Amelia Watson's Another Worldline: After the Time Loop, It's You
Amelia Watson has lived—and died—this September four thousand times over. Four thousand loops through the same three fatal months, four thousand repetitions of the same "true history": seven people vanishing without a trace, an unsolved case called the September Knot, and Iris, always burning herself out to protect her, no matter the cost.
Now, finally, Amelia has broken free. A new worldline. A quiet apartment by the Misogi River. A detective agency that barely pays the bills. And next door, i
Amelia Watson's Another Worldline: After the Time Loop, It's You - The Antique Bookstore's Sense of Unease and the Yearning of Blank Space
Beyond the wall, the brisk, cheerful sound of a knife on a cutting board echoed through.
Ton, ton, ton—a steady rhythm. Then the sizzle of something frying. The rich, savory scent of butter drifted through the thin walls of the twenty-seven-year-old apartment building and reached Watson Amelia's room.
The clock by her pillow read 7:10.
Amelia, who had been lying face-down on her bed, turned only her head to the side and stared blankly at the wall. Her brown bob was a tangled mess against the pillow, and her favorite star-shaped pin had slipped askew.
(That girl's using my kitchen again without asking...)
What the hell, she thought.
She recalled the night before. She had definitely told Iris to go back to her own room and sleep. She'd been pretty cold about it, too. And yet, come morning, there she was making breakfast like nothing had happened. That positivity—or maybe just sheer stubbornness.
And seriously, was that clock of hers even humanly accurate?
Iris Ashford woke up at exactly seven o'clock every morning and had a knife in her hand by 7:10. Not a minute off. Amelia had been through four thousand loops—she would know. This girl's internal clock had to be made of chronometer parts or something.
A knock at the door.
"Senpai, it's morning. Are you awake?"
Amelia sat up. She ran her fingers through her bedhead-exploded bangs, re-pinned the star, pulled on her cargo pants, and tugged a cut-and-sew top over her head. Beige and olive green. Even she could tell today's outfit screamed "I've given up."
"I'm up."
Her voice came out hoarse and a little low.
She opened the front door.
Sure enough.
"Senpai, I'm worried about your fridge. You're even out of eggs 😨 Let's go shopping at the shopping street today! P.S. I'll bring breakfast at 7:30. Please eat it, no matter what."
Written on a yellow sticky note in round, bubbly handwriting.
"...Checking my fridge contents—are you my mother or something?"
She caught herself snarking at a sticky note, then let out a small sigh.
(This kind of thing is bad for my heart.)
It was just a sticky note. A yellow, seven-centimeter square scrap of paper. But packed into that little square was Iris's wholehearted "I want to make sure Senpai eats properly," and every time Amelia received one, something in her chest tightened.
She tucked the note into her desk drawer. As she did, a silver pocket watch caught her eye. An old thing with a small crack in the crystal face. She'd somehow ended up with it when she escaped the loop. For now, it sat quietly, stopped.
Last night, it had moved on its own.
Just once. A single click.
(I'm overthinking this. It was nothing.)
She closed the drawer, forcing herself to believe it.
Breakfast, as always, was eaten in Amelia's room.
Spread across the low table were fluffy scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and a hearty miso soup. Iris had made all of it in her own kitchen in Room 202, then carried it over on a tray. The walls were so thin that every delicious smell from the cooking process leaked through, making the wait a small torture.
"Let's eat!"
Iris's face lit up as she picked up her chopsticks.
Today, she'd braided just the right side of her waist-length black hair. Apparently it was her go-to style when cooking. Her clear silver eyes sparkled in the morning light. A white blouse and a navy long skirt. She'd apparently come over still wearing her apron, the cloth hanging from her neck adding a touch of domesticity.
"...Let's eat."
Amelia took a bite of egg.
(Why is this so good. Why. This is cheating. Even with four thousand loops of experience, I can't handle this flavor.)
She snarked loudly, but only inside her head.
Iris watched Amelia's face intently. Like a cat waiting to hear whether its food was acceptable, gazing up with those upturned eyes.
"...How is it?"
Her tone was polite, but her eyes were screaming, "Tell me it's delicious!"
"...It's good."
"Thank goodness!"
She smiled happily. That smile was a little too bright, and Amelia found herself slurping her miso soup just to hide behind the bowl.
(Crap. If this happens every morning, I'm really going to cave.)
After the meal, while Iris was brewing tea, Amelia opened the small refrigerator in the corner of the room.
It was practically empty.
Forget eggs—she was out of milk, too. The vegetable drawer held only a quarter of a cabbage she'd bought a while ago. The freezer contained nothing but an ice tray and a cold pack.
"Senpai, are you eating properly? Your fridge is completely empty."
A voice came from behind her. Amelia turned to find Iris standing there with a worried expression.
"I'm eating. Yesterday for lunch I had a convenience store onigiri."
"That's all!? No, you can't! You have to eat proper meals. You'll ruin your health."
Iris puffed out her cheeks.
(I mean, why are you even mad? God, she's cute.)
"...I've made up my mind. Today, we're going shopping. We'll buy fresh ingredients at the shopping street and fill up your fridge. You're coming too, Senpai. You have no right to refuse."
"I'm pretty sure I do have the right to refuse."
"You don't."
Instant reply.
Her silver eyes were blazing. This was the look she got when she absolutely would not back down. Amelia's observation skills, honed over four thousand loops, told her so.
"...Fine. I'll go."
They left the apartment a little after ten in the morning.
The sky over Fuchigami City was overcast again today. The humid air clung to the skin. It was almost May, yet the city felt oddly muggy. Maybe because it sat at the western edge of the Tama Hills, the breeze blowing in from the residential district to the east sometimes felt lukewarm.
From Corp Mizunashi to Nanatsuji Shopping Street was about a ten-minute walk. South along the riverside path by the Misogi River, across the bridge, and out to the station's south exit. Pass through the arcade from there, and you were at the shopping street.
At the arcade entrance hung an old sign reading "Nanatsuji Shopping Street." Total length: roughly four hundred meters. About seventy shops lined the street, though shuttered vacancies were conspicuous here and there.
Still, during the day it was reasonably lively. An older woman with shopping bags, an old man pushing a bicycle, a group of middle schoolers in uniform. In front of the vegetable shop, a booming voice called out, "Today's special! A bag of tomatoes for a hundred yen!"
"Senpai, the supermarket first. Fresh Marukawa should be running their Wednesday sale. Eggs are cheap there."
Iris said this happily, pressing close to Amelia's side.
"Where do you even get this information?"
"Marukawa's flyers come every Tuesday. And I asked the owner's wife at the set-meal restaurant Marutomi."
"Marutomi? The one with the seven-hundred-fifty-yen daily special?"
"Yes. I've been having them teach me about cooking, for your sake, Senpai. The owner's wife is a kind person—she taught me how to make dashi."
(When did you get so integrated into the neighborhood? My kouhai is a socializing monster.)
As Amelia stood there half-impressed, Iris suddenly reached out. Her slender white fingers tried to wind around Amelia's arm.
"Senpai, may I link arms with you?"
"No."
Amelia swiftly pulled her arm back.
Iris made a sulky face.
"Why not? I just wanted to make sure you don't fall..."
"I don't fall. How uncoordinated do you think I am?"
"Senpai, you're so stingy."
"Stingy and proud of it. Come on, let's get to the supermarket."
Amelia walked briskly ahead. She could feel her cheeks warming slightly.
(Stop it. That kind of directness is genuinely bad for my heart. The trauma from four thousand loops is going to wake up in a cold sweat.)
Grumbling internally, Amelia walked on through the shopping street.
The books displayed in the shop window fluttered, though there was no wind.
It happened as they passed the used bookstore, Urashima-do.
Iris suddenly stopped dead.
"Senpai."
Her tone had changed. Until a moment ago it had been sweet—now it was suddenly serious, a detective's face.
"Look at that display window. Compared to when we passed here thirty minutes ago, the arrangement of the books has changed."
Amelia's feet stopped too.
"What?"
"The top of the stack was 'An Introduction to the Philosophy of Time and Causality.' But now 'The Strange History of Quantum Theory,' which was next to it, is on top. And no one seems to have touched them."
—That was the moment.
A small pain shot through Amelia's left temple.
A throb.
It was like déjà vu, but sharper. The illusion of having glimpsed clock hands turning backward at the edge of her vision. Her chrono-sense—the innate perception ability that detected traces of temporal anomalies—was faintly reacting.
(Is this a residual trace of a time rift?)
Her heart pounded, heavy and slow.
Temporal anomalies. Phenomena where time rewinds, stops locally, or the worldline itself shifts slightly. Generally unrecognized by the public, and most people can't even perceive them. Only chrono-sense bearers—born at a rate of one in a hundred eighty thousand—can detect them.
And Iris's words just now indicated that she, too, possessed that power—no, more than that. She was perceiving minute temporal changes with precision beyond ordinary chrono-sense.
"It's your imagination."
Amelia said it, feigning calm.
"Someone probably picked one up and put it back as they passed by. That's all it is."
"But—"
Iris tried to press further.
"I said it's your imagination."
Amelia spoke a little more firmly and started walking.
Iris stood frozen for a moment, then hurried after her with quick steps.
"...I'm really sensitive to this kind of wrongness. I don't know why."
Walking beside her, Iris murmured.
Tilting her head, looking puzzled at herself.
"For a while now, sometimes I feel like clock hands suddenly moved backward, or the scenery I was just looking at seems slightly different. I've had that for a long time. It's like... my head goes all fuzzy..."
Amelia's throat went bone-dry.
(Inside her, the memories of the true history—they're still there.)
The true history. The most stable progression of the world—the "proper" flow of time. In it, Iris always went out of control trying to protect Amelia. Over four thousand loops, Amelia had seen that ending thousands of times. Out of her love for Amelia, Iris destroyed the evidence of the September Knot incident, leaving it forever unsolved. That was the true history's fixed future.
In the current worldline, that history hadn't happened yet. Iris didn't have those memories. ...And yet, her chrono-sense was perceiving a past that should have vanished.
A blank longing.
That's what Amelia had named it. At the soul level, she remembered. But as concrete memory, she couldn't recall. So Iris was left with nothing but inexplicable wrongness.
(I can't let her get any closer to temporal anomalies. Absolutely not.)
"You're overthinking it. Anyway, look, we're almost at Marukawa. If the egg sale sells out first thing, what are we going to do?"
Amelia deliberately spoke lightly and patted Iris on the back.
The shopping ultimately proceeded at Iris's pace.
Inside the supermarket "Fresh Marukawa," Iris pushed the cart with practiced ease. First, the egg section for one pack ("It's the Wednesday sale, so it's forty yen cheaper than usual!" she explained proudly), then the produce section for spinach, onions, and carrots. At the meat counter, sliced pork and chicken thigh.
"With this chicken thigh, I'm thinking karaage for lunch today. Senpai, are you on Team Crispy Skin or Team Tender?"
"...Either is fine."
"No. Please answer properly. Understanding your preferences is my mission."
"Crispy."
"Understood! I'll double-fry it and make it absolutely crispy!"
Watching her kouhai cheerfully toss meat into the cart, Amelia couldn't help but smile wryly.
When the shopping was done, Iris insisted on carrying all the bags.
"Thi
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