Summary: Sometime, someone just needs a little push. A conversation between Hitomi and Yukari.
She'd been gone for nearly 4 months. Missed the spring prefecture meet, missed the entire first semester of her sophomore year... almost. But 3 days wasn't enough time to catch up on anything... except maybe to inform the school that she, Hitomi Kanzaki, is indeed attending Kamakura-Kita High. Some of her teachers insisted that she repeat the year, that she'd missed too much of the school year to catch up, that she'll fail and be forced to repeat anyways. She set to prove them wrong. So Hitomi Kanzaki spent her summer buried in books – cramming a semester's worth of material while her classmates were out enjoying the beach. Yukari helped, of course… and Amano.
Yukari told her he stayed behind in Japan because she went missing (into that pillar of light). When Hitomi came back safe and sound, Amano convinced his parents to let him stay and finish high school in Japan. Though the real reason he's staying, Hitomi knew, was for her. Yukari came to the Kanzaki household almost every day to help her study or just to keep her company. Sometimes she wondered if Yukari came to make sure she was still here, on Earth.
They asked. When she appeared, just as mysteriously as she disappeared that day on the tracks, her friends and family cried with relief. They insisted she get checked out at the hospital to make sure she wasn't hurt (she wasn't). Her mom must've told them something, because their questions weren't as earnest. They didn't call the police to report her missing. Her mom informed the school that Hitomi was going to be absent (for an indeterminate amount of time). But they did have questions. "What happened?" "Where were you?" "What was that pillar of light?"
She had a hard time explaining to her parents, to her brother, to Yukari, what did happen. After all, really, she'd been on a world with dragons, knights, leviships, guymelefs, and Dornkirk's fate altering machine. Sounds like something from a fantasy novel. How could she begin to explain how the love between her and the young king of Fanelia? So she told them. There's a hidden planet behind the moon, Gaea, where the Moon and the Earth hang in the sky, where power of people's wishes can change destiny. She got caught in a war there. On her first day, the country she was staying was razed to the ground. (Sometimes, she's still haunted by Balgus's death). Between running from those who burned Fanelia and preparing for war, there was almost no time to figure out how she could get back home. In the end, she learned, all she had to do was wish hard enough.
She wasn't sure if any of them believed her, as in really believed her. She regretted telling them about the burning of Fanelia almost the instant it left her mouth. There was hugging, and crying, and a moment of awkwardness between her and Yukari because one of them was no longer the innocent high schooler they were both supposed to be. Even if they believed her, believed that she was on another planet for the last four months, nobody knew how to deal with it. Therapy for PTSD? Hitomi had nobody (alive) with which to share about her experiences on Gaea, and everybody knew it. So they did what they could. Since Hitomi is fine, they ignored it. Not avoid. Ignored. It meant nobody brought it up as the topic for dinner conversation, but they didn't change the subject whenever she talked about it either.
Gaea changed her. It's only natural that an experience like that would change a person. Yukari was the first to tell her so, that one summer afternoon at a deserts café. Ever since Hitomi came back, she's had more drive, yet she always carried an air of melancholy.
"Eh? what do you mean?" Hitomi looked to Yukari in alarm.
"It's like you've left a part of yourself on that planet." Yukari answered quietly.
Hitomi's eyes softened before turning to look at the vast expanse of the ocean, her mind wandered far beyond, to another world, far, far away. The corners of her mouth tipped up and she said. "Maybe I have. Maybe I have."
Her words scared her. If it's so easy to go to that place, Gaea, Yukari was afraid that one day Hitomi would just leave. Disappearing in another pillar of blue light. She wasn't ready for her best friend to disappear like that.
"Ah... you know – Amano-senpai is coming here at six. Maybe we could – "
"If you love him that much," Hitomi cut her off, still staring at the sea. "You should tell him."
Yukari looked at her friend in shock. "Wh- What are you talking about, Hitomi?"
"I said," turning her gaze to her best friend, she said in a neutral voice. "If you love him that much, you should tell him."
Yukari was speechless. She thought she was hiding it so well, while Hitomi was so obvious about her affections. What changed? She almost wanted to smack her head as soon as the thought entered her mind. Gaea.
"But – I though you liked him. Why are you telling me to – "
"I did. Oh Yukari. You're a much better person than I am. You love him, probably more than I ever did, yet you were willing to let me chase after him. I couldn't do that," shaking her head at the memory of Millerna and Dryden's wedding. "I couldn't do that and people got hurt. So like I said: if you love him that much, you should tell him."
"I – when did you find out?"
"The first time I came back from Gaea," Hitomi continued after seeing the look of confusion on Yukari's face. "At one point, I got so sick at the war there, that I came back. I woke up the day before I left, when I collapsed on the tracks. I saw your face when you came in to the nurse's office when I was with Amano-senpai. Then I began noticing how you talked about him - Oh Yukari" she drew her best friend into a hug, not so dissimilar to the one Yukari gave her under the bridge that day. "I never noticed. I was your best friend, and I didn't notice."
As she remembered that day, and the next, things were beginning to make sense. "So that's why you were acting so strange."
"Mmh," Hitomi answered, pulling away from the hug. "I couldn't explain everything to you then because I had to go. I had to get back to Gaea."
"Wait – that's the day you disappeared. That's the second time you left. When was the first?"
"Eh – " suddenly looking nervous. "Also that day. But it was different. Different things happened, and I was taken by surprise. But when I came back, I came back to the day before. I knew everything that was going to happen those two days because it already happened. The second time I went to Gaea, I knew when the pillar of light was going to appear. But I ran towards it anyways because I knew I had to get back there," putting her hands together and bowing. "Forgive me Yukari. For making you so worried."
The look of shock had not left Yukari's face since the start of this conversation, now a hint of anger creeped in. "You – you mean you went there on purpose? We - I thought it was some - We didn't know what to think and now you're telling me you knew?"
"Yukari, I'm sorry. But there was someone I had to see. Someone really important."
"I hope that someone was worth it," the anger had not left her voice, though she was calmer. "Worth your family, your friends, me, Amano worried sick about you for four months."
Hitomi heaved a sigh. "He was. But I'm back now. I'm back for good. I'm not going anywhere."
To that, Yukari had nothing else to say. Hitomi would sometime mention a certain "someone" when talking about Gaea, but she never gave any details as to who this "someone" is. She was beginning to suspect that it is he who has replaced Amano in Hitomi's heart.
They sat in silence until, true to his word, Amano arrived at 6 PM sharp. Giving a wink and an arm squeeze of support, Hitomi promptly left the two, claiming she had to get back to studying. A week later, Yukari told her she and Amano started dating.