Seishun Buta Yarou Series - Volume 7 - Chapter 2.1

Chapter 2: Before the Snow Stops

1

A chill wind on his cheeks.

A winter breeze, carrying the faint scent of the sea.

That cold air pulled Sakuta’s mind back to consciousness.

“……”

His eyes snapped open.

The first thing he saw was a white ceiling. A patterned white, with gray marks scattered here and there. He recognized it as the ceiling at school, but he’d never looked up at it lying flat on his back before, so the experience felt novel.

He was lying on the bed in the nurse’s office.

He sat up slowly. The bed creaked beneath him, like the cry of some wild thing.

Beckoned by the flow of cold air, Sakuta parted the curtains and peered out.

“……”

The sight that greeted him made him stop dead in his tracks.

There was snow outside the windows. From the school, he could see snow falling over the waters of Shichirigahama. Falling softly but quite heavily.

The sky was blanketed in heavy clouds, with no sign of the sun.

Sakuta’s eyes wandered, searching—until he spotted a shelf by the bed. There was a digital clock on it.

The display showed 1:25 PM.

And the date: December 24.

“I’m…really back?”

He hadn’t doubted it. It wasn’t that he hadn’t believed. Naturally, this was what he’d wanted from the bottom of his heart.

But now that it was actually happening, he couldn’t help feeling astonished. At the same time, underneath the shock of this moment was a growing conviction. He felt like the cold air on his skin was the cause.

He remembered this chill.

The memory had settled into his very bones.

The freezing, snow-laden winter air.

The air he’d felt on that day. This day, December 24.

The whiteness of the snow made his chest ache. The sight of Mai’s blood staining that snow was still burned into his eyelids.

Mentally, he knew that was in the future, but a wave of panic was rising up from the soles of his feet. Winding around his body, leaving him barely able to breathe. It felt like he was lifting off the ground.

He was glad to be back before the accident.

But that brought stress with it—this time, he really couldn’t fail. He had to keep Mai from getting hit by that sliding van. And that need was rooting him to the spot.

He looked at the clock again.

1:28 PM.

“I was right about the time, then.”

Sakuta had been sure he’d return to this very moment. This was when he’d been at the hospital. Shouko’s hospital.

And her mother had arranged for him to see little Shouko in the ICU. He remembered staring at her through the glass. A clean room, filled with the hum of machinery. A bed surrounded by medical apparatuses. A young Shouko sleeping on it, desperately clinging to life.

He’d only been there five minutes.

He didn’t really remember leaving. The next real memory he had was that evening.

He’d just been sitting still in a chair at the hospital, unable to decide what to do. He wanted a future with Mai and wanted Shouko to have a future, too, but there was no way to have both, so he’d simply stopped thinking at all.

If he’d manifested Adolescence Syndrome at some point, it was definitely then. Nothing else made any sense. And all that led to Sakuta coming back from the future.

“It sure is piling up…”

A voice echoed through the office. Not Sakuta’s. A woman’s voice, from somewhere nearby.

The nurse was standing by an open window. A woman in her late thirties, wearing a white coat. She was only three yards from him.

“Gonna have to leave my car,” she said and closed the window.

Then her eyes turned toward him.

“……”

Sakuta stiffened instinctively. He had no idea how long he’d been sleeping here. Or what her perception of events was. If he’d just appeared on the bed without her knowledge, she might freak out. He’d need a good explanation. He couldn’t very well tell her he’d come from the future. She’d never believe that. He’d be worried if she did.

Best to wait and see how she responded. If he had to bullshit an explanation, it was better to follow her lead.

But his plans came up empty.

“……”

The nurse didn’t say a word.

Sakuta was only a few yards away, but she didn’t even seem to notice him.

“……?”

It didn’t seem that strange at first. But as she moved around making sure each of the windows was locked, she got much closer, and his concerns mounted.

She stood right next to him, reaching up for the window lock. She essentially had to brush against Sakuta to get to it. And then she walked straight past him a second time, back to her desk and the space heater.

This was clearly weird. Her total lack of reaction wasn’t normal.

“Nurse?” he said, abandoning silence.

“……”

She didn’t seem to hear him at all. She was writing something in the office journal.

“Nurse!” He tried again, louder. It was basically a yell. It echoed through the room.

“……”

But she still didn’t turn and look at him.

It didn’t seem like she was ignoring him. Every indication said she genuinely couldn’t hear him.

He moved closer and put his hand on her shoulder, calling again.

She still didn’t see him. Didn’t turn toward him or respond at all. Didn’t seem to feel the weight of his hand on her shoulder.

“What in the…?”

This wave of surprise came from his own sensations. His hand was resting on the nurse’s shoulder, but he couldn’t feel her. Not the texture of her white coat, not the heat of her body, not the soft yield of her skin beneath.

“What’s going on?”

He tried to leave the office to find out.

And just as he did, the door opened.

“Nurse, he jammed a finger.”

It was Sakuta’s friend Yuuma Kunimi. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt despite the snow. It must have been for basketball practice. He was with a younger boy who was clutching his finger.

“Kunimi!” Sakuta cried.

“Let’s get a compress on that,” the nurse said. “Sit.”

Yuuma didn’t react, either. Nobody did.

It wasn’t just the nurse who couldn’t see Sakuta.

Neither Yuuma nor his teammate could hear Sakuta’s voice.

Nobody could see him.

Nobody could hear him.

Nobody noticed his touch.

Sakuta was in real trouble here.

Why was this happening to him?

Looking for answers, his eyes turned to the window.

“……?”

That was when he discovered that something else was wrong.

“……”

Each time Yuuma or the nurse moved, their reflections did, too. But not Sakuta.

Sakuta didn’t have a reflection at all.

He reached up and touched himself. He could see himself. See and touch. He could feel his own body.

But nobody else here had noticed him. If they had, at least one of them would’ve said, “What are you doing?” He was acting weird enough to warrant it.

Faced with this predicament, two thoughts came to mind.

First, just before he came back…

The words Shouko had said as he drifted off.

 “First, look for someone who can find you.”

He’d had no idea what she meant by that or why she’d said it.

But now he could safely assume she’d been referring to this.

Secondly, the memorable events of last spring.

May, the last day of Golden Week, the day he’d met a wild bunny girl.

The incident that brought him and Mai together—and one caused by Mai’s Adolescence Syndrome.

She’d been wearing a bunny-girl costume because nobody else could perceive her—exactly like Sakuta now.

Rio had helped him out then. How had she explained it?

He tugged at the thread of his memories.

The first thing he remembered was the half-dead, half-living cat in a box. Schrödinger’s cat.

He remembered a weird thing about the cat’s survival only being determined when you opened the box to check.

Apparently, on a quantum, micro level, particles existed probabilistically, and their exact positions in space weren’t set—and the only way to determine their locations was to observe them.

That seemed to perfectly describe Sakuta’s current state. Half in the future and half in the present—existing only in terms of probability.

Until somebody detected him, he wouldn’t actually exist in this timeline. That seemed the most likely application of the concept anyway.

He felt like he had a handle on things now.

But who exactly would be able to detect him? It certainly wasn’t the nurse or even his friend here. Neither of them could see him.

“Yo, Kunimi!” he tried again, just to be sure.

“I’m gonna head back.” Yuuma clearly had no idea Sakuta was there. He didn’t so much as glance his way. it wasn’t like he was consciously choosing to ignore him, either.

Grabbing Yuuma by the shoulders and shaking him didn’t help. Nothing Sakuta did got through. And nothing Yuuma did affected Sakuta.

Yuuma just left the room like nothing had happened.

No point staying here. Sakuta followed his friend out into the hall. Yuuma headed toward the gym, but Sakuta went the other way. Down the dark, quiet halls—classes were done for the day. Nobody turned to yell, “No running in the halls!”

It was only a hundred-odd-yard dash. Probably only took a dozen or so seconds.

He pulled to a stop outside the science lab.

“Futaba!” he yelled, sliding the door open.

He’d hoped to get a look of scorn. For Rio to turn and glower at him briefly, only to immediately go back to her experiment. Then sigh and say, “More trouble?”

But none of those wishes came true.

“……”

The only sound in the science lab was water bubbling in a beaker.

With this snow, there was no one in the yard. No shouts from the baseball or soccer teams.

But the lights in the room were on, so Sakuta stepped in and closed the door behind him. He felt like it grew even quieter.

He heard something in the silence. One other sound, somewhere in the room.

He stepped up to the experiment table by the chalkboard and put the lid on the alcohol lamp, snuffing out the flame. The boiling water died down, leaving only the sound of someone slowly breathing.

Rio was sound asleep on the table. Using her arms as a pillow, her head leaning gently to one side. He could only make out half her face.

She looked tired. There were tear tracks on her cheeks. He knew exactly why. The answer was on the board in front of him—behind Rio.

A complicated formula and a mystery graph. The names Azusagawa and Shouko and the words present and future.

She’d clearly been erasing and redoing it over and over. There was a ton of half-erased marks on the board, and it was a far lighter shade than its usual dark green. And there was a huge X through the working theory she had up there now.

Scattered on the table around her were books from the school and public libraries.

“……”

It took his breath away.

This wasn’t for one of Rio’s club experiments.

She’d been searching for a way out.

Trying to find a way to save both Sakuta and Shouko.

She must have been working on this ever since she learned it was Sakuta’s heart inside big Shouko. She’d likely gone days without much sleep as she worked on the problem.

Sakuta had been too focused on his own mess to even notice how hard Rio was working. She was suffering, too, struggling against fate along with him. Refusing to give up until she was too tired to wait for her coffee.

And she hadn’t found the answer she wanted.

“Thank you, Futaba.”

He moved around behind her and found her coat by her bag. He draped it over her shoulders.

“……”

She didn’t wake up. If that had been enough to wake her and make her notice him, she’d have done so when he came in.

When he placed his hand on Rio’s shoulder, he felt nothing. While he was touching her, all sensations vanished from his body. Not just touch, but his sense of his body’s size, heat, and weight—all gone.

“Can’t even have any fun being an invisible man.”

He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. It was just him griping about the whole dang thing. The passing comment was couched in the hope that saying something would stave off the rising sense of panic.

Sakuta had to think of a way to make someone perceive him. And since he couldn’t ask Rio for help, he’d have to do that on his own.

His eyes lit on Rio’s bag. And the phone in the pocket on it.

“Gonna borrow this a sec,” he said out of habit.

He started to dial a number, but his finger was suddenly shaking. These eleven digits were Mai’s cell phone number. If he hit the call button, he might hear her voice. The anticipation got the better of him, sending tremors from his head to his toes.

He managed to hit the button and put the phone to his ear.

“……?”

It didn’t take long to realize something was wrong.

He couldn’t hear anything.

He checked the screen. The device was showing a call in progress. But when he held it to his ear, there was nothing ringing, no voice on the other end. No faint static of a call picked up.

He dialed again.

“……”

Same results.

He tried a different number. The number of the apartment he and his sister, Kaede, lived in. A landline.

Big Shouko was staying with them. She should have been there. She was from the future, so he hoped she could see and hear him. He had a lot of hopes riding on this call.

But just like Mai’s number, it didn’t even ring. The call wouldn’t connect. No matter how many times he tried, the outcome stayed the same.

“Okay, so phones aren’t an option.”

He opened Futaba’s contact list, searching for Mai’s entry. He knew Mai and Rio e-mailed each other sometimes, and he found her address listed as “Sakurajima-senpai.” He typed, “This is Sakuta,” and hit send.

“……”

There was no response. The phone didn’t budge at all.

Logic failed him here, but it was clear his voice and words weren’t getting through to anybody. He was forced to accept this as fact even if he didn’t understand why.

Maybe he really was the cat in the box.

The lid was firmly closed and locked. Slamming against the walls accomplished nothing. No vibrations or sounds reached the world outside.

He had no way to tell anyone he existed. All he could do was wait for someone to open the box.

He felt like Mai would have a key. There was no real basis for him to believe that, of course. Just faith that she’d be able to detect his presence.

But Mai wasn’t here. On December 24, she was at a studio in the city, filming interior scenes for her movie. And Sakuta had no idea where that studio was.

If phones and e-mail were out of the picture, he had no way of asking her himself.

“So I’m in deep shit, huh?”

Sakuta figured this was a calm and accurate assessment of his predicament.

The only time and place he was sure he could meet up with Mai was right before the accident. He knew for a fact that she’d be there in front of the Benten Bridge at six. To save this timeline’s Sakuta…

“…But that’s not an option.”

It was too uncertain. Even if he managed to find Mai in the Christmas crowds, what if she couldn’t see him? He couldn’t leave things to the last minute.

And worse, if he stepped in to save her then, there’d be nothing to stop this timeline’s Sakuta—present Sakuta.

According to what Rio had told him before, the way quantum stuff worked meant future Sakuta and present Sakuta would never meet.

In other words, he—future Sakuta—couldn’t be the one to stop his past self—present Sakuta. He couldn’t run up to himself, punch himself in the face, and stop himself from going to the scene of the accident. He had to assume that wasn’t an option.

His best shot was to find a way to tell present Sakuta and Mai what was going to happen before it did.

But to do that, he needed someone to open the box, to perceive Sakuta’s presence in this timeline.

The question was—who?

Who else might have a key? Shouko? Future Shouko, who’d received his heart in a transplant. Emotionally, it made sense that if he’d been able to perceive her, she’d be able to perceive him.

He had an idea where she might be. He knew she’d spent the morning of the twenty-fourth in Sakuta’s apartment. She’d seen him off at the door on his way to school. He remembered her smile.

“It’s my best bet.”

Part of him thought relying on her again was pretty sad, especially since what he was trying to do would nip her future in the bud. He shouldn’t be forcing her to help with that. A few days ago, that thought would have been enough to give him pause. But not anymore. His mind was made up.

“……”

It didn’t make it hurt any less. But he’d chosen this path. He’d chosen to build a future with Mai. And he’d do whatever it took to achieve that, no matter what.

Sakuta put Rio’s phone back in her bag and turned to leave the science lab. He fully intended to head straight home in hopes of finding big Shouko.

But as he opened the door, he paused. He’d heard movement behind him.

He swung back around.

“Was I…?” Rio muttered, sitting up. Still half-asleep. The coat he’d put on her shoulders fell to the floor.

“……”

Rio stared at the coat, puzzled. Then she picked it up, dusted it off, and placed it on top of her bag.

She glanced around the lab table. There was still steam rising from the beaker on the wire net. But the lid was on the alcohol lamp below it. Rio held a hand over that, feeling the heat.

“…Still warm,” she murmured.

She looked around the room with a frown.

“Futaba?” Sakuta called, moving closer. Maybe she’d noticed him. She was getting his hopes up. “I’m right here!” he yelled.

“The teacher must have stopped by…,” Rio concluded.

“No, it was me!” he protested with a note of desperation in his voice.

But her eyes never focused on him. He was right across the table, but Rio couldn’t see him. She looked right through him at the ceiling beyond. If she could see him at all, her eyes would never focus there.

“Earth to Futaba! I’m right in front of you!”

He waved a hand in front of her face. Even cupped her cheeks at one point. No use.

Rio just turned her back on him, her attention on the chalkboard once more.

She picked up the chalk and began writing something.

Sakuta moved around the table and wrote Look at me, Futaba! in big letters.

Rio didn’t turn around.

She couldn’t see what he’d written. She scribbled her formula right over his letters, heedless of how unreadable the results were.

“Guess I really can’t rely on you this time, huh?”

Given his predicament, there was no one he wanted to talk to more. Having that option off the table was terrifying. She’d always helped him before…

But at the same time, he still remembered everything she’d told him so far.

Rio had taught him about the potentially dead cat, and that was helping him deal with being imperceptible.

Understanding the underlying principles did a lot to ease the confusion of a truly bizarre situation.

It gave him direction, an idea what he needed to do and accomplish.

He had to find someone who could detect him.

And it was Rio’s words that gave him a hint who that might be.

“Maybe I should have paid a little more attention…”

Too late to regret that now.

Putting it out of his mind, he headed toward the hall again. He needed to get home right away.

But on his way to the exit, he stopped in his tracks.

Outside the faculty office…

…something caught his eye.

A rack of costumes used for the culture or sports festivals. They must have just been delivered by the cleaners. Each was in a plastic bag with a numbered tag.

And one of them was a bunny costume.

Sakuta remembered the day he met Mai.

The wild bunny girl in the Shonandai Library.

“Let’s take a cue from Mai here.”

Sakuta reached for the bunny costume.