Heart to Heart

Ichiro hobbled back into his living room and sat down on the couch next to Shingo who had a bandage on his head.

"Seems like we've had an exciting week." Shingo said as Ichiro plopped down beside him.

A chuckle slipped out of Ichiro's lips before a slight moan of pain.

"So, all of us gathering in one or two spots was the idea?" Ichiro asked having been left out of a lot since being stabbed.

"Yea, all of the guys are together while all of the girls are together." Takamasa said as he sat on a chair nearby.

After considering for a moment, Ichiro asked, "Why'd we separate based on sex?"

"It's kind of obvious, isn't it?" Takamasa responded.

"It's not so obvious to me." Ichiro faltered, still not understanding many of the social norms of this world.

"Men and women tend to separate because of possible emotional or physical connections." Shingo explained. "Unless those connections are made public in which it is accepted by the public."

"Oh, that makes sense!" Ichiro exclaimed. "Thanks!"

"Really?" Takamasa was patronizing.

"It was easy enough to explain and now we're over that hurdle." Shingo stated in a flat tone. "Also, could you not talk so loud, my head is still throbbing."

" So I guess this means we're not having a meeting anytime soon." Ichiro chuckled a bit more. "I was really looking forward to hearing about the worlds I hadn't yet."

"So Yuki and Asuka's." Takamasa responded. "I'm not so sure you'll hear about Asuka's world. I think the only one she's told anything about her world to was Shingo."

"It was a bit too harsh." Shingo chattered back. "She's surprised she made it out alive and, from what she told me, I'm surprised too. Maybe one day she'll open up more about it when she's fully reconciled it all."

"Yuki told me a little about her world." Ichiro redirected the conversation. "It wasn't much but it was something. Her world seemed fantastical.

"Wait," Shingo cut in. "You know about Yuki's world?"

"Yea, like, she told you about it?" Takamasa added.

Ichiro looked at them both before explaining, "Yea, she told me some of it when she came over a little while ago."

A stunned look washed over the faces of the two.

"So, could you tell us about it?" Takamasa asked earnestly.

"No," Shingo reacted with an almost violent tone. "It's her story to tell. It's not Ichiro's place to tell us."

"Has she never told you about her world?" Ichiro reacted with confusion and concern.

Slightly embarrassed at the idea, the pair said, "Nope." nearly in unison.

"Well, I guess I'll let her tell you then." Ichiro said.

After a short lull in the conversation, Takamasa broke the silence with, "So, what should we do to entertain ourselves?"

The three each considered what to do until Ichiro finally responded with, "Since you filled me in about everything that happened while I was out then we could possibly tell more stories from our worlds."

Shingo and Takamasa each let out slight grumbles.

…

…

…

Meanwhile, inside Konomi's apartment, the girls of the support group were less tongue tied.

"How are you doing Konomi?" Yuki asked in a very sisterly way. "Is everything going well?"

"Yea. Why?" Konomi was slightly offset by Yuki's interest.

"Well, you had a bit of a rough time after you heard about Takamasa's story." Asuka chimed in. "Really, I've been wondering if you were okay too, I just didn't know how to approach it."

"Oh," Konomi hesitated. "It was tough at first, but I eventually came to realize that if he didn't do what he did, then he wouldn't have come back here."

"That's a good way to look at it." Yuki responded. "I'm sure all of us had to do something that we weren't necessarily proud of in our worlds."

"Except for maybe Ichiro." Konomi included. "He seems like he misses his world."

"He almost seems lost." Asuka added to Konomi's argument.

"What do you mean?" Yuki coaxed out of the two.

"Well," Konomi started. "He seemed almost happy talking about his world. He hasn't gotten a job in the time he's been back, which I guess is okay because he's rich, but it's almost like he doesn't want to associate with this world too much."

"He seems like he's pretty invested in me...." Yuki stuttered and walked her speech back. "I mean us. In the group. He's invested in us."

Asuka and Konomi flashed their eyes at each other and then back at her.

"Yuki, is there something you want to share with the crowd?" Konomi probed.

The young leader of the support group began to turn red and asked, "Can we change the subject?"

"You should tell us about him." Asuka chimed in. "You've gotten to spend a lot more time with him."

Still embarrassed, Yuki tried to hide her face. Despite the confidence that would pour out of her when it needed to, she was still just a girl in her early twenties.

"Thinking about it," Yuki started. "You are kind of right about him missing his world. He told me some of the other stories from his world and it made me hope that all of the other worlds were as good as or better than that."

"Ooo, other stories you say?" Konomi cheered. "Like what?"

"He told me about some of his battles and companions and such." Yuki answered, focusing more on the stories Ichiro told her and letting her previous embarrassment fade away.

"He's also been working out a lot." Asuka contributed. "Have you noticed?"

"I was wondering what he was doing with his spare time." Konomi quipped.

"It seems like it served him well enough since he had to fight a guy with a knife." Yuki responded.

"Yea!" Konomi cheered. "Oh, since we've talked about my guy and Yuki's guy..."

Yuki cut in while fumbling over her words, "My...guy? He's...not my guy. He's just a....a friend. We're just close friends. Yea."

The mood in the room had a slight tinge of awkwardness until Konomi continued with, "Okay, we've talked about my guy and Yuki's not guy. Is there anyone you're interested in Asuka?"

Asuka continued sitting there, with a blank expression on her face and, without adding any emotion, said, "I don't really get out much so I've never really looked."

With that response Yuki and Konomi looked at each other before Konomi chimed in with, "She's still young."

Yuki nodded along in agreement.

"Wait, what about Shingo?" Yuki asked.

…

…

…

Back at Ichiro's room, the boys had moved on to other topics.

"So, why do you count time in days?" Shingo asked.

"Oh, I was told that it's sort of awkward. Is it really that uncommon to do?" Ichiro responded.

"It's just not usually how it's done. We count from small to large in chunks." Takamasa explained. "Sometimes we count by week or month or year or even decade."

"So, we didn't really have those in my world." Ichiro explained. "We had days, seasons, and years."

"Okay, so how many days were in a year?" Shingo wondered from his friend.

"Around one thousand four hundred and fifty." Ichiro responded as if that was completely normal.

"That's close to four years of our time." Takamasa did the math quickly in his head.

"Wait, so then how many seasons were there?" Shingo continued questioning.

"Seven one year and then eight the next." Ichiro asserted. "It would go back and forth like that over and over."

"That's wild." Takamasa seemed intrigued. "So what was the extra season?"

"Oh, you want to hear about the ice season!" Ichiro exclaimed, excited at the prospect. "Well, you see for around one hundred days straight, a large blizzard would develop across the continent. Most people didn't really consider it to be a season but just that every other year was just a really bad winter. Especially many hundreds of years later than when I learned all of it. Around halfway through my time there, they just considered there to be five seasons. Personally, I believe that it was it's own season since there would be two or three feet of ice and hail that dropped each time."

"Two feet of ice is excessive!" Takamasa responded. "There was something similar to that in my world, but it was localized in a specific region. It was permafrost and solid ice but somehow humans still lived there."

"Humans are terrifying creatures." Shingo contributed. "You can put us in the most inhospitable terrain and against the worst odds imaginable with injuries that would lead to the death of any other creature and, somehow, we'll pull through and not just survive, but thrive."

"Is that what we've been doing here since we came back from our worlds?" Ichiro wondered. "Are we thriving? It seems like we're being hunted by someone for some unknown reason."

"We're trying to thrive in this world." Takamasa consoled. "That's the entire original premise of the support group. We help each other adapt to this society and world after having not been here for so long."

"Sorry," Ichiro started. "What I said sounded very pessimistic but I didn't intend it that way."

"It's okay." Shingo answered. "I didn't take it that way. Most of the stuff I say comes off that way too, but I think I'm a pretty optimistic person."

The group sat, silent for a short while as the night was winding to a close.

"I wonder what the girls are doing right now." Takamasa pondered out loud.

Shingo pulled out his phone and, wiggling it in Takamasa's direction, said, "Do you want me to text Asuka and find out?"

"What? No!" Takamasa reacted surprised that Shingo would even ask.

Shingo and Ichiro looked at each other and shrugged.