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person4Title: A Jump to the Right
Fandom: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Pairing: Makoto/Chiaki
Notes: Last fic for June fic-a-day, hooray!
"Makoto. Want to... go out with me?"
In the chaotic void outside of time, Makoto's entire body went stiff as she heard those words echoing around her. "It can't be..." she whispered, craning her head around to try figuring out which strand of time the sound could possibly have come from. "That timeline's dead. I killed it."
Tears stung at her eyes at the memory of how stupid she'd been then. How she'd been too set in the routine their lives had settled into to even realize what she'd wanted until it was much, much, too late, and not even time travel could fix it.
Or so she'd thought, until this minute. Then she saw it, the thinnest thread of time that had pulled away from the main timeline like it had been frayed, connecting to nothing on the other end. She heard her own voice from it, asking where Chiaki's question had come from, and began struggling to change her path and reach it. It was hard, much more difficult than just leaping through time. When she threw herself into the past she would go straight to whatever time she was thinking of; she'd never tried to change her destination while doing it. She didn't even know what would happen if she managed it, whether that thread of time would rejoin the tapestry of history once she started living it again, or if she'd just vanish once she reached the point where she'd leapt back and kept it from happening.
But that was fine. She liked her life, she liked existing, but she'd give it up to fix that moment. She'd been living on borrowed time ever since she began leaping when the train was supposed to hit her anyway. "I'm not that ugly, am I?" she heard him ask as she reached out and touched the thread.
And then she was flying forward the way she always did when coming out of a time leap, but she didn't try fighting her. She wrapped her arms tightly around his waist as he yelped and tried to keep his bike from flying out of control when her weight suddenly slammed into him. "I don't think you're ugly at all, idiot," she said, unable to stop her tears from spilling over.
He managed to halt the bike again, then reached up to lightly touch her arm as if he wasn't sure she wasn't going to pull away at any second. "You mean you want to... I thought... I was starting to think you were gonna say no," he fumbled out.
She pressed her face into his back between his shoulder blades and shook her head against him. "I didn't think I'd ever get to..." she began, then trailed off. She couldn't finish that sentence, not when saying what she had been going to would make him leave. Instead she mumbled, "If I could stay at any time of my life forever, it would be this second. It just took me a minute to figure that out."
The right thing to do would be telling him the truth. The right thing to do would be letting him know he could stop worrying and go back to his own time. The right thing was what she would have done if she'd gone back to the beginning like she'd planned.
But now she hadn't ruined things, and this moment had gone from awkward and horrible to perfect. She knew that one day he would realize he could stop worrying and go back to his own time, or notice the tattoo on the back of her arm and know what it meant, and either way she would lose him again.
At least this time she'd get to have him for awhile as well.
Fandom: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Pairing: Makoto/Chiaki
Notes: Last fic for June fic-a-day, hooray!
"Makoto. Want to... go out with me?"
In the chaotic void outside of time, Makoto's entire body went stiff as she heard those words echoing around her. "It can't be..." she whispered, craning her head around to try figuring out which strand of time the sound could possibly have come from. "That timeline's dead. I killed it."
Tears stung at her eyes at the memory of how stupid she'd been then. How she'd been too set in the routine their lives had settled into to even realize what she'd wanted until it was much, much, too late, and not even time travel could fix it.
Or so she'd thought, until this minute. Then she saw it, the thinnest thread of time that had pulled away from the main timeline like it had been frayed, connecting to nothing on the other end. She heard her own voice from it, asking where Chiaki's question had come from, and began struggling to change her path and reach it. It was hard, much more difficult than just leaping through time. When she threw herself into the past she would go straight to whatever time she was thinking of; she'd never tried to change her destination while doing it. She didn't even know what would happen if she managed it, whether that thread of time would rejoin the tapestry of history once she started living it again, or if she'd just vanish once she reached the point where she'd leapt back and kept it from happening.
But that was fine. She liked her life, she liked existing, but she'd give it up to fix that moment. She'd been living on borrowed time ever since she began leaping when the train was supposed to hit her anyway. "I'm not that ugly, am I?" she heard him ask as she reached out and touched the thread.
And then she was flying forward the way she always did when coming out of a time leap, but she didn't try fighting her. She wrapped her arms tightly around his waist as he yelped and tried to keep his bike from flying out of control when her weight suddenly slammed into him. "I don't think you're ugly at all, idiot," she said, unable to stop her tears from spilling over.
He managed to halt the bike again, then reached up to lightly touch her arm as if he wasn't sure she wasn't going to pull away at any second. "You mean you want to... I thought... I was starting to think you were gonna say no," he fumbled out.
She pressed her face into his back between his shoulder blades and shook her head against him. "I didn't think I'd ever get to..." she began, then trailed off. She couldn't finish that sentence, not when saying what she had been going to would make him leave. Instead she mumbled, "If I could stay at any time of my life forever, it would be this second. It just took me a minute to figure that out."
The right thing to do would be telling him the truth. The right thing to do would be letting him know he could stop worrying and go back to his own time. The right thing was what she would have done if she'd gone back to the beginning like she'd planned.
But now she hadn't ruined things, and this moment had gone from awkward and horrible to perfect. She knew that one day he would realize he could stop worrying and go back to his own time, or notice the tattoo on the back of her arm and know what it meant, and either way she would lose him again.
At least this time she'd get to have him for awhile as well.