I Time-Leaped Back to High School with My Childhood Friend–Turned–Wife, But I Don’t Know Why We Returned to the Past. Also, My Wife as a High Schooler Is Kinda Sexy.

It was a back alley in a residential area.

It was a narrow passage barely wide enough for one person to enter.

At the entrance stood a utility pole, as if someone had thoughtfully placed it there to hide this back alley from the main street. On both sides were concrete walls about the same height as me.

Beyond the walls, two-story houses conveniently blocked the sunlight that would otherwise pour into the alley.

The opposite side of the main street was a dead end. A garden surrounded by a green mesh fence was visible from near the utility pole. In front of the mesh fence was a sign saying “No Thoroughfare.” The poor manners of the people who came and went here could be inferred from those words.

In other words, that kind of place.

Perfect for hiding and doing all sorts of things.

Though it was summer, a cold wind blew against my skin in this place where the bare earth was exposed.

Small and large stones buried in the dirt, poorly developed weeds perhaps due to lack of light, and cigarette butts and empty cans. I was shoved into such a place by Aizawa’s hand.

My backside hit hard, followed by my back. Complaints naturally flew from my mouth.

“Hey, what are you doing, Aizawa!”

“What am I doing? That’s my line, Senpai!”

From my position lying on my back in the alley, I raised my upper body using my knees and shouted at Aizawa. However, Aizawa, with an expression full of fury and mischief, stood blocking the entrance to the alley, merely looking down at me.

Her cat-like mischievous short hair swayed, and her short skirt rustled. Her thin legs—still between middle school and high school, showing remnants of childishness while in the process of growing—trembled slightly as she stepped toward me.

My lower body was facing the alley entrance.

Stepping between my slightly open legs with enough force to raise dust, Aizawa folded her arms and looked down at me.

A malicious smile, aware of the power imbalance between us, appeared on Aizawa’s face.

She was a woman I knew well. But she was scary.

Regardless of age, when a woman gets truly angry, a man can do nothing about that anger. I knew this well from my married life with Chiho.

In a sense, I had drawn out her true feelings by making her angry. But it’s meaningless if she becomes uncontrollable like this.

In short, I had failed in my conversation with Aizawa.

Regret spread in my mouth. It was lukewarm and tasted of iron.

“Senpai. I knew you were a gloomy virgin pretender, and that your circumstances made you an embarrassing otaku jerk who spouts misguided theories without shame. But I believed you could at least distinguish between reality and fiction.”

“Your poisonous tongue is still intact even when you’re angry. Girls are scary.”

“I don’t know what drove you this far, Senpai. I’m not angry about what happened earlier. But I’ll make you take responsibility for the words you’ve spoken.”

“Isn’t that being angry?”

It might sound like a comical exchange. But I was just too scared to make any retorts that might provoke her further.

I shouldn’t stimulate her strangely and complicate the conversation any more. But it’s too late to be careful about that now.

Aizawa leaned forward and brought her face close to mine.

She curled up her lips. Then, stretching up a little, she brought her collar to my eyes. Her thin collarbone and chest were visible from the collar.

How pathetic, even though I was not a virgin. I reflexively averted my eyes from Aizawa’s chest.

“…Idiot! What are you doing, Aizawa! That’s not something you should show to a man!”

“Senpai, you’re saying I’m a person from the future, right?”

“Well, I might have asked that, but—”

“Then there should be evidence that I’m from the future—a star-shaped mole.”

There was a sound of disheveled clothing and something like a soft plastic being flicked with a fingernail.

Aizawa’s gaze, having turned away from her own body, now landed on my chest instead.

In her view was the milky-white button fastened to my collared shirt.

I tried to shout, “Hey, stop—!” but before I could, my head was forcibly turned.

Standing in front of me was Aizawa—and as my eyes aligned with the front of her body, I saw that the opening at her collar had widened even more. Beyond it, gently sloping hills of soft pink came into view.

Those modest hills were gently protected by pale pink fabric.

That thing, without frills, difficult to say, prioritized functionality, like a ritual tool for their gender identity. Shifting the adjuster resting on her collarbone, Aizawa exposed more skin on her chest and, for whatever reason, pulled my face toward it.

This is bad, I thought, straining to pull my face back. But apparently Aizawa had no intention of making contact.

She fixed my head at a distance where my nose almost touched but didn’t quite.

“Well? Is there one? Is there a star-shaped mole on my chest?”

“…What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”

“You watched Haruhi, right, Senpai? Have you forgotten the details since the boom passed? You know, your favorite, Mikuru Asahina?”

I know Mikuru-chan, and she’s still a character I like. But how does that connect to a star-shaped mole?

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t understand Aizawa’s logic or actions.

However, regardless of whether I understood or not, Aizawa’s actions didn’t stop.

Unable to bear it, I lowered my eyelids.

“See? Where on my body do you think there’s any proof I’m a time traveler? You think I’ve got a star-shaped birthmark or something? Well, if it’s there, go ahead and find it! Come on, Senpai!”

“…Don’t say stupid things. There’s no way I could do that.”

“Why are you closing your eyes! After I’ve gone this far! Isn’t it cruel to ignore me! Hey, you cowardly, stupid Suzuhara-senpai!”

Something touched my lower body. Specifically, a part that I would feel resistance having touched by a girl.

Something hard yet soft.

But it wasn’t human skin.

Fear welled up inside me at that cold, bloodless sensation.

Reflexively, I opened my eyes.

The fear had forcibly torn the reins of my body from my self-control.

Aizawa never missed such an opening.

The moment I opened my eyes wide, she grabbed my chin just below them and brought her chest close, not caring if my nose touched her soft skin.

I was forcibly shown her body.

Why would Aizawa resort to such an outrageous act?

What drove her this far?

Without needing to think, it was my careless remarks and my shallow thoughtlessness in not considering Aizawa’s feelings. I had driven her this far.

That was painful, and above all, it hurt my heart.

I wanted to call her name, Aizawa. But her grip on my mouth was tight, making it difficult to call her name. Also, the pain of her thin fingers, like flower stems, squeezing my chin seemed to be saying, “Silently look at my body.”

Why, Aizawa.

Why.

“Did you find it! Hey, did you find it! Come on, look more carefully! Look at every inch of my body! Hey, Senpai! How is it! How is my body! Is it beautiful! Is it lewd! Does it excite you! Do you want to make me yours! Hey, hey, hey!”

“…I don’t know.”

“Right! Then, shall we change the approach!”

Saying that, Aizawa released her hand from my chin. Of course, she didn’t give me a chance to twist my body away from her.

Aizawa now grabbed my hair and pulled it toward my back, turning my face toward the sky.

The summer sky visible between the houses.

Against the background of a blue so deep it could suck you in, Aizawa’s face, filled with madness, peered into my eyes.

With her collar still open from when she had pressed it against me earlier, she now rolled up the sleeves of her dress shirt. Looking at the exposed upper arm and armpit, Aizawa narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

Indeed, those thinly fleshed upper arms lacked the charm of an adult woman.

But in the glossy sweat lightly coating her skin, I felt something that could be called divine, something only girls of this age possessed.

“You remember the content of the two-hour movie, right, Senpai?”

“…I wonder. I’m not confident.”

“The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. The protagonist Makoto had a bruise on her body indicating the number of time leaps remaining. Yes, right where I’ve just rolled up—here. Around the back of the upper arm.”

Aizawa now thrust that upper arm toward me.

And with the same tone and vigor as when she had been questioning me about the star-shaped mole earlier, she now pressed me about whether there was a bruise.

No matter how many times I looked, no matter where I looked, there couldn’t be such a thing.

That was something from a fictional world.

There was no way such a thing could exist on the real Aizawa. On Aizawa who lived in the same world as me, not in fiction.

Even I can distinguish between reality and fiction.

It was then that I thought this. I finally understood why she was acting so frenzied.

Exposing her body to my gaze so resignedly. Trying to make her body look attractive, almost like a stripper.

I felt like I could finally touch the source from which her emotions, tied to those actions, were welling up.

And it was much simpler than I had thought.

And because of that simplicity, it was touching and squeezed my heart again.

“Say something, Senpai! Hey, what is it! Don’t you understand yet that I’m not from the future! Are you still doubting? After seeing so much of my body! Don’t you understand yet!”

“…Aizawa.”

“Then! Well, there’s no helping it! Hey, Senpai! If you say you can’t believe unless you see every inch of my body! Then I don’t mind that either! If Senpai won’t be convinced, I’ll go as far as necessary!”

She lowered her exposed upper arm and withdrew the leg that had been stepping between my legs.

The hand that had been gripping the back of my hair was released, and now her fingertips grabbed her skirt and lifted it.

Slowly, and teasingly, she began to let light into the area hidden by her black pleated skirt. The meticulously calculated absolute territory was about to collapse, and the boundary between her slender thighs and buttocks was about to become visible—

At that moment.

I dropped my gaze that had been directed at her to the ground.