Chapter 123 (1/2)

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The story I’ to tell may run contrary to your expectations

After all, you would probably believe that, if one had the opportunity to be sent back to the age of ten with their ood use of their knowledge and be able to change all sorts of things

Everyone has those regrets, those thoughts of “If only I had done this instead”

For those ish they’d studied more, there are others ish they’d played more

For those ish they’d been more honest about who they were, there are others ish they’d listened more to others

For those ish they’d gotten closer to someone sooner, there are others ish they’d never had anything to do with someone

For those ish they’d made more careful decisions, there are others ish they’d taken bigger risks

When I was a child, I once happened to talk with a vagrant under a bridge for about an hour

He was a cheerythat see he couldn’t quite get over

“In these fifty years,” theborn into this world”

So even that could be a regret

Well, anyway What I’rets I’m sure you can empathize with that yourself

And if you could start your life over, no doubt anyone would use their self-reflections, lessons, and o

Because they’d know those regrets lie ahead of them

But when it came to my experience, well, it was quite the opposite

Thinking on it now, I did a truly foolish thing I really did

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When I realized that ht:

“Talk about unnecessary”

Let’s suppose we have a guy who doesn’t have a single regret about his life

Now the guy could be plenty happy, or else he could be a moron

He could’ve lived a life so perfect that there was nothing to reflect upon, or he could just lack the brains to reflect on anything

Granted, I’uy

I was pretty pleased hat I was calling life It’s the truth, I didn’t have any problems at all

Had the best girlfriend I could ask for, great friends, a perfect fa, in my mind

Isoin the occasional headache

Since I knew I could alake up to good things, I alanted to stay up a little longer Sleep was justout on life, as I saw it

And so for , the chance to relive

A big waste, I thought - felt like it should have gone to so about their life

Suppose there’d be lots of people ouldn’t ain

Opportunity always see old prankster

Turn on the TV, and you’ll know right away froive with both hands” is one big lie

Maybe I’ for punishment here, but God doesn’t have the first notion of “equality”

Anyway, seeing one of God’s cruel pranks withabout all that stuff

Point is, I was satisfied withit a second time…

So I thought, hey,the same the second time around

That was the idea

I guess in a way I was a bit of a pranksterit backfire

Fix those mistakes and missed chances in my first life? Nah, I would have it all play out the same

I’d set out to less

I knew in es to come, but I’d keep my mouth shut

After all, soon as I started talking about that stuff, I wouldn’t knohen to stop

Besides, there were already plenty of crazies out there claionna happen, so there was no way anybody’d find me any more credible

I’d live out the rest of my life in a hospital if I went off in that direction

Sure, I suppose choosing not to save people who could be saved wasn’t sohtly do

But to be honest, there wasn’t anybody out there I cared about enough to consider sacrificing my own happiness

Yeah, so to do that kind of self-sacrifice But they just do it because the satisfaction they get from the act exceeds what they lose, that’s all So no different fro priority on your own happiness

The is in theever changing”

So I’d thoroughly re-enact ht out of the second round

I bet upstream time-swimmers who don’t even want it are real rare

Feels like I should be congratulated

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My second shot at life began right at the Christmas when I was ten

What tippedwith a Super Nintendo by my bedside

Ten-year-old me’d desperately wanted one

“Super Nintendo” Hearing it now, it’s a pretty damn silly name But at the time, it was the best toy out there

When I first saw one at a friend’s house, I was shocked, all like, “Is it right for so this fun to exist?”

I was so transfixed on the screen, I didn’t even lay a finger on the candy they brought out

Games were pretty expensive at the time, but my birthday was December 24th, Christmas Eve

My birthday and Christht some fairly expensive stuff

I eray systereen buttons on the controller Man, those were the days

Forget thinking about this swiames always had a certain charm to them

They were lie, but that turned out to ames more effective overall

The paper bag had a game in it, too Ah, of course The system orthless without one

…But, you know, I had to laugh Because the ga to and fro between the past and future

To borrow a teriven a New Ga on the h to do it all again

And what better description for as happening now

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Now, around this point youto knoas I suddenly sent back in tie of twenty? And what about time paradoxes? And all that sort of science fiction nonsense

Well, to be honest with you, I don’t have a lick of interest in that stuff See, you couldor disproving them

As far as logistics goes, what happened tothat would never ever happen It was like two plus two couess

One possibility was that I’d gone nuts - basically, that ten-year-old otten the wisdom of his twenty-year-old counterpart, as a result of twenty-year-oldsent back in time

But honestly, I was verywhether you’ve gone nuts, anyway? Really crazy people never notice that they’re crazy

The only thing that neededelse

Could I live a happy life out of this situation? That was all I needed to consider

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I wiped the condensation off the foggy ith a pajama sleeve

It was still dim outside, but I had an unbroken view of the snow-covered town

From how the sky looked, it should have been rather cold, but reat like that

It was still early , so there wasn’t anyone outside, nor was there a sound

All that was evendown at a fixed rhythm

Itof my clothes seem unusually louder

As I ru, it woke upon the bottom bunk, and I heard her crawl out from under the down quilt

I grabbed onto the bed frame and peered down at my seven-year-old sister

She drowsily turned to a teddy bear beside the bed and shouted “Yaaay!” with a slight delay

Long hair like lacquered silk, round ht touch of color

Oh yeah, ically Alalking a fewbrother!”

I guess in a way, I’d say this hen she was cutest ‘Course, she was still a great little sister ten years later, that didn’t change

But thing is, as she grew older, she didn’t need to rely on me anymore Good for her, but makes you wonder if your little sister can ever be too capable

I dropped off the bed onto the carpet and sat down on my sister’s bunk

As she sat entranced by her teddy bear, I said to her “Hey”

“Your brother’s come back from ten years in the future”

Still sleepy, she laughed “Welcome back!”

I kinda liked that response and said “It’s good to be back,” rustling her head

My sister beingwordlessly, and did the same with her teddy bear

I didn’t do this kind of thing ht’ve been new So I wondered how I should respond

I wanted to open my heart to someone about the brilliant plan I’d devised

I just had an itch for soe notion, my dare to re-enact ood pick for it

She was little and wouldn’t understand whatever I told her, and she’d soon forget all about it

I said this tobefore me with a teddy bear on her lap

“I know theto make, and I knohat it is I should really do Tell the truth, starting right now I could be a prodigy, or get super rich Heck, I could even be a prophet or some kinda messiah

”…But you know, I don’t want to change a thing It’ll be fine by me if I can just live the same life as before”

She stared absent her teddy bear

“I don’t get it,” she replied honestly

“Suppose you wouldn’t,” I said

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This is the story of how upon reaching e of ten, and lived to be twenty once more

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First thing I want to get out of the way: I made no compromises in my recreation of the first time ‘round

It was a difficult road, to be frank Taking lessons for a ten-year-old with the intelligence of twenty and having conversations that suited a kid ine

Real grueling Felt like I was gonna go insane in a classroom one day

Maybe this isn’t the best way to express it, but I bet that’s how it feels to be a sane guy thrown into a mental hospital

Anyway, I was serious about everything I did, cut no corners

Everybody craves the lies to answer questions that nobody in class knew, or object to ridiculously wrong nonsense the teacher said I’onna deny it

All that self-control can’t be good for the body; it was pretty stressful resisting those urges

But it wasn’t all bad, of course There’s nothing better the world can offer than the luxury of seeing the world through a child’s eyes again

I was still friends with the world then, you could say The trees, the birds, the wind, they all opened for me And that’s not half bad

Of course I’d seen all of this before, yet it all seereat experience

I wondered what exactly it was Maybe ed in the trip back Orless detailed, more abstract

For example, let’s take this me the summer when I elve”

If I tried to recall that, I’d think “The stars were innu stars too”

That’s what I’d naturally remember, but not a trace of the physical scenery came to mind

I couldn’t remember what the lake or the campsite were named I just remembered “lake” and “campsite”

Even if I tried to recall deeper, soe up any more detail

This is how in with, of course, but it seemed extra prevalent in my second loop of life

So because of that, I chose to not waste any of thoseexperiences

Orto happen, I could be prepared, and would take the opportunity to enjoy every moment

Maybe you could say it was like reading a book having only read the summary prior

But with how vague o were, I’ot

Still, I planned to do what I could to recreate my first life

Using ht on the situation, I made the choices that felt most “natural”

It wasn’t an easy thing to do, but I’d sent off all lingering doubt about using es to improve my life further

I loved everything aboutit Whatever happened, I didn’t want it to be undone

But as they say, sos can bring drastic changes

Five years into the second round, nificantly

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I’ ended up different

I mean it, I really couldn’t tell you If you compared the two and asked me “Where were they different?”, I wouldn’t kno to answer

You need to have some common points to compare and contrast You can’t just ask soo-round and a pencil, right?

But in a word, I was ruined Far worse off than one would ever iiven my first life

To give a few examples, let’s see I was bullied by my best friend froirlfriend froh school I attended in my first life… and so on

I bet you’re dying to knohat change in ht on such corruption But I don’t want to talk about that, at least not right now

Basically, I’m not the type to moan about his worries

Anybody who enjoys hearing that stuff’s gotta be soers’ sorrows better than three square ossiper types

And this story’s not for the bits

I guess I’ll put it like this In o at life, a vicious cycle had created itself seely out of thin air

One bit of misfortune led to another bit of misfortune, and that led to a third As soon as there was a tiny ot mucked up, and those ones mucked up even more…

And in the end, the cogs had all coood way to explain what happened

It was a friend of h

I was always a guy who could “fall either way,” so to speak I had the potential for great success, but I also had the potential for massive failure

Theexclusive to me

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There were a lot of causes all linked together which I could point to, but what I would call the irl who should have becoirlfriend rejected me

When my confession - which I was a hundred percent sure would succeed - boine my dismay

According to irl” always had sleepy eyes, but it only looked that way because of her long eyelashes

When she appeared to be spacing out, the gears were in fact always turning in her head… That’s what irlfriend” was like

Those memories about her were some of the hest-priority ones uess that’s memory for you

At any rate, she seeirl I’d fall for I’ve never been particularly interested in a girl siuess I’ out, but always has her head on straight”

That sort of fondness for abnormality… Well, if you co-based thing, ad I wanna do all the time

I seemed to recall that in , my third year of middle school

And her reply was so,” half in tears And in the five years after that, ere more or less inseparable

That’s how it should have gone the second time, too

Yes… It should have

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In autuht before the culture festival, as the classes were finishi+ng up all their presentation preparations, I renificance in my life

We were iht, so everyone finished up early so we could have a blast

It ht have been a little after 6 PM As I took in the breeze on the veranda outside, I watcheda play in the classroom

Suddenly, but not necessarily because anything had happened, I was filled with a feeling of happiness

As I searched irl ould soon become irreplaceable

I remembered that this was the day It seean to fall in love

As ever, I didn’t knoho that fateful girl was, but I glea in love with the one ould becoirlfriend

Thus, I stuck around the classroom as late as I could that day to meet her

Just past nine, when I couldn’t bear to wait any longer, a classmate spoke up

“Hey, can soym?”

I intuitively accepted on the spot, and received a nu them was a red Santa hat

I would’ve been willing to just take it by myself, but then from the corner of the room came a voice: “Wait, I’ll help you!”

I looked toward the owner of the voice It was Tsugu up to me

“As I thought,” I thought

Sleepy eyes, long eyelashes, always thinking As I said, I’d been searching for a girl with those characteristics, and found a few, but Tsugumi matched them most closely

I had irlfriend a while ago And I found uess to be spot on

With irlfriend before umi, who had put on the Santa hat

She smiled at the corner of herthe props ere carrying, and put them on me

The lights were already off in the gym, so it was pitch black After we put down the props behind the stage, Tsugurinned mischievously

“Hey, if we go back, we’ll just have to do more work Let’s rest here a while”

I agreed, of course

We ended up going hoht We both seemed sad to leave each other, so we talked for about an hour more on a park bench

This is where the best parts of ht

I would repeat everything the saht

Except, well… what happened in cherry blossom season, in my third year of middle school

As in my first life, after school, ere the only two in the classrooumi

I was ready to delight, and for her to be delighted, and all of that

But she just looked worried and said “U to smile

A few days later, she ultimately turned me down But perhaps the problem was that I was too cocky

My confession, in my first life, was said very hastily and with much tension

Perhaps ed to move her, and turned a confession that ordinarily would not have won her over into one that did

The second tiured I’d confess already” It wouldn’t be surprising if that left a bad taste with her

I could think of any number of other causes, of course But I had failed to irlfriend That hat mattered

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After that, oh, it ful I never would have iirlfriend had on my first life

Having lost my “Goddess of happiness” forin a storm

For the first month or so, I wanted to believe it was soumi must’ve had some reason to lie to me

I earnestly believed that soon enough, she’d co There were deep circumstances which made me unable to respond to your affections that day, but actually, I love you”

But fifty days passed since my confession, and even I couldn’t believe that anymore It was too late for her to take it back

It see the past was impossible from the start

Why, if I’d known this would happen, I should have just become a prophet

But it was too late now Five years had passed since I swaned

On a related topic, a life without Tsugu to listen to lectures after that, putting me down a few notches in academics

Don’t underestimate the effects others can have on you, I mean it

You h school exae up to twenty years old

But hey, you try e stuck back in eleet what I mean then

Brains are flexible, so any information we deem to be unnecessary is mercilessly tossed out

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I guess it was rets, to live a second one full of them

I never asked for a lot If you ask ht my attitude was commendable

In that sense, I don’t really knohat God was thinking Heck,existence, of course

hell, I’ all this stuff about God, exactly? Weird

Well,the word “God” to refer to the justice of the world and all that I suppose that’s it

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