Disclaimer: I do not own The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. My water bottle smells weird. That's bad, isn't it?

x: twenty-six

Blueprints

Makoto heaved a heavy basket full of fresh fruit into the private kitchen. "You're lucky, Kousuke! My grandmother had a ton of peaches left over!"

"Yeah, set them on the table!" came the muffled reply from the capacious study down the hall.

Makoto's brows creased, and she deserted the produce on Kousuke's counter. What could he possibly be doing? He can't keep his paws off this stuff. She tramped down the corridor and slipped past the ajar door. "Kousuke, what are you—"

Kousuke stuck his hand in the air and motioned for her to come over. Puzzled, Makoto trotted over and glanced down at the papers strewn across Kousuke's desk. "Whoa, what are these supposed to be?" Makoto inquired, picking up a sheet of paper and examining the strange numbers.

"Equations."

"Umm, what's this . . . loop thing? It looks like a race track," commented Makoto, rather daftly.

"I think I'm on to something," Kousuke muttered tersely, drawing a quick arc on the paper to another series of complicated equations.

Makoto raised a brow. "What is this for? Another wild space shuttle design for work or something?"

"Nah, pet project."

"Care to explain?" Makoto asked breezily, leaning unaffectedly on the corner of the table.

"Time-skipping."

She nearly choked on her own spit. "W-what did you say?"

"Just what I said," Kousuke replied, expression taut. "Skipping around in time."

"Uhhh," Makoto blubbered, eyes roving from corner to corner, "uhhh."

"What's with all the grunting?"

Makoto clamped her mouth shut, then opened it again. "Are you serious?"

"Should I not be?"

"Not exactly," Makoto acquiesced eventually. "Have you . . . figured it all out yet?"

Kousuke dropped the writing implement and threw himself back in his lounge chair, stretching. "Well, I just kind of don't get it. The math is working out, but . . . the design is flawed."

"What, you mean the walnut-thing?"

Kousuke gave her a weird look. "What walnut?"

"Nothing!" Makoto exclaimed, waving her hands in front of her. "I mean, you know, what do you mean, exactly?"

He rubbed at the bags beneath his eyes. "I mean, this." He tapped his pointer finger against an elaborately created drawing. "I'm just guessing, but if it did really look this, then how would anyone be able to skip from here to there?"

She traced her eyes lazily over it, reluctant to put much effort into actually understanding the convoluted image. She slammed her palms suddenly into it. "This is—!"

"What?"

She pulled the design from his desk, her eyes drawn like magnets to the sheet. She scanned the entire draft from end to end, ignoring Kousuke's protests to be careful, highly sensitive material—

"You would just . . ." she breathed, hardly believing the words coming from her mouth, " . . . jump from here to here, wouldn't you?"

Kousuke sent her a disbelieving look. He retrieved the sheet from her, and smoothed it out in front of him. He tapped the pencil against his temple, the gears of his mind turning. "Of course . . . the shortest distance between two points . . ."

"Eh?"

"A line. That's right. You would just skip from Point A directly to Point B." He sent graphite scratching furiously against the paper.

"In other words, you'd leap."

Kousuke shot her an agitated look from the corner of his eyes. "What's the difference?"

Makoto averted her eyes. "Oh, I think there's a huge difference." She brought her gaze back to him when he was no longer watching her. And it's time-leaping, Kousuke.

A/N: I don't believe Kousuke is on the verge of a breakthrough time-machine device. But I think he's clever enough to figure out some things, since he was so close to the anomaly. What I meant that they were looking at was a space that Makoto is very familiar with: clock gears, and red numbers in long black tracks. It's a pretty nifty place, huh? Well, at least, I thought so.

Sadly, I only have a handful of these pieces left in my computer, so it's likely I'll be putting those up and putting this series to rest.

Lastly, thank you for all the wonderful reviews! I love getting them, and some of you continue to amaze me by leaving a review for every single chapter! They really put a big, silly grin on my face. My only regret is that I am unable to reply to all the non-ff(dot)net users/anonymous folk that leave me little messages, but I appreciate them immensely, no doubts about that! Hopefully, the end isn't near. Have a spunky day.