Flashback
It had been a very long time since Ruru last allowed herself to simply sit in peace. Here, accompanied by nothing but the gentle whisper of the wind brushing against her skin, she finally found a rare moment of silence. Her days had been so full, so endlessly packed with one thing after another, that they had drained her energy down to the very last drop. And for someone who needed time alone to recharge, this quiet interlude felt like the greatest gift the world could offer.
Her mind began to drift backward, floating through the currents of memory until she found herself seated once again in the first grade classrooms of Yumenosaki. She remembered a boy back then, someone extraordinarily polite, who had approached her with the warmest, friendliest smile she had ever seen. He had greeted her every time they crossed paths, even every single morning. She also recalled how he had helped her finish her assignments when she struggled, never once making her feel small for needing assistance. He was the last person she would ever have expected to grow into such a cool, striking young man, only to later transform into something resembling a listless old man.
“Tsukuyori-san.”
Perhaps her thoughts had lingered too long in the past, because suddenly she could hear that boy's voice as clearly as if he were standing right next to her. Ruru did not move, even as the voice called out to her several more times. She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, desperately trying to chase the sound out of her head. But instead of fading away, the voice only grew closer.
“Tsukuyori-san.” This time, she even felt a light tap on her shoulder.
“I think I've finally gone mad,” Ruru muttered under her breath.
“Tsukuyori-san, are you alright?” Finally, she turned her head and found herself staring at the very man who had just been occupying her thoughts.
“Tch. Jiji, what are you doing here, ha? And what the hell happened to your hair? Did you cut it?” Her heart plummeted straight down into her stomach. Standing before her was Rei, but he was sporting his old hairstyle—the one from years ago, exactly matching the boy who had just been wandering through her memories.
“Hm? What do you mean, Tsukuyori-san? I haven't cut my hair. And since when did you start calling me Jiji?” Rei asked, his eyes genuinely bewildered, completely devoid of any mischievous glint she had come to expect from him.
“Don't pretend you don't know,” Ruru snapped immediately.
Rei looked at her in confusion, tilting his head slightly before stepping closer. “Sorry about this,” he murmured, and before she could react, he pressed the back of his hand against her forehead, checking her temperature with a gentleness that felt entirely out of place.
“What are you doing?” Ruru swatted his hand away, her voice sharp with irritation.
“Mhm. Good. You're not sick.” Rei smiled, and that smile only made Ruru feel even more unsettled, as if the ground beneath her had somehow shifted without warning.
“I've(*) been looking for you,” he added, and Ruru's eyebrows shot upward. His choice of words was far more formal than what she was used to hearing from him lately, he had even used “boku” to refer to himself, exactly the way he used to speak back in those early days at Yumenosaki.
“You're the one who's sick. What is wrong with the way you're talking?” Ruru fired back, her voice laced with suspicion.
“Is there something wrong with how I speak?” Rei asked, genuinely puzzled. Ruru felt she was being toyed with, but when she searched his eyes, she found nothing but innocence there—no teasing glint, no hidden mischief. For a fleeting moment, she almost wondered if perhaps she was the one who had lost her grip on reality.
“Tsukuyori-san, you're very strange today.” Ruru wanted to scream that he was the strange one, not her, but she swallowed the words back down. Especially because Rei was looking at her with an expression she had not seen in so very long, a soft and earnest gaze that reached straight through her defenses.
“Are you still avoiding me?” That question, paired with that look, made Ruru deeply uncomfortable. Guilt stirred in her chest like a sleeping creature finally waking. She had kept her distance from people back then because her trust in others had been shattered beyond easy repair. But that boy had kept approaching her anyway, again and again, even after she had pushed him away more times than she could count.
“N-no,” she stammered, and without meaning to, her voice dropped lower and softened, the sharp edges melting away against her will.
“I'm so glad. I thought you were still avoiding me.” The smile that spread across Rei's face only deepened the awkwardness coiling inside Ruru. She still could not process what was happening right now, whether this was Rei somehow thrown into the future, or whether she had been the one cast backward into the past.
“What are you doing here, Tsukuyori-san?” Rei asked as he settled himself on the ground beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his arm.
“Being alone,” Ruru answered shortly, her eyes fixed on some distant point ahead.
Rei hummed softly in response. “Tsukuyori-san really does like being alone, doesn't she?” he murmured, more to himself than to her.
“Don't you ever get lonely?” he asked after a pause, turning his head just enough to glance at her profile.
“Not really.” Ruru shook her head, and something unusual lingered in her tone—gone was the sharp, biting edge she usually wielded against Rei like a well-practiced weapon. Instead, her voice came out softer, she had unconsciously lowered her guard. She seemed to have a soft spot for this version of Rei, the one who looked at her with earnest eyes and spoke in that polite, careful way he had long abandoned. Perhaps it was the guilt still nesting deep in her mind.
“Tsukuyori-san, I've wanted to be friends with you for the longest time, but you always kept running away from me. Why? Did I make you feel uncomfortable?” The more Rei spoke, the more awkwardness bloomed inside Ruru's chest, heavy and suffocating. She could not find the words to explain herself, could not unravel the tangled reasons she had built around her heart like a fortress wall.
“Children shouldn't meddle in adult affairs,” she finally said, because that was the only thing she could offer, flimsy as it felt on her tongue.
“You talk as if I'm still a child...” There was something in his voice, just a hint, barely there, a thread of petulance that Ruru's ears caught despite his effort to hide it. Without thinking, her fingers curled into a fist at her side. Rei looked unbearably cute to her in this moment, and she had to physically restrain herself from reaching out to pinch those soft cheeks.
“Alright, alright, stop pouting like that,” Ruru sighed, and before she knew it, her hand was already patting the top of his head.
“Ah, stop treating me like a little kid,” Rei protested, but the more he spoke in that tone, the more Ruru felt an overwhelming urge to spoil him rotten.
“Sorry, sorry. That was just a reflex,” she said, pulling her hand back and offering a small smile. It turned out she really could not suppress the wave of affection crashing through her.
“I never knew Tsukuyori-san had a side like this,” Rei murmured, his smile widening until his eyes crinkled into happy crescents. For a fleeting moment, Ruru found herself wondering why she had ever pushed this boy away back when he was this adorable.
“Ah, that reminds me. Why were you looking for me?” Ruru asked, steering the conversation onto safer ground.
“I came to wake you up,” Rei answered, and his response only deepened her confusion.
“Wake me up?”
“Jou-chan. Hey, Jou-chan. Tsukuyori-kun.” Ruru blinked rapidly as light flooded into her eyes, stinging and bright. She rubbed at them with the back of her hand, disoriented.
“Uh... Rei,” she mumbled, still blinking away the remnants of sleep. Her voice came out just as soft and gentle as it had been moments ago in the dream.
“Did you grow your hair out again?” she asked, her words still wrapped in that tender haze.
“Hm? My hair is the same as always. I just got it cut last month.” Rei touched his own hair, clearly trying to make sense of her question.
“Wagahai?” Ruru let out a long, slow breath as realization finally dawned on her, that she had only been dreaming. The way Rei spoke had already returned to its usual cadence, nothing like the polite boy from her memories.
“What's wrong? Did you have a dream about me? Kukuku. If little miss wants, I could cut my hair short,” Rei said, his voice dripping with playful mischief.
“Then shave it all off,” Ruru shot back sharply.
“Oi, oi, oi. Jou-chan is so cruel.” Ruru threw him a withering glare. This version of Rei was neither cool nor cute like the one who had visited her in her dreams.
“You're nothing but stress,” she muttered under her breath. She pushed herself up from the ground and made to leave, but Rei's hand caught hers before she could take a single step.
“What?” she asked, her voice flat with annoyance.
“Jou-chan, your voice was so soft earlier. It surprised me. What kind of dream did you have?” A faint warmth crept into Ruru's cheeks as the image of that adorable, earnest Rei flashed through her mind again.
“None of your business,” she said, but Rei did not let go. If anything, he pressed harder.
“I'm a little jealous of him, you know. Because you spoke to him so gently,” he continued, his tone shifting into something lower, more intimate.
“Why would you be jealous of yourself?” The words slipped out before Ruru could stop them, and she immediately cursed her own carelessness.
“Hoo. So it's true. You really did dream about me.” Rei took a step closer, closing the distance between them until his lips hovered just beside her right ear. His breath fanned across her skin.
“What do I do? I'm still a little jealous, because even though you dreamed of me, it wasn't really me who received your tenderness.” His voice rolled through her, deep and heavy, sending electric shocks down her spine. Ruru froze completely, her ears burning a deep, vivid red.
“Tell me, Ruru. Do you prefer the me from your dreams?” By now, his fingers had wrapped around hers, holding her hand firmly in his grasp.
Ruru could not move. Her mind had ground to a halt, overwhelmed by the scent of him flooding her senses, trapping her in place. She felt hypnotized by his presence, by the sheer dominance radiating from him in waves.
“Hm?” The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end when Rei blew against her nape.
“Y-you're losing your damn mind!” The moment she scraped together the last shreds of her awareness, Ruru shoved him hard. Her face had turned completely crimson by then, burning from her cheeks down to her collarbone.
“You crazy old man!” Without looking back even once, Ruru hurried away, her steps as fast as her legs could carry her. But no matter how quickly she walked, she could never outrun the frantic pounding of her heart, racing at twice its normal speed.
Left behind in her wake, Rei could only smile softly at her reaction. There was no denying it—Ruru's face had looked incredibly cute to him in that moment, flushed and flustered and utterly captivating. Still, every word he had spoken to her had been true. He did not like it when Ruru showed her tender side to anyone else, not even to the version of himself that existed only within her dreams.
“Jou-chan, wait.” But for now, what mattered most was catching up to Ruru and coaxing his little miss out of her sulk before she disappeared completely.