NOTE: It's gonna be yuri now (eventually). The reviews have swayed me.
"Kotori."
It was furiously circled and underlined in the dream journal. With a name like that, surely she had to be Japanese. Maybe they could meet? Maybe Umi had already realized that but couldn't remember.
She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, wondering what else there was to be written.
More exploration, they had gone somewhere different. They had talked near a riverside cabin. The details of the landscape were starting to solidify in her mind. There were floating islands with different environments, like that desert, for instance. As for the giant tree, the navy haired girl was quite sure, to her dismay, that she had been forced to climb it.
The advancement of her memory was moving far too slowly. Even bending all her efforts towards Kotori yielded precious little; it was a struggle to remember anything they had actually done, even though where they had gone was clearing up.
She frowned. She didn't have much time before school started.
"So you finally managed to remember it, huh? Kotori's a pretty fateful-sounding name, I think. You sure talk a lot about her for how little you remember."
"Well..." Umi said, attempting to wrangle the hazier images from the other side, "I guess she's just one of the most interesting parts of projecting."
Nozomi offered a smug smile, "That's pretty high praise considering you two are exploring another world together. Are you sure you aren't just feeling something a little special for her?"
At that, the pen slipped from Umi's hand as she sputtered, "D-definitely not! I haven't even known her very long...not that I would even consider some sort of weird, magic, shameless, clandestine romance like that!"
"Of course, of course," the older girl replied with a giggle.
Eli overlooked the pair with a cocked eyebrow, resigned to skepticism, yet taken in by their chatter on the topic. "Listen," she interjected, "I know we're done enough for the day, but I'd like to free up some extra time for the student council for the next few days." With that, she began pulling sheets from the next pile of club forms.
"Don't worry Elicchi, we haven't forgotten about you either."
The blonde girl blushed but otherwise didn't crack; clearly, Umi noted, she was vastly more experienced in dealing with Nozomi. Eli cleared her throat before somewhat shakily replying, "I'm not worried. I know you can't keep me off your mind."
Then it was Nozomi's turn to blush, and in that moment, Umi realized she was witnessing a true clash of titans.
"As to be expected of third years..." she thought.
But alas, it wasn't long before Eli began to lose ground, and the navy haired girl didn't have the nerve to tell them to stop flirting.
"...while playing Twister!"
With the third member of their group now a proper blushing mess, they resumed talking about astral projection while the younger girl tried to pretend she hadn't heard that shameless banter.
"I'm excited for sure," Nozomi said, "I've just been able to see a new island approaching in the distance, so hopefully I won't be stuck for too much longer. Maybe we could even end up together this time."
"That would be nice..." Umi murmured distractedly. "But," she thought, "it also means I don't have much time left."
One might expect to stop being surprised by the sights of the other world after gaining some experience. But Umi found herself staring in puzzlement at the window hanging in the air at the crest of a sand dune along the path. In it could be seen a snow-capped forest of giant conifers swaying under a dreary sky.
An impulse took her, but there was no way to open window, and she wasn't willing to try and break it.
Things really were changing.
Momentary vertigo washed over her as she stepped onto the bridge shortly after. A line of blue stared back from between her feet. The cracks were widening.
She hurried across the field and through the forest on the other side, stepping over the divide between the islands.
Waving at her distantly was a certain figure. Up close, Kotori's gentle smile greet her in all its beauty.
"Would you like to see my island this time?" she asked.
"I would love to."
The hovering white form suggested a cloud, but as they drew close to the edge of the prairie, it resolved itself into a boreal landmass. Like Umi's desert, a worryingly long and narrow bridge linked it to the "mainland", if it could be called as such.
The grey haired girl paused in front of the bridge and turned to stop them momentarily.
"Just be really careful here, okay?" she said, "The bridge is a little bit...melty."
And indeed, Umi couldn't help but note with concern the way the sides sloped down and away from them, carrying rivulets of water into the sky. It was slippery; she decided that following her partner's lead and shuffling was safer than trying to walk.
Pale gray wove itself into the sky as they went, and before long, snowflakes were gliding out to meet them.
Why did it seem like the wind was always strongest in the most precarious positions? She felt her body angle ever so slightly as the wind slid her sideways.
Fortunately, they were almost across.
The ashen haired girl stepped off into the powdery snow, turned back and saying, "Make sure when you're getting off that you watch your-"
As Umi lifted her foot to step down to the island, she felt her weight shift, her entire body sliding sideways. Her arms pinwheeled, she choked on her own breath.
And then Kotori caught her hand and yanked her forward.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself in the cool snow, atop something very soft, and very warm. Lifting her head revealed a pair of Amber eyes mere centimeters from her own. Her heart was pounding.
From that ordeal, of course. Definitely that.
Kotori was blushing, or maybe her cheeks were just flushed from the cold, and she distinctly avoided acknowledging their entanglement when she spoke.
"Looks like I saved the day, huh?"
"Y-you...you saved me."
"Don't worry about it, Umi, I know how much it sucks to get a rude awakening like that so-"
"Oh."
Kotori tilted her head, "What is it?"
Umi, in the heat of the moment, swore she had seen her life flashing before her eyes. Now she merely felt silly. Of course, she thought, a person couldn't die here.
"Um...nothing. I just wanted to thank you for that. It would be a shame for our night to get cut short."
"Like I said, it was no trouble at all," Kotori said, "Now, if you get maybe get off me...?" she added in a sickeningly cute tone.
"Stonewall, Umi," the navy haired girl thought, "Keep your composure."
And so she made a noise halfway between a panicked excuse and choking on her own tongue, righted herself, and tried her damnedest to purge the thoughts of how soft and warm the other girl had been.
"Nice, Umi."
Kotori rose beside her, lightly blushing, but still smiling gently and cheerfully as ever. She swept her arm out before them, saying, "Here we are! My 'home'."
It had all the warmth of a deep winter on Christmas Eve. The wind and snow against their skin was merely a pleasant, brisk cool, and even that was in pleasant contrast to the occasional warmth of sunlight shafts breaking through the clouds. Immediately before them, the snowdrifts almost mirrored Umi's desert in sugar-white. That impression was shattered when one looked out and saw the crags on the horizon, painted with pale blue strokes of ice down their height.
The navy haired girl searched for a moment before deciding on saying, "It's lovely."
Kotori was gazing dreamily out over it all.
"Let me show you my favourite part," she said.
Snow crunching underfoot, she led the way over the hills and deeper inland.
"And my door opens right near it so-" she paused, "Do you have a door as well? Is that how it works for everyone? I've never asked before."
"I have one, at least. Unfortunately, it's in the air and I have to jump to get to the first island," Umi replied.
Kotori's (perfectly shaped and groomed, Umi noticed) eyebrow quirked at that as she briefly looked back, "Huh. Isn't that weird? Mine opens out of the cliff face ahead; I thought they all had to be on a surface. Just who makes the rules around here?" she said.
As they drew closer, the lines of the cliff resolved into patterns on the face and intricate free designs of ice.
"The question of who makes the rules for the universe is a pretty contentious one."
"I guess that was a silly question. It's just impossible to get over how everything...is over here. Oh! Here, prime example."
They came to the crest of one last hill and paused.
"Here's where I wanted to take you," the ashen haired girl said.
The waterfall was frozen to the face of the cliff, caught in its decent to the small lake below. Frozen splashes scintillated where it merged with the surface, iced ripples forming concentric rings of alternating dark and light sparkling blue.
"Do you know how to skate, Umi?"
"No," she replied.
And then she pretended that she didn't hear Kotori say, "Good..." under her breath.
The gray haired girl pranced to the edge and effortlessly slid out, perfectly matching her linear and angular momentum to come to a halt just as she came to face Umi again. She offered a hand and called out, "Well then, let's have lots of fun teaching you!"
Sprawled out on the ice, Umi wondered if trying to skate barefoot was easier or harder than doing it with actual skates. Kotori had opted to pull her to the edge of the ice rather than fall into what she called the "romantic comedy-skating-trap-cliche": the offering of an inexperienced skater a hand up, only to be pulled down on top of them.
Well, at least it was sort of relaxing.
The other girl's hand was warm in hers and she stared, eyes half lidded at the shifting blotted patterns in the sky.
A change in friction roused her, and she stood back on the edge of ice beside Kotori.
"Well," she said, "that's to be expected of your first time; don't get down about it."
Umi nodded, smiling. A small part of her was surprised by how gently her heart was beating. She was well aware of her nervous streak, especially when other people were involved and watching. Was it this place, or was it Kotori having this effect?
And if it was the latter, then she had to be time-conscious.
"Say, Kotori," Umi began, "are you having any luck remembering when you wake up?"
She pouted the tiniest amount, "No. It's tough, and the going is pretty slow even with my journal. I think we'll just have to keep reinforcing the things we want to remember in here."
Umi nodded as the other girl walked around her, back facing the frozen lake.
"Burn me into your memory, Umi" she said with a wink which definitely didn't make the quiet girl's heart to leap into her throat. The picture perfect scene of Kotori framed by the white, the cliff, and the blue helix of the falls was enough that the fact that she wasn't done speaking escaped Umi for a second. "...and that I live in Akihabara. When we meet up, I know the cutest little maid cafe we could go to! So make extra sure you burn it into your memory!"
"I'm trying, Kotori, I really am," she said.
The girl's brow tightened momentarily in thought for an moment, before she replied, "How about I give you a charm to help?"
Umi tilted her head and opened her mouth to speak, and in that instant, Kotori leaned in and gave her a peck on the cheek.
"How's that?" she giggled. "...Umi?"
The girl in question was pretty sure the spot on her cheek was on fire as she gawked and mentally pinwheeled. Then she noticed it was both cheeks. And her ears. And her neck. Actually, her whole face was steaming.
Finally, she managed a nod before laying down in the snow once more.
A/N: Have you ever watched Flip Flappers? Or read The Love Live manga? Those, and lots of other things have super strong yuri undertones that never go anywhere, and I initially envisioned this story in that vein. Now I realize that doing that is sort of pointless here, so hats off for romance!