“Must’ve been Dad’s,” I said to myself when I saw that they were all IT-related. My father worked as a programmer in Tokyo, and based on the amount of margin notes he’d taken, I assumed they were probably from his college days. I picked up a composition notebook at my feet and leafed through it. Each and every page was packed from top to bottom with methodical yet hastily scribbled notes in his trademark angular handwriting. Attempting to read it hurt my eyes. I was about to close the notebook and put it back in the box, when a single word circled in red pen caught my eye. It appeared to be a technical computing term, for which he’d written the definition underneath.
ROLLBACK
The process of restoring a database or program back to a previously defined state, usually in response to some sort of critical error. Helpful for salvaging data and preferences that have been lost or corrupted due to user mistakes or system failure.
“Rollback, huh…” I said, letting the word linger on my lips for a while. It had a pretty cool ring to it—though unless I decided to go into IT, I had a hunch that I’d never get a real chance to use it. I closed the notebook and put it back in the box.
By the time I was running through the abandoned part of town, I only had a handful of minutes before five o’clock. Helping my grandmother reorganize had taken way longer than I anticipated, and now I was at risk of being late to my meetup with Akari. I ran as fast as I could through the mazelike district, occasionally tripping on potholes and uneven ground. The exit to the narrow alleyway came into view shortly after 5 p.m. Finally slowing my pace to a jog, I tried to catch my breath as I entered the park perimeter.
Standing there beneath the cherry blossom tree was a young girl in a Sodeshima High uniform, squinting her eyes as she looked up at the rain of falling petals fluttering to the ground—almost like she was showering in them. I knew at once that she was Akari Hoshina, the girl I’d promised to meet here, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to call out to her. It was such a breathtaking sight that I forgot my purpose altogether, only able to stand there captivated by its beauty. So when Akari noticed my presence at last, and we made eye contact, I floundered.
“Hey! How long have you been standing there?! Let me know you’re here, why don’tcha!” she said, laughing awkwardly.
“Y-yeah, sorry about that. I was just having fun looking at—”
I barely stopped myself before saying the word “you.” No way could I pull off a cheesy one-liner like that without sounding like a creep.
“Sorry, what was that? You were having fun looking at what, now?” she asked, urging me to finish my thought as she cocked her head in a cutesy, teasing manner. I had to come up with some sort of way to salvage this, and fast. I was looking at, uh… Uh…
“Oh, no, I…I was having fun looking at old photo albums with my grandma and lost track of the time. Hence why I’m a little late… Sorry.”
Congratulations, Kanae. That was the lamest save in the history of mankind.
“…Oh. Gotcha. Nah, don’t worry about it. I mean, you’re only a couple of minutes late, if that,” Akari said with a warm smile—yet I could hear the slightest hint of disappointment in her voice. Maybe she’d actually been hoping that I would say I was having fun looking at her…? Pfft, yeah right. I’ve gotta be overthinking it.
Akari suggested that we sit down, so I took a seat up against the trunk of the tree. Holding her skirt taut, Akari sat down right beside me, close enough that our knees were practically touching. I was getting a little flustered by now. Needing to regain my composure, and fast, I cleared my throat and got right down to brass tacks.
“So, last night you were saying you could tell me everything I want to know? You wanna elaborate on that?” I asked.
“Yeah, so basically, like… Ugh, where do I even begin? Maybe it would be easier if you asked me some questions first?” she suggested.
“You want me to do the asking? A-all right, um…”
I had a million questions I wanted to ask her. Yet now that she was putting me on the spot, I couldn’t seem to come up with a single one. I did still want to ask her why she chose this park as our meetup spot, and about the past four days in general, but what other questions did I have for her? Let’s see, um…
“How come you’re wearing your uniform again today?”
“Ahaha… Seriously? That’s the most pressing question on your mind right now? Gosh, you must really love these things, huh?” she teased, popping the collar of her jacket to show it off.
“N-no, stupid. I, er, y’know…wanted to get the easy questions out of the way first…”
This girl was really throwing me for a loop today, and I knew exactly why. It was her mannerisms—they were all so much more feminine, and far flirtier than I was used to her being. It was like every little thing she did tugged at my heartstrings in one way or another. Akari flashed an amused smile, then casually offered a real answer to my question.
“I’m wearing it again today because I just got back from the funeral. And unlike the wake last night, we actually had to go over to the mainland for this one. I didn’t really have time to get changed after we got back to the house, so I came here in the same clothes.”
“Ah. Makes sense…”
If I’d been in a more rational state of mind, I could have guessed that. It was pretty normal to have the memorial service the day after the wake. I rebuked myself internally for not thinking twice before asking stupid questions and then moved on to the next one on my docket.
“Okay, that explains that. Moving on, then: Why did you think that I would know about this park?”
“Well, because you were the one who showed it to me in the first place.”
“What? When was this? I don’t remember that at all.”
“Yeah, of course you don’t. Because for you, it hasn’t happened yet. But it will.”
“…What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, totally unable to see what she was getting at. Her face turned deathly serious.
“You’ve heard the phrase ‘quantum leap’ before, right?”
Now this took me by surprise. She’d dropped a bit of terminology straight out of one of my favorite sci-fi novels.
“Yeah, it’s like…a form of time travel, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay. So…what about it?”
Akari looked me straight in the eye and told me point-blank:
“That’s what’s happening to you, Kanae-kun. You’ve leapt through time.”
“…Huh?”
I couldn’t wrap my head around it at first. Not that anyone in my position would have been able to hear “Hey, you’ve just traveled through time” and immediately go “Oh, that explains it!” However, I could at least tell that Akari wasn’t pulling my leg here. The thought of her dragging me out to a deserted park right after her only brother passed away—for the sake of feeding me a big fat lie—was even more unthinkable than it being true.