Prettyinpinkgal: Camp NaNoWriMo has officially started and I can't work on my novel yet because I have a chapter and a half yet to write for this fanfiction. jifdosmfiodsf. So close. I'm going to try to upload these chapters rapidly that way it forces me to write those last two chapters without giving me some leeway. Let's do this!

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

BEFORE SHE LEAPT

CHAPTER TEN

"Huh?" Makoto said, eyes wide.

There was no reeling it back in. The words swam between them, taunting him. Chiaki slowly tore away his eyes from hers and glanced at Kousuke, whose face, for the first time he'd ever seen, was full of regret.

"I'm sorry, Chiaki," Kousuke said softly. "I had no idea she'd followed me."

Makoto must have seen Chiaki almost go off at those guys. She'd seen him punch the wall, yell at Kousuke about her...

She'd heard that he loved her.

Kousuke gestured up the street, and Chiaki managed a nod. Kousuke began to move before Makoto cried, "W-wait, wait! Don't go, Kousuke!" and grabbed onto his arm.

That was enough to break Chiaki's heart completely.

She was frightened of him now. She hadn't been when he beat up gangs at school once a week, but now, when his rage seemed focused on her-

He did not deserve her.

"I'll leave," Chiaki said hoarsely. "Don't worry."

But Makoto abandoned Kousuke and grabbed onto Chiaki's shirt, startling him. "No! Nobody go anywhere! What were you saying? What do-Chiaki, you're bleeding! Come on, I'll get you something to wrap it in. Do you think he needs to go to your place for stitches, Kousuke?"

"I'm fine, I don't need stitches, and stop acting so nice," Chiaki barked, pulling his hand away and looking to the side. He would not let her see him cry from her kindness.

"I'm not acting nice! I'm acting like your friend, and you are hurt, idiot!" she screamed back at him.

"Well obviously I don't think of you like a friend!" Chiaki shouted back, startling her into silence. "I'm..." He choked on his breath, coughing and squeezing his eyes shut. He hadn't wanted to tell her this way. Never this way.

"I'm in love with you" finally came from his lips. He winced at the sound of them. Had they ever sounded noble or romantic in his mind? Now they seemed ugly and jagged, too heavy for her ears. She apparently thought so too, judging by the way she moved backwards.

"I mean, I'm not ugly, am I?" he said with a weak smile. It vanished as soon as he realized he'd said that before, long ago.

She opened her mouth, but instead of answering Chiaki, she turned to Kousuke, obviously aghast. "Did you know about this? Why didn't you tell me?"

Chiaki couldn't take anymore.

He ran.

Chiaki winced as the cloth wrapped around his hand.

"Hold still," Sogoru commanded, getting some tape to hold the cloth in place. "It's makeshift, but it'll have to do."

"Thanks," Chiaki grumbled. Why he'd pounded on Sogoru's door after The Incident, he had no idea. But it was a comfort to have someone here, he supposed, who knew everything that was going on, including his dealings with the future.

Miss Yoshiyama set-what else?-tea on the table beside him. Chiaki looked at it morosely, but did not take it. Instead, he said, "Sorry for interrupting you guys."

"We've been catching up for practically twenty-four hours now," Miss Yoshiyama said with a gentle smile. There seemed to be more lightness in it, though, than he'd ever seen before. "We were talking so much that we fell asleep in my office."

"Bet that was awkward to explain the next morning," Chiaki said with a forced laugh. Neither of them took the bait though, and instead began questioning him on what happened.

After a while of suffering the verbal barrages, Chiaki broke down and spoke.

"Oh, Chiaki," Miss Yoshiyama said with a sigh.

"I know. I know. I can't ever make up for this. She's your niece, and you'd like to lock her up away from me," Chiaki mourned, head in his hands.

"No," Miss Yoshiyama said firmly, grabbing his uninjured hand. "I think you need to realize that times are different here. According to what few things Ken-kun has told me about the future, it's a harsh place. You're used to fighting to survive. You're not a bad person because a bit of that's rubbed off on you, Chiaki. You've never once hit an undeserving person, have you? You've never hurt anyone who didn't come at you first, have you?"

"Not yet," he said with a humorless laugh.

"You would never actually hurt Kousuke or Makoto. I think they know that. Makoto, when she first met you, told me that she was worried for you, but she thought you were more lonely than anything."

Chiaki groaned, thinking again of how undeserving he was of Makoto's kindness.

"But she also admitted that she just really wanted another person to play ball with," Miss Yoshiyama then added with a wink.

Here, Chiaki's depression stumbled, and his chuckle was a little more real.

"As for Makoto knowing your feelings for her...let her," Sogoru said, shrugging.

Miss Yoshiyama and Chiaki both stared at him. Miss Yoshiyama was the one who ended up laughing now.

"You would say that. At one point, he'd implanted memories into me of him confessing his love when we were children. You never were shy about telling me, were you?" she said to Sogoru, grinning.

It was strange to see Miss Yoshiyama so emotive, but it was stranger still to see the affectionate laughter that caught hold of Sogoru. "True, true."

Chiaki cut in. "What is the story between you two, anyway?"

Sogoru shrugged again. "Well, I had just discovered the time leap, and I ended up in Kazuko's era. I ran into her first, when she was just about to enter her senior year of high school. And, well, I may have implanted some memories of us growing up together in her mind."

"And in everyone else's," Miss Yoshiyama cut in.

"Yes, and in everyone else's. Then I accidentally left the time leaping trigger-an ingredient at the time was lavender-out, and Kazuko achieved the ability to time leap."

"After many adventures," Miss Yoshiyama chimed in, "I found out that his name was not Kazuo-kun, as I'd thought, but Ken Sogoru, and he was from the future. We were forced to separate. And I got sent back to where I'd first met Ken-kun, but without my memories of him." She turned to send a small glare at Sogoru. "I'm still not sure if I've entirely forgiven you for that, by the way. You have no idea the heartache it caused me once I figured out something was missing and I didn't know what."

Sogoru grasped her hand tightly in his. Chiaki smiled a little at them, but it did not last long. He was in no mood to feel happy at other people's fairytale endings, no matter how selfish it was.

"Wait a second," he said, a thought striking him. "Is it okay for Miss Yoshiyama to know about us being from the future? Why haven't you vanished?"

Miss Yoshiyama lifted her arm. On it was a small tattoo: 90.

"I found a loophole," Sogoru said, his eyes flashing. "Kazuko hasn't used this new time device. Neither have I, actually, hence my own tattoo. But I digress. I've found that after giving Kazuko access to time leap with this new device, I'm able to tell her the truth with no repercussions."

"But I had to disappear a few timelines ago, because I told Makoto the truth about me."

Sogoru shrugged. "It's the benefit of being the creator of the time leap, I suppose. I can't entirely break rules, but I can bend them. But back to Makoto."

Chiaki groaned again, feeling as if he was dying inside.

"I really think you're overreacting."

Chiaki's head bobbed up as he gave Sogoru a skeptical look. "You've heard the jokes about how Makoto leapt multiple times just to avoid my confession, right?"

"Makoto can be cruel without realizing it," Miss Yoshiyama said, sipping her tea. "She's rather like a child still, especially in that way. But we all must grow up sometime."

"She fell for you once, didn't she?" Sogoru said. "Perhaps she will do it again. But also give her a chance to breathe."

The next day at school, however, it was Day 18 and it was exhausting. Makoto was truly avoiding him now. But Kousuke was also avoiding Makoto.

"She can't do this," Kousuke told Chiaki at the baseball field. "I've been supporting you two getting together for ages now. And we're friends. If she's going to ignore you, she's going to have to go without seeing me, too."

Chiaki couldn't help but give an earnest grin at that as he caught the ball. "Thanks, man." But it soon slid away. "But don't you think she'd be lonely without you?"

"That. That is exactly why I want you two together. But seriously, she's lonely enough without you around. She just won't admit it. Now, maybe she'll feel forced to confront her fears. The worst that can happen to either of you is that, for the time being, she says no, and we move on. Plus, I guarantee you she's lurking by the gate, debating whether she should join us or not."

"I shouldn't have made her seem like she owed me her love."

"No. But no one's perfect, Chiaki. And honestly, you're a lot less of a dick than you seem."

That time, Chiaki laughed heartily, pitching the ball towards him with all his might. Kousuke had grabbed a bat while they were talking, and he hit it as hard as he could.

"All right," boasted Kousuke as the ball went way over the fence. "Who's awesome?"

"Don't get too full of yourself," Chiaki snorted, going to the gate. He peeked this way and that, but there was no Makoto on the empty street.

Ignoring the disappointment sinking his heart, he spotted the ball in the middle of the street.

What happened next was a blur.

There was a car coming, and it was coming fast. To his surprise, it showed no sign of stopping. Chiaki began to run, but he wouldn't make it to the sidewalk in time without being struck. He prepared to leap-

But before he did so, he found himself on the ground on the sidewalk, his back feeling horribly sore. Makoto somehow was doing summersaults beside him before colliding with the fence.

"Ow," she grunted as she righted herself. Then she looked at the road. "What did I just do?"

Somewhere in Chiaki's apartment, the timer reading 18 flickered and turned blank.