Three

Kaho bit her lip and squinted down at the papers. She rubbed her eyes and blinked frantically, but the words didn't change:

'To show you that I am you I'm going to tell you things only you and me would know: Himiko sang all morning about food and drove your mum crazy, she said she wanted fillet mignon and dauphinoise potatoes, a bottle of 'Ramune' and 'Twinkies'. Your mum will buy her those in a few weeks and she'll hate them because they taste like polystyrene, but a kid can dream, can't she? 

Not good enough? After all Himiko always led with her stomach. Don't worry - you and Stupid Tamaki have been enemies since he pushed you off the swings when you were five. You threw wood chips and sand in his face. He doesn't remember why he hates you, but knows it as a truth that is as real as the air he breathes. But you remember. This morning Stupid Tamaki said that Rana would be hit by a car if you don't buy a tracker for him, and you can't shake the feeling that that stupid kid might actually be right about something. You don't have to listen to him, but listen to me when I say investing in cat trackers saves you a lot of time in the lead-up to your entrance exams next year. 

You also nearly got hit by a rude guy riding a motorcycle this morning, because Tama tried to play with Rana on the side of the road. Your cats are many things, but intelligent? Maybe not... You thought the rude guy was cute, attractive, even if he wasn't kind to you – and you feel guilty because you love Tatsuya.'

Kaho's eyes widened. She clenched her teeth, forcing them together to keep her mouth from falling slack – how would anyone else know those different things, private things like Himiko's dream bento, and old things like the start of her feud with Stupid Tamaki? How did they know about the guy on the motorcycle, if it wasn't actually Kaho? She hadn't even gone out to fetch Rana when she opened the box! 

She swallowed the lump in her throat, and reshuffled the papers, so she could continue reading.

'Right now, in your timeline, Naseru is in danger, and you're the only one who can save him. All the letters I've sent will give you detailed instructions about what you should correct personally so that it can interconnect with the Protocol being sent to help your generation save yourselves morally, and interpersonally, and, better yet, save the planet from Nuclear disaster… letters with details on what to do. Please, Kaho, you have to help me save Naseru. That's one of the first steps."

Don't worry - there'll be many opportunities but you have to notice the opportunities. I'll do everything to remember and list the events in these letters so that you can remember and understand the patterns and the sequences ahead. 

Those sequences… those paths will determine so much for you and Naseru who will be transferring from the United-'

Kaho frowned. The name, Naseru Matsuoka was so familiar on her tongue, in her ears, in her head and heart, it felt like a cleaver tearing her in two, something so familiar, she recited it in her head, the syllables like her heartbeat, her pulse in her ears. She took a long, deep breath and frowned. 

Kaho's sights went from the familiar handwriting on the paper to the student that was being introduced at the front of the class. That's when Kaho focused back to what the teacher was saying. 

"Class, our new student that'll be joining your group a bit late this 11th grade of yours is Mr. Matusoka transferring from Tokyo to our prefectures school here at Hanagawa." 

Kaho's head snapped up.

"Wasn't there a Matsuoka in the graduating class last year?" Sayuri whispered, kicking Hikaru's chair. He nodded vigorously. 

"He was the Volleyball captain," he whispered back. 

Kaho nodded, it was just a familiar surname, common enough. It didn't mean anything. It didn't need to mean anything. She looked over at the new student, stood at the front of the class. He was tall, slender, and had fluffy, short dark hair, jutting out in different directions. His eyes were like molten bronze. Kaho winced, her lips parting as she gawked up at him. This was the boy on the motorbike… Naseru had kept her from being hit by a car, and now he was in her class, staring out at the class. 

Staring at her. 

"Hello, everyone. I'm Naseru Matsuoka, I'm transferring from Higashi Tech Private High, I come from a family of basketball athletes, though I'm not too keen on pursuing that now. I've lived in Tokyo and overseas in the States. I've lived in Viriginia, Washington, Montana, Chicago and New York, so I've moved a lot. I may be a bit reserved at times, but please don't take offence. I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you." 

Naseru bowed his head and looked over at Hiro Sensei. 

He nodded, and allowed Naseru to take his seat, gesturing to the seat in front of Kaho. Kibata Mae's seat. Mae hadn't come to class. Kaho frowned, Mae had 100% attendance last year, why wasn't she in class. 

"Now Mr. Matsuoka, please take your seat," said Hiro Sensei.

Emi, Mae's friend, and desk neighbour raised her hand, "Sir? That's Mae's seat." 

Hiro Sensei cleared his throat, "Kibata Mae will not be joining us this year." 

Emi's eyes widened, and her lip trembled, "Why?" 

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that, Miss Sato. Now, Matsuoka, please," Hiro Sensei said, gesturing to the seat on Emi's left. The seat in front of Kaho. 

Matsuoka glanced at the teacher. "I'll take my seat now." 

"That guy has to be lying, that many places while in school?" Mariah whispered to her. Kaho ignored her.

"He does seem foreign… but to transfer here as an 11th grader? What could that be about?" Sayuri whispered to Hikaru. He shrugged. 

Kaho swallowed the lump rising in her throat. Emi was on her phone, brazen, wide-eyed and furiously texting. 

"Miss Sato. Put the phone away."

"But Sir! I haven't heard from Mae since the last day of school! It's like she disappeared!"

"Miss Sato."

"But Mae!"

"Miss Sato, I won't ask you again."

Emi glared at him, and pressed a button on her phone screen, a blue speech bubble sending to a contact. 

Hiro Sensei cleared his throat and held his hand out to Emi, who put her phone back in her breast pocket, glaring defiantly at her homeroom teacher. She crossed her arms. He couldn't take it, and she knew it. She heard someone whistle, impressed.

"It's away." 

Hiro Sensei swore under his breath, ran his hands through his thinning hair and sighed. He walked to the front of the class, he cleared his throat again and had a sip of his tea from the thermos, spilling a dribble of it on his shirt. He sighed, pushed his glasses up and gazed out at the class. While the whispers still echoed through the room, they'd stopped being about Matsuoka, and were instead about Emi, and Mae.

Emi scowled, brows raised, baiting Hiro Sensei to say something. But he didn't. 

"Makoto, raise your hand," Hiro Sensei commanded. 

Makoto sat up, raising his hand in the air, fingers outstretched like he wanted to touch the light fixtures. 

"Now stand."

Makoto obeyed, getting to his feet. He stared at Hiro Sensei, who gestured toward Naseru, toward Kaho. 

"Makoto, you will be Matsuoka's buddy. You will show him around and make him feel comfortable. Do I make myself clear?"

Makoto nodded furiously, and returned to his seat, his chair scraping the varnish from the wood. Kaho sighed to herself. The unsettled feeling in her stomach hadn't eased, if anything, it was worse. Her heart was hammering and she felt sick. Kaho rummaged through her school bag for her water bottle and took three generous sips. 

The bell rang, signalling that the teachers needed to move classes. A timetable that Kaho hadn't paid any attention to, was drawn on the chalkboard in front of her. They had maths first. Maths with, Hiro Sensei, apparently. Since he was unmoving. Emi sighed, her scowl deepening. 

Kaho's stomach was in knots, cramping and aching with every breath. She felt queasy. She got to her feet, , raising her hand to address Hiro-Sensei, "Excuse me, may I go to the bathroom, please? I'm not feeling well."

Hiro Sensei pressed his lips into a fine line and sighed audibly, "We're soon about to start a lesson, Ms. Aigawa. Can you wait a little longer?"

Kaho bit her lip and swallowed the lump in her throat, grabbing her water bottle and taking another two large sips. She didn't ask again, but the first page of her maths book was, effectively, empty, just containing a few basic calculations. Her head had been swimming with information and it felt like with every breath she took, she would be sick. She didn't ask to be excused again. 

Mariah prodded her with a pencil as the lesson was concluding. Kaho turned her head and Mariah gave her a thumbs up. Kaho swallowed again, reaching for her water bottle. Throughout the lesson, she'd almost drained all of it. She sipped more and shook her head. 

"What was that you were reading?"

"I um," Kaho swallowed, "Got a bunch of letters this morning. In a box?"

Mariah's eyes widened in recognition. She nodded, "I did, too. They're in black envelopes with some red sticker thing on the front. They have numbers on them, dates?"

Kaho nodded, "I'm just…curious."

During Kaho's second and third periods, her attention veered from the notes on the board, mostly about the upcoming exam season, the core modules and texts they would be studying, and a brief series of keywords, which she wrote down non-committedly back to the letters. A few of her classmates were reading theirs instead of paying attention. 

Kaho saw Maki's breath hitch from across the classroom. She dropped her pencil, decapitating the cute animal rubber that clung to the top, the severed capybara head rolled toward the teacher's shoes. She diligently picked up the eraser and put it back on Maki's desk. 

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and reattached the capybara's head to its body. 

"Are you okay, Miss Itou?" 

Maki nodded, covering up the pages of what Kaho assumed was her own letter, "Just tired, late night last night, sorry." 

The teacher nodded and turned to the whiteboard, resuming the third-period history lesson. Maki's eyes flickered back to the papers. She stuck one finger in her mouth and bit down, a small bead of blood trickled toward her knuckle within minutes. Kaho felt sick. What on earth was on Maki's papers? 

Did it matter? Maybe a future iteration of Maki knew something that Kaho's Maki now knew. She was restless in her chair, her restless leg bouncing up and down under her desk, more blood trickling from her hand onto her sleeve. 

When the bell rang for lunch, Kaho, who had drunk all of her bottle of water, ran from the classroom, Maki on her heels. She felt sick. She was sure, after chomping on of her finger for the best part of twenty minutes, Maki felt sick too. 

Maki shoved past Makoto and Naseru, but Kaho hung back, watching Mariah, who pointed down a floor to the canteen. Kaho nodded and brushed past them. Makoto was asking about whether Naseru had a tour of the premises already, and explaining that each floor had its own facilities, and as the second-year class, on the second floor of the building, aside from the shoe lockers. 

Naseru frowned, "I know where I'm going, thanks."

Kaho ran into the girl's bathroom slamming the first cubicle door shut and locking it behind her. She retched and vomited into the toilet, wiping her mouth on some tissue. In the cubicle across for her, she could hear Maki, too. Maki flushed her toilet and swilled her mouth out with water, spitting into the sink. Kaho went after her, she tidied herself up and washed her hands, and swilled her own mouth out, but then returned to the cubicle. 

The second year bathroom now distinctly stank of vomit. Kaho was surprised more girls hadn't come to be sick. She knew Mariah and Maki had had letters – was it only them? Kaho frowned. 

She opened her letter again and shuffled through the papers to read the rest. 

'If only you knew the horrors your classmates and friends would be subjected to in the polluted viciously tampered attacked sabotaged environment. Then again, maybe it's better that you don't. Because I want this you, the you I wasn't, to be able to make the changes to stop it. You won't be the only one, Kaho, who gets letters like this; it's a plan, you see? But we don't know who or what the rest of us seek to correct. To someone like Eiji, Ryota's friend, he might tell his past self to pass the basketball to someone else in the preliminary match so he doesn't get embarrassed when he misses, because he thinks fixing his pride is an important step – he might not care to remember when he missed a shot after all this time. But we are all trying to keep you from making mistakes. Catastrophic mistakes. 

You've come this far, Kaho, and you're probably really confused, I would be too. This is a lot to take in, but I want to explain it to you properly – you and I coexist in parallel times, at different points, and in my world, people were selfish, and started a domino effect. Bad decisions, wrong decisions that changed our world for the worse. We are suffering through famines, illness, and loneliness where I am now. I don't want that for you, Kaho. 

When I think of you, I think of how giddy you were to go back to school, and how much you loved your boyfriend. How you thought a catastrophe was the canteen shop only having melon bread left instead of milk bread or curry buns. And how much you adore your cats. You were good. I'd like to think I'm still good, somewhere here. Which is why I want the best for you. 

We are malleable as teenagers, willing to listen, learn and change. Not always for the better either. Adults aren't. That's why I'm trusting you, Kaho, the you reading this right here and now to save Naseru and change the trajectory of the dominoes. You have to change your future.'

Kaho felt sick again, but she'd kept her friends waiting. How long had she been hiding in a bathroom stall reading? How long had it been since Maki left? She took a deep breath and left the restroom. In the hallway, she almost completely collided with a boy walking past. She winced, screwing her eyes shut. 

"I'm sorry!" she squeaked. There was no reply, just a tap on her head, like she was being poked by a fingernail. 

She unscrewed one eye and peeked upward. Looking down at her, an amused smirk on his face was Naseru. Her breathing hitched. He shook his head and went to pass her by. Naseru looks back at her and throws something for Kaho to catch. It landed almost perfectly in her open palms. Her eyes widened, in her hands was a small juice box, blackcurrant and apple flavoured, from the vending machine outside. She smiled.

"What's that for?" Kaho asked.

 "You looked sick, this mixed juice drink isn't too cold. This should help put your stomach at ease." 

 Kaho opened her mouth to say something, protest she wasn't feeling sick, or thank him, she wasn't sure, but before she could speak, Naseru spoke up again. 

"Don't get the wrong idea I just don't want you barfing on me later in the class since you sit behind me," he said with a self-satisfied smirk. 

Kaho pursed her lips and looked him up and down, "Thank you, Matsuoka."

Naseru shrugged and went on his way. Kaho watched him go. She frowned. On the road this morning he had been so rude to her, and in class he hadn't even deigned to look at her, he'd looked at Emi, who had spent the whole morning fidgeting after her argument with Hiro Sensei, she was pretty sure he'd taken a look at everyone in the class, eyed the boys up, assessed the girls with his gaze. Everyone but Kaho – like he was a lion on the hunt for the weak link. But this was kind, considerate. Was that Naseru's true nature?