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.

“Aizawaaa!”

Looking at the exposed brown ground. Lowering my gaze to see only Aizawa’s shadow.

I shouted her name with all my feelings.

I didn’t want to see her indecent form.

No, that’s wrong.

This wasn’t the her I wanted to see.

Not an Aizawa who was forcing herself to act grown up like this.

Perhaps this was indeed one facet of her.

Maybe such intense emotions had always been lurking inside the future Aizawa who had always smiled at us.

I accept that.

I understand that I simply didn’t know until now.

But that’s not it.

What I needed to see now was different.

What I needed to know was something else entirely.

Not whether she was from the future. It didn’t matter if evidence of that was engraved on Aizawa’s body.

Not an Aizawa seized by anger.

All I could feel toward her figure, furious at me who was trapped in fiction and delusion, was regret.

What I really needed to know. What I needed to see now.

That was—the real her as she was now. The first-year high school student Aizawa who had chosen to be by my side.

“You don’t need to do such things. I’ll see you properly.”

“…What are you saying? Are you still indulging in your self-consciousness? You’re truly hopeless! Being played with like a toy by a younger girl like this! Can you still spout nonsense like I must like you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not possible! Please understand already! I don’t care about Senpai at all! Not at all…!”

Then why are you hesitating in your words? Why can’t you clearly say that you dislike me?

I’m not so blind that I can’t see how hard you’re trying to play this miserable clown. For the next ten years, I’ll be involved with you.

I know you’re not the kind of woman who could do this. I know you’re not a woman who can’t control the raging emotions inside her.

Because in the future, you never said anything to me.

Even though you had such a figure driven by the flames of jealousy, didn’t you keep this hidden from me until the end?

I know this because I’ve been watching Aizawa closely all this time.

Ikuna Aizawa.

You’re not good at exposing your desires to others like this. You’re afraid to impose your ego on others as you truly are.

Laughing, making excuses, keeping an appropriate distance, suppressing your feelings, and sometimes hiding them even by becoming a clown with exaggerated acting like this.

If you don’t hide them, you can’t interact with people.

Come to think of it, you were always smiling in front of us.

Hiding your true feelings, reading the room, simply being considerate of those around you and saying thoughtful words. Well, perhaps you occasionally said what you really felt.

But even if those weren’t picked up by the other person, you were fine with that.

The future you must have chosen such a way of living at some point in your life.

But probably—the current you haven’t chosen that way of living yet. You haven’t been able to fully choose.

That’s why you were hurt.

That’s why you revealed your emotions to this extent, crying out for me to see you as you are now.

It didn’t matter what your future self was like. You didn’t know anything about being from the future.

You just wanted me to see you properly, as you are right here, right now. Thinking that, you exposed your ego for the first time and shouted at me.

But after shouting, you became afraid of it, and you piled on more sad lies.

You pretended to be someone who couldn’t control your emotions, who was taken over by anger.

And even while acting, you still wanted me to see you.

That’s what it is, isn’t it, Aizawa?

If that’s the case, there’s only one thing I can do.

Only one thing I need to do.

“I’ll see you properly. I’ll see you as you are now. Not the future you. Not the you who’s joking around. And not the you who’s playing the fool like this. I’ll properly see the kind Aizawa who is deeply afraid of directing her feelings at someone—who doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”

“…Why are you saying such things now?”

“So please. Let’s stop this. I didn’t mean to corner you like this. I just wanted to hear your true feelings from you.”

“…Such, such things! At this point! Because!”

“I’m sorry, Aizawa. It was my fault for asking the wrong question. I shouldn’t have asked whether you were from the future. I had the order reversed.”

Perhaps I, too, was unconsciously afraid of confronting her with my ego, just like her. Maybe I chose cowardly words because I was afraid of being rejected by Aizawa.

I’m sorry, Aizawa.

So I’ll say this while looking into your eyes.

I’ll say this while properly seeing the current you.

With determination, I raised my face and pointed my nose at Aizawa’s face, backlit by the sun.

The hand that had been holding the hem of her skirt was now busy wiping away her tears, and her face, which had been distorted with madness, was now swollen with the churning of those emotions.

Her breath, mixed with air and meaningless tear-choked sounds, painfully constricted my chest.

I couldn’t make Aizawa cry anymore.

That seemed to be the maximum sincerity I could offer to the current her, having chosen Chiho, not her, as my partner.

Taking a breath and steadying my voice, I spoke it.

What I needed to ask Aizawa.

And the words that the current Aizawa was hoping for, which the future Aizawa had given up on.

“Ikuna Aizawa-san. You like me, don’t you?”

“…”

“If I’m wrong, you can laugh at me. But please, no more pretending. I want to hear your true feelings.”

“…How many months do you think we’ve been together, Senpai?”

‘You’re too dense,’ she said, almost in a murmur.

Wiping the tears that overflowed from her eyes, hiding her damp fingertips behind her back, she directed a gentle smile at me—befitting a girl who was excessively afraid of hurting others.

I was finally able to see the feelings beyond that smile. I finally noticed the emotions that the future Aizawa had desperately hidden.

I should have noticed it earlier.

Even if that would have been accompanied by words rejecting her.

I cursed my foolish self, just this once.

And in place of that foolish past self, the future me answered her.

“Thank you. And I’m sorry. I have someone I’ve decided in my heart to share my future with.”

“…It’s okay. I’m fine just being with Senpai. From the beginning, I didn’t expect much from Senpai. Just being able to stay by your side. If I can spend time with you, whether as a lover or a friend, either is fine with me.”

“Why do you care about me that much?”

“…Because you were the first person who really saw me. Because you were the person who gently picked me up when I failed at playing a role after entering high school.”

Don’t make me say things like this.

Aizawa took out her tear-wet hands and pulled both my cheeks.

Letting the last drop slide from the corner of her eye, she smiled.

As if she had expelled everything she had been carrying—emotions and feelings—she laughed clearly.

Against the backdrop of the blue sky, Aizawa’s smile shone beautifully like a sunflower.

“You’ve properly seen me again, Senpai! Don’t lose sight of me again! It’s a promise!”