Hindsight

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cup of coffee

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife

In five hundred, twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure a year in the life?

How about love?

Seasons of Love

There was something exciting about spending your first semester of college in a foreign country. To begin with, there were no automatic friendships or enemies - you immediately become a stranger to each and every person, and the chances for friendships are formed. It was exciting to be in a different place in a different culture, and ultimately would affect your person for the rest of your life.

Unless, of course, your friends from the former country came with you.

“Your room is bare,” Caleb Motomiya announced, taking a quick glance around the small college dorm room. The boy tossed a bag on to the bed and turned to face the girl standing in the doorway. The look on her face was supposed to be murderous, but only sent Caleb into a laughing fit. “You’re cute when you’re mad, do you know that?”

Sara Adams didn’t give him the honor of a reply, instead she dumped her own luggage near his feet. It had been a long and stressful day already, and she wasn’t in the mood for any of Caleb’s antics, playful though they might be. “I might remind you, Caleb, that you’re not even supposed to be in this dorm. Take a good look at these bare walls - it’s probably the last time you’re going to be seeing them.” She collapsed on the bed and stared up at her best friend. “Do you seriously think I’m going to be okay here? I’m not going to be too homesick or lost?”

Caleb frowned. “You’re already worrying about that?”

“I’m three thousand miles from home. Why shouldn’t I be?” Just the thought made her stomach ache.

For all her hard work to be accepted into the school, Sara was now having second thoughts. She had been too caught up in the possibility of an adventure to realize the task that was now set before her. The first semester of college, she’d heard, was always the toughest one to get through. Now she would have to face it alone.

No, not quite alone. Caleb had come with her.

She took a quick glance at the young man beside her, who was too busy examining her section of the room to notice her staring. Over the course of the past year, Caleb had filled out a little more, a few extra pounds of muscle starting to show under than lightweight frame. He’d gained back the weight he had lost during his brief stint in the rehab close to her house - he looked healthy. He’d come a long way from the rebellious kid with a growing drug addiction.

Caleb frowned at the walls, and shrugged. “You need some color before I leave this room. We’ll fix it up all nice and pretty and girly. I’ll even help you staple whatever Hello Kitty crap you have in your bags to the walls.”

Sara rolled her eyes. Caleb knew how much she hated Hello Kitty. The cartoon cat had been cute until a mutual friend of theirs had worn her out for the both of them. It was a wonder how Joseph had been able to stay with her for so long. Sara knew the offer to help her put her room together was a sign of Caleb’s own uneasiness. Despite being half-Japanese, Caleb was as much of an outsider in Tokyo as she was.

With that thought, she hauled herself to her feet and pointed toward the large duffel bag next to his feet. “That holds my sheets and comforter. I think a few pillows got stuffed in there as well. Just as long as we get my bed together I’ll be happy. I have to call my mom as soon as we finish, though. She’ll be wanting to know all the details of the campus .”

Caleb tossed a pillow at Sara’s head, which narrowly avoided hitting her in the face. She gave him a glare that he shrugged off and took a glance around the now bare side of the room. “Have you found out who your roommate is going to be yet?”

“I haven’t had the chance,” Sara said, more sharply than she intended it to be. “Caleb, you’ve been with me since the moment we left the United States; when in that period of time would I have had a chance to meet my roommate?” She rearranged a pillow and leaned back against it. Caleb gave her a side glace and sighed.

“You know,” he started slowly. “You have a bad habit of getting snappy when something is stressing you out. I understand you’re nervous about joining a new college and being in a different country. Hell, I am nervous and this was where I was born. But you act like you’re going at this alone and you’re not. You have me, you’re going to have your roommate, and you have that family that you grew up with. I doubt they’re going to let you drown. Pick yourself up, Sara. You’re going to be fine. We both are.”

He was right, and she knew it. Still, that little doubt of what have I gotten myself into lingered in her brain.

Maybe it was the fact that Sara still wasn't quite perfectly fluent in the Japanese language that had her nervous. She could carry on a decent conversation with Caleb, and she had passed the test to enter the college with flying colors. But as she was finding out, the Japanese she had studied in school and at the community college close to her house, and the dialect here were two different things.

It also could be the family that was hosting her stay in Japan. The support of the Ichijouji family was one of the major reasons Sara's family agreed to let her stay in Tokyo for a year of college. The Ichijouji's had been friends of the Adams family as long as Sara could remember. She had grown up with their eldest son, but her memories of him had faded over time. The last time she had seen the boy, he was a tall, skinny and awkward, with glasses too large for his face. He was no longer the annoying little boy in the backyard that pulled on her pigtails, or tried to gross her out with bugs (which he somehow found absolutely amazing). He was older, and mature for his age.

But all contact with him had stopped at the age of thirteen, and Sara was almost positive the ten year old boy she had once known, and this now almost twenty-one year old man were two completely different people.

She was shocked back into reality as a small cell phone landed on her lap. She glanced up to find Caleb grinning at her. “You said you needed to call your mother,” he explained. “There is no sense in you wasting our calling card when you can just call from my phone.”

“Does it even have service here?” Sara asked skeptically. She punched a button, surprised to find that it had service. She gave Caleb a grateful nod. He mouthed ‘I’ll be back later’, and took off down the hall. Even a few feet away, Sara could hear Caleb’s loud voice echoing down the hallway as he met other people.

Amanda Adams picked up on the second ring. “Sara? Are you okay?”

“Yea, I’m fine.”

For the first time, Sara noticed the sleepiness in her mother's voice. It dawned on her that while it was almost five in the afternoon in Tokyo, it was only one in the morning Oklahoma. She swallowed. "Sorry, Mom. I forgot the time difference."

A small chuckle came through the phone line, still laced with weariness. "Don't worry about it, baby. I take it you got in safe? Are you all checked in to the dorms yet?" She listened with patience as Sara explained every worry that she had about her new life in Tokyo, and Sara could almost feel her mother rolling her eyes through the phone. "Sara, you're nineteen years old. While that isn't wise in years by any means, you have the common sense to make it on your own. I've never worried whether or not this was a bad decision - I know you're going to be fine. Have you called the Ichijouji's yet?"

"Haven't had a chance. Caleb just got my room set up." At this moment, Sara couldn't even begin to tell anyone where their number was.

"How is he?"

Sara snorted. "Caleb's having a blast. You can tell Mr. Motomiya that he doesn't have to worry; I'll keep a good eye on his eccentric, wild, child."

"I doubt that's going to make him feel any better." Mrs. Adams had a point. The one and only time Caleb's father had left him in the hands of a friend to take care of him, Caleb had overdosed. Though Caleb had had his life straightened out for almost a year now, his past behavior was on everyone's minds. It was Sara's (and probably the Motomiya's) worst fear that Caleb would choose the wrong group to hang out with at the college. He had come too far for Sara to watch him waste his life away again.

A yawn caught Sara's attention, and she smiled. "I'll let you go, Mom. I just wanted to tell you that we got in okay and I'm all set up in my dorm."

"Thanks, sweets. Call me some time when we're both awake." Mrs. Adams said gently, making Sara feel horrible once again for waking her mother up. "And call Rika. She e-mailed me yesterday, and she's very excited to have you. I know you'll be wanting to see her son again. Osamu, wasn't it?"

"Yes. And Mom, we were ten the last time I saw him. I've changed a little."

"In good ways."

Sara resisted the urge to blush. "I'll talk to you later, Mom. I love you." She flipped the small cell phone closed and leaned back against the bed. If Caleb's registration and move in to the dorms took anywhere as long as Sara's had, he would be gone for quite a while. She sighed, and grabbed the stuffed bear next to her pillow.

Had this really been a good idea to go to college three thousand miles from her home? At the time, it had seemed like a great plan - it was a chance to experience the culture, and have the adventure of a lifetime. With friends of her mother's supporting her, what could possibly go wrong?

But now, alone in the tiny dorm room at the School of Fine Arts, Sara wondered if it had all been a huge mistake. For the very first time in nineteen years, Sara felt completely, and utterly alone.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author's Notes: I know I said I was waiting until Sunday to post this, but I'm extremely impaitent. I've been waiting to get this story up and going for a month or so, and I'm so excited to be working on this again. This, my dear readers, is the first chapter to Hindsight, formally known as "And Then, They Fell in Love." Why the title change? Well . . .this has the same elements as the last story. It has the same basic storyline, but there are quite a few differences. Hopefully, you're already beginning to notice them. I've got most of the first part written, so updates should come fast for a while. I'm hoping to update this every week, at least until I get the majority of the story done. After that (and after it's edited), I'll start posting every three days. I hope you like this version - I'm excited to hear your story.

For those who haven't read this before, I hope you enjoy the ride!