.”
“Dude, no. That sounds lame as hell.”
“Aw, c’mon, man! Fine, I’ll ask her myself. Hey, Akari-chaaan!
You still awake over there?!”
A burst of uproarious laughter came blaring through the
walls from the room next door. Even my brother was laughing now.
Meanwhile, all I could do was lie there petrified, shivering in fear
with my head under the covers. I didn’t even know what I would
do if my brother came marching in here right now. The thought
alone was so terrifying that I started sobbing into my pillow. Never
in my life had I been more frightfully aware of the fact that there
was no lock on my bedroom door.

I didn’t get one wink of sleep that night. My brother and his
friends didn’t end up doing anything, but it was still the most
harrowing experience of my entire life. I had reached my limit. As
soon as my brother’s friends went home in the early morning, I
ventured out into the living room and confronted my brother head-
on.
“All right, look. We need to talk,” I said.
“Huh? Whaddya want? Actually, no, save it. I’m too tired
right now,” my brother yawned as he waltzed away toward his
bedroom. His arrogant attitude was the straw that broke the
camel’s back.
“Okay, no! I’ve had it up to here with you!” I yelled, and he
spun around in surprise at once. “All you ever do is treat me like
your personal slave and keep me up all night with your stupid
partying… Please, Akito. This has to stop. I can’t do it anymore.”
His cheek twitched angrily.
“Quit blowin’ things out of proportion. We were just enjoyin’
ourselves a little bit. Maybe you should invest in a pair of earplugs
if it bothers you so goddamn much. You’re not the boss of this
house, so stop actin’ like it.”
That did it. Something snapped inside of me, and the
floodgates burst open. I unleashed all of the fury and resentment
I’d been holding back for more than a year now.
“Oh yeah? That’s pretty rich coming from a mooching bum
who isn’t even trying to find a job. How long are you gonna keep
milking that busted shoulder of yours as an excuse, huh? Until our
mom works herself to death?”
My brother’s eyes shot wide open, and his face flared beet
red.
“The hell did you say to me?!”
 He pushed me down with such incredible force that I
honestly thought he might have broken my sternum. My legs gave
out, and I fell backwards directly into the coffee table—where one
of its unforgivingly pointed corners dug deep into the side of my
lower back.
“Agh, hngh…”
A sharp pain ran through my hip. I couldn’t move. I was
stuck grunting helplessly on the floor as my entire body broke out
in a profuse sweat. I tried a few times to straighten myself back
up, but it only made the pain that much more unbearable. My
brother clicked his tongue at me and walked out of the house. A
while later, my mother finally got home from work.
“Akari! Are you all right?! What happened?!” she shrieked,
letting her shoulder bag drop to the floor in the dash over to help
me. She rushed me to the small health clinic here on Sodeshima,
and from there, I was transferred to an actual hospital over on the
mainland.

I was diagnosed with a suspected “transverse process

fracture” of one of my lumbar vertebrae. Essentially, I’d cracked
the little protruding nub bone extending off from one side of an
individual segment of my lower spine. When they showed me my
waist area in the mirror, I saw a big, deep-purple bruise, like
someone had smushed a handful of blueberries against my lower
back. The doctor told me that surgery wouldn’t be necessary, and
that there should be no further complications so long as I wore
this funny corset-style back brace for a while and took time off to
recuperate. The resulting hospital bill wasn’t unreasonable at all,
and they discharged me that same day.
The problem was that I really couldn’t afford to take any
time off right now. It would be three weeks before I could return
to my part-time job, and two whole months before I was allowed
to start swimming again. This meant that I had to completely give
up on the idea of making it to nationals this year, all while being
forced to lie in bed like a cadaver. All I could do to cope with the
despair of wasting one of my two remaining chances was weep
softly into my pillow. What I truly wanted was to bawl and wail at
the top of my lungs, but whenever I did more than gently sob, the
contractions of my diaphragm made it feel like long, rusty nails
were being hammered into my spine. My only real remaining
option was to try my very best to snuff out my emotions
altogether. To stop feeling anything at all. If a random bystander
were to look at me, lying motionless in that bed, they’d probably
think I was spacing out or something, but on the inside, I was
crying out in agony from morning until late at night.
How could all of my athletic efforts go to waste?! I sacrificed
all those work and study hours for nothing! What did I ever do to
deserve this?! What do I have to show for all those grueling hours
of practice I put in now?! Nothing!
I had one more chance to go to nationals, and it wouldn’t be
for a whole year. The thought alone was enough to put my
stomach in knots. Making it worse, only a single person seemed to
care I was going through this hell: my mother. She even took some
precious time off work to take care of me and sat loyally at my
bedside when I was in too much pain to even walk around the
apartment on my own.
“Tell me something, Akari,” she inquired one day while I was
still bedridden. “What really happened that morning?”
I had to think for a while about whether I should tell her the
whole truth or not, because I knew it was extremely likely to break
her heart. My mother worked just as hard as I’d been working, but
for the family’s sake, and for far longer than me. She didn’t
deserve any extra stress on her plate. Recognizing that this was
one thing I really shouldn’t remain silent about, I decided to tell
her the truth even so.
“Akito pushed me down…and I fell backwards and hit my
tailbone on the coffee table,” I confessed.
“I see…” said my mother. “I had a feeling it was something
like that. All right. Thank you for being honest with me. And I’m so
sorry I allowed such a thing to happen to you due to being an
absentee parent. I’m such a horrible mother…”
“No, Mom! It’s not your fault at all. Please don’t say that.”
 “Well, rest assured that I’ll be speaking to Akito about this.
I’ll make it crystal clear to him that if anything like this ever
happens again, he’ll be out on the streets.”
She sounded like she really meant it. I knew that I could
count on her. Or at least, that’s how I felt at the time. That night,
as I was falling asleep, I heard her yelling over in the living room,
her voiced raised to a volume she rarely, if ever, used. Curious, I
decided to go and take a look at what was going down. Taking
care not to put any strain on my lower back, I hoisted myself up
out of bed and stepped out into the hallway. Then I crept up to the
door to the living room, which was open just a crack, and peeked
inside. My brother was sitting there on the couch while my mother
berated him ruthlessly. It was obvious from her frantic yelling how
little experience she had punishing her children like this, and yet
my brother sat there completely unfazed by any of the words she
was saying. If anything, he looked annoyed at how loud she was
being, as if he couldn’t wait for her to shut up. Then all of a
sudden, he and I made eye contact. It was only for a split second,
but that single glance was more than enough for him to convey to
me that he was going to make me pay for this. Just you wait.
Panicked, I slunk back into my bedroom to escape from his
contemptuous gaze, already regretting my decision to tell my
mother the truth.

By the time I recovered enough to return to swim practice,

our team had long since been eliminated from the district
preliminaries, and all of the seniors on the team had already
retired. My remaining teammates welcomed me back with open
arms, asking me if I was healing up okay and letting me know how
much they’d missed me. Their appreciation of me during what was
undoubtedly the most challenging year of my life really did mean
the world to me, and I couldn’t help but tear up a little bit from
how touched I felt. It also made me feel really bad, because I’d
been so laser-focused on improving my lap times up until this point
that I hadn’t made much of an effort to build a connection with
any of them. I decided that from this point on, I would go out of
my way to engage with them.
 I started talking with my teammates a lot more after that,
giving pointers to the first-year newbies and making small talk with
the other girls whenever there was a break during practice. They
were always extremely friendly to me, and whenever I was
laughing with them, it allowed me to forget about all the painful
aspects of my life for a while. It was probably the most fun I’d had
since I entered high school, but it wouldn’t last for long. About two
weeks after I returned from recovery, I was using the pool
restroom when two of my teammates walked in and started
gossiping about me. They didn’t realize that I was right there in
one of the stalls.
“So what do you think Hoshina-san’s deal is, anyway?” said
one of the girls. “I dunno what’s going through her head, but the
way she’s been acting is pretty rich, if you ask me.”
“Right? Like, does she not realize that it was her stupid injury
that screwed us out of going to nationals in the first place? And
then she has the nerve to come smiling back like nothing even
happened? It’s unbelievable.”
“Hey, you wanna know what I heard through the grapevine?
They’re saying it was actually her brother that gave her that
injury.”
“Wait, seriously? Like, legit domestic violence?”
“Yeah, apparently that guy’s turned into a real piece of work
lately. Super fragile ego, always asking his friends for money and
then never paying it back, beating his sister… Scumbag.”
“Wow, what a piece of crap. And you know he’s just wasting
it all on booze too. How poor and trashy can one family be? I
mean, at least Akari’s been busting her ass trying to save up
money to go to college, I guess, but really?”
“Hey, don’t speak so soon. You never know! Maybe she’ll
start begging us for money one of these days. And so the cycle of
poverty continues!”
“Ha ha! Okay, but why do I feel like that might actually
happen?”
 I just sat there stunned for a while, long after the two girls
exited the restroom. I couldn’t even muster up the will to be angry.
All I felt was an intense self-loathing. It was so humiliating to think
I’d taken their kind words and well-wishes at face value, even
believed them when they said they really missed me… I was a fool
to think they actually cared. I started deliberately avoiding all of
my other teammates after that.
Thinking back on it now, this was probably where my deep-
seated trust issues first began. Anytime I heard someone laughing
by the poolside, I would automatically assume it was at my
expense, and whenever any of the other girls came up and tried to
talk to me, I went into defense mode and told myself they had
some ulterior motive. They soon stopped trying to interact with me
altogether, and I became a loner on the swim team once again.
These trust issues soon started to rear their ugly heads in the
classroom as well. While I generally spent most lunch periods face
down on my desk, hoping to squeeze a nap in, I did try to socialize
with my classmates a little bit before this debacle. After it, I talked
to virtually no one and ate lunch by myself in silence.
No matter where I went, I felt unwanted. Like I didn’t
belong.
The only place where I did find some solace was up on the
school roof. Whenever it felt like I couldn’t take being surrounded
by these people during lunch, I’d walk out of the classroom and go
kill time on the upper landing of the stairwell where the roof
access door was. Once I learned the trick to opening that door, I
went out onto the rooftop and spent my lunches up there more
and more often. I couldn’t tell you why, but something about being
up there just calmed me down completely. It was the only place I
felt like I could breathe. It was like the entire island of Sodeshima
was a sunken city, and this was the only place high enough for me
to poke my head up out of the water and get some fresh oxygen in
my lungs. Whenever I looked down from up there, I felt the same
exact thing: I need to get off this island, and fast. Then, without
fail, the warning bell for fifth period would ring, and I’d sink back
beneath the waves again. Forced to hold my breath for yet another
day.
 After my lower back injury, my brother eased off on all of his
demanding and disruptive tendencies for a while. He stopped
bringing his friends over to the house, and he didn’t order me
around like I was his maidservant. Unfortunately, this new leaf of
his didn’t last for long. By the fall of my sophomore year, his worst
behaviors had come back with a vengeance. He was now being
even more belligerent and obnoxious: partying even later into the
night, constantly waking up hungover and in a foul mood, barking
insults and throwing things at me again. On particularly bad days,
he’d even punch me in the shoulder, or lift his leg up and slam his
foot into the small of my back. He seemed to feel no remorse
whatsoever for having fractured one of my bones—if anything,
injuring me had only emboldened him and made him feel like he
could get away with anything.
I didn’t have the willpower to fight back anymore, either.
I always apologized and acted like nothing happened. My mother
would yell at him just about anytime they were in the same room,
but this only made things worse, as he would then proceed to take
his frustration from being scolded out on me with more physical
abuse.
My life was a living hell. And yet no matter how hard things
got, I knew I couldn’t afford to rest even one minute. I had to
pour all of my time and energy into my studies, my swimming, and
my job, so that once I graduated, I could get away from this
godforsaken place once and for all. That was the one thought I
found reassurance in, that this would all end when I made it out of
high school. Moving to Tokyo to be with Kanae again was my one
and only glimmer of hope through the darkest days of my young
life. Still, by completely snuffing out any sense of self-worth I
might have had, I narrowly managed to make it through each day.
It got to the point where I was completely happy trimming off a
few years from my life span if it meant a better life in Tokyo down
the line.
And so I worked myself to the bone, praying that the worst
of it would soon be over. I resolved not to let any obstacle or
hardship get me down again, no matter how crushing. But today,
on April 1st, in the middle of spring break before my senior year,
and the same day that Kanae came back to Sodeshima for the first
time in years… Today was the day the world found a way to rip
my heart in two…and break my spirit completely.

I had work until three in the afternoon today. Usually, I

worked a full shift on the weekends, but the inn was closed
tomorrow, so I got off early. I went home, unlocked the door, and
stepped into our apartment. I then headed down the hallway to
my room but noticed something was amiss the second I entered;
my desk drawer was hanging open ever so slightly. I’d always been
very particular about closing it, so it struck me as pretty strange.
I shrugged it off and walked over to close it, nonetheless. Right as
I was about to do so, I peeked inside, and my hands froze. Both
my bankbook and my signature-authorization stamp were gone.
“…What the…?”
I stood there for a while, inert. Reflecting on it now, it was
something of a calm before the storm.
“W-wait, but…”
Then, finally, came the lightning crash. I yanked open every
other drawer in my desk, then slammed them all shut. Finding
nothing in there, I proceeded to rifle through my dresser, look
under my bed, and reach around inside my purse like a thief gone
mad. My bankbook was nowhere to be found. What was I
supposed to do now? If someone broke in and stole it, and they
had my identification stamp, they could drain my whole account,
and then I wouldn’t have enough money to…to…
I wanted to start bawling loudly, right then and there. I held
it in somehow and racked my brain as hard as I could. If a burglar
had actually stolen it, there should have been evidence of a break-
in, right? The apartment looked fine on the whole, and the front
door was definitely locked. Which meant it must have been either
my mother or my brother…and I had a bad feeling I knew which of
those two it probably was. I pulled out my cell phone to call Akito,
hands trembling. My finger paused a millimeter above the dial
button.
 What if—and this was a pretty big if—but what if I was
wrong, and it hadn’t been my brother? Was I prepared for the
wrath that might ensue from an accusation like that? He would do
far, far worse than just kick me. There was no doubt about that.
The thought scared me enough that I chickened out of making the
phone call. As I stood there at a loss of what to do, a thought
occurred to me. What if it hadn’t been stolen at all? What if my
mom needed to borrow a little money or needed my account
information for some business at the bank? There were several
possible explanations that didn’t involve losing every last bit of my
savings, and this thought calmed me greatly. Maybe I was fooling
myself, but I had to focus on these slim possibilities so that I
wouldn’t vomit then and there. I was determined not to look reality
in the eye.
I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to get much studying
done while this remained an open question in my head, but I
couldn’t stand sitting around to do nothing, either. I ran out of the
house. I ran frantically around town, as fast as I could, hoping the
rush of adrenaline would somehow shake the anxiety from my
mind. Less than thirty minutes later, I was officially winded, and
my limbs were like jelly, so I sat down on the seawall to catch my
breath. I spun around and looked across the ocean as I waited for
my heartbeat to stabilize. The hazy silhouette of the mainland felt
somehow farther now than ever before.
I might have just lost my one chance to move to Tokyo, I
thought to myself, and then the tears came streaming down. But
then, something magical happened. I heard a voice call out to me,
so I turned around, and I saw him. Kanae was right in front of me.
Not in a dream, but in the real world. He was here, in the flesh,
and only an arm’s length away.
“Akari…?”
“K-Kanae-kun?!”
This unexpected reunion caught me so off guard that when I
stood up, I nearly fell backwards into the ocean. Thankfully I
didn’t, and it was because Kanae was there to catch me. He and I
then went on to have a whole little dialogue, during which I did my
very best to act like nothing was wrong. I didn’t want to ruin our
long-awaited reunion by talking about my lost bankbook, or my
abusive brother, or anything remotely depressing.
Weirdly enough, the more I talked to him, the less it felt like
I was acting. After a while, I was genuinely enjoying myself again.
It was as if hearing his voice was slowly refilling my cold, empty,
desiccated heart with warm waters that soothed my soul. When he
revealed that he did not, in fact, have a girlfriend back in Tokyo at
the moment, I breathed such a sigh of relief that I nearly fell to
my knees right in front of him.
“Have you decided what college you’re going to next year?”
I asked him eventually.
“Yeah—U of I,” he replied. “But you knew that already.”
It was exactly the response I expected, but it was nice to
fully confirm that I would need to move to Tokyo if I wanted to be
with him again. That settled it. It was time for me to stop moping
around and tackle my problems head-on. I said goodbye to Kanae
and then headed back home. As soon as I arrived, I pulled out my
cell phone and called my brother that very instant. I feared if I
waited any longer, I might lose my nerve again. And I had to know
where my bankbook was.
He didn’t pick up, which knocked some of the wind out of my
sails. Still, I wasn’t going to give up that easily, so I planted myself
on the living room couch and stayed there until my brother came
back home.

When he returned to the apartment at long last, it was

around nine o’clock at night. Mustering up all the courage I could
find, I stood up and confronted him.
“H-hey, Akito? You wouldn’t happen to have my bankbook,
would you?” I asked, trying not to sound too overly accusatory. He
shot me a dirty look, then pulled both my bankbook and my
authorization stamp out of his coat pocket and handed them to
me. So it was him, I thought to myself, momentarily relieved that
he’d fessed up so easily and returned it. Then I flipped the
bankbook open, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. After a single
withdrawal, my savings balance had gone from over 1,000,000 yen
all the way down to a mere 1,200. I stood there, looking down at
the numbers in abject horror as all of the blood drained from my
face.
“Wh-wh-what have you done…?” I asked. My voice shook in
disbelief.
“Pfft,” my brother spat, as though he’d accidentally
swallowed a fly. “Just borrowed a little money, that’s all. Dinged
some dude’s car the other day, and he forced me to pay for the
repairs. Turns out he’s actually a bigshot gangster, so I didn’t really
have a choice.”
My mouth hung wide open. I was at a complete loss for
words, and yet somehow, the worst was yet to come.
“C’mon, don’t be like that,” he went on, “you and I both
know you probably weren’t gonna get into that college anyhow.
Besides, if you’re really that dead set on moving to Tokyo, why
don’t you get a job at a strip club or something? Plenty of ’em over
there.”
“A…a strip club?!”
“Yeah, or a hostess bar or something, I dunno. Anyway, hey,
I was gonna head over to the bar real quick. Could you lend me
five hundred? I know you’ve got at least that much left in your
wallet.”
Never before in my life had I known that when your anger
surpasses a certain threshold, your blood quite literally runs cold.
It was like one of those science experiments I’d seen on TV was
being recreated inside my head. That one where they dip a rose
petal into a vat of liquid nitrogen, then pull it out, squeeze it, and it
shatters into a million pieces. That pretty much exemplified what
happened to my sense of reason in that instant.
“Graaaaaaagh!” I wailed, grabbing my brother by the collar
with both hands. “How?! How could you do such a thing?! Why do
you have to ruin my life at every possible opportunity?!”
“Hey! Let go of me!”
“Do you know how hard I had to work to save up all that
money?! I worked myself half to death! But you wouldn’t know a
thing about that, would you?! You don’t know the first thing about
me!”
“I said get off me!”
My brother ripped my hands from his collar and pushed me
away. I fell backwards, my back slamming hard against the floor. A
stinging pain shot through my spine.
“It’s not like you know anything about me either!” my brother
yelled as I lay there, grunting in agony. “The world’s taken
everything from me! My dad, baseball—everything I ever loved! I
never did anything to deserve that! So why shouldn’t I get to take
a few things back in return?! Isn’t it only fair?!”
“Why are you asking me…?! You’re not the only one who lost
their father here, you know! Just because you can’t play baseball
anymore, that doesn’t give you the right to steal other people’s
hard-earned money…!”
“Don’t lecture me, you little brat!”
My brother clenched his fists and moved in closer. I looked
up at him towering over me and saw no trace of sanity left in
those eyes. A chill ran through my entire body. I scrambled in vain
to get away, crawling backwards along the floor, and then heard
my cell phone vibrating on the floor beside me—it must have fallen
out of my pocket when I hit the ground. The screen displayed the
caller’s name: Kanae. I grabbed the phone without a second
thought and answered it as fast as I could.
“Kanae-kun, you’ve gotta help me!” I cried.
“Hey! Who said you could answer that?! Give it here!” my
brother barked, snatching the phone out of my hands and ending
the call. “Damn you. Tryin’ to get me in trouble…”
He threw the phone on the ground, then pointed one finger
straight at me.
“You’re never getting off this island, you hear me? So just
shut up and do as I say like a good girl,” he hissed, his spittle
spraying out across my face. He stormed out of the apartment
without another word. As soon as he was gone, I broke into an
uncontrollable bawl, right there on the ground, as if I’d finally been
broken beyond repair.
 I FOUND MYSELF STANDING in front of the miniature wooden
shrine looking down at the cracked stone housed within as
Greensleeves blared out from the loudspeaker behind me. I took a
step back to look up at the resplendent cherry blossom tree above
and the darkening sky behind it. Nearby were a few pieces of rusty
old playground equipment. There was no doubt about it—I was
back in the abandoned park again, right where this all began.
I reached for my cell phone and checked the date. Sunday,
April 1st, 6 p.m. I’d made it all the way back to the day I first
arrived in Sodeshima, the same day that Akito lost his life. After
five long and confusing days, I’d get to see how the rest of April
1st played out. I knew exactly what I needed to do next. I’d head
over to the Asuka Tavern, stop Akito from drinking by any means
necessary, and that would be that. It shouldn’t be difficult at all,
and I had plenty of time to get over there.
However, I couldn’t get what Hayase had told me right
before the Rollback out of my mind. It kept gnawing at my chest
like a sharp fishbone caught in my throat.
“I heard he’s been physically abusing his little sister Akari.”
If this was in any way true, it would totally destroy any
respect I ever had for Akito…but at the end of the day, it was only
a rumor. I couldn’t imagine the same guy who’d stood up for me to
those bullies way back when beating his own sister, no matter how
far he might have fallen. I didn’t even want to consider that
possibility. For the time being, though, my objective hadn’t
changed; I needed to focus on preventing Akito’s death. I could
look into the veracity of those rumors after that.
I ran through the empty, abandoned streets toward the
Asuka Tavern. I was aware he wouldn’t arrive at the bar until nine
o’clock, which was three hours from now, yet I still felt the need to
rush over there for some reason. It only took me about twenty
minutes to reach my destination. I found myself an inconspicuous
stakeout spot a little further down on the other side of the street,
where I could keep an eye on the entrance to the bar without
alerting or arousing suspicion from the other customers. Now all I
needed to do was wait for him to arrive…but as it was only about
6:30 now, I’d be stuck waiting for another two and half hours.
I leaned my back up against a nearby telephone pole and settled
in for the long haul. Right then, I felt my cell phone vibrating in my
pocket. I pulled it out and saw that it was my grandmother calling
me, so I answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“Sweetheart, where have you run off to? It’s almost
dinnertime. Please come home.”
Right—this was the day I’d stormed out of the house to cool
my head.
“Sorry, Grandma. I’m a little busy right now… Might not be
home until pretty late.”
“Busy doing what? And how late are we talking?”
I wasn’t sure what to tell her. I obviously didn’t want to go
home now and risk not being able to come back here later, but I
also had no idea when I would be finished with my business here.
So I decided to just be honest with her.
“Sorry, I don’t know yet. I promise I’ll call you as soon as I
have a better idea of when I’ll be home. Like I said, though, it’ll
probably be pretty late.”
“You’re not still upset at Eri, are you?” she asked
reproachfully.
“No, Grandma. It has nothing to do with that.”
“…Well, all right.”
“And don’t worry about saving leftovers for me, either. I’ll
figure something else out.”
“Okay. But do try to be home as soon as possible, dear. I can
tell that Eri’s quite worried about you, even if she’d never admit to
it.”
“…Heh. You don’t say.”
“Anyway, don’t keep us waiting too long. Talk to you soon,”
my grandmother said, then hung up the phone. I randomly
recalled that she had been the one who originally told me I’d
stayed at a friend’s house on the night of April 1st. Yet here I was,
decidedly not at a friend’s house, and I didn’t see that changing
unless something very bizarre and drastic happened. It was one of
the few things that still puzzled me…but no matter. As of right
now, the plan was to get this over with so I could sleep in my own
bed tonight. It didn’t matter where I might have stayed last time,
because this time I was going to change the future.

Time passed. The skies overhead slowly turned from hot

scarlet to a deep, cold navy blue. Man, it’s freezing out here, I
thought to myself as I rubbed my shoulders for warmth. It was
already a little past nine, but Akito was still nowhere to be seen. I
even went up and took a look inside the bar a minute ago, just in
case I somehow missed him, but he wasn’t there. The owner of
the bar had said he only remembered that it was “around” nine
o’clock, so it wasn’t that strange to think Akito hadn’t arrived yet,
but it made me feel anxious all the same. Where could he be right
now, and what was he doing? It would be a lot easier if I just
knew his phone number and could give him a call…
“…Hang on.”
I could get his number from Akari, couldn’t I? I felt extremely
dumb. Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner? I immediately whipped
out my phone and dialed her number. Three rings later, she picked
up.
“Hey, Akari? Listen, um…”
“Kanae-kun, you’ve gotta help me!”
“Hey! Who said you could answer that?! Give it here!”
The call was disconnected from the other side.
“…The hell was that?”
All of a sudden, I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
It was Akari that answered the phone, that much I knew for sure.
But who was that other person yelling at her? They sounded
further away, so I couldn’t quite make out their voice. A cold sweat
ran down my temples. Something bad was about to happen. She
wouldn’t have answered the phone begging for my help otherwise.
I tried redialing, just in case…but to no avail.
I have to go. Akari needs my help.
I took off running. My destination: Akari’s apartment
complex. I didn’t know for sure if that was where she would be,
but it seemed the most likely place. If she wasn’t there, I’d have to
go try somewhere else. I sprinted as fast as I could down the
roadway, tripping due to the lack of streetlights on more than one
occasion, and reached the apartment complex in record time. I
heaved and huffed as I scurried up the stairs and rang the
doorbell. No answer. I knocked loudly on the door. Still nothing.
Finally, I tried twisting the knob as a last resort, and the door
shocked me by swinging right open. I called inside to ask if anyone
was home, then let myself in regardless. This was a potential
emergency situation; I didn’t have time for proper etiquette. I
walked down the main hallway and through an open door into the
living room. There, in the middle of the floor, was a young girl
curled up in the fetal position.
“Akari! Are you all right?!” I asked, rushing to her side. I
knelt down beside her and put my hand gently on her back to try
to help her sit up. The moment my fingers touched her, she shot
upright and slapped my hand away.
“Stop it!” she cried “Don’t you dare touch m—”
Our eyes locked, and she froze in place, her jaw hanging
wide open. Then, slowly, her expression began to twist into one of
grief and despair. Her eyes began to water, and then tears came
flooding out like tiny waterfalls.
“Waaaaaah!” she wailed loudly, slamming her face into my
chest.
This time, I was the one who froze in place, but I only
missed a beat before realizing what I had to do. I reached my
arms around her and gently rubbed her back, just as my
grandmother always did to comfort me when I was little. After
cradling her there like that for a time, her sobbing eventually
subsided, and she pulled her face away from my chest. Long
threads of snot stretched like spiderwebs from her nostrils to my
shirt. I reached around and grabbed a tissue box from the coffee
table and held it out to her. She took one without a word and blew
her nose.
“Feeling a little better now?” I asked.
“…Mmn,” she mumbled in a nasally voice. It was hard to take
that as a yes or a no. She was still sitting with her shoulders
slouched, looking dejectedly down at the floor. What in the world
happened to her? I couldn’t imagine her breaking down and
straight-up bawling like that unless it was something pretty damn
terrible. I briefly looked her over, but didn’t see any signs of a
major struggle or anything. No ripped clothes or visible injuries, at
least.
“You’re not hurt at all, are you?” I asked, and she just shook
her head. So I asked my next question: “What happened here?”
The moment I asked that question, the tears started welling
up again. Her face scrunched up, and they started streaming down
from the corners of her eyes.
“My mo—he… He took my…my…” she said, sniffling
inconsolably between every other word. She was rapidly becoming
harder and harder to understand. I decided the explanation could
wait for now.
“All right, we can talk about it later,” I said, rubbing her back
to comfort her again. “You’re okay. You’re okay now…”
As I continued trying to console her, I glanced up at the clock
on the wall. It was 10 p.m., which meant Akito had been out
drinking for nearly an hour now. And something told me that
demanding he stop drinking over the phone wouldn’t cut it at this
point, now that he was already intoxicated. I’d need to go back
over there and stop him in person. I still had plenty of time, of
course, so I could theoretically stay here with Akari a little longer,
but Akito’s life was on the line. I didn’t want to take any chances.
“Hey, Akari, um… Not to be a jerk, but…there’s somewhere
I’ve gotta be in a little bit,” I confessed. She shot her head up to
look at me. Then she grabbed my right arm and squeezed it tight.
“W-wait, don’t go…” she pleaded.
 “It’s okay. I’ll come right back, I promise.”
“No… I don’t want you to leave…”
Having her beg me not to go with a teary-eyed plea tied my
heart in knots. On second thought, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just
leave her here.
“All right. Then you can come with me,” I said, standing up.
Akari gradually rose to her feet as well, still grabbing me by the
arm as we began to make our way across the living room.
“Wait… Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“To the bar,” I replied, stepping out into the hall. “That’s
where Akito is.”
Akari stopped dead in her tracks, still tugging firmly on my
coat sleeve.
“Why…do we have to go there?” she asked with bleary eyes.
“Because otherwise, Akito might die tonight. If I don’t go
over there and get him to stop drinking, that is.”
“…How could you even know that?”
“I’ll explain on the way there. C’mon, let’s go.”
“No. I want you to tell me right here.”
“But we’re running out of time…”
“Please, Kanae-kun.”
Akari stubbornly refused to move from that spot. Based on
the glint of steadfast determination I could see in her unclouded
eyes, it was safe to say she wouldn’t budge until she got her
answers. I understood wanting an explanation after I just told her
that her brother was going to die, but did she need to be this
adamant…? There was no time to think about it any longer,
though. The only way I’d get her to come with me was by
explaining myself.
“…All right, but I’m warning you in advance, this is gonna get
pretty convoluted,” I prefaced.
“I don’t mind,” Akari nodded, then let go of my arm.
“Okay. So basically, I’m from the future.”
 I told her all about the Rollback phenomenon in as much
detail as I could.
“So, do you understand now?” I asked.
“How am I supposed to believe any of that…?” Akari
groaned, holding her head in her hands as if she had a migraine. I
couldn’t really blame her; I remembered having a tough time
digesting her explanation of how the Rollback worked at first. It
wasn’t until I experienced the phenomenon for myself that I
started believing all the things she was telling me. How was I
supposed to explain all this in a way that would make Akari believe
me, if she would never experience the phenomenon herself?
Maybe by making some sort of “prediction” about the future? The
only major event I had to predict was Akito’s death, and that was
one I was trying to prevent. I’d watched a little bit of TV and seen
a little bit of news on my phone over the past few days, but I
couldn’t remember anything substantial enough to leave an
impact. I checked the time again. It was now 10:30 p.m. We
needed to get going.
“C’mon, let’s just go,” I said. “I can tell you more on the way
there. Maybe then you’ll start to believe me.”
“But…” she protested, gripping the sleeves of her oversized
sweater as she hung her head. It didn’t seem like I’d convince her
anytime soon. I didn’t have much of a choice—I’d have to drag her
along with me, as boorish as that was. I reached out a hand to
grab hers, but this clearly startled her, as she reflexively backed
away and tripped over the slight ridge in the doorway where the
floor height rose. She lost her balance and fell backwards onto her
butt.
“Ow, owww…”
“Oh man, I’m so sorry! A-are you all right?” I panicked,
kneeling down beside her as she groaned in pain. “God, that was
really stupid of me. I shouldn’t have just reached out like that
without saying something first.”
“No, it’s…it’s fine,” she said, rubbing her lower back as she
pushed herself back up to her feet. She looked a little
embarrassed.
“Are you sure? You didn’t land on your bad hip, did you?”
“…My bad hip?” she asked, puzzled.
“Yeah, you injured your lower back recently, didn’t you? You
mentioned it the other day. Said it still hurts from time to time.”
“Wait, when was this?” she blinked, her confusion now
turning into genuine surprise.
“The night we broke into Sodeshima High.”
“But we never did that.”
“Sure we did. It was your idea! You showed me how to break
in through the janky window in the girls’ bathroom and everything.
Just gotta give it a little elbow grease, and the lock pops right
open.”
“Wh-whoa, whoa, whoa. How do you know about that?
That’s something only me and a few of the other girls at school
should know how to do…”
“Like I said, I learned from a pro. Namely, your future self.”
Akari thought this over with eyes downcast; from what I
could tell, she still had her doubts, but she was getting just that
little bit closer to believing me. Maybe now she would be more
willing to listen to what I had to say about Akito.
“Listen, Akari. Like I was trying to tell you before, I’ve come
back here from a few days in the future. I know what’s going to
happen over the next few days and when,” I explained. She looked
back up at me and, after a long pause, gave a little nod, so I
continued. “That’s why I need you to believe me when I tell you
that sometime tonight, between midnight and 2 a.m., Akito is
going to die of acute alcohol poisoning. Unless I run over to the
bar right now and stop him, that is.”
“So…you’re trying to save my brother’s life…?”
“You got it.”
That Akito was in grave danger seemed to resonate with her
at last, as her expression changed to one of befuddled horror. Her
lips trembled as though she desperately wished to say something
but couldn’t bring herself to force the words through.
“Anyway, sorry, but I really can’t afford to dawdle much
longer. Do you still wanna come with me, or no?”
“Y-yeah… I’ll go…” she answered meekly.
“Cool. Let’s get going, then.”
We walked out of Akari’s apartment and made our way down
the stairs. Braving the frigid night air, we stole away through the
empty streets of the sleepy town. I led the way, with Akari
following close behind. Neither of us said a word as we rushed
across the island to our destination.
The goal I’d worked toward over these past few days was
almost within reach. As soon as we reached the bar, I’d waltz right
in there and drag Akito out myself if I had to. If he tried to resist,
or was already showing signs of alcohol poisoning, I could just call
the police or an ambulance. As long as I could get there and
confront him, I should be able to change the future and prevent
his death from ever happening.
It had been a hell of a week, but it would soon be coming to
an end. There were a few things about this whole Rollback process
I was still a little hazy on…but they probably weren’t worth
dwelling on at this point. As long as I could save Akito, that was all
that—

I felt an urgent tug on my sleeve. Akari was grabbing me by

the arm. I stopped walking and turned to face her; we were
standing right beneath one of the few streetlights on the road, so I
could see Akari’s face perfectly. Then I gasped. She was looking
pensively down at the sidewalk with tears streaming down her
cheeks.
“I can’t do it…” she sobbed, squeezing my arm so hard that I
felt her nails dig into my skin through my coat. “I’m sorry, Kanae-
kun… I just can’t…”
“Wh-what do you mean, you can’t? Can’t do what?” I asked,
desperate. I had no idea why she had stopped me or why she was
crying, which made me start to freak out a little bit. She looked up
at me and, with tears in her eyes, made a heartrending plea:

“Do we really…have to save my brother…?”

It took a few moments for the implications of her words to

sink in. You could have given me a million guesses as to what was
going to come out of her mouth, and I never would have gotten
anywhere close. My mouth hung open in disbelief as I tried and
failed to twist my tongue into syllables. Eventually, I started feeling
a little bit lightheaded. I could no longer say for sure whether or
not my feet were still touching the ground.
“Wh-what are you talking about?” I sputtered. “Of course we
do, don’t we…?”
“But…” she sulked, gripping the collar area of her sweater
with her free hand. She was behaving almost like a pouting child.
“What’s gotten into you, Akari? This is your only brother
we’re talking about…”
“I know, but I just can’t do it… I don’t want to save him,
Kanae-kun. I don’t even want to be in the same room as him ever
again…”
“I mean, fair enough, but this is life or death here. If we
don’t do something, he’s literally going to die. Don’t you get that?”
“I do, but… I just… Ugh, I don’t know…”
Akari kept on shaking her head, refusing to make eye contact
with me. She looked fragile, even paranoid. Like she was
convinced something or someone was out to get her, and she was
begging me to rescue her from her peril. From my perspective, I
couldn’t understand what she was so afraid of. Akari hadn’t yet
expressed her raw emotions in a coherent enough manner for me
to wrap my head around.
“Why don’t you want to save Akito?” I asked.
“I mean…because he’s a horrible person…”
“How so?”
 “He like…hits me, and kicks me, and stuff…”
“Wha—” I gasped, praying that I’d simply misheard her.
“He…actually beats you?”
“Yeah…” she nodded, then began to elaborate, slowly, in a
stammering voice.
She told me all about how he was constantly throwing things
at her, pulling her hair, and even fractured a bone in her hip. How
he would use her as his personal gofer, day in and day out.
How he stole all of the money she’d been saving up while working
her butt off at her part-time job. How he even suggested she get a
job at a strip club to earn it back…
With every word that came out of Akari’s mouth, my blood
boiled hotter with contempt for Akito, and my empathy for Akari
grew deeper. These two sharply distressing emotions overlapped
like a massive pair of scissors, snipping away at my heartstrings.
Akari was making a cry for help, and as much as I wanted to just
cover my ears and block out the sound, I could never do that to
her. The more she explained what had been going on, the more a
third emotion began to build up inside of me: regret. Regret for
two years ago, when I packed up my bags and left Akari alone
here in Sodeshima without a second thought. Why hadn’t I
realized sooner that something had to be wrong? Why had I never
once called to check up on her? I slammed my inner conscience
with interrogative questions like these, but it didn’t have any good
excuses. If I had simply stayed by Akari’s side, I could have been
around for her when…
“So now do you see?” Akari cut in, interrupting my train of
thought. “Please, Kanae-kun… Can’t we just…hold off on saving
my brother and let the universe decide…?”
I had no comeback for that. After coming all this way, I was
now starting to have misgivings at the very last minute. Should I
save Akito, or should I not? When the Rollback first began, there
was no doubt in my mind what the answer to that question should
be. But back then, I didn’t know then about all of the things he
was doing to Akari. All of the horrible, sickening things. Lest we
forget, Akari was my best friend here, not Akito, and she herself
was essentially telling me that her brother deserved to die.
 And yet…surely there was still room in Akito’s heart for
change if we gave him a chance at a second life, wasn’t there? If
we let him die, he’d never have an opportunity to redeem himself.
There were an infinite number of ways his life could change from
this point on, both for the better and for the worse, and to let him
die now would mean extinguishing each and every one of those
possibilities. Was I really prepared to be his judge, jury, and
executioner here? I couldn’t say.
So what was I to do? My choices were to act against my best
friend’s wishes as an abuse victim or let a deeply flawed man die.
At that precise moment, I admit that the scales weren’t tipping in
one direction or the other. I was at a loss, and the pressure of the
impending decision was starting to stress me out.
Then, out of nowhere, an old memory floated up to the
surface of my mind. It was of that field trip in fifth grade, the one
Akari and I had reminisced about after breaking into the school the
other night. A memory of Akari falling face-first into the mud and
me intentionally falling in right after her. At the time, my thought
process was that when you find yourself neck-deep in the mud,
stuck in a crappy situation you can’t break free from, your real
friends are the ones who will dive right in and muddy themselves
in solidarity to help you out of it. What about now? Was I really
willing to bear this mud, this stain on my conscience, and share it
with her for the rest of my life?
“…All right,” I whispered with a tiny sigh, nodding to myself.
I’d come to my decision. “We’ll hold off on saving Akito, then.”
The moment I said these words, Akari let go of my arm and
wobbled as though feeling faint. I grabbed her by the shoulders
and supported her back, afraid that she might pass out.
“You all right?” I asked.
“Sorry… I guess I’m just…feeling a little dizzy…” she said. Her
pallor didn’t look good; she looked so exhausted that she might fall
to her knees at any moment.
“…Let’s get you home.”
We walked right back the way we came, away from the bar
where Akito was drinking. Neither of us said a word. I think we
both needed some time to process the gravity of the decision we’d
just made together. We walked in silence the whole way home,
while I supported her back.

We made it back to Akari’s apartment after what felt like

forever. She unlocked the door, and we both stepped inside. She
didn’t seem to have the strength even to walk on her own. Right
as I thought about finding a place to lay her down, she pointed
weakly to a room on the left side of the hallway. Per her
instructions, I opened the door and helped her inside. I flicked the
light switch on, and the room flashed to life. It was a fairly
cramped space—only about eight square meters, give or take—but
there was a faintly sweet fragrance hanging in the air.
I assumed this must be Akari’s bedroom (I’d never actually
been inside it before). Across from the door was a bed in a simple
wooden frame, and when I glanced to my right, I saw her
Sodeshima High uniform hanging on the wall. I took a quick look
around the room to see a bookshelf filled mostly with manga
volumes, a plastic chest of drawers, and an old, weathered writing
desk piled high with schoolwork and textbooks. Each book had
zillions of colorful adhesive page markers sticking out from cover to
cover.
“Please don’t judge me… I know it’s a mess…” Akari whined.
“O-oh, no! Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be rude,” I apologized.
I quit looking around and helped her totter over to the bed
to lie down flat, then pulled the comforter up all the way to her
neck and tucked her in.
“You should try to get some rest for tonight,” I told her. “We
can talk more tomorrow.”
“Okay…” she nodded weakly.
I figured it’d be a good idea to stick around, at least until she
fell asleep. I turned off the lights, turned on the nightlight, and sat
on the floor with my back against the side of her bed. Akari
reached a hand out from under the covers and tapped my
shoulder, so I turned around.
 “Could you…hold my hand?” she asked timidly, reaching it
down to me. I was caught off guard by this at first but was happy
to oblige.
“Sure, no problem.”
I turned around so that I faced the bed and interlocked her
fingers with mine. Akari squeezed tight. Her hand was smaller than
my own, and every bit as soft, warm, and delicate as it had been
when we were kids. So delicate, I was afraid to squeeze too hard
in case I crushed it.
We remained there like that, her hand in mine, as the early
hours of the night passed quietly beneath our feet. Looking at
Akari with her eyes closed made me feel pretty sleepy myself. Still
holding tight, I pressed my forehead up against the corner of her
bedframe and closed my eyes. The floor was a little too cold for
comfort, but I’d probably fall asleep like this eventually… Wait. I
remembered that I was supposed to call my grandmother back as
soon as I figured out what time I expected to be home.
“Hang on, Akari. I’ve gotta go make a quick phone call,” I
said, standing up and letting go of her hand.
“Wh-who do you need to call?” she asked tentatively. She sat
upright in her bed.
“Just my grandma. Don’t worry.”
“O-oh, all right… But come right back, okay?”
“Will do.”
I stepped out of the bedroom and pulled out my phone. It
was already eleven o’clock. I called home at once, fully expecting
my grandmother to be pissed. Lo and behold, she was. As soon as
I identified myself, she began a magnificent rant about how
irresponsible I was and how worried I’d made her. She wasn’t
letting me get a word in edgewise, and I didn’t see her stopping
anytime soon, so I blurted out that I was planning to stay the
night at a friend’s house and hung up the phone. A moment later, I
realized what I’d done. The implications hit me so hard that I lost
my balance and hit my back against the wall.
Of course.
 I felt the biggest lingering question, the one that remained
frozen in my mind this entire time, begin to melt away, draining
from my every pore like thawing snow. I’d just self-fulfilled my own
prophecy. This was the friend’s house I’d stayed at on April 1st,
and in a few hours, Akito was going to die all over again. Then
tomorrow, I’d find the body and call it in. I understood now why
Akari refused to tell me what happened on the night of April 1st.
She couldn’t tell me that she and I had willfully allowed Akito to
die, not while I was still determined to save his life. The past and
future connected anew. Everything had played out exactly as
destiny had ordained. In the end, I was powerless to change
Akito’s fate.
No. I deliberately chose not to.
Without warning, the door to Akari’s bedroom creaked open
the tiniest bit. I looked over and saw her peeking through the
crack, where we made eye contact.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Just, you were taking a while… I got a little worried,” she
muttered.
“Oh, my bad. Yeah, I just got off the phone. Told her I’d be
staying here tonight.”
“Wait, you’re spending the night? …Right, okay. That makes
sense. Duh.”
She said it as though it took her a moment to digest the
idea, but I couldn’t check her expression while the lights were still
off. I walked back into the room, and we both returned to our
previous seating and sleeping positions. My nose chose that exact
moment to start to itch, and I let out a sneeze. I rubbed my nose.
“Are you cold?” Akari asked.
“Just a little. Mind if I turn the heater on?”
“I mean, you could…but I’ve got a better idea,” she declared,
then scootched herself over to the far end of the mattress to make
some space up on the bed. “Why don’t you just come up here…?
Plenty of room under the covers.”
 “Huh?! Wait, but that’s… I mean, d-do you really think that’s
a good idea?”
“Sure, why not? I trust you. Now, c’mon,” she insisted,
patting the empty space on the sheets a few times as an invitation
to join her. I didn’t want her to take my hesitance the wrong way,
so I nodded and crept under the covers beside her…but as soon as
I felt her lingering body heat in the sheets beneath me, my heart
rate shot through the roof.
“Aren’t you still hanging over the edge a little bit?” she
asked. “Here, come closer.”
“O-okay,” I said. I wriggled my body toward the middle of the
bed as instructed. Now Akari’s face was mere inches from my own,
and close enough for me to make out each individual eyelash. Her
big, dark irises were staring directly into mine.
“Hey, Kanae-kun? Can I tell you something?”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“I don’t wanna sound weird, but…I’ve been thinking a lot
about trying to get into the same college as you and moving to
Tokyo after I graduate. I’ve been working really, really hard for it
too… You have no idea how much I’ve missed you these past
couple of years.”
“…Wait. Is that what you were saving up all that money for?”
“Mm-hmm…” she nodded bashfully.
“Gotcha… Well, I’m sorry if I made you feel like that was the
only way. If I’d known that’s how you felt, I would’ve totally stayed
back here with you.”
“No, no! Sorry, that wasn’t supposed to sound like a guilt
trip. Besides, everything’s gonna be okay now,” she assured me,
smiling softly from the other side of the pillow. “Let’s just keep this
whole thing our little secret and forget all about it, okay?”
Then she brought her right hand up between our faces and
lifted her pinky finger.
“Promise me?” she asked.
“…Yeah. I promise.”
 I interlocked my pinky with hers. When we finally let go, she
let out a cute little satisfied chuckle, followed by a long purr of
contentment.
“Kanae-kun…”
“What’s up?”
“Nothing, just… Thanks,” she said, closing her eyes. When
she reopened them, a single pearly teardrop rolled out down her
temple. “Now don’t ever leave me like that again, you hear me?”
Then she nuzzled in close, about as close as any two people
could ever get, and pressed her forehead into my chest. When I
looked down and saw her head there, tucked below my chin, I was
struck by a strangely irresistible urge to run my fingers through her
hair. So I did. I ran them up the back of her scalp, then back down
again, over and over in a slow and methodical motion.
“Mmmnn…” she moaned, a little hesitant at first, but it wasn’t
long before she relaxed and let herself enjoy the massage-like
sensation. I kept tracing my fingers up and down in gentle lines, as
if to memorize the contours of her skull. Slowly but surely, Akari
drifted off into a deep and restful sleep. Moments later, I stopped
stroking her hair and closed my eyes as well. I just wanted to bask
in this beautiful, perfect moment and forget the world.
But somehow, sleep eluded me.
Somewhere deep in my heart, I could hear a voice crying
out.
Another me—another facet of myself—was making a
desperate appeal to my conscience:
So you’re really okay with this, huh?
 INTERLUDE VI

IT WAS LIKE HEAVEN AND HELL both descended on me in the

span of a single day.
Hell came first. When I discovered that my brother had
stolen the entirety of my savings, I honestly thought my life was
over. My whole world went dark; for the first time in my life, I
knew the true meaning of desolation and despair. I couldn’t even
find the willpower to cry. But then Kanae came along and rescued
me.
To be honest, I still didn’t fully understand all the things he
told me about this Rollback phenomenon, but that wasn’t the part
that was important to me. What did matter to me was that he’d
chosen me over my brother. That alone made me happier than I
could ever convey in words. Thank you, Kanae. Thanks for hearing
out my selfish wish. For making that promise with me. It really did
mean the world to me.
How many years had it been since he last ran his fingers
through my hair like this? Back then, he would only give me a
playful tousle here and there, but his hands had grown large
enough now that he could easily cradle my head. It felt so nice, I
would have let him keep massaging the back of my head forever if
he wanted to. In fact, I wished this whole entire moment could last
forever. If heaven truly did exist, I imagined it probably felt like
this. Complete and utter bliss.

A dark voice in the back of my mind told me that I would

never forget the fact that I traded my brother’s life in exchange for
this happiness. Probably not for as long as I lived.
 ALL I COULD HEAR was the sound of Akari’s steady breathing.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t sleep a wink for multiple reasons. For one, I
was in an unfamiliar bed. For two, Akari was sleeping on my chest.
But what kept me up more than anything was Akito’s death. It was
like the image of his corpse was seared into the back of my
eyelids. Every time I tried to close my eyes, I saw his body lying
there in the empty lot, his skin white as a sheet, no trace of the
boy who once took the mound at Koshien left inside those glassy
eyeballs. This was the final resting place of the man who’d once
given me the courage to stand up to bullies, the guy who’d led our
puny island high school’s baseball team all the way to nationals,
then broken his shoulder and lost everything. The same man who,
in the final years of his short life, had stooped so low that he was
beating and stealing money from his own sister.
I didn’t know whether we’d done the right thing or not
anymore. I wondered if Akari already had second thoughts of her
own or if she would regret it in the near future. Thanks to the
Rollback phenomenon, I already had memories of everything that
would happen over the next five days up to 6 p.m. on April 6th. As
though I were following a trail of breadcrumbs, I traced my
memories back in search of any indication that Akari came to
regret this decision over the next few days.
Tuesday, we had our perfect little picnic in the abandoned
park.
Wednesday, we broke into the school at night and shared a
tender moment.
Thursday, I thought I was going insane until I spoke to her
at Akito’s wake.
And Friday, she explained the Rollback to me beneath the
cherry blossom tree.
Then I remembered something else. Something her future
self told me on that day, before the first Rollback occurred:
“Kanae, I…I want you to save my brother.”
 Did she really mean that, or was she only saying it to play
along with the charade? I couldn’t say for sure, but I remembered
her saying something else right after that: “I trust your judgment.
So please…take care of past me, okay?” This was what made me
think that Akari could be having second thoughts by that point, like
maybe she felt like we’d made the wrong decision. It’d explain why
she said the rest was up to me and that she would entrust
everything to my judgment.
I had to honor that trust by doing what I alone felt was right.
I slowly sat myself up in bed, then looked down at my side,
where Akari was still sleeping peacefully like a baby. Forgive me,
Akari, I whispered as I silently slipped out from under the covers.
When I stood up, I noticed the alarm clock at her bedside read 1
a.m. I turned and tiptoed toward the door, twisted the knob, then
took one last look over my shoulder at Akari before stepping out of
the bedroom. Slipping on my shoes in the entryway, I left the
apartment, hurried down the stairs, and ran off toward the empty
lot at a full sprint. Chances were high that Akito would already be
there, face down on the ground.
“Forgive me, Akari… This is for your own good… I’m sorry!”
I apologized to her over and over as I ran through the
streets. I knew I was yelling pointlessly into the ether, but I felt so
bad for betraying her that I couldn’t help it. Forgive me, Akari. I
just can’t do it. I can’t stand idly by and let a man die. Akito was a
bad person, for sure, and I couldn’t see myself ever forgiving him
for how he’d hurt his sister. I found him utterly detestable in his
current state. That still didn’t mean he deserved to die. I couldn’t
sit back and watch a man with his whole life ahead of him pass
away and justify it with some huge mistakes he made.
I should never have let my determination to save him waver.
Then I wouldn’t have had to break any promises. I was an
absolute dumbass. A gutless, wishy-washy coward who always
took the easy way out. Things would never have turned out this
way if not for me and my stupid choices. I was sorry that I had to
do this to her—but I needed to save Akito. I needed to believe
there was a way we could still find a happy ending in all of this,
one where nobody had to die.
 I arrived at the empty lot and heaved my way through the
tall grass in record time. It didn’t take long for me to spot his
silhouette lying face down on the ground.
“Akito!”
His face was already bleached with a deathlike pallor, and I
could tell that his fire was fading fast. I knelt down beside him and
watched his chest. The movements were extremely faint, but he
was still breathing. I dialed 119 and frantically explained the
situation to the operator. The paramedics from the island’s fire
department would arrive any minute, so all I had to do now was
wait. My personal burden of responsibility now somewhat relieved,
the exhaustion finally caught up with me, and I fell to my hands
and knees on the ground. I tried to stay focused on breathing in,
and then breathing out, spurts of cold night air that burned my
throat. When my breathing stabilized at last, I glanced over at
Akito again—only to find that his chest was no longer moving.
Flustered, I put my hand up to his mouth. He’d stopped breathing
altogether.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” I cried as I shook Akito’s body.
“Hey, wake up! Don’t go dying on me now, goddammit!”
No response. I turned him over onto his back to administer
CPR, or at least whatever movements I remembered from how
they taught us to do it in gym class. I wasn’t sure if I did all the
steps correctly or anything. I began compressing his chest in
steady beats and prayed for the best.
“Come on! Live, damn it! Wake up and answer for what
you’ve done! You can still turn your life around, I know you can! I
swear, if you die right now, I’ll beat the crap out of you!”
I swore at him as I kept pumping his chest until the small
ambulance arrived and two paramedics hopped out. One took over
for me, while the other asked me a number of questions.
“Any relation to the victim?” he inquired.
“Yeah, we’re friends,” I lied, figuring it would make things a
lot simpler. “Akito… Sorry, my friend here was out drinking until
about two hours ago. He only stopped breathing a few minutes
before you got here.”
 The paramedic looked me over, taking a moment to consider
this answer.
“Okay, got it,” he nodded. “We’d like to ask you a few more
questions about what happened. Mind riding along with us?”
“Sure, no problem.”
I jumped in the ambulance after they loaded Akito up into it,
and we sped off toward the harbor. The island medical clinic
couldn’t treat him at this time of night, so we had to take the
entire ambulance onto an emergency transport vessel and cross
over to the mainland, which took about twenty minutes. From
there, it was about another twenty-minute drive to the nearest
hospital. Thankfully, they got him breathing again in transit using
basic first-aid procedures. He hadn’t regained consciousness yet,
but it looked like he was going to pull through.
Once we made it to the hospital, Akito was quickly rolled into
the emergency room. I had to tell the hospital staff all the same
stuff I’d barely finished telling the paramedics, but then my duties
as a “friend” of the victim were complete. I sat down on one of the
couches in the lobby and tipped my head up toward the ceiling. I’d
managed to prevent Akito’s death, and that meant I’d changed
both the past and the future for the better.
“Man, I’m beat…”
I felt a pain in the back of my sockets when I closed my
eyes; a result of all the built-up fatigue, presumably. Too bad, I
couldn’t rest yet. There were still things I needed to do. First and
foremost, I had to get in touch with Akari. She was probably still
asleep, so I decided that maybe shooting her a text would be the
better play. I opened my phone’s messaging app and scrolled
down to her name, then froze. I couldn’t bring myself to type
anything out. I had no clue how to best convey to her that I’d
changed my mind and gone to save Akito’s life after all, so my
fingers sort of hovered in a useless limbo over the keyboard for a
while. When I did manage to write something down, I deleted it,
started over, then repeated the same process, again and again. I
spent about two hours in all sitting there in the lobby and drafting
up different ways of saying the same thing, but in the end, I
settled on a simple “hey, we need to talk. lemme know when
you’re awake” and sent it off before I had a chance to second-
guess myself again. Something told me this was one conversation
we shouldn’t have over text.

I ended up napping in the hospital waiting room until about

6 a.m. The staff weren’t going to let me hitch a ride back to the
island on the ambulance or the emergency boat, so I had to walk
to a nearby convenience store ATM and use my cell phone to
withdraw some money, then head back to the port via taxi. It was
kind of a pricey cab ride for an unemployed student like me, but it
would have taken over an hour to get there on foot. That wasn’t
happening, considering how little energy I had left. When we got
down to the port, I paid my fare and left the car.
Thankfully, I arrived right as the Sodeshima ferry was pulling
into the docks. I stood at the end of the dock and waited patiently
as all of the inbound passengers from the island disembarked,
when I noticed that Akari’s mother was among them. She’d
probably gotten a call from the hospital and was on her way there.
She didn’t seem to notice me, since she rushed past to the nearest
taxi that was stopped on the shoulder of the road and got in.
I only saw her from afar, but she looked flustered. I had no way of
knowing how she might feel about Akito’s recent personality
changes, but at the end of the day, he was her son. What mother
could keep stoic after hearing their child was in the hospital? Her
taxi sped off around the corner as I turned and made my way over
to the ticket booth.

Shortly after I boarded the ferry, it departed back toward

Sodeshima. I took a seat in the main passenger area and checked
my phone. It was half past six, and still no reply from Akari. She
was either still asleep or deliberately not replying… Either way, it
would probably be fastest to head straight over to her place as
soon as I arrived in Sodeshima. I didn’t know how to go about
breaking the news, but I had to own up to breaking my promise
with her one way or another. I mentally steeled myself for that as
the ferryboat pulled into the harbor.
 I disembarked, then aimed for Akari’s apartment complex at
a brisk pace through the cool early morning air. About ten minutes
later, I was standing at her doorstep, looking up at the HOSHINA
nameplate on the door, trying to muster up the courage to ring the
doorbell. When I finally did, there was at least a solid minute’s
worth of silence, after which I finally heard footsteps within.
Slowly, the door to the apartment opened, and Akari peeked out
from the crack. Her hair was disheveled, and her bangs were all
clumped together. There was no light in her eyes. It felt like
looking at someone who’d lived for years as a total recluse, despite
the fact that I saw her last night. This only exacerbated the guilt
already gnawing away at me. I could tell that I was likely to blame
for how she looked.
“Akari, listen… I…”
“You went and rescued him, right?” she said casually, as
though it was merely an offhand remark. “My mom told me she
got a call from the hospital. Figured it had to be your doing.”
“…Yeah, it was. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine. No need to apologize. I mean, it’s not like you did
anything wrong, right?”
“No, but I still broke my promise to you.”
“Oh, is that what you’re worried about? Don’t be. I’m the one
who wasn’t thinking straight,” she said, chuckling derisively at
herself. “I mean, asking you to be complicit in my own brother’s
death? What am I, psycho? I can hardly believe I said that. I must
be more of a coldhearted bitch than I thought…”
Her amused smirk didn’t waver, but then, out of nowhere, fat
teardrops began to spill out from the corners of her eyes.
“Akari…!” I cried, reaching out to her in desperation—but she
slammed the door in my face. A moment later, I heard the clank of
her locking the deadbolt.
“…Sorry, I just…want to be alone right now…” I heard her
whimper from inside the apartment. I pressed one ear up to the
door and tried to reason with her.
 “No, listen to me, Akari! I know you might not believe this
right now, but in the future, it was you who told me to—”
I stopped short. Say she did believe me; knowing she would
eventually regret her actions in the timeline where Akito had died
was cold comfort. Besides, even that regret was a mere
assumption on my part. I stood there, unable to even string
together a sentence’s worth of reassurance, while Akari wept softly
on the other side of the door.
“Please… Just go home, Kanae-kun…” she begged.
I bit down hard on my lower lip. A single door stood between
us, and yet it may as well have been an impenetrable concrete
wall.
“…All right, I’ll go. You better believe I’ll be coming back,
though. I’m gonna make this up to you one way or another, I
swear. I’ll never break another promise to you again.”
I waited. No reply came.
“…Okay then. I’ll talk to you later,” I said.
For now, I had no choice but to head home.

I took a hot shower as soon as I got back to my

grandmother’s house. The searing heat permeated my entire body,
all the way to my frostbitten fingertips. I washed my hair and
everything else, then stood under the hot water for a while until I
was sufficiently warmed to my core. Only then did I step out of the
bathroom, put on some fresh clothes, and head down into the
living room. I found Eri there in her pajamas, watching TV on a
floor cushion while munching on a piece of toast. I guessed she
woke up while I was showering.
“Morning, Eri,” I said as I walked in the room.
“…Mm,” she mumbled despondently, not even looking in my
direction.
Taking a moment to think about where I was chronologically,
it’d be fair for Eri to feel on edge from our fight the day before. It
seemed that way when I rolled back to April 2nd the last time, at
least. Maybe now that I had changed the future, though, she
would be in a different frame of mind. Last time, she approached
me first, but I decided to break the ice myself now.
“Hey, sorry about yesterday,” I apologized. “I definitely said
some things I really shouldn’t have. It was pretty immature of me.”
Eri took a big bite of her toast, chewed it well, then
swallowed before answering me. Her eyes never once left the TV,
mind you.
“Nah, it’s okay,” she said. “I kinda crossed the line too.”
“All right. So are we cool, then?”
“Guess so.”
Hardly the most emotional heart-to-heart of all time, but
we’d buried the hatchet. I sat on one of the other floor cushions,
rested my elbow on the low dining table, and casually changed the
subject.
“So hey, what would you say if I told you I was gonna drop
out of school and move back here to Sodeshima?” I asked.
Eri dropped her piece of toast on her plate—buttered side
up, thankfully—then turned to face me. Her eyes were wide with
surprise.
“W-wait, you’re dropping out?”
“I’m, like, eighty percent sure, yeah.”
“…It’s not because of all that mean stuff I said yesterday, is
it?”
Her expression turned so grave that I almost chuckled.
“No, it’s got nothing to do with you. Don’t worry.”
My reasons were a lot more self-centered than that; this was
the only way I could think of to make it up to Akari. If Akito went
back to his old ways after he got out of the hospital, which he very
well might, I couldn’t risk leaving her alone with him again. I was
the one who broke my promise and saved his life, after all, and
though I didn’t regret my choice, I did still need to take
accountability for it. So I would drop out of my high school in
Tokyo and stay here with her in Sodeshima instead. Having to
sacrifice a portion of my educational career was a small price to
pay to see her smile again.
“If you say so…” Eri said, obviously still a little concerned.
“Well, to answer your question, I think it’s safe to say our
deadbeat dad will be pissed…but I bet Grandma’d love to have you
back here with us.”
“What about you?”
“I…I dunno. But…having someone else around to clean out
the tub so it doesn’t have to be me every day might be kinda nice,
I guess.”
“That’s all I am to you, huh? A glorified janitor?” I teased.
“Hey, it was your job up until two years ago.”
Right, I guess it was. She’d always get on my case whenever
there was so much as a stray hair left in there when she wanted to
take a bath.
“Well, if cleaning the tub’s all I’ve gotta do to earn my keep, I
guess that doesn’t sound like such a bad gig.”
“…You’re really serious about this, huh?”
“Just about.”
“Did something happen, or…?”
“Eh, it’s kind of a long story.”
I couldn’t possibly tell Eri about any of what I went through
this past week. Instead, I stood up to make it clear that the
conversation was over. I turned to head back upstairs to my room,
which was when Eri stopped me.
“W-wait, Big Brother!”
I whirled back around, caught off guard. She’d always called
me that back when I lived here, but she hadn’t used it once this
whole week. Sure, it sounded a bit childish now that she was in
junior high, but it felt good to hear. Like she was finally warming
up to me again.
“Um,” she stammered, “if you ever need someone to talk to
or anything, I’m always here. Not trying to be nosy, but I mean…
it’s not healthy to just bottle things up inside, and…”
Her face was as earnest as could be as she sat there looking
up at me from the floor. What a sweet kid, I thought to myself; her
kind offer raised my spirits a little.
“Thanks for the offer, but I think this is just one of those
things I have to deal with by myself. Sorry,” I apologized, before
turning and walking out of the living room.

I crashed down onto my bed. I barely got any sleep at all

last night, but I didn’t feel particularly tired. Perhaps that hot
shower had woken me up a bit, or maybe I was just too worried
about Akari. Yeah, probably the latter. Every time I remembered
how distraught her face looked through the crack in her apartment
door, it felt like someone was driving a stake into my heart. I was
beginning to feel like I hadn’t made the right decision after all.
Here I was, struggling with the same dilemma again. Would it be
better if I hadn’t saved Akito? I let out a deep, heavy sigh of
regret.
“…Man, I have gotta get my act together,” I said, then
slapped my cheeks with both hands to snap myself out of this
pessimistic spiral. It was far too late for me to be getting cold feet;
the damage was already done, and now it was my responsibility to
fix it so that Akari could be happy again. Simple as that, no need
to overthink it. I’d prioritize whatever was best for her from now
on.

The calm spring morning came and went like a light rain that
was gone before you were aware it had arrived. Next thing I knew,
it was midafternoon. I’d already tried to check up on Akari, but she
still refused to see me. I heard the words “go away” come from
behind the door, and after that, there was only silence. I called and
texted her as well, but to no avail. I wondered if I might need to
take more drastic measures, like camping out in front of her
apartment or trying to force my way inside…but neither seemed
like a very good idea. They were more likely to hurt her further, if
anything, and extend the healing process unnecessarily. Despite all
that, I felt uncomfortable leaving her alone with her thoughts right
now…
“Man, what am I supposed to do…?” I groaned.
I looked up at my wall clock. It was 3 p.m. Ideally, I’d like to
salvage my relationship with Akari somewhat before the next
Rollback hit in three hours. I assumed that would be the final one,
as then I’d have filled in the entirety of the ninety-six-hour blank
space in my memories. I wondered then if I would be sent back to
6 p.m. on April 6th, when Akari first explained the Rollback to me,
since that was the furthest point in the timeline I had experienced.
On second thought, though, that timeline was also broken now
that I’d saved Akito’s life…so maybe all bets were off. Maybe there
wouldn’t be another Rollback. Or maybe my consciousness would
repeat these same four days over and over for the rest of my life,
my body never growing older than seventeen as I slowly but surely
went insane. Now there was a scary thought.
After successfully giving myself chills, I figured I’d better not
dwell on questions I had no way of answering. It would be six
o’clock soon enough, and then I’d find out for myself…whether I
liked it or not. Still, given that I couldn’t even guess what might
happen, it was all the more important that I talk to Akari while I
had the chance. I resolved to go try to talk with her one last time
—but I would have to be quick about it.
Right as I shot up in bed to get going, I felt my phone
vibrate next to my pillow. Someone had sent me a text. I picked
up the phone and looked down at the screen. It was from Akari.
The words she had written, however, made my heart sink all the
way into my stomach. A moment later, my mouth went dry as the
desert, and I broke into a full-body sweat. I tried to call her, hands
trembling, but it didn’t go through. The robotic voice of her
answering machine told me she was either out of range or had her
phone turned off. I jumped up and raced down the stairs so fast
that it was a miracle I didn’t trip and fall, then shot out the front
door like a speeding bullet. There was no time to explain the
circumstances, so I grabbed Eri’s bike without permission and sped
off in the direction of Akari’s apartment complex, riding as fast as
my legs could take me. I had a very bad feeling about this; if I’d
interpreted her message correctly, then it was vital that I reach her
as fast as humanly possible.

“Goodbye, Kanae. I love you.”

How could I be such a stupid, worthless piece of crap? I’d

spent several hours lying around in my bedroom, talking a big
game about how I was gonna make things up to her, while she
was already neck-deep and drowning in the worst depression of
her entire life. Alone, with me nowhere to be found. Who the hell
did I think I was?
“God, I’m such an idiot…!”
I pedaled so hard that the pedals themselves threatened to
come flying off, and the chain screeched metallically as though it
might snap. I pressed on even so, spinning my spokes as fast as
they’d go all the way to Akari’s apartment complex, where I
slammed on the brakes and ditched the bike in the parking lot. I
booked it up the stairs and rang her doorbell. Nothing. I tried
twisting the knob and found that the door was unlocked.
“Akari, you there?! I’m coming in!”
I bounded into the hallway and swung open the first door
on the left. Akari wasn’t in there. Her bedroom seemed a lot
cleaner than I remembered it being last night. All of the textbooks
that had lain out on her desk were now filed neatly away in her
bookcase.
“Wait, what’s this…?”
A single folded-up sheet of notebook paper lay atop her
desk. I grabbed it and opened it up. It was a handwritten letter in
which Akari thanked her mother at length for everything she’d
done for her. There was no signature at the bottom, only the
words “I hope that one day you can forgive me.” My gut feeling
was all but confirmed at this point.
“Damn it, no…!”
 I set the letter back down, then called out for Akari again as
I searched the rest of the apartment. I checked the living room,
the kitchen, the bathroom, and even the back deck, but she was
nowhere to be found. Clearly she had left the house, but where
could she have gone? With a gulp, I finally had no choice but to
confront the word I’d been intentionally avoiding this entire time:
suicide. If Akari was going to make a serious suicide attempt,
where would she do it? I guess it would depend on her intended
method. Drowning was probably the easiest option with the ocean
right nearby, but she could just as easily plan to jump from the top
of a tall building, or step in front of an oncoming train, or hang
herself…though none of these options did much to narrow down
her potential whereabouts. Damn it, I’ve got nothing. She might
not even be on the island anymore, for all I know.
I considered whether I should call the authorities. What
would I even tell them? That I suspected a friend of mine was
about to commit suicide, but I had no idea where or how? Could
they do anything at all with that information? I didn’t know, but it
was worth a shot. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and
started pushing buttons, all while racking my brain for any
potential hints from the past few days I’d spent with Akari. I tried
to untangle every last knot remaining in my mind.
All of a sudden, I saw something glimmering at the bottom
of my mental abyss, like a gold nugget buried deep in the mud. My
gut told me this was not a lead to ignore, so I put my cell phone
down and tried to home in on it. I closed my eyes and focused my
mental energy on dredging up whatever lurked in the depths of my
brain. Time seemed to crawl by…and then I heard an echo of
Akari’s voice.
“You know, this is my favorite spot in all of Sodeshima.”
My eyes shot open. Could that be where she was? It met the
criteria; she could theoretically kill herself there. I didn’t have time
to think twice. I tore out of the apartment, hauled Eri’s bike up off
the pavement, and sped off toward Sodeshima High. I pedaled as
fast as I possibly could, huffing and puffing up the hilly streets. I
felt sweat drip down from my chin onto the handlebars. When I
reached the final ascent leading to campus, I shifted into low gear
and tried to power my way up—but then there was a loud thunk,
and the pedals started spinning with zero resistance as the bike
lost all traction. Unable to maintain my balance, I fell down hard
on the asphalt.
“Yeowch…”
I winced in pain as I looked over at the fallen bicycle. The
chain had snapped.
Screw it. I’ll run the rest of the way.
I started hoofing it up the hill, ditching the bike where it had
fallen. My throat hurt bad enough that I worried it’d split open,
and my heart was beating so loud that I could hear it booming in
my eardrums. But I hadn’t the time nor the right to slow down. I’d
happily endure any bodily harm, permanent or otherwise, if it
meant the difference between Akari committing suicide or not.
At long last, I made it to Sodeshima High. The gates were
open, but I didn’t see anyone out on the athletic field. As for
whether there was anyone up on the roof…it was impossible to tell
from down here. I made a beeline across the track and let myself
inside through the main entrance. I knew that if any faculty
members were to spot me, I’d be thrown out, but there was no
time to try to play it cool and blend in.
I dashed up the stairs, praying internally that my hunch was
correct. Sure enough, when I reached the uppermost landing, I
found the padlock from the door lying discarded on the ground,
along with two flattened-out hairpins. My hunch was now a
certainty. She was here.
I swung open the door and stepped out onto the rooftop. A
strong wind attempted to blow me over, and I had to squint my
eyes from the glare of the setting sun. Then I saw it. A figure
stood beyond the protective fence spanning the perimeter of the
roof and was leaning out over the edge. The person wore a
Sodeshima High uniform, its skirt blowing in the wind.
It was her.
I’d made it in the nick of time, but it was way too early to
breathe a sigh of relief. Her hands were gripping the metal railing
behind her for now, but she looked as though she might let go and
jump at any moment. I didn’t want to frighten or provoke her in
any way, so I called out her name in a calm and measured voice:
“Akari.”
She whirled around. She looked genuinely surprised to
see me.
“K-Kanae-kun? But…how did you know I’d be here…?” I took
a moment to catch my breath before answering.
“Let’s just say your future self gave me a hint.”
“You’re kidding…”
“Nope. It’s your favorite spot on the whole island, right? You
even made a point of bringing me up here to show me one night.”
“…When was this?”
“Let’s see… It was the night of the 4th, so…two days from
now, I guess?”
Akari furrowed her brow and cast a forlorn glance to the
side.
“Wish I could’ve gotten to experience that future,” she said.
I got chills. The heartache in her voice stabbed me like a
knife through the chest. I swallowed hard, then asked the question
I’d come here to ask.
“Akari. You’re not planning to kill yourself, are you?”
“I am.”
“…Is it my fault?”
She gave a slight smile. It neither confirmed nor denied my
assumption.
“I’m…tired, Kanae. Tired of everything,” she said, her voice
measured and slow. “I mean, I’ve worked so hard to try to get into
the same college as you. Each and every day, I push myself harder
than the last. I stay up late every night, studying until I literally
can’t keep my eyes open any longer. I swim laps until I’m so
exhausted, I throw up. I keep working the same job even though
my supervisors make me cry pretty much every day… It’s like I’ve
been living in hell, Kanae. On top of everything else, my brother’s
been harassing me and treating me like a slave. The one time I
tried to stand up for myself, he pushed me down and fractured a
bone in my lower back so I couldn’t swim. And when he stole all of
the money I’d been saving up for so long, I thought my life was
over for good. There was no way I could ever recover from that.
But even then, I still didn’t want to die, because you came back to
me. Because when I called you in my time of need, you came
running to my rescue. And…because even when I made the most
selfish request imaginable, you still heard me out. But in the end,
you broke that promise and chose my brother over me.”
The pain in Akari’s voice was palpable, but I had no reply for
her. All I could do was stand there, clenching my fists until she
finished speaking. Then, finally, I offered a few words in response.
“You’re not wrong,” I said, choosing my words very carefully.
“I did break my promise to you, and I did save Akito against your
will. But…that doesn’t mean I ‘chose’ him over you, or that I did it
specifically to slight you or anything like that. I don’t hate you,
Akari. Hell, if anything, I—”
“You wanna know what hurt more than anything, though?”
she interrupted—though it surely didn’t feel like an interruption
from her perspective. I was certain she wasn’t even listening to me
anymore. “It wasn’t having my money stolen, or you breaking your
promise, or anything like that.”
“Then what was it…?” I asked.
Akari hung her head as though trying to hold something
back.
“It was the realization…of what a horrible person I really am,
deep down. I mean, I deliberately chose to stand by and do
nothing while my brother was dying, only to turn straight around,
go home, and cuddle up in bed with the boy I like. If that doesn’t
make me a psychopath, I don’t know what does.”
“Akari, you’re not a psychopath…!”
“Yes, I am,” she replied, her voice shaky. “You made the right
choice, Kanae-kun. I can’t hold that against you. It’s me who’s
crazy. Which is why…I should just kill myself and spare everyone
else the misery of having to live with me.”
She looked up at me again. Her eyes now bore an
unmistakable glimmer of desperation.
“Akari…!” I cried, putting one foot forward to run to her side.
“Don’t come any closer!” she snapped, and I froze in place.
“Tell me one last thing, Kanae-kun: Why did you do it? Why did
you change your mind and betray me?”
I paused. My mouth went dry, and cold sweat dripped down
my forehead. I knew if I made the slightest misstep with my
words, Akari was at a real risk of taking her own life. I wet my
parched tongue with fresh saliva and then proceeded to say my
piece.
“…Because your future self asked me to. She explicitly told
me to save Akito. She even told me where he’d die and when. I
can’t see you ever doing that unless you came to regret your
decision for real… And trust me, you’re not the only one, Akari. I
was all in on letting him die for a while there, before I
remembered what you told me in the future. I thought in way
more depth about the long-term repercussions from all of this.
Only after that did I rethink it and decide I needed to save Akito’s
life after all.”
Akari didn’t say a word. She stood and listened quietly as I
continued.
“A minute ago, you called yourself a horrible person…a
psychopath. I disagree. You’ve got a good heart, Akari, a better
heart than anyone I know. That’s why I knew you’d come to regret
it sooner or later. The fact that you’d let your brother die would eat
away at you for the rest of your life… Even after you got married,
and had kids, and lived happily ever after with whatever lucky guy
got the pleasure, it would always be there—lurking in a dark
corner of your mind. I didn’t want that for you. You can earn back
lost money and people’s trust, but you can never take back a life.
I didn’t want this to forever cast a shadow over your future.”
“What ‘future’?” Akari scoffed, her face contorting in distress.
“Quit preaching to me like you’re my dad… All you’re doing is
throwing together a bunch of empty reassurances and speculation
to convince me not to jump. You’re only trying to stop me from
dying so you won’t feel guilty.”
“It’s not speculation,” I shot back. “Akari, I was there. You
literally came to regret it in less than a week.”
“Oh yeah? Where’s your proof? Show me one piece of
evidence to support your little theory that I’m not rotten to the
core.”
My words caught in my throat. Obviously, I had no way of
proving something that happened in a now-severed timeline.
Recognizing this, Akari’s expression turned cold, as if she’d given
up her last hope that I could prove her wrong.
“See? Nothing but empty words. Heck, I bet you don’t even
fully believe the stuff that’s coming out of your mouth. Like, can
you honestly say with one hundred percent certainty that you did
the right thing?”
She had me totally figured out. I didn’t know what to
believe; I’d waffled back and forth ever since last night. Was it
really right for me to save Akito? Was I really acting in Akari’s best
interests, or pouring salt in her wounds for no reason? Had her
future self truly come to regret what happened, or did I only save
Akito’s life because it would make me feel better? The more I
pondered, the deeper I was consumed by my own misgivings and
regrets. I couldn’t see anything clearly anymore. I knew, though,
deep down, what I had to do. I needed to believe in the path I’d
chosen without letting my doubts dissuade me. There was no
turning back now.
“You’re right,” I admitted. “There are lots of things I’m not
sure about…but one thing I can say for sure is that you aren’t
supposed to die here. Akari, if you step back from that ledge right
now, I’ll do anything you ask of me. I’ll drop out of high school and
move back to Sodeshima. I’ll find a way to make back the money
Akito stole from you. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure
you never have to go through anything like this again. Please don’t
end it all here. I need you, Akari.”
 “Oh, give it a rest, already. You’re just trying to talk me down
and you know it.”
Her words were harsh and cold, and I had no angle to
counter them from. So deep was Akari’s despair that she’d
basically made up her mind by now, and nothing I could say would
convince her otherwise. She was determined to jump. The impact
from a fall from this height would kill her. I could only stand here
and watch, helpless, as my best friend took her own life. Such was
my punishment for breaking my promise to her.
…No, screw that. I wasn’t giving up yet. I came here
prepared to put it all on the line in order to save Akari. Now I
needed to put my money where my mouth was. Slowly, steadily, I
approached Akari. It was time to make my final gambit.
“Stop!” she yelled “If you come any closer, I’ll…”
“Go ahead. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Huh?!”
I hopped over the railing to join Akari out on the ledge,
standing immediately to her right. Akari looked at me with
suspicious eyes that told me she was prepared to jump the
moment I tried anything fishy. I was careful not to make any
sudden movements that might alarm her while making it clear I
had no intention of backing down. My toes were already sticking
out over the edge. One step forward would send me plummeting
to my death. A glance down was enough to give me vertigo; it
sent a rush of adrenaline and fear through my entire body. My
palms were already sweating against the cold metal railing.
“Y’know, when it comes down to it,” I began, gazing up at
the deep magenta sky, “this is really all my fault. I mean, this
whole thing could’ve been avoided if I hadn’t told you about Akito’s
death or the Rollback. Then you wouldn’t have been complicit
whether I chose to save him or not. You could’ve stayed blissfully
unaware.”
“…What are you trying to say?”
“Nothing. Just that I need to be held accountable for all the
pain and suffering you’re going through right now, and that I can
only atone for it by finding a way to make things right again. If you
die right now, I’ll be forced to live with that guilt forever.”
“So you’d rather kill yourself too?”
“You got it.”
A strong wind blew past, sending my bangs aflutter. The
smell of sea salt wafted into my nostrils. My footing wavered a
little bit; I gripped the railing even tighter.
“…You’re a real jackass, you know that?” she scoffed. It may
have been the first time she insulted me and actually meant it.
“Believe me, I’m aware. This past week has made it
abundantly clear what a worthless piece of crap I truly am.”
“Are you using scare tactics on me or something? FYI, I
really am going to jump. Right now. Whether or not you do too
won’t change a thing.”
“That’s fine. What I’m saying is, if I can’t convince you
otherwise, I’d rather join you and end it all myself.”
“Just checking, Kanae-kun: Do you seriously think that
threatening to commit suicide is a good way to talk someone else
out of committing suicide?”
“Probably not. Like you said, I’m a stupid jackass. I’m afraid
that’s the best I could come up with.”
Akari was staring daggers at me now.
“…You expect me to believe you’re gonna jump for real?”
“Oh, I am. Make no mistake.”
“Stop bluffing. I see your knees quaking.”
She had me there. I was literally shaking in my boots. I’d
hoped she wouldn’t notice.
“N-no, that’s, uh… That’s because my legs are tired from
riding my bike all the way up that big hill.”
“Oh, is that why? How come your voice is shaky too?”
“I mean, it’s chilly out here. You felt that breeze that just
blew by.”
 “Then explain the sweating.”
“People sweat when they’re hot, Akari. It’s called
homeostasis.”
“You said you were cold?”
“…Okay, fine!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “You got me!
I’m scared out of my goddamn mind! Happy now?!”
I couldn’t deny it. The thought of actually taking that next
step and falling to my death scared the hell out of me. Sure, it may
be a relatively painless, instantaneous death, but the thought of
my blood and guts splattered all across the asphalt filled me with
nausea, and imagining how the world might move on without me
made me want to cry. The thought of my own death terrified me.
Wasn’t that only natural?
“…Thing is, there’s something I’m even more afraid of,” I
continued, readjusting my grip on the railing. “And that’s the
thought of losing you, Akari. That’s what really scares me, far
more than my own death ever could. I know full well I couldn’t
bear to go on living in a world without you. I’m not strong enough
for that.”
I took a brief pause after this mild self-rebuke.
“You know, I never told you this, Akari, but the real reason
I’m back here in Sodeshima right now is because I ran away from
home. My dad caught me skipping out on my spring break
supplementary courses and gave me the scolding of a lifetime.
Said he wished he never brought me back to Tokyo to begin with.
So I left. And yeah, I know that probably sounds like small
potatoes compared to all of the agony and suffering you’re going
through, but I think it just goes to show what a weak little coward
I am. I mean, if I was willing to run away from home over
something as trivial as that, what makes you think I wouldn’t want
to run away from life itself after losing you? Even if you took my
own blame out of the equation, I don’t think I could cope with
that.”
“…What’s your point?”
 “No point. I’m explaining how serious I am about this. If you
die here, then I die too. Simple as that.”
I wasn’t bluffing. That was where my head was at right then.
If I could place complete and total confidence in anything, it was
my ability to run away when the going got tough. I had to be
upfront about that with Akari, regardless of how hard she was
treading water in her own pain and suffering. It was my only
method of conveying to her that this wasn’t an act.
“…If you want me to live so bad, then why not drag me away
by force?”
“I mean, would that really do anything to change your
mind?”
“Nope. I’d go do it the next time you took your eyes off of
me.”
“…That’s what I thought.”
She truly did have her mind made up. What options did I
have now? How could I make Akari want to keep on living? I tried
with all my might to wring one last idea out of my frazzled brain
but still came up empty. We were at an impasse. Worse, as I
thought on it more deeply, dying began to seem like the right
answer to our conundrum. Somehow convincing her to live
wouldn’t magically put an end to all of her struggles. Plenty of
hardships lay in her future. Heck, from a general perspective, there
was far more to be sad about in the world than to be happy about,
and our backwards society tended to reward evil more readily than
good. Like we learned back in junior high, trying to stand up for
your morals only put a target on your back. Life…wasn’t fair. Akari
knew that far better than I ever could. The will to live exited my
body in one abrupt swoop. I turned to face her.
“So we’re really doing this, huh?”
“Yup. I am, at least,” she responded in no time, her eyes
steady and assured.
“…Okay then.”
I grabbed Akari’s right hand.
“Hey, what the—”
 “I’m not stopping you. If we’re gonna go, then I want us to
go together.”
Her palm was cold and drenched with sweat.
“I’m serious about this, you know,” she reiterated.
“Yeah, I know.”
“You…really don’t have any regrets?”
“I mean, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t…” I admitted after
mulling it over a little. “But all I ever wanted was to grow old and
die with you, so one out of two is good enough for me.”
“…I see,” she said, then interlocked her cold, dainty fingers
with mine. “Guess we’re on the same page, then… Because I’m
not afraid of dying either, as long as I’m with you.”
I didn’t say a word. I nodded at Akari, and Akari nodded
back at me, as though we’d both made our peace and were ready
to kiss the world goodbye.
“Okay,” she said. “Here goes nothing.”
“Ready when you are.”
I exhaled all of the air from my lungs with deliberate
slowness. The strong wind blowing by felt pleasantly bracing, like
it was cleansing my entire body. I took in a deep breath through
my nose, and I could smell the ocean, along with the slightest hint
of plum blossoms. All told, I was as afraid to die as ever.
Somewhere deep inside, I felt a certain contrasting calm; I
attributed it to holding Akari’s hand in mine. With her by my side, I
could look my fears in the eye undaunted. I wished I had the
chance to use this newfound courage for something other than
ending it all…but no matter. Everything would be over soon.
Knowing I wouldn’t have to worry about the future any longer was
strangely comforting, in its way. Feeling about as close to content
as I could get, I closed my eyes and waited.

I waited for quite some time. Nothing happened. Akari’s little

hand remained firmly clasped within my own. I opened my eyes
and turned to my side, only to find her hanging her head with her
shoulders trembling.
“Akari…?”
A sound came into focus at last. Sobbing. Akari was crying,
and I didn’t even realize.
“It’s not fair…” she whimpered through the tears. “Why’d you
have to do this to me, Kanae-kun…? How am I supposed to die
when you say stuff like that…? I can’t do it… I can’t…”
I nearly fell to my knees right then and there. The words “I
can’t do it” washed over my entire body like a wave of relief. All
the tension built up inside me started to subside, and my legs went
limp. Oh, thank goodness. Akari chose to live. I was happy enough
to burst into tears myself.
“…C’mon, let’s go back inside the railing,” I suggested.
Akari complied, throwing her leg over the railing as she wept.
Once both of her feet were back on solid ground, I turned and
hoisted myself up onto the railing as well. A powerful gust of wind
picked up at that exact moment and knocked me off balance. Uh-
oh. I desperately clutched for purchase at everything in reach, but
my hands were too slippery with sweat. My body tottered
backwards, and my stomach dropped.
I’m gonna fall.
It all seemed to happen in slow motion. The railing receded
before me while the skies above expanded before my eyes with a
tremendous whoosh. My body bent further back, sealing in the
realization that I was about to die as it did so. Strangely enough, I
didn’t feel a lick of fear. Maybe it was because I mentally prepared
myself to die a moment ago, or maybe I felt satisfied after
achieving my goal of saving Akari’s life. Either way, all I felt in that
instant was that if the universe decided to kill me off here, then so
be it. I did what I came here to do, so fate was welcome to take
my stupid life. As I came to terms with my fate, however…
“Kanae-kun!”
Akari reached out and grabbed me by the hand. The sense of
weightlessness vanished altogether as she gripped my right arm
with both hands. She held me far more firmly, far more
imperatively than she had when she stopped me on our way to the
bar last night. She hauled me back over to safety on the other side
of the fence, whereupon she and I both fell to the ground—me
directly on top of her, in an accidental aggressor position. Her face
now mere inches from mine, I saw my reflection in her wide-open
eyes.
Now, here, the belated fear of death hit me like a truck. Had
Akari not grabbed my hand when she did, I would have been gone
forever. I shuddered at the thought, and my legs got weak enough
that I couldn’t lift myself up off the ground.
“H-holy hell, Akari. You just saved my—”
Before I had any chance to thank her, she wrapped her arms
around me from below and pulled me in close. I was now quite
literally on top of her. I could feel her heartbeat pulse against my
chest.
“Oh, thank god… I was so scared you were gonna fall…” she
sniffled between sobs, her breath hot against my ear.
“Thank god” was right. We were both still here, still
breathing, after one near-suicide and one near-fatal accident. As
far as I was concerned, that was nothing short of a miracle. How
could I not be ecstatic about that?
“Hey, Kanae-kun…?” she whispered in my ear. “Remember
what you said to me earlier? About how you’ll never break another
promise to me again…? Did you really mean that?”
“One hundred percent. I’ll never betray your trust again.
I swear.”
“Okay then… See, there’s this one little thing I want you to
promise me.”
Akari pulled away from me. We both sat up straight, facing
each other directly. I lowered my gaze from her tear-drenched
eyes to her trembling lips. They shaped sounds together to form
six little words:
“Make me a happy woman, okay?”
 “Oh, you bet I will,” I said, then wrapped her up tightly in my
embrace. Akari hugged me right back, and we both sat there in
each other’s arms while the faded melody of Greensleeves rang
out over the island. It was already six o’clock. I braced for the
worst—but even after the chime was over, no Rollback occurred.
Time was back in its proper order, and for the first time in what felt
like forever, I was living in the present again. The future awaiting
Akari and I was a total enigma, but one that she and I would face
together, hand in hand.

It was now April 3rd, the day after Akari’s suicide attempt at
Sodeshima High. On that bright and sunny afternoon, I made my
way down to Sodeshima Harbor. The warm sunbeams upon my
face heralded the beginning of spring, promising that winter’s
lingering specter would soon disappear from the last few shady
pockets that lent it sanctuary.
In truth, this was the second April 3rd of my seventeenth
year on earth. This time, I intended to take it slower than the last.
Nothing happened at 6 p.m. last night, leading me to believe that
the Rollback was over. While I never gained a proper
understanding of its mechanics or what triggered it, the 6 p.m.
thing was a rigid rule throughout the phenomenon. I felt safe in
assuming the phenomenon had truly ended.
That wasn’t a guarantee that I was free from its clutches
altogether. I knew that. Still, I figured it wasn’t healthy to live in
constant fear of otherworldly time hiccups; I would cross that next
bridge if and when I came to it. It wasn’t like I could do much to
prevent it, so why stress myself out in the meantime?
I soon arrived at the harbor and made my way to the ticket
office. Inside, I found Akari sitting on one of the benches, wearing
a knit sweater.
“Wow, you’re here early,” I called out as I approached. She
turned to look up at me.
“Yeah, sorry. I felt antsy all morning…” she said, fidgeting
with her fingers down near her belly button. A fragment of
darkness endured in her expression, but I sensed none of the
instability from when we were up on the rooftop yesterday.
“Well, don’t push yourself,” I said. “If it gets to be too much
for you, we can always quit and go home.”
“I think I’ll be okay. Especially since you’re coming with me…
And I’ll have to face him sooner or later.”
Akari’s voice was tense with either fear or trepidation, or
perhaps a combination of the two. We were on our way to visit
Akito at the hospital he was staying at over on the mainland. It
was Akari’s idea. She called me up this morning and said that it
was something she couldn’t avoid forever if she wanted to go on
living. I thought that was a mature way of looking at it and agreed
to go as her escort. Admittedly, I had my reservations about this
meeting between a victim and her abuser, but they were siblings.
It wasn’t like they could realistically go the rest of their lives
without talking to one another, at least not until Akari graduated
from high school. Some amount of reconciliation was necessary, I
assumed.
“Don’t worry,” I reassured her. “If he tries anything funny, I’ll
put a stop to it.”
“Yeah, okay… Thanks,” she said. A little of the tension left
her shoulders.
I checked the big clock inside the waiting area. The ferry was
supposed to arrive at any minute, so I got in line at the ticket
window. After paying for our fare, I walked back over to where
Akari was sitting. Our boat arrived a short while later, so we
stepped aboard and embarked on our little voyage to the
mainland.

We left the ferryboat and got on a bus that took us all the
way to the hospital. After checking in at the front desk, they gave
us Akito’s room number. We went up the stairs, down the hallway,
and around the corner, before eventually arriving at his hospital
room. As we stood in front of the door, I looked over at Akari out
of the corner of my eye. She looked pale and was biting her lip
with a frown. Her hands shook slightly. When she noticed my gaze,
however, she turned toward me with a forced smile.
“Ah ha ha… Sorry, I guess I’m more nervous than I realized.”
“You still wanna do this?”
“I mean, we’re here now. I can’t turn back.”
“…Okay then.”
I took her hand and held it tight. Akari recoiled in momentary
surprise, then gave my hand a brief squeeze in reciprocation. She
took a deep breath, knocked lightly on the door, and then opened
it without waiting for a reply; it was a shared hospital room with
multiple occupants, so she must not have felt the need. Akito’s bed
was on the right-hand side, over by the window. Still holding
hands, we walked in and made our way across the room to the
privacy curtain partitioning his bed away from the rest of the
patients.
“Hey, it’s your sister,” Akari said. “We’re coming in.”
No reply came, but someone was clearly in there. Akari slid
the curtain aside and walked in, and I followed suit. Sure enough,
Akito lay there in his bed, wide awake. He had an IV drip hooked
up to his arm.
“I didn’t say you could come in,” Akito scoffed, glaring at
Akari. He noticed me enter right after her, and his eyes widened a
little in mild surprise.
“Hey, you’re…Funami, right?” he asked.
“That’s me,” I said.
“Heard from my old lady that it was you who found me and
called the ambulance. I really owe you one, man.”
“Nah, it’s cool… Don’t worry about me. It’s her you should be
thinking about.”
I signaled Akari with my eyes. She took a deep breath.
“Akito, we need to talk,” she said.
“…Yeah? About what?” he replied. His voice instantly turned
hostile.
 “About what you did two days ago… No, what you’ve been
doing for the past couple of years. All of the harassment, all the
late-night partying, all the grunt work you’ve made me do, all the
money you’ve stolen… It all needs to stop. I don’t want to catch
you doing any of that again,” she declared. Akito was visibly
uncomfortable, but Akari persisted: “I’ve already told Kanae-kun
about everything you’ve done to me too.”
“…Hmph. What, are you guys going steady now? Explains
why you’re holding hands. The hospital ain’t the place to be
flaunting your relationship status, guys,” he snorted derisively.
This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The image of
Akito I’d fought to maintain in my mind, my concept of him as a
stand-up guy, a hardworking pitcher, crumbled to dust once and
for all. I knew damn well that there was no way he’d forgotten all
the horrible things he’d done to Akari—and yet here he hadn’t only
shrugged it off but made wisecracks at her expense. My blood
began to boil. I let go of Akari’s hand, walked up to Akito’s
bedside, and looked down at him from above.
“Man, you’ve turned into a real douchebag,” I said. “What
the hell happened to you?”
“Beg your pardon?” Akito said, his face flaring up with rage.
“You heard me. You’re a douchebag. All this crap you’ve
done to hurt your little sister, and you can’t muster up one little
apology? Do you seriously feel entitled to act like a complete
asshole because you lost your shot at being a star athlete?”
“You tryin’ to say somethin’, pal…?”
“Yeah, I am, actually. Listen up: Try to mess with Akari again,
and it won’t end well for you, ‘pal.’ I’ll come running with a big ol’
rock and chuck it right at your head—just like how you taught me
to deal with bullies.”
“No, you listen, dickhead… I don’t think you know who you’re
dealin’ with.”
Akito’s eyes flashed with anger. He sat up and made a grab
for my collar…but whether due to the alcohol poisoning or the fact
that he hadn’t been an athlete in years, his grip was weak. I shook
him off no problem, causing him to lose his balance and fall out of
his hospital bed.
“Grgh…” he grunted as he hit the floor.
His IV tube fell out, and a trail of blood began to trickle down
his arm. I had no intention of trying to kick a hospital patient while
he was down, so I reached out a hand to help him up. He slapped
it away.
“Don’t touch me,” he barked, still on his hands and knees, his
nails scratching at the floor. “You and everyone else are always
lookin’ for excuses to talk down to me… Ever since I had to quit
baseball, it’s like I’m one big disappointment. It’s bullcrap… It’s not
fair, goddammit…”
He lifted his head and looked at me in distress. His
expression was full of hate, and yet I found something strangely
pitiable about it.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like?” he demanded. “To
have the one thing you’ve dedicated your whole life to ripped out
from under your feet? Do you?!”
“…Nope, can’t say I do. But there’s more to life than
baseball, man. Not every single person you meet is gonna judge
you based on how good of a pitcher you are.”
I reached out my hand again, but he ignored it and sat up
straight without assistance. Not a moment later, I heard a woman’s
voice at the door announcing her arrival. It was a voice I thought I
recognized. My hunch was confirmed as soon as she slid open the
privacy curtain.
“Hey, sorry that took so long, I had to—Wait, huh?”
Sure enough, it was Hayase, holding two cans of coffee
precariously in her right hand. She must have been here to visit
him even before we arrived.
“Whoa, Akito! Are you okay?! Did you fall out of bed?”
She set the coffee cans down on the bed and squatted down
to help Akito up, looping his arm around her shoulders.
“Knock it off,” he growled.
 “Oh, don’t be like that. You’re still recovering, it’s fine,” she
said, helping him back up onto the bed before turning to look at
us. “Hey, Akari-chan! Good to see you! And who’s your friend
here…?”
Ouch, I winced. Forgotten already. Then I realized that she
and I actually hadn’t met yet in this newly revised timeline. Duh.
Right as I was about to introduce myself, Hayase gave a short,
high-pitched shriek.
“Akito! You’re bleeding! Damn, we need to call the nurse!”
“Aw, save it. It’s not even a big deal…” Akito said in an
attempt to downplay it.
“Oh no you don’t, buster. We gotta get that looked at,
pronto,” she said. She pressed the nurse call button next to his
pillow while giving him a disapproving look. “I swear, you’ve always
been like this. Stubborn about the dumbest of things. This is why
everyone ends up distancing themselves from you sooner or later.”
“So what? Who cares?”
“I care. You need to learn to take good advice when it’s
given to you, for cryin’ out loud. Open up a bit more, why don’t
you? You’re only making things harder for yourself by shutting
folks out. What do you think would’ve happened if you weren’t
lucky enough to be found by someone the other night? Did that
even cross your mind?!”
Suddenly, there were tears in her eyes. Akito got a little
flustered at that.
“Psh, c-c’mon… It ain’t that big a deal. I mean, look at me.
I’m fine, aren’t I?”
“You could have died, Akito!” yelled Hayase.
Akito shrank back. His eyes wavered uncomfortably for a
moment, unsure what to do, but eventually he threw up his hands
and scratched his head.
“…All right, I’m sorry. Sheesh.”
It was almost too quiet to hear, but he had apologized. We
stood in shocked silence around his bed for some time, until the
nurse we’d called showed up to ask Akito how he was feeling. He
mumbled a few begrudging answers at first, before Hayase
smacked him on the back and told him to explain in greater detail.
Incredibly, this was all it took for him to start being more
cooperative. I was standing there watching their little back-and-
forth when I felt Akari gently poke my sides with her index fingers.
“We should get going,” she suggested.
“…Good idea,” I agreed.
At least he’ll be in safe hands with Hayase, I thought to
myself. Akari and I briefly said our goodbyes to the two of them
before we excused ourselves from the hospital room.

The boat ride back to Sodeshima was practically empty;

I chalked it up to the fact that it was in the middle of the workday.
You could probably count the number of other passengers on one
hand. Akari and I sat side by side right in the middle of the seating
area.
“Thanks again, Kanae-kun,” she said at one point, with zero
lead-in.
“Hm? For what?” I asked.
“For coming with me to the hospital, silly. And…for standing
up to my brother.”
“Oh, yeah… Don’t mention it. Shame I didn’t manage to
wring an apology out of him…”
The main objective of the day was to draw a line in the sand,
after all—and I wasn’t confident we’d accomplished that goal.
“Well, it made me happy, that’s for sure. I never could’ve
done that on my own,” she said. The corners of her mouth
twitched upwards. It was only the slightest hint of a smile, but I’d
take it. Seeing her happy again was enough of a reward for me on
its own.
“Feel free to let me know if he gives you any more trouble.
Luckily for you, I’ll be just down the street from now on.”
 “Wait, huh?” she said, staring blankly at me. “You mean
you’re not going back to Tokyo?”
“Nope. I’m dropping out so I can stay right here with you in
Sodeshima… Didn’t I already tell you this up on the roof the other
night?”
Her eyes widened in astonishment.
“I totally thought you were just bluffing about that to talk me
down…”
“Hell no. I wouldn’t lie in a dicey situation like that.”
“Have you already filed your withdrawal paperwork?”
“Nah, not yet. I figure I can call the school and take care of
it over the phone.”
I knew it wouldn’t be quite as easy as that in practice. I
expected some firm resistance not only from my father but from
my teachers as well. Still, I was fully prepared to fight for my right
to withdraw myself from school.
“Forget it, then. You don’t have to drop out,” Akari said.
“Huh?” I gawked, knocked thoroughly off-kilter. Of all the
people I expected to face opposition from, Akari wasn’t one of
them.
“I mean, that’d only make things harder for you in the long
run, right? Like, what would you even do after moving back here?”
“Uh… Probably enroll at Sodeshima High, I guess?”
“And after you graduated from there?”
“Haven’t really thought that far, to be honest…”
“You’re already on the fast track into a great college, Kanae-
kun. You shouldn’t waste that opportunity. I mean, don’t get me
wrong, I really appreciate the sentiment, but I’d feel horrible if you
were to give all that up on my account.”
“Urgh…”
On second thought, she had a point. Maybe dropping out of
high school would be too drastic. I had reservations about the idea
myself, of course, but Akari’s doubts made me wonder if I should
just scrap it entirely. Some part of me did feel like a bit of a
coward for skulking off back to Tokyo by myself after talking a big
game up on the rooftop the other night, though. How in the world
was I supposed to make up for that? While I sat there stressing
myself out about it, Akari gave a soft, simple smile.
“It’s all right, Kanae-kun,” she said. “You sit tight and wait for
me in Tokyo, okay? I’ll come join you as soon as I graduate.”
“But what about…”
“I’ll be fine. If anything bad does happen, you’ll be the first
to know. I promise,” she said, then reached out and held my hand
like a parent trying to reassure an anxious child. This conversation
flipping around to concern for my emotional needs did make me
feel like a pathetic loser. Akari was right, though. I may not have
thought my little plan through as well as I should have. There was
only one year left until we both graduated. If we could make it
through this next year apart, she and I could be together again,
even if it was after far too much time separated. That thought
alone gave me the strength to squeeze Akari’s hand back.
“Okay,” I said. “Still…try to stay in touch even if everything’s
going well, yeah? I’ll be sure to call you up from time to time too.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t overdo it, either. It doesn’t matter if your school stuff
doesn’t work out. You can come and live with me anyway, y’know.”
“I know…” Akari nodded bashfully.
I knew full well the implications of the words that had come
out of my mouth. I might as well have proposed to her. But I didn’t
feel embarrassed at all, and not only because this was my second
time dropping that exact line on her—but because it wasn’t even
an exaggeration. I really did see the two of us sharing our lives
together in the long run.
“Welp, guess I’d better start saving up money again if I ever
want to make it over there,” she mumbled halfheartedly.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about the financial aspect of it.
I’ve got it covered.”
 “What? No, no, no. I couldn’t possibly borrow that kind of
money from you, Kanae.”
“I wasn’t offering to lend it to you. You’re gonna earn it
yourself, and it’ll be a piece of cake. I promise.”
“…What are you talking about?” Akari asked, tilting her head
in curiosity.
“Well…” I said nonchalantly. “Ever played the lottery before?”

The next year came and went.

I woke from my peaceful slumber to the sound of sprightly

footsteps bounding across hardwood flooring in the other room. I
creaked my eyes open and gazed up at the white ceiling above
me. This was neither my grandmother’s house in Sodeshima, nor
my father’s condominium. This was our new apartment, right in
the heart of Tokyo.
Picking myself up out of bed, I left the bedroom and headed
out into the living room. Over in the kitchen, a slender figure with
shoulder-length chestnut hair darted back and forth, clad in a
comfy cardigan. It was Akari, age eighteen. It wasn’t until she
stopped in front of the stove to drizzle oil in a frying pan that she
noticed my presence and turned to face me with a welcoming
smile.
“Well, look at you, sleepyhead! Woke up all by yourself for
once, huh?”
“Yeah, guess I did. Can’t keep using you as my alarm clock
forever.”
I walked into the kitchen and offered my assistance in
getting breakfast ready. I set the table with chopsticks, tea, and a
small bowl of rice for each of us. A little while later, she came out
to join me on the carpet with two sunny-side-up eggs on a small
tray. We sat across from each other and set out our modest little
breakfast upon our modest little dining table. We clapped our
hands together in unison, picked up our respective pairs of
chopsticks, and dug in.
 Two weeks had passed since Akari and I started living
together. As I leisurely ate my breakfast, I thought back on
everything that had happened over the past year since the end of
the Rollback phenomenon. There was a lot to say, but the single
biggest event had to be Akari winning the lottery—even if it wasn’t
due to luck in the slightest. I’d memorized those winning numbers
I looked up during the Rollback and told her what they would be.
At first, she was pretty opposed to the idea, comparing it to
cheating, but I bent over backwards to assure her that we weren’t
doing anything illegal, that we probably deserved some amount of
restitution after everything we’d been through, and that at least
this way the money would be going to a good cause and wouldn’t
be frittered away on needless luxuries. I managed to convince her
in the end, so she begrudgingly went out and bought the lottery
ticket. With that, all of our financial needs would be taken care of
for the foreseeable future.
As far as schooling went, Akari got accepted into the
university on nothing but her own merits. She worked her butt off
and won the district preliminaries last summer, then went on to
make an admirable showing at nationals and secured the
requirements for an athletic endorsement. She cleared the
required application process with flying colors and was admitted to
her dream school with priority status. I could still remember the
emotional phone call she gave me when she first heard the news.
Now, a few months later, she and I were finally reunited in Tokyo
and had begun cohabitating. It had been smooth sailing so far—we
were way more compatible than I ever would have thought.
Almost freakishly so.
“Phew. That hit the spot, thanks,” I said, finishing my meal
and carrying my dishes over to the sink. When I returned to the
living room, Akari had set her chopsticks down and was staring
fixedly down at her phone. “What’s up? Something happen?”
“Yeah, my mom just texted me. Get a load of this,” Akari
said, holding her phone out in front of my face. On the small LCD
screen was a picture of Akito and Hayase smiling in each other’s
arms, beneath which hung the caption: “Guess who’s getting
hitched!”
 “Well, damn. Now there’s a shocker,” I said, though I wasn’t
especially surprised. Akari told me Hayase took a renewed interest
in getting Akito back on his feet after the whole alcohol poisoning
incident. From what little I’d heard, I wouldn’t go so far as to say
he’d turned over a completely new leaf, but it sounded like his
behavior had made a marked change for the better. He now had a
full-time job at Hayase’s family’s liquor store and was working to
steadily pay back the million yen he stole from Akari.
“I know, right?” Akari replied. “Talk about hitting the ground
running, jeez.”
“Yeah, those two sure didn’t waste any time… They’ve been
together for what, a year?”
“If that. I’ve gotta say, though…there’s something else that
surprises me more,” she said, looking me in the eye as though
she’d just had some huge epiphany. “See…if I’m honest with
myself, I still haven’t really forgiven my brother for everything he
did to me, right? But when I read this text just now, there was a
moment where…for a split second…I felt genuinely happy for him,
from the bottom of my heart.”
From where I was sitting, Akari looked a little confused, as
though she wasn’t sure how to interpret these unfamiliar emotions.
How could she feel happy for the same man who’d once abused
her, who she’d hated so much that she nearly condemned him to
death? I thought this was a poignant testament to just how much
she’d grown.
“Hey, good for you! Go ahead and be happy for him! Nothing
wrong with that. I think that’s pretty mature on your part, actually.
I’m proud of you.”
I flashed a broad, wholesome grin over at Akari, who smiled
right back at me—with the sort of reinvigorated smile of a person
who’d just overcome impossible odds.

Akari and I worked together to clean up after breakfast, then

got ourselves ready for school and stepped out of our apartment.
It was a nice, warm day without a cloud in the sky. We made our
way down to the nearest bus stop and got on board. About twenty
minutes later, the bus dropped us off right outside the main
entrance to the U of I. As I took a step off the bus, a single cherry
blossom petal fluttered past me, flitting right in front of my nose. I
turned my head and tried to follow it with my eyes, but it was soon
picked up by the breeze and sent careening upward into the sky,
where I lost track of it.
“C’mon, Kanae-kun! Let’s go!” Akari beckoned me, reaching
out her hand.
“Right, sorry. I’m coming.”
With Akari’s hand in mine, we took our first steps onto
campus—together. The brick road leading in wasn’t particularly
wide, lined on either side by rows of magnificent cherry blossom
trees. I looked up to a beautiful soft pink canopy; an endless
shower of petals came fluttering down to the ground like powdery
snow. I read in a brochure that this footpath, which ran from the
main entrance up to the central university building, was
affectionately dubbed the “Tunnel of Cherry Blossoms” by the
students and teaching staff. They were long past full bloom by
now, but it was still a gorgeous sight to behold.
Akari came to a stop without warning. Wondering why, I
turned to face her, and her gaze met mine. There were tears in her
eyes, and a warm, natural, completely uninhibited smile spread
across her face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing, I…I’m just really happy right now. Y’know?”
I felt her hand grow warmer in my own.
“Yeah? Well, just you wait,” I declared, “because the best is
yet to come.”
Akari nodded enthusiastically, and we set off once more,
walking hand in hand toward the rest of our lives. With heads held
high, we trained our eyes firmly on tomorrow—never once looking
back.
 Afterword

SOMETIMES, the more we love and admire someone, the

more likely we are to distance ourselves from them so we won’t
come away disappointed or heartbroken. And yet, in the vast
majority of cases, people won’t know how you feel about them
unless you put it into words. This can make establishing intimate
relationships with others a tricky business when you aren’t
prepared for rejections that might hurt both them and you. But it
still feels a little unfair, doesn’t it? Seeing someone’s most
heartfelt emotions go unrequited, I mean.
We know deep down that it’s not rational to expect the
other person to be a mind reader, and that it’s borderline toxic for
the would-be suitor to tell them one thing and expect that they’ll
interpret it a different way, when in reality, we should be able to
take someone’s word at face value. Still, when a person has such
strong emotions that they literally can’t act on them or put them
into words, we still empathize with them—we want those wild and
uncontrollable feelings to be rewarded, to mean something. This
essentially sums up how I felt about the female lead, Akari,
throughout the entire duration of writing this novel—more than
anything in the world, I wanted her to get her happy ending.

With that said, I’d just like to make a few acknowledgments

before I sign off.
To Mr. Hamada, my loyal editor: I know it was an awfully
hard road getting this one from the initial planning stages all the
way through final revisions, and I’m eternally grateful to you for
sticking with me through it all. Something tells me we’ll have
another uphill battle on our hands with this next book; I hope I
can continue to lean on your guidance.
To KUKKA, my incredible artist: just as I felt like I had no
future as a writer, and I should hang up my pen and move to
Hokkaido to eke out a meager living on a farm or something,
I received your first piece of concept art, and it gave me the
inspiration to get my messy manuscript in order and see this thing
through to the end. This book probably wouldn’t even exist right
now if it weren’t for your jaw-droppingly gorgeous illustrations.
Thank you so much for gracing these humble pages with your
artwork once again.
To my extremely supportive readers: it’s thanks to all of you
that this second novel of mine was able to come to fruition, so
thank you for that. And thank you for all of the fan mail and the
love you’ve shown me on social media—it really does help keep
me going from one day to the next. I have every intention of
continuing to write until I physically can’t anymore, so I hope at
least some of you will follow my continued works and come along
with me to wherever it is I’m going next.
Finally, I’d just like to give a huge shout-out to all of the
other incredible people in the editing department, my proofreader,
my designer, and everyone at the printing office who had a hand
in making this book possible.
And on that note, dear reader, I leave you. Until we meet
again.

MEI HACHIMOKU
2020
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mei Hachimoku
Born in 1994. Leo. I’ve been living in the same place for so
long, yet I still don’t know the name of whatever song it is they
use for the evening chime. If I have any stalkers that happen to
know, please shoot me a message on the DL.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

KUKKA
Super excited to have the opportunity to work on another Mei
Hachimoku novel! Been stanning COBIHAMU-CHAN hard lately.
Still playing Splatoon 2 in TYOOL 2020. Come find me online!
TWITTER HANDLE: @hamukukka
 Thank you for reading!
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