After everyone finished drinking their morning tea, Shea and Remia went back into the kitchen to clean the dishes while Tio sat Myu on her lap and started braiding her hair into pigtails. Yue and Sumire were still sitting on the sofa, chatting.
It was a nice, lazy morning. The first morning that Hajime had been able to take it easy after returning to Earth, in fact. He smiled to himself as he reminisced about his reunion with his parents and how shocked they’d been when he’d introduced Yue and the others.
“Hajime, you’ll be able to relax for a while now, right?” Shu asked, turning to him with a smile. He was glad his son was finally free from the stresses of dealing with the public. He’d been looking forward to a morning like this where everyone could just sit back and chill for a while.
Gone were the days steeped in despair where Sumire and Shu had gone to sleep each night worrying about where their son was and what had happened to him. There was no greater happiness than the time they had together now.
“Yeah, things are settling down now, dad. Notice how we haven’t been getting any reporters knocking on our door today?”
“Yeah. I’m honestly amazed at how quickly they stopped. No one’s asking me questions at work either,” Shu said with a relieved sigh.
But then, Sumire turned over to him from the couch and said, “Hajime, what exactly did you do? This is clearly unnatural. All of the magazines reporting on you ‘Returners’ are being pulled from store shelves, and all the articles and videos and pictures that were floating around on the internet are getting deleted one by one. Even the internet trolls have quieted down.”
“Returners” was the name that the mass media had given to Hajime and the others.
Yue got up on her knees and poked her head over the couch to look at Hajime as well.
Come to think of it, I never actually explained what I did.
Hajime cleared his throat and said, “Well, to put it simply, I spread magic that messes with people’s perception across the world through the internet and TV.”
“You what now?” Sumire and Shu asked in unison.
An evil grin spread across Hajime’s face and he replied, “Remember the fake story I made up to tell the reporters?”
“I mean, obviously. We had to tell it to people too or journalists would start to get suspicious,” Shu said.
“The story about how you were kidnapped by some foreign cult and they tried to brainwash you into joining them, right? Oh, and that they used drugs and hypnosis on you, so your memories are hazy.”
Considering that the church in Tortus had basically been a cult and had tried to convince all the students to fight for them, it wasn’t a complete lie. This was Hajime’s specialty, coming up with a believable story that wasn’t truly a lie but was still far from the truth.
Hajime and his parents had shared the fake story with the families of the other missing students so that everyone would present the same version of events to reporters. He’d already discussed it with his classmates back when they’d been in Tortus, and everyone had been on board. Of course, all of the kids had told their parents the truth and showed them their magic, but the rest of the world only knew the fake story that Hajime had devised.
“We didn’t know how exactly the news had spread about our disappearance while we were gone, but we all knew we’d be questioned upon our return for sure.”
Hajime had also considered asking everyone to tell the truth and have the police and other government agencies simply think they were deluded kids. That would make it easier for them to all get therapy, and there were definitely kids who needed it. However, that would also mean that as long as they kept claiming they’d gone to another world and learned magic, people would think they still needed mental help. It would have been a bad strategy in the long term. Plus, things would get even more complicated if they actually proved the existence of Tortus and magic. Hajime absolutely did not want the world to know about his experiences or his powers. His parents wholeheartedly agreed with him on that, as did his classmates and their families.
The governments of the world would all get involved if they went and actually proved that there was another world they could travel to, and no one wanted that. Everyone had fought tooth and nail to get back to their old peaceful lives, so there was no way anyone was going to give that up for fame or clout. They all decided to keep their magic and the existence of Tortus a secret.
“It’s a good story because it’s just barely believable while still feeling unrealistic, which matches the unnatural nature of our disappearances. Of course, there are still plenty of people who might not be convinced, which was why I used magic to further convince everyone that our story was the truth.”
Most importantly, Hajime wanted everyone to think that his and the other students’ memories of events were hazy and unreliable. That way, they could get by just saying that some group they didn’t recall too well had attacked the cult, and before they knew it they’d been sent back home. Everyone would assume that this mysterious group that had attacked the cult had rescued the kids. Furthermore, since everyone’s memories were supposed to be hazy, there wouldn’t be any issue if there were minor inconsistencies with the way they told their stories. Hajime had also inserted some Artifacts into major newsrooms and police stations to make it easier for people to believe what the kids were telling them.
“Hmm, and that’s why my name here is Yue Avatarl, right?”
“Yep. I figured using your old last name would be better than making up a new one.”
“I would have preferred Nagumo. I’m your wife, after all.”
“You can get it changed when we get legally married, okay? And you can keep your old last name as your middle name if you want.”
“Mmm... I can’t wait.”
Though Hajime couldn’t see Yue’s legs, he was certain she was happily swinging them back and forth as she said that. Mostly because his mom had pulled out her phone and was surreptitiously snapping photos of Yue. While he understood why his mom would be obsessed with Yue, it still wasn’t good to sneak photos of people without asking.
Tio looked up from Myu’s hair and asked, “The story for us is that we were all born in Japan and have...birth certificates, you said it was? Regardless, we were raised together in a very isolated facility, which is why there are no public records of us, correct?”
“Oh, and that facility had connections to the cult that kidnapped all of you, right? It was made to raise promising kids and brainwash them into being obedient cult members or whatever,” Shea added, poking her face out from the kitchen. Hajime nodded, so she went back to washing the dishes.