I clenched my fists as if to choke the life out of any potential misgivings before they had a chance to take root. I didn’t have the time nor mental acuity to sit around contemplating the true nature of time and destiny. All I knew was that the timing of the Rollback phenomenon aligned almost perfectly with Akito’s death, and that couldn’t be just a coincidence. There had to be a reason I was being sent back. I refused to believe that any higher power could be cruel enough to send me back in time like this without giving me a chance to change things. I alone had the power to prevent Akito’s death. I needed to firmly believe that, or else I’d lose the will to keep going like this.
I did, however, have some misgivings related to the conversation I’d overheard back at the festival. All that stuff about Akito being severely in debt or getting himself involved with criminal organizations. I didn’t want to think he would stoop that low, but those two guys sure didn’t seem like they were joking around. I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.
“…Not that it really matters.”
Whether he was into some shady stuff or not, I still needed to do whatever I could to save his life. I could find out if there was any truth to those accusations after the job was done, by confronting Akito himself about it.
I stood up from my bed to close the curtains, and my stomach let out a sudden, burbling growl. Wow, I really need to eat something, I thought to myself. Then I realized that these went way beyond usual hunger pangs; I was absolutely starving. How had I let myself go so long without eating? Strange, I thought as I closed the curtains and turned on the lights. Only a moment later, there was a knock on my door.
“Come in!” I yelled, and Eri walked in the room. “What’s up?”
“Um… Just wanted to tell you it’s almost time for dinner,” she said skittishly.
“Oh, okay. Thanks for letting me know,” I said, standing up from my bed to go downstairs. Eri made no indication of wanting to leave and instead remained firmly rooted to the spot. “Sorry, was there something else you needed?”
She looked pensively up at me for a moment, then gathered the nerve to ask what was on her mind.
“…So you’re not still mad at me?”
“What? Why would I be?”
“Well, I dunno… You kinda stormed out of the house after that fight we had yesterday… And then you didn’t come back home until this morning, and even then, you just holed up in your room. I thought maybe you were still angry…”
Stormed out of the house? What the heck is she… Oh, right! She must have been referring to the argument we had when I got here on April 1st. I put together a rough chronological sequence of events in my head: Shortly after disembarking from the ferry, I went back to my grandmother’s house, immediately got in a spat with Eri, then left the house and stayed at someone else’s place that night. Then, I apparently came home sometime on the morning of April 2nd but stayed cooped up in my room until right now, when Eri came to check up on me. Yep, that seems about right.
“H-hello…? See, I knew it. You are still upset, aren’t you?” Eri said nervously.
“Nah, you’re overthinking it. Relax. I wanted to apologize to you, actually. Really wasn’t cool for me to blow up on you like that.”
The tension visibly drained from Eri’s shoulders as she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well, okay then. That’s all I wanted to say,” she said, then turned to walk out the door.
“Hey, wait up a sec,” I cut in, grabbing her by the arm. “I had a question for you, actually: do you know where I was staying last night?”
“No? Why would I?” Eri replied, one eyebrow raised with suspicion.
“…Yeah, okay. Never mind, then. Sorry for the weird question.”
On that note, we both stepped out into the hallway, and Eri went on ahead of me. But just as I was about to walk down to the living room behind her, I was hit by a sudden wave of anxiety. It felt like I was forgetting something important. But what? I pulled out my cell phone and checked today’s date again. It was Monday, April 2nd, and the time was 6:20 p.m…
“Oh, crap!”
I ran down the stairs like a bat out of hell and put on my shoes as fast as I could.
“Hey, what’s with the big rush?” Eri asked, poking her head out from the living room.
“Sorry, can’t talk! And I need to borrow your bike!” I shouted back as I slammed the door behind me. Straddling Eri’s bicycle—which I already knew she didn’t usually keep a bike lock on—I took off at full speed toward the old tobacco shop. With everything that had transpired over the past couple days, I nearly forgot about the note I left myself regarding how I was supposed to find Akito’s body in the empty lot there tonight. Obviously, he would already be dead, since the autopsy estimated he passed shortly after midnight, but I wasn’t about to let his body rot out there in the elements even if I couldn’t actually save him until the next Rollback. Plus, the authorities needed to know.
After about a ten-minute bike ride, I rolled up to the front of the empty lot. It was overgrown with tall grass and weeds to the point that nothing seemed out of place at first glance, but when I stepped off my bike and actually started trudging through the reeds, I quickly spotted a large black lump lying on the ground further in. It was the corpse of a man who had apparently keeled over face down.
“Akito…” I muttered. No response came, naturally. His lifeless body was so still, it could almost be mistaken for a discarded mannequin. His ghastly pale skin was what ultimately forced me to accept that there was no longer a person living inside this lump of flesh, at which point I averted my eyes, feeling like I’d seen something I shouldn’t have.
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 119, reported the situation, and followed the operator’s instructions. As soon as I got off the phone with her, I opened my Memos app. Sure enough, the note about where and when I had discovered Akito’s body wasn’t yet written, so I typed it in right then and there for the benefit of my past (or future) self.
“4/2: Found Akito’s body @ 6:30 PM in empty lot behind tobacco shop & called police.”
Only a few minutes after I called it in, the paramedics arrived on the scene. From this point on, everything started to feel like it was happening in fast-forward. They asked me a bunch of questions, then checked his pulse, breathing, and pupils. A little while later, one of the paramedics came over and talked to me.