Chapter Text
Kurisu was browsing @channel when Okabe walked in. She furiously raced to close the tab and looked over at him.
“Hey, Christina,” he said. “What were you just up to?”
“Oh… I w-was just looking into an upcoming conference I want to attend. And don’t call me Christina!”
“Huh, that’s weird because I just saw KuriGohan and Kamehameha commenting on @channel.” Kurisu felt her face getting beet red. “So?! That doesn’t mean anything to me.” Okabe chuckled and walked off to get a Dr. Pepper. Then he sat down at the desk next to hers. Well, it was technically his desk, but she wasn’t happy about it. She’d asked Professor Leskinen multiple times why Okabe had to sit next to her when they only had 3 members of the lab (Okabe, Maho, and herself). But Leskinen would always just laugh it off and say something about young love. Love?! Ever since she had met Okabe he had been nothing but an annoyance. She would always be grateful he had saved her from her father after that conference but did he have to taze her as well? And then, after searching for him for weeks, she met him on the streets of Akihabara where he immediately started calling her Christina like they were buddies or something. That moment started a phenomenon Kurisu was still trying to figure out the cause of. At random moments when she was with Okabe, there would be these flashes of memory she would have of them together. Most of the time they were standing in front of a microwave in some dusty old apartment. But she knew they had never done that together. Every time she brought it up to Okabe he would just say, “That’s the choice of Stein’s Gate” and refuse to elaborate further. It was infuriating.
After she’d met Okabe on the street that day, they exchanged emails and messaged most days. He was frustrating to no end, but she had to admit she really liked talking to him. She thought that would be the extent of their relationship until one day Professor Leskinen had announced they had a new applicant for the lab at Viktor Chondria university. She was shocked to hear that it was none other than Okabe Rintaro who might be coming to the lab. Now he was sitting across from her, guzzling down a Dr. Pepper. She was glad to have him around, no matter what she might say otherwise.
“Hey, Okabe?” Kurisu asked. “Your friends Mayuri and Faris are coming today right?”
“Yep,” he beamed. “They are two interesting characters. I’m excited for you and Maho to meet them. Speaking of Maho, where is she?” A voice peeped up from the other end of the room. “Over here,” she said. Maho was surrounded by so much trash on her trash she was barely visible to the human eye. She walked over to the group, gigantic bags under her eyes.
“Stay up all night again, Maho?” Okabe asked. “Yep,” came the answer. “I’m trying to figure out the issue we’ve been having with Amadeus.” Amadeus was an AI software fitted with Kurisu’s likeness that the lab had been working on for a while. “I’m sure it will come to you eventually,” said Kurisu. She had been awkward around Maho at first. Kurisu had never really had a friend before and Maho was quirky in her own way. But ever since her near-death experience in Japan, she tried to change her ways. Now, her and Maho were closer than they had ever been in the past.
As Kurisu was musing on this, the door to the lab opened and a youthful voice echoed out. “Tutturu, it’s Mayushii,” a girl in a blue dress proclaimed as she stepped into the room. Behind her, a girl in cat ears and a maid costume followed. Kurisu looked into the face of Okabe’s childhood best friend… and was suddenly assaulted with a vision of Mayuri being shot by someone in a black bodysuit.
“Ahh!” Kurisu let out a yelp before she could stop herself.
“Sorry to scare you!” Mayuri came up to Kurusi and introduced herself. “Nice to meet you.”
“No, I’m sorry,” said Kurisu. “It’s nice to meet you too.” The girl in cat ears bounded off as Mayuri walked over to Maho to meet her.
“I’m Faris-nyan! Pleased to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too, Faris. Umm, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s with the cat ears?”
“Oh, these? These were a gift given to me by Tellium after the War of the Three. With this magical artifact, I am able to delicately keep the balance of this world stable. I’m assisted in this by Hououin Kyouma.” At this, Okabe trotted over. “I’ve heard someone mention my true name. Ahh, I see, so the trusty Faris-nyan has been able to make it through the security checkpoints okay. I trust the Organization didn’t give you any trouble?”
“No, Kyouma, I was able to keep their eyes away from me. The dark forces of Ruvendall almost got to me, though. But I was able to keep them off with the staff entrusted to me by the Council of the Eyes.”
Kurisu realized they were both extreme chunibyos. As they kept up their banter and Okabe began to show Faris and Mayuri around the lab, Kurisu couldn’t help but keep thinking about how real that memory had felt…