Morning started out fine.
Alarm at 6:30.
Tea at 6:32.
Time stopped at 6:33 because I dropped my toast butter-side down and reflexively froze the entire timeline out of sheer emotional distress.
You know. Normal.
After a reset, I got dressed, packed my bento, and walked to school like a person who definitely wasn't hiding a magical stopwatch in her pencil case and didn't have a best friend who regularly got chased by floating pastries.
Naomi walked beside me, munching on a convenience store melon pan and cheerfully talking about a late-night drama involving magical accountants.
We reached the school gate.
Nothing unusual.
Until I saw him.
The Boy
He stood under the old cherry blossom tree near the front stairs, leaning against the trunk like he belonged there.
Tall-ish. Tousled black hair. Same tired-eyes energy I had after pulling a time-freeze too late in the day.
Except… something about him made my skin prickle.
He was watching me.
Not in a creepy way.
In a recognizing way.
Like someone who already knew the shape of my thoughts.
Naomi noticed too. "Friend of yours?"
"I… don't think so?"
We walked past him.
And then he said it.
"You still carry the stopwatch, don't you?"
I froze. Like actually froze—not time-stop, just panic paralysis.
He smiled faintly.
"Don't worry. I'm not here to mess things up. Just checking when you'd remember me."
"Wait—Who Are You?!"
We pulled him aside behind the bike rack, where conversations usually go when something universe-bending is happening.
"I don't know you," I said, arms crossed. "But you clearly know me. And that's a problem."
He sighed and held up a tiny leather-bound book.
Identical to mine. Down to the gilded border and the faint smell of toasted marshmallow.
On the front:
"Rei – Chapter 40+"
Naomi's eyebrows shot up. "No way. Reika—do you have a cousin or something?"
He shook his head.
"I'm not your cousin. Or your stalker. Or some magical transfer student with dramatic monologues."
He looked directly at me.
"I'm you. Sort of. The version of you that came from a universe where you were born as me."
I blinked.
Then blinked again.
Then opened my mouth to say something reasonable like "What?!" but Naomi beat me to it with:
"DOES THIS MEAN YOU HAVE SNACK COUPONS FROM YOUR WORLD TOO?!"
Calm Down, Me
"I go by Rei," he said, watching me carefully. "I'm not from your Atheria. But something crossed between our timelines a while back. I think we're linked."
"I don't remember ever—"
"You wouldn't," he said gently. "The stopwatch hasn't hit zero yet, has it?"
I didn't answer.
He nodded. "I thought so."
Then he did something unexpected.
He pulled a small metal case from his bag and handed it to me.
Inside: two chocolate cookies. Swirled with some sort of stardust pattern I didn't recognize.
"These helped me unlock Chapter 41," he said. "I think they'll help you too."
Naomi, of course, had already started unwrapping one.
I looked at him again.
He looked… tired.
Not in a bad way. In the way I sometimes felt after holding too many secrets for too long.
"Why now?" I finally asked.
He smiled faintly. "Because we're getting close."
"To what?"
"To the part where it all loops back. You'll know when it's time."
And then—just like that—he turned and walked off.
After School
Back home, I sat in my room, holding the metal case.
Two cookies.
Two timelines.
And a version of me who might have already lived through everything I hadn't.
Naomi plopped on my bed, eating the cookie happily.
"I like this new guy-you. You should invite him to the café sometime."
I didn't answer.
Because when I glanced at the stopwatch in my pencil case…
It had ticked down.
One more number.
One more step closer to Chapter 45.