Archive of Our Own

Jin sees different lines of the future stretching before himself, and every day the parts of the segments that he can see move up, just a little bit. A line is infinite; a segment is finite. Each day, he can see a little more and a little less, as the future slips into the past.

“I’d really like to disprove your foresight,” Tachikawa says, with obvious pleasure.

Jin smiles. The chosen future snaps into place like a bowstring. “Oh, man. I kinda thought you’d say that.”

Six slashes just for Tachikawa are the most that Jin has ever spent on a single person. It’s worth it.

Afterward, Jin asks Kazama and Tachikawa, “Want a fried rice cracker?”

Naturally, they decline.

At the vending machine, Jin tells them honestly, “The most fun I’ve had was when I was fighting you guys.”

“Be careful,” Jin deliberately says to Tachikawa. “It seems like you might get cut in half.”

Tachikawa looks at him, raising an eyebrow. “Why don’t you come and stop it?”

Jin laughs. “I might.”

In the Galopoula invasion that ensues, Tachikawa circles the crab-claw Neighbor, drawing him in.

Jin draws nearer too, backed up by Kazama and Ko. He feels leadership’s sharp, pleasurable danger, even though Jin has no unit to truly call his own.

Tachikawa looks at him for a split second with multifaceted eyes, and Jin knows that Tachikawa knows what’s about to go down. At the precise right moment, Jin slices through both Tachikawa and the Neighbor.

Later, Tachikawa might say, “Is this payback for when I tried to cut through you and Kazama?”

Laughing, Jin shakes his head. “Payback? You flatter me. You were my inspiration.”

Jin goes on the upcoming away mission with Tachikawa, the same one that Tamakoma-2 have been working so hard to be selected for. Tamakoma-2 are on the mission too, or maybe they’re not. Aboard the ship, Tachikawa has smuggled in his beloved mochi, while Jin has a stash of fried rice crackers. Unfortunately for Jin, it’s hard to hide crunching noises, but mochi is insidiously quiet to eat.

Outside the ship, Jin, Tachikawa, and the other agents explore a burning world, a frozen world, and a world of giant foliage and uninterpretable animals. That’s only the beginning of the many planets they see. Most of them are worlds of warfare.

Jin knows that he’s not unbeatable, but with Tachikawa by his side, Kogetsu and Scorpion united, it certainly feels that way. It’s a dangerous feeling.

Jin doesn’t go on the upcoming away mission, the same one that Tamakoma-2 have been working so hard to be selected for. Tachikawa doesn’t go either. Instead, Jin tags along with A-Rank Unit #1 on defense duty, which frightens Yuiga (not allowed on defense duty) greatly.

After Jin cuts Tachikawa in half during the Galopoula invasion, he goes out to support the rest of the defenders, and then he goes out to dinner with some of the higher-ups, and then he goes to Tachikawa’s apartment for the first time.

Tachikawa greets him in sweatpants, perched so casually in the doorway it’s like he knew Jin was coming, even though this is only one of their possible futures. It wasn’t assured that their first kiss would happen like this. Jin lets himself fall gently onto Tachikawa’s bed, generously yielding himself to the pressure of another body on his.

They kiss. They shed their shirts. Jin maneuvers up the bed so he can lie back with his head on the pillow. There, Jin moves Tachikawa’s hand to his throat, gently.

Tachikawa’s mouth falls open, and Jin can’t read the look in his eyes.

With Tachikawa’s earnest hand at his throat, Jin, blissfully, can hardly focus on the future.

Jin’s Side Effect tells him that Tachikawa has been thinking about dating him, too. There are possible futures where Jin presses Tachikawa against the vending machine as soon as Kazama leaves, their first kiss rattling the cans of coffee and soda and sweet milk. There are other futures where Jin greets Tachikawa with a playful kiss when Tachikawa wakes up after Jin cuts him in half, still other futures where Tachikawa stays by Jin’s side for every second of the away mission, across each hostile, unfamiliar planet. There are futures where they fiercely hold hands when their greatest battle is done and they are standing over the enormous wreckage that Jin failed to prevent. All for the sake of his own feelings.

Those used to be possible futures, but Jin cut off those lines of fate. He would never follow them, because he knows he cannot afford to pay the consequences for personal gain. And so:

He walks away from the vending machines, away from Tachikawa, even before Kazama does. He doesn’t kiss Tachikawa.

Jin warns Konami to stay close to Tachikawa before the Galopoula invasion, and Jin tracks Yotaro instead. He doesn’t go to Tachikawa’s apartment, and Tachikawa’s hand at his throat is only a fantastic phantom.

Jin stays on the ground in Mikado City while Tachikawa, mochi hidden deep in his pockets, departs into the galaxy on Border’s largest away mission to date. For the next year, Jin won’t see Tachikawa at all.

When Jin returns home after giving up Fujin to HQ, he’s tired. He greets everyone like normal, and he doesn’t relax until he’s upstairs lying in bed, fully clothed.

He closes his eyes and hears Kazama asking again, “Isn’t it Mogami-san’s legacy?”

There could have been a future where Jin didn’t take Fujin. Fujin could have gone to Kitora, or Ko, or, disastrously, Miwa. If those possibilities had come to be, Jin wouldn’t have had to hear Tachikawa say, three years ago and without any personal resentment towards Jin, “Of course I’m pissed. I’ll have no chance to beat you now.”

Jin opens his eyes, remembering what he said to Kazama and Tachikawa just a few hours ago: “The most fun I’ve had was when I was fighting you guys.”

One thing lost, and another recovered. Jin smiles. The future is changing.

Lines of the future intersect with each other in the most horrifying, the most magnificent tapestry that Jin’s ever seen. Each moment vibrates to the next, a piece of fabric eternally being resewn.