helicon_grove | Time, where did you go? I'm missing the moments as they pass

It was a jolt, when it finally hit him. With the Investigation Team back together--really together, as soon as everyone started remembering again--it was as if everything had fallen back into place. They were no longer in Johto, and sometimes Merlin still missed being woken by Ambrosius or even being given Nineve's disdainful-but-affectionate looks when he did something particularly stupid, but they were making a new home for themselves. That was what mattered the most.

He had gotten swept up in the joy of being surrounded by people who knew him again. That was the only reason Merlin could give for forgetting something so important. It hadn't sunk in as the years passed, or even when Souji's uncle had been sent to the hospital for a heart attack. Only when he'd overheard the nurse telling Souji that the case had been "too much excitement for his old heart" did the fog lift. Merlin looked at his friends, really looked at them, and saw the maturity in the shape of their faces and some lines that hadn't been there before. And Nanako...she'd grown out her hair, liked to keep it long nowadays, and somehow he'd missed her shooting up like a tree over the past couple of years.

The dark green frames pressed uncomfortably into his skin as Merlin's fist clenched. Suddenly, the hallway was too narrow and the air too heavy for him to breathe in. "Gonna head outside for a sec, guys," he choked out and near stumbled away. His hands didn't stop trembling even when he sank onto a bench in the small, outdoor area of the hospital.

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It was hard. Teddie wasn't a deep thinker--sometimes it hurt too much, sometimes he didn't get it, sometimes the answers were just things that came to him. He had found comfort in the Investigation Team, stayed as he was, comfortable, even as everything changed around him, even as he stood still. They were friends, after all, no matter what. So they'd stick together, no matter what. It happened with Merlin, too.

It was hard. There was worry about Dojima; this was the first time, in a long time, that he'd felt that things were slipping away. There was a time with Nanako when this happened, but they'd gone past that. They'd saved her, saved everyone, and that was it. So why is it that it felt like things were still slipping away, even if they weren't? Even if everyone was right here.

When Merlin leaves, it's Teddie that requests to go after him. They were and weren't different: Rise-chan's pigtails weren't really pigtails anymore, Yosuke was Yosuke but... somehow seemed more composed, Nana-chan was taller than him. Merlin stayed the same. Teddie stayed the same.

He came outside, sat on the bench beside Merlin quietly, tried not to think about those other things. "You okay, Merlin?"

Merlin breathed out quietly, one hand pressed over his eyes. It took a few minutes before he could answer.

"Maybe," he said, voice wavering. "I don't know."

Finally, he moved, hand rubbing at his eyes tiredly. "You've noticed it, too, right?"

Noticed... There was only one thing he really noticed, and it was always questions like that that gave him pause. So Merlin was thinking the same thing as him, wasn't he? They were both... the same, like that.

"You mean... How everyone's growing, huh?" quietly. It wasn't sad, per se, but thoughtful. It was good they were growing, weren't they? No one was stationary for life.

Except for them, maybe. With that, Teddie placed a hand over his chest.

"It makes me feel... fuzzy inside. A funny kind of fuzzy."

"A funny kind of fuzzy," Merlin repeated, the corner of his mouth quirking up for a second. Trust Teddie to put things in such simple, yet strange terms. "Yeah...I guess it's exactly like that."

He placed his hand over his own heart, eyes falling closed as he exhales. What Teddie had said...it wasn't too far off, if he thought about it.

"Sort of like...the rough, course kind of fuzzy that doesn't feel too great when you touch it. Not like the kind that makes you warm and comfortable."

Ah. It was a thing of Merlin's to understand and fill in the holes. Teddie certainly knew he wasn't the best at describing his emotions, as they were in some ways still entirely new to him--especially things like this. But Merlin understood, in more ways than one. He made it easy to just nod.

"Yeah. Like one of Yosuke's really, really old shirts. Or one of the old rugs in his house," all rough on the feet, rough on the heart.

Old. That was the problem.

"It's kinda weird... It's kinda hitting me all at once. All the... time stuff."

"Yosuke's what?" Merlin noticed he was doing the parroting thing quite often whenever Teddie was around. He shook his head, bemused. "Actually, don't answer that. I don't think I want to know."

Old shirts, old rugs...Merlin didn't like that word either. A finger traced the dark green frames of his glasses. Were they old, too, and he just hadn't noticed?

"Has it really been that long already?"

Time, where did you go? I'm missing the moments as they pass

i'm sorry i'm so late ;a;

it's okay ;A;

<33

/smooch

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