Chapter 2: Volume 1 - CH 1

Chapter 1: Five-minute Four-day Deja-vu

The Seventh of April A

The entrance ceremony was yesterday. I was happy I only had to experience it thrice. Each day usually repeated about five times, which meant three was less than average. 

By the way, I had to start middle school seven times. It had gone past boredom and started feeling like hell. 

But the high school I entered this spring, Konohana High School, had a principal who was quite the upstanding person.

Recommended for his large amount of experience, he had learned that long, long speeches usually were not met with great reception by students. Had talked about how he was well aware that the contents of the speech would be flushed down the toilet by the morning of the day after tomorrow, along with anything we may have eaten during the day of the ceremony. 

I thought that the guests of honour should have learned from the principal. Their speeches had been far too long for safe exposure to humankind. 

As for other things I would want to mention, there was only one. 

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

I got acquainted with Inaba-san three times out of three. That kind of thing has never happened before. If I got acquainted with someone, what normally would have happened is that the day we got closer wouldn’t have gotten chosen, and we would have gone back to being total strangers.

But if we spoke on three days out of three, it didn’t matter which day got chosen. The next day we could talk as if already acquainted. At least I didn’t have to pretend I didn’t know her.

Inaba-san was the girl that sat in the seat in front of me, and with her double-braided hair it was also safe to say she was very cute.

With me being an Aizawa, I was first on the attendance list. So somehow I was seated at the very back, right next to the window. 

What a weird seating system. 

As for Inaba-san, I would say that she maybe came across as slightly mysterious. I didn’t get tired of looking at her. 

“When I had about ten minutes left to school I realised I had left home without bringing my lunch. Oh, because I ate school meals until middle school.”

It was during our break, and Inaba-san’s stomach was making cute noises. It was the second day of the new semester, but when it came to Inaba-san, I already had quite a bit of advance knowledge.

Things like which middle school she went to, things like which clubs she wanted to go take a look at, things like that the deciding factor for which high school she was going to go to had ended up being the cuteness of the uniform, things like stories about the dreams she had dreamed yesterday, things like that the first time she went to school by train had felt fresh and fun.

We had talked a lot “yesterday”.

“If onigiri or sweet bread is fine, you can just buy something at the school store on the second floor though…”

But, I had to act like I didn’t know about any of it. Suggesting something like “Couldn’t you have bought something at the convenience store near the train station?” was to be avoided even if my mouth was cut open. 

“Ah, I see! I’ll try going there when it’s time for lunch.”

The time Inaba-san told me about commuting to school was the sixth of April C, so until I could be absolutely certain that day had been chosen I had to pretend I didn’t know. By the way, if the sixth of April A had been chosen I could easily have known because a guard rail on the way to school would have been really bent. 

On the other hand telling apart B and C would have been rather difficult. Other than what we talked about almost everything had happened exactly the same way. It felt like the wise choice would be to wait for Inaba-san to say something, without bringing it up myself. Even if the likelihood of that happening was low.

And that’s about how far I had had time to think while passing the unbroken guard rail on the way to school. 

“Maybe it would be a good idea to keep some change in your passport case if something like this happens again in the future?”

“Oh, that does sound nice.”

“Though I’m guessing you just got carried away because taking the train to school felt too excit…”

A slip of the tongue. Brought about by our conversation, no doubt about it. It turns out I was the one getting carried away. 

“Wait, how did you know that? And here I was just planning to talk about it…  Hmm?”

Inaba-san tilted her head, seemingly confused. It was already too late for regrets. There was no way to put back words that already had left my mouth. Probably shouldn’t have said that. 

Based on the reaction I was getting, I could at least conjecture that the sixth of April B had been chosen. And she must definitely have thought I was weird after that. 

My heart was ringing like an alarm bell blood pounding in my ears, and I felt like I would start to sweat at any moment. 

Please just go away, this one day. Like you never existed. 

While praying that today wouldn’t get “chosen”, I hastily fumbled out an excuse. 

“Eh, uhm, I saw you come walking from the direction the station is in this morning, so then I thought that you maybe might be commuting to school.”

I turned away slightly while speaking. I couldn’t bring myself to meet her eyes. 

Inside my heart, I gave a silent vow. 

Starting tomorrow, I would always make sure to give myself some kind of landmark. If anything I should probably have started doing that earlier. Whether it be the position of my favourite cup, which page numbers I put a bookmark between, or which way a potted plant was facing. Anything would do.

“I see, so you saw me. That’s kind of embarrassing, maybe.”

Even though it had been nothing but a shameless lie, Inaba-san really did give me some embarrassed laughter in response. 

It was really cute. 

“Aizawa-san, do you also take the train?”

About half of the students at Konohana high school came there by bicycle, with the other half being pretty evenly split between buses and trains. A lot of people commuted from the surrounding area. In that regard, Inaba-san’s guess was actually pretty good. 

“I walk.”

“You walk? Does that mean you live nearby?”

She looked at me as if I was a protected species. My very reason for applying to this school had been that it was within walking distance. 

“I live on my own about a thirty minute walk from here. Something like that basically sums it up.”

“You live on your own?”

Inaba-san’s eyes opened up wide in an exaggerated motion of surprise. Maybe she could be called a girl with an abundance of emotions, or maybe just a girl who was prone to overreact. 

But while it probably had been a different matter if I had been a university student, leaving home as a high school student was also actually pretty rare. 

“My parents are big advocates of letting children take their own responsibility.”

“Isn’t that a bit too much responsibility?”

Well, in a way it kind of actually was. Maybe you could say there was some hate involved, or maybe saying I was being hated was more accurate. 

“Amazing! I can’t even cook on my own or anything. Hey, would it be okay if I came over sometime?”

“I guess I don’t mind…”

It was kind of a bit too big of a catch. I would never have thought that casting myself out in this high school would have led to meeting someone so interested in getting to know me. That was why this rapid approach from the first friend I ever had made left my heart unable to remain completely calm. 

An unexpected blessing, a stroke of unexpected luck. That was what it felt like. 

Of course, that probably meant that today would end up going away!

The Seventh of April D

Counting this time, I had now experienced the seventh of April four times. On average, I lived through each day five times in a row. 

On the seventh of April, Inaba-san managed to arrive just barely on time four days in a row. Each time sliding into the clasroom in a rather artistic manner.

Exactly the same thing happening four days in a row was, in reality, rather rare. For a species so at the mercy of their own whims as humanity, even actions that at first looked the same would usually slowly begin to diverge. 

Perhaps whatever made Inaba-san late happened first thing this morning. Like if she was watching some tv show that only got broadcast in the middle of the night and she was tired from staying up late every night, or something like that. 

Since I was unable to stay up during that time frame there was no way to confirm though. I couldn’t stay awake between ten in the evening and two in the morning. I could get up as early as two in the morning though, but whatever I did I just couldn’t stay awake until the date changed. I hadn’t been able to do so even a single time. 

While I was talking about it anyway, in my opinion there was no other machine as unfriendly as the tv. The same shows just kept being broadcast over and over, showing people making the same calm faces acting as if nothing was up, as if it all had been meticulously measured with a ruler… I hated it. 

Anyway, during the usual lunch break. 

“It wasn’t until I was a mere ten minutes away from school that I realised I had left my lunch at home…”

Today I had come prepared. In a change of plans, instead of bringing a lunchbox made up of leftovers, I had made sandwiches and brought them with me. 

Perhaps it would have been nice to just make lunch for Inaba-san too, but I got the feeling doing so would have gone beyond being perfectly prepared and into just coming across as suspicious. 

– A lunchbox just two days after we met? What’s up with that?

– Or rather, how did you know I forgot my lunch? Are you stalking me or what? …Disgusting.

Aaaah… just thinking about how Inaba-san could have reacted was scary enough. With me being a bit weird and all, I sometimes felt like I was starting to lose track of what normal people would find acceptable. 

“I brought sandwiches for lunch today, so do you want one too, Inaba-san?”

If I may say so myself, I think I brought it up rather naturally. I opened up my lunchbox and lined up a set of wrapped sandwiches on my desk. With that Inaba-san raised her head and burst out a bright smile. 

“A-are you sure?”

“Go ahead.”

“But, aren’t there a few too many? Were you planning on sharing with your boyfriend or something?”

“B-boyfriend? W-what? Why?”

“Exactly, my dear Watson. Heh, heh, heh. Because you’re cute, Aizawa-san! And aside from that, that’s a few sandwiches too many for one person.”

In my opinion, Inaba-san was the cuter one out of the two of us though, showing off her acting skills at the same time as she exposed her reasoning. 

Even if the deduction she had been guided to missed the mark completely. 

“I don’t have anyone like that, so don’t worry about it. Just take some.”

I had never had such a person either. Love wasn’t the kind of thing I would be expecting to be able to pull off. With me experiencing each day five times and everyone else only remembering one of those, forging such a deep relationship with someone would probably be impossible. 

“Are you sure? You really don’t mind?”

“I don’t. I just made them out of leftovers, so that’s why I ended up with a few more than planned.”

“Oh, so that was why. In that case…”

After hesitating for just one more moment, Inaba-san gave in to her empty stomach. 

“…I-I’ll owe you one.”

Facing each other, we both stretched our hands out for sandwiches. Letting out the tension from my chest with a sigh of relief, I thought about Inaba-san. 

She had called me cute.. 

Aaaaa. AAAAAaaaaahhh!

While trying to calm down my violently beating heart, I kept my eyes on Inaba-san as she pecked at a sandwich. 

“What’s this? It’s tasty. Crispy and crunchy and tasty.”

“It’s enoki”.

Mushrooms that had been fried and become sandwich ingredients, changing their texture and letting them serve their assigned duty well. 

“Enochicoccus?”

Those are parasites, you know.  And even then, the parasites are called Echinococcus. Could give rise to a scary parasitic disease, by transmission through red foxes in Hokkaido.

“No, not those.”

“Enoki aren’t some kind of chestnut-coloured mushroom?”

“If you look at pictures of wild ones they do have that colour and look like normal mushrooms, but when cultivated artificially they’re pure white and grow in an oblong fashion similarly to horsetail.”

Without actually having been asked to, I turned into ms. encyclopedia and began to explain. Inaba-san stared at me with glowing eyes. 

I was overwhelmed by the light in those eyes.

What is this girl even… just, what.

Somehow able to look at someone as abnormal as myself with such a pure gaze. That was totally different from everything I had experienced before. If it had been like in the past I would have expected to see a much less pleasant gaze, filled with things like contempt, disgust, and fear. 

Was it okay for me to get friendly with her? Considering how we on average would be unable to fully share four out of five days… considering how  I was the only one that could remember and Inaba-san was destined to forget.

While I still was discomposed on the inside, I returned my attention to the meal. 

“You haven’t eaten enoki mushrooms before?”

“Yeah. They don’t get served at my place. I think my dad probably doesn’t like them.”

There were probably a lot of cases of the dinner menu being influenced by one’s parents’ likes and dislikes. Personally I couldn’t remember ever eating shrimp at home. My father was allergic to shrimp. Otherwise my mother was also no fan of wheat gluten, so I had gotten to learn the taste of it for the first time after I started cooking for myself. 

Even now, my breakfasts tended to involve a lot of bread. If you were to trace that habit back to its roots, it was because the usual breakfast menu back when I lived with my parents had a lot of bread in it…

…we spoke about stuff like that and before we knew it lunch was already over. 

By the way, the total amount of bread I have eaten in my life is 21667 slices.

***

A child that could speak as well as an adult at the age of three, and whose first and second rebellious phases came simultaneously, making for an annoying double-booking. 

That was me. 

A child that was made to go to preschool at four years of age, but showed no interest in anything except books and the printed word. A child that was easy to take care of because she refused to mingle with anyone and never got into fights. 

That was me. 

Even if I had been raised almost exclusively together with people that were one year older than me due to how I was born in March, there was also how I only got to see the rise of a new day one time out of five. On the inside I was aging five times as fast as everyone else.

So my mental age was always higher than everyone else’s. There was no way I could have done anything as idiotic as to start a fight with a kindergartener. 

Even less so try to become friends. 

For someone with the body of a child but the mind of an adult, preschool was the worst. I would have my books snatched right out of my hands, and if I tried to spread out drawing paper I would no doubt get it robbed away. 

I was powerless, lacking even a single means of resistance.

I didn’t have particularly fond memories of my early childhood, especially outside of my own home. 

Home had become my shelter. When I was at home with my parents and our pet cat, I could feel at ease. 

There were also times when we went to zoos and aquariums. No matter how long I looked at the various animals and sea creatures I didn’t get tired of it — because I couldn’t guess what they were going to do next. 

Happy memories from my youth. But there were also misunderstandings that lead to a lot of unhappiness. 

One of those happened when I was six years old. During spring, the morning of a day when we were going to go look at cherry blossoms. I was making lunch together with my mother. 

“Ayaka! Didn’t I tell you that you aren’t allowed to use the kitchen knife?”

“Uh”

It was sudden. And was it really something to get so upset over, was what I thought while looking up at my mother’s exasperated face. 

At the time I was in the process of cutting up sweetly fried tamagoyaki, shredding burdock, and cutting carrots into flowery shapes to use as decoration. 

“You can use the kitchen knife after you get a little…”

My mother’s eyes stopped and her angry voice tapered out after she saw what was on top of the cutting board.

“…Where did you learn how to make something like this?”

“But you were the one that taught me, mom?”

I prayed for her to remember.

The day the two of us had been together in the kitchen and she had taught me had ended up vanishing. Her memories of it were gone. That we had had fun cooking together, that she had taught me how to make sweets. There was no trace remaining of it all once you went beyond my own fingertips. 

I didn’t want to accept that. And that was why I didn’t give in to reality. Even when I saw my own mother frozen in fear, I didn’t manage to change how I felt. 

And while I remained ignorant of the weight of my sin…

“Ayaka… I’ve already said this many times before, but lying is no good.”

“I’m not lying.”

“I’m sure you meant to say ‘sorry’, right?”

To my parents I was an incurable pathological liar. At first they had told me “you’ll get your tongue pulled out”, then it had changed to “you’ll get taken by the police”, but as the years passed it eventually reached a point where they started doubting my humanity itself. 

“I-”

My cheeks got pulled right as I was about to return fire. Strangely enough it didn’t hurt. I was more just surprised at the fact that my cheeks had been pulled in itself. 

I decided not to think about it beyond that. 

“Lying with a straight face, not apologizing even after you did a bad thing… only the very worst of people do that, you know.”

My throat went dry in reaction to my mother’s cold voice. I ignored the pain in my cheeks. I ignored the pain in my heart. 

It was all an illusion.

I wanted to believe my mother loved me. 

At the time I already knew that the distance between the two of us only was growing. That much had already been made clear to me many times during the many repetitions I had experienced. 

Over and over, over and over and over and over I had asked, asked for understanding. 

But my parents didn’t try to believe me. 

And no matter where you looked, there was no objective proof the same day was repeating itself. So they kept doubting their daughter’s words. 

There was one single time I managed to convince my father to believe me, but that day ultimately vanished into nothing, not having been chosen. That was when I had decided to accept my own fate. 

In a world where each day kept being repeated whether you wanted it or not, it was so hard for a normal person and a person who didn’t forget to understand each other that you may as well have called it impossible. 

Even being parent and child, we could not understand each other. 

The day I turned eight, my family’s beloved persian cat died. She had been there from before when I was born and died peacefully at twenty years of age. A death as peaceful as if she had just fallen asleep. 

I was still sad and cried for a whole day. My parents kindly let me borrow their shoulders as we were sad about it together. 

The unfortunate part was that the day our cat died happened eight times in total. 

I was not a particularly cold-hearted person. But I also think that there are very few people so filled with emotions and water that they could cry their eyes out for eight days straight.

I think my attitude made my mother angry. 

“What are you even.”

“Mom…?”

The death of our cat became the trigger for my mom to finally let out her pent-up anger in an explosive manner. Trying to imagine what was behind her seemingly apathetic daughter’s attitude was too difficult for a mother still wailing in the pain of having lost her pet. 

“Do you really not feel anything at all? Even though our cat just died?”

What she needed was a daughter that cried at parting with her cat, someone she could share her sadness with. 

Not some cold-blooded girl who didn’t even lift an eyebrow.

But.

“You’re wrong, mom. You’re wrong. This is the eight time I live through “today”, so I have already finished my farewells. I have been sad, and I have cried a lot, and-”

I didn’t care what anyone else thought. But my parents thinking of me as a cold-hearted person was the one thing I didn’t want. I couldn’t accept it. 

Why was I still struggling, even though I already had resigned myself to fate long ago. I still get surprised every time I think about it. 

“Shut up!”

I got to face the full consequences of going against my own decision. 

“Why are you always like that! For so long, and all the time too! If you’re going to lie, why can’t you at least lie a little more believably? At least at times like this… I don’t even care if it’s a lie, but can’t you at least pretend to be sad?”

It was at that time I found out. The course of a person’s life could change greatly in just a few minutes. 

“You always always always just keep getting on everyone’s nerves! And there’s not even a single part of you that’s actually the slightest bit child-like!”

I was stabbed by a rapid succession of screamed out words. Pierced all the way through. 

I held my tongue and endured my mother’s resentment. 

“Something like you can’t be my daughter! What did you do with my Ayaka?”

Those words became the lethal blow. My heart started beating violently. It became harder to breathe and I could feel my vision fading.

She didn’t really mean it. She wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m sure that wasn’t how she really felt. 

I kept fervently telling myself that. 

“Well, what am I then?”

“You’re a witch.”

I asked with my voice shaking, and the answer I got back was also delivered in a trembling tone. 

A witch. Who invites children out into the forest and turns them into ingredients for stew. 

“Give her back! Give me my Ayaka back! My daughter, the one I painfully gave birth to… aaa, just give her back!”

I have no idea what led my mother to think of the word “witch”. Perhaps she got it from the fairy tales. 

But, I thought it was a perfect description. Because I was the one who had taken away her little daughter, the Aizawa Ayaka my mother had been expecting. Who had erased her from this world and taken her place. 

If you looked at it that way witch was a perfect description. 

And so my own parents gave up on me before I had turned ten. 

I was not surprised. 

What ended up being the final straw was when my memories got mixed up and I didn’t know what days had been chosen anymore. Trying to remember took a long time. I’ve gotten the knack of it by now and can do it almost instantly, but back then I was unable to deal with such an enormous amount of memories. 

There were times I had to ask for other people to wait, and the conversation ended while I still was trying to remember. 

While my confusion eventually went away, the trust I had lost did not come back. 

On a dark February night, I was entrusted to a relative’s house with no prior warning. Before the spring break even had time to start, I was put into a state of semi house arrest.

Did it become a fun, fun, homestay with my cousins?

Not at all!

The next time I was called back home was just before the start of the next semester. A prefab hut had been erected in a corner of our not particularly big garden. 

Faced with that sight, I recalled the word my mother had screamed the day after our cat had died. 

Witch.

So that was how it was, I was a witch.

The hut had a narrow kitchen and a hard to clean unit bath. It was even supplied with a high efficiency washing machine. About the only things left to buy on my own were a mirror and an electric kettle. Far too splendid a cell for a witch in solitary confinement. 

From that day onwards that one room was my castle. 

Even now I would not be allowed to set foot in the main building.

The Tenth of April D

According to my internal clock, fourteen days had passed since the day me and Inaba-san had fun talking about mushrooms. 

“Do you hate your parents for abandoning you?”

“…”

“And that’s how you fell in love with me, Minase Yuuka, for being kind of heart and coming to your aid. Right?”

“No way.”

My cousin Yuuka had come over this evening. 

My room didn’t contain anything noteworthy except a small bed and a low table. Yuuka still came over for dinner about once every three days. After we ate she would usually talk about harmless but also fairly pointless stuff for a while, before then going back home. 

She had a lot of free time.

Normally she was working as a… photographer? or something. I wasn’t completely sure, but at least I got the impression she was self-employed. With each day happening about five times on average, that meant I usually got to meet her one or two of those times. 

Honestly speaking it was kind of annoying, but with her in practice being the one supposed to take care of me, I couldn’t really complain too loudly either. 

“Since you’re coming over for dinner pretty much every day, I’ll have you know I’m not running a charity here.”

“How mean. I’m already exercising all the patience I have to make sure I only eat here once every three days.”

Her crudely put together ponytail shook slightly and she pursed her lips. 

If she just could remain quiet there were probably quite a few men that would try approaching Yuuka, but taking into account how she kept talking all the time, her constant grinning, and also adding her unique inclinations to it all, she was a prime example of an unfortunate beauty. 

Especially in my own mind. 

“Hey, wasn’t the “yesterday” when you came here chosen? If you keep coming over literally every day I’ll run out of rice faster.”

“Ah, I guess I did. You see, unlike you I tend to forget things.”

“I’m pretty sure other people can also remember what they did yesterday.”

Yuuka was probably the only person on the planet that knew about my circumstances well enough not to be mystified at the way I talked about “yesterday”, and the way I had used the expression “chosen” in this context. 

There had been one time where I figured I would try telling her just for the sake of it, but she just immediately believed me. So each time the fact that I had told her vanished, I had patiently explained the whole thing again. I would still hesitate to completely say she understood, but at least she was conveniently adaptable. 

“So, this makes how many of ‘today’?”

“Four. This is the tenth of April D.”

“Well, sorry for asking you this for the fourth time then, but how was your day yesterday?”

Yuuka asked the question that had turned into routine between the two of us. Her question was obviously not meant to be taken at face value.

“This is still only the second time you’ve visited me today. And as you also know, the yesterday that got chosen was the one where we ate mapo eggplant.”

Not that she had asked about the dinner menu, but since I didn’t want to tell her about everything else, the menu it was. I ate something different every day. With my everyday life not moving onwards, as if I was constantly stuck in mud, being able to choose what I cooked was one of the few things I had to look forward to.

“In total there were five yesterdays that didn’t get chosen. Breaking it all down, I had fish boiled in soy sauce, dried mackerel, napolitan, oyakodon, and Chanpuru. I wonder if I have to mention the side dishes too.”

I painted up the menus that only I knew about, that hadn’t been chosen. Since I had gone shopping I had been spoiled with choices. 

The one person in the whole world that knew about my circumstances sat across the table and listened to me explaining the now illusionary menu. 

“Aya-chan… you really don’t talk about anything except food.”

I could feel my face turn bright red. I felt like I had just been called a glutton. 

“There wasn’t anything else to talk about!”

My cousin, eight years older than me, stuck with me under the pretense of gathering material for a photo essay. About the boring everyday life I spent during days that hadn’t been chosen. I hadn’t ever seen an actual draft of it though. 

“So, what was there aside from the food?”

“…nothing happened.”

“You’re lyyying, Aya-chan. Don’t think you can fool me. For once you actually seemed to be having fun yesterday, when you talked about the new semester having started.”

Privacy was not a luxury I could afford.

“I said there wasn’t anything.”

We irritatedly stared at each other. While I thought that Yuuka was the one person I didn’t want to talk about it with. 

She did not let me go. There was the quiet pressure she was emitting, accusing me of hiding something. And Yuuka eventually cornered me by bringing up my special circumstances. It was awful.

“Want to try to start working part-time?”

It was no doubt intended as her threatening to stop paying for my living expenses. I’ll just say it again, but privacy was not a luxury I could afford. 

“Just kidding. Your pay would only be proportional to a fifth of the time you spent working. You definitely can’t get a job.”

If I got a job, I would need to work for five times as long as the average person before finally getting paid for the first time. Even if I managed to find a job I liked, there were limits to how far enthusiasm alone would take you. 

I guess there was also the possibility of being able to spend my entire salary five times over, if a day where I splurged wasn’t chosen. But I did not particularly fancy my chances of being overlooked by the demon called probability. I should probably also state that it seemed quite likely I would just have to face my own empty wallet, after using it no more than thrice at most. 

I’m not a particularly lucky person.

“Your big sis here is starting to get worried about your future, Ayaka. Like if you’ll be able to get a proper job or not.”, Yuuka said with a sigh. 

Well, it’s not like I wasn’t aware. Getting a proper job, the kind where you sell your time in exchange for an hourly wage… was probably impossible. Even I thought as much. 

In that case, what about if I used my special ability to get ahead in life? 

That was the one thing I absolutely did not want to do.

Would you be able to eat a meal prepared using a kitchen knife your own parents were stabbed with? That was basically how I felt about it. 

“I’ll just have to seduce some ignorant rich guy. I’m sure having five times as much experience could have its advantages.”

Even if I intentionally tried to sound boastful about it, marrying into money didn’t feel right at all for me. I would have to give the future some serious thought. Our world is not one kind enough to help out people who can’t do anything for others just for the sake of it.

There was overwhelming evidence of that.

You need money to live, and money is something you get by doing things for other people.

“Aaah… you’re cute when you’re thinking dark thoughts too, Aya-chan.”

Yuuka shuddered.

“…so, are you keeping quiet because you’re imagining yourself together with that rich guy?”

I thought I had managed to evade the topic until Yuuka forgot, but she turned out to be unexpectedly tenacious. This deviously perceptive woman probably realised my silence was covering up something I didn’t want to talk about. 

“What… it’s not actually about love.”

And with that I gave up. I should have known right from the start: Privacy was not a luxury I could afford.

“There’s this girl in my class… she’s…”

“And what about this girl in your class?”

“…we just became friends. That’s all.”

A friend, to something like me.

How many years has it been? A friend to someone like me, who had spent the whole time all alone. For the first time in history, someone I stayed friends with even as the day kept being repeated. Yuuka would probably be worried. 

“You…!”

I wasn’t lying, if that was what she thought.

“You even managed to…!”

It was not anything worth being that amazed about either though. 

“You even managed to have an affaaaaaaair!”

And she completely missed the mark.

“I don’t recall even once considering being in a serious relationship with you.”

Wait a minute. With that phrasing it sounded like I was considering a serious relationship with Inaba-san. 

“How awful! You were just tricking me into giving you money!”

“Cut the melodrama.”

“I don’t waaant to, Aya-chan. Or rather, I’m being serious.”

I was starting to feel a bit fed up. Besides, Inaba-san was a girl.

Maybe Yuuka would have had more of a point if it had been about a guy. Even if my mind may have been that of a gra…gra… grandma in her seventies… anyway, my body was still that of a fifteen year old girl. 

Still in the middle of puberty, my brain overrun by hormones and ruled by instincts. So it wasn’t like I couldn’t understand having a lot of interest in the opposite sex. Even if some would call me a witch I was still made up of flesh and blood. I couldn’t resist the impulses carried by the neurons in my brain. 

So let’s say that, just hypothetically, even if it would also have been a really really serious situation, that I were in love with Inaba-san. In that case, what if Inaba-san had been a guy that by some unavoidable circumstance had to dress in women’s clothing and I somehow intuitively knew that on a subconscious level, or I hope I don’t sound like an idiot for saying this but if there had been something unusual about my own body and I somehow hadn’t noticed, or, what I’m saying is… there was the matter of if one of us would have the right kind of…. masculine equipment. 

I seriously hated the thought of either option. 

So since I didn’t think either of those two options was the case, that meant this probably couldn’t be love and I just liked her a little bit strongly, or… 

“Seriously speaking, I haven’t been able to stay, friends, with someone for a long time, especially not all the way until “tomorrow”. So you could just say I’m a bit confused about how to approach the whole thing. “

Yes, I was just worried. 

If I wasn’t, this would have been an emergency. 

There was something cold about Yuuka’s gaze as she looked at me squirm and make excuses. 

The Twenty-first of April B

Inaba-san was often almost late to school. 

At first I didn’t care, but as she kept rushing into the classroom out of breath day after day it was only natural that I grew curious. After about one “month” of observation, I had managed to deduce a few things.

There were roughly speaking two different possibilities for Inaba-san’s lateness. Either she would always be late on a certain date, or something coincidental led to her being late on a certain repetition only. 

“Do you live far from school? It kind of feels like you’re late a lot.”

“No, it’s actually not that far. It’s just that staying up late has turned into a bit of a habit.”, Inaba-san responded with a wry smile when I asked her before our first class started. 

Staying up late. That was what set coincidence apart from certainty. If her reason for being late was that she stayed up late, it didn’t matter if today was day A or B. Even if it had been Z she would have been suffering from a lack of sleep. 

So a strong enemy must have spawned to block her path the days where that wasn’t the case and she still was late. Like if her bedhead wasn’t cooperating. Or if the train was late. 

Once our first class had ended, Inaba-san came over and clung to my desk, calling out as if she was a cat. 

“Ayakaa, I’m tiiired.”

She calmly called my name. What, exactly, was she supposed to be. A womanizer or something?

“I see, I see.”

Speaking of that, Inaba-san had pretty hair. It felt like a bit of a waste that she just wore her simple double braid on most days. 

“Hey, Inaba-san, uhm…”

Just as I was thinking that and following the tips of her hair with my eyes…

“Inabaa, over heere!”

A voice called out Inaba-san’s name from the middle of the classroom. 

It was Fukayasu-san. Fukayasu Natsume. One of the girls that stood out the most in our class, with her hair done up in a bun that conveyed the feeling it would easily be able to get ten thousand likes. Inaba-san responded with a vague “yeah?” before she headed over to Fukayasu’s desk, where two other girls also idly were hanging around.

She also didn’t forget to properly glance back at me once on the way there. 

“I’ll do your hair.”

“Yay!”

Hairpins and clips and combs were soon lined up on Fukayasu-san’s desk, making it feel like a beauty parlor.  If it had been the much stricter middle school I had gone to, it would have fallen just short of the thing you could have been called to the guidance counsellor for. Even now it would probably have resulted in punishment in the form of a written apology if it was found out. 

“Ah, come on. I was wondering what state your hair would be in, Inaba, but it’s way too pretty for such a vampire.”

“Heh, heh.”

The vampire comment must have been referring to Inaba-san’s nocturnality.

There was no hesitation in the way Fukayasu-san’s fingers moved. She plucked out the elastics that had been keeping Inaba-san’s braids together, gently combed through her beautiful hair with her fingers, before running through it with a tortoiseshell comb. 

Smoothly, not even making the slightest of sounds, Inaba-san’s hair flowed gently as silk. 

“By the way, you see, yesterday I was bored because I had nothing to do, so I tried watching some tv and then there was an appearance by Hayashi-kun from the…”

“Ah, I watched that too. Amazing, wasn’t it?”

Inaba-san could manage to get close to anyone. Someone who was the class’ center of attention, someone clearly floating apart from everyone else… it didn’t matter.  

Neither did who was a winner or loser. In fact I had never heard her call anyone either word. She probably wouldn’t make such a childish distinction in the first place. 

Freer and more mature than anyone else. 

“Inaba, you seee, speaking of Aizawa…..-san, the two of you talk a lot. Right?”

“Yeah. She’s an interesting person, isn’t she?”

I ended up straining my ears at the sudden mention of my own name. While I felt disgusted at myself for shamelessly eavesdropping, I didn’t stop either. 

“You should stop talking to her.”

Words fired off like a dazzling rocket. A brief pause in the conversation made the turmoil going on inside Inaba-san clear. 

“What? Why?”

“Why… I mean, you get it, don’t you?”

She’s dangerous. Was what this girl, who stood out even among the most popular in the class, was saying about me. Her followers showed their agreement with a silent nod. 

“I mean, she’s really out of place. And I don’t think she actually pays attention in class, and somehow she always gets perfect scores even though she never takes any notes.”

“Yeah, she’s amazing!”

“No! I guess it is amazing, but no! With how our teachers can be kind of cold too, there’s also people saying she might even be bribing her way to good grades. Really scary, isn’t she?”

So that was what people thought about me… I had no idea.

“Anyway, she’s weird, so stop talking with her. You’re better off staying away. People will start thinking you’re weird too, Inaba.”

My heart was pounding so hard my chest hurt. Not because I was being treated as some kind of monster. I was already too used to that. 

I was curious about how Inaba-san would react. That was all. If Inaba-san heeded the warning, and today got chosen, it could have ended up being the last day we spent together. 

I kept a straight face, while internally feeling like I wanted to start praying. 

“Hmm…”

Our class was ruled by a cruel and childish caste system. The inevitable evil that accompanies any gathering of people, trying to dominate our hearts. The mighty weapon called peer pressure, set into motion. 

“I think stuff like that doesn’t really affect me.”

Inaba-san slipped out from under that rule as smoothly as an eel.  She shut up both Fukayasu-san and her followers with a single smile, a smile which left no room for disagreement. 

“Well, I’m done.”

Fukayasu-san said it with a blunt tone of voice, seemingly unwilling to admit defeat. 

“Wow. You’re just like a pro, Natsume-chan.”

“Watch out or I’ll charge you.”

The two of them exchanged a few words as if nothing had happened, then Inaba-san came back over to me. She lightly slipped into the seat in front me, before showing off her newly done bun of hair. 

“Aizawa-san, look at me, look at me”.

“Mmm, it’s cute.”

Inaba-san let out a satisfied laugh, followed by motionlessly staring at me. The silence didn’t even last a second, but said all it had to. It wasn’t like I didn’t understand what she was trying to say. 

“Come with me. Let’s try to get along with Fukayasu-san too”, probably just about summed it up.

But it would end up not having happened anyway. No matter what I did, it would just be as if it hadn’t happened. That was why I didn’t try to be friends with anyone. As long as I did that, everyone else would make sure to stay far away from me. 

And that was fine.

Much better than having someone you once had gotten closer to treat you as a stranger. 

“I think it suits you really well.”

I intentionally pretended not to have noticed Inaba-san’s silent invitation. 

I praised my one and only friend, while feeling like I wanted to cry. 

The Thirtieth of April D

Nine days had passed since our long holiday started. Perhaps I would regret saying this later, but I was getting tired of not having school. 

It was early in the afternoon, and I was hugging my favourite cushion while staring at the cover of a fashion magazine(Be Prepared for Summer: Plans for Making Your Face and Hair Look the Way You Want) I already had looked at enough to be bored of it, and thinking over the contents of books I had read long ago. That was about all the fun that was to be had.

Yuuka’s humming entered my right ear. 

“ Mmm heh heh ~~ ♪ Heh heh heh~”

She seemed to be in quite a good mood. Enough to be tying someone’s hair into a braid without asking for consent. Well, I was just thinking about getting up and baking some cookies anyway, so at least she was helping put it up. 

Speaking of hairstyles, Inaba-san’s hair put up in a bun… that was cute. I wondered what she was doing now. While this was the ninth day without school for me, for Inaba-san it was still just the second. She would probably practically feel like she was floating. Maybe she would be taking it easy at home, or grappling with the mountains of homework we had been assigned. 

Or maybe she would have gone out somewhere. But in what clothes, wearing which hairstyle, and with who… thinking of it, I didn’t know any of that. Even though she was my closest friend I didn’t know anything at all about her. 

That’s right. 

“Yuuka, let me practice on you.”

“Kissing?”

“Idiot.”

While keeping the joking Yuuka in check, I stood up and signaled for her to sit down. 

“Aya-chan… we can’t, it’s still daylight outside.”

I figured I’d just punch her hard, but Yuuka dexterously evaded, moving only her upper body. 

“Aya-chan… violent heroines aren’t popular anymore these days.”

“If I let you commit sexual harassment without punishment, then wouldn’t that just make it a sex crime?”

I said while waving my open hand which had just cut through empty air. 

“Anyway, I just wanted to practice hairstyling.”

I figured there’d be no harm in getting at least as good at it as the average person. 

“So that’s why, would you, let me touch your hair? It’s reasonably long and kind of pretty, after all.”

“To think that my Aya-chan had such a fetish…”

It would have been just fine is she just had let me do it without saying that, but Yuuka continued putting on airs. 

“Hmm. Well, I don’t mind, but it seems like you could do it with your own too. It’s both plenty long enough and pretty.”

“Doing it on yourself while using the mirror feels too different from doing it with someone else’s hair.”

Once I had memorized the process, and done it properly at least once, I would be able to go over it over and over within my perfect memory, channeling it until the act practically became habit. 

Not being able to forget things was a curse I couldn’t lift, but depending on how you used it there were some advantages too. 

I guess I don’t have a choice, was what Yuuka said as she took the cushion from me.

“Be gentle.”

“Yeah.”

I took away the mildly coloured hair elastic Yuuka was wearing, and after I did her hair formed a loose web as it was pulled down by gravity. 

Her cuticles proclaimed their presence with a strong gloss, and her hair lightly smelled of luxurious cologne. Even though she was Yuuka she actually seemed like a proper adult woman. 

What was I supposed to do. I was having a hard time gathering my thoughts properly. 

“Hey?”

“It’s nothing, so just shut up.”

Yuuka tilted her neck, looking like she wanted me to hurry up. 

My wandering gaze stumbled upon the special edition magazine I had left lying open. Let’s start with trying a bun.

After I had thought that far the rest went quickly. I loosely grabbed a bundle of hair, making sure to leave just a few straggling hairs to help make it look quite sexy when finished. And then…

“You’re surprisingly bad at this, Aya-chan.”

“I’ll get used to it soon enough.”

I continued as carefully as if handling something about to break, but still nimbly, all the while remembering what movements were unnecessary or unhelpful. I wouldn’t have to practice a second time. My fingertips were soon only moving in the most optimal ways. 

If my efforts had been comparable to sewing by hand when I first started practicing, by now I was already closer to being a sewing machine. My speed and accuracy were both about as good as when I had been doing it on my own head. 

And done.

“What do you think?”

“Ooh! Wow, Aya-chan!”

I thought it would at least be good enough for Yuuka to be happy. 

She shook her head from left to right while looking into my three-way mirror. Even when she shook more violently the bun didn’t fall apart. Seemed like I had gotten the hang of it. 

Yuuka almost looked like a little girl as she stared at her own head and grinned. 

Good thing she liked it. In that case, it was time for the next one. 

“Huh, wait, you’re undoing it?”

“That’s right. I was planning on learning how to do all the hairstyles in that magazine before today is over.”

“Eeh…”

I ignored my displeased cousin and untied the bun, returning her hair to its former shoulder length. It was an exhilarating feeling, like I was destroying someone’s precious sand castle. 

The Eleventh of May A

With the break just having ended, there was a relaxed feeling to the air in the classroom. 

During the break I had made sure to get plenty of practice and rehearsed over and over mentally. So I set my mind to it and immediately proceeded into action. 

But it wasn’t until just before morning homeroom that Inaba-san came rushing into the classroom, her double braids bouncing. Since there wasn’t enough time left for me to talk to her then, my first opportunity ended up being during the break after our first class had ended. 

Alright, I was going to approach her. I was, going to, approach her!

Just as I thought that…

“Inabaa, long time no seeee.”

…I suddenly got the wind taken out of my sails. 

“Natsume-chan, you doing well?”

Even worse, it was Fukayasu Natsume. But if anything, I only had myself to blame for dawdling. Inaba-san gave me the same quick glance as always, seemingly urging me, before she headed over to the center of the classroom. 

I heard talk about things like where people had gone over the break, about still having some left of the mountains of homework we had been assigned, about how a scandal involving a male idol and an affair had been exposed on morning tv. 

As I watched, Inaba-san melded with the noise in the classroom. 

I was just like a grade schooler. Thinking about embarrassing things like who she saw as her best friend. Things I wouldn’t say out loud even if someone tore my mouth open.

But I still thought them. 

Even if I wouldn’t actually say any of it, I was thinking things embarrassing enough to make my face erupt into flames if anyone found out.  

And I was bored. Could I please have her back soon?

I was horrified as I realised. What was I thinking? No way.  

I had thought I would be fine with it. I had managed to be just fine on my own the whole time until now. Managing to make a friend had made something weird happen to me. 

I was too caught up in my own thoughts to notice. 

“Sorry.”

“Uh”

No more than thirty seconds could have passed. Inaba-san had returned without me noticing. Even though I had been staring at her back the whole time, it seemed like I hadn’t actually been paying attention to what I was seeing. 

“Aizawa-san, it looked like you wanted to talk. But I still just walked away when they called for me.”

I felt like I was about to start floating. Inaba-san had understood what I wanted, become worried about it, and chosen to prioritize me. So this was what being over the moon felt like. 

“Inaba-san…”

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“Yeah?”

“…never mind.”

I was too caught up in emotion to be completely honest. And I couldn’t let Inaba-san’s kindness go to waste. If I did, what would have been the point of practicing on Yuuka?

“Heh heh, you just wanted to try calling my name.”

“No!”

I ended up shouting. The people around us turned around to see what had happened, but when I met their eyes they hastedly tried to act like nothing had happened. The way everyone treated me as if I was some sort of tumor stung in my chest. 

Because of how kind Inaba-san was in comparison. 

“Umm… I can do it too, you know… style your hair so it looks cute.”

“…!”

Inaba-san seemed to be taken aback for a second, but.

“I see! In that case I’d like you to do just that, Aizawa-san. If that’s ok?”

She said while letting out a big laugh. The same honest and straightforward Inaba-san as always. A friend like the sun, unimitatable and liked by everyone. All I could do was to respond with a small nod, as if I was trying to look away from her shine. 

I didn’t have the kind of social skills a fifteen or sixteen year old girl normally would have. I hadn’t lost them. I had just given up right from the start. 

And then I made a friend. Even if it had been a coincidence, I had at last met one. Someone who was willing to entrust her hair, as important to a girl as her own life, into the care of someone like me. 

A small spark lit up inside my frozen chest. Being given care over her hair made my heart pound. 

And it was soft. As soft as a cat’s fur. Her hair, which easily slid through my fingers. 

“What did you do during the break, Aizawa-san?”

“…I was at home, I went out sometimes, that’s about it.”

I undid her two braids and quickly combed through her hair with my fingers. It didn’t have any apparent damage from her nocturnal habits and flowed smoothly, seemingly not knowing the meaning of the words tangled up. 

I felt like my hands would start shaking from anxiety, but I made up for it with the movements that had been thoroughly drilled into my fingertips. A sweet smell — probably from treatment — emanated from her hair, tickled my nose and made my frontal lobe tingle. 

“We visited my grandma in Sendai.”

“I see.”

I didn’t think I could continue the conversation. My fingers would start shaking if I didn’t focus. 

And almost without me noticing, a splendid half-up half-down hairdo had appeared in front of my eyes. It had just the right of volume, good balance, and durability. I was satisfied with what I had woven. 

“Aizawa-san, you wouldn’t happen to be a hairstylist?”

“I just learned from my cousin.”

“Amazing! As expected!

I didn’t know what was as expected, but Inaba-san seemed to be in a good mood and was looking at me with warm eyes. I let out a sigh, feeling satisfied at having accomplished my task. 

I wanted to talk more, but the bell that announced the start of our next class chimed. Our strict math teacher went up to the podium precisely on the dot, and told us to find a page in the textbook. 

During class, I found myself shamelessly enjoying seeing Inaba-san’s small gestures as she checked out her new hairdo. 

The Twentieth of May A

Inaba-san said strange things sometimes. Startled me, by talking as if she already knew what was going to happen.

“Aizawa-san, the classic literature teacher will call on you later today.”

It was the first thing she said after our lunch break started. 

“Number twenty on the attendance list would be Shizu-kun though.”

With today being the twentieth, usually twenty or twenty-five, or at least somewhere between the two would make more sense, with both numbers being multiples of five that had a two as the first digit. If someone were to be called on, surely it would be around those numbers. 

But with this day being the first time, I couldn’t say for sure either. 

“But you were still called on, Aizawa-san. Well, and you also answered as fast as always.”

At least I was happy to get a glimpse of how much faith Inaba-san had in me, judging by how confidently she had said it, but…

“Is that your deja vu talking?”

Deja vu, the feeling of experiencing something for the first time, but somehow already feeling like you knew what was going to happen. Inaba-san’s proclamations felt a bit too close to actually seeing the future to be explained away as just simple deja vu, though. 

“Yeah. And by the way, it’ll be sunny until evening today.”

Was she somehow vaguely remembering things from past instances of the same day? 

No, that couldn’t be the case. Today was the twentieth of May A. The first time. And while my doubts hadn’t been cleared yet, there was at least one other thing I had to be clear about. 

“You shouldn’t say this to anyone else.”

Perhaps Inaba-san would have been fine anyway, but knowing things others did not tended to inspire both respect and fear. And if those people didn’t accept your explanations for how you had acquired said knowledge, respect could easily transform into animosity. Why do you know that? Are you doing something illegal? And just like that, people’s suspicions would be roused. 

“So it’ll be a secret that only the two of us know?”

There was something in Inaba-san’s eyes that gave off a joking tone. 

“That wasn’t what I meant. It’s just that people would start looking at you weirdly”, I quietly responded.

“I thought you didn’t care about things like that, Aizawa-san.”

Inaba-san opened her eyes wide, emphasising how unusual a sight she considered me caring about such things to be. 

“I don’t mind if it’s just about me, but I don’t like the thought of people starting to think of you that way too.”

If it just was me… I was used to it. I could take it. But Inaba-san being laughed at behind her back and kept at arm’s length was definitely not something I would be particularly happy about. Just the thought alone tugged at my heartstrings. 

“Hmm, isn’t that kind of unfair?”

“…”

“It’s not like I like it when people gossip about you either, you know, Aizawa-san.”

She was quite right. I was being unfair. Turning a blind eye to my own shortcomings, while demanding that Inaba-san be able to do everything I couldn’t myself. 

“You don’t have to-”

Care about small things like that, was what I was about to say when I was interrupted by the rumbling of Inaba-san’s stomach. She knew what the weather would be, yet she couldn’t remember to bring lunch. 

“Did you forget to bring lunch again?”

“Uhh, I observe that it appears as if I did.”, she said in a tearful voice. 

“If I had been your mom I would probably start getting angry at you.”

Inaba-san was good at forgetting things. It seemed like it would be quite sad to get up early and prepare a lunchbox for your child only to then have it be forgotten. I could at least say that if I had made one for Yuuka and she ended up just neglecting it, I would make sure not to make her any more for a month or so. 

In my case a month didn’t mean more than just a week for everyone else, but being angry was exhausting. But that didn’t mean I could just forgive. 

“I humbly beg your pardon, dear mother… but I can’t actually picture you being angry, Aizawa-san.”

Aizawa-san playfully apologised while looking up at the sky. Somehow I suspected her mom hadn’t heard it. 

“I guess.”

I meant it, was probably what Inaba-san had been planning to respond with next. But instead her stomach just made more noise.

“Weell, I guess it seems like I don’t have a choice.”

I handed over a bundle to Inaba-san. Even I thought I was probably being a bit too kind to her. 

“This is…”

Pancakes. Not enough for lunch, but enough to make for a nice snack. 

“My goddess!” 

I was definitely not a goddess.

Because there is no god. 

“There’s black tea too if you want.”

“But, are you sure you don’t mind?”

“I don’t like sweet things anyway.”

That was where someone may have wanted to ask why I had brought pancakes with me in that case, but it wasn’t like I had been aiming to share with Inaba-san or anything. I had intended to properly eat them on my own. Disliking sweet foods was just the means to an end. 

Because I was not lying. I had told the truth. The truly true truth. 

Fortunately Inaba-san did not sweat the details. 

“Huh, I see. That’s unusual.”

I placed my thermos on the desk and the two of us began having lunch. While bathed by the warm spring sunlight that flowed in from the window, I thought about how meals eaten with friends were special, and how wild animals that had been fed may stop going back out into the wild. 

Maybe I was a bit off the mark.

“This tastes great!”

“Thanks…”

The soft late May sunlight made me feel like I would fall asleep if I got too distracted. Half a year, or more accurately just under two months, had passed since the entrance ceremony. Two months I had spent with Inaba-san at every opportunity. 

She was no doubt the best friend I ever had. But to Inaba-san I was just one of many. Inaba-san was as popular as you would expect, and seemingly had friends all over the place, so I wasn’t able to have lunch with her like this more than a mere ten times per week. 

Perhaps I should also have tried to make more friends like Inaba-san had, but unfortunately I hadn’t changed. I was just fine being on my own. 

Though to be honest, I did feel lonely. I still couldn’t believe that I somehow had ended up feeling such emotions. 

But it wasn’t like friendship was something you could monopolise. If anything being friends with several people was more normal. And I wouldn’t have admitted to it, to just selfishly feeling lonelier and lonelier, even if someone had torn my mouth open.

And it wasn’t like there was anything I could do about it. Even if I became friends with someone else we could just have become total strangers again the next day. Perhaps it could be called an omen. If I tried to get closer to someone, that day would not be chosen. 

For instance there was Kotani-san, one of our classmates. By means of Inaba-san we had had friendly chats on a total of seven days. Normally you would expect to be able to call someone a friend after that long, but reality was that we weren’t. 

So Inaba-san was an exception even among exceptions. 

I didn’t think I was particularly sensitive, but I didn’t have such an unbreakable iron will that I didn’t feel anything after being treated as a stranger by someone with the same face as the person I had become friends with the day before either. Having repeated that experience, having repeated it over and over, there was no way I could forget. 

It had even made me quite timid. 

On the days we didn’t have lunch together, Inaba-san talked with me a lot, as if she was trying to compensate. It was almost as if she unnecessarily felt guilty about it, but regardless of why she did it, it made me happy. 

“It’s a secret to other people, but”

Inaba-san said it suddenly, without turning my way. While still moving her chopsticks. She was acting unusually evasive. 

“when I grow up, I’m going to be a witch.”

My mind went blank at this much too sudden coming out. 

What she said came had been too much of a sudden leap. It felt so much like some kind of prank that I almost was sure that I must have overheard some other nearby people talking about some game. 

But there was no mistaking it. The voice in my memories had been Inaba-san’s, and even the movement of her lips remained inside my mind. 

Why say it now? And to someone like me? Or rather, what did she mean by witch?

“What, did you just say?”

“A witch”, Inaba-san said as if trying to remind me. 

“I-I see.”

Was she making fun of me? But it didn’t look like she was joking. 

I wouldn’t expect something like magic to exist. There was always a seed of truth behind every magic trick. And even if you could take out seeds from things like grapes and watermelons, the seeds of truth behind the magic would always remain. 

But, with how good my memory was, maybe the existence of magic wasn’t so farfetched. 

“Could you tell me more?”

“You believe me?”

I quietly nodded. Because my memories were also magic. Not magic with some kind of hidden truth behind it. Just the magic of not forgetting. If things that were distanced from reality could be considered magic, the inside of my skull was already enough to make for quite the fantasy world. Even if all it contained was ordinary and boring. 

“I was hesitating quite a bit about whether to talk about it or not. But I’ll become a witch soon enough. Keep it a secret to everyone else, alright?”

“So, you’re an aspiring magician then?”

“No, not that kind. The kind that waves around a rod and flies through the sky, that kind.”

“…”

I imagined her waving around a magic rod, stardust scattering in its wake. A fairy-tale like troop of small people appearing out of nowhere, sweeping the floor and cleaning, guided by the stardust. My mind went blank.

“You have to be making fun of me.”

“I’m not lying. Well, I wouldn’t use, you know, magic where other people can see it though.”

Inaba-san took a sip of the tea as if trying to calm herself down. The slightly guilty look in Inaba-san’s eyes, the way she spoke carefully so no one else would hear, it all carried an air of secrecy about it. Made it seem believable that creatures called witches could still exist, could have kept passing on their own secret techniques out of sight from everyone else even in this modern era. 

“Sorry for suddenly starting to talk about weird stuff“, Inaba-san tried to lightly brush the topic aside, probably because I had gotten a bit lost in thought. 

It’s fine if you don’t believe me, was how I would have expected her to continue. 

But those much too abject words did not emerge from Inaba-san’s mouth. So instead I decided to believe her. Even if today were to end up vanishing. 

Inaba-san tried to change the topic so forcefully it didn’t come across as other than unnatural. 

“Thank you for the pancakes. I’ll give you this in return.”

Inaba-san took up something from her pocket. It had an uncanny resemblance to the hair ties that gathered up the hair in her pigtails. I only just had time to open my eyes wide before my hair had been made into a ponytail. 

“I’m giving you that.”

My facial muscles had decided to skip work today, not moving even an inch. Inaba-san’s body had come excessively close while they refused to work, and I had become as immobile as if I had turned to stone. My nose caught wind of Inaba-san’s pleasant smell. 

“U-Uhm”

“Just like I thought! You’re cute! And your hair is really pretty!”

I couldn’t say anything. It seemed like her magic had both petrified and spellbound me. 

“Wow, Aizawa-san looks cute. What’s up with that?”

Even Kotani-san, who had been passing by, had stopped to look at me. It felt like, what’s it called… like I was sleeping on a bed made of thorns. Kotani-san was just a kind enough girl to be nice to even such an unpleasant woman as myself. Like you would be nice to a cat you had borrowed from someone else.

Even without a mirror, I could tell. With my face being this hot, surely I must have turned red all the way to the tips of my ears. 

“Inaba-san, I can’t take this. I…”

“It’s fine. It looks really good on you. It feels unthinkable to just take it off again when you look so cute.”

Um, yeah, sure. It was magic. Perhaps Inaba-san was actually already a real witch. And had cast a spell on me, that prevented me from taking the hair tie off. And perhaps she always seemed so tired in the mornings because she was journeying through the night sky every day. 

While I was caught up in daydreams, Inaba-san’s lips had approached my ear. 

“It’ll be our secret”, she whispered.

Perhaps this had even been the best day of my life. I was thinking I’d make the hair tie my family heirloom. 

Though, days like this one were usually not chosen. 

The Twentieth of May B

The first thing that went through my mind after I woke up was disappointment that the new day wasn’t a continuation of yesterday. What Inaba-san had said about witches and magic still echoed through my head. 

There was nothing I could do to prevent yesterday from vanishing. There was no way to know in advance which day would be chosen. During my 75 years I had not once found such a method. I had no way of keeping a single unique day safe. The day that was chosen was absolute. 

So if I had a day I had experienced that I wanted to be chosen, I would have to create more days like it. 

What I knew was that Inaba-san would forget to bring lunch today. 

“Why do you look so tired?”

Because I got up early to make lunch for you. 

“I-I have a lunchbox for you.”

It wasn’t like I wanted the hair tie. Or like I wanted her to call me cute. 

Definitely not.

…Definitely not.

And it wasn’t like I suddenly had turned defiant and didn’t care if she started thinking I was suspicious. My plans included the fact that Inaba-san wasn’t the kind of person to become suspicious at the flood of lunch that welled up in front of her. 

Such a black-hearted woman, was I. 

And you know, like they say, the best way to become friends with someone is through their stomach. Or was that a different expression?

“Eh, really? Are you sure?”

“I have enough for two people, so no need to be shy.”

“Were you planning to share with someone? Ah, like a guy or something.”

“No, no.”

I barely managed to maintain a straight face, while feeling like I was going to choke. I hadn’t had such a relationship since the day I was born. And we had already had this conversation before, hadn’t we. Even if it was the first time for Inaba-san. 

My hard(?) work was rewarded. I was able to have lunch with Inaba-san once more. As you — as people liked to say a bit too much — could change the future, just the same could you keep it from changing. 

And so, even the part I hadn’t understood at all remained the same. 

“Someday, I’ll become a witch.”

“I-I see.”

“Yeah.”

Including her weirdly timed coming out as a witch. If it just happened once it could have been a coincidence, but after happening twice it was clearly not. Inaba-san had been steeling herself for saying this to me on this day from the start. 

Which meant she was serious. As for whether she was being serious as in seriously telling the truth, or serious as in seriously trying to make fun of me, I couldn’t tell yet. 

“Ah, I just deja-vued.”

“Deja-vued. That’s an interesting way to say it.”

Deja vu was the feeling of already having seen something. Feeling like “ah, this might have happened before” when facing something you hadn’t actually seen before. 

In other words, it was not something I could have experienced. I remembered everything clearly. 

“Yeah. It felt like I had told you this before, Aizawa-san. Even though there’s no way I would have already told you something that weird.”

“True. Today is the first time I’ve heard you say it.”

You did say it, in fact only yesterday. You just forgot. I also wanted to say something strange, but I wasn’t overflowing with courage like Inaba-san was. 

“Maybe you told me about it in a dream?”

Though I also ended up saying something as silly sounding as that we could have talked about it in a dream, but I could just about allow myself that much without feeling overly self-conscious about it. Even if it was like I was saying that we were so intimate that we would appear in each other’s dreams. 

But.

“Maybe I did.”

Inaba-san accepted it as if it was obvious, letting out a slight laugh. 

In one night, most people were in REM sleep about five times. So people should dream five times on average, but most people forget almost all of those dreams. 

Perhaps some people dreamed about events from the days that hadn’t been chosen.

By the way, I do not dream. 

The Twenty-third of May A

The first signs of the incident came during the weekend, on the first Saturday. At the time it had seemed like a trivial detail. 

Yuuka didn’t come. She had said she would come, but no matter how long I waited there was no sign of her. 

My weeks had twenty-five weekdays. The tiredness in my body didn’t stay, so I was fine in that regard. But my mind got tired of it. On the other hand, there was also the benefit of on average having ten days off every week. 

And with such a long break, of course I tended to catch a case of the Sunday blues. It usually started showing during Saturday B. It was very rare for a day to end after only happening once, but it happened sometimes that a day ended after only two times. Getting depressed at thinking the next day was a monday was an experience shared between witches and normal people. 

On the contrary, Saturday A was easily the best day of the week. 

The phone call had come around noon. 

“I’ll be just a tiny bit late today.”

“I don’t mind if you don’t come at all.”

“See you later! I’ll bring a souvenir, so have fun waiting.”

Was what she had said, completely ignoring me, before cutting the call right just after. But yet she still hadn’t shown up at nine in the evening. 

It wasn’t like I particularly was waiting for her. It was just that I couldn’t put the plates away if she didn’t come soon, and it would be annoying if she came while I was in the bath, and I was starving because I had figured we could eat together. 

When I tried to call her there was no response. 

Just, what the heck was she even doing.

The Twenty-third of May B

“I’ll be a tiny bit late today.”

“And you’ll bring a souvenir, right.”

“Hmm…? Is this perhaps the second time? Or the third?”

“The second. By the way, the you from ‘yesterday’ never came. Even though you said you would.”

As expected Yuuka didn’t come over on this day either. 

I should have tried to find out why sooner.

The Twenty-third of May E

I had gotten tired of eating cod roe spaghetti. When it came down to it, that one sentence basically summed up the reason I had decided to go on an unplanned shopping trip. 

Of course I also had plenty of smaller reasons. Like how if Yuuka wasn’t going to come anyway, I may as well eat what I personally wanted to, like how there was a book I had to return to the library so I may as well do that on the way, and like how eggs were cheap on Saturdays. If I had eggs I could make some baked sweets too. 

I figured that having gotten tired of cod roe spaghetti worked well enough as a representative for those other reasons. There weren’t a lot of things to look forward to other than changing up what I ate, so I didn’t mind the labour needed to do so. 

So that was why I ended up going shopping. 

On the way back I got to know the reason Yuuka hadn’t come over the “last few” days. I saw someone get run over. 

On the wide road just ahead of the street leading up to my own house. On the road in front of the elementary school I had gone to for twenty years. 

While recoiling from the shrill sound of brakes, I turned around to see a young woman rolling over the hood of a minivan, which had driven over the white lines painted next to the sidewalk. 

Her slim body was bent over double, her long limbs paddling air. 

During the instant when she was repelled by the car and hit the asfalt, I saw the woman’s face. 

“What…”

I could feel the blood draining from my face.

I had seen the face of someone I recognised. 

It couldn’t be. 

While I was trying to run from the truth, the facial features I had seen were saved and scooped through my hippocampus. Written into my mind. 

“What, are you”

Are you doing in a place like that. No words came out of my dry throat. I felt deranged enough that I wanted to let out a harrowing scream. But somehow part of my mind remained focused. Some part of me remained clear-headed as I stared at the chaos. 

An old man screaming into his phone. Some young people whispering while keeping their distance. The driver staring emptily ahead in the driver’s seat of the car. 

I saw all of that pass by me as I ran. My breathing rough like a dog’s, my heart feeling like it was about to explode. 

I kneeled next to her, fearfully stretching out my hand. Her hair quickly gave way and exposed the face I had seen so many times. Any trace of colour was draining away as she turned pale. 

It can’t be. 

While I was thinking that, a single line of blood that had stuck to her nose like a flowerbud flowed down and dropped to the ground. 

She had a carefree smile on her face. As if she hadn’t even noticed she got run over. It was the same smile as always, wasn’t it? 

When she came to visit me, always. 

“Yuuka…”

She had said she would come, but then she hadn’t.

This had been why. 

It couldn’t be true, something like this. 

All I could do was stare at Yuuka in a daze as she laid there unmoving. 

No matter how you looked at it this was just… I didn’t want to say more than that. 

This was when I first realised. 

Routine, everyday life, ends at some point. Without warning. 

Pieces of the discount eggs I had managed to obtain fell out of the shopping bag I had tossed aside. Their shells had broken, their contents now leaking onto the asphalt outside. I watched the puddle spread, absently staring, not moving. 

Words of gratitude. Words of complaint. There were so many words I would have wanted to say. 

I wanted to apologise. I was always dishonest, and had kept acting childish. 

There were things I would have wanted to ask. What did she like about someone like me, enough to not leave me?

But it was already too late for words. Because the person I wanted to tell them to was no more. Gone from this world. And I had not been raised simply enough to believe in a dream such as a world after death. 

The death of a person. Something I only ever had seen in my own imagination, was now in front of my eyes. Making it’s dense presence all too known.  

Nothing could reach a person that already had died. This was the first time I learned that firsthand.

Every day was on average five days long. 

Today was the fifth of those. I put my wishes on tomorrow, prayed for it. Put my hopes on the next day, as I fell into an unruly sleep. 

The Twenty-third of May F

Nothing could reach a person that already had died. 

…Assuming the hands of time weren’t turned back. 

That’s right. I had been allowed that special privilege. The days that had kept repeating until they became tedium. Today only, that repetition had turned into a powerful weapon. 

It had become the next morning while I still was in a daze… was what might have happened if I had been a more innocent woman. I had already decided what to do first thing the next morning. 

First I would call Yuuka, then I would call Yuuka.

Ten minutes to seven in the morning. My first call did not connect. Perhaps she was still sleeping. I kept calling and calling, intending to wake her up if possible. 

I would keep calling until she answered. I wouldn’t be satisfied until I heard her voice. 

I listened to the monotone dial sound for about ten minutes, but I didn’t get bored. I didn’t have the leeway for that. 

She was still alive. I could still make it. There was still time before “yesterday” would be chosen. I couldn’t change what had already happened, but at least I could lower the risk it would become permanent.

“Aya-chan?”

“Yuuka, are you still alive?”

I was probably being too loud. I could hear my voice get picked up by the mic of her phone and get echoed back to me. I tried to calm down while listening to my own slightly out of sync voice. 

“Good morning, and that was quite the greeting, Aya-chan.”

“Please shut up. Where are you at the moment?”

Yuuka seemed as carefree as always on the other end of the phone. She probably couldn’t even have dreamed that she may die today. 

“…”

“Answer me!”

“But you just told me to shut up, Aya-chan.”

“Don’t actually shut up.”

There was an unbridgeable gap in intensity between me, who had just seen her die the previous day, and Yuuka, who was spending her calm Saturday morning like usual. 

“Heh heh heh, I was just searching for my high heels. It’s already pretty rare for you to call me, Aya-chan, but to also sound so urgent… makes it feel like there’s going to be a storm today. Maybe I should bring an umbrella.”

She must have been getting ready to go out. And was early even though it was a day off. Was today some special day?

I could hear slightly muffled noises on the other end of the phone, making it sound like she was putting on shoes. And the rustling sound I occasionally could hear must probably have been the nylon material of her umbrella rubbing against something. 

“Would you, perhaps, happen to be on your way out?”

“Yeah. I’ll swing by your place on the way back!”

It suddenly felt harder to breathe. 

Perhaps Yuuka had been acting the same way on every saturday, every twenty-third of may. And if that was the case, On A and B and C, without me knowing it she may have… An awful possibility crossed my mind. 

“W-wait! Don’t take a single step outside your house today!”

I ended up screaming even though it was over the phone. The ensuing silence, carried over the waves, spoke to Yuuka’s confusion.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that even if you’re the one asking, Yuuka. I’m going to meet friends from high school for the first time in two years. We’ll have lunch and go shopping and… I’m looking forward to it.”

I couldn’t stop her. 

There seemed to be  a high chance this Yuuka would go out today, and a not particularly low chance that she would end up in an accident. 

You’ll die. 

If I said that I’d probably be able to stop her, wouldn’t I? She’d probably give up on going outside, wouldn’t she?

“Wait…”

My voice was hoarse. 

She probably wouldn’t stop, would she? I probably wouldn’t have changed my plans either if someone told me I would die just as I was about to go out. I would have started doubting how sane the person I was speaking with was and that would have been the end of it. In that case…

“Mmm? Sorry, I’ll have to hang up soon. I’m in a bit of a hurry. …Aya-chan? I really am sorry. I’ll make sure to listen to you properly later.”

Could my words not reach her? 

Was I doomed to remain an idle spectator, helplessly watching her die? 

Never. 

I squeezed out the words, in a voice that sounded much like a mosquito’s buzzing. 

“I’ll do anything… so for my sake, please stay at home today.”

Unable to think of anything, yet somehow squeezing out wisdom I didn’t possess, the answer I had come up with was to persuade her with my own tears. 

“Mmm?”

Yuuka was an irritating person, she never did what I wanted her to. She was shameless, a nuisance, she was immature, and she had a weird idea of personal space, always trying to crawl right up to me.

But I didn’t want her to die. 

“What’s wrong? Aya-chan, you’re being weird.”

And I would also be in trouble if she did. With her standing in as my guardian, I’d be at a complete loss if she were to die. 

“Well, if you insist that much I guess I don’t have a choice.”

She said while letting out a single sigh.

“If I have to stay at home all day today, that means you’ll be coming over. Right, Aya-chan?”

How much relief did I not feel at those words. The price had been cheap, if that much was enough to keep her from going outside. 

I thought while walking through the clear air of a May morning. About fifty thousand people end up in traffic accidents in a year in this country. If the population was about 120 million, that meant that the chances of any single person ending up in an accident during a given year was 0.42%. If the average lifespan was eighty years, that meant approximately thirty percent of the population would be involved in an accident at least once in their life. 

This was the first time I had done the math, but those odds were surprisingly not to be trifled with. 

I saw the backside of a compact car leaving its driveway and prayed for safe driving. 

You, your parents, or your grandparents. One of you will either end up in or cause a traffic accident. If not, you should consider yourself very lucky. People could get run over surprisingly easy. 

What I had seen yesterday wasn’t such a rare sight. If you don’t like that thought, your options were to pay extra attention to places with a lot of traffic or to repeat the day and pray for your chances. 

That was the conclusion, simple enough for a grade schooler, that I had arrived at when I reached the apartment Yuuka was renting. She had moved into it right after she graduated university. She was renting a room fifteen minutes away from mine. 

I hadn’t visited it a single time before, but I had relied on the address written on the new year’s cards she had sent to walk there. I was now greeted by a formal-looking concrete building equipped with automatic locks. 

“Morning, come in come in.”

I heard the voice I had been demanding all night through the intercom. Just hearing her voice was enough to let me completely regain my composure. 

Was what I had thought, but.

“Aya-chan?”

The moment I saw her that all completely fell apart. 

“Aya-chan!? Did you want to meet me that much? No, no, that doesn’t make sense. It must be a prank. Don’t try to trick your big sis, alright, Aya-chan? …Ayaka-san? Isn’t this a bit long? You can reveal the trick now. Hey!?”

She was still alive. I felt at ease in her arms, crying like a child. 

I cried and cried.

She was still alive. 

She had a proper body temperature, and her warm heart was still beating. That alone made me happy, that alone felt painful.

I sobbed while gripping and crumpling the cloth of her cutsew-clad back. 

“Aah, you can be such a handful.”

Yuuka silently watched over me. 

I was undoubtedly quite the disgrace. Upset, sobbing. I had never let anyone else see me like this. 

But there wasn’t anything I could do about that.

Because she was still alive. 

Yuuka patiently waited for her cousin, wailing early in the morning, to calm down. Ten minutes, even fifteen. 

Thank you for being alive. Just as I thought that…

“Sniff, sniff. You smell good.”

“Hey.”

It turned out that people who smell your neck while you’re crying also exist. I tried to object, still with tears in my voice, and let go. But at some point she had managed to get a tight grip. 

“Looks like you feel kind of better.”

“Stop saying stupid things and let me go instea… uaaaa”

“I wonder if you know what coming over to your big sis’s room means, especially when she happens to live on her own.”

While still being hugged, I walloped her back. What was she, an idiot?

“Aya-chan, you just said that you would do anything, didn’t you?”

“I can’t remember such ancient history.”

She was really quite the unfortunate adult. Still grasping Yuuka’s back while she was acting the same as usual, I was halfway surprised. 

But I also expressed my gratitude.

In my own heart only. 

I could without any trace of sarcasm say that the living room I was guided to was tastefully decorated. So much that I wouldn’t have minded me if we swapped rooms. It got plenty of sun, and when one of the big windows was opened the cool May air came rushing in. 

There was a sideboard with legs at the back of the room, with all kinds of interesting-looking things lined up on it. There was also a potted corn plant, wonderful enough that I had to stare at it for a while. I decided to store one of those inside a room in my mind for healing purposes. 

“So, what the heck is up.”

Steam rose from two coffee cups placed on a low table. We sat down next to each other on the sofa, and I carried the dark brown liquid to my mouth. It made me feel refreshingly calm. 

“You died.”

“I’m alive, but, I’m already dead? Am I a ghost? Or are you perhaps talking about… ‘yesterday’?”

I nodded. One, small, nod. 

“Really? You’re serious? You’re not messing with me?”

Yuuka’s face as she uttered her fearful inquiry was somewhat pale. I didn’t have the kind of charming personality where I’d start sobbing just to set up a prank. Yuuka’s face was pale precisely because she knew that. 

“It’s the truth. You got hit by a passenger car on top of the sidewalk just in front of that nearby elementary school, and got blown away stupidly far. It looked like such a horrible way to die that it could make someone start to wonder if you couldn’t have chosen a slightly prettier way to die. And turns out there actually was something inside your head after all.”

“Wo-wow.”

The two of us sat facing each other, both with gloomy expressions on our faces. Just as if we were sharing our thoughts about a horror movie. There was nothing decent left for a dying person, for a person that had died. 

“So tomorrow… well, when it becomes the twenty-fourth of May, how many out of how many is the chances I won’t be among the living?”

That’s what it came down to. If Yuuka only had ended up in an accident “yesterday”, the risk of the worst outcome would just be one in sixth. The worst case scenario would have been if the same course of events had happened the times I wasn’t watching, and in that case the risk of her dying would be five in six. 

With the risk being 83%, those were not numbers where it was safe to expect her to come out of it safely. I should have tried to find the resolve to maybe end up being parted from Yuuka through death on every twenty-third. 

To make the shock that could come tomorrow just a little softer. 

“I understand.”

That’s sad, Yuuka also whispered as if she was talking about some other person. It probably didn’t feel real. 

Events that had happened on other days labeled with the same date. To normal people those were basically the same kind of thing as dreams from last night. 

To witches they were about halfway prophetic dreams though. 

“But you know, I wonder what would happen if you died.”, Yuuka said while looking like she had thought of something interesting. 

She already seemed completely back on her feet. She had changed attitude much too fast for me to keep up. 

“Eh…?”

“You don’t have to look so surprised.”

Somehow she had startled me. 

“Are you fine with it?”

“With maybe dying tomorrow? I’m not fine with it. But wouldn’t it be wasteful to spend today as if I already had died?”

Yuuka looked dazzling as she declared those words with an invigorating smile, that made me picture a bright and clear blue sky. 

“After all, I have you with me on what might turn out to be the last day of my life, Aya-chan.”

Yuuka stared into the black liquid inside her coffee cup, holding the cup as if trying to envelop it. 

But it would have been fine if she had hated me for it. If she had shouted at me, asking why I had to tell her, I think I wouldn’t have complained. If she hadn’t known she would have used the last day of her life to reunite with old friends. 

There was a contrast to the way me and her treated the same approaching death. 

The twenty-three year old woman was even facing it with resolution, while the witch and self-proclaimed seventy-five year old was moping and sobbing. 

It was clear which one of us was the adult, wasn’t it? 

“Anyway, Aya-chan, do you think that you’re the only one that won’t die? If you get unlucky even you will die someday.”

I was just barely able to put on a brave face and give a sarcastic response.

“As long as I don’t have to die the way you do.”

“I don’t really want to die another time either though.”

Yuuka said as if she could remember it. Yuuka snorted and we laughed a little. 

Since I already was here anyway, I figured I’d try thinking about what Yuuka had said. 

What I had witnessed had been Yuuka’s death on the twenty-third of May E. But what if I had been the one to get run over? Let’s consider that. 

I would be crossing the road, only to get assaulted by a sudden shock. With how sudden it would be I wouldn’t have time for a safe fall, and crash hard into the asphalt. 

Would I wake up on the morning of the twenty-third of May F before I even had time to feel a chill…?

I thought that was probably, definitely, what would happen. For better or worse other “todays” didn’t have any effect on the current today. I didn’t know how many times a day could be repeated, but if they happened I’d probably be able to welcome the twenty-third of May G and H as well. 

But what would happen once the twenty-fourth of May A rolled around?

I had no idea. 

If the twenty-third of May were to be picked, I would no longer be of this world and as such be unable to greet the next morning. 

Something bothered me.

If I had been the one to die yesterday, and the day was chosen, I wouldn’t wake up tomorrow. It kind of made sense, but it also kind of didn’t. 

How would I be able to know that I never had woken up again?

Was what it came down to, so paradoxically, maybe a day where I died actually couldn’t be chosen after all. I wasn’t thinking of actually trying it, though. Obviously not. Something that scary…

“That face you’re making tells me all I need to know. You really wouldn’t die. Unfaaair.”

“It’s not unfair, I mean, I’m currently trying to do what I can so you maybe won’t have to die.”

“My saviour.”

“That’s right. Give me your gratitude.”

“I’ll dedicate my whole life to paying you back. In sickness and in health, till…”

“That’s heavy…”

Yuuka leaned against me. She was slightly heavy. Entrusted with her bodyweight, I could feel the warmth radiating from her. Normally I would have expected this to be irritating, but for some reason I was unbearably happy. 

Just talking always seemed to make her happy. A trivial thought crossed my mind, curiosity showing its face. 

I would have wanted to force out more different expressions from her, a variety of them. 

“Hey, Aya-chan, I’ve been telling you I love you for five years now.”

“True. I hope you’ll get tired of it soon.”

“Why do you keep refusing me, even though I’ve kept proposing to you for five years?”

“It’s just five years.”

For a witch who had lived for seventy-five years that was basically the same as yesterday. In fact I could actually remember it like it had happened yesterday. 

The beaming smile of the pervert that had tried to court a ten year old elementary school student. 

“But in your time that would be as much as twenty-five years, Aya-chan.”

A truth terrifying enough to make me shudder. 

I had already lived for about as long as a whole normal lifetime, with surprisingly little changing. And Yuuka had been by my side for a third of it. 

Aside from my parents, she was the person I had spent the most time with. And there was a difference of over twenty times compared to the person I had spent the fourth most time with. My feet felt slightly lighter as I realised. 

But human relationships are not just time…

“That’s….. true.”

“See, I’ve been saying it for twenty-five years now, right? At this point it’s basically a de facto marriage, isn’t it? Twenty-five years would be a silver anniversary. And Aya-chan, you’re kind of small so if you just stay quiet you’re princess-like. This being the Heian era, at this point we are already in essence a married couple living apart.”

No, your way of thinking is just strange. 

“You’re the worst. Now I’ll probably never be able to enjoy reading Genji again. Because when I try to picture Hikari Genji’s face I’m just going to see yours.”

“Well, then you’re young Murasaki, Aya-chan. Let us get married. A young bride of a ripe fifteen years! And you really smell good, sniff, haa haa haa!”

She was irritating enough that I thought one of the blood vessels near my temple would maybe end up bursting. I wanted to slap her, but I decided to forgive her for today. It’d be a bother if I hit her in a bad spot and she ended up dying.

But at least I could put all I had into spoiling the mood for the woman who was taking several deep breaths, ecstatically enjoying the air in the room. 

“There’s a seventy-five years old grandma inside this body, so please stop doing that.”

I couldn’t change what had happened. At best I could lower the chances of it getting “chosen”. 

I spent the whole day in my cousin’s room. There was no particular reason I’d want to go outside anyway.

We drank tea together and watched movies on online streaming services. We had dinner made from leftovers from her fridge, and I borrowed her bath and sleepwear. 

As the curtain of night fell, I closed my eyes while listening for Yuuka’s breathing. It seemed like she usually tended to sleep a bit later, but today she went to bed earlier to match me. I always suddenly got sleepy when the clock struck ten in the evening. 

“Hey, Yuuka, are you awake?”

A painful silence greeted my ears. The only response I got was the sound of Yuuka’s breathing.

“I’m begging you… please, don’t die.”

If I was in Yuuka’s room when I opened my eyes the next morning, it would all have been fine. In that case I would immediately have known what day was chosen. 

This one day only, I stayed wide awake. Couldn’t sleep. 

Bad thoughts kept brazenly running around in my head.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep.

The Twenty-fourth of May A

Yuuka was lucky. 

She survived the death game of probability, gracefully evading the exceptional end she could have faced.

I had thought she was already a goner when I woke up in my own room. Because I had thought she couldn’t have survived if I hadn’t woken up in her room once the twenty-fourth of May came around. 

I felt like I was grasping at straws, but I tried calling her. The tension left my shoulders as a cheerful voice responded “Wow, I’m happy to get a call from you so early in the morning, Aya-chan”.

I sat down on the floor with a literal thud and didn’t move for a while.

But, it was fine. 

The worst case scenario I had imagined hadn’t come to pass. 

That alone made it fine enough. 

Even then, I would never forget. 

The warmth of her blood, the softness of her limp body. How I hadn’t felt anything when taking her pulse, how cold her heart must have been. 

I would always remember.

Always, until the day I died.

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