...nod nod.

"We kind of—became cordial, then, if a bit distant. You were still really happy all the time, being a superhero really suited you. I was having a bit of a rougher time, for absolutely no reason. I kept thinking about you all the time, and I still don't know why. I don't think I liked you then, yet, but maybe I did. I'd been rejected plenty of times, it made no sense for me to think so much about you.

"The week after that, I was nearly killed by a witch, and you and Yamanaka saved my life. You told me a little bit about magic, Kyūbey told me more, and I kept not having any wishes I cared enough about to actually give me magic. I resented you for—being such a better person than me, in everything, for getting to go out and save people and be happy with it while I couldn't even figure out anything I wanted.

"Saturday—three Saturdays from now—the rain started. It got bad enough Tokyo went into a state of emergency. A week from then, something non-magical people thought was a cataclysmic typhoon appeared and started destroying Tokyo. Kyūbey said you needed me, that I needed to figure out something to wish for so that I could get magic and help destroy the wish. I still couldn't think of anything, but I asked him to take me to the fight, so that maybe I could feel strongly enough about it to make my wish. But I still didn't, not until Yamanaka died, and then you, and then me.

"You were on my mind again, then. I wished I could've done everything right, I wished I were less fucked up, I wished I could do it all over but right this time. And then I was back."

"...so that was the first, uh, March 2026, but in the second one we were - closer?"

"Yeah. In the second one, I—contacted you immediately. As soon as I realised I was back. You freaked out, obviously, to get someone speaking in your head in the morning like that. I actually hadn't even known you weren't a magical boy yet, I thought you might've been one already. So I was the one to tell you about magic, then. You were—" His breath hitches, and he clears his throat. "So cheerful about it. And I kept thinking about you, and I—walked you from your mum's car to the school doors, and I was trying to be seductive and gentlemanly and make you like me.

"I also lied to you."

"...what about."

His eyes are still closed, and he's trembling a little bit like he's cold. "About—how close we'd been, the first time around. About the order of operations. I made it seem like we were closer friends than we actually were. Like we were friends at all. And you said something about—your notebook, I think, and I was surprised, and you made a face like, oh, I guess we weren't that close after all. And you were right, of course. But I hated that. I don't know why. I don't know why I was already so—focused on you. But I wanted you to like me. So I rewound time and said the right things rather than the wrong things instead."

"I was trying to be—cool and suave and sexy and someone you could like rather than pity. I was trying to flirt with you, to be a gentleman, to look like I really liked you. I'm pretty sure I did, by then. I'm not sure what changed. No, I'm certain I did, and I'm certain I don't know what changed, because I thought, at the time, that it didn't make any sense for me to be so focused on you, for me to be so obsessed with never, ever coming off badly. I failed, obviously. No one can never come off badly. —I felt tempted to say 'no one but you' right now but we've had this conversation before and concluded that it's just because I am incapable of ever seeing you as anything but the best, coolest person ever.

"We went to your place after school that afternoon, and you tried to notebook yourself into wanting something more than you wanted to get rid of malaria. You eventually gave up in frustration and we decided to do some power testing of my powers. I only knew about the rewind, at the time, but after a bit we figured out that I had the time stop, and also the magic infinite bag in my buckler. And I was absolutely certain you thought I was irrelevant at best and kind of unpleasant at worst. I didn't sleep very well that night.

"The next day, you were a magical boy. Malaria was gone. That was—when I'd been thinking about my wishes, an altruistic one like that never even crossed my mind, I'm just, I'd never, I'll never be as good a person as you are. Even if it had occurred to me, I wouldn't have felt strongly about it. Not strongly enough. I'm selfish, I'm too selfish and self-centered for that.

"Seeing you so happy made me want to see you be that happy forever."

"We pretended you still needed help walking across the ice. Just for appearances, and because I wanted to be next to you, and even pretend gentlemanliness was still—something. Better than nothing.

"Later, I—the first time around, tomorrow, these girls outed you to me. They told me not to hang out with you otherwise people would think I was gay. The first time around, I said something ambiguous, which started but never confirmed the rumour I was gay. The second time, I was very unambiguous about being gay, and about being into you personally. It wasn't a rumour when I literally confirmed it. We hung out some more, and later I—I don't remember what we were talking about. Something about how the first time went? I think I did some testing of my rewinding abilities and that was when I found out I could duplicate things in my buckler? But something about it made you—really wary. It made you realise that if I wanted to I could just rewind as many times as I wanted to get exactly the response I wanted out of you. You were, again, right, of course.

"And in the afternoon, we talked about some more stuff, and you asked me more about how the first time went, and I—didn't say anything that was false, but I lied to you anyway. And you noticed. Or—you noticed that if everything I said was true, that meant that you couldn't possibly have been that into me the first time around. And you said that you didn't want to tell me what it was that I had said that tipped you off, because you were acutely aware of the fact that possessed of that knowledge I would be able to make the conversation go right, if I cared enough, which, I probably didn't, but—

"I did. Obviously. I cared so, so much about you liking me. I stopped time, and I freaked out, and I thought about it a long time, and I couldn't escape the conclusion that I liked you, and that that made no sense, and that the thought of you hating me was the worst thing in the world.

"So I rewound time, and I told you about how the first loop went, and this time I didn't lie. I just told you everything, that we'd gone on that date and you hadn't liked me that much because I was too—you know. And then I said that I'd changed my mind. I said that the first time around, I didn't think that you were my type, but now I did. That was also true. So you asked me if hunting witches was my idea of a date. I said yes. We kissed for the first time that night."

"But you rewound to do it, so you - came clean but went further into deception anyway -"

"Yeah. Exactly. Which was the stupidest thing, wasn't it, I could've literally said exactly the same thing without the rewind, but I—felt like you'd never forgive me if I did, if you knew I'd lied. I don't know. I don't know why I was so freaked out. I don't know if you'd have forgiven me, and I also don't know if you should have."

"I—didn't really have much more to lie about, after that. I genuinely liked you. I was into you. I wanted to be with you, and no one else. I was kind of cringe and embarrassing at times in front of you but it was fine because it was you and if anyone got to see me be cringe and embarrassing it'd be you.

"But... there was one more time. ...there were a few more times. Of, because, I—"

"Iwasaki Iemasa came to visit me next week. Showed up at my apartment, more like, because he owns it, and he can do whatever the fuck he wants, of course." Iwasaki is squeezing his hands into fists, and it doesn't seem like he's noticing it, the way he's fidgeting. "He'd heard the rumours. Because I was being out and proud, for the first time in my fucking life, and how pathetic do I have to be, right? I thought I'd been sticking it to him all my life, I thought I'd been rebelling, but even when I was being as much of a fucking faggot as I thought I could be I still never—ever—confirmed it, did I. I still cared enough about my name, about his name, that I kept it to open secrets rather than actual openness. It took liking a boy, liking you, for me to be completely out in the open and shamelessly gay, for me to actually just say I was gay to whoever asked.

"So he heard about it, and he showed up at my apartment, and he—belittled me, he's so fucking good at finding exactly the things to say to trigger me, I'm not—I'm not trying to excuse it. There isn't any excusing it. But I was—seeing red. I hated him. I was scared of him. And he said he was pulling me from Shimamoto and sending me to Kaiyo, to a boarding school, where I'd be away from—everyone, but mostly, you. And I—changed his mind. I made him not care so much about me. I made him fucking stop ruining my goddamn life for five minutes—" He stops himself, and leans forward, hiding his face in his hands, taking deep breaths.

Haru can't think of anything to say, to that.

"I tried—just saying different things. I tried rewinding. A few times. And it just—nothing worked—I wasn't trying very hard. Or very well. And he just kept—calling me disgusting. Saying I was shameful. Saying maybe I'd learn my lesson if I was away from everyone I'd ever known. That was the last straw, was when he said that. I gave up, and I changed his mind. I made him stop caring about it, I made him not—think it was that big a deal. I didn't, didn't make him love me. I didn't want his love. I didn't want his approval. But I made him feel the same way about it as he used to feel about my previous indiscretions.

"Then I told you about it. I told you about it, and you freaked out, and you said that I still had time to go back, to undo it, that you'd help me workshop solutions.

"I was angry with you, then. I, I shouldn't have been. But I was. I felt like, like you—it doesn't matter how I felt. I was angry, and so I rewound again, and I never told you about it. I never told you about it then, and I didn't tell you about it the next two times Iwasaki Iemasa came to visit me that month, when he'd realised that it made no sense for him to not care, when he realised that actually he did care. I made him not care both times. And I didn't tell you about it, because you'd have hated me, you'd have broken up with me, and you'd have been right to.

"Or, no. Not exactly. After the last one I—decided I was going to tell you. I was going to confess, to tell you everything. No, I think maybe I decided that even before that? I knew something was going to give. But I was going to tell you after we saved Tokyo. I was going to tell you after everything was okay, because I knew that when you hated me and broke up with me, I wouldn't be okay. I knew it would fuck me up so badly I wouldn't be able to fight the witch. And I couldn't afford that. I needed to save Tokyo. We needed to save Tokyo. If I was going to break down and become a mess and be unable to help anyone, that had to happen after we saved Tokyo.

"I think that was a little bit self-serving, but not entirely. I think I was right that I was going to be useless if you broke up with me. I think I am right that I'm going to be—ineffective, and broken, and fucked up, now. But I decided to tell you after we saved Tokyo, and we didn't save Tokyo, and we died instead, so I'm telling a version of you who didn't tell me he loved me back, so hopefully it won't hurt you as badly as it would've, and you won't feel as betrayed. I'm just some guy. You have no reason to care about me, and you shouldn't."

He reaches into his buckler and gets a different letter, a much longer one. "The rest of last month is here, too. But I—wanted to tell you that part, myself. It would've been cowardly not to, and I'm tired of being a coward. I'm tired of being small and selfish. But I'm still me, and I never deserved you, and I never will." He places the letter on the table, then draws his hand back.

Haru actually nods along at the part about putting it off till after saving Tokyo. And he breathes in sharply a little bit, at the part about telling him he loved him back. But he still doesn't say anything.

He takes the letter.

"I'm sorry. I know this is a lot to dump on you on a Monday morning. I know I said we'd be able to be in time stop and you wouldn't be late for school, but—I can't put you in time stop without being in it. So—I can be as far away from you as this string will go, if you want to be in time stop for longer. Or I can leave. Or I can—do anything you want. I will never deserve you, but I am entirely and wholly yours, and that is not going to change, even after you throw me out. Whatever you tell me to do, I'll do. Whatever you want out of me is yours." He finally opens his eyes then pulls his gem, shining with tarnished silver light, out of his choker into its bauble form and places it on the table. He pushes it towards Haru. "The entirety of me is yours."

"I - what am I supposed to do with that," says Haru.

He laughs a little despairing laugh. "Nothing. It's symbolic. I know there isn't anything you would do with it. But I need you to know that if there was, you could."

"I think probably the thread is long enough and skinny enough that I could - go in my room - but I'm probably going to think of questions as I write anyway."

"Telepathy won't work in here because Kyūbey isn't stopped. You could go in your room, and pass me notes. Or just shout through the door or, or something."

"Yeah."

Haru lays a hand on the gem for a moment, contemplative - then collects the letters and notebook and spools out thread till he's back in his room. It's not very far. The apartment is little.

Iwasaki shivers a bit when Haru touches his gem, but doesn't do anything more, and doesn't follow Haru with his eyes. He just stays there, and doesn't do anything.