The plane touched down at LAX just as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting the sky in layered streaks of lavender and gold. Los Angeles always looked beautiful from above—like a promise. But Ethan had learned in his first life that Hollywood's beauty was the kind you had to squint to see. Beneath the glow was pressure, ambition, and the kind of loneliness only actors understood.
But tonight, for the first time in either of his lives, Ethan wasn't arriving alone.
Scarlett stepped off the plane beside him, her hood pulled low, sunglasses on even though the sky was dim and the terminal lights were weak. She glanced around with the weary alertness of someone who had already learned to fear flashes of cameras.
"You good?" Ethan asked, keeping his voice low.
She nodded but didn't smile. "Just… preparing myself. You know how they get at airports."
He did. Even in this early-2000s world, paparazzi hunted for young actresses like treasure. Scarlett was right at the edge of becoming a name everyone knew. One major film, one breakout role—any day now, the spotlight would turn and blind her.
He wasn't sure if he wanted that for her. But he knew it was coming.
They moved through the terminal quietly. No one recognised them yet—not really. Ethan was a kid who'd appeared in a couple of shows. Scarlett was still mostly an indie darling. For now, anonymity shielded them like a thin, fragile bubble.
Outside, the air was cool, with a faint scent of car exhaust and jacaranda flowers. They paused under a flickering streetlamp while they waited for the studio driver. Scarlett pulled down her hood, finally taking a breath.
"I'm going to miss Japan," she murmured.
Ethan smiled. "Yeah. It was… peaceful."
"That's a good word for it." She looked at him then, a soft smile warming her face. "You were peaceful too, you know."
The compliment caught him off guard. He felt heat crawl up his neck. "Really?"
"You just… exist so calmly. Nothing pushes you around." She shook her head. "I wish I could be like that."
If only she knew.
Ethan wasn't calm—he was a man twice her age trapped in a younger body, desperately trying not to make the same mistakes. But he couldn't tell her that. Instead, he offered a softer truth.
"You're stronger than you think. You carried that entire film."
Scarlett scoffed. "I stood around and looked sad for ninety minutes."
"That was the point," Ethan said with a small laugh. "You made sadness look beautiful."
Her cheeks pinked. She looked away too quickly.
A black town car pulled up to the curb before either of them could say more. The driver stepped out, holding up a nameplate.
"Hale?"
"That's me," Ethan said.
Scarlett turned to him, eyebrows raised. "You have a studio car?"
He shrugged. "My agent must've thought it'd make me look important."
She snorted. "Well, let's not waste the illusion."
They climbed in, and the doors shut softly behind them, sealing them inside a dim, quiet space. Scarlett tucked her legs up on the seat, curling against the door. Ethan sat beside her with a respectable distance, though the gravity between them felt impossible to ignore.
Neither spoke for a minute. The silence was comfortable in the way only shared experience could make it.
Then Scarlett's voice cut through the quiet. "Do you think it's going to be different now?"
"What do you mean?"
She stared out the window at the blur of city lights. "Now that we're back. Now that the film's done. Now that… we kissed."
Ethan's heartbeat stumbled.
He remembered that kiss vividly—the way time had slowed, the way her breath had hitched right before their lips touched, the way he'd felt his past and present collide in a burst of something painfully human.
He forced a steady breath. "Different good or different bad?"
"I don't know yet." Her voice was honest, almost too honest. "Maybe both."
That answer would have terrified him once. Now it felt real. Real things were allowed to be complicated.
He turned slightly toward her. "Whatever happens… we don't have to rush it."
Scarlett looked at him again, really looked at him, studying his face as though she were trying to read his soul. "You always say the exact right thing, you know that?"
It was flattering, but it also sent a quiet ache through him. She was falling for a man she didn't fully understand. And he was falling for her with the awareness of someone who already knew what fame and heartbreak could do to people.
Their hands brushed on the seat between them—accidental at first.
Neither pulled away.
When they arrived at Scarlett's apartment, the car slowed to a stop. She hesitated before unbuckling her seatbelt, as though leaving Japan behind meant leaving something else behind too.
"You're going straight home?" she asked.
"Yeah," Ethan said. "My parents'll want to hear everything."
Scarlett smiled. "You're lucky. My mom'll just tell me to get an acting coach."
"She's… tough on you?"
"In her way," Scarlett said, trying to sound casual but not fully succeeding. "She means well. She just sees potential and… pushes."
Ethan nodded. "Sometimes pushing hurts."
She gave him that bittersweet smile again. "Yeah. It does."
The moment stretched. Neither wanted to end it.
"Call me tomorrow?" she asked softly.
"Of course."
She leaned in—not for a kiss, but a hug. Gentle, warm, lingering. When she pulled back, her eyes searched his one last time.
"Thank you for Tokyo," she whispered.
Before he could respond, she slipped out into the night, hood up, disappearing into the dim streetlight glow.
The car pulled away, and Ethan sat back against the seat, exhaling a long breath he'd been holding since she'd boarded the plane beside him that morning.
Tokyo had been magic.
LA would be reality.
But for once… he wasn't afraid of reality.
His parents were waiting when he got home—his mom in her robe, his dad pretending he hadn't fallen asleep on the couch. They peppered him with questions about the shoot, the cast, and Japan itself. Ethan answered what he could without sounding suspiciously wise for an eighteen-year-old.
"So this Scarlett girl," his dad said, half-teasing. "She's the one you've been emailing?"
Ethan nearly choked. "Dad!"
His parents exchanged a knowing look. He flushed bright red.
"We're just friends," he insisted.
His mother smirked. "For now."
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
A message from Scarlett.
Thanks again for everything. Today felt… strange in a good way. Sleep well.
He smiled before he could stop himself.
His mother noticed. "Friends, huh?"
He fled to his room before they could say anything else.
In the quiet of his room, Ethan finally let himself breathe. Carefully, he pulled his journal from the drawer—the one where he tracked everything to keep his two lives straight.
He wrote:
Back from Tokyo.
Scarlett feels like the beginning of something.
I have to be careful. But I don't want to be.
This time, I want to let something good happen.
He closed the journal, set it aside, and lay back on the bed.
His mind drifted not to fame or success, but to her laugh in that tiny Kyoto café, the way she'd leaned on his shoulder on the bullet train, the warmth in her eyes tonight.
He didn't know what the future held.
But for the first time since waking up in 2001…
He couldn't wait to find out.