This felt so good that I completely forgot the guilt I once felt for putting additional financial strain on my mom, and I started living my life to the fullest without a care in the world. Everywhere I went, people showered me with praise—but the words that meant the most, and gave me the strength to keep pushing myself even harder, came from Kanae.
“Man, Akari. You’re on fire lately,” he said on our way home from school one day. “See, I always knew you had it in you. I could tell you were destined for greatness way before anyone else realized what a good swimmer you are!”
“Oh yeah? You knew it all along, huh?” I teased.
“Yep! Guess I’ve just got an eye for these things, heh-heh!” he boasted.
“Wowie. You should be a talent scout or something.”
“Hey! Don’t be sarcastic with me!”
I giggled to myself; he’d caught me red-handed. In all seriousness, though, I really was grateful to Kanae. If he hadn’t spoken so highly of my abilities that day in third grade, I might not have ever started taking swimming seriously like this.
“Thanks for everything, Kanae-kun,” I said in a meek and quiet voice.
“The heck? Where’d that come from?”
“You always paid attention to me, even when no one else would. It really means a lot.”
At this, Kanae dropped the braggadocious act and started downplaying it—saying things like “Nah, I didn’t have anything to do with it” as his face went beet red. In that moment, I really felt like I was the happiest girl alive. If I could have sold my soul to make sure those days would never end, I would have done so in a heartbeat.
MY CONSCIOUSNESS SNAPPED BACK to a different point in time in an instant. When I lifted my head, I saw a large crowd of people spread out all around me. I took in my first breath, and an aromatic mixture of sweet and salty scents wafted into my nostrils. And then came the sounds—the incessant crowd noises and, somewhere off in the distance, the crooning melody of Greensleeves.
Akari, who’d been standing beside me prior to the jump, was nowhere to be found. It was just like when I was instantly transported from the abandoned park down to the seawall—as if the projector for the world around me had switched over to a different slide in the span of a single blink. I was prepared for it this time, at least, thanks to Akari’s explanation, but that didn’t make it any less jarring to experience.
“You can’t be serious…” I muttered in disbelief.
Despite my astonishment, I couldn’t shake the residual image of Akari’s tear-drenched face from my mind. What was she so broken up about in that moment? Was she thinking back on her brother’s death? Could I have unwittingly said something in poor taste? Or was there some other reason…? I knew it would keep eating away at me, but for now I decided to forget about it and focus on regaining my bearings. If Akari was right, the Rollback should have sent me back to six o’clock on April 4th.
Just as I was about to pull out my phone and check the time, however, a man I didn’t recognize suddenly shot into my field of vision. He was red in the face, and he looked to be middle-aged. It was the abruptness that startled me more than anything else; he hadn’t dashed in from the side or behind me. It was more like he sprung up from below—like he’d been sitting directly at my feet, then shot straight up to get right in my face.
“Hey! Whaddya think yer doin’, kid?!” he spat, his eyes glaring up from beneath the bulging veins on his furrowed brow. He was pissed off at me about something or other, that much was evident—but I had no clue who he was. I’d never seen him before in my life.
“Er… Sorry, can I help you with something?” I asked sheepishly.
“Huh?!” the man barked. I immediately knew that he was drunk; his breath reeked of alcohol. “You want me to beat yer ass, punk?! Don’t you play dumb with me!”
“Wh-whoa, hang on a minute!” I sputtered, taking a few steps back as the man closed in. “Listen, I really don’t know what’s going on here…”
The man repeated my words in an exaggerated, mocking voice. Something told me he wasn’t about to listen to reason. Ugh, what did I do to deserve this? First I was caught off guard by Akari crying, then my mind got sent back into the middle of a big crowd of people, and now I was being harassed by a man I didn’t even know. This was way too much for me to handle all at once—I felt at serious risk of losing my mind.
First and foremost, I needed to think of a way to get myself out of this sticky situation. I knew my assailant had to be quite drunk and thus probably wouldn’t be able to keep up with me if I made a clean break for it. At the same time, I knew that running away before I even figured out what I’d supposedly done to this man wouldn’t sit well with me. It didn’t seem like he was going to calm down enough to have a rational discussion with me anytime soon, though—rather, it looked like he was gearing up to slug me in the face. I didn’t have time to stand around weighing my options at length. I took a few more steps back. The second before I turned to make a run for it, a young woman with blonde hair jumped in between me and the drunkard.