Archive of Our Own

"If the writing looks like this, with quotation marks" - spoken dialogue

"If the writing looks like this, with italics and quotation marks" - Saiki's telepathic dialogue

If the writing is just italics - other characters' thoughts, as heard by Saiki

Saiki wakes to the smell of burning composite roofing shingles and the gust of hot engine exhaust as the left wing of a Boeing 737 bisects his parents' house.

He's out of bed immediately, the ludicrious kitty-patterned pajamas that his mother got him for Christmas last year flapping stupidly in the wind as he wedges himself between the front yard and the nose of the plane, arms straining as he tries to keep the flaming wreckage from crashing into the landscaping.

His mom and his grandfather worked hard on that landscaping, okay?

Gravity works against him, and his bare feet slip on the dewy-wet grass, and the hems of his pajama pants get soaked as he readjusts his grip on the plane to hold it aloft. Saiki props the weight of the plane between his shoulderblades, takes a deep breath, and pushes off into the air. The smoking metal creaks as he rockets skyward.

Tokyo-Haneda International Airport's about an hour-long bus ride from his house, but it's a thirty-second trip when Saiki's shooting through the upper stratosphere. He pauses mid-air, hovers over the airport as he looks for an empty place on the tarmac to deposit the wreck, and grimaces when he hears the air traffic controllers' thoughts screaming about why is that plane on fire?! and how is it aloft?! and how did it appear over the airport so suddenly?!.

He dumps the plane on the tarmac, sprays water over the flaming hull, checks on the pilots - good, they're knocked out but they're both alive - and uses memory supplementation to overwrite his neighbors' and the airport staff's memories. Nobody except him needs to know what happened at 6:42 A.M. on March 14.

When he teleports back home, Mom and Dad are standing in the front yard, wrapped in their housecoats, staring forlornly at the giant gash running through their house and the pile of smoking roofing shingles. Saiki gives them a long look, thinks Good grief, and restores their house. The walls knit together, and the shingles jump back onto the roof, and his mother squeals with joy and hugs him around the neck.

Dad says, "Saiki… will you please consider taking me to wor-"

"Ride the bus," Saiki replies as he glares over his mother's shoulder.

Mom makes toast and rolled omelet for breakfast and slaps Saiki's hand when he reaches into the fridge for a serving of coffee jelly. He changes into his school uniform, swings his schoolbag over his shoulder, nods to his mother, rolls his eyes at his father, and steps out onto the street.

Idiot #1 and Idiot #2 are waiting for him at the usual intersection. Saiki walks past them impassively, and, as always, they fall into step right beside him.

"Hey, buddy," Nendou says cheerfully. "Do anything fun this morning?"

Saiki looks sideways at him. Did my memory supplementation not work? Does he know? Except it's Nendou, so he's just stupid. Saiki shakes his head no.

Kaidou spins around to walk backwards and holds one hand up to cover his eye. "I had a vision last night, Saiki -"

"I don't care."

"- And the Dark Reunion is coming to wreak havoc on all of our lives, today, I'm sure of it -"

"Shut up."

" - You'll regret not listening to me when you see how our world will fall apart, Saiki - Nendou, stop picking your nose, are you even paying attention?! This is import- oh, hi, Aren."

Saiki watches Kaidou flush as Kuboyasu waves hello and joins them to wait at for the pedestrian crossing signal. Something in Nendou's pants pocket wiggles, and Saiki's eyebrows furrow until he realizes that Nendou's just brought his hamster to school. Again. Great.

The pedestrian light flashes WALK! WALK! and together, the four boys step into the street. Kaidou runs ahead, turns around so he can point dramatically at Nendou and open his mouth to say something that will, no doubt, be idiotic -

Saiki freezes as a truck careens down the street and heads straight for the crosswalk. The driver's asleep at the wheel, and Kaidou honest-to-God screams like a girl, and Kuboyasu shouts "Shun!" and almost lunges forward -

With an outstretched hand, Saiki sends the truck into a tailspin and it whirls three hundred and sixty degrees until it leaves tire marks on the asphalt and grinds to a stop with its nose just inches from Kaidou's body. He stares down at it, eyes watery, and Kuboyasu exhales.

They make it to school in one piece.

Maths class is boring. They sit in rows and listen to the teacher drone on and on. Touma raises his hand for every question, vibrating in his seat, and Saiki doesn't have to tune into the frequency of his thoughts to know that he's hungry for an opportunity to open his big mouth and share his knowledge with the world. Saiki sits straight in his desk and stares at the back of Teruhashi's head. She's got her hair in a braid down her back today. It looks nice.

Touma shoves his hand higher into the air, and vibrates a little more in his seat. Suddenly, Saiki knows where this is going, because he can hear Touma's thoughts broadcasted across the entire classroom and he really thinks that the teacher should just call on Touma and put him out of his misery.

The teacher pauses in her lecture as Touma goes still, puts his hands in his lap, and pisses himself.

Saiki stares resolutely at the blackboard. He should have planted a thought in the teacher's head to let Touma go to the restroom. Kaidou jumps on top of his desk and yells at Touma, and Nendou laughs, and Hairo says helpful things like "Let's go to the nurse and get you some new pants!" and "I'll radio the janitor!" and Saiki just keeps staring at the blackboard.

The janitor wheels in a mop bucket, and the teacher, who looks a little green around the gills, dismisses the class early to gym class. Saiki thinks that he might rather sit in class and deal with Touma's overactive bladder than go to P.E..

Saiki changes quickly, focuses in on Mr. Matsuzaki's thoughts, and oh fuck, they're running laps today. It means that Kaidou'll make a fool of himself and Saiki'll have to try his hardest to stay in the middle of the pack. The girls, because they're eternally lucky, get to run laps inside while the boys suffer on the outside track.

Saiki keeps pace with Satou. He doesn't even break a sweat.

The boys plod inside, change back into their school uniforms, and head towards the cafeteria. Nendou's pants pocket wiggles again, but this time it's his back pants pocket, and how did the hamster get there? It was in his front pants pocket this morning. But it doesn't really matter, because Saiki's finely attuned hearing picks up faint chewing noises, and then all hell breaks loose.

"Nendou's got a hole in his pants!" Kaidou shrieks with laughter. Kuboyasu throws his arm around Kaidou's shoulders and laughs too. Nendou cranes his neck around to look at the two-inch-square hole in the back of his pants that his hamster chewed to escape the pocket.

Nendou's wearing white boxers patterned with red hearts. Saiki doesn't think he's ever seen anything more cliche in his life.

The hamster runs across the hallway and disappears through the open cafeteria door. Nendou twists around again, unbothered by the hole in his pants and bothered by the fact that his hamster is missing. Saiki ignores the chaos and walks into the cafeteria. Katsu curry don for lunch today. He piles his tray and sits at an empty table.

Idiots #1, #2, and #3 slide into seats beside him. Saiki shovels rice into his mouth.

"Aw, cheer up, Nendou," Kuboyasu says, patting his arm in a gesture that's probably supposed to be heartwarming. "I'm sure the hamster will show up again."

"AAAUUUGGGHHH!" Someone on the other side of the cafeteria jumps out of their seat with a screech. "I SAT ON SOMETHING!"

Raising an eyebrow, Saiki focuses his telepathy on the disturbance and, of course, because he couldn't have one pleasant school day -

"I think Takahashi sat on your hamster," he tells Nendou, and Nendou jumps to his feet. His underpants, shining through the hole in his turquoise uniform pants, are blindingly white as he races across the cafeteria, scoops up his hamster, glares at Takahashi, and returns to their lunch table.

"Thanks, buddy!" Nendou says cheerfully as he slides the hamster into his shirt pocket. "You were a real help."

Saiki shrugs.

Aiura slides into the seat beside Kaidou, uniform shirt unbuttoned dangerously low, and Saiki watches the way that Kuboyasu and Nendou stare at her chest. Another irritation - can he eat lunch in peace? Please? Just one day, that's all he wants. A day free from idiots.

"Kaidou," she begins, pulling a tube of lip gloss out of her pocket and applying it with finesse, "I have a question for you."

"M- m- me?"

"Do you like Yumehara?"

Saiki resists the urge to bash his lunch tray over Aiura's head. She winks at him, and he thinks, good grief. Kaidou goes red, glances at Kuboyasu, who's staring resolutely at his empty plate, and stiffens.

"Um - well - Yumehara is a good friend?"

"Yes, but," Aiura leans closer, and her shirt falls open a little more, and if Saiki was the kind of man who was interested in looking, he could definitely see everything, "Do you like her?"

"Well - I guess - uh - this is all so sudden -"

"Nendou!" the principal bellows, and Saiki's never been more grateful for sudden intervention. "Nendou, did you bring a hamster to school?"

The principal's got Takahashi by his shirt collar, and as Nendou stares stupidly up at the principal, he grab's Nendou's shirt collar, too, and hauls him to his feet.

"And you," the principal says as he pushes Nendou and Takahashi to the office, "Button up your shirt. We have a strict uniform code here at P.K. Academy."

Aiura rolls her eyes.

Saiki can feel Teruhashi's gaze boring into the side of his head. He doesn't meet her eyes.

Modern Japanese class is fine. Teruhashi passes out the next day's homework, and Saiki nods his thanks as she drops the paper on his desk. She blushes, and thinks Saiki thanked me! He looks so cute today! and Saiki watches her walk away, confused, because he looks the same today that he looks every other day.

The bell rings, the school day ends, and Saiki braces himself for Nendou's daily chorus of -

"Yo, buddy, let's go get ramen."

Saiki lets his annoyed face fall into place. Kaidou pulls out his wallet, sifts through the meager wad of cash, and says, "Yeah, I can do ramen. Where do we wanna go?"

Kuboyasu slides his schoolbag onto his shoulder, follows them out of the school gate, and stops. "O-oh, there's Teruhashi."

She's standing on the sidewalk outside the school, hands behind her back, and her braid and her uniform skirt are rippling in the spring wind as she stands still. It's pretty, Saiki thinks. The wind and the wave of her hair and her skirt. In a perfectly normal, aesthetically pleasing sort of way.

"Hi, guys!" she says. "Are you all going somewhere?"

The symphony of "O-oh!" starts up again, and Kuboyasu rubs at his nose. "We were going to get ramen, actually."

"That's so fun!" Teruhashi says, and Saiki has a horrible foreboding realization of what's coming - "Can I join you all?"

Nendou, Kaidou, and Kuboyasu gasp at the exact same moment. Saiki looks between The Idiots Three and Teruhashi, trying to decide how he ended up with such a cursed existence. He knows that the only reason she's agreeing to hang with the other three, though, is because he'll be there too. Because she, you know, has feelings for him.

Saiki shudders.

"I'm not going to get ramen, actually," he says. "I'm going home."

Her face falls, and she thinks oh, I was really looking forward to spending more time with Saiki, and with the barest twinge of regret, he turns away from Nendou, Kaidou, and Kuboyasu's groans of frustration.

Mom's making grilled fish, rice, and pickled vegetables when he steps into the house and slides off his outdoor shoes. She squeals when she sees him, and she squeals when Dad steps off the bus, home from the office, and she squeals when Saiki says dinner was good.

After dinner, he showers, changes into his stupid cat pajamas (the kitties have speech bubbles above their heads that say MEOW WOW!!!) and slides a shitty B-movie disc into his DVD player. He falls asleep to the soundtrack of bad horror movie noise, with his brain full of images of blue hair rippling in the wind.

On March 15, Saiki wakes to the smell of burning composite roofing shingles and the gust of hot engine exhaust as the left wing of a Boeing 737 bisects his parents' house.

Except it's not March 15, Saiki realizes as he dumps the wreck on the Tokyo-Haneda tarmac and uses memory supplementation for the second time in two days. It's March 14, again, which means he's stuck in a time loop of the universe's creation.

Unwilling to panic yet, Saiki teleports into his bedroom, lies down on his bed, stares at the ceiling, and tries his best to think of absolutely nothing.

…

…

…

The smell of burning toast wafts upstairs, and Saiki thinks good grief as images of toast pop into his head.

He tries again.

…

…

Downstairs, his dad says, "Honey bear, have you seen my blue tie?" And it's pointless, because then he's thinking about blue - blue eyes, blue hair in a long blue braid, and he almost groans.

…

…

…

…

His mom yells upstairs "Kusuo! Come down and eat!" and it occurs to him that he doesn't know the exact end point of this time loop yet. He doesn't have to fix it immediately, and no one except for him knows that the time loop exists - except for maybe Kusuke, but Saiki doesn't want to deal with him right now.

Saiki eats his toast and rolled omelet, goes to school, suffers through Touma's accident and P.E. and Nendou's hamster incident and Teruhashi's smile when she hands him his homework assignment, and comes home to eat grilled fish and rice and pickled vegetables.

After dinner, he lies down on his bed, stares at the ceiling, and tries to completely empty his brain.

…

…

It doesn't work. Well - he doesn't think it works. Saiki's coming to grips with the fact that the length for which he's stuck in this time loop might just be… up to the universe.

He pulls his MEOW WOW!!! pajamas over his head grumpily, stares at the ceiling again, and hopes that someday soon, he'll have an opportunity to turn in March 15's Modern Japanese homework assignment.

On Day Three, Saiki punches a hole in his bedroom wall when he wakes up to the smell of plane engine exhaust.

On Day Four, Saiki debates going to see his brother, in case Kusuke might have any words of wisdom on breaking free of a pesky and increasingly boring time loop.

He decides that he'd rather independently handle warped timeline discontinuity than attempt to make pleasant and productive conversation with his brother.

On Day Seven, Saiki decides that the Dark Reunion might be behind this after all. Maybe he should ask the Jet-Black Wings to help him break the curse.

Well, he's not that desperate yet. He sits through maths class and helps Nendou find his hamster and avoids Teruhashi's offer of after-school ramen and watches another shitty B-movie and falls asleep, ready to shuttle his eighth Boeing 737 to the airport tomorrow morning.

On Day Twelve, Saiki goes along with Teruhashi's plan to invite herself to their after-school ramen feast. It's like a video game with alternate endings, is how Saiki rationalizes it to himself as the five of them walk to Nendou's favorite ramen shop. He's played through eleven nearly-identical days thus far, and now, on day twelve, he's making some new choices. Seeing the paths that open before him. New levels, new storylines, all that sort of thing.

Yeah.

They order. Saiki slides into the booth first, and Teruhashi slides onto the bench beside him. They keep a careful eleven inches of space between their bodies. He feels conscious of how close she is, and from her thoughts, she feels conscious of how close he is, too. Nendou, Kaidou, and Kuboyasu pile onto the bench opposite them.

It's awkward.

Usually, Kaidou and Kuboyasu would run their mouths about the mecha manga they drew over lunch, or the new anime that aired on television last night, or the Dark Reunion's next sinister plot. Nendou might prop his elbows on the table and say something about porno mags.

But you can't have those conversations with a girl around, so the five of them sit stiffly in the booth and wait for their food.

"So, Teruhashi," Kuboyasu starts, "Do you, uh, hey, wasn't that crazy when Touma pissed his pants during maths?"

Saiki wants to let his forehead fall onto the tabletop. Is there no other topic of conversation? Kuboyasu ran through conversation starters in his head and that's the one he settled on?

Teruhashi covers her mouth with her hand and giggles. "I felt bad for him - he had to have been embarassed."

No, she didn't feel bad for him, Saiki thinks. Teruhashi had thought it was hilarious. He'd stared at the back of her head and watched her braid shake as she tried (and failed) to hold in her laughter. He takes another bite of his ramen and grimaces as he drips broth onto his uniform pants.

Bolstered by Teruhashi's laughter, Kuboyasu pushes ahead. "At least we got to to gym class early. P.E.'s so much better than sitting in a classroom."

Nendou slurps up a mouthful of noodles and sprays broth across the table. "Eh, I think gym class is kinda borin-"

"You're, like, stupidly OP in gym class!" Kaidou yells, gesticulating wildly with his disposable chopsticks. "Nendou, you're the Goku of P.K. Academy gym class. The Naruto of gym class, but, like, Naruto after he gets a good relationship with the Nine-Tails and can enter Sage Mode. You're the Imu of gym class - hey, did you all see the new One Piece chapter in Jump?"

Privately, Saiki thinks that's a stupid question, because what high school student in Japan hasn't seen the new One Piece chapter in Jump, but Nendou pounces on it. "Yeah, but I thought it was dumb that -"

"Nendou, you idiot! Oda obviously meant that -" Kuboyasu butts in.

Kaidou goes red with anger. "You're both ridiculous! Obviously what he meant was that Luffy is -"

Idiots #1, #2, and #3 tussle on their side of the booth, and Saiki can feel Teruhashi's eyes on him as he chomps on another piece of pork belly.

"Do you read One Piece, Saiki?" she asks.

He's not really sure how to tell her that even if he wanted to read One Piece, he can't, because the minute that the weekly Jump drops, his head's full of every single spoiler in a 200-meter radius. He shakes his head.

"I don't either," she continues as she delicately picks at the slivered mushrooms floating in her ramen broth, "But I guess I don't really read much manga."

Their side of the booth is quiet. Nendou, Kaidou, and Kuboyasu keep arguing about whatever the fuck the future Pirate King's gotten up to this past week. Saiki thinks about how his mom acts whenever she has her girlfriends over. Their conversation never has awkward pauses like this - well, the pauses aren't awkward for Saiki, but he's sure that they're awkward for Teruhashi, so he thinks about questions that his mom might ask in social situations and braces himself.

"If you don't read manga, what do you like to do for fun?"

He already knows the answer to this, but he feels like it's the right thing to ask.

Large red "‼️‼️‼️" bounce around in Teruhashi's head like a DVD screensaver as she thinks he asked me a question about myself! and Saiki thinks, is the bar really that low? But it is, and the bar's that low because of his own behavioral history. Drat. He feels a little embarrased by it all.

"I - well, I like to cook," she starts. "And I like to take care of my cat, and I like to do theater."

Saiki tries to remember if P.K. has a school drama club. He's not sure. The only school play he remembers is the one where Saiko pulled the budget at the last minute and Saiki had to wear a green shirt to make a somewhat convincing Seaweed #4.

"Do you do school plays?"

"Ah - yes! Often. Right now, we're doing part reads for this original student play - the author's actually in Class Two, you might know them, Saiki -" and then she's off, ramen forgotten as her passion for literature and theater and performance jump out of her mouth and into the space between them.

Saiki turns up his bowl, drinks the dregs of his broth, and nods at appropriate times. It's nice to listen to her talk, he thinks. She's got this really nice way of speaking that's sincere and practiced and honest and educated and charming all at the same time. His way of speaking, in comparison, is a little dull and relies heavily on his head's ability to nod and his shoulders' ability to shrug.

Maybe he should talk more, he thinks, until he remembers Mom's words of wisdom about "Always be true to yourself!" and he decides that if he talked more, he probably wouldn't be being true to himself. Plus, Teruhashi doesn't seem to mind that much that he doesn't talk. Neither do Nendou or Kaidou or Kuboyasu or Hairo or Mera or Toritsuka - well, he doesn't care what Toritsuka thinks.

But Teruhashi probably wouldn't complain if he talked a little more. He'll consider it. He doesn't really know why he's considering it.

"- and the rehearsal schedule picks up in two weeks, and our costuming budget -" Teruhashi stops short. "I'm sorry, Saiki, you probably don't care about this at all."

He doesn't, not really. But he knows that she cares, and (he can almost feel his mom breathing down his neck) that means that he should care, too.

Saiki nods, and Teruhashi lights up.

Nendou and Kaidou and Kuboyasu pull themselves out of their argument as Teruhashi launches into an analysis of the upcoming play's major themes, and then the chaos starts again as Kaidou says "Well, do you need costuming help? I have the perfect closet" and Kuboyasu goes into a coughing fit when Teruhashi mentions the delinquent character and Nendou scratches his heart-patterned boxers through the hole in his pants.

Saiki drops a few bills on the table, waits for Teruhashi to scoot out of the booth, and follows his four friends out of the restaurant. Kaidou and Kuboyasu head to the left, Nendou sets his hamster on his shoulder and heads right, and then it's just Saiki and Teruhashi standing on the front stoop as the RAMEN! RAMEN! RAMEN! neon sign blinks above their heads.

"It was nice getting a meal after school with you, Saiki," she says. Her golden aura glows brightly.

He nods.

"I have play practice tomorrow, but we could do this again the day after tomorrow?"

Saiki tilts his head to one side, considering. He knows by now that the day after tomorrow probably won't come for a while. He's been trapped inside March 14 for twelve days now, and he's starting to lose hope that March 15 will come, let alone March 16.

Her golden glow falters slightly and, with a rush of something that might be nerves, Saiki nods. Day after tomorrow sounds good.

She beams, throws out her arms to hug him, he sidesteps, and, still beaming, she waves and turns to go home. Saiki walks home, blissfully alone. He suffers through his mother's hug, declines her offer of grilled fish and rice and pickled vegetables, and repairs his dad's action figures.

When bedtime comes, he pauses in front of the DVD shelf. He could reach for another shitty B-movie, or he could…

The romance movie that he pulls off the shelf is something British, one of his mom's favorites. It's set, like, two hundred years ago and all the men have long hair and all the women have dresses wider than the doorframes in the big castle that everyone apparently lives in. He wonders if castles and ruffly dresses and long manly hair convey some significant romantic undertone that he can't pick up on. Girls must like this stuff.

The plot's fine. The acting is very good. It's nice to watch a movie without an immediate risk of spoilers.

Saiki narrows his eyes at the screen, paying close attention as the male and female lead skirt the edges of the ballroom and let their hands brush. The female lead smiles at the male lead from across a hallway, and Saiki thinks about Teruhashi's gaze boring into the side of his head from across the cafeteria.

The male lead's tailcoat in the final scene in blue. Saiki tries not to think about other things that are blue.

On Day Eighteen, after schlepping the plane over to the Tokyo-Haneda tarmac and restoring the house-née-pile-of-rubble, Saiki spins the globe on his desk until the little pink and purple and green countries blur into a colorful wash. He jabs his finger at a location at random and ends up teleporting to the major metropolis of Fordyce, Arkansas, population: about three people.

Saiki realizes within thirteen seconds of setting foot in Fordyce that there's very little going on. This is just about the most boring place on Earth he could go to run away from his reality.

7:00 AM in the suburbs of Tokyo is 5:00 PM in central Arkansas. As he walks, streetlights begin to flicker on as he strolls. Hands shoved in his pockets, Saiki wanders through the run-down downtown, moving out of the way for a mom with ajogging stroller and a kid a on bikes with training wheels and off-leash dogs sniffing at his sneakers. Americans are friendly, Saiki thinks. It's a little disconcerting. He wishes they'd just leave him alone.

The other worst thing about Fordyce, Saiki realizes, is that coffee jelly doesn't seem to be as common of a delicacy as it is in Tokyo. He squints into bakery windows and dessert shop windows, sees puddings and cakes and tubs and tubs of ice cream, but no jellies.

After following a series of sandwich boards advertising 'The Best Pudding Anywhere in The South!,' he ends up standing on a side street staring down a hole-in-the-wall with cardboard taped over a broken window and a flickering neon sign reading 'Mama's Eats.' Saiki's not sure who Mama is, but she ought to think about getting her window replaced.

Mama, as it turns out, is the older woman standing behind the dingy cash register and the creator of 'The Best Pudding Anywhere in The South!.' Saiki points at the lurid yellow image of the pudding on the laminated menu, hands over three hundred yen, realizes his mistake, subtly apports three U.S. dollars into his wallet, and nods his apology at Mama.

He sits in the corner booth, as far away from Mama and her busy kitchen as he can get, and his khaki pants squeak against the cracked red vinyl. The lightbulb over his booth blinks.

When Mama sets the Styrofoam bowl, laden with banana pudding, and a plastic spoon down in front of him, he's barely gotten a spoonful halfway to his mouth before a man with a dog slides into the booth across from him. Saiki chews, swallows, and blinks in annoyance.

"I'm sitting here."

"Well, now I'm sitting here, too," the man says cheerfully. "Only two people in the joint, we might as well sit together, right?"

"No. Go away." Saiki takes another bite of pudding. The plastic spoon scrapes against the Styrofoam as he scoops up meringue and banana for his third bite.

"You're not from around here, I can tell that much. If you were, you'd have no problem with making a new acquaintence over dinner."

Saiki stares at the dog as it drools onto the linoleum floor. "I'm not from around here."

"Where from?"

"Far away."

The man grins as Mama sets down a plate loaded with smoked meat and white bread. The dog props his front paws on the booth seat, still drooling, and the man grabs a piece of pork and drops it into the dog's wide-open, slobbery mouth. "Far away, you say - big city? Little Rock? Memphis?"

"Tokyo."

The man slaps the table as he laughs. Saiki takes another bite of pudding, and the banana squishes between his teeth. Americans are weird, he thinks. "You're a real funny guy, friend."

"I'm not your friend."

Mama comes and props her elbow on the back seat of the booth while the man swipes at the puddle of barbeque sauce on his plate with the crust of a piece of white bread. "Say," she starts, wiping her greasy hands on her apron, "Whatever happened with that divorce of yours?"

The dog rests his head on Saiki's right sneaker and begins to leave a puddle of drool on his shoelaces.

"Let me tell you, girl. That woman - Mama, that woman - she run around and she go behind my back, but I just can't bring myself to leave her. Never filed those papers, surely didn't."

Saiki scrapes at the remains of his pudding while the taste of banana sits sugary-sweet on his tongue. Mama clicks her tongue, reaches into her pocket, and tosses the dog a burnt piece of bacon. Saiki's grateful for a break from the waterworks on his shoe.

"Mm, mm, mm. One of these days, you gotta do what's best for you. Put yourself first," Mama replies.

The man nods slowly. "Can't leave her, Mama. Women," he says suddenly, turning his attention to Saiki. "Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, right, boy?"

Saiki shrugs.

Mama laughs loudly and slaps the back of the booth. "Be nice to the young man. I'm sure he's got a lovely little lady of his own to dote on. Don't fill his head with all your nonsense about lost love and fast women. You got yourself a girl, nice boy like you, right?"

Spooning the last of the meringue into his mouth, Saiki thinks about shiny blue hair and sharp eyes and perfect grades. He shakes his head in dissent, just a beat too slowly.

"Ah," the man crows. The slobbery dog jerks his head up off of the linoleum to howl in agreement. "You do got a girl!"

"I don't have a girlfriend."

Shoving her hands in her apron pockets, Mama narrows her eyes. "God hates a liar, young man. Come on, 'fess up."

Saiki just stares.

"There's another serving of banana pudding in it for you."

He pauses, looks down ruefully at his empty Styrofoam bowl, looks back at Mama, and shakes his head no.

"I don't have a girlfriend. Really."

The man jestures at Saiki with a corner of sauce-laden white bread. "But there's a girl you got your eye on?"

Saiki stares at the metallic-flecked table. Fuck it. Nobody but him will remember this tomorrow, because tomorrow won't come. He grabs the empty bowl with both hands and hands it to Mama with a nod. Cackling, she ducks behind the counter to scoop another helping of banana pudding into the Styrofoam. When she sets it on the table in front of him, the dog leans his big, square head onto Saiki's thigh and begins drooling onto his khaki pants. Saiki takes a bite.

"I think I might be interested in a girl."

Mama raises an eyebrow. The man swallows a bite of pulled pork and props his elbows on the table. "You think?"

Saiki looks back and forth between them. "I think."

"You don't know?"

"…How do I know?"

The man slaps Mama on the arm with a grin. "Ah, to be young and in love, right, Mama? How d'you feel when she comes around?"

Saiki tilts his head back to the ceiling to think. "Exasperated?"

Mama throws her head back and laughs and laughs. "You got it real bad, boy. Do you like spending time with her?"

The dog drools on his pants some more. Saiki shrugs, then nods.

"Do you get excited when you see her?"

Mouth full of pudding, he shrugs and nods again.

As he shoves another bite of pulled pork into his mouth, the man asks, with a glance at Mama, "Do you get upset when you see her with other men?"

He thinks about winning a game of rock-paper-scissors in a karaoke lounge, and he nods very quickly.

The slobbery dog whines and props his head on Saiki's thigh. The man shoves the last bites of pulled pork in his mouth and pats Saiki's hand consolingly. Saiki jerks his hand off of the tabletop immediately.

"I know how you feel. You just gotta tell her how you feel, man. No use suffering in silence. Put it out there."

Mama tosses the dog another piece of burnt bacon. Saiki considers his advice, sucks on another spoonful of pudding, and shakes his head.

"Why?" Mama asks. "Scared?"

Scared? Saiki's not scared of anything. He's fought a volcano and won. He's survived his brother's machinations, his mother's glare when he avoids hanging out with Nendou and Kaidou, and bugs. What's there to be fearful of?

He thinks about what it would be like to confess to Teruhashi. Saiki's Inner Voice conjures up a ridiculous picture - he's wearing some smarmy suit that his mother picked out, and he's got a bouquet of red roses for some reason, and Thought Saiki says "I love you, Teruhashi!" like an idiot. Thought Teruhashi says "I love you too, Saiki!" like he knew she would, because she likes him, and then they kiss and it all looks rather wet and unappealing.

The concept of confessing to Teruhashi isn't scary, because he won't get rejected. She'd accept and return his feelings before the confession was halfway said.

Saiki thinks about his father buying a teddy-bear sewing kit for his mother and his mother buying an action-figure display stand for his father. He thinks about his mother getting rid of her sewing machine and his father selling off his action-figure collection. He thinks about the ushy-gushyness and the love hearts that ballooned in the living room and floated out the window of their house.

Confessing isn't scary. It's everything that comes afterwards. His parents love each other, but they're nauseatingly gross about it, and if that's what love looks like - fuck, why is he thinking about loving Teruhashi? - then he's really not interested.

Mama looks down at him, waiting for an answer to her question.

He shrugs.

"You're hopeless, boy," she says, heading back into her kitchen. "Man up, or you lose her."

Privately, Saiki doesn't think that he runs the risk of losing Teruhashi, but he doesn't feel like explaining that to Mama and the man with the slobbery dog.

Stomach full of banana pudding - Mama was right, it really was The Best Pudding in The South - he ducks into a back alley and blinks out of existence. He's not sure that he's in a hurry to come back to Arkansas.

It's 10:00 AM in Japan when Saiki teleports back, and the sun is high in the sky as he pops into existence by his bedroom window. He crosses his eyes to use clairvoyance, hoping to see his classmates. P.K. Academy appears fuzzily in his brain, and - oh, they're at gym class. Hairo's already sweating buckets as he runs what must be his millionth lap around the outdoor track. Nendou's right behind him, unbothered as always, and Kaidou and Kuboyasu bring up the rear. Kuboyasu doesn't need to be at the back, Saiki thinks, but it's admirable the way that he always sticks with Kaidou. Someone's got to do it.

On the indoor track, Yumehara huffs and puffs next to Mera. Aiura's walking the mile, not even trying to participate, and -

Teruhashi leads the line of girls, glittering gold with a gentle smile on her face. Saiki tracks the swing of her ponytail as she runs, left, right, left, right, left, right, until he blinks rapidly and shakes his head to cancel out the clairvoyance.

If they're at gym class, then Saiki won't bother showing up to school late. Trying to appear as average as possible during P.E. is such a drag.

After changing out of his dog-drool-covered pants, Saiki teleports to his secret training grounds and kicks a townhouse-sized boulder as hard as he can until it goes flying, twinkling like a cliche as it exits the atmosphere. He flops down spread-eagle onto the ground, uncaring of the dust in his hair, and stares up at the sky.

It's cloudless and blue.

You know what else is blue? his subconscious asks snidely.

Saiki throws his hand out to the side and punches the nearest boulder into rubble.

Blue - blue sky, blue school uniforms, blue raspberry sour candies from the convenience store, blue composition books, blue eyes, blue ponytail, swinging back and forth, leftrightleftright -

For the first time since he started reliving the same day eighteen fucking times, Saiki opens his mouth and uses his vocal chords.

He screams. The sound echoes across the rocky plain.

On Day Twenty-One, after yet another breakfast of toast and rolled omelet, after maths class (and Touma pissing himself during maths class) and Aiura promising to find Yumehara a boyfriend and Nendou's hamster chewing a hole in Nendou's pants and Takahashi sitting on Nendou's hamster, Mr. Matsuzaki almost catches Kaidou and Kuboyasu making out in the Occult Club room.

They're idiots, Saiki thinks as he sits in the second floor bathroom with his eyes crossed to watch Mr. Matsuzaki's trek down the club room hallway. Making out in a club room's the oldest trick in the book, and it's not even club hour right now, so of course Matsuzaki would be suspicious of any hanky-panky going on in a club room because they left the light on and it's visible from the hallway -

Wait. Saiki uncrosses his eyes and shakes his head until his vision snaps back into place. This shouldn't be happening. In the previous twenty times that he's lived through March 14, Kaidou and Kuboyasu haven't made out in the club room. Normally, at this point in the school day, they're sitting eating lunch together while drawing mecha manga.

Something's happened to the timeline.

He runs through the morning's events in his head. He ate toast and rolled omelet, he fixed Kusuke's stupid robo-cat - okay, fast forward past that - he left for school, met up with the Idiots Three, they walked to school together, and -

Oh, the truck. He forgot to force the truck to veer left as it bore down on the crosswalk where Kaidou was walking. Kaidou had panicked, dropped his schoolbag, froze like a deer in the headlights in front of the truck,

And Kuboyasu had tackled Kaidou to knock him out of the crosswalk and into the road shoulder. Saiki remembered now. They'd lain in the shoulder as the truck sped through the intersection, Kaidou flat on his back with his cheeks a little red, Kuboyasu propped up on top of him, his glasses askew. Their legs had been tangled together, and Kaidou's shirt collar had drooped down his shoulder to show off an awful lot of pale collarbone.

Nendou had laughed. Saiki had stared after the truck and turned his attention towards the walk to school.

Closing his eyes with a slight smile, Saiki stands up and exits the bathroom stall. Kuboyasu's heroic save must have pushed the two of them over the edge. Took them long enough - they'd only been dancing around each other for, what, six repeated Year Twos plus a few months of Year Three?

Saiki crosses his eyes again. Matsuzaki is only three doors down from the Occult Club room. Sighing, Saiki turns his attention to the neatly ordered rows of gym supplies carts lined up outside the window. With a twitch of his finger, the cart at the end of the row wobbles precariously, then topples over, spilling dodgeballs across the school lawn and crashing into the adjacent cart with a metallic clang. The second cart wobbles, spills its basketballs, hits the next cart and the next and the next until the whole row goes down like the world's noisest dominos and the grass is littered with P.K. Academy's entire stock of P.E. supplies.

One door down from the Occult Club room, Matsuzaki jumps at the sudden clank of metal cart against metal cart, sticks his head out the window, and howls at the sight of hundreds of balls bouncing across the yard. Using a few choice words that he probably ought not use inside a high school, Matsuzaki races to the stairwell and bounds to the ground level.

Using Clairvoyance, Saiki focuses in on the Occult Club room and - oh, okay, Kaidou's really pink, and Kuboyasu's hand is - whoa, Saiki didn't ask to see that - guys, you're still at school, be smart about this - with a jerk, his vision snaps back into itself.

He slides his schoolbag back over his shoulder and heads back to modern Japanese class. As he slips into his desk, it occurs to him that if the world is destined to relive March 14 again tomorrow, then Kaidou and Kuboyasu won't remember this moment. March 15 will come eventually, maybe two days from now, maybe two months from now, and the two idiots will still be head-over-heels with no confession in sight.

Saiki lays his composition book open on his desk. Maybe he'll conveniently forget to move the speeding truck from now on. If Kuboyasu wants to vault dramatically into the crosswalk to save the day, that's his prerogative. If his heroics mean that the two of them get to spend every March 14, and maybe every March 15 and 16 and 17 and longer after that making out in the Occult Club room, that's fine with Saiki.

Teruhashi moves between the rows of desks, dropping copies of tonight's homework on the desk. Saiki won't bother doing it. What's the point, if the day that the homework is due never comes?

She walks by his desk, blushes a little, and smiles as she deposits the worksheet on his desk. Saiki nods his thanks.

Maybe Kaidou and Kuboyasu are crazy, risking suspension for something as stupid as kissing in a club room. Making out can't be that great.

Can it?

That afternoon, Saiki ignores Kaidou's swollen lips and Kuboyasu's bruised-up neck and Nendou's offer of "Let's go get ramen, buddy!" on the walk home from school and turns down the main street to visit the video rental shop. He walks down the aisles of DVDs until he reaches the "N" section, pulls the disc he's looking for off of the shelf, and drops a handful of yen on the shop counter. The cashier barely looks at him as they ring him up.

After his twenty-first dinner of grilled fish and rice and pickled vegetables, Saiki grabs a serving of coffee jelly from the fridge, goes to his room, changes into his pajamas, and pops the DVD into the disc reader. The DVD whirs to life, and The Notebook starts playing. He spoons jelly into his mouth mindlessly as he watches the two leads push and repel like magnets, always dramatic, always over-the-top, never average, until rain starts pouring on his television screen and he sits up a little straighter in his bed.

He watches the most famous kiss scene in cinema history with narrowed, focused eyes. He watches the way that the male lead lifts his lover and the way that she grabs his face and the way that the rain soaks their clothes as they kiss.

Once the scene is over, Saiki assesses himself and decides that he doesn't really feel particularly strongly about kissing. Perhaps he was watching too clinically. He leans back against his pillow, grabs the remote, and rewinds the DVD.

On his second watch, he sucks on his spoonful of coffee jelly as the rain pours and the two lovers tilt their heads to press their lips closer together. There's a flash of pink tongue, wet with spit and wet from the rain, and something low in Saiki's stomach flips over itself. He places his free hand on his stomach in wonder, feels acutely his heart thudding in his chest.

He rewinds the scene for a third time and watches the female lead's hands grip onto the male lead's body. The female lead's dress is blue. Saiki tries not to think about other things in his world that are blue. He fails.

When the movie finishes, Saiki powers off his television and rolls over onto his side in bed. He doesn't bother to get the disc out of the reader, because tomorrow, when he relives March 14 for the twenty-second time, the DVD will automatically be back on the shelves at the video store.

The room feels oppressively dark as he lies in bed and thinks about pouring rain and wandering hands and blue dresses (and blue hair) and spit-wet lips.

Maybe Kaidou and Kuboyasu are onto something. Maybe making out is, actually, all it's rumored to be.

On Day Thirty-Five, Saiki does something that he's done maybe three times in his short life: he goes to his mother for advice.

Not his father. Fuck no. Dad could never give anything approximating good advice - he's well-intentioned, and Saiki loves the man dearly (even if he refuses to show it), but he'd never ask him for fatherly guidance.

Saiki leans against the kitchen counter and chomps on a potato chip while Mom rinses the rice. Before she's finished with the third rinse, Saiki sends the bottle of rice vinegar floating over to hover near her right hand. She beams at him.

"Mom."

She hums as she measures water into the rice cooker. "Yes, darling Kusuo?"

"I have a question."

The rice cooker hits the floor with a clang. Saiki raises it back onto the counter and directs the rice back into the basin.

Brushing her hair out of her face, Mom turns around to face him, parental joy leeching off of her. "Yes, dear?"

"What if I use my powers to take advantage of someone?"

She taps the spoon in her hand against her cheek as she tilts her head to the side and thinks. "Do you think you're taking advantage of someone?"

Saiki swallows a potato chip. "Maybe. I'm not sure."

Opening a kitchen drawer with a flourish, Mom pulls out the same knife and the same cutting board that she's used to prep the grilled fish for the past thirty-four nights. "I suppose there is a power imbalance between you and everyone else, dear, isn't there?"

Saiki nods.

"You want to be fair to everyone else in your world who doesn't have psychic powers, is that right?"

Saiki nods again. He uses his psychic powers to open the fridge, lift out the fish, and drop it onto Mom's cutting board. She beams at him again.

"Hm," she says thoughtfully as she begins to slice the fish thinly. "You could… tell your friends that you're psychic and see how they react?"

Rolling his eyes, Saiki walks out of the kitchen.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Mom screeches as he turns to go. "Something's on your mind, dear. Tell me what's wrong?"

Saiki pauses. His empty bag of potato chips is wrinkled in his fist. It's a bad idea on so many levels - he really doesn't need his mother knowing about everything going on in his world, and if his mother knows, then his father knows, because they'd rather die than keep secrets from each other. But odds are ten to one that tomorrow won't come, that everyone in his world will just relive March 14 for the thirty-sixth time, and his mother will forget that this entire conversation happened.

He takes a breath. "I've been stuck in a time loop, reliving March 14 thirty-five times, and every single day, I think I like Teruhashi more and more."

Mom's eyes bug out of her head. Saiki cringes, and oh fuck, he knew he shouldn't have mentioned the time loop, her thoughts are going crazy right now, she's so worried -

"I knew it!" she yells triumphantly. "Honey bear, get in here! Kusuo has exciting news!"

Saiki focuses in on her thoughts, and it's a constant stream of HE LIKES KOKOMI HE LIKES KOKOMI HE ADMITTED IT MY DARLING SON IS IN LOVE HE'S IN LOVE! WITH KOKOMI! I KNEW IT, and screwing his eyes shut, he lets his head thunk back against the doorframe.

Dad comes rushing in, half-built model in one hand and glue in the other, and looks at Saiki eagerly. "Well, son?"

The glue splatters across the floor as Saiki pushes past his dad to escape into the living room. Mom grabs his arm with a vice grip and pulls him back into the kitchen.

Saiki looks at his dad and shakes his head. No news.

Mom takes a deep breath, smile a million miles wide, and says, "Kusuo has a crush!"

Saiki lets his face fall into his annoyed expression. Dad drops the half-built model and ignores it as it busts into pieces when it hits the floor.

"A crush!" he says excitedly. "Well, that's wonderful, Kusuo! Who's the lucky girl - oh wait, sweetie pie, it could be a boy, and that's totally all right, we'll love you no matter what -"

Saiki slaps his hand over his father's mouth. Mom vibrates on her feet, lips pressed shut, until - "It's Kokomi!"

Dad wrenches Saiki's hand off of his mouth. "Kokomi! What a wonderful choice! She's a lovely girl - you've picked well, you take after your father in that regard -"

Saiki slaps his hand over his father's mouth again. "I told you all that I'm stuck in a time loop, and all you care about is Teruhashi?"

"Darling, we know you're smart enough to figure out how to get out of the time loop. We can't help you with that, just like we can't help you with so many things in your life - the consequences of having two beautiful, smart boys! But a crush? A crush we can help you with." His mother pats his cheek. "What do you think, honey bear? I think he should ask her to a cafe."

Dad wrenches Saiki's hand off of his mouth again. "I think he should confess his love to her today! Come on, son, I'll drive you to her house -"

"Well, I think that they should go on a picnic date! Those are so cute - do you remember when we used to go on picnics, sweetums? And -"

"If Kusuo doesn't take Kokomi to the spring festival, then he's got no shot at all -"

Saiki rolls his eyes. If only they knew how much of a shot I have.

"But," his mother finishes breathlessly, "The one thing your father and I can agree on is that you should tell her how you feel!"

"But that's the problem. We've lived the same day thirty-five times now. I know that we're stuck in this time loop, and I can see differences between each March 14, but to Teruhashi, it's just… March 14. The same old school day."

Mom and Dad are quiet.

"I've had thirty-five days to realize my," Saiki grimaces, "Crush, but Teruhashi hasn't."

Mom taps her cheek with her spoon. "I'm back to my original plan, Kusuo dear. You could tell her that you're psyc-"

"No." Saiki tosses his crumpled-up bag of potato chips in the trash and ducks out of the kitchen. "Thanks for the advice. I'm eating dinner out tonight."

He ducks into a cheap restaurant and orders curry. His dinner gets delivered to him on a blue platter, and Saiki barely resists the urge to vaporise the entire city block.

The television tucked in the corner of the restaurant advertises the new Cyborg Ciderman II drink, and - oh, Saiki thinks flatly, there's Peach-T Girl, smiling on the TV. He crushes his paper water cup in his grip.

The waitress brings him a blueberry parfait instead of a strawberry parfait. As he leaves the restaurant, the city streetlights are lit blue, probably in honor of some dead so-and-so. The crowd's thoughts buzz around in his head as he strolls, and, like, sixty percent of the people are thinking about the new episode of Blue Lock that aired earlier this evening. Saiki steps in a blue wad of gum. Four blue cars and a blue-striped city bus drive down the street in a row. Blue, blue, blue, blue-blue-blue -

He pauses in front of Teruhashi's house. It's like his feet took him here without thinking.

Eyes narrowed, he focuses his telepathy at the house, praying to whatever God is up there that Makoto isn't home. There's no one inside the house thinking insidious thoughts about Teruhashi in her underwear, so Saiki's pretty sure he's safe from Makoto's wrath.

He rings the doorbell.

Teruhashi answers, dressed in yellow flowered pajama pants and a P.K. Academy sweatshirt.

"Do you want to," fuck, he hasn't thought this far ahead, "Go for a walk?"

Teruhashi blinks. A walk? At 7:30 PM? Saiki? Here? At my house? Am I dreaming? Is he - "Yes!" she says finally, and Saiki exhales like he didn't already know that she'd say yes. "I'd love to go on a walk with you - let me change first."

She comes back out in jeans and sneakers with a pink scarf draped over her school sweatshirt. Saiki holds the gate open for her as they head off down the street. Teruhashi keeps her hands folded in front of her, and Saiki keeps his shoved in his pants pockets. Their shoulders bump awkwardly as they walk side by side on the sidewalk.

"Did you -"

"So do you -"

They look at each other, and Teruhashi laughs, a little stilted. "You go first, Saiki."

"Did you enjoy the reading assignment in English class?"

He came all this way just to ask about English class?! "Yes," she replies sweetly. "I found it to be very informative. I didn't know you were interested in English, Saiki!"

He's not, because English comes to him as easy as breathing. He just knows that Teruhashi enjoys English class, which is why he asked about it. It's only when Teruhashi claps her hand over her mouth and stops walking that Saiki realizes that, damn it, he said that last sentence out loud.

Saiki pauses - HE REMEMBERS I LIKE ENGLISH CLASS HE'S BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO ME MAYBE HE - NO, KOKOMI, IT CAN'T BE, THERE'S NO WAY HE - and he stares at Teruhashi as she flushes pink.

"Ah, you knew I like English class?" She ducks her head a little and smiles. "You must be paying attention to me at school, Saiki."

Saiki shrugs. Fuck, he thinks a second later, why did I shrug? That's so lame. Only lame people shrug.

"What's your favorite class at school, Saiki?" Teruhashi hits him with another question, but it's one that he doesn't know the answer to, because they're all boring. He feels his shoulder begin to creep up - he's reflexively trying to shrug again - and he forces it back down.

"I don't know." That's an even worse answer than shrugging!

"Hm," Teruhashi says, tapping her finger against her lips. "Let me guess."

Saiki nods.

"Do you like maths?"

He shrugs. Fuck, he didn't mean to do that. Bad habit. He'll do better next time.

"How about… modern Japanese?"

He looks up at the sky, then nods. "It's fine."

"Gym class?"

Saiki shakes his head so vehemently that Teruhashi laughs. It's a good laugh. He wants to listen to it on repeat every day, he thinks. Damn, he sounds like Makoto.

"I like modern Japanese, too," Teruhashi admits as they round the corner by the park. "And that's the class we sit next to each other in, Saiki! It's nice to sit by a friend." Is he my friend? Yes, Saiki's my friend - right? If he wasn't my friend, he wouldn't show up at my door unannounced to go for a walk - I mean, I wish he was more than my friend, but -

Swallowing hard, Saiki nods. He doesn't know how to tell Teruhashi that he might not mind being more than friends, too.

He tilts his head towards the park's swingset, and Teruhashi smiles. The swingsets are a little damp, because it rained on March 13, simultaneously yesterday and thirty-four days ago, and Saiki brushes water off of two swings.

It's easier to talk to Teruhashi when they're side by side, both facing forward, as they pump their legs and pass each other on each pendulum swing. Saiki doesn't have to worry about little things like eye contact.

He doesn't know how to start a conversation. He could try - "Have you thought about what you'll do after high school?" and once he's said it, he kicks himself immediately, because that's the one question that every third year hates.

OH MY GOD HE'S ASKING ABOUT MY POST-GRAD PLANS - "Well," Teruhashi says slowly as she swings even higher, "I'd like to leave Tokyo and go to a uni that's further away."

Saiki nods his agreement.

"And I'd like to study English, probably, or maybe something with Literature. Honestly, Saiki," I can't believe I'm telling him this, "I'm sure you've guessed, but I'll study anything, anywhere as long as I can get away from…"

"Makoto."

Teruhashi bites her cheek. "I feel awful saying it. Am I a bad person?"

Saiki shakes his head. "You're a good person."

They swing in silence for a moment. The only sound is the creak of the swing chains as they go back and forth.

"Saiki," she says, "What are your post-graduate plans?"

He can honestly say that he's given it maybe forty-five seconds of thought in his whole life. It's difficult to get excited about prepping for college entrance exams when the threat of a world-ending volcano hangs over your head. But now, that's over, they're third years, and they're rocketing towards graduation terrifyingly quickly.

"University, I guess." He shrugs - fuck, why did he shrug again, he's so lame - and continues, "I'll probably study Japanese or something and then… I don't know. Get on with the rest of my life."

Teruhashi purses her lips. "Do you have any dreams for the future?"

Sort of, Saiki thinks. They all have to do with you. "Not really. Something will come to me this school year, probably."

"That's usually the way it goes," Teruhashi agrees easily. They swing silently for a few moments more.

"Saiki - I've been wondering -" I can't believe I'm about to ask this, I'm so scared, what if he hates me? and Saiki tenses, fearful of whatever she's about to say, "Couldwepossiblycalleachotherbyourgivennames?"

He blinks.

Teruhashi winces. "I mean - could we possibly call each other by our given names? Because we're -"

"Friends," Saiki finishes. He nods.

She nearly goes limp with relief in the swing. "Thank you, Kusuo."

Given names! It's progress, Saiki thinks as he collapses into bed that night. It's a shame that come morning, it'll all reset with the smell of burning roofing shingles and a gust of hot exhaust as his house caves in.

After carrying the steaming wreckage of the Boeing 737 back to the Tokyo-Haneda tarmac and eating toast and rolled omelet, Saiki goes to school on his thirty-sixth March 14 ready to convince Kokomi that they should call each other by their given names.

He sits through maths. Touma wets his pants for the thirty-sixth maths lesson in a row. Nendou's hamster causes chaos and Takahashi loses his mind and Aiura wreaks havoc on Yumehara's (nonexistant) love life and somewhere in the midst of all of it, Toritsuka honest-to-God slips on a banana peel, slides down the length of the slick hallway tile, and knocks Saiki and Kokomi headfirst into the third-floor storage closet. Saiki hears the click as the lock automatically slides into place.

Kokomi's heartbeat thuds loudly enough that he doesn't need psychic powers to hear it, and her thoughts are shouting THIS IS SO CLICHE I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M LOCKED IN A STORAGE CLOSET WITH SAIKI THIS IS A DREAM COME TRUE and Saiki would be lying if he said his own internal monologue didn't look at least a little similar.

There's a mop bucket underfoot and three shelves of chemical cleaners on his left side and a rack of brooms on his right side and a squirming Kokomi in front of him, trapped between his front and the back wall of the closet. He's got his back to the locked door. Her legs are tangled with his, and he thinks her thigh is trapped between his own, and he really wishes she'd stop squirming, because -

Someone's jiggling the handle. Saiki stretches out with his telepathy, and it's Toritsuka, trying and failing to get them out. "Go get a teacher," Saiki yells directly into his head, and he hears the thud of footsteps as Toritsuka runs down the hall to get Matsuzaki.

Saiki braces both his hands on the far wall and pushes his torso back against the door, as far as he can get from Kokomi, because yeah, he may have a tiny crush on her, but he's not a pervert like Toritsuka, except he realises with her gasp and the !!!!!!!!! crashing around in her head that now he's got her trapped in some sort of shoujo-anime kabedon.

She looks up at him. He screws his eyes shut.

"This is awkward," she laughs awkwardly. Saiki nods his agreement awkwardly. The mop bucket turns over awkwardly as Kokomi keeps squirming.

Teeth gritted, Saiki shifts his hips back against the door, away from her legs, and stops short when he realizes it. They can't get out until this issue's fixed, not even if Matsuzaki brings the key, and he can't really use psychic powers with her so close, it's too obvious -

"Teruhashi."

HE SAID MY NAME HE SAID M- "Yes?"

Saiki jerks his head down towards his belt. "The doorknob is caught on my belt loops."

"…Okay?"

"I need you to free it."

She looks up at him, eyes wide, and he closes his eyes again as her hand moves from where it was trapped against the door,down to his waist. He feels her tug at his belt, somewhere under his belly button, right above his -

"Teruhashi?"

"Yes?"

"The belt loops at my back."

Her hand moves again, wraps around his body until her fingers knock against the tangle of belt and belt loop and doorknob at the small of his back. She tugs, fruitlessly, and -

"I can't reach. Here, let me -"

Saiki stops breathing as she wraps her other arm around his waist so her hands meet at his spine. She's full-on hugging him at this point, fingers fumbling with his belt as she yanks the doorknob free. He feels the tension on his belt loops release, but Teruhashi doesn't pull her hands away from his body yet, and then the knob turns and Matsuzaki yanks the closet door open and Saiki's on his back on the hallway floor, blinking in the flourescent light, with Kokomi on top of him.

Matsuzaki clears his throat. "I wouldn't have believed this foolishness if Toritsuka hadn't told me, but I guess you lot got locked in the closet for honest reasons. Don't even think about any future hanky-panky. Go to class."

Kokomi looks down at him, and Saiki fights to keep his hands at his sides and not bring them up to her waist, and her hair is a long curtain at the side of her head, it's blue, why is everything always blue, why does this color haunt him, and then without thinking, because he seems to lose the ability to think around her -

"Can I call you Kokomi?"

She blinks. If it was anyone else asking me that after being trapped in a closet together, I'd slap them, but - "Yes," she replies, tucking her hair behind her ear and blushing. "Of course, Kusuo."

Saiki goes home that evening and eats his grilled fish and rice and pickled vegetables more happily than he has in the past thirty-five days. It's ever-present in his mind that come tomorrow, he'll have to rinse and repeat, because Tomorrow's Kokomi will have no idea that Today's Kokomi fumbled with his belt and called him Kusuo, but it's fine.

The time loop will end, at some point in the indeterminate future.

Right?

On Day Thirty-Seven, as the P.K. Academy principal yells at Nendou for bringing his hamster to school and at Aiura for unbuttoning her uniform shirt too low and at Takahashi for, well, being Takahashi, Saiki catches Kokomi staring at him from across the cafeteria.

He pauses with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth and watches the way her fuzzy golden aura glows on the other side of the lunchroom. She's sitting next to Yumehara and Mera, and there's no less than forty-six members of the Teruhashi Fan Club breathing down her neck, but her eyes are trained on the piece of chicken katsu held between his chopsticks. He meets her gaze, watches Yumehara grab onto Kokomi's neck and squeal something, and jerks his head towards the school courtyard.

Kokomi's eyes widen and she nods. Saiki dumps his lunch tray, swings his schoolbag over his shoulders, and watches from the courtyard as Kokomi fights her way through the throng of suitors to meet him outside.

"Thank you," she says politely. My knight in shining armor! "They were…"

"Obnoxious," Saiki finishes. "What are your plans after school?"

She freezes. Well, I should go to play rehearsal, and after that, cram school, but - "Nothing!"

"Let's go to a cafe, then -"

"- Okay!"

Saiki nods. "I'll meet you in the changing room?"

"Yes," Kokomi says, a little breathless. "Yes, that's - that's fine. I'll see you then!" Is this a date? Please, let it be a date. Is he - no way, does he - could he actually -?

Yes, Saiki thinks as he heads to modern Japanese class. Yes, Kokomi, I'm interested. Is it that hard to believe? But it is hard to believe, he knows, because to Kokomi, he was frigid on March 13 and friendly on this March 14.

Only Saiki knows that he's had nearly forty March 14ths to become, effectively, the president of the Teruhashi Fan Club.

The cafe is nice. He thinks about sharing a parfait, and she thinks about sharing a parfait, but they don't share these thoughts with each other because that's embarassing. She eats chocolate pudding and he eats coffee jelly and they make small talk about coursework and university and Nendou's hamster and God, Why Does Touma Always Piss His Pants During Class, and it's pleasant.

She calls him Saiki. He calls her Teruhashi. They both think about how nice it would be to be called by their given names.

We know so much about each other, Saiki thinks as he sucks the remnants of his coffee jelly off of his spoon, but we never discuss how close we really are. Teruhashi probably knows me better than anyone else at school, and I'm sure that she lets me see more of who she is than she lets anyone else see, but…

He walks her home, until she stops two blocks away from her house and says that Makoto's Home and I Don't Want You To Have To See Him and Don't Worry About Me, I'll Be Fine and See You Tomorrow, Saiki,

Except he won't see her tomorrow, Saiki thinks as he pushes through his front gate. He'll see her on March 14. Again. For the thirty-eighth time in a row. He eats his grilled fish and rice and pickled vegetables in silence and goes to bed early.

On Day Thirty-Eight, Saiki debates letting the plane crash and burn into his neighborhood. He decides against it, because that's an unwise and dangerous thing to do, and as a psychic, it's his duty to do what he can to protect his community.

He doesn't meet Kokomi's eyes today when she stares at him from across the cafeteria. He knocks over the carts of gym equipment in the yard and spares Kuboyasu and Kaidou from Matsuzaki's wrath and thinks, distantly, that they owe him one or two or twenty. He ignores Kokomi's smile as she drops his worksheet on his desk, and he ignores Nendou's invitation to eat ramen after school.

After eating two servings of grilled fish and rice and pickled vegetables, he finds himself wandering the streets of Paris. It's early afternoon in France, sunshiney and warm, and Parisians are out on the streets in full force.

Saiki wishes that someone would teach Frenchmen about deodorant.

Hands shoved in his pockets, he ambles through cobblestone streets, letting the roar of Parisian thoughts crash against his brain like water on rock. He could slip on his ring, but the silence would be deafening, and he's become accustomed to the constant thought-noise.

He looks halfheartedly at window displays. He sees pink scarves and yellow pants on plasticky white mannequins, and he tries not to think about someone he knows that wears pink scarves and yellow pants better. When he passes jewelers, he forces his eyes away from the happy young men leaving the stores clutching velvet boxes.

There's a banner plastered across the entrance to an alleyway that declares Paris the 'City of Love.' Saiki wonders if that's why he felt compelled to skulk around Paris on this lovely, sunny afternoon.

Saiki turns into a public park, hoping that if he can't manage to be cheerful on a Parisian spring afternoon, then maybe dessert will lift his spirits, and stops short at a flower peddlers' cart.

Blue.

Everything she's selling is blue - delphinium and forget-me-nots and cornflower and hydrangeas and morning glory - and Saiki feels his heart thud in his chest as he stares at the riotous display of color. The flower peddler notices his gaze and waves him over.

"Flowers? Flowers for you, for someone sweet?"

It takes a minute for his brain to process the French translation. Making a split-second decision, he nods. The peddler unrolls a piece of butcher's paper and begins shaping the bouquet into a brown paper cone. The flowers spill over the side of the cone, and once it's done, she ties it off with a piece of string.

She hands him the bouquet, and it takes both hands to hold, but he still manages to reach for his wallet. Laughing, she waves him off.

"I know the look of a lovesick boy. Go get her."

Saiki looks down at the blue bouquet in his arms, at the sign that says 'Paris, City of Love,' at the sun high in the afternoon sky, and nods his thanks. Lugging the bouquet, he ducks into a side street and teleports to the back alley a few blocks from Kokomi's house.

Anp is there, sitting beside a trash can with an apple core and a fish skeleton and a tin can and an old boot. It's so cliche, Saiki thinks he might throw up. Or maybe it's the nerves. Anp licks his paw when he sees Saiki appear.

"Whatcha doin', partner?"

"None of your business. Get lost."

Anp meows. "Looking for pussy, are you?"

Saiki presses his lips together and snaps his fingers. With a yowl, the cat levitates and rockets into the metal trash can.

The walk to Kokomi's house is quick. He stands on the curb, listens to Kokomi's parents think about her grades and her university acceptance and her future, listens to Makoto think about things that should have him jailed.

He listens to Kokomi as she thinks about feeding her cat and completing her modern Japanese homework that's due tomorrow, because she doesn't know that there isn't going to be a tomorrow when she can turn in the worksheet, and he listens to her think about I wonder what Saiki is doing right now? and I wonder if Saiki likes me back? and I wonder if Saiki will ever know the way that I feel about him.

He loses his nerve.

Mom is surprised when he walks in the door with cheeks pink from the Paris sun and a bouquet large enough to carry with two hands, but she's ecstatic when he tells her that yes, he teleported to Paris just to bring her back this bouquet, isn't it lovely?

"Blue is such a beautiful color," Mom gushes, and I can't believe that my darling son is so thoughtful!

Saiki nods. He walks upstairs, changes into his pajamas, and lies on top of the covers staring at the ceiling until he falls asleep and the Boeing 737 crashes into his house for the thirty-ninth morning in a row.

On Day Thirty-Nine, Saiki shuttles the plane wreck over to the airport, restores his parents' house, eats toast and rolled omelet, and then teleports himself back to Arkansas. There isn't really a good reason to go back to Arkansas, except for that it's 7:00 AM in Tokyo and it is, in fact, five-o-clock somewhere, because it's 5:00 PM in Arkansas and Saiki thinks he deserves a drink.

He's never drank before, and he doesn't have too many qualms about underage drinking, but he figures that when he drinks for the first time, it should probably not be at 7:00 AM. Fordyce, Arkansas it is.

He ducks back into Mama's, smiles at Mama, scarfs down two bowls of banana pudding, looks fondly at the man eating pulled pork and white bread and less fondly at his drooling dog, and walks through the abandoned downtown Fordyce until he finds a bar with a flickering neon sign that says Cold B er and Dr nk 2day and We Serv Ja k Daniels.

They don't card. As a general rule, he doesn't use his psychic powers for his own benefit, but he was ready to use some mind control to make himself appear twenty-one - yet they don't ask for his ID. Americans. When he takes a seat at the bar, the lack of menu is a little intimidating, but he ends up with something brown and strong and not sweet enough in front of him, so he considers it to be a success.

There's a girl next to me, Saiki thinks distantly as he's halfway through his glass. She's leaning on the bartop. She's looking at me. She's asking me what I'm drinking.

He looks down at his cup. He looks up at her and shrugs.

The girl puts her dainty hand on Saiki's shoulder and laughs. He looks at her hand, then at his cup, then at her face. She's pretty, he thinks.

(Not as pretty as Teruhashi.)

It occurs to him, in that moment, that this girl is interested in him and that he has absolutely, positively, zero interest in her.

She pulls at her bra straps and does something with her chest that Saiki vaguely thinks that Aiura does to make the boys at P.K. Academy go crazy, but there must be something broken in his brain, because he's never cared when Aiura does it and he doesn't care that this girl is doing it now.

This girl is blonde. Saiki doesn't think that he's particularly interested in blonde girls.

The lace of her bra that's showing at her neckline is blue. Saiki scowls, sets his cup down on the bartop, and skulks out of the bar. The Dr nk 2day sign blinks after him as he leaves.

It takes a couple tries, with the half a drink in his system, but he manages to teleport himself back into his bedroom. He lies on the bed with his feet hanging off the end, shoes still on, and stares at the ceiling. For the second time in the past thirty-nine days, he opens his mouth and uses his vocal chords.

"What's happening to me?" Saiki whispers.

His bedroom ceiling doesn't have a useful reply.

He walks downstairs, avoids his parents, and heads back to the video rental store to grab The Notebook. It's just as dramatic as it was when he first watched it two weeks ago, but he thinks that he might have a new appreciation for drama now.

Mom's grilled fish and rice and pickled vegetables taste like chalk in his mouth.

On Day Forty, Saiki runs on autopilot until lunchtime. He saves the plane and restores the house, he eats his toast and rolled omelet, he watches Kuboyasu save Kaidou from Flattening By Truck, he cringes as Touma pisses himself in maths class, he sits quietly as Nendou's hamster chews a hole through Nendou's pants and Takahashi sits on Nendou's hamster and Aiura ruins Yumehara's love life.

When he catches Kokomi staring at him as the principal yells at the three miscreants, he meets her gaze and jerks his head at the school courtyard. She nods.

"Let's skip school," he says immediately as she steps outside.

She gapes like a fish. "But -"

"Come on," he urges, holding out his hand. "Let's go."

Kokomi's fingers hover over his outstretched hand, like she wants to take it, but can't quite. "Saiki, I -" Why is he acting like this? It's insanely attractive, but it's so different - is this really Saiki? "We're in our school uniforms!"

"Can you keep a secret?"

He says it before he realises it, but it doesn't matter, because the two of them will have their fun today and then tomorrow it will all disappear. He could say anything - he could say that he's a J-Pop idol, he could say that he's the King of England, hell, he could even say that he's psychic - and it wouldn't matter, because the slate gets wiped clean at the end of the day.

Kokomi nods. Saiki doesn't have to tune into her thoughts to know what she's thinking. He tugs her behind a tree, shading them from view of the cafeteria, and says, "Hold on."

She blinks, and they're standing in her bedroom.

"What…" she breathes, as reality jolts into place and she realizes where they are. "Saiki! How!" How is this possible - what is he - is he? -

He stands in the middle of her bedroom with his arms folded, watching her sweat. "I have psychic powers."

"Show me." She narrows her eyes, like a challenge. Wordlessly, he levitates a pen off of her desk, elongates it, twists it into long loops, and then makes it write Saiki Was Here on a piece of scratch paper.

Kokomi claps both hands over her mouth in shock. Oh, my God, what else can he d-

"I can do this," Saiki says, letting fire flicker to life in his palm. Kokomi grasps his wrist, and her eyes are wide as he lets the flame die out.

"You responded to something that I only thought in my head," she whispers. "You can read minds."

Yeah, this conversation was what he was most worried about. Heartbeat thudding in his ears, he nods slowly. Kokomi lets go immediately, claps her hands to her cheeks, and turns away from him.

This can't be happening - he can read minds? - He Knows. - if he can read minds, then he? - He. Knows. - but he hasn't said anything about - surely he'd mention if he knew? - HE KNOWS. He knows. He knows he knows he kno-

For the third time in the past forty days, Saiki uses his vocal chords. "Kokomi," he says, and she turns to face him, because he said her name, and because his voice sounds different than it usually does, and why does his voice sound different than it usually does? And she realizes why when she notices that his lips are still parted from where he pronounded the 'i' at the end of her given name.

She looks at him.

Saiki shuts his mouth, like he was conscious of it hanging open. "Have you - do you -" He runs one hand down his face. "Let's go see a movie," he says finally.

Kokomi blinks. "Okay."

"You can change," he says, nodding at her closet. "So you're not skipping school in your school uniform."

She reaches for a dress and sneakers, pause, and look at Saiki's back, where he's turned to stare at the opposite wall. "Am I safe t-"

"I can't see anything."

Kokomi changes and taps Saiki on the shoulder, almost hesitantly. He looks at her dress, at her pink silk scarf, and nods. "You look nice."

"Nice enough to make you say 'Oh!'?"

Saiki looks down at her, unamused, as they teleport into his bedroom.

She sticks her tongue out at him and turns her back to the room. He changes, crosses his eyes to examine the rest of his house, and holds out his hand. Kokomi takes it, and they walk through the empty house out onto the street.

The movie theater's empty at 2:00 PM on March 14. Saiki digs out his wallet and pays for two tickets to the next matinee showing. It's a rom-com, they discover within the first three minutes, and Saiki thinks that he might like it even better than The Notebook. It's definitely a happier movie. He thinks that he could get used to this 'happy' thing.

Kokomi leans her head on his shoulder, and it's a little uncomfortable but it's fine, because it's Kokomi. She goes pink when the two leads kiss, and Saiki feels that unfamiliar flip-flop low in his stomach as he feels Kokomi warm at his side while he watches the on-screen kiss. He twists his neck to look down at her lips - they're pink against the green of his sweater - and he thinks about what it might be like to try and kiss her.

He thinks about Kuboyasu and Kaidou in the Occult Club room and shakes that thought out of his head, because he really doesn't want to think about Kuboyasu and Kaidou making out.

His watch blinks 4:07 PM as the theater lights go up, and Kokomi stretches in her seat and yawns. She swings her legs over the side of the movie theater recliner and asks, "What's next?" Please say food, I'm starving, I only ate half my lunc-

"Food," Saiki replies, just to watch her light up. She beams, then wilts a little.

"You read my mind."

He nods.

"That's cheating!" she giggles, smacking his bicep. He rubs his arm through his sweater as the walk out of the movie theater. "Boys are supposed to just guess what girls want to do."

"What do you want to eat?"

Ohh, I want American food - "Chinese food."

When Saiki steers them to a burger joint, she stomps on his foot.

He smiles into his burger as Kokomi slurps her soda, because after forty fucking days of struggle, there's no way that here, finally, they're - well, Saiki doesn't know what they are, but they're here. Skipping school. Eating burgers. Holding hands in movie theaters. Kokomi uses her thumb to swipe at some ketchup at the corner of Saiki's mouth, and he thinks he could die a happy man.

Tomorrow, they'll be calling each other 'Teruhashi' and 'Saiki' again, but he'll survive. Somehow.

He digs out his wallet again to buy them entrance to the new American literature exhibit at the local museum, because he saw the way that her face lit up when they walked by hand-in-hand. They stroll through the museum slowly, and Saiki pretends that he's worse at English than he actually is because Kokomi gets such a kick out of translating the information panels for him.

They share a parfait. It's blueberry flavored. The berries leak color into the whipped cream and tint the parfait blue. Saiki thinks that blue is a perfectly lovely color, and he tells Kokomi so.

Blue is a lovely color, he decides, but it's nice to see Kokomi flush pink, too.

When they walk out of the cafe, the shadows are lengthening on the sidewalk and, as Saiki takes in their surroundings, he realizes they're a forty-minute walk from home.

"Hold on," he says, and in the blink of an eye, they're back in her bedroom. Saiki shoves his hands in his pockets, and Kokomi twists her hands in front of her, and both of them stare at the floor. The evening could end right now. He could go back to his house, and she could stay in her bedroom and cuddle her cat, and tomorrow, on the forty-first March 14, he'd be the only one who knew today happened.

"I had a -"

"Have you seen The Notebook?"

They jerk their gazes away from the floor and look at each other.

"You go-"

"No, you go first. Why do you ask about The Notebook?"

"Well," Saiki begins, "I've seen it twice in the past two weeks."

The corners of Kokomi's mouth twitch. "I didn't peg you for a drama fan, Kusuo."

"I didn't - I watched it because I wanted to try and understand - no, okay, it all started when Matsuzaki almost caught Kuboyasu and Kaidou making out in the Occult Club room -"

Her brow furrows, and he knows he's lost her. "Kuboyasu and Kaidou? Are they -"

"Yeah - don't worry about it, they'll figure themselves out - have you seen the movie?"

"…Yes?"

"You know the scene in the rain?"

Kokomi screws up her face. "Like… the scene in the rain?" Where is he going with this, I've never heard Saiki try to string this many words together -

"It's raining in Okinawa right now," he says out loud with one rush of breath.

She blinks.

"It's raining in Okinawa right now," he repeats telepathically, slower, and he can practically see the gears in Kokomi's intelligent brain clunk into place as her jaw goes a little slack. She grabs his forearm, looks into his eyes, and doesn't even falter as he teleports them to the beaches of Okinawa.

They're soaked on arrival, because the rain's coming down so strong - his sweater sticks to his skinny torso, and her dress clings to her calves, and their sneakers squelch in the wet sand, but the second that Kokomi throws her arms around his neck and leans in, Saiki forgets that wet sweaters and wet socks are uncomfortable, because he's never felt better in his life.

Her lips are warm against his, even in the cold spring rain, and her body is soft and solid under his hands. Saiki grips at her waist, pulls her close against him, and marvels at the feeling of her body pressed against his. They're kissing, finally, after he's waited for forty days (and maybe longer, if he's honest with himself) they're kissing, and he thinks this is something that he might like to do forever.

Kokomi winds her fingers into the hair at the back of his head and pulls him down, pulls him in, pulls him closer. He doesn't really know what to do with his hands, so he keeps them at her waist, fingers digging into the soaked fabric of her dress. She pulls away for a breath and just looks at him.

"You don't need to breathe, do you?"

"Not as often as you do."

"How long can you hold your breath?"

"Long enough."

"Let's test that," she says. "Catch me."

Kokomi jumps and wraps her legs around his waist, and Saiki's hands automatically go to her upper thighs to hold her up. She crosses her arms behind his neck, and he looks up at her. She's so fucking beautiful, and yeah, everybody knows it, Teruhashi is beautiful is one of the laws of the universe, like nothing is certain except death, taxes, and Teruhashi's beauty.

But Saiki's the only one who gets to see her like this. He sees all of her - her outward goodness, her inner wickedness, her thoughts and her feelings for him. He sees her love for English and for theater, and her hatred of Makoto, and her frustrations with her parents.

He gets to see her now, soaking wet in the cold Okinawa rain, with her bangs plastered against her forehead and her scarf damp beyond repair and her eyes shining as she looks down at him.

"You're strong," she says finally.

Saiki shrugs.

"You said you could hold your breath for a long time."

He nods.

"Kiss me as long as you can, then, Kusuo."

Kokomi closes her eyes and leans in again.

She's his first kiss, and he knows he's her first kiss, and while he knows just about everything, he'll readily admit his inexperience in matters of physical affection. She's eager, a little sloppy in her eagerness. He feels her tongue at her lips, and it's wet and new and a little weird, but not a bad weird. The kind of weird that makes his stomach do flips and makes his blood pump a little faster.

She grips his rain-soaked cheeks with her rain-soaked hands, and he readjusts his hold on her thighs. He's hyperconscious of her legs around his waist. Her face is tilted against his, and her tongue's pushing into his mouth, and his mouth might be opening to let her in, he's not really sure anymore, because for once in his life, he's turned his brain off.

They kiss until Kokomi pulls back, panting, face a little blue. She heaves air into her lungs, and Saiki says,

"Sorry, I didn't time how long that was."

She slaps his cheek playfully.

"I'll time it this time for sure," and he pulls her close again to meet her lips with his.

The rain stops. Saiki dries their clothes, apports a beach blanket with the remainder of the cash in his wallet, and conjures up a fire. They lie on the Okinawa sand, watching the fire flicker and the stars pop into existence in the night sky.

"Am I your girlfriend now, Kusuo?"

The question gives him pause.

Is she his girlfriend? Is he her boyfriend?

He thinks back to five days ago, when he asked Mom if using his psychic powers meant taking advantage of people. His mother doesn't remember that conversation. Kokomi won't remember this one.

Tomorrow, he'll be 'Saiki' again and she'll be 'Teruhashi.' Tomorrow, he'll wake up knowing the feel of her body and her lips and her wet hair, and she'll go to school with a braid down her back and unrequited love in her heart.

Saiki could say yes. He could open his mouth and put his voice box to good use and say yes, speak it into existence across the chilly Okinawa beach and listen to Kokomi's thoughts as she lights up with joy at his affirmation of their relationship.

Saying yes to her right now is selfish, so selfish, but he feels like after forty days, he's earned it. He feels like, at least until 6:42 AM tomorrow morning, when the forty-first Boeing 737 crashes into his house, he can put aside his constant worries and live in this moment.

He opens his mouth, and his tongue feels like dead weight. He makes an odd croaking noise. He feels Kokomi's gaze on him.

He nods. Kokomi squeals, and her golden aura glows bright in the night.

"Why today, Saiki?"

Her second question startles him.

"We've had nearly two years together" - she doesn't know that it's been six Year Twos and one Year Three - "Why do all this today?"

Saiki stares up at the stars and considers his response.

"Because I've been stuck in a time loop, reliving March 14 for forty days, and today, I…" He lets his thoughts die out. Kokomi is quiet.

"You don't think I'll remember this tomorrow." It's not a question.

He turns his neck to the side to look at her. She's not smiling. Saiki finally opens his mouth and forces his tongue to move.

"Yes."

She watches his lips form the word, eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully. "You're a coward, Kusuo."

Saiki nods.

"You're a spineless coward, to have known how I feel for the past two years and to choose a day to confess that I won't remember come tomorrow morning."

Swallowing hard, Saiki nods again.

"So you'll just have to tell tomorrow's Kokomi all about today's Kokomi."

He freezes. She continues, staring up at the sky.

"Find me at lunch tomorrow. Tell me everything. Tell me about the psychic powers, and about the movie and the hamburgers and the museum exhibit and the teleportation and tell me about this moment, right now."

"You won't believe me."

"Yes, I will," she says. "I always believe you, Kusuo."

"I don't know if I can do this."

"If you want me bad enough, you will." She rolls onto her side and props herself on her elbow. "Or do you want to wait another forty March 14's to get your nerve up and do this again?"

Saiki really, really doesn't.

He teleports them both back to his bedroom, because Makoto's at her house and he'd rather not see that pervert at this moment, and kisses Kokomi some more while they lay tangled on top of his duvet. When it's late enough that she can't keep her eyes open, he teleports her back to her bedroom, kisses her lazily for the three-minute teleportation cooldown period, and returns to his house with his brain a little fuzzy.

His parents barely react when he pops into existence in the living room. They're watching a movie, something stupid and animated. The two life-size dolls of his father stare down at him from the corner as he stares at his parents.

"You're home late, Kusuo!" Mom coos. "Have you been anywhere exciting?"

Fuck it, they won't remember this tomorrow. He's getting irresponsible with his secrets lately. "I was on a date with Kokomi."

His dad drops the remote. His mom falls off of the couch. Kusuke's stupid robo-cat meows in shock.

"Tell us all about it, Kus-"

"No." He puts one foot on the bottom stair, ready to go back to his bedroom. "Good night."

"We're so happy for you, dear!" Mom cheers.

"Use protecti-"

Saiki shoves his hand backwards and sends his dad tumbling off of the back of the couch.

On Day Forty-One, Saiki wakes up at a leisurely 7:13 AM.

He blinks and looks up at his bedroom ceiling. It's in one piece. He can't see the sunlight shining through a massive plane-sized gash in the roof. He doesn't smell burning shingles.

Heart pounding wildly, Saiki teleports directly into the living room and bumps into Dad as he switches on the television.

"Give me that," Saiki says, snatching the remote from his dad's hand. He flips to the news channel, just in time to watch their local newscaster say, "It's 7:15 AM on this be-yoo-tee-full March 15. It is sure to be a gorgeous day here in Hidari Wakibara. I'll let the weather forecaster take it from he-"

Saiki switches off the television and stares at Dad. "Tell me what I did last night."

"Last night? Oh, well, your mother and I got a call from the school saying that you were truant - we need to have a talk about that, son - and then you came back around 11:00 PM and you said that you'd been on a date with Ko-"

Saiki punches the side wall of the living room, restores it, apologizes to his father, and teleports to hover over the Tokyo-Haneda tarmac.

Using his accelerated vision, he scans the inbound and outbound planes easily, until he spots the plane that he's become intimately acquainted with over the last forty days taxing off the runway. It is, thankfully, not on fire. Saiki grits his teeth and pops back into his kitchen.

"Good morning, Kusuo," his mom says, cheerful as always. "You're up early after you got in so late last night from your date."

"Good morning," he grouches. His mom sets a plate of rice and egg in front of him. He stares at it, baffled, because he can't believe that it's breakfast time and he's not eating toast and rolled omelet.

"Is something wrong with it?"

"No," Saiki answers honestly. "It's perfect. Thank you, Mom."

She beams.

At 7:34 AM, Saiki teleports into Kokomi's bedroom. She yelps in shock and clutches her towel to her chest. Her long, blue hair drips across her bare shoulders. Saiki tries not to stare.

"It's weird to have a boyfriend who can teleport whenever, wherever," she says finally. "Kusuo, we have got to set some boundaries."

"What do we do at school today?"

She pauses partway through combing her hair. "What do you mean?"

"It's March 15," Saiki replies helplessly. "I don't know what to do on March 15. I was expecting another March 14."

"So you weren't expecting me to remember yesterday."

"…Yes."

"Well," Kokomi says. "First, I'm going to get dressed. Turn around."

He turns around.

"Do you want people at school to know we're together?" He hears the zip of her uniform skirt.

"Yes. No. I don't know."

"Okay, then we'll keep it a secret."

Saiki's good at that. He knows how to keep secrets. Secrets keep the world turning - literally.

"Do you want people to know we're together?" he asks hesitantly.

He hears the snap of an elastic knee-high sock against her shin. "I think it can be a secret for now."

"Okay."

"Okay." Kokomi grabs his shoulders and spins him around until he's facing her. The shoulders of her uniform shirt are wet from her hair.

"Sorry for bothering you like this."

"Please, Kusuo," Kokomi says. She grips his biceps, drags her eyes down from his glasses to his chest, and - "What are you wearing?"

Saiki looks down at his pajamas. He's wearing the MEOW WOW!!! kitty pajamas that he's worn for the past forty days. "…Blame my mom."

"Anyways," she continues after that awkward pause, "A boyfriend with the ability to drop in on me unannounced when I'm straight out of the shower… a girl dreams about a thing like that."

He should probably say something suave right now, except suave isn't really Saiki's forte, so he settles for wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her close.

At 7:45 AM, Saiki changes into his school uniform, rubs at his kiss-bruised lips in the bathroom mirror, walks down the street, and meets Nendou and Kaidou at the intersection.

"What's up, buddy?"

"I feel a change in the air," Kaidou says, gripping his ripped-up uniform shirt over his heart. "I feel that the wind has shifted, that something new is in store for us today, that Dark Reun - oh, hi, Aren."

Aren waves to Nendou and Saiki and sticks his hand in Kaidou's back pocket. The two lead the way to school, side by side. Nendou pretends not to stare and Saiki doesn't stare, because he's had the misfortune of watching the two of them make out in the Occult Club classroom for the last twenty days and he's desensitized to it.

Matsuzaki is standing at the school gate. He yells at Nendou for wearing a ridiculous tie-dye shirt under his uniform jacket, and he yells at Kaidou for ripping up his uniform, and he says "Good morning!" to Hairo as Hairo comes bounding through the school gate.

Saiki marvels at the hustle and bustle of school. March 15. He wasn't sure he'd ever get here. He's not confident he remembers what classes they have today.

He survives English class and ancient history class and free period. He sits in silence through the club meeting and watches Toritsuka fumble his way through the Occult Club's schedule. Lunch is grilled fish and rice and pickled vegetables, and Saiki almost blows up the school kitchens when he gets handed his plate because he'd rather sit in a pit of cockroaches than eat grilled fish and rice and pickled vegetables for the forty-first day in a row.

After school, he goes to his locker to change into his outside shoes and is surprised by a pale blue envelope sitting on top of his sneakers. He opens it, and it reads:

Dear Saiki,

I'm writing to let you know that I have feelings for you. Meet me on the roof after school today?

Your (not-so-secret) admirer

Checking to make sure that no one's watching, he pulls off his glove and touches the card. The play-by-play of Kokomi slipping the note into his locker floods his mind. He smiles minutely.

"Hey, buddy, wanna get ramen?"

Kuboyasu snakes his arm around Kaidou's waist. "Sorry, Nendou, but we have plans."

Saiki doesn't think that he wants to know what those plans are, but Nendou doesn't look too crushed. "Saiki? Buddy? Ramen?"

"I have plans, too." He adds, as an afterthought, "Ramen another time?"

Grabbing his outside shoes, Saiki hurries up the staircase and pushes out onto the roof. Kokomi's there waiting for him, just like she said she would be. Her loose hair and her skirt ripple in the wind.

She turns around and says, "Hi."

Saiki stands in the doorway to the stairwell and says, "Hi." He just stands there, like an idiot, holding the door open and letting all the air conditioning blow out onto the roof as he looks at Kokomi.

"Where all can you go with teleportation?"

"Anywhere," he says immediately. "Everywhere."

"Seoul?" Kokomi asks.

"Of course."

"Jakarta?"

"… As long as it's at least three minutes after Seoul."

"London?"

"Obviously. But I would prefer not to go to London. There's someone there that I don't want to see."

"Where do you want to take me, Kusuo?"

Saiki thinks for a minute, then lets the door slam behind him as he grabs her hand and says, "How do you feel about pudding?"

It's 1:00 AM in Fordyce, Arkansas, but Mama's Eats is open twenty-four hours a day. Mama has no idea who he is, of course, because the two times he's visited were on bygone March 14's, but she still smiles at them and serves up two heaping Styrofoam bowls of banana pudding.

"This is my girlfriend," Saiki says unprompted, because he feels like he should.

"She's beautiful, son," Mama replies, wiping her hands on her apron. "Looks like you got yourself a keeper."

Kokomi doesn't love the banana pudding, so Saiki tackles her half-empty bowl after he finishes his own. Her thigh presses against his own as they sit in the booth side by side. She watches him as he sucks the remnants of meringue off of his plastic spoon. Satisfied, he drops the spoon into the empty bowl and turns to her.

"How do you feel about Paris?"

Her eyes go wide.

Paris isn't busy yet in the early morning, but Kokomi still sticks close to him as they wind their way through the narrow cobblestone streets. Her hand is warm in his, and he almost wants to lose his glove so he can feel her, skin against skin, the way that he thinks he ought. They pass haberdasheries and boutiques and chocolatiers, and Kokomi gasps with each beautiful window display.

She pauses outside of a jewelry store, letting her eyes dance across the sparkle of the jewelry propped up in the window.

"We had a conversation about plans for the future, about six days ago."

Her eyes are wide as she looks back at him. "…What did we talk about?"

"You talked about going to university to study literature."

"And what about you, Saiki? What are your plans for the future?"

He could tell her about the volcano and about Kusuke and about how he's never thought about what the future might look like, because he's never had time, but -

"I didn't say anything."

Kokomi gives him a questioning look.

"Because my only plans for the future involve you, and I wasn't ready to have that conversation six March 14's ago."

Unbidden, her eyes dart back to the platinum band in the window with a oval-cut diamond embedded in the center. Saiki follows her gaze, thinks good grief, and tugs her further down the street.

"Someday," he promises, and he knows she knows what he means.

The flower peddler is setting up shop when they turn the corner into the public park, and Saiki pulls out his wallet as Kokomi oohs and aahs over all of the blue florals spilling over the edge of the peddlers' cart.

"One bouquet, please," he says. The peddler stuffs a cone of brown paper full of brilliant blue flowers, all shades, and Saiki drops a few euros in her palm. "This is my girlfriend," he says, somewhat unnecessarily, but it's worth it to watch the way that Kokomi beams at the flower peddler.

"You always introduce me as your girlfriend," she says as she cradles the bouquet under her free arm. "I like it. Keep doing it."

"I've had conversations about you with them."

"What have you gone through in the last forty days?" Kokomi wonders.

"Lots of plane crashes."

She looks at him, concern obvious on her face.

"Don't ask."

They stop for jambon-beurre at a bakery with red-and-white striped umbrellas on its front patio. Teruhashi grimaces as she uses her teeth to rip through the crusy baguette. Saiki swipes a smear of butter off of her cheek and lets her lick it off of his fingers. Paris bustles all around them - lovers walk by, hand in hand, and businessmen and women head to work, and partiers from the night before stagger home. The thought-noise is deafening, but he's used to it.

Paris comes to life as they amble through the streets. Kokomi looks longingly at a silk scarf in a window display. Saiki pulls them sideways into a dessert shop, where they eat truffles that make their hands sticky.

He looks up at the 'Paris, City of Love' banner that's tied between the two buildings at the entrance to the alleyway. He remembers walking under this banner three days ago, distraught. Tightening his grip on Kokomi's hand, he steers them into a side street and teleports them back to his own front yard. The bouquet under Kokomi's hand wobbles dangerously, and one cornflower loses a few petals.

Hand in hand, they walk through Hidari Wakibara until Saiki stops in front of the video rental store. He holds the door open for Kokomi, and she makes a beeline for the 'N' shelves.

"I feel like we're reliving your forty days of March 14." She holds up The Notebook's DVD. "Are we here for this?"

Saiki nods.

They check out quickly, Kokomi smiles at the unfased DVD store employee, and stroll back to Saiki's house. His parents are sitting at the dinner table as they kick their shoes off at the door, and Mom squeals when she sees Kokomi standing next to Saiki.

"Kokomi!" His mother stands up from the table, then sits, then looks at Saiki's dad like what do I do? "Do you want dinner? We have extras - it's leftovers from last night, grilled fish and -"

"No," Saiki says, more emphatically than is deserved. "No fish. We already ate."

"Anywhere good?" Dad asks.

"Yeah, a bakery. In Paris. Bye."

Kokomi waves cheerfully at Saiki's mom as Saiki tugs her up the stairs to his room. With a snap of his fingers, he apports a vase for Kokomi's Paris bouquet and sets it neatly on his desk. She falls back against the bed and watches as he pops open the disc reader and slides in the DVD. As The Notebook blinks to life on the television, she sits up, grabs his hand, and attempts to yank him backwards onto the bed.

"How much do your pajamas cost?"

She looks at him, confused. "Uh, like, four thousand yen?"

Saiki sets two math workbooks on his desk and sends them off to Kokomi's closet in exchange for her pajamas.

"I'll need those workbooks back," he says as he stares at the wall while she changes.

"Come get them yourself tomorrow morning before school," Kokomi replies. "Here, catch."

Saiki catches his stupid cat pajamas before her throw connects with his body. He changes quickly, she turns back around, and together, they crawl under his duvet. Kokomi's on top of him, with her mouth on his neck and her hands rucking up the hem of his MEOW WOW!!! pajama shirt before they're fifteen minutes into the movie.

Saiki thinks that he's never been so happy for it to be March 15 in his life.