Time has stopped! Or so I thought, but then color returned to the world, and the sounds of insects and the wind reached my ears again.

“Huh? It’s over?”

I looked around. Seems like time is moving again.

What happened? Did the time-stopping magic end because I lost focus? Do I have to keep concentrating for it to work? If so, that’d be pretty inconvenient—I’d have to keep thinking “Time, halt” the whole time.

Then it hit me—I don’t actually know how to end the time stop.

Luckily, it seems to stop on its own, but the thought of being trapped forever in that monochrome, silent world is kinda terrifying. Still…

“Eh, whatever. Let’s just try it again.”

Heya! Time, halt!

—Buu-buu

A weird sound echoed in my head.

“Huh?”

—”Time Stop Magic will be available again in 9 minutes and 47 seconds.”

A voice—or maybe a sound effect?—resonated in my mind.

Ugh, seriously? I have to wait 10 minutes before using it again? That’s way more inconvenient than I thought.

Well, 10 minutes is enough to get home, so I guess I’ll head back…

I ended up slightly past curfew, so my mom scolded me relentlessly before punishing me by locking me out. At times like these, even stopping time wouldn’t help. Sitting alone in front of the door, I pondered the time-stop magic. I still don’t really get it.

After apologizing nonstop, I finally got let back inside.

So far, time magic hasn’t been useful at all.

That night, after dinner and a bath, I returned to my room, ready to experiment with time magic in peace. Pumping myself up a little, I shouted:

“Heya! Time, halt!”

The monochrome, silent world rushed in.

It worked!

IT WORKED!

MY TIME HAS COME—!!

…And just as I was celebrating, color and sound returned to the world.

“Ah, it’s over.”

……

“That was way too short.”

Oh right, I forgot I had to keep concentrating.

Time, halt!

—Buu-buu, “Time Stop Magic will be available again in 9 minutes and 52 seconds.”

Ah, right, the cooldown. Totally forgot about that.

Seems like the cooldown is about 10 minutes. But 10 minutes is way too long!

Sigh, guess I’ll kill time by playing Smash Bros. or something…

……

……

“Hideaki! How long are you gonna keep playing games?! Go to bed!!!”

Ah, Mom’s yelling at me again. Got too into Smash and over an hour passed.

Once again, because of time magic… except I couldn’t even use it!

Whatever, I’ll turn off the lights and get under the covers. I’ll try again there—this time, I’ll keep concentrating.

Time, halt!

Time, halt! Time, halt!…

No matter how hard I focused, the world quickly regained color and sound.

…Does this only last, like, one second?

Time, halt!

—Buu-buu, “Time Stop Magic will be available again in 9 minutes and 55 seconds.”

Dammit! That buu-buu sound is kinda annoying.

Hmm… So, time stops for one second, and then there’s a 10-minute cooldown?

There’s so much I wanna complain about, but for now, I decided to wait another 10 minutes to test it further. But before I knew it, I fell asleep. Well, can’t blame me—trying this in a dark room under the covers was bound to make me doze off.

The next morning, half-asleep while eating breakfast, I noticed my unique time magic was ready again.

First, I wanted to measure exactly how long the stop lasts.

Time, halt!

The monochrome, silent world rushed in.

I stared intently at the analog clock on the wall.

…The second hand wasn’t moving. Can’t measure anything if time itself is stopped.

Then the world regained color and sound. Phew.

Guess it’s about one second. Yeah, definitely one second. This time stop wasn’t completely useless (copium).

At this point, my impression of time magic is… This ain’t it.

But there’s gotta be some good use for it, right?!

There has to be some hidden potential. I need to believe that.