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The view from the Alps in late autumn was, objectively, beautiful. You could see for miles about, casting your gaze across lush green valleys, idyllic streams and rivers, and the majestic peaks and crests of the mountains. It was very impressive, by any reasonable measure, and in a way that was quite distinct from the mountain views of Japan.
As Masara reached the top of a hill, she found that it served as an excellent vantage point to look back at the path she had taken.
She had graduated high school some eight months ago now, taking a major step from childhood to adulthood, and shortly thereafter left her home and everything she knew behind to pursue college studies abroad. The overseas study program had seemed like a good way to pursue new forms of stimulus, that she might be able to break through the shell of ice that surrounded her frozen heart. She could remember the tremors she’d felt just from exchanging goodbyes with her school friends.
She could still see the last image of Kokoro’s face from that day, anytime she closed her eyes and thought of home.
College had kept her busy. The work was different from what she was accustomed to, certainly, though on the whole, not terribly exciting or stimulating. It didn’t make her feel anything. Seeing new places, however, had provided an unexpected spark of interest. Though she’d originally only gotten into mountain hiking because it was something that Kokoro was interested in, now, even without Kokoro here, she found herself drawn to the unfamiliar mountains so far from her homeland. It became something of a pet project for her, a goal for her to pursue that held more interest to her than her dull classes. Between her other work she would seek out hiking trails, even keeping a journal of her adventures, complete with attached photos.
And what started as a hobby had led to unexpected friendships. Her gaze swept the trail behind her to fall upon another pair of students with camping backpacks making their way up to her.
“Thanks… for waiting…” Emil said in his German-accented English between gasps for breath.
“Setting brisk pace again, Masara,” Priya noted, her own slightly stilted English laced with amusement. She had matched her pace to Emil, but unlike him, she seemed to have plenty of breath.
“We should get to the campsite before the setting of the sun,” Masara offered by way of explanation. Her English wasn’t perfect either, her words selected carefully and with a slow, methodical precision, but English was the best common language between the three of them, given that none of them had much of a grasp yet on the others’ native tongues.
“We will make it,” Emil said with confidence, his gaze flicking upward to confirm the sun’s position. “And with time to spare, if we keep letting Masara set the pace,” he added with a wry chuckle.
Priya and Emil were in the same study program as Masara, and they’d all met as a result of their shared interest in hiking. Friendship was never something that Masara had thought herself particularly good at, and it was usually something that happened to her because of the efforts of her would-be friends rather than her own, and yet, somehow, they had come together surprisingly naturally. She thought that perhaps she owed her success to her friends back in Kamihama, for giving her so much practice at socializing over the years.
Her thoughts seemed to travel back to Kamihama often. No matter how much ground was between them, it seemed her past was never far behind.
“…If you need, we can slow down a bit,” Masara allowed, not wanting to push her friends too hard. Unlike her, they didn’t have the benefit of a Magical Girl’s strength.
Emil waved her off with a smile. “No worries. I may not have the stamina of someone who has been in swimming competitions since childhood, but let me catch my breath now and then and I’ll be fine, ya?”
Priya slapped him enthusiastically on the shoulder. “This is the spirit! Let us take a picture to remember by, and be on our way!”
Masara felt a warmth in her chest at her friends’ antics. She might’ve even been smiling a little, though that was always hard for her to tell. Leaving home hadn’t changed who she was, and sometimes she had doubts about her choice, weighing things gained versus things given up, but…in this moment, at least, she could say that this was nice.
Even if that nice feeling came paired with a pang of remembrance.
Masara had never considered herself sentimental. Quite the opposite, really, she was sure that anyone who knew her would describe her as practical and pragmatic. She didn’t particularly get excited by things, so she didn’t tend to form attachments to get sentimental over.
Or at least, that had been the case for much of her life. In the last few years she had increasingly found experiences that had made her feel. Sometimes good feelings, sometimes bad, sometimes feelings she struggled to understand at all. And so, out of sentimentality, there were certain things she held on to that she otherwise wouldn’t have. For instance, her hiking bag, which she had taken extra efforts to repair when it was showing signs of strain rather than simply replacing it as would have been simpler and easier.
And then there was her phone’s lock screen.
So it was that, later that night while she and her friends were gathered around a carefully-crafted campfire, Masara turned on her phone’s screen to check the time and Priya caught sight of her background. A sharp gasp alerted Masara to her slip-up, and then the other woman was leaning over to get a closer look.
“Masara! You never said you were married!” Priya was trying to sound mock-offended, but couldn’t hide the delight in her tone.
Of course, that immediately got Emil’s attention as well, so he crowded in on the other side to get his own look. “Really? Mrs. Kagami, you have been holding out on us?”
Masara sighed, but held up the phone to let them get a look. “This is…misunderstanding,” she told them, though she realized how it looked. She also didn’t miss how Emil shot a glance at her left hand, and the ring she wore there. It was, of course, her Soul Gem ring, and it was on her middle finger, so it was not an indicator of marriage, but there were many wedding traditions in the world, and no doubt Emil was considering if Masara might be wearing a wedding ring on a different finger so as to avoid drawing attention to it…
“Seems pretty clear to me,” Priya cooed, still focused on the picture. It was, of course, the photo of Masara and Kokoro on the beach in their wedding outfits. Both of them were smiling, and they were good smiles, even Masara’s. It was a treasured memory, which was why Masara was still using it as her lock screen, even after getting a new phone. “That is you, in lovely dress, and that is your wife, in handsome suit. You look so happy!”
“Misunderstanding,” Masara insisted, pushing down a faint bundle of emotions that she wasn’t sure how to unpack. “It was a photoshoot, not…not real wedding. We did not get actually married.”
Emil nudged her lightly with his elbow. “Masara, we have known you for months, and never I have seen you make an expression like that. You find a girl like that, you make sure you marry her, ya?”
“We were still in high school,” Masara said, attempting to explain. It was hard finding the right words, and not just because of the language, though that certainly wasn’t helping. “A real wedding would have been…not possible.”
“Hmm,” Priya said noncommittally, clearly not convinced. “Well, I suppose we can drop this.”
“Can we?” Emil asked with a chuckle, apparently not done teasing.
“For now. Because it is almost time for Masara’s phone call, no? Phone call that you are always careful to not miss?” Priya’s tone had the self-satisfied air of someone who had just figured out a secret.
Not that Masara had intended for it to be a secret, exactly. There had just never been a reason for her to share. Though she suspected that after tonight she was going to be grilled thoroughly by her friends…
“Ah, it is that time, ya? Well, have a good chat.”
The two of them gave her some space, and Masara, checking the time again, stood up and left the campfire to find a spot where she’d have a little more privacy. She took care to watch her step, as it was a moonless night and there wasn’t terribly much light to see by. She was glad for that, because it meant that the stars were especially visible in the clear sky tonight.
She didn’t have to wait long for her phone to ring. (She had spared no expense in her phone plan, to make sure that she got service even out in the mountains like this.) Warmth blossomed in her chest as the familiar name appeared on her phone, and she tapped the button to answer and greeted the caller in Japanese.
“Hello, Kokoro.”
“Hey, Masara! I hope I didn’t keep you waiting. I almost slept through my alarm and then I couldn’t find my scarf and I was worried I’d be late, and…”
“You aren’t late,” Masara assured. Her lips, she found, were curling upward at the edges entirely of their own accord. “I know it must be difficult getting up at this hour. I appreciate that you make the effort.”
“I wouldn’t miss it. I love talking to you like this.” Even through the phone, the cheer in Kokoro’s voice was infectious. “Besides, the stars here are beautiful this morning! There’s a few clouds off on the horizon, but the rest of the sky looks great. I can see the north star nice and clear!”
Masara extended one finger up into the sky, searching through the stars, tracing her way from Ursa Major to Ursa Minor, and the star Polaris at its tip. “I can see it too.” Kokoro giggled back at her over the phone; she always did enjoy this game of theirs. Masara traced towards other stars, scanning for other familiar patterns. “And over there, Vega and Altair.”
“Hmmm… I don’t think I have them tonight. Orihime and Hikoboshi will have to wait until the seasons change to be reunited. Oh, but I can see Castor and Pollux!”
“…I can’t find them,” Masara said, thinking to where the Gemini constellation should be. “I think they should be visible in this part of the sky… Ah, there’s a tree there, blocking some of the stars.”
“The tree must want to look at the stars too!”
“Let’s see… I can see the Pleiades clearly.”
“Hmm, Subaru should be…yeah, I see them!”
Being able to chat like this allowed Masara to truly unwind, easing a tension she hadn’t realized was there until it was gone. Though she had gone overseas to seek new sources of stimulus, it was these comforting moments of familiarity that she really lived for. Sitting under the same stars as Kokoro seemed to make the distance between them shrink, until the eight hours of time zones between them just melted away, and she almost felt as though she could take Kokoro’s hand in her own.
“I love you,” she said suddenly, the words slipping past her lips unexpectedly.
There was an odd thump from the other line, and then a few moments of silence before Kokoro’s voice returned. “Geez, Masara, you have to give me a little warning next time. I dropped my phone!” In Masara’s mind’s eye, she could see Kokoro’s blushing face. “…I love you too, of course.”
The warmth in Masara’s chest deepened, spreading through her, reaching from her toes to her fingertips. She always tried to use the words sparingly, for fear that the feeling they brought out in her would fade if she used them too often, but in the time since they’d started dating her feelings had only seemed to grow stronger. “My friends here saw the photo from our wedding shoot, and they think we look like a great couple.”
“You showed it to them?” Kokoro’s voice was embarrassed, but also pleased.
“Not on purpose, it just happened. I had to explain that we aren’t married.”
“They do look pretty convincing,” Kokoro said with a chuckle. “We’ll have to take some new ones for the real thing.”
“We’ll have to find a good photographer,” Masara mused. “It won’t be far off now…”
“I’ll be eighteen by the next time you come home.” Kokoro sounded both excited and anxious about that. “Then we can get married for real… That still sounds so weird to say! Sometimes I feel like I must be dreaming.”
“You haven’t had any second thoughts?”
“Not even one. It just feels too good to be true.” Kokoro giggled again, happy and sheepish all in one, and it moved Masara’s heart. Before she’d met Kokoro she could never have imagined that a sound could have such a strong effect on her, but now it was her favorite sound in the world.
“…I’m glad I went to study abroad.”
“You’re happy to spend so much time away from me?” Kokoro’s voice was pouting, but she was mostly teasing, Masara was pretty sure.
“No, but it helped me make some realizations. I’ve found things I like, that I might not have figured out at home. More importantly, it helped me figure out what matters the most to me, and that it isn’t something that I’m going to find out here.”
“…Masara, will you marry me?”
Masara cocked her head in confusion, even though there was nobody to see it. “I already said yes, didn’t I?”
“I know, but you were being all sweet, I just wanted to say it again!” Kokoro laughed, and Masara chuckled a little with her, which only made Kokoro even more excited.
No matter where she was, whether it was in the darkest depths of a Witch’s Labyrinth or hundreds of miles away under a foreign sky, as long as she could share moments like these with Kokoro, that was happiness to her.