Translator: Tori
I would even give my life for xx.
If I were a person who could say such a thing with impunity, would anything have changed? No. I am sure nothing would have changed. I cannot change, and nothing can be changed.
I am always fed up with my helplessness, and something breaks. Something breaks and shatters, and I gather up the remaining fragments and live on.
Or something like that. I try to put on airs, but in the end, life is what it will be, and I just live as I wish.
Today, as always, I shall live with regret.
I dream that a time machine will be completed as soon as possible.
After all, this is a continuation of the record of my and xxx’s youth……a continuation of its epilogue.
Enomoto Iruka understood the awakening of consciousness that had been coated in a faint sleep.
A comforting feeling surrounds him as if he is emerging from the mud. The smell of chemicals clings to his nose. Someone’s voice from somewhere in the distance strikes his ears. Opening his eyes, he sees a blank ceiling.
Iruka is lying on a bed surrounded by curtains.
The bed creaks slightly as he raises himself up. Crawling out from under the covers and opening the curtains, he sees the scene of the infirmary spread out before him.
“Good morning. How are you feeling? Do you feel better? You have a mild concussion…….”
He looked toward the voice and saw a familiar woman, Gotou Kiyomi.
She is a school nurse at the high school Iruka attends, in other words, the teacher in charge of this room.
She has long, flowing black hair and a well-defined face. She wears red-framed glasses, and her ample breasts push up her lab coat from below.
She paused her work, got up from the round chair she was sitting in, and looked at Iruka’s face with coffee in her hand. She was so taken aback by his clear eyes that she involuntarily averted her gaze to the side.
“Ah, there’s no problem…….Um, Gotou-sensei.”
“What is it?”
“Why am I in the infirmary?”
He asked her while making sure there was nothing wrong with his body, and while adjusting his disordered uniform.
She looked blank for a moment, but then answered easily.
“Enomoto-kun. You were pushed down the stairs at the end of lunch break.”
“……what?”
“Seriously?” was the brief thought that crossed his mind.
“Look, there’s that girl you have a crush on, right?”
Gotou folded her arms as if to support her ample breasts from below, held up her index finger, and spoke the girl’s name.
“She should be in the guidance counselor’s office right now.”
“Oh, um. That reminds me, were you with Kaya-chan?”
The confusion that had been hanging over his head lifted, and he remembered the cause of his sleep.
But the cause was so trivial that he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“Are you all right?”
“Oh uh, well. Yes, I’m fine. No problem.”
While receiving a voice of concern, he took out his smartphone and checked the current time.
‘December 20, 14:06.’
It was the middle of the fifth period. Considering that the last thing he remembers was just before the end of the lunch break, he had been unconscious for about 30 minutes.
“The last thing I remember was right before the end of the lunch break, which means I was unconscious for about 30 minutes. Can you tell me that?”
Since this is a conventional police matter, her tone of voice is very serious. That’s why he felt it painful to tell her.
“Yes.”
But he can’t fool her.
Hesitant to say something, he sighs and says the cause of the problem.
“The omelet was too sweet.”
“……”
A silence overtook the room.
Outside the open window, a voice from the playground, perhaps from a physical education class. The familiar voice of a male teacher and the cheers of the students rushed through the quiet infirmary.
“…………huh?”
A very dumbfounded voice, the opposite of the serious one he had just heard.
Apparently, she did not hear it. Iruka repeats the same words as before.
“So, the omelet was too sweet.”
“No, no, no! It’s not that I didn’t hear you! That’s not what I meant–what? That’s all?”
“That’s it.”
“……are you serious?”
“For real.”
Gotou’s expression turned difficult as if she didn’t understand.
“You are talking about the cause of the person who has pushed you down the stairs, right?”
“Yes.”
“And it is about an omelet?”
“Yes.”
Gotou pressed her temples and shook her head with a frown, as if she didn’t understand what was going on.
Gotou twisted her head for a while and then clapped her hands. She seems to have come to an understanding.
“–Okay!”
“You understand me now?”
“Enomoto-kun, let’s go to the guidance counselor’s office.”
“She’s given up on thinking.”
Although he muttered in a whisper, taking him to the student guidance office was not a matter he particularly refused to take. Therefore, Iruka gave his consent and the two left the infirmary.
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