With their destination agreed upon, it didn’t take them long before they arrived at Szot Park. Serah spotted a nice hill where they could lie down and gaze up at the sky. Mikomi knew this hill all too well. His heartbeat began to quicken and his pace slowed a bit. Soon, he found Serah had slipped away from him. He shook his head and caught up. Thankfully, she didn’t notice he had fallen behind.

Serah sat on the grass and then patted the ground next to her, inviting Mikomi over to sit. You couldn’t tell in the darkness of the night but Mikomi began to sweat. His heart raced faster and faster and his breathing picked up considerably. He was having an anxiety attack.

“W-what’s happening to me? This is fine. This is fine. I swear to God, this is fine. There’s nothing to be afraid of. This isn’t the same Serah… this isn’t the same world. Just go over there, calm down, and act normally. Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine. Shhh... Shhh… just calm down, Mikomi. Calm down. Control your breathing. Empty your mind. There is nothing to be afraid of.”

The mental exercises were working. Mikomi felt a cool sensation rush over him as the anxiety attack broke. He accepted Serah’s invitation and sat down next to her. Since the distance between them had closed, Serah noticed just how sweaty and pale he was in the moonlight. She instantly became concerned.”

“Oh my God, Mikomi, are you okay!? You look as white as a ghost!”

“No, Serah. I’m not okay but I can’t ever let you know that. I’m sorry, but this is something that you must never know about.”

Mikomi turned to Serah and smiled at her.

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just a little muggy out here so I’m a bit sweaty. Maybe it’s the moonlight that’s making me look pale. You look a bit on the light side yourself, you know.”

“Hmm... I guess you’re right. Sorry for worrying but still… you should get in better shape. I made it all the way here and I didn’t drop a single bead of sweat.”

Mikomi simply laughed it off and laid down in the grass next to her. They remained there in silence for a little while, staring up at the night sky and getting lost in the sea of stars above them. Every so often, a gentle warm breeze would blow but since Mikomi was recovering from an anxiety attack, the warm breeze felt more like an arctic gale thanks to the sweat on his skin.

“They’re pretty, aren’t they? The stars that is,” asked Serah.

“Yeah.”

Serah reached over and grabbed Mikomi’s hand. The warmth of her hand was still able to make him blush after all of these years. Her smooth skin felt so good to hold that it was very relaxing. Just being able to hold her hand under the stars was enough to wash away the rest of his fears and anxiety.

In a move he didn’t expect, Serah turned over and laid on top of him. Mikomi looked up into her eyes. He was completely mesmerized by what he was seeing before him. The radiance of the full moon illuminated her in an outline against a backdrop of the stars. He had never been so captivated at the sight of anything so much in his life. Mikomi moved his hand up and grazed the side of Serah’s cheek. That’s when she leaned in and gave him a very passionate kiss. This feeling was something that Mikomi didn’t want to end. The kiss lasted for a good amount of time before Serah backed off. She had a rather nervous look on her face… a look that Mikomi hadn’t seen since freshman year of high school.

“What’s wrong?” asked Mikomi.

“Nothing is wrong… it’s just that, I mentioned earlier today that I wanted to talk to you about something but I don’t quite know how to put it. I’m sure with how smart you are, you’ve already figured it out, so what do you think?”

“Serah… I know you think I’m really smart but for once, I’m completely stumped. I don’t know what it is you’re thinking right now.”

She began to fidget as she looked away from him for a moment. Mikomi saw this look before. It was the same look she had on her face when she told Mikomi that she thought he was going to abandon her, too.

“Oh no! Don’t tell me this is happening. After all this time I thought that Serah had changed and had moved past this. I thought that she had found happiness! Don’t tell me she had these feelings inside of her all along. Did all of my conversations about college trigger a relapse or something? What am I going to do now?”

“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you, Mikomi?”

“Say ‘it’? Say what? Oh God, this is killing me…”

“You’re going to have to, I’m afraid. I don’t know what you’re thinking but if something is wrong, please tell me so I know how to help.”

Serah realized that Mikomi had the wrong impression and started waving her hands around frantically.

“Huh!? No, No!! Nothing’s wrong! It’s nothing like that! It’s just… well… I love you, Mikomi…”

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“Wait… that’s it? Just ‘I love y-’ Wait… this is the first time Serah has ever said that to me!”

Mikomi was stunned. The look on his face showed a sense of wonder. Serah took one look at it and knew that he was deeply touched by her confession just now. Mikomi instantly shot up and grabbed Serah as hard as he could, pulling her head against his shoulder. Serah closed her eyes and savored every moment of it. Before she got too lost in the moment, though, she pulled away and brushed her hair back, taking a deep breath in the process.

“That wasn’t the only thing I wanted to talk to you about, Mikomi. Yes… I do love you but lately, I’ve been doing some thinking and I came to a decision. We’re still a bit too young for something like this, so that’s why I want you to make a promise to me. A promise for the future.”

Serah grabbed Mikomi by the hand as the two of them knelt there in the grass under the starry night sky. She looked down at his hand for a moment before lifting her head back up. She looked into his curious eyes and cracked a smile.

“Mikomi. When we’re old enough… will you promise to marry me?”

“S-Serah…” Mikomi said quietly as he reached out and gently held the side of her face with his right hand.

He couldn’t believe it. Serah had just proposed to him. Mikomi never thought that something like this would have been remotely possible but that proposal just now was proof that he had succeeded in changing the future and his life. Everything he could have ever wanted was right in front of him and now, he had the opportunity to seize it all. Regardless of the ripple that this would create, he realized it was already a product of the one he already caused. There was no use holding back anymore. Serah’s words brought tears to his eyes as he knelt there, crying out of happiness. Through the streaming tears, he smiled at Serah and then replied with a quiver in his voice.

“If you asked me that question a thousand times, then a thousand times, my answer would be yes!”

It was now Serah’s turn to break down into tears. She lunged at Mikomi and knocked him back down to the grass. She gave him another deep, passionate kiss beneath the pale glow of the moonlight. The moment was as surreal as much as it was serene. As they lay there, locked in a kiss, they suddenly became startled when they heard a rustling behind them. Serah looked up as Mikomi turned to his stomach and raised his head, peering over the hill.

Nobody was there.

After taking a deep breath, the two of them laughed at how silly they must have looked.

“It’s a public park, after all. Might have just been an animal or maybe the wind,” said Mikomi.

“Yeah,” she said with a bit of a nervous giggle.

At that point, they decided to call it a night. Mikomi walked Serah back to her house, giving her another kiss goodnight before heading back home. Tonight was a magical night for him. The girl that he loved… the girl he fought so hard to protect laid it all on the line by asking him to marry her. It wasn’t a hard decision as there wasn’t anyone else on this planet that he would rather spend the rest of his life with and that included Alice. Perhaps, in the original timeline things would have been different but with Serah here with him now, as cruel as it may seem, Alice was no longer a factor in that equation.

Mikomi went to sleep that night. He never bothered telling his parents what had happened because he knew he would be lectured on things like responsibility, being an adult, and all of the other stuff he already knew about. He has no desire to have that conversation so he decided that he would tell them when the timing was better. To him, that meant post-graduation. The toughest part would be keeping it from his mother’s legendary sixth sense. Sometimes he wondered if she bugged his clothing with the number of times she’s been able to guess what he had been thinking. Nevertheless, it was a challenge that he willfully accepted.

When Mikomi returned to school the next day, he had a meeting with his guidance counselor. He expressed his interest in going to MUT so they reviewed his grades and it was determined that he would be a prime candidate for admittance in the fall after he graduated from high school. It was even suggested that he apply for a scholarship as it would help with the hefty cost of attending such a renowned university. Mikomi began the application process for both MUT and the scholarship that day. He was eager to set that plan in motion to make that piece of the puzzle slide into place.

It was an eventful day for him and he broke the news to Serah. He also urged her to do the same with her counselor so she could apply to one of the nearby colleges for her art degree. Serah agreed to talk to her counselor the next day. After she went through the same process, the two of them were faced with the painful and agonizing task of waiting for their respective college choices to give them a reply.

***

The weeks went by without so much as a single word. It was almost a month later on a Saturday that Serah woke Mikomi up by banging on his front door. Mikomi answered it and saw her huffing and puffing on the other side, holding a letter in her hand. She looked up at him, who was still half awake, and yelled out…

“I GOT IN!”

Mikomi smiled and gave her a big hug. Karoline and Ryunosuke came out from the kitchen and gave her a round of applause. Mikomi wondered why the two of them didn’t answer the door when they were so close by. Maybe they saw Serah walk up to the house through the front window and decided to let Mikomi handle it. Something seemed a bit suspicious about all of this.

“Have you heard from MUT yet?”

Mikomi shook his head ‘no.’ She began to worry because if Mikomi didn’t get in, then she would have been accepted to a college a decent distance away. This means Mikomi would go to another school and the two of them would become separated. Ryunosuke saw the worried look on her face and cleared his throat.

“Well... there was this letter that came for you yesterday, Mikomi, but I was holding onto it because we were planning a surprise for you tonight.”

His father went to the hutch in the kitchen and pulled out an envelope from MUT. He walked over and handed it to him. His father, who had connections at the university, already knew what the letter said. He smiled and gave him a wink which caused Mikomi’s face to light up. He tore open the letter as quickly as he could and pulled its contents out. His eyes went from left to right quickly as he read the letter. He looked up at Serah with a look of shock on his face.

“I got rejected.”