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Tsukasa hates time travel.
Not for its own sake, the ability to touch the way time flows is useful when necessary - like sending Marvelous to the 70s for a plan that in retrospect could have done with another once-over, but the issue is that Tsukasa feels even more unnatural when he touches time.
So of course, here he is in 2009, in a bus driver’s uniform.
He hasn’t found his actual job yet, so he wanders.
Ah, 2009. His year.
It wasn’t perfect. In fact it even kind of sucked, a lot of the time. He was depressed (which is still true, and maybe more so) and he wasn’t sure who he was, and there was the Rider War, and…
He sighs. Being a Rider was never easy. But in 2009, he still had them . His… his home. His heart. His soul.
Natsumi. Yuusuke. Daiki.
Now, he has Decade. He has his role. He has his Journey—
A boy runs into him, knocking him out of his thoughts, and without thinking, Tsukasa catches him and lifts him up by the shirt.
The boy is small, wiry as all hell, and in his bright magenta eyes is an intriguing fire.
“What do you want?” The kid asks, glaring.
“An apology would be nice,” Tsukasa says. “Is that too much for a gremlin like you?”
The kid struggles, so Tsukasa drops him. To his credit, the boy just dusts himself off.
“Frick you,” he says, which is frankly adorable. “You were in my way.”
“Or maybe you were in mine,” Tsukasa says. He takes a photo of the glowering boy. “Well, I guess it’s not my job to discipline someone else’s brat. Go off to your parents or something, kid.”
“My name is Michinaga,” the kid says. “And I don’t have parents.”
He runs before Tsukasa can reply.
…why did he feel so familiar?
He’s lounging around with Yuusuke in his lap and Daiki and Natsumi nearby. It’s a peaceful day, and Tsukasa does not know what to do with that, but he is trying, so he can keep this together.
(He can’t lose his home. Not again. If any new challenge arrives, if he lets them get hurt again, if they learn he is broken …
It might shatter him forever.)
Of course, his beloved Yuusuke doesn’t have the same worries.
“Hey,” he says. “What if we had kids?”
Daiki chokes on his coffee, and he looks twice as spooked as Tsukasa would expect from that question.
Tsukasa himself tenses, but he tries to hide it. If he hides all his cracks, they’ll still want him, still want Decade—
“Why do you ask?” Natsumi asks. Yuusuke curls in on himself, against Tsukasa.
“Wow,” he says. “Wasp in a hornets nest. I… not yet , but we’re… shouldn’t we talk about it?”
“Probably,” Tsukasa says. “Do you want to knock me up, then?”
Yuusuke groans, burying his face against Tsukasa.
“You’re mean,” he says.
“Would any of you… want kids?” Daiki asks.
“I mean,” Natsumi says. “Maybe.”
“Whatever you want,” Tsukasa says with a shrug. Because the honest answer is not when I’m broken but the equally honest answer is I’d walk into hell for you, I can handle a child. Then he pauses, because sometimes he knows things . “My child would be magenta… that’s not a bad name, actually.”
“Tsukasa,” Natsumi says. “That is awful.”
“It is,” Daiki agrees, but he’s posturing, clear as day. Tsukasa can’t resist poking him, nonetheless.
“Then what’s your big idea, my Kaitou?”
“…for a son, Michinaga,” Daiki says. “For a daughter, I… don’t know.”
…oh, he’s thought about this. That’s…
“Michinaga,” Yuusuke says softly. “I like that. Our son, Michinaga.”
Daiki flinches.
“Maybe in a few years,” Tsukasa says softly. He kisses Yuusuke’s head. “I’m never leaving again.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Tsukasa,” Natsumi says. Tsukasa sighs.
“Then I’ll always come home,” he says. “Is that enough?”
“For now,” Natsumi says. Her eyes are too discerning. He doesn’t want her or Yuusuke to know how broken he’s become. It feels like a betrayal to them.
“For now,” he agrees.
It’s later, alone, that he thinks.
Would he want a kid? He thinks he could raise one if he had to. But want?
Bring a kid into this life? Or worse, leave them orphaned—
Glowering magenta eyes and messy purple hair.
…What?
Tsukasa puts a hand over his face, groaning tiredly. Why’d that kid come to mind?
He must be much more exhausted than he thought. There can be more than one child called Michinaga.
…right?