Notes: I guess I lied. Six thousand words of Masquerade appeared before a single word of AS fic. Unlucky.

Once again, completely unedited stuff. All mistakes are mine.

oOo

"Welcome back, Hikigaya-kun." Yukinoshita, who had been facing him, was the first to notice him.

"Yo. Sorry I took so long," he muttered. Since his old seat was taken, he opted to slide into the seat on the end of the table. He kept his eyes down, he wasn't sure if he wanted to look up and see her staring back at him.

"Long time no see eh, Hikigaya-kun?" Her voice was as enchanting as he remembered it to be.

"Yeah. Long time no see, H- Yukinoshita-san."

"Oh? We've gone back to formal names again. Well that's fine with me I guess, even though I really wanted to call you Hachiman, you know? Or maybe just Hachi? Hmm, or Hachi Hachi? Sounds pretty cute if you ask me!"

He refused to respond to her teasing.

"Was there something you needed from me? You're sitting in my seat."

"Ara! Am I? Sorry about that, Hikigaya-kun. I hadn't the foggiest clue that you would be here!"

"Really?"

She laughed.

"Oh C'mon Hikigaya-kun! Do you think I'm keeping tabs on who you keep as company or something? That's too funny!"

"So then why are you here?"

"Well, when my dear little sister mentioned that she'd be working on a project in the library, I naturally thought that I'd come and visit her as a surprise! I certainly did not expect that she'd be working on a group project, and I definitely didn't expect that she would pick someone like you as her partner! But I suppose that dear Yukino-chan has always taken after me in many ways. I just hope that she doesn't also-"

"Nee-san!" Yukinoshita looked as though she was about to launch into a thousand complaints, but he cut across her.

"I wanted to work with Yukinoshita," he said quietly.

"Ara? Did you now? I suppose my little sister really is the cutest. So how did you manage to convince her to take you in? Yukino-chan has rather high standards, you know?"

"I got on my knees and begged her," He replied dryly.

"Is that how you're supposed to convince people to do what you want them to do? There's nothing subtler, or perhaps something that wouldn't make as big of a scene? I didn't think it was possible for anyone to sacrifice so much of their dignity."

"Dignity isn't worth anything; I'll sacrifice my dignity any day of the week if it means I can get what I want."

"Hikigaya-kun!" Yukinoshita's sharp voice sliced through the air, immediately silencing the back and forth. "I must insist that you return to your work. Our session today is not meant to be a social gathering."

"...Sorry."

"And you Nee-san! If you have nothing better to do than to sit here and distract us from our work, then I must ask you to please depart. Unlike you, it seems as though we have actual academic responsibilities to attend to during our summer break."

Haruno put a hand over her heart.

"Oh my cute little sister, you wound me so. I've just submitted term papers for all of my courses. Twenty pages long on average, each. Doesn't your dear older sister deserve a break?"

Yukinoshita simply glared at her sister.

"Fine, fine I see how it is. I suppose it is time for the scorned to depart. I'll give you two lovebirds some privacy."

"Nee-san!"

With the ruckus that they made, it was a miracle that they weren't kicked out of the library. He suspected that it was probably because the place was empty that they received such lenient treatment.

oOo

Yukinoshita came alone to their next meeting. She seemed strangely subdued, or perhaps her mind was on other things, because her usually sharp tongue was noticeably absent. In the end, she'd made quite a few changes to his parts of the presentation, which normally would have annoyed him. Unfortunately, after taking a look at her changes, he had to grudgingly admit that her edits made the whole project look better.

Still, she didn't even take a single jab at the quality of his work, instead preferring to focus on efficiently finishing the project. That was surprising, he'd had an arsenal of comebacks prepared. Things in general with Yukinoshita had been… pleasant was perhaps not quite the word he was looking for, but she was certainly nicer. And there were little things that she did for him; nice things that were so subtle sometimes he wouldn't even notice what she did until much, much later.

Like the one time he went to the bathroom with a nearly empty can of MAX that he'd left behind on the table only to return to a full can in its place. Yukinoshita had even opened the drink's tab, likely in an effort to avoid notice.

It wound up taking them about an hour to review their entire presentation because they kept arguing with each other about their individual interpretations of Miyazawa. But despite the difference in opinion, the conversation remained polite. And the best part of it all was that at the end of their meeting they finally had a finished project that both of them were satisfied with. They agreed to meet again to do some practice runs through the presentation the next week, but the most difficult part of their summer assignment was now behind them. For him, that was a very pleasant thought.

Now that the project was done, he could turn his attention to the other things in his life that demanded his attention. There was, of course, the homework from his other classes, although those didn't really amount to that much work. There was Vita-chan and the latest season of anime airing, but those could be binged late at night with some snacks in the comfort of his bed. In short, he had a lot of time left over.

He tried to fill the time as best he could. He turned a good portion of that extra time into a few extra five star pulls in the gacha game he played. But eventually, he hit his limit for things that he could do at home. And besides, Komachi had him nagging him for days to get out of the house.

And that was how Hikigaya Hachiman found himself in a small corner alley of Chiba, carefully locking his bike against a lamppost by the side of the road. It was a wholly unremarkable area, or it would have been had there not existed a small, quaint cafe tucked away in the very back of the alley.

Clang-dong!

With only a slight amount of nervousness, he once again opened the door to the time-traveling cafe.

oOo

"Ne, Hikigaya-kun?" Akari spoke up, distracting him from the novel he had been reading. He looked up to find her washing some used coffee cups in the sink behind the counter.
"Yeah? What's wrong?" He asked as he washed down another mouthful of the slice of chocolate mousse cake with some coffee. He had purchased them as a snack and drink to go along with his reading.

"Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a ghost?"

He paused with another forkful of cake halfway to his mouth. "Sorry?"

Akari placed the clean cups on the drying rack and wiped her hands on the apron that she wore before she turned to him.

"Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a ghost?" she asked again.

"No. I can't say that I have." He turned slightly as he said this, his eyes finding the woman in the white dress once more. As per usual, she was also slowly reading a novel.

A quick glance, however, showed that it was not the same book she had been reading the last time he was here.

"How does she get new books to read?" He asked.

"Hmm?" Akari came around the counter and slid into the stool next to his.

"The ghost," he indicated the woman with a slight tilt of his head. "She's reading a different book than last time."

"Well aren't you observant?" Akari gave a quiet little laugh.

"I suppose I should have expected that though. At any rate, to answer your question… well… when she finishes the books, she gets a new one."

"Gets a new one? How?"

"Well, Kei-chan usually provides her with one. It's kinda like the coffee; we just refill it when she's finished with the cup."

"How does that even work? Isn't she not a part of this world?"

"She can't sense us, if that's what you're asking. We can't interact with her. There's a story about how one of the cafe owners, decades and decades ago, tried to get rid of the seat and the ghost. They tried all sorts of solutions, from exorcists to even hiring yakuza to try to remove the ghosts by force."

"I'm assuming they didn't succeed?"

"Nope. Legend has it that the owner grew so frustrated with the situation that one night he grabbed a knife and tried to stab the occupant of that seat with it."

"If he'd had that kind of guts in the first place why'd he even spend all that money hiring the yakuza?"

"Heh. You've got a weird sense of humor Hikigaya-kun."

"I guess. What happened, by the way?" He asked, curious.

"To the owner? Legend has it that the ghost laid a terrible curse on him; a curse that drove him mad. He wound up murdering his whole family before being thrown into jail and executed. The cafe wound up being sold at auction to settle the civil suits from his wife's family. And nobody's tried to do anything to that seat ever since."

"Can you blame them? Familicide isn't exactly a desirable outcome."

"You're quite blasé about this."

"To be honest, this whole cafe always freaks me out a little bit," he admitted. "I don't think I could ever work here like you do."

"Well," Akari got up off the stool and stretched, sighing as she did so. "It's a good thing that you don't have any desire to go to the past. Otherwise, you might have a different view of working here."

He finished off his cup of coffee, returning the cup to the saucer. Akari scooted back around the counter and grabbed the cup.

"You want another one?"

He checked Wallet-chan. Her HP was still in the green.

"Sure," he said.

Akari reached under the counter to grab a filter before turning to fill the kettle.

"Oh, but can you make it with some more sugar?"

"You're gonna rot your teeth out."

"My dentist happens to disagree with you."

"There's no way a dentist would ever tell you to eat more sugar."

"Well, he didn't tell me to cut my consumption either.

Akari rolled her eyes as she measured out the coffee beans and began to grind them with the pestle and mortar.

"So anyways, why'd you ask about being a ghost?"

"Well, this morning I came in for my shift and I was a little late so I was rushing and all to get here. There wasn't anybody in when I arrived, so I figured I'd just run to the back, get changed quickly, and hope that nobody noticed I wasn't perfectly on time. Not that Kei-chan really cares or anything, but it's the principle of it I guess."

"Okay, sure…"

"Well, I guess I should've noticed this morning that the seat was empty, but I was in such a rush that I didn't. And I nearly ran headfirst into her, right as she was coming back from her bathroom break."

He scooted a few meters away from her. "Did she curse you or something?"

Akari rolled her eyes again.

"No. I tried to stop myself but my momentum carried me forward and I was tumbling facefirst into her. I thought for sure I'd crash into her and likely been actually cursed, but my face only met the floorboards."

"What, so you're saying she's incorporeal? You just passed right through her?"

Akari shook her head. "No. I would've noticed if I'd passed through her or something. She sidestepped me, Hikigaya-kun. She just moved out of my way and continued onwards to her seat as if nothing had happened."

"Wait, so you're saying…"

She nodded. "I think there's some part of her consciousness that exists and interacts with our world. I don't know how much, and I tried talking to her for about ten minutes this morning after I'd gotten changed. She didn't so much as blink in my direction. But I feel like the idea that she's completely not a part of our world isn't really true either. I mean, obviously, she has to 'exist' in some capacity in our world to curse us if we try to forcibly remove her from her seat, right?"

"Have you ever tried interacting with her before? Like, when she got up for her bathroom breaks."

Akari shook her head. "Her bathroom trips are completely random, and usually we're not really prepared or expecting it when she gets up. But I might try to wait around and see if she'll do the same thing when she goes to the bathroom again."

"What, you're not worried that she might just curse you this time?"

"I won't actually touch her. I'll just try to like… stand in her way or something. See if she moves around me or if she'll just walk into me."

"Well, just be careful. I don't want you to murder me the next time I see you."

"Aww, are you worried for lil' old me, Hikigaya-kun? How cute."

He'd probably be beet red if he was only a few years younger. But Akari's teasing didn't induce nearly the same amount of embarrassment as a certain tormentor of his once had.

"Of course. You promised to perform for me, right? Can't have you going off and getting cursed before I get to hear you play." He retorted without even a single stutter.

"Ahhhh, can you… maybe… forget about that promise? I'm… really bad right now."

He shook his head, a solemn look on his face. "No can do, Akari. I want to hear you play."

Somehow or another, even though he was years younger than her, she was the one that was forced to turn away from him and change the subject.

"How many sugars did you want?"

"What?"

"Sugar cubes. In your coffee."

"Oh. Three. But hold on one sec, I need to go to the bathroom," he excused himself, hopping off the stool.

"First door to your left," Akari called out behind him.

When he returned back to the door leading to the cafe's main room, he was surprised to hear voices. It was a sweltering hot summer day; he didn't think that there would be many other customers that would brave the heat to come to this tiny little cafe. But it sounded like Akari was talking to someone, so a new customer must have come in while he had been in the bathroom.

For a second, his mind wandered. Surely it couldn't be…

Haruno-san wouldn't come… right?

He shook his head. Nah. She didn't have any reason to come. She had no reason to return to the past and she certainly had no business visiting a small, no name cafe in a back alley of Chiba.

Having reassured himself, he re-entered the cafe. He was already looking forward to the fresh cup of coffee that he knew Akari would have left by his seat. But when he came out of the small, dark hallway that led to the bathroom, the sight that greeted his eyes made him freeze.

He certainly hadn't expected that.

There was a middle-aged man sitting in that seat.

The woman in the white dress was, of course, nowhere to be found. And Akari was looking at him curiously, with a strange expression on her face that he couldn't quite decipher.

Was there someone else that had come to see him?

oOo

He quietly slid back into his seat by the counter.

Akari leaned in and whispered in his ear. "Do you know him?"

He caught the eye of the middle-aged man sitting in that seat for a brief moment, but the man didn't seem very interested in him. The man looked uncomfortably out of place in the cafe. He was wearing some form of heavy overcoat or jacket with far too many pockets, and yet he was still shivering. It looked as though he'd braved a snowstorm to come to the cafe, which only increased the nonsensical comedy of his appearance considering it was the middle of the summer.

Outside of what he was wearing though, it was obvious that this man was once very handsome. Wrinkles now creased his forehead, and his blonde hair was receding, but it was easy to tell that the man had been quite the looker in his youth.

"I don't think so," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "He doesn't look familiar to me."

"Alrighty then."

Akari stood up and walked around the counter.

"Excuse me, sir?" she asked carefully. "Are you… here for someone?"

The middle-aged man started a little. He was still looking around the room, as if he couldn't quite believe his eyes. But upon gathering his bearings, he gave a small sheepish smile.

"I… yes. I'm waiting for someone."

He glanced over at Akari only to find her doing the same at him. They both shrugged a little in confusion.

"What's their name?" Akari asked. "The person you're waiting for, I mean. Maybe I'll know of them, since I work most days of the week."

"Uzuki. Uzuki Saeki, but most people called her Zuki."

"Oh Saeki-san!" Akari exclaimed, and the man looked up at her with surprise and something akin to longing lighting up his eyes.

"You… know her?"

"Of course! She's a regular. Always comes in to get a coffee and work on her assignments. She'll always complain to me about her teachers and whatnot. It's kind of funny listening to her rant about them sometimes. Although… er… she usually comes in after school on Wednesdays, so I'm not sure if…" Her enthusiasm abating, Akari trailed off, realizing what she was about to say.

"What day is it?" The man asked, looking around the room as if the date would magically appear before his eyes.

"Saturday. It's Saturday," Akari said, a note of sadness in her voice.

"Oh. I guess I must have forgotten the right day." The man looked down, disappointment written across his face.

He reached out for his cup of coffee and took a sip.

"Maybe this whole thing was all a mistake," he said with a long sigh. He swallowed and took a look at the coffee cup in his hands.

"You guys do, however, make great coffee here.," the man flashed a smile as he took another sip.

"Wait!" Akari's voice made him pause. He looked up at her questioningly.

"I know that… I know that most people have a very important reason to come back in time." She hesitated.

"There's inherent risk involved, so most people don't come unless they have a very good reason. So… if it's not too personal… I don't want to make you feel pressured or anything, but I was thinking… since this will be your only opportunity to return to the past, would you like to leave something for Saeki-san? A message, or maybe a letter? I can make sure to deliver it to her and I'm sure that she'd be happy to hear from her father, even if he's from the future."

The man gave a small laugh. It was a little shaky, almost as if he wasn't sure if he should be laughing or crying. Akari must have noticed it too, because she backtracked immediately.

"I'm sorry sir. Did I… say something wrong?"

"No, no. It's not– you didn't say anything wrong. It's just… she's not my daughter. The fact that you thought that she was… I guess it really just sunk in how long it's been. I was just laughing a little bit at that; at all the years that have passed."

Akari glanced over at Hachiman. He shrugged his shoulders.

"But to answer your first question," the older man said, leaning back in his chair. "I appreciate you looking out for me. But… well… an old acquaintance once told me that I was terrible at expressing my feelings, especially through text. So I'm not sure if the things that I'd like to say to her will come through in a letter. I don't know if I can properly get my feelings across to her. I was really hoping to get to see her again. We always understood each other better when we spoke in person."

Akari glanced over at the cup of coffee that the man was nursing gently between his hands. There was still steam, wafting up towards the rafters. There was still time.

"Well," she said cheerily, trying to sound upbeat. "I won't make you write one if you don't want to, but I do believe you've still got at least ten minutes or so. And… you know… who knows? Maybe she'll show up."

"Thank you." The man replied quietly, taking another sip of the coffee.

Silence enveloped the room. Hachiman shifted in his seat. He wanted to ask this man about why he was here. The previous times he'd seen the time-traveling cafe's most unique feature in action, the visitor had come back in time for him. But they never spoke about their reasons for coming back. He didn't really blame the kid that had come back wanting to take a picture with him. He looked like he was still in grade school, after all. Grade schoolers never were the most coherent.

Yukinoshita, on the other hand, was someone that he regretted not asking why she'd come back. During their short few minutes together, she had only said that she wanted to see him. And that she loved him. He could still hear her voice saying those three words in his dreams.

But she never got around to telling him why. Why did she come back?

It wasn't often that his mind drifted back to that meeting. But whenever he was reminded of this place, of the time traveling cafe, he would think back to that moment and wonder.

What had happened in the future that had made her come back to see him?

Sometimes he wished that he could ask the current Yukinoshita, the Yukinoshita that he knew from school, that question. But of course that would lead nowhere.

Still, he wanted to ask this man. This stranger who had braved all the risks of coming back in time. He wanted to ask why he had come back to see this woman; a woman who by the man's own account was from his distant past.

"Excuse me."

Hachiman himself started a little. Even he hadn't expected for his voice to ring across the room.

"Yes?"

"Uhm… I just wanted to ask…" he was suddenly stuttering, embarrassment coming to the forefront of his mind. It felt as though he was encroaching on this man's privacy; he was asking a question that was deeply personal after all. They were strangers… the man had no reason to answer his question.

But he'd gotten this far. He wanted to know.

"Who… who was Saeki-san to you?"

The man stared at him for a long moment.

"What's your name?"

"I-huh? My name?"

"Yes. You look rather familiar to me."

"Hikigaya. Hikigaya Hachiman."

There was a small flicker of something in the man's eyes, but then the next moment it disappeared entirely.

"Why do you want to know about Uzuki?" The man asked.

"I just… I wanted to know… is it always regret that makes people come back from the future? Can people ever come back to see people for other reasons? Happier reasons?"

The man fished a cigarette out of one of his many pockets and lit it with some metal gadget that Hachiman had never seen before, which the man fished out of another pocket. Hachiman had only taken note of it because there had been no flame. This man really came from a distant future huh, he thought to himself.

After taking a puff of the cigarette, the man finally spoke. But it was not an answer to his question.

"Somebody came back to visit you." He did not phrase it as a question.

"...Yeah."

Another puff of the cigarette.

"Well, I can't speak for everyone. I'm sure that there's a kid somewhere that came back in time for fun, or perhaps as a daredevil challenge. And maybe there are even folks that decide to come back because they wanted to spend some time with a younger version of people they knew. Hell, there was one friend I knew; he kept talking about how he wanted to go back in time and see himself, 30 or so years ago in the past. Kept rambling about how it'd create a time paradox, since he couldn't remember being visited by a future version of himself. I started tuning him out once he started getting really far-fetched, with multiverse theory and how all of our potential worlds are connected in some way. But most people… most people that come back have regrets."

There was a long silence. He was almost afraid that the man would decide that he was cutting it too close on time, and that he would finish his coffee. But then he spoke up again.

"And… well, I came back because I wanted to see Uzuki again."

"Who was Saeki-san to you? If… uh… if you don't mind me asking."

"Well, I could say that I do mind. But I suppose it won't matter in the end. None of this matters right? Nothing I say will change the future? That is the ironclad rule?" He turned to check with Akari.

Akari nodded solemnly. "Rule number one. If you return to the past, you cannot alter your present. Nothing you change in the past will change the future."

"I thought that was impossible, at first. I thought that, if someone from the future pulled out a gun right now and shot you, surely it would change the future. I don't really know how you'd magically survive the gunshot wound. And at the very least you would have some trauma that you wouldn't have in the future that I know. But then I suppose that I never believed that all of this time travel stuff was even possible. I thought it was just a legend, a story that I was told as a youth. Even when the waitress was pouring the coffee, I didn't think I'd end up here. But I'm here now. So maybe I should start believing what you guys say."

The man took another drink of his coffee.

"So I guess to answer your question, Uzuki was… she was someone special to me. I wanted to come back to see her again."

"Did something… happen to her?"

"It's alright, boy. You don't have to beat around the bush. She's dead. Passed away last fall. Cancer."

"I'm very sorry for your loss."

"It's not really my loss, but I appreciate the sentiment," he grunted.

"Sorry? Not your loss?"

"Uzuki probably doesn't even remember me. We fell out of touch years ago."

The man was contemplative. Neither Akari nor he, however, wanted to break the silence.

"It's quite a long story," he said at last, taking another drink of coffee. Hachiman took a glance at the cup. It was almost empty. He estimated that there were maybe two mouthfuls left. In a way, it was smart. It meant that the man could finish the coffee at any time, so he could quickly return to his present if needed.

"It'll probably take too long to tell you the full story. But the short of it is that we met and became friends in college. I was her senpai and also her TA; we spent a lot of time together because she'd always be in for office hours. She was, after all, quite the diligent student. And… I don't really know how it happened, but one day I was helping her with the physiology coursework that she was taking, and she was smiling up at me as I explained the pathway mechanisms of reflex actions to her, and I just remember thinking to myself that her smile was so nice. I should've realized it much earlier, you know? That I was smitten with her."

"So you regret not asking her out?" he asked.

He shook his head.

"I was too late. I was too late to confess to Uzuki. And it wasn't even the first time that I'd missed my chance with someone that I cared about. Like I said, I was never really good with relationships. I didn't really know how to express my love for someone. And with Uzuki, by the time I'd worked up my courage to say something to her, I found out that she was already going out with someone else. And so I never said a word about it; never gave her any hints on how I felt for her whole life. We simply remained senpai and kouhai, as we always were. And after I graduated, we slowly grew apart. I think the last LINE message I received from her were birthday wishes, but from five years ago. But now that she's gone… I guess all those old feelings were dredged up again. I guess it's something that I've regretted for my whole life now. And so when I found out about this cafe of yours… I don't know what I was expecting. But I figured that it couldn't hurt to try."

The man paused, swirling his cup in his hand as he contemplated the last couple of mouthfuls of coffee.

"Even if I'm just a random time-traveling stranger to her right now… I at least get to see her one more time. I'd at least get to say goodbye."

He opened his mouth. He felt like he should say something. Perhaps something comforting, but how was he supposed to alleviate regret? The thing he regretted the most in life was asking Orimoto Kaori on a date. That wasn't even close to being a comparable event.

"Well," Akari broke into their conversation. "I'm afraid that you're nearing the end of your time here. Are you certain that you don't want to leave anything behind? It doesn't have to be a letter. Maybe there's a trinket,or a verbal message that I can pass along for you? Please feel free to ask."

The man smiled at Akari.

"You're very kind, young lady. It makes me happy that you're on good terms with Uzuki. I hope that you'll continue to take care of her in the future. But as for me, there's nothing that I would want to leave behind. It was just unfortunate that I couldn't meet her today." He raised the cup to his lips.

"Wait!" Akari cried out. "If nothing else… could you give me your name? Even if it's years from now before she'll realize… I think that she'd be happy to know that her old friend was thinking of her."

The coffee was sliding down the man's throat. Hachiman could see his Adam's apple moving as he swallowed. Then the man smiled at Akari once more, his figure slowly turning into mist.

"My name is Hayama. Hayama Hayato."

oOo

There was a little rush of customers right after the man had departed for his own time. Akari was busy for a while, which meant that he was left to stew with his own thoughts.

It had been something he'd been avoiding for a while. But as he grew older, understood more, and as the memory of the two time travelers that had come to see him all those years ago grew fainter, he couldn't help but find himself asking the question that he'd been putting off, year after year.

Why exactly had two people, two separate people, come back in time to see him? Their once in a lifetime opportunity; their biggest regret, why did it involve him?

Was Yukinoshita just like this Hayama Hayato person? Did she come back in time to confess because in the future… in the future she couldn't confess to him? Because there was something preventing her from doing so?

Was he… dead?

He waited quite a while before the last of the customers that had entered the cafe during the rush left.

"Ne. Akari"

"Yes, Hikigaya-kun?"

"Is what that man said true? Do most people travel back in time because of regret and things they left unsaid?"

Akari looked up from the sink where she had been standing, washing the cutlery and plates that the customers had used. She must have seen something in his expression, because she carefully placed the rag that she had been using to wash the dishes down and wiped her hands before walking over and taking a seat next to him on the customer side of the counter.

"I know what you're thinking, Hikigaya-kun. You've been visited twice, right? By people from the future?"

He nodded.

"It's not as straightforward as you might think. It's true that a lot of people come back because of tragedies. And the sudden loss of someone close to them often results in people wanting to go back in time. I mean… I'm kind of living proof of that. But I've worked here for a long time, Hikigaya-kun. It's not always the case. I've seen plenty, and I mean plenty, of customers that went back in time for different reasons."

"Were any of them… happy reasons?"

"I won't try to lie to you." Akari said, and her voice softened. "Happy might be too strong of a word. Most happy people don't have a reason to go back. But it's not always all about death."

"But…"

"It's never a good thing to think too much about this cafe, Hikigaya-kun." Akari said, her tone suddenly stern. "I have seen people travel back in time to confess their love because they were unable to grasp that opportunity when it had come to them. I've seen people travel back in time to speak with their parents when they were younger, to gain a better understanding of family. And… do you remember Kanda-kun? The cripple you met your first time here?"

"Vaguely."

"He wanted to go back in time for his wife. And his wife was still alive!"

"Then why'd he want to go back?"

"Well… apparently his wife had been going through a rough time at one point in their marriage. He'd been away for work, and she had been pregnant with their first child. And then one day, she lost her. She lost their child; their baby girl. They both must have been devastated. But I think that Kanda-kun must not have been a very good husband to her at the time. Perhaps he let his emotions blind him."

"So you're saying he blamed her?"

"No. But I think that he didn't immediately return home from his business trip. I think he stayed away for a long time. This is all my speculation of course; all I know is that he was trying to go back to see her again because he felt immensely guilty. I think he… I think he just wanted to keep her company during a time when his past self couldn't."

"So he was trying to make amends?"

Akari nodded.

He gave a long sigh as he finished off the last cup of coffee.

"Say Akari?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't really care if you're not close to your peak level yet. But… can I hear you play the piano, sometime?"

"W-what brought this on? I mean… I guess you can. Maybe next week? You don't have school for another couple of weeks right?"

"Yeah. And I wanted to hear you play because… well… I want to grab hold of this chance now, you know?

He didn't need to say the words aloud. They both understood.

Just in case.

oOo