ONE HOUR

Kagasi Nami was twelve years old when he first discovered his extraordinary ability. Walking home from the park after school on a breezy May afternoon with his best friend Rhio Niwa, the two passed a ramen shop that sat tucked into the backdrop of an old rundown hole-in-the-wall-esque building. A shop that you wouldn't know existed unless it hit you in the face, which it nearly did that day. The door flung open as a satisfied customer stepped out and Kagasi stopped in his tracks as he took in the aroma that wafted its way toward him. It smelled exactly like the ramen that his late grandma used to make for him when he was younger. He closed his eyes and thought of the first time he'd ever had his grandma's homemade ramen recipe.

When he opened his eyes again he was no longer outside of the restaurant that stopped him in his tracks. He was now in his grandmother's home, surprised to see her stepping out of the kitchen and into his line of sight with a large bowl of the piping hot ramen he'd grown so fond of over the years. He didn't even notice his shorter stature as he leapt out of his chair and ran over to his grandmother and gave her a tight bear hug as tears ran down his cheeks.

"Sweetheart, what's the matter? Tell Grandma what's wrong," she said as she set the bowl down on the table next to her and took her warming gloves off.

"You're alive, you're really alive!" croaked Kagasi as he took notice of his higher pitched voice halfway through his sentence. He looked down at his feet and noticed a pair of fuzzy socks that he was always so intent on wearing everywhere he went as a young boy. He looked up and into his grandmother's eyes as she returned the tight embrace.

"Of course I am, where else would I be?" she asked rhetorically, letting out a slightly concerned chuckle. She leaned down and picked Kagasi up in her arms and sat down with him in her lap. Kagasi wrapped his arms around her tightly once again and didn't let go.

Over the course of one hour, he and his grandmother sat and ate the meal she had prepared for the two of them. Realizing that he wasn't dreaming, Kagasi basked in the surreal absurdity of the moment he found himself in and took full advantage of it, getting to spend time with the relative he hadn't seen since just before her death four and a half years ago.

Just as he was beginning to feel a sense of normalcy, when the clock had reached an hour past his arrival, Kagasi found himself standing outside of the ramen shop once again as a twelve year old boy.

"Catch up, man! You're such a slow walker!" exclaimed Rhio as he kept walking further and further away from his friend.

Seemingly no time had passed while Kagasi was in the past that felt like a distant memory. Realizing that he might never see his grandmother again, tears reappeared on his cheeks just as they did an hour prior. Kagasi had just time traveled to the past, and it wouldn't be until he was seventeen that it would happen again.