Chapter 1 – Sakurada Reset

1 – October 25th (Wednesday), 7:30 AM

It was a quiet morning. Was it the soft light leaking through the curtains that woke him up? Or was it the faint sounds of sparrows chirping in the distance? Whichever the case, it was a very peaceful awakening.

Asai Kei rubbed his eyes, got out of bed, and stood by the window. He grabbed the curtains, throwing them back. The previous night’s rain had already ended, and the clear, beautiful sky was a wondrous sight. He opened the window, and two sparrows perched on a nearby electric line flew off at the same time. Their two small shadows glided across the ground, passing over a puddle. The wind blew, shaking the reflection of the sky and clouds from within the puddle.

It was a wonderful morning. One that made it hard to believe that all abilities had disappeared from Sakurada the previous night. It was a quiet morning that made it hard to imagine Souma Sumire crying from inside his bathroom.

Asai Kei squinted in the morning light, thinking, So now I have two sets of memories.

The previous night, all abilities had disappeared from Sakurada. More accurately, all memories of abilities had disappeared. It was a city-wide tampering of memory that replaced all recollections of abilities with believable but fake replacements of a world without abilities.

There was only one exception to that phenomenon in the entire world. Asai Kei, the one with the ability to remember everything. He could remember Sakurada’s abilities.

Which leads to my two sets of memories. One was real, the memories of his life with the existence of abilities up to the previous night. The other was false, a set of memories dedicated to a world where he never had an ability.

How did that make him feel?

Man, this really sucks. Grief struck at his core.

Abilities aside, his memories each had one significant difference.

Even now, I have to compare the two of them. Haruki Misora and Souma Sumire. Each set of memories was a time capsule dedicated to one of the two individuals.

There were his real memories. Memories of abilities existing up until the previous night. In them, Kei was always with Haruki. She was always watching him with her pure eyes. Souma Sumire had died in the summer of two years past.

There were his false memories. A time where he had never gained an ability to begin with. Souma Sumire didn’t die in those memories. She was always nearby. They attended Ashiharabashi High School together. But in exchange, Haruki Misora was gone. Kei had never even met her.

But why is Haruki gone?

He could understand Souma not dying. Her death and subsequent revival were all tied to abilities, and would have been otherwise impossible. In a world without abilities, it would only be natural to assume she had never died.

But that doesn’t mean Haruki had to be erased. What was wrong with having memories of all three of them spending the last two years together?

Unfortunately, Haruki Misora couldn’t be a part of his fake memory. In fact, she had fallen ill to some mysterious ailment just before starting her second year of middle school, and hadn’t attended any kind of schooling since then.

That can only mean some kind of ability was used on her. An ability must’ve made something happen to her that would be inexplicable without claiming she disappeared before her second year of middle school.

Kei had something of a prediction regarding what that ability could be.

Urachi Masamune had most likely rewound Haruki Misora’s time. Probably to sever the connection between Asai Kei and Haruki Misora. All to remove the threat of a reset.

Haruki Misora must’ve been rewound to a time before she met Kei, which would’ve been before her second year of middle school, and everyone’s memories had to have been altered to allow that. It had turned Haruki into a girl who frequently fainted from illness.

All Kei could do was quietly accept that fact. This must be part of the plan, too. Everything so far had gone perfectly according to the plans laid out by Souma Sumire. All so that no matter what Urachi Masamune managed to pull off, Kei could reset it away if he so wished. The preparations were all in place.

Urachi-san’s plan is the least of my worries. He had other things to focus on for the time being.

Kei glanced out the window, and a clock entered his peripheral vision. He sighed.

He had about 30 minutes before he needed to leave for school.

He didn’t have much of an appetite, but forced himself to eat some leftover chicken curry before leaving his apartment. The soles of his sneakers were wet and uncomfortable from running around in the rain the previous night, but they were likely to dry off before long.

As he began walking towards Ashiharabashi High, Kei took out his cell phone.

He began with a call to Haruki’s house. Her mother answered, and with some suitable excuses and reasoning, he managed to arrange a meeting with Haruki that afternoon. He put away the cell phone, placing both hands in his pockets.

I doubt Haruki herself will be much of an issue. He was so familiar with the Haruki of two years ago, after all.

That Haruki was governed entirely by only three rules. She practically never refused a request from someone. She was resistant to reset purely on request, but Kei knew a workaround for that.

The real problem is what’s in front of me. Kei’s gaze lowered down to his shoes.

After another ten minutes of silent walking, he arrived at Ashiharabashi High. It was almost time for morning homeroom, and students were hurrying inside. He followed the crowd and changed into his indoor shoes. He went up the stairs, across the hall, and stood before the door to his classroom.

His breath caught as he stared at the ordinary door that he saw almost every day.

He remembered Souma Sumire crying in the bathroom. He knew the sadness that future sight had forced upon her. He couldn’t forget the suffering she went through to cast away her identity by dying and coming back.

He remembered the tremor in her voice as she confessed through her sobs that she couldn’t forgive the Souma Sumire of two years ago, the one who set everything into motion.

But now, we’re here. A world where she could forget all her overwhelming suffering.

On the other side of the door was Souma, a girl who would never dream of gaining the ability to know the future. Someone who never had to worry about being a Swampman. Just an ordinary girl.

He made up his mind before sliding the door open. As soon as he did so, a voice rang out.

“Kei!” It was a bright voice.

Souma Sumire. She sat in Haruki Misora’s seat. Of course, for all she knew, it was her seat. She smiled, waving a hand. “Morning, Kei.”

His breath caught when he saw her.

It should have been obvious. He should have seen it coming.

But it had never crossed his mind until he saw her face to face.

I can’t believe it.

Souma Sumire, that stray cat of a girl… didn’t at all seem like a stray cat.

Asai Kei forced a smile. “Morning, Souma.” He kept his tone as light as possible as he moved to his seat. He greeted Nakano Tomoki, Minami Mirai, and other classmates along the way.

The ten steps to his seat felt like a much greater distance. When he finally reached it, he collapsed into the desk.

He had only just realized why Souma Sumire always seemed like a stray cat.

Souma’s always alone. She was solitary… and she was lonely.

She could put on a smile, and she could feign a bright, cheery tone. But she couldn’t suppress the loneliness that exuded from inside her. The Souma Sumire that knew the future had refused to let anyone into her heart.

Kei had always likened her loneliness and solitude to that of a stray cat’s. High-minded and whimsical, perhaps letting someone approach and stroke her back, then quickly scampering off. Creating walls that nobody could climb. Accepting her solitude as part of herself. She was like a stray cat, having a dark side that didn’t quite fit with a domesticated cat.

But the Souma Sumire before him wasn’t like a stray cat at all. She was just a normal, straightforward girl. She looked so happy.

But if she got her ability back, then she would revert. She would be the girl with future sight, that stray cat of a girl. The solitary girl that was connected to no one.

A voice called from somewhere. “What’s wrong, Kei?” It was Souma Sumire’s voice.

Kei, head still on his desk, turned to look at her. Souma had at some point come to stand right beside him. She was perhaps a little short for a first-year high schooler, but she fit right in with her prim and proper Ashiharabashi High uniform. Kei couldn’t help but notice how new the uniform looked, as though she were attending her very first day.

“You look kind of… worn out,” she noted. Her eyes darted down, and she looked hesitant, timid even.

Souma’s acting timid? The very thought made his head spin. “It’s nothing, really. Just not a morning person.”

“I know that, but… you’re not like this other mornings.”

“What’s so different?”

“I don’t really know, but… you just feel off. And you look so tired, as if you suddenly aged overnight or something.”

Kei smiled. “It’s really nothing. I just stayed up all night reading.”

“If you say so. You really shouldn’t stay up like that.” The school bell rang, and Souma put her mouth close to Kei’s ear. “I made lunch for both of us today. Let’s eat together. Seeya later,” she whispered. She looked a little embarrassed, but beamed a lovely smile at him as she returned to her seat.

I can’t believe it, Kei repeated to himself. To think that Souma Sumire would be so direct if she didn’t have her ability. She was so honest, so transparent, so happy.

It made him wonder how far she had to push herself with the ability to see the future. How much did she have to distort who she was?

It was definitely something to be sad about. But, as far as Kei was concerned… that girl who was so distorted by her ability was Souma Sumire.

The Souma before him didn’t at all look like Souma Sumire. She seemed more like a fake designed to imitate her.

Loss of abilities aside, high school life hadn’t changed in any drastic way. Lessons proceeded on, and Kei used the time to study the classmates around him.

He couldn’t stop his gaze from drifting towards Souma Sumire.

Even in middle school, they were in different classes, so it was his first time seeing her sit in class with him. Outside of the fake set of memories that popped into his head the previous night, of course. Souma took class very seriously. She switched through several colors of pens, taking rigorous notes. She seemed to take great pleasure in copying down the contents of the lesson. Then, upon closer inspection, Kei noticed something.

Hm, that’s a new notebook. It only made sense. Everyone might have had memories of Souma being their classmate since the beginning of the school year, but those memories were fake. In reality, it was her first day taking classes at Ashiharabashi Senior High. She would have needed to procure a new notebook.

She was writing so carefully simply because the notebook was new. That was a type of reflex for most people. It certainly wouldn’t have been unique to Souma.

Didn’t she notice that all of her notebooks were brand new, though?

Kei shook his head, pushing the question aside. Sure, the notebooks were new, but so what? That by itself didn’t really prove anything.

Kei cast a glance around the rest of the classroom.

Souma’s not the only one who’s changed.

His eyes landed on Minami Mirai.

The Minami that Kei knew always masked her face with an unconditional smile. That smile stayed on at all times, even during class. But the Minami he was looking at wasn’t smiling. She was glaring rather sulkily out the window. She seemed closer to expressing her true self than the girl who had a special ability.

I guess I never thought of her the same way that I did Haruki, Souma, and myself. That wasn’t very fair.

Minami Mirai was just another person with her own feelings, thoughts, and motivations. The self and past that she herself had created through acting on her own will was no less significant than anyone else’s, and deserved to be treated as such.

I couldn’t have even made it here without her.

Intentionally or not, she had helped him. She was researching Souma before abilities disappeared from the world. That research was the catalyst that led Kei to the reality of Souma Sumire’s two year long plans.

Without her, I would’ve had to give up a long time ago.

Her wish was to be included in the group of people with special abilities. She wanted to be on par with Souma Sumire, Haruki Misora, and Asai Kei. But she already had a strong connection to them. Sakurada’s very future hinged on her existence. Her impact was so much greater than she ever gave herself credit for.

Would it have made her happy to know that before abilities disappeared? Or would she just put on the same smile as usual? Or maybe she’d shake her head with a frown, saying, “That’s not what I wanted,” or, “You wouldn’t understand, Asai-kun.”

But that girl was now gone. Her past was cut off, treated as nothing, and she was left staring out the window in boredom.

But I guess I’m in no position to morally posture about that being good or bad. Resetting was no different, after all.

Urachi Masamume may have taken away 40 years from Sakurada, But Kei had taken plenty away from other people with resets. He had taken away joys and sorrows to selfishly forward his own goals.

The Reset obliterated three days of people’s lives. It treated everyone’s last three days of existence as insignificant.

But I knew that every time I made my decision. He couldn’t always know if it was the right thing to do, but he had believed the best future possible could only come about by taking away certain things.

With that out in the open, he couldn’t condemn Urachi as wrong and laud himself as right. It was just a battle between two selfish people. Whether Minami looked fake without that plastered-on smile or not was just his own opinion.

Time flowed forward so smoothly and continuously that it was almost irritating. Kei had several short conversations with Souma and Tomoki during breaks. They were so natural, as if the three of them had always been together like that. And in his fake set of memories, they had.

But Kei was keenly aware each and every time of Haruki’s absence.

He could no longer feel the gaze of the girl who had always been beside him. He was always conscious of the fact that he was not being reflected in those lovely, striking, jewel-like eyes.

“What’s going on, Kei? You’re really not yourself today,” Souma Sumire commented, smiling.

Kei pushed on his own smile, looking out the window. “I’m just kinda tired. Felt off ever since this morning.”

The pale blue sky was calm and tranquil, like a peaceful sea.

But all Kei could hear was the continual sound of the last night’s rain.

✽

There seemed to be more lines around her eyes.

That was Haruki Misora’s first thought about her mother, who was walking into the hospital room.

You have lost the last two years and seven months of your memories, the man who seemed like a doctor had said.

That would have meant that the face of her mother that she could recall was from two years and seven months prior. She would have to look different after that much time.

Haruki’s mother watched her closely as she sat on the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“There are no problems,” Haruki replied, before realizing that was not entirely accurate. “To my knowledge,” she appended.

“That came as a surprise. You were doing so well lately.” Her mother’s lips twisted in what Haruki assumed was a smile as she took out some clothes from a bag she was carrying. Her mother had stayed at the hospital all last night, returning home just prior to get Haruki some clothes. “Here, get changed. We’ll head somewhere for lunch before going home.”

Haruki nodded, stripping off her pajamas. She put on the long-sleeve T-shirt, jeans, and lightly-fitted blouse her mother handed her. Haruki didn’t remember owning such clothes, but assumed they had to be hers. They had likely been purchased somewhere during the two years and seven months she could no longer remember.

“Those jeans are a little long for you,” her mother commented.

“That is preferable to them being too short,” Haruki replied, putting on her shoes. She picked herself up from the bed, and the extra room in her jeans caused them to slip down.

“Did you lose weight?”

“I do not know.” Without any recent memories, Haruki had nothing to compare her current body size to.

“Well, you could definitely afford to put on a few more pounds. You’ve always been underweight.”

That was something Haruki could remember. Her weight had been consistently below average since elementary school. “I will take that into account.’

“Looks like we’d better buy you a belt first. Then we’ll get a nice lunch, and a cake to celebrate your discharge.”

“I was only in the hospital for one night.”

“A discharge is still a discharge. I’m just glad nothing came up.”

“I apologize for the inconvenience.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. You don’t need to apologize.” Her mother quickly folded up the pajamas and put them in her bag. She then retrieved the clothes in the closet, which Haruki had been wearing when she was sent to the hospital. Haruki didn’t remember owning those clothes either, but they were quickly folded away into her mother’s bag. “The doctor is busy treating another patient, so we’ll just let the nurse know we’re going.”

Clutching her bag, Haruki’s mother began walking out. Haruki followed behind.

When they left the room, Haruki found herself assaulted with sudden clamor. The hallway was very busy, and Haruki could hear an alarm blaring somewhere. The alarm noise was strangely flat. A man in a white coat quickly made his way past them and walked into the opposite hospital room. As he opened the door, the alarm noise got louder.

The room’s nameplate only bore one name. Naturally, Haruki didn’t recognize it.

“What are you doing? Get over here,” her mother urged with an unusual strength.

It was only then that the recognition came to Haruki.

Someone has passed away in that room. Or at least, they would soon.

Haruki’s mother had always tended to avoid being around such incidents. With no reason to go against her mother’s instruction, Haruki began walking behind her mother once more.

Her mother’s tone took on an odd cheer. “I got a call this morning from someone who went to middle school with you.”

“Is that right?”

“It was a boy. That bring anyone to mind?”

“No.” Haruki shook her head. She couldn’t come up with anything.

“I’m quite sure his name was Asai-kun. Were you friends?”

Asai. A name she had never heard before. Haruki hadn’t lost any memories of being in her first year of junior high. She could remember that time like it had just happened. But was there a classmate by the name of Asai? She didn’t know. She hadn’t bothered to remember half of her classmate’s names in the first place.

If I can’t remember his name, then we certainly weren’t friends. After coming to that conclusion, Haruki once again shook her head. “No.”

“Really?”

“I do not remember. It is possible that I forgot.”

“Oh…” Her mother’s expression changed. It became very complicated, and Haruki was unable to read it. “Well, he mentioned a class reunion.”

“A class reunion?” Haruki wasn’t familiar with that concept.

“Yes. At any rate, he asked if he could come visit this evening, and I told him he could.”

“Understood.” If her mother wanted to meet him, then there was no reason to make a fuss.

“Maybe talking to him will bring back some of your memories.”

Would it really? Haruki still didn’t feel as though anything had been lost. She just believed it because everyone else told her that was the case.

Would it even be possible for her to get her memories back? And even if it was, would there be any point? Could she get memories back that she didn’t even care to recall?

Haruki couldn’t answer those questions, and decided to remain silent.

Her mother tilted her head, taking a good look at Haruki. “I wonder what this Asai-kun is like.”

Haruki Misora couldn’t have cared less about that.

She didn’t know, and she didn’t even want to know.

✽

When lunch period rolled around, Souma Sumire placed two bentou boxes atop Asai Kei’s desk. “Where d’ya wanna eat?”

Kei almost said that he was fine to stay in the classroom, then stopped short. “Let’s go to the southern building’s rooftop.”

“But the door up there is locked.”

“I know. We’ll just eat on the landing.”

It was supposed to be his and Haruki’s place.

Two years before, the southern middle school building’s rooftop had been a place for all three of them. In the same way, the stair landing leading to the roof of Ashiharabashi High had become a place for Kei and Haruki. He didn’t want to go there with anyone else.

But Kei couldn’t shake the feeling that he had to go there and be alone with Souma. If only so that he could feel the sad awareness that Haruki’s absence would bring.

“Won’t it be all dusty up there?”

“Don’t worry. This school is better cleaned than you might expect.” Kei stood up, grabbing the two bentou boxes from his desk.

As he left the classroom and walked down the hallway, he chatted with Souma, who was keeping up beside him. “Do you remember Haruki Misora, by chance?”

“Haruki? From middle school?”

“That’s the one. You were in the same class your first year.”

A slight frown crossed Souma’s face. “Well it’d be kinda hard to forget her. She randomly fainted, then stopped coming to school. I heard she got some kind of infection that’s hard to treat.”

“For what it’s worth, it wasn’t an infection.” Quite to the contrary, Haruki Misora was in perfect health.

“So wait, you knew Haruki-san?”

“A little bit.”

“Well, what’s all this about?”

“Oh, she just crossed my mind recently. I wonder how she’s doing.”

After a short silence, Souma answered, “Well, it’d be good if she got back into school by now.” Her tone was closer to confusion than sadness. No doubt she was baffled as to why Kei would bring such a topic up.

You forgot, Souma. We spent an entire summer talking with her two years ago. And then Souma Sumire died.

For all her talk about loving communication, the only words that Souma Sumire had said that summer were for the purpose of connecting two other people. She never spoke a single word about Souma Sumire, never said anything that could bring herself into the spotlight. And that summer came to an end before Kei could even try to get to know her any better.

“Well, like I said, it was just a coincidence that I thought of her.”

Perhaps he was too late, but he wanted to try talking with Souma Sumire. Even the one before him that seemed so much like a fake. She was definitely the real Souma Sumire, she just didn’t know about abilities. He wanted so badly to talk with her.

They passed down a corridor leading into the southern school building. The southern building only had special classrooms for arts and sciences and the like, so it remained relatively quiet during lunch break.

Kei posed a question as he walked up the stairs. “So, Souma, what are your dreams for the future?”

Surprise crossed Souma’s face as she looked over to Kei. “That’s quite the change of topic.”

“Ah, just another thought I had. Like the one about Haruki-san.” Kei had never expected to start using “san” with Haruki’s name again. He had done away with that formality so long ago that the honorific felt alien.

“Future dreams, huh?” Souma’s answer was rather serious. “Well, they’ve been all over the place. I wanted to be the director of a zoo in elementary school.”

“A zoo?”

“A school field trip really solidified that for me. The penguins were just so cute.”

“I see.” Kei could get behind that. If he had to rank his top five animals, penguins would be cute enough to make it up there.

“Then for a while I wanted to be a picture book author, then a fashion designer.”

“What about now?”

“I’m not sure. Going to a decent college and getting a stable office job seems about right. Kinda shooting for accounting right now. I hear that office jobs are more resistant to economic recession.”

“Well, that’s a pretty grounded goal.”

“Not really a goal. Just something I kinda made up in the moment.”

“Then do you have anything approaching a goal?”

Abilities or not, Kei had a hard time imagining Souma Sumire just blindly skating through life without any greater purpose. She was the type of person who seemed to always chase after the one goal she set for herself.

But Souma shook her head. “I kinda realized that any job would work, to be honest. As long as you really put your all into it, anything could be enjoyable. Even a convenience store register job could be fulfilling in its own way, at least more than just trying to play whack-a-mole with a dozen different options.”

They passed the final landing, being greeted by the door leading to the rooftop.

Souma Sumire’s eyes narrowed. “This sure takes me back. The rooftop was always our hangout spot in middle school.”

But her version of “our” did not include Haruki Misora.

They sat together on the stairs, eating lunch while chatting about all sorts of things.

Kei learned so many things he had never known. He found out her zodiac symbol, her blood type, and her favorite season.

Souma smiled as she placed her lid back onto her empty bentou box. “You’re a little strange today, you know that?”

“Am I really?”

“You bet. It’s not like you at all to ask these kinds of questions.”

“Well, I just thought I’d like to get to know you better.”

He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. They were honest, but they weren’t something he should have shared with her.

He always let his guard down around Souma. There was a certain freedom in the fact that she knew everything, and could never be surprised by anything he shared. But the girl beside him wasn’t the impervious Souma Sumire whose every word and action was guided by future sight.

Instead, the girl before him was starting to get moist eyes. He knew that couldn’t end well. But before he could even open his mouth, she spoke first.

“The reason I don’t have any more dreams for the future… is because I met you.” She clasped her hands together on her knees. “Back in elementary school, knitting was all the rage in my class.”

“You mean like hand-knit scarves and sweaters?”

“Yup. Stuffed animals, too. But I didn’t see what was so fun about it. Having to sit there and repeat the same process over and over and over just made me feel icky.”

Kei very slowly repeated the last word she had said. “…Icky?” He didn’t think that was something she would ever say. But maybe she had avoided that kind of word around him before, knowing that he didn’t like it.

“It was like being crammed into a small elevator. I felt like I was kept in this restricted, claustrophobic space. I didn’t like doing the same thing over and over again. Didn’t like school very much, either.”

“Because school is just doing the same thing over and over?”

“Exactly. You wear the same uniform, walk the same route, go to the same place. It just felt like I was slowly being crushed. You know what I mean?”

“Sort of.”

Souma smiled. “I was just being a normal teenager, really. I wanted to be free and liberated by growing up. But then… I met you. All of a sudden, that didn’t really seem to matter anymore.”

Kei was relieved by her saying that something didn’t matter. It was a phrase that more suited Souma Sumire. If something wasn’t essentially and truly important, then it didn’t really matter.

“Going the same route to the same school every day would be fine, as long as you were there. In fact, staying the same… would be better. I’m sure that… I’d enjoy knitting a sweater for you.” Her voice was quiet, trembling. As if trying to hide her presence.

Kei took a deep breath in, then let it out.

He searched for what needed to be said.

He spoke as slowly and deliberately as he could manage. “I noticed that… all your notebooks were brand new today.”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“It just kinda feels like… a brand new world has started today.”

Souma’s eyebrows knit into a new shape of confusion. “I like new notebooks as much as the next person, but isn’t that a little melodramatic?”

“Not at all, actually. What I mean is…” He tried pulling a Souma Sumire, using a metaphor to get across what he desperately wanted to say. “Say, for example, that all of our memories were fake.”

The girl he knew two years ago probably couldn’t speak in anything but metaphor. She knew so much, even the very future, and just couldn’t convey it. She would have to turn every conversation into a metaphor. Kei suddenly found himself in the same position.

Souma Sumire, sitting beside him in absolute ignorance, smiled lightly as she tilted her head. “So, something along the lines of the five-minute hypothesis?”

The five-minute hypothesis was a thought experiment suggesting that the whole world may very well have been created in its entirety no more than five minutes ago. That meant that any memories from more than five minutes ago– The previous night’s dinner, the cherry blossoms blooming in the spring, the birthday present from last year– were all complete fabrications, implanted at the world’s creation five minutes prior.

The theory was logically unfalsifiable. After all, if everything was created five minutes ago, there would be no reason to trust anything in the past or the present as evidence to the contrary.

Kei gave a small nod. “Well, yeah, something like that. But less that the whole world was created five minutes ago, and more that we were on another one until then. We could have had completely different memories, leading completely different lives.”

“And then those memories were overwritten, and we were placed in this world.”

“Yeah.” Kei knew that was actually their reality, with only small differences. The world wasn’t remade five minutes prior, but the night before. It wasn’t the whole world that was affected, just Sakurada. But one past was gone, and a new one written in its place. “Is it even right for us to stay together, when that could be the case?”

“Of course it is.” Souma’s affirmation was quiet, but resolute. “There’s no point to that assumption. Our memories always have the capacity to be wrong. Time passes, memories get murky, and you end up completely forgetting an event, or warping it entirely. That line of thinking is a meaningless venture.”

Kei tilted his head a few degrees, on purpose. “Memories have no meaning?”

As if preparing to explain a famous mathematical formula, Souma said, “My mind is dotted with incorrect memories, and those memories determine my emotions. The real, objective past becomes completely unrelated. Mistakes or not, it’s still okay to assume that I am who I am, and you are who you are, because of those experiences.”

That was certainly one way to approach it. To do nothing more than trust the feelings and memories of the present moment.

“Unless you’re suggesting you have a perfect memory, recalling the past with absolutely no mistakes?” she questioned.

Yeah. I do, actually. Everything. Sakurada’s abilities. Haruki Misora. The former Souma Sumire.

Those memories made him want to reject the girl who stood before him. She was unmistakably Souma Sumire, but not the Souma Sumire that Kei knew.

Not that he could ever say that to her.

Instead, he said, “A girl I know gave me a present. She gifted it in a very roundabout way, and I knew she put more effort into it than any kind of hand-knitted sweater. She worked hard to give me exactly what I wanted.”

Slight annoyance spread over Souma Sumire’s face. “Must be nice. What about it?”

“You’re right. Misunderstanding, or being wrong, none of that matters. I am who I am because of my memories, and those memories determine my emotions. So, I…” Asai Kei sighed softly inside. “I… really like this world. You’re here, smiling with me, and it’s like all the problems have been cleanly wiped away. Maybe this is the right answer I’ve been looking for. But… I still have my memories.”

He remembered abilities. He remembered Haruki Misora.

I can’t forget a single thing.

So…

“So I can’t be with you here forever.”

The girl before him knit her eyebrows. “I don’t really get what you’re saying.”

Kei nodded. “Yeah. Sorry. I’ll try to put it in a simpler way.” But he didn’t know how.

He didn’t want to lie, but flat-out telling her the truth would only sound like a lie. The only way he could say anything was to wrap it in mysterious half-truths.

“But, well…” Souma Sumire chuckled in what sounded entirely like a sigh. “If I’m hearing you right, you just dumped me, didn’t you?”

The smile that remained on her face was sad, solitary, and forced.

It made her look somewhat like a stray cat.