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“You didn’t have to walk me back to my hotel, you know.” The girl genius points out, gaze shifting to the man walking beside her.
“Impossible! I, Hououin Kyouma, may be a mad scientist, but I still know how to treat others with the upmost respect!” The self-proclaimed “mad scientist” retorts, one hand over his heart while the other arm swings out beside him in a dramatic fashion that is uniquely his.
“Keep telling yourself that.” She says simply, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at his ridiculous claim.
--
Daru and Mayuri had left the lab earlier that day; Mayuri was needed at the May Queen, and Daru absolutely could not pass up the opportunity to tag along and see his beloved Faris. Although their departure left the lab with only two members, Makise and Okabe worked diligently. So diligently, in fact, that they hadn’t notice the sun fall beneath the horizon, nor the moon rise up high into the sky. By the time either of them had realized the amount of time that had passed, the last train had long departed from the station.
“Ah, it’s fine. I’ll just walk back to my hotel.” Makise sighs, exchanging her lab coat for her signature one as she headed towards the door.
“No way! You can’t just walk back by yourself at this hour! Who knows what fiendish characters roam these streets at night!” Okabe proclaimed.
“I’m sure whatever characters I would run into wouldn’t be as creepy as you, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.” She retorted, smirking as the other sputtered in response, trying to think of a good comeback.
“As head of this lab it is my duty to—!”
“Nope.”
“But if you walk alone the Organization may see it as an opportunity to strike—!”
“Highly doubt that.”
“Gh—!”
Sensing she’d won this intellectual battle, Makise quickly put on her shoes, looking over her shoulder at the other.
“Is that all you had to say? Or did you have some other lame excuse in mind, Hououin Kyouma—"
He stood up from the desk abruptly, causing the girl to jump. If he couldn’t leave Mayuri unguarded for a second, then who’s to say he could just let Makise walk out that door by herself? Fate may have its sights set on Mayuri, but there’s no telling, there’s no certainty, that it won’t rear its ugly head at someone else. He could let her walk out that door, and the probability of something actually happening to her could be low, but he couldn’t bring himself to let that happen.
The risk was too high, and he was not ready to see another lifeless Makise laying at his feet any time soon.
After what seemed like ages, Okabe finally spoke up. “Please, just let me walk you home, okay?” He said softly.
She blinked at him momentarily, the sudden change from chunibyo to normal nearly giving her whiplash. By the time she’d processed what had happened and came back to her senses she was met with Okabe staring expectantly at her.
“O-Okay, fine! But don’t think I’m letting you do this because I want you to, it’s just so you’ll shut up about it, okay?” She huffed, grabbing her bag and turning towards the door, “Hurry up! You’re too slow!”
--
And that is how these two found themselves in this current predicament, strolling down the lesser walked streets of Akihabara late at night. Thankfully her hotel wasn’t too far from the laboratory; sure, she often took the train, but the walk to the lab was relatively quick when it wasn’t packed full of people like it usually was during the day. It felt shorter than usual to her, but she just assumed it’s because Okabe was hounding her for most of the trip.
Her room was on the 5th floor of the hotel; not too tall that it loomed over the entire city, but not too short that her balcony view was just the backside of another building. For what it was worth it was a fine room. She rummaged through her bag momentarily, pulling out her key card and swiping it, waiting for the distinct click that signified it had unlocked.
She moved to open the door, but quickly shut it again, turning around to face the other.
“Wait out here for a moment, and don’t you dare come in until I tell you to.” She said sternly, to which the other simply nodded. He didn’t exactly want to evoke her wrath at this hour of the night.
She quickly retreated to her room and turned on the lights, grimacing in the state she’d left the room. She had yet to fold her laundry, so it sat in a crumpled pile by the large chair in the corner of the room. The garbage bin by the desk was nearly filled to the brim with cup ramen, candy, and other junk food from her various trips to the local convenience store late at night. And let’s not even talk about the pile of bras she’d left by the bed as a result of casually throwing them off to the side whenever she went to sleep.
With a muttered string of curse words, Makise got to work. Work being hastily throwing the laundry clothes into the closet and shoving the pile of bras under the bed.
She’d deal with them later.
“Okay, you can come in.” She stated simply as she opened the door again, motioning with a nod of her head for the other to step inside.
Maybe if this had been her actual bedroom and not some random hotel room Okabe would have felt slightly embarrassed upon entering, but that thought didn’t cross his mind.
Until he saw a bra partially peeking out from under her bed.
Then he got embarrassed and may or may not have considered doing a 180° and sprinting out of the room entirely.
“Nice place you got, Celeb 17.” He said remarked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Can you lay off the nicknames for even a moment?” She muttered under her breath before speaking up, “Did you expect me to be squatting in a pig pen or something? Jeez.”
“Of course not! This is fitting for you, perverted genius girl!” He said loudly, “You’re welcome for the escort, I shall take my leave now, Assistant—"
“Okabe, wait.”
She didn’t recall reaching out to grab the sleeve of his lab coat, but the next thing she knew she was holding onto it tightly, gazing at the other. When she realized what she’d done she quickly looked away, feeling her cheeks flush, but continued to hold on.
“The trains aren’t running at this hour. It wouldn’t be safe for you to go home alone.” She started off, her words becoming quieter as she went on, “...You can stay here for the night, if you’d like.”
If he didn’t want to run away before, he definitely wanted to now.
“W-What?” He stuttered, “No, no it’s fine! The walk is short and the night is young so I’ll be okay—!”
“Okabe, stay...please.” She said softly, her voice barely above a whisper, “Please stay.”
“M-Makise...”
“Please?”
The silence between them dragged on for what felt like eternity until he finally gave in.
“Okay, I’ll stay.” He said simply, closing the door behind him.
Curse his weak-willed nature.
“Good.” She said, letting go of his sleeve and regaining her composure. “Make yourself comfortable, I’m going to go change. Stay put, pervert, or else you’ll be leaving out the window. Got it?”
“Y-Yeah, I got it.” He said, watching her leave until she disappeared behind the bathroom door.
Oh God, what does she mean by she’s going to change? What’s he supposed to expect? What is she expecting from him? He should’ve just left in the first place, he can’t go through with this—
“Something up?”
A familiar voice pulled him from his thoughts. Nervously he looked up, but quickly breathed a sigh of relief when he realized she was simply wearing an old t-shirt and pajama shorts.
“No! I’m good.” He reassured the other.
“Okay, then get comfortable.”
“Pardon?”
“You don’t sleep in that lab coat, do you?” She questioned, raising an eyebrow, “You can take it off, just throw it on the desk chair or something.”
“O-Oh, right.”
He’d rather not, but it’d seem suspicious if he left it on so...
Begrudgingly he slinked out of the lab coat, folding it and putting it on the desk chair, arms instinctively going up to cover his exposed body.
“What are you doing?” She asked.
“Nothing.”
“Okabe—"
“I just,” He interrupted, looking the other way, “I feel naked without it, alright? I’ve always been very thin, scrawny, whatever you want to call it, so...”
He looked up to find the other chuckling softly, causing him to furrow his eyebrows in annoyance.
“What’s so funny?” He said, bracing for the worst.
“No, nothing’s funny.” She admitted as she shook her head, gazing at him with a soft smile that almost never saw the light of day when he was around, “That’s just kind of...endearing is all.”
“Oh.”
Realizing what she’d said, Makise looked away to hide the blush on her cheeks.
Unable to process what she’d just said, Okabe looked away for the same reason.
“A-Anyway,” She said after what felt like forever, clearing her throat, “it’s getting late so we should go to sleep.” The last thing she needed was to lose what little sleep she already gets.
Okabe nodded, glancing around the room briefly before deciding the couch was the best place to settle down for the night. He made his way over, sitting down and looking up to find the other staring at him.
“What?”
“What are you doing?”
“Going to sleep…like you...told me to?” He replied before adding with a smirk, “Or are you going to force me to sleep on the floor as payback for all your lovely nicknames, Zombie?”
“No, I…” She paused to clear her throat, looking at the ground, “I was going to say you can sleep on my bed…if you’d like.”
What?
That’s a joke, right? That has to be a joke, right?
The expression on her face says otherwise.
Makise Kurisu, girl genius, inviting someone like him to share the same bed as her? A million possibilities and scenarios fly through his head so quickly he swears he might pass out on the spot. There has to be a rational explanation for this turn of events, but his mind fails to find any. He’s drawing a blank; how does one act in such a situation? Is there a protocol for this kind of thing? A script he should be following?
“Oh…okay.” He finally manages to string some words together in what loosely resembles an answer, “If you insist.”
He tentatively makes his way over to the bed, every step carefully calculated. He sits on the edge of the bed and looks at the other, watching her head back towards the hall with the light switch. With a flick of her finger the room descends into darkness, illuminated only by the lights from the outside world filtering in through the crack in the curtains of the window. He’s unable to make out her figure, and for a minute he panics. Surely this has to be a prank? She’s going to come up behind him and scare him as payback for all the times he picks on her, right?
He feels the bed shift ever so slightly, indicating she’s also sat down on the bed. It is only when he feels her shift to lie down that he realizes it isn’t some elaborately concocted prank.
“Are you going to lie down?” She asks, grounding him in reality before he gives himself a panic-induced heart attack thinking about the situation he’s in.
He simply lies down in response, his body as close to the opposite side of the bed as is humanely possible.
She huffs, and even though he can’t make out her face, he’s fairly certain it’s been contorted into a look of annoyance. It usually is whenever she’s dealing with him.
“You’re going to fall off the bed that way.” She states simply,
“As if I, Hououin Kyouma, would ever allow something as embarrassing as falling off the bed to occur-”
“Sure, you probably wouldn’t fall off on your own, but the temptation to push you off might be too great for me to resist later on.” She says, her sinister tone seeping through her words.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Oh...but I would.”
“…”
Admitting defeat, he slides closer towards the center of the bed, stopping to ensure there’s ample room between the two of them.
“There, is that better, Assistant?” He questions, frowning when he hears an amused chuckle escape her lips.
“Yeah, that’s fine.” She muses before turning to face the wall, “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
Okabe wants to turn away, to face the window and just pretend he isn’t in bed with his assistant— with Makise, but he’s unable to bring himself to move. If he stays still, he can just barely make out the outline of her figure against the darkness of the room. Even now, after having spent so much time with her, he still can’t help but feel like this isn’t real. This reality isn’t his; in the world he knew, Makise Kurisu is dead.
She died at the young age of 17.
She died a scientific prodigy.
She died a stranger to him.
To think there was a time in his life that he didn’t know her astounds him. Relatively speaking they’ve spent little time together, but the impact she’s had on him in just these few weeks is enough to solidify her place in his life forever.
But he could never bring himself to tell her that.
“Hey, Okabe?” She asks softly, her voice cutting through the silence like a knife.
“Y-Yes?” He responds. Is she going to call him a pervert for staring at her back while she sleeps? Something along those lines, right?
“Do you…do you want to know why I asked you to stay?” She says suddenly, flipping over so she’s facing him, the swift motion catching him off guard and causing him to jump.
“O-Oh, yeah! Yeah, sure, what is it?” He stutters, propping himself up on his elbows.
Makise takes a moment to compose herself, sitting up in bed and taking a deep breath.
“Promise me you won’t laugh?” She demands first.
“I promise.” Okabe replies almost instantly.
“Well, I don’t know exactly where to start but,” She takes another deep breath, “I keep having these dreams. Nightmares to be more exact I guess. I don’t know why, I’ve never really had a problem with them before but…I keep having one in particular that seems too…realistic. I know people say it’s possible for dreams and such to feel real but, this isn’t like that. It feels so real, too real to just be a nightmare, you know?”
She turns to look at him. She might not be able to properly make his face out in the dark, but she can tell his eyes are trained on her and nothing else at this very moment.
“Yeah, I know.” He says softly. He knows all too well where this is going. He is the only one that currently possesses the Reading Steiner ability, allowing him to retain his memories from previous worldlines. However, this doesn’t mean that others aren’t able to retain their memories as well. They may not be able to remember them properly, but deep down inside their subconscious it’s very possible that those memories from other worldlines remain.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” She starts again, this time quieter than before, “but it feels like I’ve lived that moment so many times before. Some of the details are blurry, but the core of the nightmare never changes. I’m talking to my dad, he gets mad at me, there’s a struggle and then…”
She chokes back a sob.
“I-I die.”
Okabe sits up quickly, reaching over to turn on the bedside lamp on the nightstand. The light that floods their corner of the room stings his eyes momentarily, making him blink rapidly in an effort to adjust to the change.
“I’m sorry, you probably think I’m pathetic for crying over something as childish as a nightmare.” Makise manages to say between sobs, trying in vain to stifle them by covering her mouth with the backside of her hand. A scientific prodigy credited with writing multiple academic papers since elementary school and here she is, knees drawn against her chest, crying into her hands like a child afraid of the dark, calling out to her parents, in front of a guy she barely knows.
God, she’s pathetic, isn’t she?
“Don’t apologize.” He says sternly, instinctively wrapping one arm around her shoulders and drawing her into him “You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”
How long had she been having these dreams? How long had she been shouldering this weight alone? God, if he was in her position there’s no way he would’ve been able to stay strong this long. He would’ve gone insane long ago, and yet, Makise came to the lab every day, ready to work same as always, with this slowly eating away at her.
He’d always been sure of it, but if this didn’t prove Makise Kurisu was strong, nothing would.
Okabe held onto her, idly rubbing circles into her back as she cried, the sobs reverberating throughout her entire body. On occasion she tried to string together a sentence, an apology for her behavior, but she was never able to finish before she relapsed into another cycle of tears.
“Y-You must think I’m insane or something.” She tries to laugh, but its warped into a howl of sadness.
He shook his head and held her close, gently resting his chin on the top of her head. “If you’re insane, then what does that make me?” He asks.
Makise shrugs from beneath him. “I-I don’t know, a chunibyo I guess?” She responds, her tears subsiding for a moment so she could giggle at the comparison.
“Yeah,” He huffs in amusement, “I guess so.”
Realistically this probably went on for half an hour, an hour at best, but to Okabe it felt like time had come to a halt. It didn’t matter what time it was. The only thing that mattered at this moment was the girl in his arms, nothing else.
Eventually her sobs subsided into tears, which then diminished into nothing save for some hiccups and the occasional whimper. Either she’d gotten it out of her system or she’d managed to dehydrate herself to the point she’s unable to produce any more tears. He’s not sure which it is.
“Are you feeling better?” He asked softly, still rubbing circles into the space between her shoulder blades, taking note of how petite she was.
She nodded her head against his chest, sniffling and rubbing her arm against her nose.
“Y-Yeah, I...” Makise hiccupped, “I think I’m feeling better.”
She lazily lifted her head from his chest, her hair a disheveled mess, her eyes red and puffy from crying. Her tears had dried, leaving behind a noticeable trail on her cheeks. She looked up at him momentarily, sniffling again.
Okabe Rintarou had never seen such a beautiful sight in his life.
“I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“I got snot on your shirt.” She said simply, poking the dried spots on his shirt, “I’m sorry.”
He looked down and sure enough there was a noticeable amount of dried mucus on his shirt. How does one react to a cute girl dribbling snot all over their shirt? Is there a correct way to handle the situation? It’s not like he’d know, considering the only other female he’s ever interacted with extensively (besides his mother, of course), was Mayuri, who at this point was more like a sibling than a friend. In another time and place he may have grimaced and scolded his assistant for ruining his shirt. However, that wasn’t the case today. Chuckling softly, he shook his head.
He couldn’t bring himself to be mad at her even if he tried.
“Don’t worry about it.” He said casually, pausing to remove his shirt and throw it to where his lab coat was, “Tomorrow’s laundry day anyway, so it’s fine.” He turned back to face her, not noticing the blush that had spread across her cheeks or her particularly shocked and somewhat distressed expression at his previous action.
“Do you need anything? Some tissues, a glass of water?” He offered.
“Oh,” his kindness threw her off guard, “some tissues would be nice...and a glass of water too...please...” She mumbled softly, unable to make eye contact.
Okabe excused himself, leaving her alone momentarily as he grabbed a nearby box of tissues and filled a glass of water from the sink. Returning to the bed he handed her the items, watching as she finished off the glass of water before blowing her nose loudly on a couple of tissues.
“Thank you.” She said softly.
They sat in silence once again, Makise resting her chin on her knees that were drawn close to her chest, and Okabe simply sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Do you want to try to go to sleep now?” He suggested. He couldn’t promise that her nightmare wouldn’t return, considering it was a very real part of her, but he also knew she couldn’t stay up all night either.
Makise nodded her head, “Yeah, you can turn off the light now if you’d like.”
He reached over to the nightstand once again, flicking the switch and once again allowing the room to be enveloped in darkness. Taking a moment to adjust his position he lies down, turning to face the girl when something hits his chest with a muffled sound.
“K-Kurisu—?”
“Just for tonight.” She says, her voice muffled against his chest, “Just let me stay like this for tonight. Then tomorrow I’ll go back to being your assistant.”
He stares down at her dumbfounded. Thank God for the cover of darkness, or else his beet red face would give him away. Then again, she was probably only being this bold because she couldn’t see in the first place.
Okabe couldn’t help but smile down at her, even if she couldn’t see him.
“Okay, sounds like a plan.” He nods, wrapping an arm around her and drawing her close once again. Maybe in another scenario she’d react by violently pushing him away, but that wasn’t the case tonight. She drew herself up close against the other, letting his warmth permeate through her body and slowly lull her to sleep.
“Goodnight, Okabe.” She managed to whisper. She didn’t want to fall asleep, she wanted to enjoy this moment damnit, but her tears had left her exhausted. Despite her best protests, her eyelids soon became too heavy for her to fight against; before she knew it, she’d fallen asleep.
Okabe laid as still as possible, careful not to disturb her slumber. He could tell by the rise and fall of her chest that she’d already fallen into a deep sleep, one that would hopefully not be marred by nightmares this time. Idly, he ran his hand through her hair, pausing only to softly stroke her cheek with his thumb, taking note of how soft her skin felt against his calloused fingers.
“Goodnight, Makise.” He responded, planting a gentle kiss on her forehead before letting sleep come for him as well.
Tomorrow he’d go back to his usual dramatic self, and Makise would return to scolding him for just about everything she could possibly think of. Their dynamic would be restored, and it’d be like nothing had ever happened between the two of them. Tomorrow life would go back to normal, or rather, as normal as it could possibly be for him at this point in his life.
But for right now, tomorrow could wait for just a little longer.