On The Side Of The Pitch With You

Return to the Happy Days

Soon, the wheelchair slowed to a stop at the bottom of the hill, and he placed both his feet back on the ground. They were in a small space between it and a familiar forest.

"Kyousuke... Can we...?" She pointed into the thicket.

He hummed. "There's no path for the chair."

"Ah... That's true..." But just as she dropped her head, his back appeared in front of her. "Huh?"

"I said there's none for the chair. If we go on foot, we should be fine."

"Are you alright with carrying me the whole way?"

"I'm offering."

That got a small chuckle out of her. "Right. Then..."

She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck before letting her body fall forward. His hands went below her thighs, holding her up on his back as he stood up.

"It still impresses me how strong you are despite looking so skinny. Like your muscles aren't that visible even though you do have them―"

"One more word and I'll drop you."

"You're too nice to do that."

"Oh, shut up."

She held onto him the whole way, making sure to move as little as possible to make things easier for him. It was already annoying enough that he had to duck under branches and jump over boulders every so often, he didn't need to deal with her being difficult on top of it.

When they finally reached the clearing, he crouched to put her down before flinging her arm over his shoulders, holding her up. "Where do you wanna go?"

"Just to the front." She pointed at a small pile of rocks by the large pile of burnt wood. "See the thing over there? That's the 'grave' we made."

With a nod, he helped her limp over to it. He sat her down in front of it before moving back a few steps to give her space.

"Hiya, papa. I'm back from the past!" She began, rather cheerfully. "When I got there, Masato-nii and Yuuka-nee said they were in the middle of dealing with aliens. I know we have some kind of 'united space federation' in this era, but I didn't know we first encountered them in their timeline! It was kind of funny because Shuuya-nii dealt with fake aliens when he was around my age, so he didn't believe it until this alien named Ozrock destroyed the moon."

Oh, right... How was that fixed?

"Oh! But don't worry! Professor Aruno did some time-thing and apparently saved it right as it disappeared. He made it reappear after we won Grand Celestia Galaxy, so everything's fine!"

Ah.

"Papa... Actually, I didn't think I'd be here today, so I didn't bring anything to show you this time. But since I was in the area, I thought maybe now is as good of a time as any to let you know." She took a deep breath. "I decided that, when I'm all better, I'll go to the past and stay there. I'll live the rest of my life as Gouenji Kimiko... That is, as Gouenji Masato's sister, Gouenji Shuuya and Yuuka's cousin, and Kyou's best friend― Oh, yeah!"

Seeing her turn to him, he raised an eyebrow. "What?"

She smiled at him before turning back to the stone. "Papa, this is Kyousuke. He's the first friend I've ever made since Zanark sent me to the past. I told you this already, but because the Gouenji family is really overprotective of me, they wouldn't let me go to school when they found out I had powers. I met Kyou when he was playing with his brother in the park once, and long story short, I ended up teaching him to play soccer. He's way better at it than I am now, though."