October 18 (Friday)
Kino came up to me this morning and asked, “Can you come meet me in the courtyard after school?” Naturally, I said yes.
✦ ✦ ✦
The next day, October 18, Asumi arrived at school and stepped into her classroom. Kino greeted her with a smile.
“Good morning! Uh… Can you come meet me in the courtyard after school?” he asked her.
“Sure!”
Just like she’d written in her diary. She spent the rest of the day daydreaming through her classes.
After school, I went to the courtyard as promised. Unlike usual, there was no one hanging around there today. We had the place to ourselves!
Sure enough, there was nobody else around but her and Kino. No one to disturb them.
The two of them sat down on a bench, side by side.
Kino started by returning the ¥100 I gave him yesterday. But that wasn’t all. He also gave me a batch of his homemade cookies to say thank you!
So it was written, and so it came to be.
“Thanks for helping me out yesterday! Here, I told you I’d pay you back.” Kino took a ¥100 coin out of a cute little money pouch and gave it to Asumi. “Also… Here. I baked some cookies to say thank you. I know you’re into sweets and stuff, so I thought maybe you’d like them.”
Kino handed her the cookies with a bashful smile. They were all neatly packed in a little box inside an elegant paper bag.
“To be honest, I’m kind of embarrassed giving regular old cookies to someone who can make Black Forest cake from scratch. It’s not much, but…”
✦ ✦ ✦
“No, I love them! Thank you, Kino!”
Asumi took out the box and placed it on her lap. The lid was clear, so she could see all the different cookies tastefully lined up against each other. Some had red or yellow jam on them, others were square with a checkerboard pattern, some had nuts and spices mixed in…
Each one looked absolutely delicious. A fragrant aroma rose from the bag, gently tickling Asumi’s nose.
I’m so happy…!
She’d always wanted to make professional-level cookies like these.
And receiving a whole box from a wonderful guy like Kino is a dream come true…!
Her heart was filled to the brim with excitement. She wanted to hug the box close to her, but she held back. The way she was now, she’d probably squeeze it so tight that she’d crush the cookies.
She turned back to Kino. “I’ve been wondering… Do you want to become a pastry chef someday?”
“Hmm… Not a pastry chef so much as a regular baker, I guess.”
“Oh, so you want to open your own store?”
“Yeah! Like…nothing too big or fancy, just a little place that everyone in the neighborhood knows. A simple, down-to-earth bakery with food that can bring comfort to my customers. It’s my dream to run a place like that.”
Kino smiled in a way that warmed Asumi’s heart and made her want to smile back at him.
Except…
✦ ✦ ✦
They continued their conversation for a while longer, and eventually Kino left, waving good-bye with a casual “See you tomorrow!”
Now on her own in the courtyard, Asumi just sat there as happiness flowed through her. She was feeling so light and floaty that she almost let the cookies fall off her lap, but she caught them in time and put them on the bench, next to her.
I knew Kino was a wonderful guy… I really want to get closer to him now.
The more she’d spoken to him today, the more she’d gotten to like him.
Except…there was just one thing that was bothering her.
Kino said he wants to run a little neighborhood bakery when he grows up… But I’ve always dreamed of opening an exclusive luxury patisserie.
The conversation had revealed that small but important difference between the two of them.
If she started going out with Kino, and their relationship lasted into adulthood, and they decided to open their own store together, what was going to happen then? They each wanted to run a completely different kind of place.
Well…it shouldn’t be a problem. If worse comes to worst, I can use the diary to make it all work out.
That thought helped Asumi regain her composure.
Any aspect of reality that she didn’t like, she could just change. It would be a simple matter to use her Truthful Diary to change Kino’s dream, too. She’d probably feel a little bad doing that to him, but it wasn’t like he’d be unhappy. She could just write something like:
Kino decided he also wanted to become a first-rate pastry chef, and we decided to open our own store together. It’s a stylish cake shop that offers classy luxury confections. Now that the dream we share has come true, both of us are happy every single day!
And then Kino would be happy. So there was really no problem.
“Hee-hee… Now then, what should I write for tomorrow’s entry?”
Chuckling to herself, Asumi got up and left the courtyard.
✦ ✦ ✦
When she reached the front gate of the school, she suddenly noticed something.
It was gone! She didn’t have the box of cookies that Kino had made for her!
“Oh no… I must have spaced out and left it behind in the courtyard!”
How could she have been so careless with something so important? She hurried back to the courtyard as fast as her legs would carry her.
When she got there, she saw a flock of crows pecking at the cookies she’d left on the bench.
“No way…”
The elegant paper bag had been torn to shreds, and the cookies had been pecked to pieces, littering the ground with crumbs.
“No…it can’t be…”
She could only stand there dumbfounded, silent among the cawing of the crows.
✦ ✦ ✦
Asumi’s mind drifted back to the diary entry she’d written the night before. She never actually wrote I ate the cookies that Kino gave me. That had been where she’d gone wrong.
Why couldn’t I just add a little sentence like that? Why did I have to end the entry there…?
Ever since she got home, Asumi had been sobbing to herself, wallowing in sorrow and regret.
Using the Truthful Diary, it would be easy enough to get Kino to give her cookies again. But that wasn’t the point. Those were the first ones he’d ever made for her. There’d never be another first time. They were special.
The Truthful Diary might have been able to change the future, but it couldn’t do anything about the past…
✦ ✦ ✦
Or could it?
✦ ✦ ✦
Wait a minute… Why not?
Asumi raised her head and wiped away her tears. The Truthful Diary had the power to change reality, to make whatever was written in it true.
So then, why should it be limited to the future? If I write something different than what’s already happened, that’ll change to become true, too, won’t it?
In that case, she could absolutely use the diary to change the past.
Asumi immediately took the diary out of her desk drawer to try out this idea. Turning to the entry she’d written yesterday, she added an additional sentence to the end of it: I was so excited that I couldn’t help myself and ate the cookies then and there.
✦ ✦ ✦
Asumi put her pen down, wondering if this would be enough.
Just then, a flash of blinding light shone from the diary.
“Urk…”
Asumi felt dizzy, and her head went fuzzy.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Mnh…”
She slowly opened her eyes again and blinked.
What had just happened? It felt like she might have passed out for a moment.
“What was I doing just now…?”
Still feeling a little woozy, Asumi got to her feet and stepped away from her desk, where the diary still lay open. Her parents called to her from downstairs in the kitchen. Dinner was ready.
She put her hand to her stomach and mumbled to herself, “I’m not that hungry… I did eat those cookies Kino gave me at school, after all.”
She’d been so excited that she couldn’t help herself and had eaten his homemade treats then and there. Just remembering the taste brought a smile to her lips.
“Aaah… Those cookies were sooo delicious.”
Still basking in the blissful experience, she left her room and went downstairs.
✦ ✦ ✦
Asumi watched the other Asumi walk out of the room in blank amazement.
“What’s going on?”
This didn’t make sense. The last thing she remembered was getting dizzy and passing out, and then…the next thing she knew, there was another her in her room.
Still confused, she tried following the other Asumi. But as she was walking past her window, she noticed something wasn’t right.
“Huh…?”
It was dark outside, and the surface of the window reflected her room back at her like a black mirror.
Except Asumi wasn’t in it.
Panicking now, she picked up the mirror on her desk, but it showed the same thing: She didn’t have a reflection.
“Wh-what is this? What’s happening to me…?!” she cried.
Nobody came forward to answer her.
Instead, the pages of the diary left open on her desk began to flutter and flap, turning themselves on their own until they reached the very end of the book. There, she saw a page that she could have sworn hadn’t been there before: