Sakuta

Exactly the same temperature as last time. Always when he thought that he left the other timeline behind, something extremely similar ripped him out of this reality and into a different past. Or was it future in this case? Time travel theories made his head hurt, especially after he had such a horrible night. His whole being still pushed against the idea of showing weakness to Mai. His gloomy thoughts must’ve shown on his face since Mai asked him: “Is everything alright? You look even more tired than when we left the house”
“I just started thinking about my face being pressed between your boobs again. The thought alone makes me tired of excitement”
“It wasn’t like that!”, Mai answered, a blush breaking through her usual calm expression.
“Not that an older woman like you would think anything about the fantasies of a young boy in the first place”
“Right”, she answered haltingly and hurried to hide her blush again.
For a short moment, Sakuta was able to see relief in her eyes, quickly hidden behind her calm facade. Maybe she actually missed his jokes? If that was the case, Sakuta would need to mmaintain full focus to preserve his usual snarky demeanour.
Normally, Futaba would still be in school by the time they agreed to meet at her place, but she made an exception since Sakuta and Mai would’ve caused all sorts of potential troubles showing up at school with their hands bound together like this. Another good aspect of the syndrome was that Sakuta could hold hands with Mai naturally since their hands were in the right position for that in the first place. Fingers interlaced, they wandered through the city. For the same reasons as for school, they chose not to take the train. Chances are that people would start filming the Mai Sakurajima with her boyfriend casually displaying their relationship like that. Worst case would be that angry fans starting to harass Sakuta for having the audacity to date their idol.
Not taking the train made the trip lengthier of course, but that was just another chance for Sakuta to admire Mai’s choice of clothing. In her winter coat, longer skirt and thick leggings, she gave off her typical elegant and mature vibes. Even though there wasn’t any skin showing besides her hands and face, there was something erotic about her, down to the way her boots with the small high heels clicked on the stones of the side walk.
Sakuta wouldn’t say any of this, as much as he wanted to see her expression, as she might change the way she behaved around him because of it. A fate far worse than not being able to see her blushing after his comment about it.

Finally, they arrived at Futaba’s place. It was an almost villa-like apartment both in exterior and interior. Whatever her parents were doing on their business travels, it must have been very lucrative. They were currently away too, so no explanations on why school friends came over so suddenly and why those cheeky students couldn’t let go of each other were needed. Futaba opened the door still wearing her school uniform - even the lab coat was hanging from her shoulders. Maybe she just arrived too? Or she just wanted to set the mood for discussing our problem again. Hands thrust into the pockets of the coat, she led the two of them into the living room. Sakuta couldn’t help, but notice how the lab coat was so naturally a part of her, that he wouldn’t be surprised if she opened a can of Dk Pepper. Sadly, she only filled a cup with her usual coffee, this time made with a proper coffee machine instead of a Bunsen burner and test tubes.
After taking a short look at Mai and Sakuta , she reached deep into a cupboard to get two cups for them. They were a bit dusty, so she cleaned them first in the sink before pouring the coffee into them. After directing them to the couch they were finally able to talk.

“Quite unusual that you reach out to me because of a problem.” Futaba started the conversation without even looking at Sakuta. He sighed in the knowledge that she would be naturally drawn to the more intelligent of the two of them.
“It’s unusual that Sakuta suffers under the adolescence syndrome too. But we were able to figure out what the cause is, last night”
Futaba raised an eyebrow. “Did Azusagawa do something to you?”
“Who do you think I am? Even a rascal wouldn’t be that rotten!”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you truly were the rottenest of them all”, Futaba shot back at Sakuta. She wouldn’t show her friend an ounce of mercy.
“No, nothing like that. It is… difficult to describe.”
With a glare to Saktua, Mai refrained from describing the state he was in the last night. If anyone told Futaba, it had to be him.
Sakuta swallowed the lump that grew in his throat down with some of the coffee Futaba made for him. It was delicious, although he wasn’t in the right mood to enjoy it properly. Instead he began explaining to Futaba what he had explained to Mai the night before. And just like in the night, a silence filled the room once he finished. But it was a different one this time, Sakuta could practically hear Futaba’s gears turning inside her head while she was thinking about what he just told her. Finally, she responded.
“This does sound ridiculous. On the one side, the adolescence syndrome never allowed the user to control the problem willingly before, but on the other you would’ve never came up with the explanations my other self gave you all on your own and neither Kunimi nor Sakurajima would help you with such a prank, so I have to assume that it is the truth.”
“So you know how to stop it?”, Sakuta continued, ignoring the jab at his knowledge gap of shoehorned physics explanations.
“I don’t know how to stop it. But I might have an idea. Does the term ‘destructive interference’ ring any bells?”
“Pretend for a second that it doesn’t”, answered Sakuta.
“Destructive interference is a phenomenon that occurs when two waves with switched high and low points meet. The result is that both waves get extinguished”
“So what you are suggesting”, said Mai, following the thought, “is that we need something of equal good quality to nullify the bad memory?”
“Exactly. But it would mean that it had to happen at roughly the same time. The waves need to meet after all.”
Sakuta got a very nasty feeling when he heard that, and Mai’s next words only cemented that.
“What about the Christmas date, that was planned. Going to the Enoshima Lights, for example. Would that suffice as happiness?”
“Given how much he loves you, that might-”
“No!”, Sakuta shouted, “Nothing on December 24th, please!”
Where he was confused and anxious the last night, now there was pure panic running through his blood. His hands began to shiver, and his palms became sweaty. With angst widened eyes, he turned to Mai - her look at him was one of compassion, but she wouldn’t let him go. He knew, she thought it was necessary.
“Please, Futaba”, he turned to his friend, “there must be another way. You can find one, right?”
She slowly shook her head. “I’m afraid that anything I come up with has to happen on the 24th. There is no way around it”
“That’s not true! There has to be another way. I can’t let anything happen on that day!”
Sakuta jumped up, pulling his loved one’s arm with him violently.
“Sakuta”, Mai tried to reach for him but before she could do anything, he was gone. A popping sound filled the void he left behind quietly with air.

Sakuta was alone in his room again. The bond wasn’t active anymore, but he was too scared to think about it. He just hurt Mai, he knew it. But if that is what was necessary to keep her from the streets on December 24th, it was the thing he had to do.