Safe to say that this is set sometime after the Case File 10. Enjoy.
Filling the VoidThousand years.
It was there – that gap, that yawning void, that prick in the back that kept reminding him, This is not your world. This is not what you're used to. Everything was so different – so extraordinary, how they marvelled at even the most simplest of achievements, how the nuances of a single human could tend to rewrite history, how even the smallest of actions – the slightest of gestures, shadows of wistful smiles – each went with equal importance into making the rich tapestry of life.
Ayase had never ceased to marvel at this.
It wasn't so much the technology as the way of life itself –
It wasn't about efficiency, it wasn't just about surviving, advancing, protecting – it was about celebrating what it meant to be alive. Where each and every person had a uniqueness that was respected and appreciated, where not everything was just about making the huge machine of life run smoothly.
Ayase could appreciate that.
It was something of a virtual stone age, but…
He had never felt quite as alive.
Not that day in the future when he had first beheld the power of a new beginning, and decided to join the Time Academy; not when he morphed into Timeblue, when that incredible power coursed through every nerve, muscle and bone of his body, rejuvenating him; not the pure adrenaline and unmitigated bliss that he experienced every time he drove.
It was the day Tatsuya – the young man from the past, the naïve rich boy, the enthusiastic leader, his friend – looked into his eyes with a determination that was neither the icy one that Yuri possessed, nor the manic one that drove Domon, or the simple, pure one that Sion had. It was all of that, and more.
It was the day he said that he could change the future, however pre-ordained it may be.
It was the moment he grinned – that annoying, annoying wide smile – and slapped his hand and said that Ayase would live, somehow.
Somehow.
The door opened – Tatsuya entered, grinning widely as usual, a huge box of takeout food in his arms. The others looked up, enthused, with Domon bounding and grabbing the box and Sion running after him, ready to salvage their dinner from the ravenous Timeyellow. Yuri smiled at Tatsuya – a genuine smile that melted her usual icy, calm façade – and issued an affectionate greeting, to which he replied in kind, widening his grin and winking. A delicate blush flowered on her cheeks as she quickly turned away.
Little things.
His life had never been about the little things before.
But now, those little things were what life was about.
The smile finally turned onto him.
"Would you like something, Ayase-san?"
Yes, it was a thousand years that stretched between them, yet Ayase could not imagine being any closer even if they had been born as brothers. For the desire to survive, to live on, to bring about change, connected them in ways deeper than Ayase could fathom, along with those little things that he had never thought about indulging in before. Which burdens he had been forced to bear never allowed him to.
He got up, and mustered a smile that gently quirked the corners of his lips.
"As a matter of fact, yes – I'd like at least half a morsel of food before Domon polishes off the plate."
Domon came up with a muffled half-protest, mouth stuffed with food. A laugh rippled through the room.
Be it ten centuries, or a hundred – it didn't matter.
This would never change.
Ayase would not allow it to.
For a warm hand extended in friendship, a smile, could stretch across even the deepest chasm of them all – Time.
Little things that filled the eternal void.