Chapter 1: Volume 1 - Prologue

“It’s a secret to everyone else, but when I grow up…”

“I’m going to be a witch.”

“How did it feel, when we called each other by name?”

“My heart throbbed.”

“Hey, what kind of feeling?”

“The same feeling as you, Michiru. I’m sure.”

Prologue: Spring Happenings

Spring, my first year of high school. That was when the first friend I ever had made claimed to be a witch. She was wearing our school’s blazer, and no matter how you looked at it she seemed like nothing more than an ordinary person. She was in fact wearing neither a pointy hat nor a black robe, and didn’t have a broom or a wand either.

“I’m going to become a witch in the future.”

“Huh…”

Normally I would have dismissed it as a joke, but there was a certain power to her words. 

A spell.

Idly letting the noises made in our classroom during lunchtime drift by me, I tried searching her eyes. They didn’t look like she was joking or trying to trick me. 

“By the way, since you said ‘in the future’, that means you can’t use magic right now… right?”

“Yeah. But I know what the weather will be like this afternoon.”

She then tried making a prediction: there would be passing showers starting this evening.

And she was right.

“Maybe you could guess based on the humidity.”

“No… I can’t explain it very well, but if I have to say I’d probably call it deja vu.”

Faced with her vague laughter, a small hope grew within me. 

Maybe this girl also knows that today is being repeated. 

The Sixth of April A

The first day of a new semester. The kind of day where cold winds blow past your feet. 

Blazer and skirt, neither with even a single speck of dust on them. A starched shirt. I was wearing my new uniform. 

I trembled from the sensation of everything being new. 

I was obediently sitting on my chair in a new classroom. Let my chest be filled with both hopes and worries about my soon to begin life as a high school student. 

The entrance ceremony was yet to start. My heart pounded quietly as I strained my ears, trying to pick up the voices of classmates whose names I didn’t even know yet. Doing so, I was able to hear a set of footsteps. 

Approaching the fickle and unorganized atmosphere that filled the classroom. 

Probably a teacher. Soon we’ll move to the gym and the entrance ceremony will begin, was what I was thinking as I felt a slight discomfort at the approaching footsteps. Tap, tap, tap. The sound of slippers and the hallway greeting each other. 

It sounded too hurried to have been a teacher. In that case…

A girl came rushing in through the still open door. She dominated the attention of everyone in the classroom, her two shoulder-length braids still vigorously bouncing up and down. The classmates she passed at the door were left stunned. Boldly ignoring the relentless gazes thrown at her from all over the classroom, she happened to put down a lightweight-looking backpack on the seat right in front of me. 

“Hey, did I make it in time… to the entrance ceremony? Or has it already ended?”

The first time I heard her voice still remains inside my chest. 

“…No.”

Hiding the uncertainty inside me, I took out a double-sided flyer adorned by the title  “entrance ceremony guidebook” from my bag and handed it over. The schedule for our first day was printed on it. Since it was mailed to our homes along with official school documents I would have expected her to have one too though. 

“Thanks. I forgot mine. I kind of left it back at home, somewhere near the door.”

Her pleasant voice left an impression that I’m sure even someone that wasn’t me would not be able to forget after hearing it just once. 

I looked around the classroom, and just as I thought the two of us had managed to draw quite a bit of attention. Any classmates whose eyes I met quickly glanced away, but the once disrupted atmosphere of the classroom couldn’t easily go back to the way it had been. 

“Ah, I should probably introduce myself.”

Not caring in the slightest about said unruly atmosphere, she turned to face me with her whole body.  

“I’m Inaba Michiru. Nice to meet you!”

Her unparalleled smile left me dumbfounded. 

Perhaps this will sound a bit cliche, but it was as if time had stopped for a moment. Like if someone had used magic. 

Three or four cherry blossom petals, carried up by the spring winds, flew into the classroom. Their dance broke and carried away the illusion of time having stopped. 

“I…”

Just giving my own name felt more embarrassing than it had any right to be. I’ll just say that I’m not a shy person. But in front of her, in front of Inaba-san, for some reason I couldn’t speak properly. The atmosphere the new semester had brought with it was probably to blame, or something. 

I decided to leave it at that.  

“A-Aizawa Ayaka… greetings.”

“Uh-huh.”

In contrast to me having trouble squeezing out even a single groaned word, Inaba-san let out an unconcerned laugh. 

“What are you reading?”

Inaba-san discovered the book I was holding. It would probably have been fine to just tell her normally, but instead I silently closed the book and showed her the cover. 

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The cover is the face of a book. So if she was interested, maybe it wasn’t the name she wanted to see, but the face. That was the kind of weird thinking that grazed my head. 

“Inaba-san, do you read?”

I brought it up figuring it could be an opportunity to start a conversation, but…

“No, not at all.”

“I see.”

And that was where I would have expected the conversation to end. At least I didn’t have even the slightest interest in continuing to talk. Not because I wanted to continue reading…

…but because there was a reason I couldn’t make friends. 

Not because I was sickly or because of household circumstances or anything like that. I had a very different reason. 

So the only reason the conversation continued was simply that Inaba-san didn’t let me go. 

“Do you know what club you’ll be joining?”

The answer had already been decided long ago. Whatever club it may be, I didn’t at all think I’d be able get along with the other people in it. 

“Worrying about it?”

That was why I hadn’t been planning to enter any clubs, but I didn’t exactly want to be thought of as an unmotivated and boring person either… I thought something like that, that I normally wouldn’t have. 

“What about you, Inaba-san?”

“I’ll pick the same as you.”

“…”

“I think is where you’re supposed to butt in with ‘what are we, best friends or something?’”

She was even telling jokes. It was just like talking with me in itself was Inaba-san’s only goal. That’s the kind of feeling the friendly smile on her face conveyed. I hadn’t met any people like that before. 

Not even one. That was why I had no idea how to respond. 

“Why do you care about me?”

I didn’t think we would get along. Since it was our first day of high school and all, why not just go find some people more similar to yourself?

“Umm… I don’t really have a reason, but if I have to say something it feels like we would get along, maybe. Sorry for interrupting your reading.”

“I didn’t say you were in the way or anything though.”

“I see, let’s talk more then!”

But back then I already felt something. A feeling that maybe should be called comfort, a feeling of harmony. Even if we had different hobbies and joined different clubs, just finding a person it was vaguely fun just to be with, I thought that kind of person would be special. 

Or maybe I was just beautifying friendship too much. 

This was the story of the sixth of April A.

I wonder what will happen tomorrow. 

Holding on to just a single shred of hope, I welcomed the next day.

The Sixth of April B

After the sixth of April A, comes the sixth of April B.

Just as expected I was once again sitting in my seat and waiting for the entrance ceremony to start. The atmosphere that accompanied the first day of school was slightly unruly. Classmates I knew the names of were building new friendships. 

I didn’t feel anxious or hopeful. I just felt alienated.

The alienation of not getting to feel anything new. Since it was the second time around there wasn’t really much that could be done about it though. 

The world repeats itself. 

Exactly as if drawing a picture. 

Just as if we’re being redrawn, the world repeats itself. 

Drawing multiple sketches, drawing, drawing, drawing a new sketch again, then drawing a clean version of your favourite sketch only. Just like that, the world kept repeating the same day. Repeating, repeating, repeating. 

I don’t know by who, but until a single day gets “chosen” and becomes “yesterday”.

The “yesterday” that people usually can remember is just the single day that gets chosen.

But I couldn’t forget. 

I didn’t know how long the world had been like this. It was already that way when I was born. If I closed my eyes, I could remember. 

The first time I was greeted by light, when my underdeveloped baby brain for the first time managed to make out the outlines of the world around me. 

No matter how old the memory may be, I could remember it just as precisely as I could what I had for dinner yesterday. That was my memory. 

I couldn’t forget. 

No matter how small it may be, I couldn’t forget even the smallest detail. 

Even the multiple days that existed on the backside of our world, all labeled with the same date yet all different, were no exception. 

People are creatures that forget. Even the most precious of memories get overwritten by new ones, dimming them without anyone realising. No matter how preciously they get stored, no matter how fervently someone tries to remember, memories slowly get worn away as time passes, finally disappearing completely. 

Today’s Inaba-san, who I wouldn’t expect to know anything about “yesterday”, once again started talking to me. 

With a smile that was hard to discern from the one in my memories.

“Do you know what club you’ll be joining?”

“The going-home club.”

Just like this, each date comes several times. Just like a sketch being redrawn. 

And when that happens we become strangers once more. 

Having made no promise to meet again.

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