Well, it took longer - and was more difficult - than I had first thought.  But here it is: a segment from what is perhaps my most ambitious grey project.  Yes, it's a crossover; no, I won't flesh out that '?' just yet...
	Anyway, here it is.  Conventions as follows: _text_ is italicized; {text} denotes a person's thoughts.

-

	With the things essential to his residence in Tokyo - lodging, food, utilities - taken care of, and nothing even remotely related to work demanding his attention, Chance found himself at loose ends.  Combined with that of the day turning out as nicely as the weather people had predicted, it provided for him reason sufficient to explore his new neighborhood.  This he did on foot, looking no different from any of the many people out and about on their own affairs.
	All things considered, he'd surmised twenty minutes after leaving his rented apartment, this particular suburb wasn't a bad one to call home.  A quarter-hour or so after that, and he was standing outside of a bookstore.  It was a small one, a mom-and-pop kind of establishment in all likelihood, and he might have walked right on by except for two things.  First, it claimed a large import selection, which meant that it might have those Timothy Zahn novels he hadn't been able to find while in Montana; and second, he wasn't certain that he'd pass the store again on the way back.  So he went in.
	He had stopped at the magazine rack, novels in hand, to skim the current issue of Time when it happened.  Obliged to take a step back to avoid someone moving  hurriedly down the passage, he ended up backing into somebody else... a young woman, he saw on turning around, with green hair mostly gathered into two thick tails kept intact by small ribbons near their ends and which had been brought over her shoulders to lie on her chest.
	A young woman he had, he realized with sudden clarity, seen before, but no answers came immediately to mind regarding when and where, or who she was.

	Mio Kisaragi had trouble, at first, believing her eyes.  He looked just as she remembered, right down to the short purple hair - which apparently still defied any and all attempts to neaten it - and those silver eyes which were so difficult to read.  But... was he really who she thought he was, as opposed to a figment of a daydream, or someone possessing a remarkably coincidental resemblance?  She blinked a couple of times - no daydream, he was still there.
	"Sorry about that.  Are you okay?"
	No listener could be faulted for guessing that he'd been born and raised in Japan; his command of the language was that good, even if there was a faint accent.  "Uh, yes," she managed to get out.  But it wasn't his voice that put her doubts to rest.  It was his eyes - more specifically, the fact that their focus seemed to be sweeping up and down her body, as if he was appraising her... or trying to associate her face and form to a memory...
	{It _is_ you, isn't it?  Please... please remember me...}
	His eyes looked her over again...
	"I..."
	...then, almost imperceptibly, widened, only for a moment....
	"...remember."
	Time, which had seemed to stop, flowed again; a hundred possibilities for the future spilled into her mind.  She wanted to sing for joy, to say something, anything, but couldn't quite gather the breath; to close the short distance seperating them and hug him, but that impulse was lost amid all the other sensations and thoughts before it could properly form.

	"You're the exchange student," Chance elaborated, certain of his guess.  "September '93 through June '94."
	"You do remember me, Chance."  He could almost hear the joy in those words... and did one of her eyes - they were green, matching her hair perfectly - have a tear forming in it?  "I..."
	A tiny part of him was wondering exactly why this woman not only remembered his name, but seemed so... happy that he in turn could pick her out of all the people and events that touched his life.  No answer was forthcoming, so he instead asked her a simpler one.
	"Mio Kisaragi."
	"It's a lovely name."  He blinked.  That seemed an odd, yet somehow fitting, thing to say.

-

	Commentary and suggestions - preferably direct - are, of course, appreciated.  Background information, available upon specific request.

-Arthur Edwards
 White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
 http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/7210/index.html