Why wasn't I the one who got the male lead's script?

He took a deep breath, patted his cheeks to cheer himself up, and then took a small step closer to Futaba——

Then, under Futaba's slightly surprised gaze, Hoshimi stretched out her hand.

"—?"

It was obvious that for a moment Ms. Futaba failed to figure out why Hoshimi reached out to her.

"Hmm? Isn't that what you said, Futaba?"

Xingjian tilted his head in confusion and stared at Miss Futaba's face, whose eyes were a little vague.

"Let's try to travel through time again and return to where we were three years later. I don't want to sleep on the streets in an unfamiliar time and space."

He weighed his hand, and his calm and natural eyes seemed to show nothing suspicious - although Miss Futaba's suspicious look showed that she didn't quite believe it.

"Since I was able to travel to this time and space last time because of a thought and idea, then it should be possible to do it under the same conditions, right?"

“…Indeed, it’s worth a try.”

Even so, Futaba was still driven by her instinct to explore possibilities (let's keep it in doubt for now), and she slowly placed her hand on Hoshimi's. The two of them closed their eyes with different expressions.

When I opened my eyes again, everything in front of me was completely different.

----

happy New Year to all!

It's really my fault that I postponed it for so long, but it's not completely a failure!

The World Line Divergence: A Never-Ending Week: Chapter 9: When Time Travel Becomes an Everyday Trivia (Part 1)

——Traveling through time and space is not uncommon in science fiction novels, but being able to return safely and securely from that time and space is indeed a bit rare.

This was the lingering fear that Futaba and Hoshimi had after standing in the familiar science laboratory and confirming that they were not missing any limbs.

After the two of them calmed down, Xingjian took out his mobile phone and the real-time updated clock showed the time of his original time and space.

It didn't seem quite right to say it was the original time and space. He had actually traveled back to before the holiday one day after the trip. To be more precise, it was the day when Hoshimi found herself back before the trip and went to Futaba to ask why.

"Huh... I thought we could go right back to those days when we went on a trip to the hot springs together."

Xingjian sighed and resigned himself to his fate by turning on his phone.

He originally had the conservative attitude that "since I can return safely, I can still reach the future safely if I do nothing and maintain the status quo." Now it seems that there are things that must be resolved between today and the start of the trip.

"Fortunately, being able to successfully travel back means that your abilities, Xingjian, are relatively stable so far... Phew. At least I don't have to worry about losing a body part during the journey."

Futaba breathed a sigh of relief and gently patted her white coat. After confirming that she had successfully returned to her original time and space, she looked up at Hoshimi who had put away her phone.

The moment their eyes met, Futaba's gaze became sharp behind the lenses.

"Listen carefully, Xingjian. Don't think you can forget about your time travel just because you've returned to your original time and space. Puberty syndrome definitely has a triggering factor. You absolutely cannot turn a blind eye and pretend nothing happened while continuing your daily life. That's just a self-deception and a temporary solution."

It is obvious that Ms. Futaba, who always has a scientific research spirit of getting to the bottom of things, whether in study or in daily life, intends to get to the bottom of this matter thoroughly.

"Wow... Futaba, where did you learn mind reading?"

Likewise, it's clear that she sees through Mr. Hoshimi's lazy mentality.

"Stop your chatter, I'm sure I'll understand you. And more."

The girl with gray curly hair gave the boy in front of her a helpless look, then adjusted her glasses.

"We need to develop a battle plan."

"Well?"

"Not only in the time and space three years ago—in this original time and space, we also need a set of rules of conduct."

"……what."

The boy Xingjian blinked in confusion for a few seconds, then opened his mouth slightly as if he had guessed what Futaba was going to do, and his eyes became much clearer as if he had suddenly understood something.

----

----

There are still six days left in the journey, which is the second day after returning from the journey.

Ding-ling-ling-ling-ling——

Snapped.

“………Hmm.”

In the morning, Xingjian's home.

The boy curled up in the quilt drowsily reached out his hand from under the quilt and pressed the shrill alarm clock.

He rubbed his cheeks sleepily, yawned and forced himself to open his eyes, then he pulled himself together and picked up his phone to check today's date.

——It was still a week ago, but unlike before he fell asleep, the date had moved forward one day normally.

"So even though we've traveled a week before the start of our journey... time in this dimension is still flowing normally."

Although this discovery was not the result he wanted most, it still made the boy breathe a sigh of relief. With a feeling of helplessness but having to accept the reality, he dragged himself up and started to wash.

How should I put it, at least he wasn't trapped in an endless loop of the same day forever - this was probably the worst outcome the boy had expected. He tossed and turned last night and almost couldn't sleep because he was afraid that this would happen.

Xingjian simply washed up as usual, spent about ten minutes on breakfast, and then picked up her schoolbag and headed to school.

——Having said that, even though I have accomplished something as extraordinary as traveling through time and space, the most frustrating thing is that I still have to go to class as usual.

Everything taught in class was very familiar to Xingjian. There was no way around it. This knowledge and in-class assignments only made Xingjian more certain that this was the time and space of the second round, and only brought him boredom.

The black-haired boy who couldn't help but daydream in class yawned, ignored the teacher who was tirelessly explaining the text at the podium, and cast his gaze at the blue sky outside the window with some boredom.

It's a pity that the seats are limited (Xingjian sits in the second row next to the door of the classroom), otherwise he might be able to easily see the girls running around in the playground, the dancers dancing in the opposite teaching building, and so on, just like the protagonists in the anime.

"By the way...if I do something different in this second time and space than in the previous time and space, will the future be different?"

No...it's better to say that traveling back to a week ago has already become one of the conditions for changing the future.

“………Hmm.”

While the boy was brainstorming, he vaguely felt as if someone was watching him from behind.

He tilted his head slightly, and noticed the owner of his gaze with his peripheral vision—

About one or two seats behind him, a girl with golden hair and twin ponytails, Miss Eriri Sawamura, was holding a textbook to cover her face, leaving only her sharp eyes exposed. She was now staring at him with a suspicious look.

"what………"

Almost forgot about this guy.

After class, Eriri went straight to the black-haired boy's desk as expected.

"Hey, Haru."

She didn't care about the looks that the classmates around her cast in their direction, and wanted to pour out her doubts without any scruples - after causing such a big commotion in the school auditorium last time, Eriri basically didn't hide her true character, and didn't care about others discussing her close relationship with Hoshimi Kasumigaoka.

"I always felt like you were a little strange yesterday... Anyway, after I got home, I thought about it carefully... Why did you know that I had chosen a hot spring hotel and planned to invite everyone out to play?"

Miss Eriri pouted a little puzzled. As far as she could remember, she had never revealed this plan to anyone. All the arrangements were made in her mind.

"Well, have you ever thought about this possibility, Eriri?"

Hoshimi-san, on the other hand, appeared to be unfazed and gave Eriri a perfect business-like smile in response to her question.

----

I said I won't cheat, and I really won't cheat. In fact, I code every day but I always forget to update orz. I'll try to slowly and steadily update.

A Never-Ending Week at the World Line's Divergence: Chapter 9: When Time Travel Becomes an Everyday Trivia (Part 2)

He had anticipated that Eriri might ask a similar question, so he had memorized the template for his response.

"——Perhaps there is also a phenomenon of telepathy between father and daughter?"

"Huh?! Qing, get down right there!!!"

—Using such sarcasm to rudely change the subject...although there's a high risk of being hit by Eriri's twin-tailed tornado.

The blonde girl, her cheeks flushed, gritted her teeth and clenched her fists in rage. If they weren't in the classroom with other students around, Eriri-san's twintails would have been ready to move.

"Hmph!! I shouldn't have come to talk to you and made myself miserable. Qing, you only serve to irritate me all day long!!"

The blonde girl puffed up her cheeks angrily, gave Xingjian a fierce look, and walked back to her seat angrily. The action of pulling up the chair with a snap startled the onlookers around her.

Of course, what surprised them even more was the content of the conversation between the two people.

"Father-daughter relationship...?"

"The relationship between Sawamura-san and Hoshimi-san...seems...quite complicated."

Now we can't even simply imagine them as being in a romantic relationship.

Hoshimi breathed a sigh of relief with some lingering fear because she was not hit by Eriri's tornado twintails. After observing Eriri's condition and the appearance of other classmates, she gradually felt relieved.

No matter what, even if you get away with it, you've achieved the goal of not arousing suspicion from others.

Well, this was actually one of the points in the battle plan he and Futaba agreed upon yesterday.

The matter of time travel is known only to heaven and earth, and only Futaba and Hoshimi know it - no third person can know about it.

Futaba's explanation was something obscure, "This will increase the uncertainties affecting the world line," but in short, even if Hoshimi wasn't told to do so, he would still abide by this code of conduct.

After all, no matter how dumb the protagonist in a science fiction movie is, he won't go around claiming that he is a time traveler, right?

So now, he can only pretend to be in the state he was a week ago, pretending that he has no memory of everything after that. While going about his daily life, he secretly travels through time and space with Futaba to explore the truth and solution of the syndrome.

Of course, the entire process had to be kept secret from everyone around (except Futaba).

……

……

"Hmm? You said, Hoshimi-kun is a little strange today?"

At noon, a girl with long black hair, who was sitting in the relatively empty atrium and holding a novel, raised her head and glanced at the girl with blonde twintails sitting next to her, who was stuffing rice balls into her mouth indignantly, with some confusion.

Kasumigaoka Utaha and Sawamura Eriri had been making regular lunchtime appointments lately. While they both felt it was a natural progression, the other students at school, for some reason, felt their worldviews refreshed and spontaneously gave them a space—thus dispelling the long-standing rumors of a feud.

"Yeah. Oh no, he was actually a little weird yesterday... and even weirder today."

Still brooding over what happened in the morning, Eriri took a big bite of the tempura in her mouth, and a crisp crunching sound came from her mouth - as if it was a substitute for someone, which made her feel relieved.

"Not only did he tease me for no apparent reason, but he even said something about a father-daughter rapport in front of so many classmates right in the classroom... Are you kidding me? The other classmates were there! Where's my dignity going?"

Looking at Eriri's aggrieved and complaining look, Miss Kasumigaoka smiled.

"Well, then, Sawamura-kun, you mean you shouldn't say that in front of so many classmates."

"Ah, that was when...wait! Isn't that the point?!"

As usual, the two of them joked around, which eased the depressing atmosphere in the air a little. Kasumigaoka Utaha calmly raised her beautiful eyebrows, and her burgundy pupils moved slightly.

"Well, I was indeed called out by Hoshimi-kun yesterday for no apparent reason... He did look a little strange."

Even though the other party tried their best to hide their panic and distress, Kasumigaoka Utaha, who was accustomed to observing other people's micro-expressions, also noticed some clues.

At the very least, she could sense that the boy was hiding something.

"...Well, it's probably just a trivial matter."

The girl with long black hair pulled herself out of her thoughts, and her expression, which had been focused just now, became indifferent. She curled her lips in a nonchalant manner.

"There are so many problems going on during adolescence, but maybe they're just boring little things about love... Honestly, real-life teen comedies are much more boring than those in novels. They're all about men and women expressing their desire for each other, either overtly or implicitly—they just don't pique my interest at all."

"...Ha, being so pure and aloof isn't really your style, Kasumigaoka Utaha."

"Oh? So what do you think of my style, Sawamura-kun?"

"Well……"

"A sensual writer who only knows about filthy things all day? It seems that Sawamura-san really has unique insights in this area."

"That's not what I meant... Stop talking nonsense—ah."

Eriri, who was arguing with Kasumigaoka with a flushed face, paused before she finished speaking because she had just glanced at the teaching building opposite and seemed to catch a glimpse of a familiar figure in the corridor.

Shiyu, who was about to continue teasing her, also noticed her state, closed the book slightly, squinted her eyes and followed Eriri's gaze -

“………Eh.”

What they both noticed was a boy with short black hair and a girl with long grey curly hair, who were walking quickly in the corridor, one after the other, with serious expressions on their faces from the side.

"Why are these two always together... Just now during lunch break, it seems that Qing was called away by that Futaba classmate."