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

Tsk, has Kato been this difficult since he was so young? I'm suddenly curious about what Kato's parents are like.

“—Let’s do this.”

Xing Jian, who felt defeated in front of a six or seven-year-old child for the first time, seemed to have finally accepted this reality. He adjusted the legs of his glasses, and a gentle look gradually appeared in the corners of his eyes, while a slight smile inadvertently appeared at the corners of his mouth.

"Next time we meet, let's give each other another perfect self-introduction."

"But usually people who say that end up disappearing from life—you see that kind of plot all the time on TV."

"What kind of dramas does six- or seven-year-old Kato-san watch all day?"

Despite complaining in his heart, Xingjian still smiled and shook his head, looking firmly into the little girl's clear and bright eyes.

"No, we'll meet again."

After all, this is destined.

"........."

The girl's fingers holding the shopping bag moved slightly, and she stared straight at the face of the boy wearing black-framed glasses - as if she had completely memorized his appearance in her mind.

In the end, she just nodded obediently, whispered "Goodbye, brother", and ran back home with light steps.

Hoshimi also stood up again and watched little Kato clumsily take out the key to open the door, and leave Kato's house before her parents came to greet her.

The faint smile on his cheek did not fade, but instead became a little more intense, as if he had figured something out - of course, it was also possible that it was just an illusion.

Hoshimi walked back to the place where she had agreed to meet Futaba with the same brisk pace.

He stood there, looking up at the sky with a somewhat melancholic look, waiting idly for Futaba to return.

"The sky ten years ago always seemed clearer than the sky ten years later... but that might just be a psychological effect."

But soon after, he heard a slow sound of footsteps approaching from behind him.

He turned around and saw Futaba Rio, whose expression was somewhat stiff for some reason, slowly walking towards him. After noticing Hoshimi's gaze, she quickly returned to her usual calm and composed expression.

"……What’s wrong with you."

Xingjian, who keenly noticed this change, directly expressed his doubts.

"Nothing. I just went back and took a look at my past self, and I was successfully disgusted."

"I'll just say it~"

Xingjian nodded in agreement. After all, "feeling deeply resentful and disgusted towards one's past self" was a normal human emotion that existed every few years... probably.

"By the way, Futaba, I vaguely feel that I know what we did in the world ten years ago."

"Oh? I hope you can give me a more reasonable explanation. My current irritable mood is not enough to appease my impatience to hear such lame excuses."

Futaba rubbed her temples lightly, as if trying to calm herself down.

"I feel like I might have gone back ten years just to... have what I have now."

“…If possible, I hope you can explain it again from beginning to end using non-abstract language that humans can understand.”

"Hey, let me explain it to you logically."

Xingjian took a deep breath, then seriously stated his speculation according to his own thoughts.

"The reason why something like puberty syndrome occurs must be because there is something wrong with me."

He was trying to use the common method of "inferring the cause from the effect" to explain this strange phenomenon.

"According to my own understanding, if one must say there's something wrong with people like me..."

Xingjian paused for a moment, then simply extended a finger.

"First, I've always had some thoughts about my family of origin."

In fact, Xingjian rarely mentions family-related matters to his friends. Firstly, he doesn't want to spread negative emotions to others in this way, and secondly, others may not be willing to act as his emotional trash can.

Ever since I can remember, my parents have been arguing. There is always a tense atmosphere at the dinner table every day. Even during the relatively harmonious leisure time after dinner, they would suddenly start blaming each other over trivial matters.

Although such conflicts have gradually decreased in his daily life after his parents' divorce, and he has noticed that his life has slowly become calmer, what once existed still exists and will still be engraved in his mind and difficult to erase.

It's a heartache, you could say. Even though I've grown up enough to protect myself, it's still hard to let go of past experiences.

There are actually many children who grew up in a similar family environment as him. There are also many children who, like him, gradually learn to ignore this family atmosphere, try to numb their own feelings, and pretend to be calm in front of outsiders.

However, even when they are about to become adults or even enter society, there are still many children who regard their original family as a knot and cannot let go.

Ultimately, everyone is just spending time healing their childhood.

"Second... probably."

Xingjian paused, and when he was about to extend his second finger, Futaba sighed softly.

"...If you don't want to say it, you don't have to say it anymore."

A look of consideration and understanding gradually emerged on her face, completely different from her usual calm and composed expression - Futaba was not an unreasonable person who was completely inconsiderate of her friends.

"It's okay. I can speak frankly now."

Xingjian smiled and shook his head, as if he understood Futaba's silent tenderness.

"Secondly, I guess it's because I've never been satisfied with my position in interpersonal relationships."

When he was still very naive, he always thought that being a loner and being an "ordinary high school boy passing by" who was ignored and not paid much attention to by people was the norm in life, so he should also work hard to get closer to this side.

This kind of thing is indeed the norm, but trying to move in this direction without considering objective facts is a bit of an overreaction.

He had friends who were worth cherishing and bonds that were worth taking seriously, but because of his desire to be free and unattended, his first reaction was to escape.

Perhaps his family of origin had accustomed him to distant intimacy, or perhaps the first friend he had treated sincerely chose to betray him. In any case, his subconscious reaction to this sudden break in his defenses was—

In order to avoid possible harm, push the other person away first.

----

I'm really sorry, I'm an old pigeon orz, please feel free to scold me

But it’s true that there will be an update tomorrow! It’s also true that I plan to slowly start writing again during the summer vacation and at least finish the main storyline of this book!

Although this book currently features multiple storylines based on parallel worlds, I will be opening a vote tomorrow to determine the order of priority. The first one in the list can be considered the main storyline.

Detailed explanation will be given after tomorrow's update. If you want to see which line first, please pay attention tomorrow. I'm here to give you a thumbs up orz

A Week of Never-Ending Time: Chapter 10: Make Good Use of the Time Travel Function (Part 3)

To put it simply, it can be described as the sensitive and fragile heart that is unique to this age group.

“At that time, I actually had an idea.”

Xingjian seemed to be reviewing his junior high school mental state, and he slowly uttered those words in a tone that was a little difficult to say but had to be said.

"I've been thinking... it would be great if I didn't have to deal with all those bad things. If someone else could clean up the mess, I might feel a lot more relaxed."

But it would feel irresponsible to put all the blame on someone who has nothing to do with it.

Adults and elders often told him at that age that the troubles he has now will seem like trivial matters that are not worth mentioning to him in the future.

At that time, Xing Jian certainly still had some of the unconvinced and childish rebellious psychology that is unique to teenagers in his heart, but in fact he also vaguely tended to agree with their opinion.

"My future self will surely be stronger than my current self and be able to handle these things with greater ease."

If it were him, if it were my future self, I would definitely just laugh off my current worries and solve them simply like a steady, calm and reliable adult.

Can I really become that kind of person?

"Wait... In other words, could it be..."

Futaba realized something and wanted to adjust the legs of her glasses, trying to stabilize her voice which had suddenly risen, but she found that it was loose on her nose. After a while, she realized that she had taken off her glasses not long ago in order to hide her identity.

"...Well, if my guess is correct, it should be like this."

After thinking for a moment, Xingjian calmly came to his conclusion.

"Actually, the real trigger of Puberty Syndrome was me many years ago. My wish was probably to escape the problems I've faced so far, or even to hand these messes over to someone more capable. That person was my future self—that is, my present self. The symptoms manifest in the fact that my present self, including you, Futaba, has experienced time travel. Ultimately, we're just the ones involved in the solution."

The black-haired boy sorted out his thoughts from beginning to end, but still looked up at Futaba with some confusion.

"But if that's the case, this is just a closed-loop paranormal phenomenon targeting Hoshimi Haru, and I should be the only one affected... Why you, Futaba, are also involved, I'm really confused."

"...Adolescent syndrome doesn't have a set logical instruction manual to refer to, nor is it as traceable as those quantitative and timed experiments. It's normal for some unpredictable phenomena to occur."

After thinking about Hoshimi's thoughts, Futaba nodded in agreement with his conclusion very straightforwardly.

"Besides, even experiments are bound to have errors. Xingjian, your reasoning is reasonable."

At least at this stage, there is no other explanation for this series of phenomena.

"Then the solution is easy to come up with now, but it might be difficult to implement... for you."

“Ah… that’s right.”

Xingjian grinned somewhat bitterly.

"Fulfilling my past self's wishes...facing things I didn't want to face in the past is like reliving a painful nightmare."

"Now that we've come to this, let me ask you one more question. Xingjian, have you ever been able to resolve those conflicts that you avoided before on your own?"

"I don't think I can recall it. Most of the time, I just try to numb myself and endure it as much as I can... and then those troubles just seem to pass by unnoticed."

Well, it's a typical childish way of self-preservation, where one neither wants to cause trouble nor make things worse, so one just swallows the anger.

It's not that there's no retribution, it's just that the time hasn't come yet. The things you avoid will eventually come back to you.

"Hey, it seems like you have a long way to go."

Futaba shrugged and sighed. But even so, perhaps because she had finally found a solution to her symptoms, the frown that had been a constant reminder of her anxiety relaxed a little.

"In short, finding a solution is always better than being completely confused. Perhaps Xingjian, you also need to untie the knot in your heart before time can move forward normally."

"Well, although we can travel freely through time and space at this stage... our physical strength seems to be limited."

Xingjian rubbed his temples. The bikini time travel would not take into account his limited energy and physical strength as an individual.

"Resting in this world isn't a very wise decision. It's better to recuperate in our original time and space before time traveling."

Futaba, who has always been cautious, naturally came up with the action plan with the lowest risk, which actually happened to be exactly what Xingjian was thinking.

"Well, let's stop here for today."

Having said that, Hoshimi straightened his back and then seriously extended his right hand to Futaba.

"Let's go, we should go back."

"Oh? I thought you would stay here longer. You are exhausted after all."

Although Futaba no longer showed obvious hesitation and twitching when making physical contact with Hoshimi like before, she still paused for a moment before putting her hand on the other person's hand, while complaining in her usual cold tone.

"No, mainly because I'm hungry."

"........."

Hoshimi answered Futaba's question seriously while rubbing her stomach, not paying attention to her tone - in fact, this was also the way of getting along that the two of them had long been accustomed to.

"You're a foodie. If you put a little more thought into your science studies, you'd be doing more than just above-average grades."

"Eating gives me satisfaction, but doing grueling science problems doesn't."

"Learning to accept and get used to the long-term investment required to obtain positive feedback in satisfying desires is what distinguishes humans from simpler creatures. Xingjian, you must not understand."

"Yes, yes. No need to beat around the bush and call me a simple creature, Ms. Futaba."

After making some jokes as usual to ease the atmosphere, Hoshimi winked at Futaba, and the two slowly closed their eyes, intending to return to the time and space ten years later.

Although Xingjian has figured out what the puberty syndrome is that happened to him, he still feels a little uneasy for some reason.

It seems that every decision in the future, if slightly deviated, may lead your future in a different direction——

Even if the decision wasn't made by him, it could still have the same impact.

It was the first time he had such uneasy thoughts.

Maybe it's just an illusion.

----

Let me briefly explain here that from here on, it's the branch node. If you want to see which line, please leave a comment in the comment section of that line. The voting in the forum Q group will also be carried out simultaneously. The line that most people want to see will be regarded as the main line and completed first.

Futaba Line

Hayasaka Line

Kato Line