Momoka's POV
2 years later...1st Week of SPRING...
Most agonizing two years of my life.
I kept telling myself over and over that it would be a short time, but it didn't make me feel any better. I got to visit Tomomi on the holidays with all of our friends, and occasionally he'd make the trip to come down here, too.
Only problem — he was so busy that we mostly had to come and see him. After awhile, it seemed like there just weren't enough holidays in the year..
I never got used to it. The feeling that came over me when we had to part ways again and head back to school without each other. He was the reason I had felt obligated to go to school more often and work harder in the first place. Even before we started dating, I went to school so I could see his face everyday.
Despite hating school even more now that it lacked his presence, I still managed to work my way into being the top 10 of our senior class. Tomomi tutored me on the phone as often as possible, and after awhile I picked up on his study habits and stuck to them myself.
It was still so hard to even bring myself to go to school knowing I wouldn't find him there amongst my peers.
It was an awful period of my life, but I couldn't deny that those years apart from Tomomi helped our love to grow into something more passionate and mature. We were blossoming into adults now, both the age of 18 and finishing our last year of high school. At the age of 16 when we'd discussed getting married, I thought the idea had seemed like a sweet fairytale, but now, my viewpoint was different.
I wanted to marry Tomomi — to grow old with him and be with him forever. To live in a house together and work together and start a family together. Those were all things that I saw greater value in throughout the years.
I still didn't really know what I wanted to do in life yet — my desires had changed so much over time. I knew I wanted to be a cosmetologist, and when the time came, a wife, and a mother. Nevertheless, if there was one thing in life I was sure about, it was definitely being Mrs.Maruyama and having Tomomi at my side throughout it all.
And it didn't have to happen immediately! I still had a lot to accomplish as a person before I got married and started making giant steps like that. I needed to figure things out for myself first. I still couldn't decide how soon I'd start beauty school, or which one I even wanted to go to. I at least needed to have that together, then I could start making plans elsewhere.
That still didn't mean I didn't miss my Tomomi, though!
When will this end?!
I had been asking myself that after the first time I saw him off to America. Sometimes I questioned if all of this was worth it. Should I have agreed to let him get sent off like this? Did I have a right to be upset about it all in the first place?
I'd encouraged the idea, for goodness sake.
There was so many advantages to studying abroad, and it was traditional in Tomomi's family. Not only that, but it gave Tomomi the opportunity to prove his love for me, thus causing his grandmother to open up to the idea of marriage.
This should be so romantic, but it's really just frustrating...
Closing my eyes and inhaling and exhaling deeply to release as much of the tension as I can, I attempt to tune back into the class I was currently in. My teacher was preaching something about the Edo period.
I listen in for about 30 seconds before my focus wavers again. In the next moment, the only thing on my mind is what I'll be eating for lunch today in a few hours. After getting so used to packing a lunch for Tomomi, it was no fun anymore. I started purchasing my meals after awhile.
When the teacher isn't looking, I reach for my phone and text the girls that I might skip the next class. After sending the text, I look back up at my teacher in just enough time for her to turn around to check on all of us.
When she turns back around to scrape her chalk along the board for us to take note of what she was saying, I glance back down at my phone and see several new texts in the small group chat of Reina, Chiharu, Aimi and I. The responses were mostly just Reina demanding that if we skip, we had to go shopping or she'd rat us all out.
In addition to their flood of texts, now turning into a fight over what to do if we skipped, I see a blue notification at the top left corner of the screen. I'd gotten another text outside of the group chat.
Tapping my finger on it, it opens the page displaying all of my text conversations. At the very top where there was a new group chat most recently made, I'd gotten a text from Tomomi. Tadashi, the boys, and the girls were in it, too!
Frowning deeply as I open the text, I glance one more time up at my teacher and back down to my phone screen to read it:
Tomo-chan: Eh? I leave for two years and the campus looks like garbage😂😂
(( Doki doki ))
I reread the text over and over again quizzically, trying to decode it like it was in another language. Yeah, whoever usually kept up with the campus courtyard was slacking lately and there were leaves and Sakura petals all over the ground at the moment.
But how would he know that....?
Tadashi: Omg it really does!
Chiharu: Wait, Tomomi...wtf?
Reina: How would you even know? Someone sent u a pic?
Mamoru: Don't play around. Are you trying to tell us something?
Tomomi : 😛
((Doki doki))
The heart in my chest pounds furiously against my ribcage, as if begging and fighting to come out. If Tomomi was saying what I thought he was saying, then...
But he said he wouldn't be back until May...it's only March 26th...
Hands trembling and mind swarming with thoughts of both impossibilities and possibilities, I lifted my phone back up to my face and typed out a message as quickly as I could.
Me: How's our favorite tree look?
After hitting send, I watch the bottom left of the screen, awaiting a response. The world around me fades, becoming further and further away until I can't hear anything.
And then..
Woosh...
A new text from Tomomi appears.
Tomomi: Why don't you come look for yourself?
♡ A/N: Don't forget to vote and comment what you thought of the chapter!
♡ I care about what ya'll think and love to take suggestions!
♡ I take updating requests on Sundays and Mondays!
♡ Writing Schedule(I'll do my best but I will struggle):
♡ Monday ( RANDOM/REQUESTS)
♡ Tuesday (💖Bishoujo Vitamin)
♡ Wednesday (👫MomoTomo, 👸🏻Serendipity Suitor)
♡ Thursday (🦊Kiss me Kitsune)
♡ Friday ( 🍑Momoko in Tokyo, 🦊High School Fox Clan, 🗣Louder Than Words)
♡ Saturday (🌸Sakura Prince, 💎Pink Diamond)
♡ Sunday (🏝The Empress of Werewolf Island)