Prettyinpinkgal: Happy Easter, everyone! May you all have a blessed day~! Just for full disclosure, I did change a few things in Miss Yoshiyama's backstory (as well as the fact that she is now the younger sister, not the older) so it's not 100% accurate to the manga/novel. Enjoy the chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" film or novel.

BEFORE SHE LEAPT

CHAPTER SIX

When Chiaki visited the painting again on Day 15, Miss Yoshiyama was there to greet him.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry for yesterday," he said, for once feeling bashful. "I, uh, kinda lost it there, didn't I?"

"Come with me," was all she said, leading him up the stairs towards her office. He obeyed, but with great bemusement. He'd expected her to merely brush off the apology. He didn't see what was left for them to talk secretly about, except maybe that she wanted to see if he was psychologically damaged in some way. But she was into art; surely she could've brushed off his reaction as that of a secretly sensitive soul.

She closed the door to her office behind them.

"Take a seat, Chiaki," Miss Yoshiyama said as she continued facing the door. He did so, facing forward as she slowly made her way to her chair. She seemed tired, but more than anything she seemed determined.

"W-what is it?" Chiaki asked, brows furrowed in confusion.

"What caused you to act as you did yesterday?"

Immediately, Chiaki relaxed. He'd had time to come up with a story as they'd walked to her office. "My grandpa mentioned it to me once, that painting. I just thought of it and I got all weepy. I'm a sentimental soul deep down, I guess," he said with a chuckle. It faded when he saw she wasn't buying it.

"You are a very smooth liar, Chiaki. Much like someone else I knew. It took me many years to recall him, but when I did..."

Miss Yoshiyama lapsed into silence. Chiaki waited patiently for her to continue.

"You asked me," she resumed, "to preserve the painting for the future. What is the future like, Chiaki? In your imagination," she tacked on when he opened his mouth to protest.

Did she know he was a time-traveler? Impossible. Maybe she thought something was weird about him, but she couldn't know something so specific, something so true.

"It's a mess," he said, his cautiousness sounding more like contemplation. "I mean, there were a ton of wars in the twentieth-century, right? There's probably more to come."

"More to come," Miss Yoshiyama repeated, crossing her legs and leaning forward. "Nuclear?"

"Who knows?" he said. He wasn't able to sound as airy as he intended. Yes, they were nuclear. Yes, they wiped out most of the earth's population.

"Does the smell of lavender have any special meaning to you?" she asked, seemingly abruptly.

His confusion was not false. "Uh, no? Should it?"

She stared at him long enough to make it unnerving. "Where's Makoto?"

"Oh. Uh. Home. Her mom's grounding her to get her grades up."

"Kousuke?"

"He's been attending college prep classes."

"So you're spending your free time here."

What's with the interrogation? "Look, Miss Yoshiyama, do you mind cutting to the chase here?"

"I can't."

"Why?"

She smiled a little, for the first time since he'd seen her. "Because you'll leave this place if I do."

Does she mean leave the museum, or...? "Look, ma'am, if you weren't planning on telling me anything, why'd you drag me all the way up here?"

"I wanted to see if you were connected to a man from my past."

He quirked a brow. "The man who lied?"

She nodded, standing and reaching for a picture frame. Her shoes clacked as she moved towards Chiaki and handed it to him. A girl stood between two boys. The picture smelled faintly of...

"Lavender?" he asked.

"Yes. I keep some by that picture, so I never forget again. I almost lost the picture, too, back when everything happened. Once I remembered, I was able to find it."

Was this how it felt for Makoto when they talked, sometimes? He didn't think he spoke as ambiguously as Miss Yoshiyama did, except due to certain events in this timeline. Still, Makoto said she knew he always kept part of himself censored. If his reaction to Miss Yoshiyama was like this, it was no wonder Makoto was so easily irritated by him.

"So who's the guy that lied?" he asked.

"He made an important invention that completely reshaped my life, and the lives of my friends, although no one remembers it anymore."

Well, that wasn't strange at all.

"The fact that you don't recognize him," she said, gently taking back the frame, "means you really don't know him after all. Perhaps I was mistaken. Or perhaps in the wars, he..."

The heaviness of the speculation settled on them like an ocean of water, choking his desired attempts to lighten the conversation and make his escape.

"Never mind, Chiaki," she said with a sigh, tucking some hair behind her ears. "I was hoping maybe...But never mind. You may leave. Thank you for bearing with me."

Chiaki didn't know what to say to that except to bob his head politely and move towards the door. When he glanced back, he saw her gazing at the picture frame. He could've sworn she was shaking, just the smallest bit.

"Chiaki," she then said, just as he was about to leave. "I swear to you, I will do whatever I can to protect this painting. Part of the reason I wanted to restore it was because I feared something bad may have happened to this man, or at least something bad had happened to his...country. I thought that was why we couldn't meet. And so, now, I want to protect it, so that that man can look at this painting and say, 'Kazuko's okay. And I'll be okay, too.'

"Now, I have more inspiration to save it. I'll make sure you can look at that painting years from now too, Chiaki."

As he left the museum, a call came.

"Hey," he answered, waiting for the bus.

"Are you willing to tutor me with shrimp tempura as your fee?"

Chiaki smiled, closing his eyes and savoring the sound of her voice. He needed Makoto's bizarre normalcy now more than ever, after that encounter with her aunt. "Now?"

"Yeah, or else I'm going to keep counting floorboards. As far as I can see, there are forty-two in my bedroom. I can't focus."

"Does the shrimp tempura mean you're inviting me over for dinner, too?"

"Uh-huh. My little sis left for a friend's house without letting us know earlier, so we have enough for one more person."

"I'm sure you can take care of that yourself-"

"Hey! Do you want it or not?"

Meeting the family. Isn't this getting a little serious, Chiaki? a mischievous voice asked him in his head.

I REFUSE to get myself excited for nothing, he mentally answered.

"Sure. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Perfect. I'll let Mom know."

She hung up, and he realized the second her voice left him, he felt awfully nervous.

He'd had nothing to fear. Makoto's parents tolerated her boisterous self, and so Chiaki's mannerisms did not seem to overly concern them. They had eyed his hair with some interest, but no comment was made in derision of it. The shrimp tempura was the first bit of home-cooked food he'd ever tasted, served with udon. True, he'd had some of Kousuke and Makoto's bento before, but this was fresh. There was a delectable difference.

"Thanks for the food," everyone said, and as Makoto's father excused himself, Mrs. Konno said, "Makoto, could you do the dishes?"

"Huh? But Chiaki and I have to study!"

Wow, he thought with a soft snort. She must hate chores more than homework.

The unamused look Mrs. Konno shot her daughter sent Makoto scurrying, sending an apologetic look over to Chiaki.

As soon as Makoto left, Mrs. Konno grinned at Chiaki, saying, "I've heard a lot about you. Are things going better at school for you?"

Makoto and her big mouth! "Uh, yeah, thanks for asking. Uh, no fights, if that's what you mean."

She laughed. It was hard to believe this was Miss Yoshiyama's sister. She was more...how would he put this? She was a bit more like a normal person, without deep secrets. Mrs. Konno was open and easily amused, quite like her daughter.

"You aren't a yankee, so that's good. I admit, as a mother, I was a little concerned. But Makoto's been having a lot of fun since meeting you, so I'm glad. She's pretty bold, but she only played with Kousuke until she met Yuri in her first year of high school. She doesn't branch out often. I understand she was the one who reached out to you?"

"Yeah. She asked me to play baseball after I got my a-uh, butt kicked. She didn't even ask to take me to the nurse's office." He decided since she knew how he was when he arrived in this era, he might as well be straight-up about everything.

Mrs. Konno laughed again. "You must have had quite the impression on her."

Chiaki was now acutely aware that this was what being interviewed as Makoto's potential boyfriend felt like. It resulted in deep tension and goosebumps. All he knew was that he wanted out of this conversation, even though he ought to have been elated that at least someone saw him as a possibility for Makoto's future.

"I understand you met my younger sister. I knew we needed to have you over soon to make up for it. She's a bit odd, isn't she, Makoto's Auntie Witch?"

"A little, but she's really cool too." Inspiration struck. "She was telling me about some of her friends she hung out with in high school when I was checking out the museum. I like art," he tacked on, lest Makoto's unfounded suspicions of Miss Yoshiyama and him had circulated their way to Mrs. Konno's mind. "Anyway, she said there was this guy that lied to her or something and that she'd lost contact with him. She said I reminded her of him."

Mrs. Konno pondered this over, pausing only briefly to answer Makoto's shout of whether she should let the bowls soak or not. "I only remember hanging out with one boy, Goro-kun. She hung out with a few girls, but no other boys. But she still talks to Goro-kun, so it can't be him...Oh!" she cried, her eyes lighting up. "Could it be...? I remember sneaking by her bedroom when I was on my way to meet up with my boyfriend at the time. It was back when she was in her second year of college and she had a few friends over. She said, 'Do you guys remember so-and-so?' I can't remember his name, though. No one remembered him. I think she must've broken up with him, and she took it so bad she got a little warped. I don't remember her being as odd back before her second year of college. She became a lot more quiet and thoughtful.

"Oh, and how could I forget the time-travel obsession she went on?"