Kazuma thought that if he ever heard Kiah's sweet voice again it would make him feel happiness and joy, but after hearing her older more mature yet still sweet voice on the other line he felt sick and nauseous. This was insane. Kazuma hung up the phone and sat on his bed, it was only then that he realised his apartment was completely different. The room was spotless and the window was completely transparent with not a speck of dirt on it. The carpet was a soft beige colour. He also had a double bed now but in spite of the bed being larger the room seemed less cramped than his old apartment. Finally he rolled up his sleeves to find that all of the scars on his arms were gone. Kazuma began to scroll through his phone contacts. Kiah and Jax were both on there along with lots of people he didn't recognize the names of, but one person who wasn't on there was Kira.
Kazuma decided to go for a walk and see if anything had changed. Nothing. Everything in the city was exactly as it was before. It seemed it was only his apartment that had changed.
All of a sudden he heard a voice from behind. "Good morning Kazuma." Kazuma looked toward the voices origin to find a man around his hight with long black hair in a ponytail. "Jax?!" said Kazuma, his face went pale. "Hey is everything okay? you look like you've seen a ghost" said Jax putting his hand on Kazuma's shoulder. Kazuma flinched. "I um... need to be somewhere" said Kazuma nervously before running down the street and out of sight. He needed answers. What the hell was going on? it was obvious that he had gone back in time and saved Kiah but he couldn't remember a thing. He decided to go to the spot that Kiah mentioned: the town square.
He sat on a bench and waited for about two hours for Kiah to arrive since he had got there way too early, but this gave him a chance to collect himself and mentally prepare. The square was just the same as it was before all of this, grey stone ground with patterns engraved into it. Café's, restaurants and clothes shops surrounding the place. There were also small trees planted all around. The sky was the purest blue.
The clock struck 12:00. There, slowly approaching, was a beautiful young woman. 20 years of age, wearing a faded pink fabric coat with straight brown hair and eyes the same colour as the sky. It had to be her. her face had matured but her eyes, it seemed, hadn't aged or changed at all. Tears welled up in Kazuma's eyes as she stood before him and spoke. "A beautiful day isn't it. Just got off the phone to Jax, he was worried about you, said you looked like you'd seen a ghost ha ha ha" she laughed. Kazuma smiled and hugged her. It was Kiah, she was really here, alive, smiling and laughing. "Oh my god, it's really you! I missed you so much" Kazuma began to cry as he held her. "Don't be silly, you only saw me yesterday, I know I didn't stay at your apartment last night but..." replied Kiah. This was crazy.
The two went inside a cafe and ordered some coffee. Kiah sat opposite Kazuma sipping on a laté. "So, what have you been up to" asked Kazuma feeling so warm and filled with wonder and disbelief. "Oh, not much, just watched a bit of Netflix and made myself a nice little hot chocolate, you know" said Kiah warmly. She really hadn't changed at all in the past 10 years. "what about work? what do you do?" asked Kazuma. Kiah looked confused. "You know where I work" she laughed. "well if you need reminding I obviously work in fashion, I haven't reached the design stage yet but I'm slowly working my way up" she replied taking another sip of her laté and as she did, Kazuma noticed that she was wearing her red butterfly friendship bracelet. This made him smile.
Once they had finished their coffee's the went for a walk around the shops where Kiah would get all excitable about the nice clothes. But Kazuma didn't care about the clothes, he just couldn't believe she was here, with him. But Kazuma noticed something. The two of them were only out for an hour when Kazuma noticed that a man in a black and white hoodie was following them, he couldn't see his face, it was just darkness even though it was a bright day. Kazuma found out more about Kiah's life, how she was planning on becoming a fashion designer and had been working for a company for 2 years as a secretary. "So Kiah,do you still read the Fairy Quest books?"
"of course I do, it's only our favourite manga, volume 50 came out this year, didn't it"
"hey Kiah, do you still have the Fairy Quest game?"
"oh god, you don't mean the playstation 2 one do you ha ha. God that takes me back. I think it's still at mum's house back in our old country town" said Kiah, a wave of nostalgia brushed over them as they laughed and smiled together like they were kids again.
After staying out for about 3 hours it was time to say goodbye. "Hey, I need to go home and sort out some of my things, I've been meaning to do it for ages. I'll come by your apartment later okay, maybe invite Jax as well" suggested Kiah. "Okay, I need to be doing stuff as well" replied Kazuma. He hugged her, he didn't want to let her go but he did. Kiah waved goodbye and walked away as Kazuma stood, reflecting on the wonderful day they'd had.
As he began to walk back to his apartment he saw the man in the hoodie. The torso piece was black with a white zip and the hood was white as well, but beneath the hood was complete darkness as if he was wearing a mask. Kazuma began to sweat as the man pointed at Kazuma and made a gun sign with his fingers and pretended to shoot himself.
As the figure reached into his pocket Kazuma ran. What the hell was going on? The man followed Kazuma, running full speed towards him with what seemed to be a gun in his hand. Who the hell was he? what did he want? Kazuma had a feeling it had something to do with the Butterfly project.