Yui's words echoed in my head as I boldly took the first step outside of our house. The sun had not yet shown itself, but my day had begun nonetheless. The journey began anew, and I began a slow jog out of the gate and down the street. Before I knew it, I had begun running normally again — five kilometers flew by as if I had only just ran the previous week.

  In reality, I had let myself slip from my training since the culture festival. Being trapped in a time loop that would last a maximum of forty eight hours had taken more of a toll on me than I could have prepared for. At some point during my prison sentence, I had stopped doing any sort of physical training. I had long since become desperate to find a way out and had devoted almost every waking moment to brainstorming. By the time it was over, I had allowed myself to become lazy.

  The late spring air had begun to mix with the early summer breezes that would sometimes flow in from the coast. The distance between the source and the city was dozens of kilometers, but it seemed to collapse when strong winds would blow in from the ocean. The mountains close to the city did what they could to repel the aerial invasion, but the air that I ran through had a hint of salt and the warmth of the tropics all the same.

  As before, I passed the shrine and decided to turn around. My mind was flooded with thoughts and emotions that proved difficult to sift through. I knew that it was only a matter of time before I would break down as I had in the hospital and at his graveside, but that would hardly keep me from carrying on.

  They have enough to worry about without me adding anything to their plates. It's my job to protect them, not to burden them.

  I came back to the park where Chika and I had once played as children, the spot where she learned who or what I really was. We had been there several times since I had returned, each brought a new sort of development between the two of us. Half of me hoped that we had missed each other that morning.

  There's no way I could face her right now, not after everything, not without trying to get it all straight in my head. Heh, she would never let me hear the end of it.

  As I had done since the weather had started to improve, I stopped in the park and took up a spot at the bars. My strength and endurance training would be simple and quick to reduce the chance of facing the one I had no strength to face. In the third round of muscle-ups and inverted crunches, I heard a high pitched bark that made me fall from the bars: Lucy.

  As I laid on my back staring at the violet and orange sky, she found me with her owner frantically trying to keep up at the end of the leash. Lucy was happy to see me — I have no idea if she remembered or would have known that I saved her life. As she licked my face, Chika came into view with her perfect smile and a face that assured me that teasing was incoming.

  "Wow, Kazu," she started. "Is it even possible that you're tired? Or are you scared of sweet little Lucy here?"

  "She startled me," I replied as I rolled over to get up.

  "And why, pray tell, are you working out shirtless in a park? Do you want to be branded a pervert?"

  "The sun's barely up, and my shirt would slide up while I was hanging anyway; I got tired of it."

  "I've got it! You knew I would be walking Lucy this morning and tried to fabricate a situation to seduce your innocent childhood friend." She covered her chest and acted embarrassed. "I never knew you were like that, Kazu."

  "You've got to do something about that imagination of yours," I laughed

  I replaced my shirt and turned to the park exit, but something prevented me from saying 'good morning' and walking out. I knew exactly what that something was, too. It was Chika. Her presence was intoxicating, and I was completely addicted. My body refused to walk away despite my mind begging. I was being torn in two: I wanted so desperately to talk to her, but I was scared that every word would be a burden for her. After seemingly forever, I managed to take a single step, but my sleeve was caught by her slender fingers.

  "Kazu," she began softly. "I'm sorry if I took it too far. I just wanted you to laugh, to smile like you did before the culture festival. I know the funeral hurt: at least, it hurt me. You've been different since all of this started, and I'm scared that something happened to you, something worse than losing Hiro."

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I looked back over my shoulders to see her captivating eyes begin to fill with tears.

  "Please tell me, Kazu."

  As predicted, four simple words from her mouth broke my will. The two of us walked over to a bench and took a seat. Lucy was firmly tied up to prevent any escaping, and Chika turned to look at me again. After a long silence and a deep sigh, I found the strength to begin.

  "I-I was trapped in the culture festival... it became a living hell."

  "Trapped? What do you mean?"

  "You know my ability, right? How I can freeze time, jump back and forward by a little bit? And you know about Damien, the other time manipulator?" Her head nodded with each question I asked. "He somehow trapped me in a time loop; I relived the first two days of the culture festival over and over again for his game.

  "The first time I experienced the culture festival was probably similar to how it really happened… or, at least, how it happened in your memory. We had our cafe, and it was fun. You were the beautiful Bride of Frankenstein, and I was a corny Count Dracula... but, in that timeline, you died on that first day..."

  "I died?"

  "Yeah... in my arms, broken and bloodied from a delivery truck that I should have been able to stop or at least save you from. I cried and pleaded with my ability to take me back, to give me a chance to save you. That's when he stepped in. He took me back to that morning, and I thought I had saved you. It was all pointless: you survived the first day only to die on the second day..."

  "Wait, I died twice? This doesn't make any sense."

  "More than twice… Every time you died, I was sent back to Tuesday morning. Damien was waiting for me the third time I woke up in my bed and told me to choose someone to die. When I refused, he left me to live those two days on an endless repeat. As I did, I slowly began to see the truth in his game — whoever I was close to would die, no matter what I did to save them. I chose people to die just by being around them."

  "Kazu, you can't blame yourself for just existing."

  "It gets worse. I tried to save you... countless times. Every single time, he took you from me in the end. Even if I kept a painful distance between us, I still lost you. After a while, it became unbearable... I-I'm sorry. I just couldn't do it anymore."

  Chika put her hands on my own. "How long?"

  I felt my words start to scrape the sides of my throat as I spoke. "He said he was impressed and somehow threw me this scenario where everyone had survived until the third day... the rest became history. When we lost Hiro, something just broke inside. After finally escaping, I still couldn't save everyone."

  "How long, Kazu?"

  "I'm sorry that I've been acting weird, I'm just scared of being close to you after losing you so many times..." My vision became blurred by tears, and my words became painfully slow.

  "Kazu," her stern yet pained voice made me jump. "How long were you trapped?"

  "I-it doesn't matter now: I'm free, and — "

  "Kazu," she pulled my face towards hers and stared into my soul.

  “...1072 days…” I admitted after the longest silence I had to bear. “Almost three years."

  Her eyes filled with tears and she pulled me into her arms. Neither of us said a word, but the quivering of her body let me know how she felt. I had no will to fight her embrace and pulled her into my own arms. Silently, the rivers of my emotions poured from my eyes. Every time I had lost her in the loop, I held her dying or lifeless body. Every time, I would cry at her loss. After all that, all I wanted was what I had in that moment — to hold her close while she still drew breath.

  The sky was fully illuminated by the time I had gathered myself enough to pull out of her embrace. She said nothing and gave a smile as pure as the morning sun that surrounded us. I found myself completely lost in her wondrous eyes again. The longer I stared into them, the more I was drawn to the lush pink roses below her nose. Just as I was about to taste them again, I felt a finger on my lips.

  "You still smell really bad, Kazu," she giggled.

  The suddenness of it all made me laugh and caught her up in the moment as well. In a moment, the mournful recalling of memories became a new memorable moment in a positive way. Lucy jumped up into her lap and tried to join which only led to more laughter. After laughing enough to make both of our faces hurt, Chika stood up.

  "I'm thankful that you could tell me all that, Kazu. I won't pretend to fully understand what you went through, but I will say this: you're free from that hell, and you deserve to be happy, even if bad things still happen."

  "I'll do my best," I smiled.

  She smiled back and turned to exit the park when her cell phone started ringing.

  "Who's calling me this early? Kei?"

  Kei is her nickname for Kaori while hers is Chi-Chi.

  "What's with the early phone call, Kei? Some people like to sleep, you know... uh-huh... I don't really have any plans for the weekend; why? ... WHAT?!"

  She covered her phone and turned to me.

  "Kazu, how does the beach sound?"