Chapter 2

The next morning, a pleasant smell woke me up.

I got up and groaned. Sleeping on the floor hurt.

Why was I sleeping on the floor? Did I drink too much last night? It took a moment for my cloudy memory to clear up.

Right...my student, Yamamoto Sayaka, showed up and began acting like my wife.

"Are you awake, dear?"

Her bright cheerful voice sounded from the kitchen.

"Hmm?"

"I've prepared breakfast, let's eat."

She was standing in the kitchen wearing her uniform and an apron. She looked exactly like a newlywed wife who was also still a high school student...

I had to blink a couple of times to absorb this picture.

"Dear, what are you doing? Come eat breakfast. Today’s egg rolls turned out really well.”

My mouth was half open, ready to reply, but no words came out.

"Sayaka, I — "

“Eat, and then we will talk."

My body followed her commands as if it was the most natural thing to do.

I sat down, and she put a bowl of rice and miso soup, a portion of golden egg rolls and a cup of coffee in front of me.

"You like yours with a bit of milk and no sugar, right?" she asked.

"Oh, uhm...yeah."

She returned to the kitchen to get her own breakfast. I tasted the coffee; it was exactly the way I liked it.

Sayaka returned from the kitchen, and we began to eat. The miso soup was nice and salty, the egg rolls had a hint of sweetness, and the rice shimmered.

It was the perfect breakfast.

"So...how is it?"

"Hmm?"

I looked up and saw her looking intently at me. There was a hint of a smile in her eyes.

"It's really good."

"And who made it for you?"

"You did."

"Who did?"

"Yamamoto Sayaka."

"Eh-hehehe~"

Sayaka took up her chopsticks and began to eat.

We ate in silence for a while until Sayaka spoke.

"Today is a rest day for you, right? Or do you have some work to do?"

It sounded like there was some hidden meaning in what she said, but I couldn't tell what she was trying to get at.

"Today is a Saturday, so school is closed. I still have to prepare for Monday, but there shouldn't be too much work to do."

"Great!" She clapped her hands together. "Then we can do a bit of shopping. There's also that new crêpe store I've wanted to check out."

"Sure, we can go there."

"The weather is lovely today. I could smell the first hint of summer when I opened the window this morning."

"Oh, sure — WAIT A MINUTE!"

I slammed my chopsticks down. Why were we having a conversation like newlyweds? This whole thing sounded so natural, it’s as if we’ve been living together for ages.

"What's wrong, dear?"

"Everything is wrong! First of all, stop calling me 'dear'! I am Sato-sensei to you! And second, why are we eating breakfast like there is nothing wrong? This whole situation is wrong!"

"Ehhh? But I already explained everything you last night!"

"And you expect me to believe that you are a version of Yamamoto Sayaka from a parallel universe where you and I somehow became lovers and then got married?"

"That is the truth."

"And you also expect me to believe everything just because you took out a marriage form, a strange student ID and then kissed me?"

"Well...we can do other things if you want more proof," she said and blushed. "I know how you like it in the futon, and uhm...I'll even wear my uniform if you want me to..."

She averted her eyes and blushed like a virgin maiden on her wedding night.

"Kuh..." This brat…

"Gezz, what else do you want me to say?" Sayaka puffed up her cheeks. "Everything I said is the truth."

"There's so many things that don't make sense, but assuming what you say is the truth, how did you even manage to travel to this universe?"

"That is easy!"

...I seriously doubted that it was easy. Even Stephen Hawking only talked about parallel universe in theoretical terms, mainly basing this thought on the framework that the universe is infinite, and therefore it is theoretically possible that there is more than one 'you' out there.

"So what I did, right, was I just really wanted to spend more time with my beloved husband — "

"I am not your husband."

" —and so I went to the shrine every day and prayed suuuuper hard. I prayed and prayed every day until God came to me and said that the heavens had been moved by my sincere love. I told God that I wanted to see my darling husband — "

"You should call me Sato-sensei."

" —and God said that the only way to fulfill my request was to either commit suicide or travel to a parallel universe. But transferring persons between identical parallel universes violated some kind of cosmic law, and God said that this could not be done."

"And what did you say to God?"

"I told God that I would break every law in this universe to see my beloved Seiji."

As ridiculous as it all sounded, I couldn't help but feel impressed by her knuckle-headed determination.

Sayaka continued. "So God thought about it for a while, and then said that there was a way to cheat the cosmic laws. He couldn't transfer humans between universes, because we qualified as some kind of being with evolved consciousness, but he could bypass cosmic laws by transforming me into a piece of bread. God said that if the Seiji from another universe picks me up while I am a piece of bread, then our shared loved between universes would cause me to change back into my original form!"

Sayaka finished her story, picked up her chopsticks and began to eat again.

I stared at her, no words coming out of my mouth. Nothing she said made sense to me.

"Come, eat up dear, and then we can go to the park,” she said with an easy smile.

I sighed deeply.

“Sayaka, I really don’t know what to say. But regardless of whether your story is the truth or not, you need to leave my apartment right now.”

"What?"

"Please get out of my apartment — now.”

"Ehhhhhhhhh?! But why???? You said you believed me!”

"Your story matches up with how I found bread in the classroom last night, and I suppose this all so crazy that I have no choice but to believe you — "

"Then why do you want to kick me out?"

"I am a high school teacher, and you are my student. If someone found out that you are staying here with me, then I will lose my job, and I will never be able to find a job again.”

"That kind of thing..."

"That kind of thing is the truth. That is how society works."

"But we are married!" She pulled out the marriage form.

"The police would never believe this piece of paper."

"But..."

"I'm sorry, Sayaka,” I said, stood up, went to the door and opened it. "You have parents and a home. Go back to them."

"That — "

Before she could finish her sentence, her body disappeared and instead a piece of baumkuchen bread lay on the ground.

I stared at it with my mouth wide open.

What the heck just happened?!

I rushed over to the lonely piece of baumkuchen. Was this really Sayaka? I picked it up and took a close look.

"S-Sayaka? Is this you?"

I couldn't believe that I was talking to a piece of bread, but I definitely saw Sayaka transform into a piece of bread in front of me

"Sayaka! Where are you?! Come back!"

As soon as I said those words, the baumkuchen in my hands began to glow. There was a flash and Sayaka was in my arms.

"Bwahhhhhhh! That was so scary!" Sayaka cried and tears rolled down her cheeks. "Seiji...Seiji...I was so scared. Suddenly everything went dark, and I couldn't see anything, and I — "

Her clothes fluttered in the air and landed on the floor. This meant that she was naked in my arms. I could feel her gentle warmth, the smoothness of her skin.

She clung to me. Her whole body shook. Her tears soaked the shirt I was wearing.

It was in that moment I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time. Something sparked in my heart — as if my heart was responding to Sayaka's tears.

What was this feeling? I couldn't describe it. It was a feeling almost alien to my heart which hadn't really felt neither the heights of joy nor depths of sorrow. In the past five years, I've only felt a vague sense of tiredness.

"Sayaka..."

In between her tears, she managed to speak.

"God said that if you rejected me, I would forever turn into a piece of bread. I would grow moldy until someone threw me away, or birds would eat me. God said that this was the risk of my journey, but — "

She continued to sob, but I somehow knew how she was going to finish her sentence.

— but I said I didn't care.

"Then I guess you're stuck with me."

"Huh?" Sayaka looked up at me.

"Until we can figure things out, you can stay here with me."

"Bwaahhh!" Sayaka began to cry again.

This time she used my shirt to blow her nose.

[1482 words in this section, 6729 in total]

Sayaka went to the bathroom to wash her face while I washed the dishes in the kitchen. She had been in there for over fifteen minutes. Girls sure do take a long time to wash their face. I've never lived together with a girl before, so this was interesting.

While washing the dishes, I thought of how scared she looked. There was no way anyone could've faked those emotions.

I had to accept that Sayaka was telling the truth. But how in the world would I, Sato Seiji, end up going out with a student?! And marrying her no less.

How did I first meet Sayaka again?

I first met her in my second year on the job, while she was a first year high school student. At that time, I wasn't her homeroom teacher, but I taught a few classes that she was in.

I honestly didn't have many memories of her as a first year student; she was a good and wholesome student, a cute girl who was little naive, but then again so were most high school students — naivety was part of youth.

Sayaka didn't stand out. She was never bullied or isolated, her grades were neither good nor bad.

She was a normal girl.

But there was one memory that did stand out.

In February, just a few weeks before the end of her first year, Sayaka came to the office to talk to me. She came with her friend, Tanaka Ayumi, the ace of the school’s swim team.

They came to my office, thanking me for the 'wonderful year'.

What did I say at that time?

"You are Yamamoto Sayaka, correct?"

"Y-Yes!"

"You've worked hard this year, and you've improved a lot. Do your best as a second-year student."

"I will!"

I thought that the conversation would end there, but Sayaka showed no signs of leaving.

"Sayaka, I'll be going," her friend said.

“Ayumi-chan? Wait - “

"Take your time. I just need to get something."

"Okay..."

Tanaka left.

"Is there something you need?" I asked.

Sayaka glanced left and right, a slight blush on her face. She seemed to be hesitating.

"Uhm...it's just that I was wondering if you knew what classes we are going to be in for the second year."

"Class lists haven't been finalized yet."

"Are we going to get new homeroom teachers?"

"I think so."

"Then— " She looked down at the ground, her hair hiding her expression. " — would it be too much to ask to be in your class?"

"You want to be in my class next year?"

"Yes..."

"Hmm..." I folded my arms. "I don't have that much control over the finalized class lists, but I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you very much!"

Sayaka bowed and left.

Was that the first sign that Sayaka liked me? Or was it wrong to assume to that? Maybe the Sayaka in this universe had no special feelings for me, but the current Sayaka in my apartment did?

Sigh...this was making my head hurt.

I did manage to arrange for Sayaka to be in my class, and I did notice that during the first homeroom period of the second year, Sayaka was in a good mood.

It was starting from that day, the first day of the new academic year, a pleasant day in early April, that Sayaka began showing up more and more in my office.

After a few visits I accepted that sometimes there was nothing in particular that she needed, and that she just came to chat for a bit.

But how in the hell would these little lunch time chats develop into a marriage?! That’s like taking a flight from Tokyo to Hokkaido, only to end up on the moon.

A bowl slipped out of my hand and fell to the ground. Luckily it was a miso soup bowl, so it didn't break.

"Seiji, are you okay? I heard something fall."

Sayaka came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her. Her legs and cleavage were on full display.

"Sayaka! Go put on some clothes!"

“But I just got out of the shower."

"You took a shower?"

"Yes."

"Do you even have a change of clothes?"

"My uniform is in the washing machine. I thought I could just wait for my uniform to dry."

"And what are you going to wear until then?"

"This towel?"

I sighed.

"Here..." I went to my closet and got out a Uniqlo shirt and sweatpants. "Wear these for now.”

Sayaka took them, and in the process her towel fell to the ground.

"Sayaka!"

"Eeek!"

She turned around and ran to the bathroom.

I went back to washing the dishes. The image of her body was stuck in my mind.

Wash the dishes, wash the dishes, purify the mind. Oh great Buddah, guide me to enlightenment.