"Chiaki, you stupid, foolish boy," his mother sobs when he returns back to his time - his home. "Why did you - what made you - it was only a painting - "
It wasn't, for me. It was much more.
"Why on earth didn't you tell me? You could've changed the course of time! What did your professors teach you? Oh, Chiaki…"
He tries to smile. Makoto. I'm going to wait for her.
"A few seconds, that's what it seemed like," his mother continues worriedly, cupping his face in her hands. Her shimmering eyes make his stomach prickle suddenly, and he droops a little. The love of an idiot (because that's what he is) weighs a lot. "But look at you, you're already taller and more - more - "
More broken?
"I'm all right, Mom," he says.
"Really?" she asks.
He lets himself be led into his house, where Mom has made him dinner. Outside in the streets, a couple of kids laugh and holler, their hoverboards skimming effortlessly in the air. A giant gondola outside the window, stares, bloated, at him, advertising some sort of skin cream. Chiaki puts his hands in his pockets.
"Are you all right?" Mom says, just to make sure.
Chiaki's eyes hurt, but it's just from the sunshine.
"Yeah, I'm okay," he tells her.
His hand goes to his wrist, and then to his empty, hollow heart, and he realizes with a bitter tang in his mouth -
He's not.
And he won't be, for a very long time.