Um, so, the way you become a magical boy is that you tell Kyūbey about a wish, it has to be something you desire with all your heart, and then he grants your wish in exchange for turning you into a magical boy. There's, like, a lot of caveats, you gotta fight evil monsters called 'witches', and we died to a huge one that was big and strong enough to destroy the whole city. I spent weeks dithering about my wish and when I was about to die I wished I could go back, and so now I'm back. I don't know if I can do any more time travelling than that, though, but my magical boy outfit has some clock themes so maybe I can?

- what, when is Witch Godzilla going to come destroy Tokyo -

Iiiiin about a month. There's this really weird unseasonal typhoon-like thing in three weeks which gets worse over the following days and then, Witch Godzilla. But we're gonna stop it this time.

He can fix EVERYTHING. He's going to do everything right! From the start!

"About a month" give me a DATE please! Can we evacuate?

So, like, I don't know exactly when it appears out in the ocean but the rains start three Saturdays from now, and then the big fight against the witch is two Mondays after that. I don't know if we can evacuate, by the time people notice how bad it's getting the streets are getting flooded and it's really bad. Since the weather forecast people didn't see it coming there isn't a lot of advance warning, and I don't know if people would believe us. And also witches feed on slash cause despair so if we evacuate everyone it might go somewhere else instead?

But we should try anyway.

Yeah. Ugh, nobody's going to believe us. I wouldn't believe you if you weren't talking in my head. You'd BETTER not be reading my mind. - sorry. It's nice to meet you, Iwasaki-san.

I am not reading your mind. I can only hear what you're sending. I assume you also can only hear what I'm sending? And, uh, nice to meet you too, for the second time. You can just call me Yutaka, I hear you don't like honorifics.

Did I tell you that in the, uh, missing month? Were we friends or something?

...yeah, um, ah... He can do EVERYTHING right this time. EVERYTHING. One person should not have this much power. We, um, actually went on a date? And then, you know. Died. With a few weeks in between but who's keeping track, really.

Oh. I. Well, obviously I don't remember that, sorry, and we might be a little busy with saving Tokyo? Rain check?

Yeah, uh, legit. Just, uh, you know.

Goddamnit. And he can't even argue? Haru is, in fact, correct? They should not prioritise this? Except, uh, if he spends the entire month celibate he might in fact die anyway, so.

So I'm supposed to be a magical boy soon? Is there a reason I should not be one today?

If you already know what the wish you wish with all your heart is (ugh) then not really. Just tell Kyūbey what it is and you can become the magical boy of your dreams.

OH WAIT HE'S A MAGICAL BOY THAT MEANS HE CAN ROOF HOP TO SCHOOL AWESOME!!!!!

—oh! I should tell you more about the caveats though. It fixes your dyspraxia, but that's because you become a magical rock that remotely controls your body rather than residing in your body per se, but also it doesn't feel any different from being in your body, except if you, like, lose your body somehow you can make a new one. You need to be within one hundred meters of the soul gem—I mean, I guess since you're the soul gem you need to be within one hundred meters of your body?—or you can't control it anymore.

Is it, like, hard to keep track of, or can I just wear it?

Its normal form is egg-shaped but you can turn it into jewellery somehow—I haven't tried it yet because I've been a magical boy for like ten minutes and I just did my transformation sequence into my magical boy costume so now the gem is part of it? Oh also you can only use your magic when you're in the magical boy costume but— Ugh he really should think before he speaks, he always gets ahead of himself and says everything wrong and then has to start over—

—wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Now hold on just a second.

Yutaka looks down at his gem, then at the magical shield on his arm.

He has a clock-themed costume. His wish was to be able to do everything right, this time. But he's doing this conversation wrong.

What... if he...

The "lid" of his shield splits in half and "opens" to reveal the clockwork mechanism inside. The gears start spinning and spinning and then—

So I'm supposed to be a magical boy soon? Is there a reason I should not be one today?

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

He CAN do everything right. He can do everything right. Everything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mankind was not meant to wield such power. Yutaka was not meant to wield such power. He's going to anyway but he wasn't meant to.

Not directly but there are still a few aspects of it that I should cover and you should make sure you know what you want to wish for, with all your heart. You'll be fine with all of the caveats, empirically, especially since you were the one who told me about most of them in the first place, but, are you going to school or, do you want to hang out somewhere so we can talk about all of it without getting distracted?

I'm on my way to school. Is there a skipping-school amount of stuff to cover?