Considering the possibility of being overheard by others, it might not be the best idea, but Yōji wanted to ask, and I wanted to talk—so on the train ride home, we discussed time magic within a range that wouldn’t raise suspicions if anyone nearby listened.

For the riskier parts, we whispered through a messaging app.

There was so much to talk about. First, I explained when I first gained the ability and how it happened. As I brought up finding that strange Buddhist altar-like thing near our old hideout, the conversation derailed into nostalgic memories of our secret base.

Come to think of it, we haven’t been there in a while. Not that it’s surprising—we’re in high school now. But between the nostalgia and the fact that it might hold clues about the origins of time magic, we ended up saying we should go back.

Not that it’s some grand expedition or anything.

It’s just a corner of the woods near my house, way closer than the nearest station.

Since the cooldown reset while we were on the train, I had Yōji try using time magic again. I had him place his phone on his palm, then stole it during Time, halt.

From his perspective, the phone must’ve just vanished from his hand and reappeared in mine. He was shocked. Well, duh.

“Huh. Well, seeing it a few times like this, I can’t deny the existence of time-stop magic anymore. So, what’ve you used it for so far? If it’s only two seconds, I can’t really think of anything useful off the top of my head.”

“Right?

When you dream of stopping time, the first thing that comes to mind is peeking into the women’s changing room at the bathhouse, right? So I ran some tests, but one second just isn’t enough.

I tried plotting the perfect crime—sprinting from the front desk during Time, halt to sneak a peek—and even trained to become a side-shuffling specialist, but it was useless. Within the one-second range I could return from, curtains, lockers, and all kinds of stuff blocked the view. I couldn’t see a thing.”**

“Obviously. …Now that you mention it, you went hard on side-shuffle training for a while. I always thought it was for improving your reaction time to line drives as the third baseman. Never crossed my mind it was for something that stupid. Anyway, what else?”

“Oh, right. Tits are hard during Time, halt.”

“Huh?”

“Tits are hard during Time, halt.”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time. I’m asking why that even came up.”

“What’re you talking about? Tits are important!”

“We all know you’re a boob guy, just move the conversation along!”

“What in this world could possibly be more important than tits?

Anyway, it’s not just tits—through experimentation, I found that during Time, halt, it’s almost impossible to perform actions that involve deforming objects. Moving stuff without changing its shape, like shifting a phone from here to there, is fine. But a phone mid-time-stop feels like a solid block of metal—you can’t do anything to it. Can’t break it, either.”

“Huh, that’s interesting.”

“Right? I’d love to dig deeper into whether they’re literally impossible to deform, but the bottom line is: you can’t change the shape of tits during Time, halt. Meaning they’re hard. Wait, no—the other way around. I tried groping them, and they were hard. Wondering why led me to test other objects, and that’s the conclusion I reached.”

“Makes sense. If that’s the case, your conclusion seems sound. I’ll ignore the fact that this whole discovery started with tits—real classy.”

“You didn’t ignore it, you literally just pointed it out!”

“Well, unlike you, Hideaki, I can’t move during Time, halt. So whether tits are hard or soft makes zero difference to me.”

“‘Tits’ specifically? Wait, Yōji, are you an ass man? I bet butts are hard too. Not that I’ve tried.”

“The hell?!”

He flicked me in the forehead.

“Ugh, Yōji, you’re so boring. Someday, you might gain time-stop powers too and finally experience the wonders of the female form.”

“That thought never crossed my mind, and I’m fine leaving it that way for now. Figuring out fun uses for your powers sounds way more practical.”

Of course, we couldn’t cover everything in just that one trip home, so over the next few days, we kept talking about the time magic I’d used so far and the experiments I’d run.

Some of the tests I’d abandoned because they felt too stupid to do alone became hilarious when discussing them with Yōji. Ah, this is what I wanted all along, I thought again.

Oh, what about the baseball team?

The very next day, we both submitted our withdrawal forms.

The advisor wasn’t thrilled, but since we’re at an academically focused school, we just said,

“We want to focus more on studying from now on,”

and they didn’t push back.

Before, I could only tinker with time magic in tiny, isolated ways. But now, with Yōji, the two of us can research it together—and all I see in the future is time magic evolving like crazy.