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.

The Kirin Lemon bottle that Chiho had been holding in her left hand seemed suddenly tossed into the void, making a drawn-out “clunk, clunk” sound that mixed with the Gion Festival music.

Inside the white line.

It rolled along the gentle slope of the sidewalk and stopped after falling into the gutter. She must have closed it loosely. The cap of the bottle came off from the impact of the fall. The transparent liquid spilled out, forming bubbles.

However, nowhere on this street could I find my childhood friend who would normally be whining, “Aaah~ what a waste~” while looking at it.

What had happened? Before I could even organize my thoughts—

“Chiho!”

“Chiho-san!”

Aizawa and I rushed toward the Kirin Lemon bottle she had been holding.

What happened? What on earth had happened to Chiho?

I didn’t know. I didn’t understand anything at all. Neither what had happened to her, nor why it had occurred.

Muromachi Street, Sannomachi.

On the way up to Shijo Karasuma, Chiho had suddenly vanished.

“Why! How could Chiho suddenly—! What on earth is going on here?!”

“Senpai! Please calm down!”

“How can I possibly be calm?! A person—a person suddenly disappeared! Chiho! Chiho who was walking with us until just now suddenly vanished!”

“Even so, please calm down, Senpai! What good will panicking do?!”

“But—!”

Aizawa squeezed my palm tightly. As if to keep me here, to prevent me from disappearing like Chiho, she gripped me firmly.

For a moment, I suspected that Aizawa might actually be the mastermind behind this series of inexplicable experiences. Forgetting her past devotion and the future Aizawa’s anguish, I doubted her.

Chiho, the biggest obstacle to her love, had vanished from this world. Rather than changing the future, if she erased Chiho from the past, her love might be fulfilled.

But her face, looking at me, was filled with the same anxiety and sadness as mine. She was genuinely concerned about her irreplaceable older friend who had suddenly disappeared.

That’s right, no, Aizawa wasn’t that kind of girl. Even at a time like this, she was carefully observing her surroundings. She had an inner strength that never wavered even in the deepest sorrow or despair. While the future Aizawa might be capable of this, for the high school Aizawa to demonstrate such composure must be her innate temperament.

She pulled me closer and grabbed both my upper arms with her hands. It felt as though she was trying to somehow keep me in this world, as I was about to collapse from losing Chiho, someone so precious to me.

“Take a deep breath,” Aizawa said.

Following her instructions, I inhaled. After repeating this two or three times, when I had calmed down, she finally released her hands from me.

“Senpai, let’s first confirm your safety. Do you feel anything strange? Any discomfort in your body?”

“…I don’t know. I think I feel normal.”

“…Then you’re probably fine, Senpai.”

“But Chiho. Chiho disappeared—”

“Please calm down, Senpai. We can’t be certain that Chiho-san has disappeared yet. First of all, we still remember Chiho-san, don’t we? In time leap stories, if history had been altered—wouldn’t it be strange for us to still have memories of Chiho-san?”

“That’s true, but…”

I had been careless.

Knowing that Aizawa wasn’t from the future, and following Chiho’s words, I had completely underestimated the abnormal situation we were in.

I had completely forgotten that we had time-leaped and was carelessly indulging in trivial things like a Gion Festival date.

This was no time for such things.

Had I seriously believed such a sleepy story about time-leaping from the future to become high school students and go on dates? If that was really true, this “god” must be quite the joker.

We had returned here for some reason. We had come back to the summer of 2007 as high school students for a reason that carried such danger that Chiho’s existence could disappear.

Yet here I was, foolishly elated…

As I was about to give up, Aizawa kept me anchored to reality in place of Chiho. She also firmly held my hand, stopping me from rushing into the Gion Festival crowd to search for Chiho.

She really was too good a junior for an idiot like me.

I’m sorry, Aizawa.

I’m truly sorry.

Even though I couldn’t properly make amends, you—

As I wavered between gratitude and regret, Aizawa turned a calm face toward me. The junior who had suddenly found herself facing the mysteries of this past world in place of Chiho and me seemed to have thought of something, and asked, “May I?”

“Chiho-san is probably fine. As I said earlier, we still have memories of Chiho-san. And the fact that our minds haven’t been overwritten with some reason for Chiho-san’s absence that we would accept. Considering these two points—perhaps Chiho-san didn’t disappear, but rather left this past world where we are?”

“Left? You mean she crossed world lines?”

“…I’m sorry, I’m not that familiar with time leap stories, so I don’t know the exact definition of these terms. But I think that’s what happened. Chiho-san moved from this world where you are, Senpai, to a different past world. Or perhaps only Chiho-san finished her time leap.”

“…Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the conditions for time-leaping are different for you and Chiho-san, or maybe Chiho-san wished for a different future and redid the time leap. I can’t tell. But in any case, we were left behind by Chiho-san. She didn’t have her existence erased by someone; rather, she disappeared from this world by her own will or for some reason related to her. That’s why we can still remember Chiho-san from just a moment ago, and why we haven’t lost our memories of her, don’t you think?”

The theory felt somewhat forced.

It contained many assumptions. It took courage to believe it straightforwardly.

And it was weakened by the hopeful observation called kindness—not wanting to hurt me further.

However, we needed some guideline for action in our confusion. In this situation where we understood nothing, acting blindly would only be foolish.

No matter how unreliable or dubious it might be, humans needed something to believe in to take action.

“I understand. I’ll believe what you say, Aizawa.”

“Senpai!”

“Assuming that’s the case, what should I do? How can I save Chiho and our future?”

It didn’t matter if it was wrong. First, I would believe that Chiho was safe and do what I could.

I squeezed Aizawa’s hand and looked straight into her face.

I wouldn’t panic anymore. I looked at her with the belief that everything would be alright.

My capable junior who was deeply concerned about us seemed somewhat relieved seeing my face. However, no words suggesting our next action came from her mouth.

Because, after all, we hadn’t discovered a single truth about this world. We hadn’t grasped even a bit of the source of the irrational phenomenon called time leap.

Still, was there something we could do—?

“…Shall we search for Chiho-san first?”

“For Chiho?”

“This is also a hypothesis, but if Chiho-san who was here until just now has disappeared from this world, wouldn’t there be an existence to compensate for that appearing in this world? Or perhaps, like me, the past Chiho-san who is supposed to originally be in this world might return to this world?”

“…That might be possible.”

“Of course, we won’t know what we can gain by contacting the existence that compensates for the Chiho-san who was here until just now until we meet them. However, knowing what kind of state that is, and how this world is processing the fact that Chiho-san is gone, should be a clue to grasping the mystery.”

It was then that Aizawa spoke.

An electronic sound came from the handbag she was holding.

A 16-tone melody. A nostalgic, slightly old popular tune arranged for a feature phone.

Seeing Aizawa’s pale face, I guessed who it was from. She quickly took out her phone from her bag and stared at the LCD display on the back in horror.

The name displayed was—Chiho Nishijima.

The maiden name of my missing wife.

“…Senpai.”

“I’ll take this. Aizawa, lend it to me.”

I couldn’t leave it to Aizawa.

Even if this was the past Chiho who had cut ties with me, I couldn’t afford to be distracted by that.

This was a battle between me and Chiho.

Though I was borrowing Aizawa’s wisdom, this was something I had to fight myself.

I must not run away. Not from my wife, nor from this mystery.

I steeled myself and gripped Aizawa’s phone with trembling hands. Then, recalling how she lent it to me yesterday, I pressed the call button.

“…Hello?”

Silence. Nothing on the other end responded to my words.

Trying to speak again, to ask something, I paused to think.

Thinking—

“Chiho, is that you?”

I called the name of my missing wife. The response from the person on the other end of the phone was—

“…Pyon!”

A nonsensical word. And a dizzying sensation that turned the world upside down.

No, this was actually—

“What is this? The world is spinning?”

“Senpai! What’s happening?! My vision…!”

Aizawa’s voice. From the content, it seemed she was in the same situation as me.

Completely baffled, I was shaken physically and mentally by the incomprehensible shaking of this strange world. Helpless. No human could resist the unknown force at work here. Eventually, the unidentified force assaulting my body and vision subsided.

“…Huh? Minami-Ibaraki Station?”

I was lying on the dimly lit sidewalk under the tracks at Hankyu Minami-Ibaraki Station.

It was night.

Yet, strangely quiet.

Ahead of my gaze, on the black asphalt.

In the darkness, illuminated faintly by moonlight, stood a silhouette. A white hoodie despite the midsummer heat, and slender legs blending into the darkness.

Probably a woman. A delicate girl. She looked at me disinterestedly from under the hood covering her head.

She took a pocket watch from the front pocket of her hoodie. After checking the time, as if the awaited moment had come, she slowly pulled the hood back.

From beneath the white hood came golden hair, a perfectly shaped face, brown eyes, and a black rabbit-ear headband whose outline was visible even in the dark.

A bunny girl.

The girl in the white hoodie was a black bunny girl. But what shocked me most was that the girl was—

“…Why? Why is Tendoji-san here? Huh?”

My wife’s close friend, a woman I knew well. She looked exactly like her high school self.

It was definitely Tendoji Fumi. Just as I was convinced, the bunny girl hummed that phrase again.

“Pyon!”

Then, my vision shook again.

And this time, my consciousness sank deeper, into a darker place.