Chapter 1 – When That Summer Began

1 – Asai Kei – First time

Tuesday, April 27th. At precisely 4:30 PM, Kei stood up from his seat, picking up his incredibly light school-issued bag. All of his textbooks and reference materials were put into either his desk or his locker. The white bag he carried only held a pencil case and a paltry few notebooks.

His second year of junior high was shaping up to be exactly like the first. He was 20 days in, and nothing had meaningfully changed from his first year. Sure, the classrooms, textbooks, teachers, and classmates were all different, but he wouldn’t be able to say what exactly made them so different if he had been asked. If he had to compare it to something, it was like changing out an old bolt and tightening in a new one.

He gave a wave to some classmates that he talked to fairly often, but wouldn’t exactly call friends, as he left the classroom. He walked across the hallway, down the stairs, and towards the front entrance. As he walked, something came to mind.

In all fairness, there was one thing that stood out in his current second-year experience. It was a girl who had randomly inserted herself into his life by the name of Souma Sumire. She was also a second-year, but they were in different classes. Ever since they met, he had a hard time getting her off his mind. Whenever he climbed a stairway or turned a corner, he somehow expected her to be there. Granted, they weren’t exactly supernatural premonitions. He was wrong far more often than he was right.

So basically, she’s just got me on guard, Kei grumbled to himself like it was someone else’s problem.

Sumire Souma was a girl who constantly defied expectations. He could never truly predict what she would say or do, and it was scary to face the unknown. As a result, he constantly kept his guard up.

Their first meeting transpired on April 8th. Since then, he had run into her a total of 17 times over the following 12 days. The rate was something around three times every two days. It couldn’t have possibly been a coincidence, but what else would that have made it? She would come out of nowhere, exchange a few words with him that always managed to stick somehow, and then disappear as quickly as she came. Although she must have had some kind of hidden intention behind it all, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He did, however, have the vague feeling that it was all going to lead into something extremely annoying.

As he approached the final corner leading to the school entrance, a familiar feeling clutched at him. He once again expected to find Souma waiting just around the corner, but that hunch ended up being wrong. The only people he saw were a few random students changing their shoes. Following their lead, he opened up his own locker to find an envelope sitting atop the shoes he had been wearing the last six months.

The oblong envelope was sealed with a red heart symbol. It was so recognizable, yet so out of touch, like all the emojis on everyone’s phones that went unused. He picked up the envelope and checked the back, but it had no sender name. After changing out his school slippers for his sneakers, he walked off while opening up the letter. From just a light pull, the heart seal broke in the center. If it was really supposed to be a love letter, it could have been better designed.

As Kei pulled out the notepaper, he stepped into the school courtyard, immediately bracing from the strong April winds. Though the air was fairly warm, the wind dropped the temperature considerably. The paper in his hands fluttered as if trying to escape from him.

The note was extremely concise. It only contained two lines, one asking him to come to the rooftop tomorrow after school, and the second containing the sender’s name. His first impression was how beautiful the handwriting was, but he knew that impression had to be wrong. That, or the sudden turn of events had simply thrown his mind into confusion.

The second line on the paper read Souma Sumire.

Was it really necessary to go to all this trouble to call him out? At best, all she wanted was to corner him somewhere so she could start yet another one-sided conversation.

I really don’t get what Souma Sumire wants from me. Little did he know that thought would continue to haunt him all the way into high school.

Asai Kei began his residency in Sakurada during his sixth year of elementary school. He lived in the Nakano household for three and a half years until his graduation from middle school, whereupon he began living by himself. It was simply infeasible for a sixth grader to live alone, and certain circumstances kept him from being able to leave Sakurada. Fortunately, the Nakano household had more than enough space to accommodate an extra child.

Storing Souma’s letter away in his bag, Kei visited a bookstore off the highway where he purchased a translated mystery book. The sun was on its way towards the horizon by the time he arrived at the house with the “Nakano” nameplate. The recent remodels made it look like a brand-new house. He could hear tapping sounds coming from the sizable garden as he passed through the gate. He looked over to find a boy playing basketball by himself.

He was quite tall, with short-cropped hair and large, chestnut-brown eyes. His name was Nakano Tomoki, and he was the eldest son of the Nakano family. He also happened to share Kei’s grade and age. Kei had become quite close with him since they started sharing the same house. If Kei had to call anyone a friend, it would be him.

Kei could set his watch to the time Nakano Tomoki would be playing basketball every day, wearing his usual t-shirt, jeans, and Converse sneakers. The Nakano property only had a single court, and although significant renovations were done on the house, he was left with the same old, rusty goal. From what Kei had heard, Nakano Tomoki’s dad had built it during his high school years, so perhaps the family was simply attached to it. The net was torn and hung down in several places, but all that he really needed for a goal was the metal ring.

Nakano Tomoki’s form was wonderful as he threw the ball up. It passed through the ring and net before hitting the ground with a thump.

“You’re getting really good at that,” Kei remarked.

The other boy turned his way, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Hey, welcome back. You’re home late.”

“Yeah, a little. I stopped by Mikura for a bit.”

“Mikura?”

“The bookstore, y’know, the one just off the highway.”

Tomoki let out a surprised chuckle. “That’s not somewhere you just stop by! You should’ve come back here to get your bike first.”

“No need for that. It’s only a 25 minute walk from the school.”

“Yeah, and it takes ten minutes to get here from the school. Ah, geez.” Tomoki shrugged it off with a grin. He picked up his ball from where it fell. “Let’s play some basketball, Kei.”

“Sorry, I really don’t feel like moving around too much.”

“Oh yeah, and that’s why you hiked a 50 minute round trip.”

“Well, I felt like reading a book.” At that moment, a few things Kei wanted to ask Tomoki popped into his mind. Fortunately, basketball made for the perfect excuse to shoot off a few questions. “Alright, hold on. I just need to change.” With a quick wave of his hand, he headed towards the back of the garden.

Kei’s place on the Nakano property was an outbuilding located behind the garden. It was a strange concept to him at first, since he had originally come from a more densely populated area. He had been told that Tomoki’s grandfather used it as a studying annex. It was originally Japanese-style, but the remodels for the house also included their outbuilding. Now it had a more Western style, although in Kei’s mind it just ended up looking like a large doghouse.

He unlocked the door with his borrowed key and stepped in. The centerpieces of his room were a sturdy wooden desk and a bookshelf with a glass cover, remnants of the old study. Kei was reminded once again of the sickening mismatch between the wooden furnishings and his steel bed frame as he lay his bag down on the desk.

The desk was fairly empty, containing only a single pen stand and a cat keychain. Unfortunately, the metal fittings attached to the cat had long snapped, giving it no further use as a keychain. It wasn’t stable enough to stand as a figurine either, falling over with so much as a few pencil strokes on the desk. Kei turned away from the little molded cat to change into a plain T-shirt and jeans.

When Kei got back outside, Tomoki was sitting on the ball, looking restless. As soon as he saw Kei, he got up with an, “Alright, let’s get started.”

Playing basketball with Tomoki had become something of a staple in Kei’s life ever since middle school started. This time around, he lost the round of rock-paper-scissors, making him start as defense. He put his back to the basketball goal, then lightly closed his eyes.

Kei had the special ability of being able to recall past experiences in all five senses with impeccable detail. It could be considered a type of perfect recall. He used his mind to reproduce all his memories of playing basketball with Tomki. Stride length, speed, routes to the goal, types of shots, even eye movements and body language– all of it faithfully and perfectly reproduced in his head, the total memories likely numbering into the thousands.

Opening his eyes, he grinned. “I predict that you’ll feint to my right before pushing around my left side.”

Tomoki let out a long sigh. “Don’t bring your mind games into our round of basketball.”

“Well, it’s not like I can win against you any other way.”

“Seriously?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“I doubt it. Well, whatever.” Tomoki tossed the ball to Kei. After catching it, Kei lobbed it back. Although he didn’t know the official ruleset for a one-on-one match, the Nakano house rules were that the game started when the defense passed the ball to the offense. Kei shifted his feet to make it easier to move right.

Tomoki lowered his center of gravity and began running towards him. One, two bounces of the ball. After the third dribble, Tomoki shifted the ball to his left hand, leaning his body. But Kei could see his eyes pointed to the right. It was obviously a feint. His posture, stride, line of sight, and above all his facial expression, made it clear as day. A quick recollection of Tomoki’s past movements put together with the current information made it easy for Kei to decipher his next move.

Just as Kei had brought up earlier, Tomoki was feinting right before pushing to the left. It wasn’t actually a prediction from Kei as much as it was an understanding of how Tomoki would try to overwhelm him. But even so…

This is a feint too.

Kei was fully convinced, and turned his head to pretend he was following the feint. He could read Tomoki like a book. He could’ve done the rest with his eyes closed, knowing the exact timing, position, distance, and anything else. Still facing the feint’s direction, Kei stepped his foot forward, waiting till the last second to pull his face back to the front. Tomoki stopped in place, moved the ball in front of himself, pulled it up and jumped to make a shot. All exactly as Kei predicted. Kei’s reaction time was perfect.

But Tomoki was still smiling. Suddenly, the timing from pulling up his hands to making the shot was faster than Kei had predicted. Even as Kei reached his hand out to block, he knew. I’m never gonna make it.

The basketball passed over Kei’s hands. Tomoki’s now free hand pumped into a fist in front of his chest. Kei twisted his body to watch the basketball. It flew in a perfect parabola up into the air, looking like a black silhouette in the sunset. After passing through the basket, dull thunks echoed as it bounced on the ground.

Tomoki grinned, obviously having fun. “Well, that went perfectly, wouldn’t you say?”

Kei answered only after clicking his tongue. “If we were the same height, I could totally have blocked it.” Tomoki had a good four inches on Kei.

“Well, duh. Gotta take advantage of you being a shrimp whenever I can.”

“You’re just a monster. I’m barely below average, I’ll have you know.”

“Sure, sure. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a shrimp.”

“I don’t care what you’re concerned about. I’m only an inch shorter than the class average. When you use normal people, then it’s obvious who’s the shrimp and who’s the monster.”

“Haha! Say what you want, but I’m in the lead now.”

“Basketball should have height divisions, like what they do in boxing.” Kei picked up the ball as he continued their pointless argument. He almost followed up with, “I’m not losing today,” but he couldn’t quite believe in the odds enough for it. Another Nakano house rule was that the game ended when Tomoki hit 20 points or when Kei hit 10. Even with such a significant handicap, Kei only won a third of the time.

And that day was no different. With the typical results, Kei’s defeat was sealed at a score of 6-20.

Before Kei knew it, the sun had set. Their match over, he sat down on the ground, wiping the sweat from his forehead. Tomoki was lying down next to him, staring up at the sky. It was just before nightfall, so the sky had taken on a deep blue hue.

“You’re getting faster again,” Kei remarked.

“Really? Well, puberty and all that, I guess.”

“You’re really good, y’know. You should try out for the basketball team.”

“Nah. I’m already in the broadcasting club.”

Tomoki was in Little League basketball during elementary school, but opted for the broadcasting club once starting middle school. Kei had no idea why, but he was in no place to be complaining about Tomoki’s choice of clubs. It didn’t really matter anyway.

After giving a vaguely positive answer, Kei tried to keep his voice neutral. “So, there’s this weird girl in your class.”

“Weird girl? The one with long hair?”

“No, her hair’s pretty short. Her name’s Souma Sumire.” She had claimed to be in class 2-1, the same as Tomoki.

“Oh, you mean the class rep.”

Kei already knew she was the class rep. He had done a quick profile on her, but unfortunately didn’t find anything interesting. She wasn’t registered with a special ability, and by all accounts she was a regular second-year middle schooler. The only special notes were that she moved to Sakurada the previous spring and that she helped with student council duties during her first year. She had quit working with the student council starting her second year, and that along with a few other details made things look a little fishy to Kei.

Tomoki answered while performing some neck stretches. “I wouldn’t really say she’s weird. You got something going on with her?”

“Nothing really, she just kinda seemed interesting.”

“Ooh, is that the call of love that I hear?”

“That has never once crossed my mind.”

Tomoki looked back up at the sky. Kei followed his gaze so he wouldn’t be awkwardly staring at his face. The clouds drifted by with the appearance of black shadows.

“Well, hard to imagine someone like you ever liking someone,” Tomoki quipped.

“Rude. I like you, I’ll have you know.”

“Ew, no. I like girls, thank you very much.”

“You shouldn’t just assume all forms of liking are love. I like spaghetti, but that doesn’t mean I’m in love with meat sauce.”

“Oh, so I’m on the same level as food for you?”

“C’mon, that was just an example.” Kei actually didn’t like spaghetti all that much. He enjoyed eating it on occasion, but it was purely an example.

“Sure, whatever you say.” Tomoki shook his head in amazement. “But dude, it’s crazy to think you’d be interested in anyone.”

“Really?”

“Really, man. What’s going on?”

Kei tried explaining, stumbling over his words. “Well, I’ve met with her a few times, and we’ve talked a good bit. But today, after getting out of school, I found a letter in my shoe locker.” An oblong, white letter with a heart sticker on it, more specifically.

“From Souma?”

“Mhm. She asked me to meet her on the school rooftop tomorrow after classes are over.”

“She’s definitely going for the confession of love, then.”

“I mean, if it was any other girl, I could buy that. But Souma-san?”

“Ah, what difference does it make? She’s pretty normal, and super nice, right?”

Evidently, Kei and Tomoki had vastly different impressions of who Souma Sumire was. Kei doubted he’d be able to learn as much as he wanted. Oh well. Guess I’ll have to wait till tomorrow. “By the way, who’s that long-haired girl you mentioned?”

Kei went for an abrupt change of subject. It was an old specialty of his, a sort of “get out of conversation free” card when a topic ran dry.

“Um… oh! The weird girl with long hair. She reminds me of you.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“Well, she doesn’t talk much, never emotes, and generally doesn’t seem to care about anyone or anything around her. Her last name was kinda weird and hard to read… Haruki, I think?”

“How is that anything like me? I talk plenty, I’m very expressive, and my name’s Asai Kei.”

“Sure, you talk more, but expressive?”

Kei answered with a smile. “I have an impressively bad poker face.”

Tomoki shook his head in amazement. “Sure, whatever you say. It’s just like, you guys have the same kinda vibe.”

“Wow, that’s incredibly specific.”

“It’s the easiest way to put it. It’s like, neither of you ever seem to really put your heart into anything.” Tomoki’s face was unexpectedly challenging. Kei looked up at the sky above it, feeling a little awkward. The sky was a clear and deep blue following the sunset, and shadows chased after what light was left.

But even if he looked away, Tomoki’s voice was as clear as ever. “C’mon, it’s so obvious that you don’t even try to beat me at basketball.” The hesitation was palpable in his voice.

Kei wasn’t even sure Tomoki wanted to be having the current conversation, and he would’ve been just fine without it. In his opinion, words were best kept at the bare minimum, like when you were talking with a cashier during checkout. “Is that what it looks like?”

“Not on the surface, no. You look disappointed enough whenever you lose a point. But I have a hard time believing that you really care.”

“And why’s that?”

“I dunno. Call it a gut feeling.”

“Oh, really?” Kei stood up, brushing the dirt off his jeans. He could hardly see the frown on Tomoki’s face with what little light remained.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

If you were just gonna apologize, then you shouldn’t have brought it up. Kei almost spoke his thoughts, but that didn’t seem necessary. He instead answered with a change in subject. “Ah, no need to apologize. Besides, it’s almost time for dinner, but now I’m all sweaty. Mind if I take the shower first?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks.” Kei turned away from Tomoki. Immediately, his mind popped in with the excuse, It’s not like I love losing at basketball. But at the same time, it was true that he wasn’t concerned with the outcome of a game designed only for killing time.

I guess Tomoki was right, in the end.

Maybe it was less about his true feelings, and more about how significant they felt. If that was the case, then Tomoki was right. There really wasn’t much that he was putting his heart into.

✽

The following day was Wednesday, April 28th. Kei was sitting in his classroom after school.

Souma’s letter had told him to go to the school rooftop, but hadn’t specified a time. Deciding he’d kill fifteen minutes or so, he flipped open the translated mystery novel he had purchased the previous day.

He started off with the blurb written on the back. He generally wasn’t too interested in the back of books, but it only felt right, like starting off a seven-course meal with a light salad. Evidently, the book was written some 40 years ago, sold a decent amount of copies, and won a small-time award. But Kei only made it through the first few lines before a voice resounded inside his head.

Yo, Kei, got a favor. Wait in the classroom for a few minutes, would ya?

Tomoki happened to have the ability to project voices far away by specifying a person and a time. Kei kept reading his paperback, and by the time he finished the blurb on the back, his friend showed up.

“Sorry for that, dude. Gotta borrow your English-Japanese dictionary.”

“That’s fine, but why do you need it?”

“For club.”

Kei wondered about the possible uses the broadcasting club could have for his English-Japanese dictionary as he pulled it out from his desk. Personally, he doubted it’d even be good for as little as translating a western song title.

He spent the next while chatting with Tomoki, and before he knew it, 15 minutes had passed. He walked with Tomoki down the hallway before splitting up with him at the stairs. He had to climb up two flights of stairs to make it to the roof. As he climbed, he recalled the contents of the letter he had received.

Please meet me on the southern rooftop after school on April 28th. Souma Sumire.

It was entirely one-sided. Kei wasn’t exactly expecting a long and flowery introduction, but she could have at least stated her business with him.

His cheap indoor school shoes pattered against the stairs as he finally reached the top, opening the door to the roof.

Despite all expectations, the girl he found was not Souma Sumire.

Instead, there stood a girl with long hair and a blank expression. Kei actually knew her name, simply by virtue of having memorized the names of everyone in his grade. The girl standing before him was Haruki Misora.

She was a girl in the same class as Nakano Tomoki and Souma Sumire. Kei recalled the previous night, where Tomoki had called her a weirdo. Specifically, he said she never put her heart into anything, and that made her similar to him.

Haruki Misora stared straight at him, but Kei didn’t feel any presence in her gaze. Instead, he got the impression that even if he wasn’t standing there, she would still be staring in the exact same manner, completely unaffected. The waving of her long hair in the wind felt more meaningful than the gaze she was directing at him. Kei could tell exactly what Tomoki had meant. She lacked any sense of meaning or investment in her actions and reactions.

Kei pushed a smile onto his face, walking forward. Even as he moved, Haruki remained unchanged. She was being approached by a boy she didn’t know, and yet was completely unfazed. He raised his voice to talk with her as he moved.

“You’re in class 2-1, right?”

Haruki made no reaction for quite some time. It was as though she couldn’t even see or hear him. It wasn’t until Kei stopped moving that she made the slightest of sounds.

“Yes.”

The lapse of time before her reply made Kei uncomfortable, but he didn’t let it show. “Do you know a Souma-san from your class?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, great. Souma-san asked me to come here today. Would you happen to know where she might be?”

“No.”

Kei couldn’t even begin to understand the girl before him. He would sooner be able to have a conversation with a concrete wall. After thinking things over, he asked another question. “What’s your favorite food?” He wanted to hear something other than yes or no from her.

“I do not have one.” Despite the sudden question, Haruki was once again entirely unmoved.

“Oh. Then what’s your least favorite food?”

“I do not have one.”

“Well, it’s good not to be picky. Leads to a much healthier lifestyle.” Kei gave something of a random answer as a slight bitterness towards Tomoki began sprouting from inside him. Just where exactly do you see these similarities? I’m at least a little more human than her. “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you here? ‘Cause if you’re trying to be alone, I can get going.”

“I am here because Souma Sumire asked me to be. I did not come with the intention of spending time alone.”

Kei was surprised to get a full sentence out of her. Having reached some semblance of understanding, he sighed. “It would have been nice to bring that up earlier when I asked about Souma-san.”

The girl tilted her head, as if she didn’t understand him. Evidently, she wasn’t much for details.

Kei tried a new question. “Is there anything else you can tell me about Souma-san?”

“I do not understand what you mean by anything else.”

“Seriously, anything’s fine. I just want you to tell me anything you know about her.”

Haruki Misora lowered her neck down, then pulled it back up at the same speed. As far as Kei could tell, it was supposed to be a nod of affirmation, but it sure didn’t look like one.

“Souma Sumire is the representative of class 2-1. She instructed me to come here alone and wait for her, as she would be held up by her duties as representative.”

“Do you know what any of those duties entail?”

“No.”

“Gotcha.”

Kei couldn’t remember his class representative being called to a meeting, so he had no clue what Souma could have been busy with, but she no doubt was saddled with plenty of individual work. Ah, whatever. The most important thing was that Souma had obviously stacked the deck to make sure he and Haruki would meet each other.

“Do you know why Souma-san asked me to come here?”

“No.”

“Alright, then why were you asked to come here?”

“I do not know.”

“Same as me, I guess. Geez, she sure does whatever she wants.” Kei didn’t even know how to begin killing time with the weird girl he found himself with. Maybe they could shoot for a word-chain game? Kei had the strangest feeling that if he asked, she would just go along with it. He could start with, “avocado”, and then she would say, “doorknob”, he would follow up with, “baker”, then she would use, “kerfuffle”.

While Kei thought it would be incredibly interesting to watch a girl her age mutter “kerfuffle” without blinking an eye, he also realized there were more important things currently at play. Moving past his brief curiosity, he asked a more meaningful question. “Are you very close with Souma-san?”

Haruki slightly tilted her head. “I do not understand what you mean by close.”

“Oh, right. How about this, do you talk with her very often?”

“Were I to make a ranking, then Souma Sumire would be the schoolmate that I have talked to the most within the previous year.”

“Oh, so you were in the same class last year, too.” Kei thought back to the class placement chart he had received when he first entered middle school. Sure enough, Haruki Misora and Souma Sumire shared the same class, 1-4. “I guess that counts as pretty close.”

“Be that as it may, I do not believe that I am a reliable measure for the average middle school student in regards to making conversation.”

“You think so?”

Haruki nodded. “Since becoming a second-year student, you are now the schoolmate that I have talked to the most.”

It seemed that taking first place wasn’t as much of a hurdle as Kei had expected. It was only his first time meeting her, after all. “That’s alright, we’re only 20 days into the school year. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to chat it up with more people.”

“Is there a need for me to make conversation with others?”

“Uh, well, I dunno. I guess there’s no strict need, if you put it that way. You can do what you want.”

Haruki immediately fell silent. Kei couldn’t help but wonder if she was following his advice. At the same time, he couldn’t come up with any more conversation either, so he leaned into the roof’s fencing. He watched the many students heading home down the street below them, their conversations just barely buzzing into his ears from the distance. It felt nice to be away from all the usual hubbub.

Kei and Haruki stood in silence on the rooftop for quite some time. Souma Sumire was still nowhere to be seen. Kei decided he’d wait for another five minutes before doing something else. Of course, that left him with either going home or a word-chain game.

As Kei weighed his options, Haruki finally moved from her position of staring at the rooftop entrance and sidled up quite close to Kei. She wasn’t paying any attention to him, however. Her gaze remained fixed on the street below them. Although Kei had a hard time believing it, she almost looked interested in something for the first time.

Studying her face, she was still just as emotionless and transient as before. He couldn’t even find a hint of sentiment in her expression. It was less like the night sky and more like a dark void of feeling. Shaking his head, Kei followed her gaze.

Various students were walking down the street, although the overall number had decreased. Notably, just before the corner on the other side, there was a girl looking down at the ground. She was far too young to be a middle school student, and seemed more around the age of elementary school. It was easy to tell with a single look at her that she was crying.

Maybe she had fallen and scraped her knee. Maybe she was lost. It could have been one of several reasons, and she was too far away for her sobs to ever reach the rooftop. But Haruki Misora’s gaze was undeniably fixed on this young girl, crying all alone.

Kei turned his eyes back to Haruki. Her long hair swayed in the wind, its fine, gentle curls flaring outward. Her thin lips moved ever so slightly.

“Reset,” she mumbled, in a voice that was slightly deep for a girl, perhaps even husky.

It was short and slight, almost like a sigh.

✽

Tuesday, April 27th. At precisely 4:30 PM, Kei stood up from his seat, picking up his incredibly light school-issued bag. All of his textbooks and reference materials were put into either his desk or his locker. The white bag he carried only held a pencil case and a paltry few notebooks.

His second year of junior high was shaping up to be exactly like the first. He was 20 days in, and nothing had meaningfully changed from his first year. Sure, the classrooms, textbooks, teachers, and classmates were all different, but he wouldn’t be able to say what exactly made them so different if he had been asked. If he had to compare it to something, it was like changing out an old bolt and tightening in a new one.

He gave a wave to some classmates that he talked to fairly often, but wouldn’t exactly call friends, as he left the classroom. He walked across the hallway, down the stairs, and towards the front entrance.

He found a letter with a heart sticker in his shoe locker, and on his way home, bought a translated mystery novel from a bookstore just off the highway. When he finally made it home to the Nakano residence, Tomoki asked him to play a round of basketball.

Everything continued, feeling like some sort of pre-planned program. Kei lost the rock-paper-scissors match, and faced Tomoki with his back to the basketball goal. He lightly closed his eyes to reproduce his memories of playing basketball with Tomoki. Stride length, speed, routes to the goal, types of shots, even eye movements and body language. Suddenly, he was struck with a small pang of discomfort.

My memories don’t feel as close to me as they usually do.

That thought alone didn’t fully encompass the feeling, but he wasn’t sure how to describe it. For some reason, as he closed his eyes to try and remember the past, it all felt slightly farther away than usual.

With a slight determination, like holding his breath before going underwater, Kei tried to remember, “yesterday.” He brought to mind the day before Tuesday, April 27th. It should have been April 26th, but it wasn’t. It was still April 27th somehow.

As soon as he tapped into that consciousness, information flooded his mind. The present, the next moments, even the next day, going up to the rooftop after school on April 28th.

The nearly 24 hours worth of memories that washed into him brought with it a wave of nausea. His head throbbed and his consciousness flickered, and Kei defensively pressed his hand into his head to try and keep himself awake. He squeezed his eyes shut, becoming engulfed in a reddish darkness.

Beyond the darkness, he heard Tomoki’s panicked voice. “What’s wrong?”

Kei opened his eyes, pushing a smile onto his face. “Oh, it’s nothing. I just have a bad feeling that I’m going to lose.”

It came as a past memory of a future yet to come. Kei was going to lose the current basketball game, scoring a measly 6 points to Tomoki’s 20.

Time has turned back on itself again.

He could bounce back fairly easily because he had experienced the same phenomena several times before. Ever since gaining his perfect recall nearly two years ago, the same event had occurred once every few months. All he knew was that it had to be an ability. Somebody somewhere had the ability to interfere with time itself.

The additional 24 hours were scattered about in his mind. Kei slowly pieced them together, putting them in chronological order. By the time he put everything in its place, it all seemed to culminate at a single word.

A girl standing on a roof, her beautiful, wavy hair swaying in the wind. Her thin lips muttering something in a voice mixed with a resigned sigh.

Reset.

Immediately after that word, time itself rewound.

How can this be? Kei thought to himself. As soon as that girl whispered, “Reset,” time reverted from April 28th to April 27th. Was it all just a coincidence? Was it completely unrelated?

And what of Haruki Misora?

Could that small, frail girl truly cause such an event? Could she hold the capability to return the world, and perhaps even the universe itself, back to the past? Was she capable of wielding such power with a single word alone?

It’s entirely unbelievable.

A chuckle bubbled out of Kei’s mouth before he could stop it.

“Seriously, Kei, what’s going on with you?” Tomoki’s voice registered in Kei’s head.

“Oh, I was just remembering something really fun.” He opened his eyes, which had closed unwittingly to concentrate on his memories. He saw Tomoki’s concerned expression, but it wasn’t the time to be worried about such things.

There was an ability to rewind time. That ability was very valuable to someone like Kei. In fact, once he got to thinking about it, he realized it had already helped him once before.

And Haruki Misora had put it perfectly.

Reset.

Kei couldn’t have imagined a more fitting word for that ability.

Still holding in his laughter, Kei spoke to Tomoki. “C’mon, let’s finish our game.” He needed the day to end as quickly as possible.

The sooner tomorrow came, the sooner he would be talking with Haruki Misora again.