"Hold still," Arisa said.
Kaito Fujimura stood like a mannequin in the student council room, arms stiff at his sides, while Arisa Kanzuki clipped a tiny black charm to the collar of his shirt. It pulsed faintly—warm, then cold, like breathing metal.
"Seriously, this thing's not going to explode, right?" he muttered.
"Only if you touch the core node with your bare fingers."
His eyes widened. "There's a core node?!"
Arisa smiled sweetly. "That was a joke."
"Oh, thank god."
"…Mostly."
He groaned.
It had been one week since he became Arisa's accessory keeper. And despite the nightmares, secrecy, and his best friend Aya watching him like a hawk, things had become strangely routine. Every morning, he met Arisa for a hand-off. Every afternoon, she tested his tether by swapping accessories in secluded corners of the school.
Today, however, was different.
Today, they were experimenting.
"I want to test your range," Arisa explained, pacing around him like a scientist studying a particularly disappointing frog.
"The manual said I have a manual," Kaito said. "Shouldn't I get a manual?"
"There is no manual."
"Then who wrote the rules?"
"I did."
"Unbelievable."
"Thank you."
She gestured for him to sit. "Your role isn't just to be present. The earrings react to emotional intensity. Regret, shame, fear… those are trigger points. The stronger they are, the deeper the rewind. You stabilize me when it happens."
He frowned. "So I'm your magical lightning rod."
"Precisely."
"I was being sarcastic."
"I wasn't."
Kaito sighed and looked down at the notebook in his lap. Her handwriting was crisp, elegant, and terrifyingly precise:
Test 1: Controlled Emotion Trigger
Event: Spilling coffee on the uniform
Witness: Fujimura
Rewind Limit: 60 seconds
Objective: Test tether latency, distance, and memory impact on third parties
"This feels so… unethical," Kaito said.
Arisa slipped on the earrings and blinked once, slowly and glassily.
And then she tripped—deliberately—and spilt a full latte over her pristine blazer.
Kaito jumped to his feet. "Wait—are you okay?!"
Arisa stood, looking down at the mess with narrowed eyes. "Ugh. How embarrassing."
And just like that, she snapped her fingers.
The room shimmered. Time bent.
The coffee was back in the cup. Her blazer, clean. The fall? Never happened.
Kaito blinked, dazed. "That was… fast."
"You maintained proximity," she said. "Latency zero-point-nine seconds. Impressive."
He stared at her. "You rewound time to avoid coffee stains."
"Why suffer needlessly?"
"I thought this was some ancient secret power!"
"It is."
"Then why are we using it like a dry-cleaning service?!"
She shrugged. "Because it works."
They repeated the process.
Ink on paper. Broken pens. A dropped parfait. A notebook with a failed quiz grade.
Each time, Arisa would perform the event. Trigger the rewind. And each time, Kaito would stand at her side, the earrings reacting to his presence, his heartbeat.
It was… bizarrely normalising.
Until Test 6.
They were standing just outside the gym when Arisa froze, scanning her surroundings.
"What is it?" Kaito asked.
"We're being watched."
Kaito followed her gaze—and nearly squeaked.
Ren Tanaka.
Seiryuu High's golden boy.
Top scorer in every sport he touched, vice captain of the basketball team, and national junior track qualifier. He had the face of a teen idol and the confidence of someone who knew exactly how shiny their teeth were.
He stood near the gym doors, chatting with a few girls and laughing. But his eyes flicked toward Arisa—and lingered.
Kaito stiffened. "You think he suspects something?"
"I think he saw the reset."
Kaito's mouth went dry.
"Wait. How? You only rewound like… twenty seconds."
Arisa's tone sharpened. "I miscalculated. Emotional spillover. The tether wasn't focused. It might've bled into surrounding fields."
"In English?"
"I think Ren's memory glitched."
They both turned as Ren suddenly stopped talking mid-laugh. His brow furrowed, and he looked down at his drink as if unsure whether he had just bought it or dreamed it.
Then his eyes lifted and landed squarely on Kaito.
Not Arisa.
Kaito.
They left quickly, slipping around the gym and ducking into the library's study room. Arisa tugged off the earrings and handed them back, expression tight.
"This isn't good."
"No kidding," Kaito whispered, stuffing the earrings into their velvet pouch like they might bite him. "Did we… mess with his mind?"
"Not intentionally. But residual waves from strong rewinds can fragment short-term memory if someone's close enough."
"Fantastic," Kaito groaned. "So now we've confused the school's most popular guy, and he noticed me."
"He'll forget. Probably."
"That's not comforting!"
Arisa closed her eyes, breathing evenly. "We need to reduce public tests. Or control variables better."
Kaito slumped into a chair, overwhelmed. "You keep talking like this is a lab experiment. I'm a high schooler, not your science gremlin!"
She opened one eye. "You volunteered."
"I was blackmailed!"
"Semantics."
He dropped his head to the desk.
That evening, Kaito returned home exhausted and paranoid.
He barely touched his dinner. Kept looking at his phone. At the pouch.
He was starting to understand something about the rewinds.
They weren't clean.
Not always.
There was a bleed. Memory flickers. Fractures.
What happened when someone rewound too much?
What if Arisa forgot the line between fixing an accident—and erasing something vital?
The next day, Kaito tried to lay low. He avoided the council room. Pretended to have a cold. Faked coughing fits.
But fate, as usual, didn't care.
During lunch, Ren cornered him outside the vending machines.
"Fujimura, right?"
Kaito froze with his soda halfway to his lips. "Uh. Yeah?"
Ren tilted his head. "You were with Kanzuki yesterday."
"She needed help moving stuff."
Ren narrowed his eyes. "You're not on the council."
"She… promoted me."
"To what?"
"…Vice Chair of Accessories."
Ren stared at him.
"…You okay?" Kaito asked nervously.
Ren blinked. "Yeah. It's just… weird. Yesterday I was talking to Rina, and then I wasn't. It was like déjà vu on steroids."
Kaito's heart thudded.
"Have you ever felt like that?" Ren continued.
"Uh… nope. Super grounded. Super linear." Kaito laughed. It sounded like a dying cat.
Ren stared another moment. Then smiled. "Well, let me know if Kanzuki ever throws a secret party. I wanna see what's behind the perfection curtain."
He left with a wink.
Kaito collapsed against the vending machine.
"We're doomed," he muttered.
That night, he texted Arisa.
Kaito:
Ren's acting strange. I think he remembers something.
Arisa:
Then we watch him.
No more public resets.
And stay close to me during lunch tomorrow.
Kaito:
Why?
Arisa:
Because I don't want to accidentally erase him.