The Butterfly Effect

Phone Call

That nap, turns out, is exactly what I needed. By the time I wake up from it, I feel relaxed and refreshed already. Maybe I was just a bit jetlagged, perhaps that's why Valt felt so unfamiliar and why talking to him stressed me out.

The dorm rooms are pretty decent sized, too, and from what I can tell, I have this one all to myself. I don't have to share with anyone, which is strange. Then again, sharing a room basically equals not sleeping until the wee hours of the morning and not waking up until mid afternoon. I ought to know: I've had enough sleepovers with Valt to figure out that that's exactly what happens when you try to share a room.

Not that long after I wake up, my cell phone rings, and I answer.

"Did you talk to Valt!?" Kiyama Rantaro practically shouts into the phone.

I sit up, the memories of everything that happened coming back to me. Me yelling at Valt to not be stupid, Valt saying he has to focus if he wants to beat Lui... I remember all of it, and I truly wish I didn't.

"Yeah, I did," I say.

"You did!? Well!? What's going on!?"

I'm not sure how I want to word this. Part of me doesn't want to say anything at all.

Valt's perfectly fine and he's just too "in the moment" to talk to his friends. The endorphins and the new atmosphere and everything are just exciting him to the point where that's all that matters. He's thriving in New York. Once the tournament starts and he sees all his friends again, everything will go back to normal.

That's what I want to say. I want to lie to him, tell him everything's okay. But something inside of me is telling me that I can't do that. Maybe that's Spriggan. I'm honestly not sure.

"Valt's been too focused on training," I say. "When Lui took his eye out, he lost his depth perception."

"His what?"

"His ability to judge distance. I can look at something and tell that it's a meter away. Valt can't do that anymore. His coordination is completely shot."

"Oh, man," Rantaro sighs. "How's he gonna Battle?"

"He's been practicing like crazy. It's Valt; I'm sure he'll find a way." I take a deep breath. This isn't the complete truth, but it's certainly part of it. I'm not going to bring up how talking to Valt felt like talking to a stranger. I'm not going to bring up that he probably considered going to the Snake Pit. I'm not going to bring up that Valt wasn't happy to see me and would've rather not had me join the same team as him.

"But that's why he hasn't been talking to anyone," I say. "He needs to get his strength back."

"Oh. Okay. Even his own parents?"

"Yeah. He doesn't want anything to distract him right now." I shut my eyes. I didn't want to do this at all. I never wanted to tell anyone anything, but Rantaro called me and asked, and there was nothing I could do. "Could you relay this message to the others? You know, Kensuke and Wakiya and Daina?"

"Yeah, no problem." I'm grateful that Rantaro is the first one to have called. If it had been Wakiya or someone like that, we would still be going on about Valt and the Snake Pit, which is the last thing I want to talk about. "So, man, what's up with you? How've you been?"

"Fine," I respond. "The Bulls facilities are pretty nice, actually. The dorms aren't half bad, either. I get one to myself."

"Lucky! I have to share mine, and there's hardly enough room for the two of us!"

The rest of the conversation is pretty much like that: mundane, typical things we would be talking about under normal circumstances. The only difference being that Valt isn't there with me, or with Rantaro. Normally, if we're on the phone this long, it's because Valt's there, too. Rantaro is a nice enough guy, but he isn't the kind of person I would spend a long time chatting with. In fact, I don't spend a lot of time chatting on the phone in general. If I'm talking to someone, I would rather be doing it in person.

But right now, this phone conversation is nice. It takes my mind off things for as long as it can, until I glance at Spriggan on my nightstand and notice it pulsating.

Then I remember everything: the time travel, the past being altered, my foggy memory, my double past, two different timelines. Everything comes back to me like a flash of lightning, and I'm forced to debate on telling Rantaro about it.

Would he even believe me? Then again, this is the guy that believes in ghosts. Maybe time-travel via Beyblade isn't too far-fetched for him.

"Shu? Yo, Shu? You still there?" I hear him say.

"Yeah, I'm still here," I answer, snapping back to reality. "Hey, Kiyama, there's... there actually has been something weird going on, and I... I'm not sure if I should tell you."

"Go ahead, dude. You can tell me anything."

"I honestly don't think you'll believe me."

"Why wouldn't I believe you?"

Why wouldn't you believe me? I can think of several ways to answer that question, and none of them are good.

"Because it's pretty far-fetched," I say at last.

"Far-fetched? Dude, I love far-fetched. Just tell me."

He's so eager to know that I mysteriously time-traveled and altered the past. I still don't think he'll believe me, and I certainly don't know how to start it. It takes me a while to figure out what I'm going to say, but eventually, I do think of something:

"Do you believe in time-travel?"