“Ha…”

Even his buzzed scalp is red. He’s sweating bullets, and his eyes look almost teary.

“Ha, ha-ha-ha! Tesshi, you’re such a…!”

In spite of myself, I crack up laughing.

He’s a really good guy, and I’m positive I can count on him.

I thought of him as a friend before, but I’d like to meet him and the others for real and talk to them as a guy soon. Me and Mitsuha and Teshigawara and Saya. If Tsukasa and Takagi and Okudera-senpai were there, too, I know it’d be a blast.

“Sorry, Tesshi. I was just so happy you believed me…” I’m biting back laughter, and Teshigawara’s sulking. “Will you help me think up the rest of the evacuation plan?”

I smile at him. Tesshi’s face is still red, but even so, he nods seriously.

Once this is over, I’ll come see this guy, too, I think, feeling a little bit dazzled.

“A-a-a… a bomb?!”

Saya yells. She’s eating a mini shortcake from a clear plastic wrapper.

“Technically, they’re called water-gel explosives. They’re kinda like dynamite,” Teshigawara tells her, sounding proud. He’s crunching away on potato chips, and I’m noshing on chocolate drops. Saya bought a ton of convenience-store food and spread it all over the desk, so it sort of feels like we’re having a party.

Teshigawara and I are standing behind a map, outlining our carefully engineered evacuation plan to Saya. I almost want to play some energetic music to set the stage. Something percussive and a bit unhinged—something that sounds like a strategy meeting.

Taking a gulp of coffee milk from a pint-size pack, Teshigawara continues. “There’s lots of explosives in my dad’s company’s warehouse, for construction stuff. If I don’t have to worry about gettin’ caught afterward, I can snatch as much as we need.”

“Then, next,” I say, opening a melon bread wrapper. I’m really hungry, and for some reason, everything I eat when I’m in Mitsuha’s body tastes really good.

“Y-y-y… you’re gonna hijack the signal?!” Saya’s voice cracks.

Munching on curry bread, Teshigawara explains. “Rural wireless disaster alert systems like ours are easy to take over, as long as you know the transmission frequency and the superimposed wake-up frequency. The speakers are made so they’ll activate as long as a specific frequency is layered over the audio.”

Melon bread in one hand, I pick up where he left off. “That means we can send the evacuation order all over town from the school broadcasting room.”

I point at the map of Itomori. There’s a circle with a diameter of a little less than a mile, centered on Miyamizu Shrine, and I trace its edge with my finger.

“This is the area that’s supposed to take damage from the meteorite. As you can see, Itomori High is outside it.” I tap on the location of the high school.

“In other words, we just need to evacuate people here, to the schoolyard.”

“B-but that’s…” Saya begins stammering nervously. “That’s a full-blown crime!”

Even as she says it, she’s putting the strawberry—which she saved for last—in her mouth.