The first time Chiyo woke was at 5:30, an ingrained habit from her rigorous college schedule. But through some determination and elbow grease she managed to sleep in all the way to 10. When it was finally time to rise, it took her a moment for her to figure out where she was and why her back hurt so much. The couch hadn't been such a great idea after all.

She showered quickly (it only lasted three minutes before she got napalmed; a bad omen, perhaps?) and dressed for her day. And what a beautiful day it was; the rain from the night before had cleared, leaving the sky a pale, sharp blue that hinted at the crisp autumn outside.

Ayumu slept as though dead, blanket pulled to about the level of her cheeks and with her hair forming a curtain over what little of her was visible. Chiyo gently shook her shoulder, in reply she made a sound that might have been an attempt at language, but probably not.

"Hey, c'mon. You told me to get you up."

"Fuhgeddaboudit," Ayumu mumbled thickly. "I'm dead. And I have a hangover. Come back when medical science has advanced enough to save me."

So her guest decided not to bother her for a little while, instead setting out on her "morning" run. It had been a habit she'd picked up way back in her High School days when everyone (save Ayumu) was faster than her. Speed wasn't really the object anymore, though. She just wanted to start her day on the right foot, as it were.

After a long, relaxing jog through the cold, misty city she returned to a surprise. The night owl had somehow rousted herself, and was busy making their breakfast. Ayumu looked dead on her feet, her hair sticking out randomly, clothes rumpled and eyes drooping. "You should feel really special. I never get up this early," she grumbled.

"It's eleven-thirty."

"Yep. It's way too early." Ayumu tossed the contents of the pan a few inches into the air and caught them expertly. "The last time I tried to cook before noon, I slipped on something and caught myself on the burner, hiss!" She glanced over at her guest, who was merely listening. "Wow. The Chiyo I know would be freaking out about now."

Chiyo blinked. "Huh? Oh, you mean my aversion to stories about pain."

"Yeah. I noticed you didn't bat an eyelash when I told you about Tomo jumping on my back."

"Well, the guys pretty well immunized me against that. Colin and Michael would compete to see who could come up with the most hideous methods of torture. My favorite involved an ice-pick, an ice cream scoop and a live rat..."

"Okay, that's enough. We're about to eat here, you know." Ayumu tossed the contents of the pan a little higher, catching them just as easily.

"I hope so anyway..." Chiyo winced a little as Ayumu flipped their breakfast yet higher.

"I make a game out of it," the other said easily. "One time I nailed the ceiling. Watch..."

"No, that's okay!" Chiyo yelped. "I'd rather eat that, thank you. Now be careful or I'll have to tell you about the one with the needles, the eye-dropper and the Tabasco sauce."

Ayumu gave an involuntary jerk. "God!"

Chiyo laughed. "Now you know how I felt. They would go on and on for hours. See, you take the first needle and press it under their fingerna..."

"Okay, it's done," Ayumu interrupted her.

It actually looked really good, if a little plain. More noodles than Chiyo would have used, to be honest, but not bad at all. The smell was nice, too. She took a good-sized lump for her bowl and dropped onto her end of the couch. Ayumu took hers and sat on the opposite arm. "You eat like a bird!" Chiyo commented. "No wonder you're still so thin."

"You should talk," Ayumu replied. "Okay, if you're really immune to stories about pain, we'll try an experiment. I'll need your help for this, ready?"

"Um... sure."

"All right. So you're at a water park. You're goin' down the waterslide..." Chiyo nodded. "Real fast, now imagine this, so fast that you can feel the friction heating on your butt and the lines, you know, you can see the segments of the slide just rushing past, vwiff! Vwiff!" She stood and moved her hands past Chiyo's head a few times. "Got all that?"

"...yeah." Where was this going?

"Okay, close your eyes and imagine all that as vividly as you can." Chiyo did. "Okay, you're zoomin' down the slide... and then... and then... one of your toenails catches on something!"

Chiyo's reaction could hardly have been more gratifying. A massive shudder starting in the toe in question shot all the way up her body as a sharp gasp rushed through her clenched teeth. This secret ninja art had served Ayumu well many times. "How did you do that?" Chiyo asked. "Yikes!"

"You did it to yourself. The more active your imagination, the worse it is."

"So when you..." Chiyo took her first bite.

"Yeah, I thought I was gonna die."

"Hey... this is really good!" Chiyo lifted a wad of meat and inspected it. "What did you do to it?"

"I just put a little lemon in it," Ayumu said, holding a thumb and forefinger out in response to her friend's disbelieving look. "I never use all those spices in the cupboard, there. I think it makes the meat sad."

"Wow... well, since you made this, I'll forgive you for the toenail thing. Wanna open your present?" Chiyo indicated the parcel on her table with her chopsticks... but when her host shrugged amiably and reached for it, she winced. "It's... really lame, though. I didn't know what to..."

"Don't worry about it," Ayumu assured her. "It's my fault for disappearing. How were you supposed to know what to get?" She slowly pulled the paper apart, commenting, "It's heavy. Ah, a book! The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa."

"He's a famous author from Osaka. I thought it might inspire you or something."

"I think it will. And there's more...? Ah. Stationary... and a list of addresses..."

"Now you don't have any excuse," Chiyo explained smugly.

Ayumu sighed, then gave a small start as something fell out of the parcel and went ping! off the floor. "And a... ten-yen piece?"

"Not just any ten-yen piece," Chiyo said hastily. "Go on, pick it up. You might recognize it."

"Why would I..." Ayumu took the small coin up in her hand. "No way! Is this--? It is! How did you end up with the Chosen One of Ten Yen Coins?"

"The Lord and KEIDANREN work in mysterious ways," Chiyo smiled. "What do you think?"

"Thank you so much, Chiyo-chan! I- I can't tell you..." Ayumu brought herself up short. "I'm really glad you were still thinking of me, even after I left. What was I--?"

"Hey, don't beat yourself up!" Chiyo patted her shoulder. "We're past that, remember."

"Yeah..." Ayumu sighed again, more heavily this time. "When do you have to go?"

"My flight out's at Three. My next stop is Koyomi-san's place in Aomori."

"Not much time left, then. Want to go for a walk or something?"

Something in her bearing made Chiyo uneasy. "Sure, that'd be great."

Ayumu donned her jacket, a light brown duster, and they set out together. The fog of that morning had burned away... well, perhaps "burned" wasn't a very good description. The air had a chilly bite to it that threatened of the brutal Hokkaido winter to come and a grim sheet of overcast now stretched over the sky.

They walked in silence for a time; Ayumu seemed to have a destination in mind. After a surprisingly short walk, they came to Nakajima Park, which managed to be beautiful even as the shuddering trees were shedding their last dead leaves. Ayumu led them to a particular pond and sat in the grass facing it. "I wanted you to see this place," she said. "I come here when I need to think."

"It's very nice," Chiyo offered as she sat a little ways from her friend.

"You should've seen it a few weeks ago, when the trees were all different colors. I could've sat here for hours watching them... something about this place is really calming."

"I can feel it."

They sat for a while, letting the almost-frigid wind rush over them. The pond rippled, interrupting its slate-grey reflection of the sky above. "Wish I could just stay here forever," Ayumu said wistfully, "Even if I did get bored... what does it matter where we go, anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

"If you go anywhere... Tokyo, Sapporo, even all the way to America, you're still the same person that left, you've just surrounded yourself with a different cast of idiots. I wish I'd realized that before coming here."

"I can see what you mean. But everyone changes over time. I mean, just look at me. I'm not the same person who left Tokyo... it's almost a little upsetting. Like I'm being twisted into someone who isn't... uh, me." There had to be a better way to say that...

"Well, what's so great about who you were?" Ayumu picked up a small rock next to her and tossed it into the pond.

"Huh?"

"That's the way I look at it. 'Course, it's easier for me... something has to change here, after all."

"Hm?" Chiyo turned towards her.

"My life is going nowhere," Ayumu said matter-of-factly, "I'm living off my first and only book, and I'm gonna have to do something soon... write another book, get a job, something. And we all know how full of opportunity the job market is for a shy, frail twenty-year-old with no skills, especially in this recession."

"The recession's still on?" Actually, that wasn't what Chiyo wanted to say, but it was all that came out.

"Yeah. So I've been trying to write this second book for a year-and-a-half, but I don't think I have another book in me. Thus, I have no reason to get up in the morning. I would find comfort in the company of my friends, but they don't have any more reason to be up than me; they just don't realize it. Such is my life."

Ayumu only realized she had said all of that once it was out. Crap! Well, so much for sending Chiyo-chan away with a rosy picture...

"But... what about Benjiro-san? He sounds like a great guy."

"He is." Ayumu drew her knees up to her chin. "But then, I've thought that before."

That screamed for explanation, but Chiyo reigned herself in. She wanted to help her friend, after all, not wring answers out of her. "You could get a job with my father's company. They'd..." she stopped short when Ayumu gave a small, chuffing laugh. "That's very nice of you," she replied, her voice perhaps a little bitter.

Chiyo looked around the park again. The landscape looked completely different to her now; instead of holding that sort of melancholy autumn beauty, it just seemed to be shriveling up and dying. She wanted to say something to lighten the mood, but...

"I should hate you," Ayumu said suddenly, her voice as mellow as ever.

"What?"

"Or resent you, anyway. You're a prodigy. You would've been able to become rich and famous even if you'd been born in squalor, but you weren't; your family is rich. So you would've been able to live comfortably even if you never did a stitch of work, but you do. Here you are, studying away, out to conquer the world. And always so good-natured about it, too."

Chiyo didn't know what to say. She pulled at the grass uncomfortably; it was dying, too.

"And here I am, having struggled to get into a fifth-rate college that I immediately failed out of, a nobody in Sapporo sitting around waiting for nothing. I'm your opposite in every way; no drive, no talent and nothing to fall back on. We all went out into the big, scary world to find our places, and I fell on my face."

"And I suppose you think the world is less scary for me," Chiyo finally said. "I guess you think that having all those advantages makes me so confident and assured, huh?"

"Well..."

"It doesn't," Chiyo said flatly. "You said we all looked for our places; I'm still looking. I still haven't figured out where I can be happy and I'm gonna have to choose real soon. But wherever I go, everybody will be watching me, just waiting for me to cure cancer or draft a plan for world-peace or explain quantum mechanics. And you know what? Sometimes I don't think I can. In fact, sometimes I'm pretty sure I won't do anything special, and the good hand fate dealt me will just go to waste."

They sat for a while longer. "I never thought of it that way," Ayumu admitted.

"Just so you know you're not alone."

Ayumu smirked. "So how're those Quantum Mechanics coming, anyway?"

"I have a few ideas." Chiyo walked over to her and draped a slender arm over her shoulder. "Say, remember that epiphany you told me about?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't think it was just for Tae Kwon Do. You sound like you're defeating yourself before you even get in the ring... but I have faith in you."

Ayumu rested her chin on her knees. A particularly frigid blast of wind slapped over them, slicing right through Chiyo's sweater but also bringing that wonderful dead-leaves smell with it. "It's weird," Ayumu said quietly, "being smaller than you, I mean."

"You think it's weird from your end..."