“Oh, Sakamoto, there you are!”

As I walked toward the main gate, one of the graduates standing nearby approached me.

I looked up and saw Nishigami, a boy I had been in the same class with in my first and third years.

Several of his friends were present as well.

They approached me with concern.

“Are you… are you okay?”

“Yeah, after what happened to your ex-girlfriend and all….”

“Igarashi-san, you know, was rushed to the hospital after she passed out… So we’re concerned.”

“O-oh…”

I became perplexed as one person spoke after another.

“Well, yeah. I’m honestly freaking out.”

Igarashi-san. She was the girl who raised her voice earlier.

So, she passed out. This is really turning into a much bigger deal than I thought…

By the way, I didn’t have great memories of Nishigami and his clique.

During my self-introduction on the day of the entrance ceremony, I failed to make friends with them after messing it up. We had talked briefly before that, but they had grown distant from me after what happened. They weren’t bad guys, but they probably thought I was a “weird guy.” Well, that was to be expected, given how miserably I failed.

That was my first blunder in high school, the first of many.

That’s also why I was uncomfortably sensitive when they all spoke in such a friendly manner.

Also, there was something else bothering me.

“Did I tell you I was dating Nito…?”

I never told them about it.

I didn’t keep it a secret, but only a few people knew Nito and I were dating. I never went out of my way to tell them because I was embarrassed.

So why would Nishigami, with whom I had had little interaction, know it? Maybe he heard about it from a rumor I wasn’t aware of?

“…Come on, dude.”

Nishigami was chuckling with a look that said, “Are you kidding me?”

“You consulted us a lot during our freshman year, remember? Where to go on dates, what to wear, and so on.”

“…What?”

“You know, you asked us for advice while we were eating our lunches together.”

“It seemed like you were showing off to us single folks.”

Nishigami and his friends laughed.

Wait, I asked them for advice? And over lunch, no less?

No way. That’s not something I would do.

“In any case, if you need anything, let us know.”

Nishigami placed his hand on my shoulder and gave me a sincere look.

“We can’t help you much, but we can offer advice.”

“Yeah, don’t hesitate.”

“That’s right….”

They then left the main gate.

I looked behind them in a daze as they walked away.

Even so, I tried hard to organize the conversation in my head.

“…Has history been rewritten?”

I mumbled.

“Nah, I don’t think so….”

After messing up my self-introduction, I rarely spoke with Nishigami and the others. I’m certain I never consulted them or had lunch with them.

But, in my hallucination—that strangely too vivid vision—I avoided making a mistake in my self-introduction.

In that case, did I return to an alternate future?

“…Senpai.”

Makoto, who had been standing behind me the entire time, anxiously called out to me.

“Oh, what’s up?”

“Something’s wrong with me.”

“What is it?”

“I’m remembering things differently.”

“…Huh?”

I stared at her.

“You hardly had any friends in your class, Senpai. So you’d come to the clubroom for lunch, and I’d accompany you. But… when you played the piano… when you played Nito-senpai’s song earlier in the clubroom… things are suddenly coming back to me differently.”

Makoto’s gaze then wandered erratically.

“You normally have friends. And I remember you eating lunch with them.”

Her words…

Makoto’s words sparked an idea in my mind.

I thought what I was seeing earlier was a hallucination.

I assumed it was just a fleeting fantasy born of my heart’s desire.

If I actually rewrote the past in such a way…

Had reality been altered to conform to what occurred in my hallucination?

“…Did I go back to three years ago?”

Those words escaped my lips.

“Back when I first met Nito… during our freshman year?”

That’s probably it. “Time travel,” as seen in science fiction novels and comic books. That’s what happened, isn’t it?

Something supernatural happened when I played Nito’s song in the clubroom.

And I returned to my freshman year and made different decisions.

“…If so.”

A thought occurred to me.

“If I could go back to that time again. If I could redo everything from the beginning….”

My heart fluttered with hope, even though it was a long shot.

I said it aloud to confirm it.

“I can save Nito, right?”