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“Okay… Go!”
They both toss out their hands in unison, and immediately Ryuga can feel his shoulders sink in defeat, grumbling out “seriously” as Sento’s smile turns annoyingly smug.
“I moved furniture for four straight hours! How the hell did you make that much just sitting at the park?”
“You’d be surprised how many high schoolers pass by there on their way home,” Sento says, preening visibly. “And how many of them have science and math coursework they’d gladly pay someone else to do for them. Simple, right? Another win for my incredible genius.”
Ryuga scowls. “Oh, yeah?” He jabs a finger at Sento’s much larger (but still not much to speak of) stack of cash. “That gonna afford a hotel room, Mister Genius?”
Sento’s smile evens out into a thin press of the lips. He doesn’t answer as he snatches Ryuga’s money away and begins counting it all out. Ryuga sighs as he leans back against the wall behind them, letting his head hit the brick with a slightly painful thump.
“Maybe we should just go live in the woods,” he mutters. “Don’t need money out there. And you’d finally appreciate me and my muscles, when I… build us a shelter. Fend off wild animals. That kinda stuff.”
“You’re a featherweight, Ryuga,” Sento murmurs, distracted, like a rote response, still clearly working out the details of their sad budget in his mind. “You don’t have any muscles.”
He opens his mouth to voice a retort but finds himself hung up on the sound of his name. It’s been like this, on and off since they got here. That he’ll just drop a “Ryuga” in the middle of conversation, not seeming to realize that he has. Not seeming to realize that it makes something swoop disconcertingly in the pit of Ryuga’s stomach, the back of his neck warming. Stupid, he thinks, that he’d even care at this point. After everything they’ve been through. What does a name matter?
(But it does, somehow.)
Ryuga runs a hand through his hair, over his braids, staring out at the plaza at the passersby, and –
Sits up a little straighter. “Oi,” he says, nudging Sento with his elbow, who follows his gaze to the person currently walking past not fifteen feet away, intently focused on the screen of his phone.
“Ah,” Sento says. “Now that’s… a bit strange.”
Katsuragi still has his lab coat on. He must be on break, Ryuga assumes, and there’s something so utterly normal about that thought. Here’s the guy who tried to kill him, who lived inside Sento’s head up until last week, and he’s just strolling along on his lunchbreak like it’s nothing.
“Of course I knew we could potentially come across him,” Sento mutters, more to himself than to Ryuga. “But I guess it never felt like a real possibility. I wonder if I – he still works for the government in this world…”
He trails off. Katsuragi has glanced up from his phone. Turned his head. He’s staring straight at them.
His eyes widen, as if in recognition.
“Uh,” Ryuga says. “Is he coming over here?” A beat. “He’s definitely coming over here.”
Katsuragi stops in front of them.
“Sento,” he says calmly, inclining his head. “Banjou-san. I was hoping I might see you.”
Ryuga blinks. He and Sento exchange a look, and Ryuga is certain that Sento’s startled expression must be reflected on his own face.
“…What, for real?” Ryuga says.
Katsuragi’s theory goes like this: that because his consciousness from the other world came to this one as part of Sento, that he and he alone among the rest of the population managed to retain his memories. He’d blacked out at his desk one afternoon, he says, and when he’d woken up he was in a sense two different Katsuragi Takumis, with recollections of two different decades, both of which he’d lived and neither of which felt less real than the other.
Ryuga massages his temples as he listens to this. As if all of this shit wasn’t baffling enough already. They’re sitting across the table from Katsuragi in the cafeteria of his workplace – not the government after all, but instead one of those sleek, modern, privately-owned labs, the kind you’d see on the news declaring that they’d found a way to prevent illness in insects by rearranging their genes.
Katsuragi had waved them through security, but Ryuga is still convinced they’re going to be strong-armed out of here at any moment. The guards clearly hadn’t liked the look of them, and Ryuga can’t really blame them. They’d snuck into the showers at the local indoor pool just yesterday, but they’ve still been wearing these same clothes ever since they got here, and at this point they’re both looking more than a little haggard.
Sento doesn’t seem to notice the imminent possibility of being hauled off the premises. His eyes are lit up as he asks Katsuragi question after question about what he’s working on at the moment, none of which Ryuga can hope to understand.
(Their easy back and forth is fascinating, though. He wonders if Sento has been missing his other self, this past week. If he got used to having him there in his thoughts. When the only one who can keep up with you is you, it must be strange to be without.)
“What about dad?” Sento is asking. “What’s he researching now?”
Katsuragi goes still, then, something faltering in his expression. His fingers curl against the tabletop.
“Father,” he says slowly, “isn’t alive in this world, either.”
Ryuga watches, suddenly wired and tense in his seat, as Sento’s face falls.
“It was a heart attack,” Katsuragi explains. “Two years ago. He overworked himself. That’s… what the consensus was.”
“…Oh,” Sento says. Just a small, bone-deep tired sort of sound, but it makes something twist sharp in Ryuga’s chest.
“Now Mother is worried I’m going to end up dying the same way,” Katsuragi continues, a sardonic smile tugging at his mouth. “She’s been texting me a lot of stress relief tips lately. She keeps sending…”
His voice fades as he looks at Sento thoughtfully, then to Ryuga and back again.
“You two,” he says. “You need a place to stay, don’t you?”
Sento is slow to answer, staring solemnly down at his own hands in his lap, and so Ryuga jumps in: “Uh, yeah. But we’re kinda… totally penniless in this world. I mean. Not that we ever had many dollarks, but, like. We definitely don’t have any yen.”
Katsuragi is nodding. “What I have in mind wouldn’t cost any money. I’m wondering if maybe… you might want to stay with Mother for a while?”
This seems to get Sento’s attention. He lifts his eyes, visibly perking up a little.
“It would be beneficial for me, too. She’s been asking me to come home, but my days off just keep disappearing, it seems. Whenever I try to make time, something vital comes up. But if you’re home with her, Sento… Maybe that would be fine enough. You’re the better son, anyhow.” His lips twitch as if biting back a laugh, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I can say you’re my friends. That you’re in a rough place and need a room. She’ll accept that easily enough. And it’s basically the truth, anyhow.” A pause. “Of course, she won’t know you. Maybe that might be hard for you.”
Sento’s wry smile looks eerily like a mirror of Katsuragi’s. “Well,” he says. “She didn’t know me in our world, either. Nice to hear that some things haven’t changed.”
Katsuragi calls her right then and there as his lunch break winds down; turns back with his phone pressed against his ear and gives them an encouraging nod before mouthing “she’d be happy to.”
Ryuga can feel himself grinning. An actual place to stay, he thinks, hit with a wave of giddy relief as he leans back in his chair. No more sleeping on benches or underneath overpasses. Sento’s knee bumps his under the table and Ryuga glances over to find him looking rather like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders as well. Still tired, his eyes sad around the edges, but he’s smiling, too.
“She’s expecting you whenever,” Katsuragi says as he returns to the seat across from them. “Today, tomorrow. Whenever you get there. But, uh.” He tilts his head as he studies them. “Maybe you might want a change of clothes first? You both look a little rough. No offense intended. I’m not sure how well they’ll fit, but you can borrow some of mine, if you like.”
“You – seriously?”
“You’d do that for us?” Sento says.
Katsuragi seems almost perplexed by their disbelief. “Of course. You two saved the world, and I’m the only one who remembers. The least I can do is lend you some clothing and help you not be homeless. And… Even if you weren’t heroes, it would be pretty callous of me, to leave my own self out in the cold.” He gives them a small smile. “Don’t you think?”
Which is how they end up inside Katsuragi’s apartment, having used the spare key he’d given them, rifling through his belongings and feeling every bit like burglars despite the clear invitation. At least, Ryuga does. Sento, maybe due to some inexplicable bond with other self, seems far more at home here, holding up one of Katsuragi’s shirts against himself before shaking his head.
It’s rather sparse, as far as apartments go, though not exactly clean. A thin layer of dust coats some of his furniture. Ryuga gets the sense that Katsuragi spends far more time at work than he does here. Maybe his mom has reason to worry about him following in his dad’s footsteps.
“Of course he only owns boring clothes,” Sento is muttering. “I can’t wait to get a new wardrobe of my own – oh, this one might fit you. Maybe a little short at the wrists, but otherwise.”
He shoves a plain white dress shirt in Ryuga’s direction, who frowns as he takes it.
“How d’you know just from looking? You have my sizes memorized or something?”
“Obviously,” Sento says, offhanded, still rummaging through the set of drawers, and Ryuga stares at him.
(Kasumi had said almost the exact same thing, once, after she’d made him a sweater as a Christmas gift – bright garish red with his name awkwardly sewn onto it. Ugly but comfortable. He’d worn it almost every day for a month after. Weird to think that it’s gone, now.
Or maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s hanging in the back of the other Banjou Ryuga’s closet right this very moment.
Somehow that feels even weirder.)
“Right,” he murmurs. “Obviously.”
“I guess we might as well just change and go,” Sento says. He’s pulled out a full outfit for both of them at this point. “If we leave now we can make it to my mom’s by the time it’s dark.”
And at that he’s standing up and reaching for the hem of his shirt, lifting it to reveal a strip of bare skin.
Ryuga lets out a sharp, startled shout, toppling out of his crouch and landing with a thud.
“Wh – you’re just gonna change right here?”
Sento blinks down at him. “Why not?”
“That’s… Y’know! Common decency!”
Sento arches an eyebrow. When he slowly crouches down to Ryuga’s eye level he looks like he’s stifling a laugh, his expression soft. “Banjou. You’re weirdly modest sometimes, you know that? Especially for an ex-athlete. I’ve seen you shirtless before. You’ve seen me. We shared a body that one time. Remember?”
“That was that,” Ryuga insists. “This is totally different! You – ” He breaks off with a frustrated noise, heat rising in his cheeks. “Forget it. I’ll just go to the other room, then.”
He grabs his pile of Katsuragi’s clothes and jumps to his feet, not letting out the breath he’s holding until he’s slammed the bathroom door behind him.
It really is different, he thinks, resolute, as if he were trying to convince someone. Taking off his shirt in order to be a lab rat in some weird experiment, with Misora in the corner looking on. Sento’s bare back beneath his hands as he patched up a wound from the last fight. None of that had ever really registered. It was just life: life in the lab, life at war.
Except neither of those things apply anymore. It’s just the two of them now, with no world-ending calamity taking precedent in his mind. So it makes sense, doesn’t it? To want some privacy. Some separation.
It’s only natural.
“You were right,” he calls, exiting the bathroom minutes later and tugging at the cuffs of Katsuragi’s shirt. “It mostly fits but the sleeves are too short.”
“Of course I was right,” Sento’s voice says. He’s in the kitchen peering into the contents of Katsuragi’s refrigerator, wearing a bland polo t-shirt and khaki pants that look subtly wrong on him. “You want a slice of cake, Banjou? Looks like something a neighbor probably gave him. Not much else in here.”
“You’re stealing his food, too? What the hell, man?”
Sento turns around to give him a flatly amused look. “Can’t really be called stealing if it’s from yourself, can it?”
The both leave Katsuragi’s cake intact, in the end, packing up their old clothes and straightening up a bit before stepping out the door not twenty minutes since they came in, Katsuragi’s spare key left on his coffee table with a sticky note reading “thanks.”
“Phone is at… 75%,” Sento says, as they stand on the curb outside the apartment complex, and tosses the Build Phone into the air, his bike unfolding to settle in front of them. “We should be able to make it without stopping to recharge.”
He swings a leg over the seat, reaching for his helmet, and Ryuga leans across the handlebars with a grin.
“Hey, y’know. I could drive for once.”
Sento pauses. Smiles back at him mockingly. “Nice try, Banjou.”
“C’mooon,” Ryuga groans. “I’m always stuck on the back of the bike!”
“This machine only responds to the delicate and resourceful touch of an intelligent individual. A musclebrain idiot like you would just crash it straight into a wall, most likely. And you don’t even have a motorcycle license.”
“That’s – neither do you!”
Sento pretends not to hear him, putting far too much focus into adjusting the straps of his helmet.
Ryuga sighs. Walks around and climbs on to the back of the bike, just like usual, jamming his own helmet over his head with a grumbled noise of annoyance. He can never win, it seems.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” he mutters. “For a guy to be riding around on the back of another guy’s bike every day. It’s not cool at all.”
He can’t see Sento’s eyeroll, but he can feel it, somehow.
“Good thing we have about ten more pressing issues at the moment than looking cool,” he says, flipping up the kickstand. He peers out into the street to check the oncoming traffic, and Ryuga frowns as a thought occurs to him.
“Hey. You don’t think your mom watches pro boxing, does she?”
“Somehow I doubt it. You’re probably safe. But…” He pulls a grimace, the bike revving to life beneath them. “I really hope she’s never heard of Lynks.”
Sento, in all his genius, does not manage to account for the gridlocked traffic jam they encounter on their way out of the city. They lose battery life stalled there for minutes on end, which catches up to them an hour and a half later, out on an empty rural road two miles from Sento’s mom’s place, when the bike suddenly begins to emit the sad beeping of a cellphone that’s on the last of its charge.
“Damn it,” Sento says, pulling over and shooing Ryuga off the bike just in time for it to collapse back into phone form and clatter uselessly to the pavement. He picks it up; taps the screen with a scowl. “Well. I guess it’s better than having to push it the rest of the way.”
Privately, Ryuga is somewhat grateful. His entire body always starts to ache, on these long trips. Strained from trying to maintain the right amount of distance. The urge to just lean forward and rest his forehead against Sento’s back is always right there beneath the surface. (But that would be strange, wouldn’t it? It would be too much.)
The drone of the cicadas is overpoweringly loud as they accept their fate and start to walk – the kind of sound that seems to cancel everything else out, pounding its way into his head. It’s nearing sunset but it’s still oppressively hot. The heat swims visibly across the road ahead of them, along the outlines of the trees, as if the scenery were melting away all around them. He can feel sweat beading on the back of his neck. He shades his eyes and glowers up at the reddening sky as he undoes the next button of his shirt, setting to work rolling his sleeves up to his elbows a moment later.
“Katsuragi’s place had AC, didn’t it?” he mutters. “Maybe we should’ve just stayed there.”
“Weren’t you the one suggesting we live out in nature earlier?”
“Well, I was picturing, like… different nature than this,” he finishes lamely.
“Of course,” Sento says, a subtly mocking laugh disguised in his voice.
Sunset is fully underway by the time they find themselves in front of that familiar house. Maybe last time he just didn’t notice, given the circumstances, but the place seems more welcoming, now. Old and a bit ramshackle in a way that’s comforting. Well lived-in. The cicadas are beginning to die down, and crickets can be heard in their stead from the long grass around the house. Lightning bugs are starting to blink against the dimness.
“Let’s try around back,” Sento says. “She’s probably on the porch.”
He says this with the casual confidence of someone who’s lived in this place before. Sure enough, his mother is there on the back porch, light spilling out from inside, a glass of tea sitting next to her as she speaks with two young girls, both of them holding what look like violin cases. She notices Ryuga and Sento out of the corner of her eye and smiles at the girls.
“Time to go home, alright? It’s getting late.”
The kids agree in a chorus and wave their goodbyes, giving Sento and Ryuga odd, curious looks as they dash past. He has a feeling they might be getting gossiped about later tonight. The few other residents they’d passed on the walk here had also observed them a little too keenly.
“So you’re the ones I heard about, then?” Sento’s mother says, once the girls’ footsteps have faded away into the evening. “You certainly got here fast.”
Sento’s expression has turned unguarded, wounded almost, as he stands there staring back at her. His hand clenches and unclenches at his side. Seconds tick past, and Ryuga steps forward with a nervous smile, assuming that he’ll have to take the lead here.
“Uh, I’m – ”
“Kiryu Sento.” Sento has recovered in an instant, his usual mild expression snapping back into place. “And this is my…”
He turns his head to blink at Ryuga, who looks back at him expectantly.
“Associate,” he says finally. “Banjou Ryuga.”
Ryuga glowers at him. (What would he even want to be called, though, he wonders. Every other word he can think of feels awkward or not quite right.)
“Nice to meet you,” Sento’s mother says, a faint glint of amusement in her eyes. “I’m Katsuragi Kyoka. I can offer you boys some dinner, if you like. It’s not much, but you look hungry enough to not mind.”
This, Ryuga thinks, is by far the strangest thing they’ve encountered in this new world. (Stranger even than seeing his perfect doppelganger pass by on the street, arm in arm with his dead girlfriend.) Because all of this has happened before. Coming to this house, meeting this woman, sitting at her table as she feeds them oversweet omelette. It’s a bizarre feeling. As if they had fallen back through time itself. As if it were all repeating.
“So, tell me,” Kyoka says. “How do you two know Takumi?”
Ryuga shoves a few more pickled carrots into his mouth. “Friend of a friend thing, for me,” he says, slightly muffled. He jabs a thumb in Sento’s direction. “He’s the one who’s close with him.”
He’s passing off responsibility with an answer like that, but Sento doesn’t seem particularly aggravated by it. By comparison, Ryuga really doesn’t know Katsuragi the way Sento does. Pretending to be someone close to him would never be convincing in Ryuga’s case.
“We… worked together,” Sento lies. “At the lab he’s employed with currently.”
“Well. You must be rather intelligent also, then.”
“He’s a genius,” Ryuga supplies, grinning.
Kyoka raises an eyebrow. “A genius?” She ‘hmm’s as if to say ‘oh, really?’ “You’re lucky I have some experience living with those. Not everyone has the patience for it.”
Ryuga snorts out a laugh.
“You say you worked together,” Kyoka continues. “In the past tense? Is that… part of why you’re here now?”
Sento hesitates.
“I don’t like to pry, usually,” she says, giving them a pointed look over the rim of her teacup. “But having two strangers show up at my house like this out of the blue… I feel like I’m entitled to a few answers.”
“That’s… reasonable,” Sento says. Ryuga can almost see the gears turning as he pieces together a believable story. “The truth is… My father died, not too long ago. He left me to take care of all his unfinished business.” That bitter smile is back. “There was no one else to deal with it. His funeral, his will. And… his debts. I inherited those, too. More than it seemed like I could ever pay. I… let it all get to me. The stress. I let it affect my work. So they let me go.”
Ryuga listens to this with a pang in his chest, almost forgetting that most of this story isn’t real. Sento’s face just looks so tired as he recounts it. A great weight seems to be pressing down on his shoulders. It’s like seeing him back in the middle of the war again.
“Before I could find a new job, the debt collectors had already taken everything,” Sento continues, scrubbing a hand across his face wearily. “My savings, my apartment. All gone. And I couldn’t think of anyone to stay with. In terms of someone who’s like family, I only have him.” He nods toward Ryuga. “And he’s in a bad way, too. He got fired also, a while back. Got falsely accused of stealing from the company.” A wry quirk of the lips. “As if someone like him was smart enough for that.”
“Oi,” Ryuga says, more a reflex than anything, but his throat feels a bit thick. I only have him sticks like a thorn in the back of his mind.
Kyoka lets out a breath. “Goodness,” she says. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but…” She falters for a moment before reaching out across the table to squeeze Sento’s hand. “You’ve dealt with a lot, haven’t you? More than you should have had to. For someone so young, it must be hard.”
Sento looks as if he’s just been slapped.
“That’s – ” he says, and stops. His eyes have a wet sheen to them in this moment, and he blinks hard, swallowing visibly. He hurriedly shoves another piece of omelette into his mouth, as if he were trying to distract himself.
“This is really good,” he mutters.
“You think so?” Kyoka says with a laugh. “That’s rare. Only Takumi has ever liked the way I make those.”
“I hope you two don’t mind sharing a room,” she says, and Ryuga freezes.
“Definitely not,” Sento says.
“And I’m afraid the guest room isn’t very clean. Haven’t had anyone use it in quite a while.” She turns back to look at them, somewhat apologetic. “I’d put you in Takumi’s room, but I promised I’d keep it just like he left it. He’s very particular about these things.”
“We’ve been pretty much homeless for a week now,” Sento says quickly. “So just being in a house is a step up for us, really.”
Kyoka’s expression darkens; she shakes her head. “Things are so hard for young people these days, I swear. It never used to be like this. Ah, the guest room is this way.”
Clearly, the room has been used mainly for storage – cardboard boxes and old furniture have been hastily moved aside to make room for two futons. Ryuga hovers in the corner as Kyoka demonstrates to Sento the trick to opening the jammed old windows (a trick which he clearly already knows). He feels taut, on-edge, as if something were pulling him in several directions at once.
This, too, he thinks. It’s different now. Sleeping next to Sento had never felt particularly significant in their own world. There was little room in the lab, after all. Misora had always been there, and later Sawa and Kazumin and Gentoku, too. Most days they were all too exhausted to think much about any of it: about the closeness, or how sometimes they would wake up with an arm flung over someone else’s waist.
But here, in this quaint house in the country with nothing chasing them, with only each other, in a proper room instead of a hard bench at the park… Of course it would feel odd, wouldn’t it? The prospect of sharing a space.
“I realize it’s not much,” Kyoka is saying. “But I hope it’s alright. I’ll leave you to get settled in. The bath is right across the hall if you’d like to draw one up for yourselves. And there are some yukata in the closet to the right that should fit you.” She pauses. “I think… we still have quite a few things to discuss, if you’re going to stay here. But that can wait until tomorrow.”
Sento is looking like he desperately wishes he could hug her. “Thank you,” he says instead, with such genuine feeling that her eyes widen a bit.
“It’s not much trouble, really. Honestly… you can’t imagine how happy I was to hear that Takumi has friends.” Her lips twitch. “He’s never been much good at that.” She picks her way through the clutter to pause in the doorway, hand on the frame, looking back at them. “Good night. Maybe soon we can see about moving some of this mess elsewhere, hm?”
She ducks her head with a small smile, disappearing down the hall, and both Ryuga and Sento stand there staring at the space she’d just occupied, listening to her retreating footsteps on the creaky staircase.
“Sento,” Ryuga says quietly, once he’s certain she’s out of earshot. “Your mom is awesome.”
Sento’s answering smile is bright, cheeks dimpling. “Right?” he says proudly. He flops down on one of the futons, stretching out and sighing in relief, his expression gradually turning thoughtful as he lays there looking up at the ceiling. “It’s odd, though. Being here. I used to have a secret fort in this room, you know. When I was a kid. It was my favorite place to do experiments.”
Ryuga hadn’t even considered that – as strange as it is for him, how much stranger this must be for Sento. Back in the home he grew up in, but also not quite, because who knows what subtle differences are real in this world? Maybe this world’s Katsuragi never made that secret fort. Maybe Sento’s memories are once again something he can’t put faith in.
Sento turns his head to frown at him. “Why’re you just standing over there? Oh, I guess we are probably kind of grubby, aren’t we? Shouldn’t be lying here.” He pushes himself up into a sitting position, wrinkling his nose as he looks down at his hands. “Guess I’ll run the bath. You want to get in with me, Banjou?”
Ryuga, who was moving to set their bag down on the floor, promptly drops it with a resounding thunk.
“What,” he hisses, his pulse jumping.
“It would conserve water,” Sento says, matter-of-fact. “We are freeloaders here, you realize.” He gives him a suspicious look. “But fine, whatever. Just an offer. You’ve been kind of weird today, you know that?”
He hops to his feet and leaves the room in search of those yukata and a towel as Ryuga drags a hand through his hair, letting out a shaky breath, frustration prickling beneath his skin.
“Not that weird,” he mutters.
Sento is already asleep when Ryuga gets back from his own bath. Sento’s hair is still damp – even darker than usual, somehow, soft against the pillow. He looks like he’d been trying to revise some of his script for Kamen Rider Build episode one, but had nodded off in the process, the papers fallen onto his chest and the pen still held loosely in his hand.
“Geez,” Ryuga grumbles. He slides the papers and the pen free and places them off to the side, then immediately regrets this as he looks back to find Sento’s yukata fallen open, exposing the line of his collarbone, an entire stretch of his chest. He hurriedly reaches over to tug it back into place, a tight feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“At least cover up properly,” he whispers, and crouches there with his fingers still curled in the fabric, staring at Sento’s parted lips, until finally he shakes himself and pulls away.
He inches his futon away from Sento’s, just a bit, before flipping the lights off and lying down, back turned to him, trying desperately to un-tense his shoulders. This is exactly as distracting as he thought it would be.
But only for him, it seems. Sento isn’t bothered at all.
He wonders if that should make him happy or sad.
He lays there with his eyes shut tight, listening to the steady rhythm of Sento’s breathing, forcing himself to think of nothing, just emptiness and black, until finally his tiredness outweighs the rest and he fades into sleep as well.
“So,” Sento’s mom says from across the table. “You two really don’t own much in the way of clothing, do you?”
They’re once again wearing Katsuragi’s clothes from yesterday, for lack of anything else clean, and they glance at each other before looking back at her with matching awkward expressions, Ryuga hiding his slightly behind the piece of toast he has stuffed in his mouth.
“And those look like Takumi’s, even,” she adds, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, that’s,” Sento says, but doesn’t seem to know where he’s going with that thought.
She studies them, contemplative. “Your story last night was very convincing, but I’m getting the sense… That I’m not getting the full truth behind you two.”
They both go very still.
“But,” she continues. “I assume you have your reasons for keeping secrets. And I know Takumi would never vouch for anyone if he wasn’t certain of their intentions. He’s a rather cynical boy. He usually expects the worst in people.”
She gets to her feet, walking over to slide open the door behind them, Ryuga and Sento craning their necks in order to see where she’s going. It turns out to be a rather basic, sparsely furnished side room – she’s stopped in front of an old chest of drawers, rummaging through its contents, and just past her is –
An ancient-looking butsudan, ornate and faded gold, with Sento’s father’s portrait solemnly resting against its lower tier.
Ryuga, leaning against Sento’s shoulder in order to see better, can feel him take a sharp breath. He glances sidelong to find Sento’s expression tight and drawn, a hard set to his jawline. It’s one thing to hear about it, Ryuga supposes. It’s another to be confronted by the reality.
Kyoka seems to notice their line of sight, looking from the shrine to them and then back again. “My late husband,” she explains. “A genius, they always told me, but you’d think a real genius would have lived past fifty-seven. Maybe Takumi mentioned him to you before? He always did admire his father. And the two of you seem to have similar circumstances, don’t you? Losing them so young. Assuming that story you told me was true.”
She returns to the dining room a moment later with two towering stacks of clothing in her arms, setting them down on the table with enough force to rattle their plates.
“There are a few of Takumi’s things here, but. Mainly they’re Shinobu’s old clothes. Probably rather unfashionable, I’m afraid. And I’m not sure how either of you feel about wearing a dead man’s shirts. But it’s an option, at least. Until you get some things of your own.”
A beat, and Sento is reaching out haltingly to touch the folded sweater at the top of the pile.
“I remember him wearing this,” he murmurs, and Ryuga slams his knee into the underside of the table with a startled jolt.
“Sento,” he hisses.
Kyoka is staring down at both of them, blatantly perplexed.
Sento blinks, a brief moment of panic evident before he smoothes it away. “My father, that is. He owned something just like this.”
“…I see.” She gives him a curious look as she takes her seat across from them once more. “You seem to have a great deal of fondness for a man who put you in so much debt.”
“That’s… It’s complicated, I guess.” Sento frowns; traces a finger along the rim of his water glass, absentminded. “He had good intentions. He wanted the best for everyone. Even if… he went about things the wrong way. Even if he made my life harder, in the end.”
Kyoka’s expression has turned a bit wistful. “A common trait for fathers, it seems. Good intentions leading nowhere.” She glances past them, towards the shrine. “It’s hard, isn’t it? Mourning someone who you loved, but not always? Sometimes you wished they were different than they were.”
“…Yeah,” Sento says quietly. “Yeah, it is.”
They lapse into silence for a time, Ryuga hardly daring to move for fear of disturbing the pensive mood.
“Well. That’s enough talk about sad things,” Kyoka says with a smile. “Go and finish getting ready. You boys are going to help me with the kids today, aren’t you?”
In this world, a world without walls and constant conflict, this small rural town is better funded. Katsuragi Kyoka does not have to be their only teacher in this world – the local public school does a well enough job. But somehow even here she has still found herself as a caretaker of sorts for the town’s kids. She helps tutor those who are falling behind in class, and offers rudimentary music lessons to any child with an instrument, and will sometimes simply watch the younger ones while their parents are away at work.
Today is one of the latter days, it seems. Five kids are steadily dropped off at the house as the morning turns into afternoon, the back yard gradually beginning to look like a school playground.
“Who’re you?” one of them asks, a little girl who looks about six, blinking up at Ryuga and Sento with wide eyes.
“We’re… Ms Kyoka’s new helpers,” Sento says, hardly missing a beat. He smiles. “I am the genius physicist Kiryu Sento. And this,” he gestures to Ryuga, “is my assistant, whose name isn’t important.”
“Hey!”
“Okay, okay, fine. Just call him Ryu-oniichan.”
“D’you guys live here now?” one of the other kids asks.
“Hm. Something like that,” Sento says, evasive. “Now. Who wants to watch a science experiment?”
Fifteen minutes later and he’s dragged a folding table out into the yard and has set up a bizarre contraption using spare items he found inside: a miniature seesaw made out of two candles with the ends melted together.
“So, what do you think happens if I light both ends of our double-sided candle?” he asks, eyes bright as he stands behind the table with a matchbook in hand. The kids, along with Ryuga, are sitting cross-legged on the porch as they watch him, enraptured. Sento is seemingly too impatient to wait to hear anyone’s theories; he jumps straight into lighting each side of the candle in turn, and they all stare as the thing begins to teeter up and down like a real seesaw in motion, except with no obvious force acting on it. Just the twin flames burning.
“Woah,” the kid next to him – Satoru – murmurs, and privately Ryuga can’t help but agree. Sento’s science bullshit is surprisingly cool at times.
“How does it do that?” Himari is asking. She and the others are getting up to examine the contraption up close, and Ryuga finds himself grinning. That piece of Sento’s hair is standing on end as he excitedly launches into an explanation about “levers” and “fulcrums” and “potential vs. kinetic energy,” most of which probably goes right over the heads of his child audience. Ryuga certainly doesn’t understand a word of it.
But it’s… nice. Seeing Sento this happy. It’s a warm feeling, settling soft in his chest. A little more than a week ago he’d been suffering – struggling under the weight of death, of the end of their world. Now, at least, he can smile for real again.
That’s all Ryuga had ever wanted, really.
“Do you know science, too?” Satoru is asking, having wandered back over to tilt his head at Ryuga.
“Uh. Well – ”
“Don’t bother asking him,” Sento calls. “He’s a complete idiot. All he cares about is muscles.”
Ryuga’s grin flips into a grimace instantly. “Listen, that’s – ” He makes a frustrated noise and jumps to his feet, stalking over to jab a finger in Sento’s face. “I can teach people stuff, too, y’know. Like… like self-defense.”
That seems to get the kids’ interest. All of their eyes are suddenly on him.
“Yeah,” he continues, emboldened. “I can teach people how to stand up for themselves if someone won’t stop being rude to them.”
Sento rolls his eyes. “Now you’re just being petty. Also a non-admirable trait.”
“Look who’s talking,” he mutters, and turns back to the kids. “Alright, line up, uh, recruits!”
The kids scramble into an awkward line, Kei on the end bouncing on the balls of his feet as he waits for instruction.
“The most important thing in a fight,” Ryuga says, “is to protect your head and your torso. ‘Cause you get knocked silly or hit anywhere around here,” he gestures to his solar plexus, “and it can get real bad real quick. Got it? So you gotta keep your elbows in.” He demonstrates, and is pleased when all of the kids follow suit. “And after you punch, always remember to bring your arms back.”
“Teaching children how to be violent?” Sento drawls. “So uncivilized.”
“Shaddup,” Ryuga fires back. “Now, the next most important thing is to stay light on your feet. Never plant your heels too hard, ‘cause your balance gets all out of wack. Your opponent can knock you over way easier if you do. After you get that down, you gotta know how to hit. So I’ll teach you the one-two punch, okay? It’s the basics of the basics. And it’s more about speed. So even if you’re fighting someone tougher you can still win.”
He shows a quick left-right jab to the kids, whose attempts at copying him are pretty cute, he can’t deny. He bites back a laugh.
“Okay, well. That’s an effort,” he says, giving them an encouraging thumbs up. “Could use some work, but just keep trying.”
He walks over to help adjust Kei’s stance, his posture, happening to glance up as he does so to find Sento staring back at him with such soft, heartrending fondness that he feels like he’s back in the ring, like someone has just broken through his block and knocked all the breath from his lungs.
He looks away again hurriedly, heart pounding.
“Good,” he says to Kei, his voice coming out somewhat strange. “You’re getting it now.”
The news is on the background as they take care of the dishes that evening – Sento washing and Ryuga drying. He can see the television reflected in the darkened window, which is how he catches it when a familiar face appears, standing at the prime minister’s shoulder and looking somber, hands folded in front of him. Ryuga turns to watch for a moment, Sento following his gaze.
“He looks weird as hell in a normal suit,” he mutters, a smile tugging at his lips.
“You think he has something bizarre on underneath it?”
Ryuga chokes on a laugh as he imagines it.
The camera pulls in again to the prime minister’s face, in expert politician mode as he talks at length about the new tax reforms, and Ryuga can feel his laughter fade as he watches. Gentoku’s dad really is alive in this world. Gentoku, too, of course. He wonders why it’s only truly hitting him now. Ryuga remembers them dying so vividly, but those memories aren’t right anymore. Here, none of it ever happened.
He wonders who else might be alive in this world.
Is this really the first time he’s thought about his parents since coming here? That alone is enough to make him feel guilty and off-kilter, unaligned suddenly from his usual axis. But it’s been so long. Without a photo in front of him, he’s having trouble even conjuring up their faces in his mind. And it was just an accident. That’s what he always tells himself, over and over, like he’s trying to convince himself of it. It could’ve happened here, too. It probably happened here, too.
He should focus on who he knows is alive, he thinks. Like Kasumi. Like the girlfriend who’d died in his arms, but when he’d seen her, healthy and smiling –
Why hadn’t he felt anything more than relief and vague, muted affection? He should’ve wanted, more than anything, to run up to her and hold her tight. Shouldn’t he be jealous, of his other self who gets to be with her every day? Something has to be wrong with him.
“Banjou.” Louder, then: “Banjou!”
Ryuga snaps back to himself to find Sento giving him an odd look.
“You’re steaming,” he says, and Ryuga blinks. Sure enough, he glances at his hands to find them emitting steam like a kettle, the plate he’s holding now buffed and shiny to the point of being reflective. And also hot enough to singe. He yelps and does his best to not let the plate slip through his fingers, placing it on the counter hurriedly and yanking his hands away with a wince.
“Clearly we shouldn’t let you think too much,” Sento says dryly. “Could burn the whole house down.”
“Piss off,” Ryuga grumbles, blowing on his hands as if that might somehow cool them. He turns to try and catch the end of the news broadcast, but at this point the channel has been changed to one of those intellectual game shows, the Himuros gone from the screen, and Ryuga is left with an odd, unsettled feeling still sitting heavy in the back of his throat.
In between assisting with music lessons (as best they can, as neither of them have any talent for music, it seems), they spend the next few days moving the clutter from their room to proper storage.
The furniture is easy enough. It’s the boxes full of yellowing photos, old documents and memories that seem to grind their progress to a halt every time.
“Isn’t it weird for us to be looking through this?” Ryuga mutters, crouching down next to Sento, who is rifling through a box of what looks like a child’s school papers. His – or Katsuragi’s, at least. Report cards (with flawless scores in math and science, of course), old projects, first place ribbons from three different engineering fairs.
“They’re my things, too,” Sento says airily. But he says it in a way that sounds like a wish. He wants them to be his things, is what he really means.
His eyes brighten. “I remember this,” he says, a bit triumphant as he takes a drawing from the box. It’s a diagram of the geological layers of the Earth, the artwork rough and awkward like kids’ art often is, and yet there’s a mechanical precision to the measurements of it, the labels all neat and precise. “A whole group of my classmates begged to copy mine, and I let them. We all got in trouble, in the end.”
His smile is eager as he hunts around for more recognizable mementos, only wavering a little whenever something is clearly unfamiliar to him. He’s holding up a framed certificate of some kind when a voice says “oh my” from the doorway. Kyoka is paused there with an exasperated sort of amusement written across her face.
“I don’t even remember keeping all that,” she says. “Or why. Somehow I don’t think Takumi will be wanting his grade school homework anymore.”
“You never know,” Sento says, maybe a little too quick. “He could have good memories associated with some of these things.”
“I suppose so,” Kyoka murmurs. She walks over to pick up a group class photo, seemingly taken during some kind of sports festival, tapping her fingertip against the unsmiling face of a child who must be younger Katsuragi. “Though from what I recall, Takumi didn’t terribly enjoy elementary school.”
Sento’s smile falters.
“I should at least ask him, though, you’re right. Before throwing it all away.” She places the contents back inside, motioning for Sento to do the same with the few things he’s latched on to. “I’ll put this one downstairs so I remember.”
“Thanks, mom,” Sento says, distracted.
Silence falls over the room.
“Uh,” Ryuga says, for lack of anything else. He can see the tips of Sento’s ears gradually turning pink, and has time to be taken aback at him displaying genuine human embarrassment as Sento stares at Kyoka, looking like a deer in the headlights.
She blinks back at him before finally laughing out loud, eyes crinkling at the corners. “It’s okay,” she says, patting him on the shoulder. “I get that a lot from the younger kids, too. Nice to know there’s no age limit on slip-ups like that.” She hefts the box into her arms. “You two have been working for a while. Make sure to take a break soon, alright?”
She’s still smiling faintly as she leaves the room.
“How’re you so bad at this?” Ryuga hisses, once she’s out of listening range. “You’re supposed to be the genius here!”
“I don’t know,” Sento hisses back. He drags his hands down his face. “I just keep getting caught up in it! The home-y vibe, and all that.” He glowers up at Ryuga. “I’d like to see you try to keep it together if we were – ”
He breaks off.
Ryuga can feel his brow knit together. “If we were what?”
“Nevermind,” Sento mutters, but Ryuga thinks he knows what he was going to say.
If we were staying with your parents.
It’s hard to envision, of course. Not only them being alive in this world, but him somehow explaining all of this mess to his other self, then assuming his identity? The logistics are too much of a stretch. It would never work out.
But even if it did, he just can’t imagine feeling like Sento does. Can’t imagine getting mixed up in old memories and sentimentality to the point where they bleed through into the present. Does that make him heartless? Uncaring? He’s not sure. It’s not as if he doesn’t miss his parents, and Kasumi, and everyone from Nascita.
But the more he thinks about it, the more he’s certain: everything he needs right now is right here in front of him.
He wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of whimpering.
He blinks blearily into the darkness of the room for a minute before the noise really registers in his mind. Registers that it’s turning into more of a panicked sob, now. Registers that it’s coming from the person sleeping a few feet away from him.
A second later and he’s scrambling across the space between their futons. Even in the dimness of their room the pained, miserable expression on Sento’s face is plain. His sobs have started to sound like something else – like the word “no” again and again, and it’s like a knife between the ribs to hear. His bedding is twisted around him as Ryuga grabs him by the shoulders and shakes.
“Sento! Sento, wake up!”
But the dream is a deep one, it seems. Anxiety is thudding through Ryuga’s mind as he does what feels like the next logical thing: he lifts his hand and slaps Sento hard across the face.
His eyes snap open, startled, hands automatically reaching to brace against Ryuga’s chest like he’s still trying to push away some remnant of the nightmare. His breathing is ragged as he stares up at him.
“Ryuga?” he says softly.
Ryuga swallows hard. “Yeah,” he says, putting more confidence into his voice than he feels at the moment. “Yeah, it’s me. It’s okay. You – you were just dreaming.”
He watches as Sento’s face seems to crumple. His arms slide back to wrap around Ryuga’s shoulders, an almost bruisingly tight embrace, pulling himself up to bury his face against his neck, and Ryuga goes still. It’s warm. Too warm, in this muggy summer air. Sento’s hair is downy soft against his jawline. Somehow that’s the part his mind chooses to focus on above all else.
“He – he got you,” Sento murmurs. He’s close enough that Ryuga can feel his lips moving when he speaks. “He was using your face, but. But this time you were gone for good. And everyone else was gone, too.”
He’s shaking, just a bit. Ryuga’s hand is shaking, too, as he hesitates before placing it on the small of Sento’s back, pressing his palm firm against the fabric of Sento’s shirt.
“That’s not what happened,” he says. “You saved everyone. Like a big damn superhero. And… And I’m here. I’ll always be here, no matter what.”
They sit there in unmoving silence for a time, until Sento huffs out a laugh against his shoulder, some of the livewire anxiety easing from his body.
“Obviously that’s not what happened. I’m not delusional, Banjou. You’re really not much good at this emotional support business, are you?”
“Shut it,” Ryuga mutters, scowling. “You suck at this stuff, too.”
He’s dealing with this, he thinks. His pulse has settled, and it’s starting to feel almost comforting, familiar, to have Sento’s arms around him. As if this had happened before, though he knows with absolute certainty that it hasn’t. Was it like this with Kasumi, too? Suddenly he can’t remember.
Sento pulls back, then, looking at him gently, his face far too close, his hand resting warm against the slope of Ryuga’s neck, and –
Suddenly he’s not dealing quite as well anymore.
“Would you… move a little closer, for the rest of the night?” Sento asks. He chews on his lip, brow furrowed. “I just feel like. It would be easier to sleep, maybe.”
Ryuga’s mouth feels dry. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, that’s… fine.”
He moves to drag his futon closer, but Sento grabs him by the wrist, shaking his head tiredly as he indicates to his.
“There’s enough room for two in here,” he says, sliding over. “Just get in, idiot.”
“…Okay.” That word comes out somewhat hoarse.
Sento’s back barely brushing his as they lie there is somehow more distracting than any actual touch. A feeling of constant anticipation of something more. His skin prickles with it as the seconds tick past.
“You… don’t like this, do you?” Sento’s voice is quiet.
“What?”
“I’m not blind, Banjou. Obviously I’ve noticed. How you’ve seemed kind of. Uncomfortable around me lately.” A thoughtful pause. “It’s different now, right? With just us two. I get it.”
“That’s – ” Ryuga jolts upright, pulse pounding in his ears. “It’s not like that, okay? I’m just… being stupid.”
“What a shock.” The jab feels less sardonic than usual. Maybe because Sento sounds a bit like he’s about to cry at any moment.
Ryuga lies back down slowly. He could say it all right now. Maybe it would be easier that way: talking into the darkness, without Sento’s eyes on him. I’ve never been in a relationship with a guy before. I’m scared. You’re gay, aren’t you? What if I’m not enough to make you happy? Kasumi knew me before, before I changed, so I never felt like I was tricking her –
But he can still feel Sento trembling, where their backs are just slightly touching. Still rattled from his dream. A dream where Ryuga had been taken from him, he’d said.
Maybe, in the end, none of the details actually matter.
It’s such a simple thought, but it’s like a revelation. Like a curtain has just lifted from his mind. They’re both here, together in another world, and Sento clearly feels something for him. Isn’t that good enough?
“Ah, damn it,” Ryuga mutters, turning over and inching closer until the line of Sento’s body is pressed against his, wrapping an arm around his waist, wondering if he can feel Ryuga’s heartbeat thudding against his back. “If I don’t do this… You’ll be shaking all night, right? Better not elbow me in your sleep, I swear.”
Sento had frozen up for a moment, but gradually he seems to be relaxing into it, the tension leaving his shoulders bit by bit.
“I’m not making any promises,” he says, a thick sort of sound to his voice, as he reaches down to cover Ryuga’s hand with his own.
Nothing feels all that different, when they wake up.
He’s not sure why he expected it to. It’s the typical sort of morning – Sento laughing at the way his braids have come undone in his sleep, hair sticking up at odd angles as they stand there at the bathroom sink side-by-side, Ryuga grumbling a protest around his toothbrush.
They’re halfway into the kitchen to grab breakfast when Sento’s mom says “oh dear” from the next room over. She walks in holding a child’s backpack, purple with a pattern of pink stars, a name sewn on to the front: Himari.
“She must have left it here yesterday,” Kyoka says, frowning. “And school starts in a half hour. Can one of you deliver it to her, maybe? I’ll give you directions.”
The two of them exchange a glance.
“Why’re you coming, too?” Ryuga asks a minute later, backpack in hand, as Sento follows him out the front door.
“You would probably get lost on your own. And it’ll be even quicker with the bike.”
“This place has like five roads,” Ryuga mutters, but as usual he can’t do anything to stop Sento once he’s made up his mind.
(Maybe something has changed, though. Just a little. That old awkwardness is barely there now as he climbs on to the back of Sento’s bike, knees brushing the backs of his thighs, placing a hand on his hip as they pull away.)
In the end, though he hates to admit it, he might actually have gotten lost on his own, the house located at the end of a twisting dirt road leading up the incline of the mountain, the entrance almost hidden from view by a cluster of dense trees. Himari’s mother thanks them profusely as they stand on the doorstep and hand the pack to her. She ushers Himari over to thank them as well before foisting one of those mesh bags of tiny tangerines into Ryuga’s arms as a gift of gratitude.
“It’s kinda nice, right?” he says as they walk back down the slope. He swings the bag of tangerines with a grin. “Helping people with normal, boring stuff like this.”
“As opposed to saving them from the world ending?” Sento says, arching an eyebrow. “It’s definitely a lot less stressful, yes.”
It’s early enough that the heat hasn’t quite set in yet, and so they simply walk the meandering route back to Sento’s mom’s place, taking shortcuts over someone’s fence, across a field of tall grass and weeds and speckled wildflowers. When they find themselves on a familiar wooden bridge overlooking a meager trickle of a creek overgrown with reeds, they both pause.
“We sat here last time,” Ryuga says.
Sento murmurs his assent, giving him a look that says ‘why not’ before lowering himself down, dangling his feet off the side as he stretches out his shoulders. Ryuga joins him a second later. He wordlessly offers him a tangerine, which Sento accepts.
It’s quiet. The voices of two neighbors exchanging pleasantries can be heard in the distance before even that fades away, leaving nothing but the sound of moving water and chirping birds. Sento grew up in this place, so maybe for him it’s unremarkable, but the utter calm of this town is hard to comprehend at times for Ryuga. The way he can sleep at night hearing nothing but the house settling around them, the bugs in the trees outside. He wouldn’t exactly call it eerie, though. (Maybe if he was alone, he would.)
“Sento,” he says. “D’you want to stay here?”
Sento seems to consider this as he peels his tangerine.
“I mean,” Ryuga continues. “It’d be easier, right? We don’t have anything in this world. And you know this place pretty well. We… could just live here.”
“We could,” Sento says slowly. “But this isn’t exactly the hub of modern society, Banjou. If we want to get Kamen Rider Build produced, we’re going to have to move back to the city at some point.”
Ryuga blinks. “What – Kamen Rider Build? You’re… really serious about that?”
“Of course I am! The people of this world deserve to know such an excellent, thrilling story of heroism and intrigue. It’s my civic duty to record it for their viewing pleasure.” He pops a section of fruit into his mouth and smiles, more than a little self-satisfied.
Ryuga shakes his head as he sets to work on his own tangerine. “Aren’t you just hoping everyone from Nascita will watch it and it’ll jog their memories or something?”
A beat.
He glances up to find Sento looking at him with narrowed eyes. “You know, I think I prefer it when you stick to saying idiotic musclebrain things.” Seemingly sidestepping around that particular topic, he continues: “You’re right that it’s easier here, though. Living for free with someone who doesn’t ask too many questions. I’ll have to get us some fake documentation if we ever want to get legitimate jobs with paychecks again, or get a place of our own…” He sighs. “The system really wasn’t built for people who just sprang up out of another universe.”
“And have doubles who look just like them,” Ryuga mutters. He munches on a section of his tangerine thoughtfully, letting the sweetness sit on his tongue.
“That, too. I feel like… even if I wanted to stay here forever, we probably couldn’t. Someone, at some point, is going recognize at least one of us. At least the city is a little more anonymous.” A pause. “But also not, I suppose. I’m imagining the tabloid headlines now: ‘Lead vocalist of Lynks shacked up with pro boxer!?’”
Ryuga nearly chokes on his fruit as he laughs. It’s absurd, this situation they’ve found themselves in. It’d be even funnier if it wasn’t looking to be their reality for the rest of their perceivable lives.
Somehow, though, he still can’t work up too much frustration about it.
“Glad you’re here with me, at least,” he says, the words slipping out before he has time to think about them. “I’d probably have gotten arrested again by now if I was on my own.”
Sento goes quiet, and Ryuga turns his head to find him staring back, a tenderness to his expression.
“Yeah,” he says. “You probably would have.”
He lifts a hand haltingly to rest his palm against the back of Ryuga’s neck, tugging him a little closer. When he leans in to meet him halfway in a kiss, Ryuga’s chest feels tight. He’s thought about this so many times. But always in the vaguest sense. It’s the details, now, that really hit him – the softness of Sento’s lips, the oversweet taste of citrus, the smell of sunlight and dry grass from trekking across open fields. He finds himself reaching out to cradle Sento’s face in his hands.
When they pull away they’re both grinning. The flush in Sento’s cheeks, the red of his mouth makes something pleasantly warm settle in the pit of Ryuga’s stomach.
“I dunno, I think this place is pretty good for us,” he says, a bit breathless. “We could at least stay another month or so, right?”
Sento seems to consider it. “I guess that might be doable,” he says, smile turning amused as he leans in to kiss him again.
He’s not sure how it’s possible, given their odd circumstances, that living with Sento’s mom could ever feel routine. But that’s exactly what it becomes as the weeks pass by. Entertaining the kids, doing handyman’s work around the house, Kyoka telling them stories about the town and its inhabitants as they sit side-by-side at the table every evening.
It’s mundane. Simple. A lull of quiet in the middle of a strange, confusing song. For a time it’s easy enough to forget about the troubles looming over them.
Obviously it couldn’t last.
The crash of broken glass comes late on a Thursday night. Sento’s head is in his lap, reading lines aloud from the script for episode three, and at the sound from downstairs he promptly jolts upright, nearly bashing their foreheads together.
“What the hell was that?” he murmurs.
“Dunno.” Ryuga frowns. “Maybe we should – ”
But Sento is already hopping to his feet and rushing to the door.
They find his mother in the kitchen, shards of a water glass still untouched, smashed across the linoleum. Her back is to them as she leans against the countertop, staring down into the sink like she’s seeing something there.
“Mo – Kyoka-san? …Are you alright?”
There is a long moment of silence before she turns to look at them – steady and piercing. The kind of gaze that feels like a punch.
“This has happened before, hasn’t it?” she says quietly, and Ryuga feels himself go still.
Sento’s eyes dart to the side before focusing on her again. “What do you mean?”
“This,” she repeats. “The two of you, coming here. It happened before. I don’t know why I didn’t remember until now. It wasn’t so long ago, was it? Things are different in that memory. The world is different. And Takumi is…” She trails off, shaking her head. “But it’s real. Just as real as this is right now. I know it is. I don’t understand but I know that the two of you came here before.” She takes a shuddering breath. “I – I still don’t believe that Takumi would ever vouch for anyone untrustworthy. But I think I need to know. Right now.
“Who are you, exactly?”
Sento seems to be frozen in place. Almost unconsciously, Ryuga reaches over to grab his hand, squeezing tight, enough to bring him back to himself as he looks down at their twined fingers before meeting Ryuga’s eyes, wide and filled with trepidation. He nods a second later, steeling himself; turns back slowly to face his mother.
“That’s... kind of a long story,” he says.