[Yusuke's heart thuds. That's Keiko, all right: there's no mistaking her. Certainly there isn't for Yusuke, who hears his name spoken in her voice and immediately thinks of home and waking up in a dark bedroom to what felt like the weight of 8-ton blocks of concrete in his body and the soft, lingering pressure of lips salty with tears on his mouth. For a moment, he forgets to feel anxious and miserable at the thought of how she'll look at him when he tells her what's been happening here in her absence; for a moment, the syrupy warmth of familiarity and affection overtakes him, and Yusuke, feeling a crooked grin beginning to tug across his stinging face despite himself, huffs a laugh into his watch and replies, in that same blithe tone he uses when he's trying to effect easy nonchalance in a situation when he's feeling anything but:]

You know how it is. You chug a couple cans from a mystery sixer, then you wake up the next morning in a different dimension.

[She's running. He can hear it: the steady thunk-thunk-thunk of her feet against wooden flooring. It makes the knowledge that she's here seem all the more real, and without even truly thinking about it, Yusuke begins walking at a brisk pace towards the northern part of town, where he knows all the big fancy houses are. He doesn't know which one belongs to the doc and her "brother" (who, apparently, had also arrived here while he was AWOL; trust this place to get interesting while he's not here to enjoy it), but it doesn't make a difference: in a place as small as this, they're bound to find each other soon enough.]