A/N: This is a rehashing of the first chapter of the manga, but although I have made some modifications, it is not necessary to read to enjoy the story. Your choice.

I switched this chapter with the first so that our protagonist is introduced from the beginning. A small warning that the interludes may not necessarily occur in chronological order to the story, especially if Takemichi time-leaps in the middle of the arc.

Hanagaki Takemichi slouched on his cheap futon as he watched the morning news while munching away at a bag of chips. Light filtered in through the windows of his cheap apartment, and the room felt cluttered and smaller than it really was with the empty bottles and containers scattered over his table and floor. He'd clean it up sometime, but he didn't really want to at the moment. Summer tended to do that. He needed to go to his part-time job later, but until then, Takemichi just didn't feel like doing anything. He paused eating to let loose a large yawn.

The reporter on the screen droned on. "The Tokyo Manji Gang has been on the rise, and in a recent dispute, a few uninvolved citizens fell victim."

The name rang a distant bell, but he couldn't immediately associate any memories with it. He shifted uneasily, the room suddenly feeling warmer.

"A witness at the scene reported that a truck suddenly swerved off the road and crashed into the victims at a nearby park. There were two casualties: 25-year old Myers Blake and Tachibana Hinata. The culprit has not been--"

Takemichi scrambled for the remote, not caring that his greasy hands smeared over the buttons as he rapidly upped the volume. He must've not heard that right; he'd set the sound a little lower so that his neighbor wouldn't complain at him again--

He breathed in sharply as the reporter repeated it in the same, monotonous voice, as if it were just another ordinary piece of news.

"Tachibana...? She's...dead?" They hadn't seen each other in over ten years, and she was a remnant of his middle school days. That had been the peak of his life, the time he'd had a girlfriend and hung out with his delinquent buddies, fighting off the neighboring schools. And then it'd just kind of fallen from there, to where he was now. He stared at the screen for a little longer, which had by then switched to a new piece of news.

It was a difficult pill to swallow. He'd mostly forgotten about her after middle school and still couldn't even fully recall her, but there was some peculiar feeling at having someone he knew dead. Suddenly realizing he wouldn't be able to talk or meet with her anymore, even though he wouldn't have normally done so. It was over, though. She was dead.

A loud banging on the door to his apartment broke him out of his thoughts, and he sluggishly pushed himself up and headed to answer it.

He apologized to his neighbor again and headed to work, but he couldn't fully concentrate.

---

Takemichi sighed as he stared down over the train tracks. His t-shirt and baggy pants stood out against the cluster of suited businessmen waiting to his side. All around him were people more successful; they'd done something right that he hadn't. Just where exactly did he go wrong? Tachibana's death had left him feeling reflective as he thought back over his life. But it didn't matter. He was stuck in this situation for now and the unforeseeable future. He didn't like it, but there was nothing he could do about it.

He heard someone step into the line behind him as the train blared into the station. And then things went awry.

Something pushed the small of his back with enough force to propel him clean off the platform and painfully drop onto the tracks below.

"Huh?" Takemichi sat there, stunned. What just happened? The screech of the incoming train, which was entering the mouth of the station, jerked him back to attention. The crowd of onlookers had whipped into a nervous frenzy, some already turned away as if they knew an accident was about to happen. The station platform had never seemed so high above the tracks. He had less than twenty seconds before the train would hit him and was pretty much past the point of saving. Was this how it ended?

A hand reached down to him, the only one of hundreds. Takemichi stared at it blankly for a few precious seconds. The hand waggled above him, its owner lying down on the walkway with their arm extended to him in front of the rapidly approaching train. "Get up!" roared the black-haired man, carelessly dirtying his pressed suit on the ground.

What was the point, really? He wouldn't be able to climb up in time nor run to the other, parallel set of tracks in time. Everyone else seemed to recognize this, and the previously frozen bystanders tried to drag his attempted savior away from the edge of the platform, trying to prevent a second casualty. But he clung on with white knuckles, refusing to budge. "Hurry up!" the man yelled over the blaring train.

Something about that scene had him rise to his feet and leap to reach the hand. It was futile; he knew that as the train was so close that he could see the terror on the conductor's face through the window, and yet he tried.

It was in the last seconds of his life that everything seemed to slow down. "I'm going to die." It was a realization he'd had 10 seconds earlier, and yet this time it really seemed to sink in as he soared through the air. Even if he caught their hand, there was no time to pull him up. This truly was it. The end of this pathetic life.

Perhaps he could've changed it. His second year of middle school was the time he had truly felt alive, when he'd had it all. Friends, a status, and a girlfriend, Tachibana Hinata. He'd loved her with his whole heart back in the day, although now it felt hollow. But if she was the last person he thought about before he died, that had to mean something, didn't it?

He could touch the train if he reached out. There was no question about his fate. And at the same time, his hand collided with that of the man on the walkway. A curious, electrifying sensation ran over him in that instant as the world turned black and the dim roar of the crowd and blaring of the train stopped abruptly. All he could hear was his heart beating in his ears.

---

His eyes snapped open. He could feel Tachibana Naoto's small hand in his only seconds prior until the world had changed around him again. A blank ceiling greeted him, and he realized he was lying down. It was no longer that small park in the evening, where he'd confessed about Tachibana's death without thinking to the boy.

"Where...?" he subconsciously muttered.

Hurried footsteps signaled someone's arrival. Takemichi sat up from the bed he was lying in as a capped officer approached him. There were other people typing away at a row of computers or walking around, and a long line of filing cabinets lined the back of the room. Was he still in the train station?

"Are you alright?" the officer called upon seeing Takemichi. "You fell off the platform. You don't have any external injuries besides a few scratches, but just to be sure, can you tell me your name?"

"Hanagaki...Takemichi," he said dumbly. So that hadn't been a dream. But wait..."Didn't I get hit by the train?" He shrugged his shoulders and fidgeted in place, trying to feel for any pain. It didn't come.

The officer sighed. "I guess a little confusion is expected after what happened. But after you fell, this man hauled you back up." He gestured to a man in a dark suit standing a bit behind him that Takemichi had thought was just another station worker. Looking closely, it was the very same person he remembered who had tried to save him. Something about his orderly, black hair looked a little more familiar than that, though.

His savior finally spoke, addressing the officer. "Would it be alright if I could talk to him alone for a moment?" It was met with a nod, and the station worker stepped back a respectful distance. Takemichi watched on, his thoughts still muddy, as the man dragged a chair over and sat at his bedside.

"I'm Tachibana Naoto," the man introduced himself. "And in 2005, you told me my sister would die." Takemichi was still trying to process the fact that he didn't die, and this new news on top of it wasn't really helping. He stared on, dumbfounded, as the insane man in front of him kept on speaking. And the weirdest thing of all was that Takemichi partly believed him after what he had just witnessed. "Takemichi-kun, your time leap changed the future!"

"I..what?" he blabbered.

"It was July 1st," Naoto continued. "My sister and I, along with one of her friends, were originally going to visit a festival, but we ended up staying at a nearby park. But a truck suddenly pulled off the road and headed at us. None of us had expected it to happen and were ill-prepared. I, myself, would've died if her friend didn't push me out of the way." His voice softened, as if his next words were directed at himself. "Why she chose me and not herself or my sister, I don't know. Maybe she thought I was the easiest to save." It hardened again. "They both died that night."

Takemichi shifted uneasily as Naoto's gaze darkened. "After that, I felt lost and wandered mindlessly for a time. I hated how powerless I had been, but eventually it faded away after a few days. And then I saw you fall onto the tracks, Takemichi-kun. Something came over me, and I tried to rescue you. Perhaps I saw my sister in you and wanted another chance to save her. Perhaps I wanted to pass on the good will of her friend. Perhaps I just didn't care anymore."

He tentatively reached a hand out and patted Naoto's back. The man was shaking, with his fists clenched and shoulders hunched. But he resumed speaking.

"And then everything changed when I grabbed your hand. Suddenly, I was standing at the front of the station, and my memories were different. I remembered that warning you told me 12 years ago, and I'd heeded your words and studied hard to become a detective."

This was the moment of truth. "Then, did she...?!"

The expression on Naoto's face was enough of an answer. "I tried everything I could! But she ended up dying again, even with this second chance."

Oh. He'd started to become hopeful after realizing he actually had gone back in time, but he hadn't managed to change anything. Tachibana Hinata was dead.

Naoto suddenly sat upright, knocking his hand off. The air around him had changed, and his eyes, no longer downcast, stared fiercely into Takemichi's. He swallowed at the sudden pressure. "Please help me! If you do, we can surely save my sister!"

Takemichi could remember that moment he'd seen her for the first time in years, exactly the same as his long-forgotten memories. Her face, her voice, the way she acted--all of it had brought back the love he'd had for her at the time. That love had faded with the passage of time, but it had just been rejuvenated. And now, presented with the possibility to keep her alive?

"Alright. I'll save Tachibana."

A/N: Before anyone asks, I intentionally didn't have them mention our main protagonist in the second future. She did not die at Hina's side this time around because something else happened to her that Naoto doesn't know of...