My first chapter story in, what, years? I could use a beta. Criticism appreciated. Edits, please.

Also, pairings. I guess I'll have a bit of everything. Het, yaoi, yuri. It's all in.

- Akari, who doesn't own MÄR.

EDIT: Werefolf of Fire kindly gave me some corrections! Thank you!

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THE WRONG SIDE OF THE BED

Even if it seemed more than just a few months, Ginta wasn't surprised at all to find that he arrived at his own home at the beginning of the vacations – and three weeks had yet to go by before he started school again. Time passed equally in all worlds.

It wasn't that hard. Even if he used to dream at night about MÄR-Heaven; by daylight his father was there, Koyuki was there, and all seemed quite right on Earth. Often they would stay up late playing videogames and eating snacks while telling stories of the other world. The time he had spent at MÄR wasn't a memory to grieve for, it was a sweet one to treasure. There's no point in a journey if it's endless and you can't be back home and remember. Ginta was sure that his friends, too, would be happily living their lives, wherever they were. And even if they did not see each other again, they would remain in his heart, forever united by a bond that wouldn't disappear. A friendship that survived war and deaths wasn't going to get killed by distance.

This was what he thought, before spring rushed by and the school's bell ringed once more, calling out for the student's and announcing the start of a new semester.

Now, you see, Ginta had a problem there. While he missed lots of classes and was obviously lacking some knowledge, his absence didn't go unnoticed by the professors' council, and even if one had actually seen him cross a big black door that appeared from nowhere, the poor man had been dismissed as soon as Ginta's mother called in, saying her boy was sick. But still, there were students who saw it too, and it's easier to children believe in children than to believe in an adult.

And rumors spread very quickly.

As Ginta first stepped in the hallway to his class, a guy he had never seen before gave him a pat on the back. This was the first sign.

When he entered in class, his classmates looked at him strangely enough. This was the second sign.

At P.E., even when he tripped in his shoelaces and ended with his face smashed against the ground in the middle of a race, people still looked at him with sort of a respectful fear.

Boys tried to copy his algebra homework, even knowing he had, as always, made it in the last minute, without calculator and in the middle of another class.

Girls asked him to lunch with them.

Ginta was having a busy day.

"I can't believe they asked you out!" Koyuki said rather angrily, sitting on her knees and unpacking a lunchbox she offered to Ginta. "They've never ever talked to you before. Just because they say you've gone to other world – and they didn't even see it!"

"Yeah yeah. But why are you so angry?" He stuffed three pieces of sashimi and a rice ball in his mouth while the girl carefully pressed a sushi between her hashis, still busy looking with fiery eyes at the girls who dared to approach them.

"I'm not angry! I'm just taking care of you, that's all."

"Well, if that's what you say…" Ginta munched a bit. It wasn't a secret he daydreamed about the blue haired girl, but three or four girls had talked to him that day, so what?! He appreciated Koyuki's thoughts, but girls were no way a problem! "I just dun see how they could be a bother."

"Well, they're talking with you out of interest, clearly!"

"How come?"

"Because then they'll be the girls who are friends with the boy who went to another world – in the middle of math class, no less!"

"I have no problem with it …" He smiled sheepishly, what earned him a smack on his blond head.

"You ought to take care of yourself, really! You've gone to MÄR-Heaven, fought the bad guys, rescued me, I mean, the princess… And now you'll fall for such a silly trick like that?"

"It's not a trick and… Hey, talking about it, mom said you had dreams about what happened there. That somehow you and Snow were connected."

"Snow? Is her the princess?"

"Yeah…" He run his index finger against his temple, pressing it slightly and trying to remember embarrassing things Koyuki could have seen.

A kiss.

Or better, two kisses.

He stiffed and dropped his chopsticks, but the girl didn't seem to get what he was thinking of.

"Well, remember the dreams you had about MÄR? Well, they were nothing like those. Sometimes I'd just space out and… It's so hard to explain. It was like I was in this other world; I saw it through somebody else's eyes. And sometimes…"

"Sometimes what?"

"I'd experience this someone's feelings too." She whispered softly. And as if not to confuse Ginta, she rose her head and smiled at him, running her fingers through the bluish hair and putting it behind her ears. "There was this time when I couldn't even breathe! It was so terrible."

"Erm, I'm sorry for that. Snow had…"

"No use talking about it now. I'm glad you made something to help us!"

"Me too…"

Silence tainted the conversation, turning it into an awkward moment while they looked at each other without anything to talk about, both remembering about a time when she had nothing else to lose and made a tiny little confession. Even if at that time it wasn't her, but Snow, who said 'I love you' while her body died. Quite embarrassing. A subject they didn't talk about in those three weeks they spent together, not only because they avoided it, but mainly because there was so much more to talk about. Such a big adventure couldn't be untold, and his mother made him tell all about it before getting into details – not that he would ever tell her that he had lost his first kiss to a princess from another world, frozen in a fairytale castle.

Luckly, the silence was broken quickly by a female's voice.

"Look! It's the boy the girls have been talking about. They said he went to another world."

Koyuki, who stared at her own lunchbox shyly, immediately got up to distance the girl from Ginta, forgetting the words of love to be jealous.

"Do you honestly believe that?"

"Well, I don't actually care, he looks soooo tiny. He's cute, I like him!"

Koyuki's mouth opened a little, her eyes staring in confusion.

"Ginta…" She called, but the boy had already turned his head to look at the owners of the voices.

A girl of about sixteen with braided pink hair gave him a little wave, while her companion, a blue haired boy tried too hard to look grumpy and uninterested.

"… Dorothy? … Alviss?"

The duo seemed as confused as Ginta.

"How do you…?" Alviss began, being cut by a loud shriek.

"Cute! He knows my name!" She threw herself over his arms, cuddling him and having Koyuki's furious eyes directly aimed at her.

"Dorothy! I can't believe it!" Ginta hugged her back. It was obviously not a time to be musing about how she and Alviss got there. His friends were back, and it was all that mattered. "I missed you so much!"

She clutched him against her chest once more, letting him go when he looked a bit blue from lack of oxygen.

"That's very sweet of you." She claimed, composing herself and adjusting her school uniform. "But I don't think that's possible, since we have only known each other from view, I guess. I've never ever talked with you before – such a pity! If I knew how cute you were…"

"Uh? But how?" A dumb look struck him on the face.

"I'm a senior, so how do you expect us to talk? We learn on different buildings, silly! I just grabbed Alviss and went here today because I was s-o curious to see the boy everyone's talking about."

"And who was such a loser before." Alviss did the favor completing the sentence, not looking at least a bit amused. "So now let's get going, Dorothy. There's nothing else to see here, just a boy desperate for attention."

"But Alviss… We… We were good friends…" Ginta blinked his eyes, finding hard to believe.

"… us?" He raised an eyebrow. "Look, I don't know what you're talking about. I've only known you as the school's loser. I don't care about your delusional dreams."

"What a rude thing to say!" Koyuki argued, holding Ginta's arm. "They aren't dreams, they're truth! Don't you remember? You were there too!"

It didn't move Alviss. The boy ignored her solemnly and turned to Dorothy once again.

"Dorothy, the bell will ring in a couple of minutes, we have to get back. I'm not sure about you, but I don't want to miss Tom's class." He looked a bit too serious about it, his face becoming uncommonly pale.

It took about one minute to the name hit Ginta.

Tom?

"W-Wait!" Ginta asked, but Alviss was already heading back to his classroom. Dorothy hurried after him, turning around in her black shoes to blow the smaller boy a kiss.

"See you later!" She waved again, running after Alviss and disappearing in the high-school building.

Ginta recovered himself moments later.

"What… What was that?"

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Cliffhanger, woo-hoo.

Hope you had fun reading it. Don't forget to comment, please.

-Akari