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Osamu's unconscious body will not accept his apologies. Osamu's mother is even less willing to accept them on his behalf.

"I'm surprised," says Mikumo Kasumi, all perfected blankness. "Most people confuse us for brother and sister at first glance." She does not look at her son or brush his hair from his brow. She does not worry her lip or blink owlishly with eyes cupped by dark bags that threaten to become cavities. She does none of these things because she is looking at Jin. Into his goggles, into his soul. Examining every exposed inch, piercing through his affability like a needle slipping through the skin of a balloon in the hands of a capable surgeon.

He's so nervous he could throw up. Nothing bad would happen. A polite mother raised a polite son, after all, but then he'd have to kneel in his own sick and what then?

"A talented elite should be able to do this much," Jin says weakly. What then, indeed.

The ground is hard as ice when his kneecaps slam down to kiss the tile. He does not have the luxury to hesitate, not with Chika set to arrive soon. That composed beefcake of theirs will try to negotiate breakfast into his little protégé. He will fail. She hasn't been eating well lately, picking at her rice like a bird with distant eyes. Jin has to apologise for that too, for what he deliberately put her through, but there is a proper order to these things.

An hour, Jin estimates. Not nearly as much as he would like for dogeza, but every apology starts with sincerity, and that, Jin finds, is more difficult to keep hold of than time.

Assuming the first position, Jin bends forward. His forehead grows cold.

—·—

Four-Eyes came into his life like he was always meant to be there. Cut-and-pasted from Mogami's old stories of an even older friend—the one that lived in his sudden silences. Those soft, imperceptibly different smiles. Nostalgic, in a word, but an otherwise familiar grief that no longer felt debilitating.

Jin was never told much, but he pieced together that had Mogami Sōichi lived, he would have liked this kid a lot.

Four-Eyes stared up. Cold sweat dappled his brow despite the volcanic heat venting out from the Bamster's cracked corpse, Trion hissing out in black waves. The kid's school uniform was a little scuffed. Nothing irreparable or dyed with red. Jin felt silly for focusing on it, but that was a real body over there. Real flesh-and-blood.

It helped distract from the panes of futures superimposed atop the kid's gawking. They were electric and excited. Unable to contain themselves now that they've been let out of the box, radiating gravity like a lonely star pulling planets into its orbit. Suddenly, a lot of things made sense.

"You alright, Four-Eyes?" he called out. Seeing the kid stammer a response, Jin hopped down so they were on a level plane. His hands hesitated. Blink-and-you-miss-it quick and easily lost in the recovery from near, near death, iceberg panic edging down the bloodflow. The kid flinched anyway.

I have been waiting for you for a very long time, he thought. The early worms of guilt wriggled out of the topsoil, waiting to see what he would do.

Making a decision, Jin brought down his goggles, letting them hang by his neck. He lifted his hand for a fist bump. "Jin Yūichi."

Four-Eyes's back straightened. Beaten-in manners formed a buttress under his ebbing panic, and he breathed in long and deep before bowing at a steep angle. "Mikumo Osamu," he said, voice like a sword with seven branching paths and one vicious point. He bit his lip, knuckles white around his school bag strap. "T-Thank you for saving me."

Jin looked at his fist.

After a second, Four-Eyes answered the greeting with a tap, looking a little awed that he still had a hand to do that with. Then he frowned. Something dark and unhappy pulled his eyebrows down with it, frustration manning a campaign across his face until it was all he could think about.

Mikumo Osamu. Mikumo Osamu. Mikumo Osamu.

Mikumo Osamu was not a remarkable name. Jin thought back to see if there was anything in his memories, both formed and yet to be realised, but there was nothing to go on. He didn't even have any purview into Border's newest recruits. Shinoda was wary of letting the future affect their perceptions of the here-and-now. All very good, all very useless, knowing now what he did about the storm that was likely to hit their shores in six months.

And it would.

It would.

Everything else, though? Up in the air. Possibility sat right here in the stage of his hands.

"You doing okay?" Jin inquired gently. Wings beat furiously against his palms, scratching in scars that weren't meant to fester, not yet. He didn't want to let this butterfly go, but Mogami's legacy was heavy on his hip. "Want me to take you home?"

Four-Eyes looked up slowly. "You…aren't curious why I'm out here?"

"Oh, am I. But you look like you're half a second from fainting, Four-Eyes."

A mumbled, That's not my name, before Four-Eyes pushed his glasses up. A quiet strength had been building. An unstoppable force in its infancy, crystal clear with no trace of wavering. "I'll tell you, then, so there's no deniability," Four-Eyes said. I want to join Border, Jin saw in his mind's eye. Then, with the exact conviction down to the hard glint in his eyes: "I want to join Border."

Jin couldn't stop his grin. "Oh yeah?" A spin of Fūjin's long handle—a decorative flash that Four-Eyes didn't even entertain, focused entirely on Jin and what he had to say.

Kido was going to lose his shit. Mogami would have laughed if he knew about what was about to roll up into Border with all his possibilities and potential. In his place, Jin chuckled and did his best to look cool.

"If that's all, then leave it to this talented elite, Four-Eyes," Jin said.

"I can come with you! I came here—to Border—to talk to someone."

"Maybe I should introduce myself as 'someone' instead…"

The kid's ears flushed a ruddy red.

Jin laughed, closer to his own joy. "Hey now, it's going to be okay. I not only look like Arashiyama—yes, from TV—but I have, like, twice as much influence as him. So you really lucked out that I was here to save you!"

Four-Eyes bit his lip. Desperation looked back at Jin and reached for his hand. Human warmth was unable to permeate through Trion skin, but Jin felt the pressure of Four-Eyes' grip. His blunt nails. "Is that all I can do? I-Is," a stutter. Heartbreaking in its sagacity, knowing that this was not something he wanted to say, but had to anyway if this was truly the path he wanted to choose. "Is the best I'm able to contribute just waiting for someone else to allow me the right to do something?"

A window opened. Four-Eyes in Kido's old bed, in a casket, lying still on the Tamakoma couch with a crutch leaning against the back. Four-Eyes in blue, in an Operator suit, in a white, hemp katabira to cover the holes.

Jin blinked. The uniform stayed, dust on the collar and scratches along his front buttons.

"You're going to be very busy," Jin spoke, feeling the weight of every word. He snatched his hand back, laying it atop the kid's head instead. "So go home. Sleep a lot and apologise to your mom for sneaking out." The hair was soft. "Don't rush—the time will pass anyway."

—·—

Six months was a long time to wait. Jin kept himself busy minding other people's business, scoping out the new futures that were blinking away stagnation. He walked down the favourable plots while pruning the less favourable buds that were starting to flower, carefully preparing their garden for pests.

Something terrible had finally solidified in the stream. A large rock, many months away, but inevitable and all-consuming.

Shūji's future darkened. Jin cracked open a can of green tea from the vending machines, wondering how he should fix that. He doubted he himself could, so that left his wonderful peers and allies to leverage. Who to use, who to use…

Like an omen, Tachikawa sauntered into the hall with a blank hunger on his face. He came here to fight. His eyes found Jin immediately. A heavy thing, that gaze, never failing to settle on his shoulders, no matter which room they entered, and how far apart they were stationed.

"Jin!" Tachikawa greeted.

Jin shook his rice crackers, rooting around in the bag until his fingers were covered in crumbs.

"Best out of ten?" Tachikawa wagered.

Jin made sure to smile, watching how Tachikawa's eyes followed it from formation to completion. "I've got a better idea."

Tachikawa's jaw clenched, but he shrugged and tucked his hands away, crumpled fists shaking with something unsated. The third-best outcome Jin could have hoped for.

Now that his best and not-so-brightest were on the case, Jin felt assured. Tachikawa would not pass up the opportunity to throw himself on the sword of menace. He'd probably pinch Shūji's cheeks, measuring their fat, before dragging the poor boy into a battle with real points on the line. Tsukimi would oversee the interaction with a fond smile before arranging yakiniku between the old students of Azuma.

The darkness did not cool, but it rippled.

Jin changed tracks to something more immediate.

Four-Eyes was dropped into Border HQ as planned. Shinoda looked over the file folder Jin slammed down onto his desk with a long look before carrying it with him to Enlistment Day. The look lengthened when the kid ran the timer out on the simulation battles.

"It's not like you to take personal interest in a trainee." Shinoda was perfectly pleasant despite opening with a bald-faced lie. He had started drinking with Karasawa a lot as of late. Waving to Sawarmura as she clocked off for the night with a promise that he would be right behind her, only to walk out hours later with two coats folded over his arm and a mildly intoxicated Karasawa grinning into his shoulder. "I looked over Mikumo Osamu's initial test scores. The written exam was fairly standard across the board, but I did enjoy reading his essay answers."

"You say that about everyone's essays."

"It's the truth," Shinoda said. "These recruits will one day be our allies. Of course I enjoy reading what they have to say and how they say it. This has always been bigger than us."

Jin smiled like a spider relaxing on the thin strands of its web. "You should invest in him early, Shinoda-san," Jin said. "Someone else might take him off your hands, and he'll grow into someone wonderful when you're not looking."

"Frankly, I'm surprised Tamakoma hadn't snatched him up already." There were different variations of the question coming up. Jin was curious to see what this Shinoda—the one standing in front of him all alive, healthy, and mildly distressed by Ruka's possible reaction to his budding relationship—would say.

Shinoda Masafumi did not disappoint.

"Have you thought about me training him personally?"

"I had," which meant that Jin hadn't. "But you don't believe in him yet."

"I believe in your Side Effect."

Everyone believed in his Side Effect. Even Jin's major detractors believed in him, using his fallacies and victories to fuel their desire for control. Here, data was gospel. Numbers defined and ruled their organisation and everyone followed under its calm, lawful order.

Even the less studious and more instinctual fighters believed a ten-round fight made for a better arbitrator of skill than five.

The fact was: Jin was right more than he was wrong. He worked very hard to make that a reality. No one could say he didn't work hard; Fūjin's place at his waist made sure of that.

"What do you think of our Four-Eyes?"

"He has all the trappings of an excellent support agent."

"You think he'd make a pretty good Operator, right?"

Shinoda didn't even make a play at being surprised. "He was one of the few recruits who thought about other people in his responses." A pen spun fluidly between his fingers, rolling atop the knuckles before pinwheeling underneath the palm. His eye twitched. Jin saw something building underneath the bone, Karasawa's private concern looming in Shinoda's future. "His ability to multitask is a little underwhelming, but everyone starts somewhere. He has the focus, instinct, and mental flexibility to coordinate his teammates through any tricky situation."

Good. Good. Jin thought as much, but it was always nice to get confirmation from someone who had been in the field longer than Jin had. Whose experience outranked his own by miles and still came out of it with a kinder heart.

"That's not the only role that takes into account everyone on their team, Shinoda-san."

"A captain?" Kusakabe is also a captain, they both thought, but Shinoda saw the full breadth of it in Jin's eyes and conceded the point.

"Four-Eyes may not look like much right now, but pretty soon you're going to be sick and tired of hearing about this guy."

"So why don't you train him?" Shinoda pointed out. "Your word carries more weight than even mine."

Jin waved off the suggestion. "I'm way too busy for that," he chuckled, looking down to hide how his eyes tattled on a complicated thought. "Besides, someone like Four-Eyes does best when he's allowed to choose."

"As opposed to everyone else, who only excel when being told what to do." Amusement coloured most of his words. A careful consideration of Jin covered the rest. "Choice will always be an interesting word with you."

"I just want to support my kōhai in a cool and unassuming way."

"This may go beyond the realms of support, Jin."

"Better people have done worse for less," said Jin, suddenly sober, suddenly serious. "So secret deals to ensure his enlistment as a proper Border agent—sure, I'll do that. Let's talk negotiations, Shinoda-san. What will it take to promote him to C-Rank?"

It was a testament to Shinoda that his lips only curled into a small smile. "Only C-Rank?"

"I'm not that idealistic. He has to train somehow, and if neither of us will do it, then he'll have to learn from his peers."

"It will not be an easy journey," Shinoda warned. "For him, or for you."

"He isn't doing this because it's easy." Jin barrelled on to answer the yet-unformed question. "No, I don't know why."

Jin's vision blurred, blue tint fading into real life, just several minutes, hours, days ahead.

Four-Eyes had a goal. What that goal was, Jin wasn't quite sure of it yet, but Four-Eyes wasn't the type to move like this for his own sake. Standing his ground, however? Committing to his beliefs even if they are dangerous and inconvenient? Hah. Mogami would have really liked his guts.

"Your future sight doesn't…?"

"I haven't met them yet," Jin said. "Though I don't doubt they'll be as troublesome as Four-Eyes."

"That's a scary thought."

"You know what's even scarier?" His eyes felt blue. They felt itchy and shiny and very, very blue. "Don't bother asking what, I'll tell you—"

(Beyond Jin's gaze, Amatori Chika hunkered down in a pale blue living room. The furniture was covered in dust, glass still arranged in a burst pattern on the floor. She was careful to be very still and very empty. The Colossal Neighbour lumbered past. Fingers of black lightning arched down its shell armour, still sizzling from its recent arrival.

In another part of Japan, Replica hovered over Kuga Yūma's shoulder, attempting to make sense of the Sunday timetable for the bus to Mikado.)

Shinoda laughed at what he said, startling even Jin, who had already witnessed his shamelessness after splitting Kido's Honda Civic in twain. "Is that so?" Shinoda wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. At Jin's enigmatic smile, Shinoda nodded slowly, pulling Four-Eyes' file closer to his pen. "Then you've got yourself a deal, Jin Yūichi. I'm looking forward to seeing what this kid will do."

They discussed the details, but at the end of the day, they were talking like old friends on the front, sleeves rolled up, and coffee growing cold on the desk.

That should be enough, Four-Eyes, Jin hummed on his way home, the wind stinging his cheeks. It was a beautiful day. The city shone like a jewel, an early winter buffing against its glass towers. The rest is up to you.

—·—

The next time they met, Four-Eyes was in deep shit. The worst part was that Jin couldn't even call the Board particularly vicious. He knew vicious. The viper was sitting at the head of the table, leveraging the distance between them to make his fangs seem all the more wicked.

(Shūji looked better. A shame he was going to get worse—probably. Jin had no idea, but he had a good feeling.)

Kinuta slammed his fist against the table, bringing Jin back onto the correct track of conversation. "We get rid of him," Kinuta said. "End of story."

Jin leaned into Four-Eyes' space as he took a seat. "They're really laying into you." He almost laughed. Four-Eyes did not like that, his cold sweat calling for reinforcements, matting his hair down into spiky tangles.

Shinoda faced Kido and threw his lot in with the future he believed in. "I'm opposed," he said. "Mikumo saved civilian lives. He violated the rules, yes, but someone who can perform so well in an emergency is valuable. It would be more beneficial to promote him to B-Rank and utilise his abilities than fire him."

Kido's scar twitched. "There is no place in my organisation for people who can't obey Border rules." Only Karasawa caught how Shinoda flinched. "If the same thing were to happen again, what would you do?"

Jin was stirred. A part of him started to sweat in sympathy like a banana would rapidly ripen the fruit around him, but this was his Trion body. Fūjin's body. A glance was all he allowed. Blue eye in the corner, watching Four-Eyes' lips thin down into a single, uninterrupted line.

He had foreseen this in a different colour, but it was still something special to see it happen in real time. Jin didn't watch TV. His friends gave him the play-by-plays, Konami catching him up on her latest drama while she stood in front of the curry pot and stirred in a tablespoon of honey. The specifics blurred, but he'd see her in his futures, irritated or elated and inferred the unwinding plot lines from her possible faces.

Even further back, he sat next to his mother, leaning into the warmth she readily provided as he wagered his evening of chores because it was going to rain. He was always right—just wait.

Her absence ached.

Yōtarō was not nearly large enough to fill her gaps, but Raijinmaru ran plenty hot and was large enough to pay the difference. The comfort of a powerful thing. They liked to pack together, watching Doraemon in the early mornings before Jin's shifts for Defence Duty.

This is more intense. Something like this, he understood now, was what brought people together to watch Kōshien. It was one thing to bond with Tamakoma's baby ward; it was another to wait with bated breath. The feeling of watching the clean-up batter step up to the plate, the sun's glare in their eyes, and the metal bat heavy across their shoulder, knowing what was coming next, but unable to do anything about it. He could only watch.

He wanted to see it happen with his own eyes.

"Well…" Four-Eyes stalled. Under the table, a pale hand gripped his school pants, the ridges of his young knuckles scuffed and ghostly. "If I saw people under attack, I think I'd still rescue them."

Jin took out his phone. Four-Eyes snuck a nervous glance as the adults argued and Kinuta catastrophised. Their eyes did not meet.

For the first time, Four-Eyes looked truly sad.

And then the tide fully turned. It washed over the game board, coating the pieces in a fine layer of salt. Jin stood up and did what he did best—plucking at the strings until the people around him started to sing.

"Okay, I'm counting on you." Jin smiled and anchored his hand on Four-Eye's shoulder. He squeezed and was surprised at how different it felt. Maybe the kid filled out a bit? Jin hoped Four-Eyes was running himself ragged spinning that hamster wheel of his, cultivating his frustration until it burned and prickled and fought against the cage of his tiny, middle school uniform. "Four-Eyes."

Four-Eyes lit up. A neutron star, right in the mouth of Border. A very old hunger started to shake off its lethargy, but Jin held off. He waited. Even witches sought to fatten their Hansels, exercising patience by taking old twine and dipping it in tar.

Four-Eyes took his first step into the rest of his life.

Jin took his seventh.

—·—

He saved himself as Talented Elite in Four-Eyes' phone. It was done in seconds, but he hung onto the device. His vision blurred in and out of focus. Little blips of Four-Eyes cradling the mute grey brick to his ear invaded his senses, stuffing Jin into the intimate gap between boy and phone, a rougher sound calling him Jin.

Jin amused himself by flipping the phone open and closed, testing the hinge. Eventually, the dizziness resolved itself and the world cleared.

Four-Eyes remained rooted. He didn't make any aborted motions to try to snatch his property back, seemingly content to let Jin have his fun. He definitely thought it, though. His entire complexion was steeped in worry.

To spare him, Jin tossed the phone back and only laughed a little when it clattered through the gaps of Four-Eyes' fingers. "So, have you given much thought to your Trigger, yet?"

"My…Trigger?"

"Yeah!" Attacker, Shooter, Sniper—Jin had a thought about what Four-Eyes should settle into, but this was not his to mess with. "I'm sure one of the engineers had already cornered you about it. It's not every day someone gets promoted on merit. Other people have to do it the long and boring way. By then, they've usually settled into what they want, but you haven't, I assume."

"It wasn't really my efforts…" Four-Eyes stopped, seeming to see the rejoinder Jin was about to throw his way. He sighed. "No, I know what I'm going with."

Asteroid, Jin thought.

"Raygust," Four-Eyes said. Oblivious to the sword he'd just taken to Jin's giddiness, Four-Eyes brushed the dirt off his phone and continued, "It's what I was using as my training Trigger."

"The same training Trigger that got your arm cut off." That was where it started. That single decision set everything into motion, cracking the egg shell apart to reveal a golden beak. "How morbid, Four-Eyes."

"It isn't the knife's fault, Jin-san." There was a wryness there. Not entirely Four-Eyes' approach to humour, but not not of a four-eyes variety. Maybe this was his mother's. "Kuga defeated that Marmod with the same blade."

"You're not Kuga."

"I know."

Jin regarded him seriously. He could feel his usual disposition take a weary rest, easing the smile he inherited from Mogami into the shadows while he took Four-Eyes in from inside his blue-glass enclosure. "Give me a little something to work with."

"What?"

"You need to get good at this whole talking thing, you know," Jin carried on, as if Four-Eyes hadn't said anything. He hoped he looked taller and unknowable. "They'll eat you alive, otherwise."

Four-Eyes reared like a prey animal that had caught sight of the fox under a fallen log. A question formed in his green apple eyes, and Jin was curious. He was famished. The uglier part of him that really liked to yank at the puppet strings behind the scenes was deathly curious to see how far he could go. How deeply he could entrench himself in the particulars of his precious Four-Eyes, indulging in privileges like details and context that would only make his every day more difficult and upsetting. He loved people. It was hard not to, raised as he was by endless figures of loss. And maybe—maybe he was looking for the slightest reason not to walk down towards the natural conclusion of his actions.

"I…" Four-Eyes hesitated. "Raygust is heavy. I thought—" he swallowed, fingers clenched tight."I know I'm not going to be able to move as Kuga does. I tried that. This will remind me not to attempt what he can do and focus on what I can do."

"And what can you do?" he pressed.

"I can fight." Four-Eyes stilled. Sweat still slicked his jaw, but he was looking ahead. Into Jin, into everything Jin was trying to stand for. "And Raygust will help me fight. I can't move very fast or very well, and Raygust will probably make that worse, but Thruster can help me fill that gap."

"Meanwhile, you're investing in something you know will pay off." Kuga defeated that Marmod with the same blade, Four-Eyes said. Jin couldn't help but be struck by a special sort of pride. Seeing his cute junior here, not so far from where they first met, with his collar and tie starched and folded properly. "I'll be honest, Four-Eyes, I'm hearing what you're trying to say, but…"

The confidence slumped, but it did not buckle. It did not fall. Four-Eyes nodded, seeming to understand. "I haven't gotten much further than that. It took me a long time to decide on Raygust. Everything the engineers talked about was a little confusing. It was a lot to take in, so I deferred the decision until I could…" Plastic creaked. Both of them looked at the grey phone in Four-Eyes' hand, and something changed. Something happened. "Jin-san, there's a Trigger you want me to take, isn't there?"

"Are you sure you want to know? You've already worked so hard that it'll feel too much like cheating if you give in and ask me straight on what's best for your future."

"I trust you."

You, Four-Eyes said so casually. As if it wasn't the single most important thing he could have said, catching Jin in a blind spot he thought he had shored up when half of the people he knew died in ways his Side Effect warned would be out of his control.

"It'll take the fun out of it if you just ask me for the answer."

"I'm taking whatever power-up I can," Four-Eyes said firmly. "So I won't regret it."

Fuck.

The laugh bubbled out of him without permission, but Jin, for once, let it run free. The world seemed brighter. He hadn't even noticed it dimmed, but that was that, and this was this. Jin ruffled Four-Eyes hair and snickered when Four-Eyes finally, finally protested something, setting his glasses back on straight. "You still have to decide what you want to use," Jin said, smiling to show how serious he was. "But I'll look at what you decide and make modifications to your Trigger as I see fit. How does that sound?"

"It's a deal, Jin-san."

He laughed again, and it felt good.

—·—

Blue really suited Four-Eyes. Usami had shuffled past Jin last night and took over the mouse to colour-correct the design. Her instincts guided her towards the greener wedge of the colour wheel. It shouldn't feel like a betrayal, but it did, and he must live with it. As he must live with the near-turquoise shade that wraps around Four-Eyes' body, sheathing the scarf and cardigan for a soldier's boots and jacket.

Jin perched high on a partially caved-in rooftop. Crackers crunched between his teeth. He watched Four-Eyes fumble with Raygust before the newly minted Border agent dug his feet into the asphalt, brandishing his shield to block the Neighbour's opening blast.

The smoke lifts. Asteroid shines beautifully in Four-Eyes' hand. A small cube, fracturing into pieces that hum with power and purpose.

Six months ago, Jin saved a child. That child was nowhere to be seen now, his own sword cutting through the eye of the monster, and settling at the feet of two tinier people.

Jin was glad he gave Four-Eyes the pauldron. It was a snap decision conceived half an hour before he was due to submit Four-Eyes' Trigger load-out with his new uniform attached. None of the futures before boasted the black plate with Tamakoma's emblem stickered on the face in green-apple green. Now, none of the futures that came afterwards were complete without it.

It was no Jin, but he'd take this private victory over the alternate versions of himself. There was still so much more to do.

"Such is the life of a talented elite." Jin slapped his knees and hauled himself up to his feet. He stretched. His body would not thank him, incapable of exhaustion in the same way, but it was a good habit that Mogami instilled, and Jin wasn't about to let that go, knowing what was coming up next. "Sorry, Mogami-san. I'm going to have to stir the pot a little, but you won't mind too much, right? You must miss everyone else, too."

Unfortunately, Mogami couldn't make that decision. Only Jin could.

He sighed and got back to work.

—·—

It was hard. He wasn't about to lie—it was ridiculously hard. He would have preferred taking a hammer to his fingers and peeling them off Fūjin's by the stubborn nails instead of just placing it at their feet like a dog with its head bent low.

Kido dismissed him without a second glance. Jin looked, though. Jin watched Kido handle Mogami tenderly, holding the Trigger in his hands, lips wrapped around the first syllables of Trigger On before he thought better of his company, and handed Fūjin off to Kinuta.

It was so easy to lose things.

One day, Fūjin was with him. That night, it was gone. Four-Eyes watched him stuff his face with macarons, a question forming in the furrow of his brow, but a polite mother raised a polite son. Instead, he sat stiffly there, defending Kyōsuke's busy schedule. He promised he was working hard. There was no need for the clarification, but that was what was so charming about his little Four-Eyes.

Jin didn't sleep at all that night. He slept well the next night, but not the one after that.

The world moved on. Jin, too, dipped his toes into the freezing river and felt the water start to flow again. Tachikawa occupied much of his days. Sometimes they fought. Scorpion welcomed him like an old friend at the end of the road, but Tachikawa was warmer and ten times as loud. They'd sit on simulated balconies, pausing their blood feud in the eleventh hour to break out the konro grill they smuggled in past security. Jin's lips would tingle afterwards. He got the final kill a good fifty percent of the time, Tachikawa wise to his tricks, and, more terrifyingly, wise to his Side Effect.

In a shocking twist of events that Jin saw coming from a mile away, he started to think less of Mogami now that his casket was no longer his responsibility. One day, Jin found himself at Mogami's favourite ramen stand for the first time since the man died. It was a nice place. Small and homely with reasonable prices and a long chain of families that had served an even longer chain of Mogami's ancestors. Jin ate his bowl. Arranged his chopsticks over the lip, paid for the meal with his own money, and said his polite goodbyes. He took the long way home. He would have lingered outside and smoked if he knew how to. It would upgrade his status to talented and ultra-cool elite, but Tachikawa would only look cooler than him. Jin wasn't in the habit of battering himself against insurmountable walls.

Another day passed. He woke up tangled in his sheets, sweaty and shivering with a mid-winter chill. It was nearly the end of the year. Konami brought up the idea of becoming a squad again. All four of them looked to him, eyes glinting as Reiji asked how rusty Jin felt working with a squad again. Many more days seemed destined to sweep right past him. The grief ebbed and flowed until every day was a little less heavy than before.

And then it was January.

—·—

In the futures where Four-Eyes died, Yūma left in most of them.

The sky was three clouds slimmer. The future a cold thing. A candle snuffed, the wick twisted black, flakes dropping into pools of solidifying wax.

Jin did not laugh much in those realities, which was a shame. Mogami always loved his laugh and Jin had just begun learning to do the same.

—·—

In the end, Jin misses Osamu's broadcast.

He's deep in the guts of the invasion's aftermath, turning over rubble to grasp at any thread to Replica's whereabouts when it happens. Konami accosts him as soon as he walks into the genkan, dirt on his collar and dust all over his fingers. She screams. Asking him if he knew, asking him why he would do that, why he would let that happen to Osamu?

Jin blinks. Speechlessness is an awkward look at him, and even Konami's rage abates at the wide-eyed expression he makes, goggles hanging loose from his hand. "What?" Jin says, at a loss. "What do you—what happened to Osamu?"

(Osamu in blue, in an Operator suit, in a white, hemp katabira to cover the holes. Jin, now, at the edge of the service with Osamu's mother walking past him while a man at her side, someone with Osamu's apple-green eyes and glasses, inclined his head in acknowledgement and dismissal all in one.)

Yōtarō screams at the TV to go back to show Jin what happened to their Osamu, but they're all equal parts useless at figuring out how to achieve that. The press conference is still happening. Kinuta gruffly explains the pedestrian version of how they intend to shuttle children into space, which is all well and fine, but it's just not what they want to hear right now. Jin is halfway through breaking into Reiji's car when Usami shuffles down the stairs, half-awake and baffled to see half the house up in arms.

She pokes at things until the conference starts to go backwards, flowing through the sequence in reverse, until Osamu hobbles backwards into place behind the podium.

"Is that Osamu-kun?" Usami asks, rubbing her eyes and blinking. The recording freezes on his face, unflinching in the face of camera flashes and human rancour. To Usami, it must have been a shock. Jin remembers that she set off to visit him this morning, half-dead herself, but unwilling to wait a minute longer to lay her own eyes on her precious teammate and captain.

"Press play," Jin says.

"But—"

"Now."

"My name is Mikumo Osamu," Osamu's recording says calmly. The bandage on his cheek creases as he speaks. "I'm the trainee who used a Trigger at school last month. If you have any questions, I'll answer them directly."

Jin knows that children grow. That is what they do. Yōtarō has come a long way from the infant clutched in Ruka's arms. From the tiny fingers that clutched around Jin's own, softening the edges of the holes ten people punched into him. He no longer reaches for Jin to cross the street, but Jin doesn't mind. There has been no time to mind, spread thin across his various duties, assigned and volunteered for.

So to see Osamu, his Osamu, who had been such a careful friend, start to run ahead on his own, and pull the entire room into his rhythm—what is there to say except that he didn't expect it? Not so fast, not like this, and definitely not without an ounce of his intervention.

Karasawa saw his golden opportunity and did not hesitate to capitalise on it. He had warned Jin, days ago, that he shouldn't avoid his juniors because of something so small. Like Jin, Karasawa always believed in giving people a fair chance. It had been a charged conversation. Jin felt more destabilised the longer Osamu slept; the doctors were largely optimistic, but unclear on when he would wake.

Jin could reassure people that Osamu would be fine, but one of the few things he had little control over was time.

And now he must reap what his negligence has sown.

"Because of what you did, it is suspected that information regarding Trainee Triggers was leaked," a reporter leads coldly. The menace in their gauntness translates poorly over the screen, but they can hear it. They can see it, which says enough. "What are your thoughts on that?"

Osamu does not take very long to respond. "Thinking back, that possibility does exist."

The longer the conference went, the worse Osamu looks. He audibly pants into the microphone, the recording picking up every thread of pain woven into his conviction. Sweat starts to run down the sides of his face, glueing his hair to his forehead in sickly wisps. It must have been hot. Those jackals line the seats, crouching low with snapping jaws and ugly eyes that coldly watch a child deteriorate in the same breath as they reprimand Osamu for his fault in the kidnapped trainees.

"I'm not a hero." Cameras flash, blinding the footage, but Osamu emerges. Untouched. A fortress impenetrable. Even slumped into his crutch, he holds his head high above the microphones to speak with perfect clarity. So there's no deniability. "I can't do the kind of thing where everyone is pleased with the result. I can only do what I think I should do in a way that I won't regret later."

Three days after giving up Mogami, Jin joined Four-Eyes on his morning run. He cheered his kōhai on, exaggerating his steps to match pace with the dying middle schooler. They splashed their faces with water cupped between their palms from the fountain under the bridge. Four-Eyes liked to run here, taking a break to admire the feat of engineering overhead.

"Ready to go back?" Jin asked, enjoying the feeling of being a mentor, even if it was all smoke and skullduggery.

Four-Eyes looked like he was anything but, more green than pale—which was saying something. Still, he nodded, and then they ran in complete lockstep before Four-Eyes edged ahead in a burst of hubris he only regretted later, colt legs struggling to carry him along.

At the time, he looked incredibly alive.

As he does now. Maybe not half a step from death, but certainly closer than he would be had he stayed in the hospital where he was supposed to be, healing quietly and politely and obediently.

Mogami would have laughed. In fact, he's laughing now. Or maybe it's Jin. It's his shoulders that are shaking after all. His lungs warbling with a foreign mirth, unsure how to expel it, but doubly sure they do not want this air inside them. Trickling into his blood, spreading into his organs and skin and muscles and achy ligaments that did not appreciate being tested in his awkward perches on rock and rubble.

"Our Four-Eyes is pretty cool, isn't he?" Jin says, hand over his eyes. Shaking. He feels awful. He feels glad. Awfully glad, and all its wretched scars. "Who knew he had it in him, right?"

Everyone stares, but that's alright.

The future is moving forward.

—·—

Shortly after their squabble over Black Triggers, Kazama slipped Jin a cigarette.

Raizō, Reiji, and Suwa waited a polite distance away, scuffing their shoes against the street while a lighter illuminated their faces. Cigarettes were fairly frowned upon in Border. Most of these halls swam with children who fell on the side opposite to delinquency. Shinoda, the figure of authority most people were familiar with despite Kido's name pinned at the top of the org chart, would often speak against it despite the cling of smoke under his collar. One must think about the children. The good, obedient children who loved to follow rules so much so that they responsibly sought out the legal and government-sanctioned means to beat up their friends.

So cigarettes circulated naturally among the fighting force. It's just that Trion bodies were mandatory on the premises—Kageura paved that rule in Netsuki's bruised jaw—and Trion dulled the senses. Anyone daring enough to smoke on the sly found it largely unremarkable and disappointing.

Rindō used to abuse that sensory quirk constantly, chaining a box a day because he could. Control was a precious resource. They all hoarded it, some more carefully than others. Kazama Shin followed his mentor into the habit with the same wan smile he approached everything with. It used to be a comforting sight, seeing Shin huddle near Rindō, hands cupped around a budding spark before passing back the lighter.

The same one Kazama offered now, five years later. Five years older. His real flesh-and-blood body stuck to the other end with neat nails and chipped polish.

Those kill, you know, thought Jin, archly. A weed of unrest rooted deep enough to force his hand towards the lighter. The cigarette was warm between his fingers as he smoked. A closed loop, stick resting on his lips and smoke inviting itself in, getting to know his trachea, lungs, and air sacs. The delicate machinery of all that kept Jin trudging along, even now, without Mogami at his side.

He only had himself to blame, in the end. Maybe that's why Kazama was looking at him. Phlegmatic as ever, eyes round and red and ringed.

With the black hair, he looked like a spikier version of Yūma.

"I'm still not satisfied with your answer," Kazama said. "There's something more to this that you're not saying."

"There always is," Jin smiled, enjoying it. "Everything I told you and Tachikawa was the truth. The world would be a better place if we were kinder to the people who reminded us of ourselves and wished them a better future than the present we had to live through."

"The Neighbour isn't the only one you helped get into Border." Kazama caught the smile Jin dropped and discarded it. "Miwa told me. Kido-san moved on the second you put Mogami-san back into his hands, but Miwa's practically been obsessed with Mikumo Osamu since you brought him in for his first disciplinary hearing."

"It was Kitora who brought him in." Because it seemed to be a detail worth clarifying. Then, with real surprise, he said, "I thought Shūji would fixate on Yūma more."

That's good, Jin thought, before regretting it in the same second. Kazama's eyes narrowed.

"You aren't the type to move like this for your own sake. No matter how I look at it, everything starts with Mikumo Osamu."

Kazama did not beat around the bush. He despised things that were oblique and intentionally difficult to understand. A rigid sort who liked to cut to the chase because short men were not made for the long, scenic routes. Probably. Mogami would have laughed. Jin would have too, but he did not feel much like laughing, so he didn't, and it was allowed. Because it was Kazama. Shin would have given him a stripped-down smile—teeth, and little else. Sōya gave him nothing, because this was about Jin, for once.

Jin was not used to that.

"I fought for Fūjin, too, you know." Even to Jin's own ears, it felt terribly vulnerable. "It was just for me. That Fūjin and I ended up working well together was completely incidental."

"I was there, Jin. You beat me."

"I'm not dodging your question. I'm trying to provide you context."

"What does that—" Kazama's eyes didn't widen. Shock didn't play nice on his features, but his cigarette nearly dropped from his fingers, and Suwa, even from that distance, was audibly shocked at the sight of something shaking Kazama enough to upset his composure. "I…I'm still back where I started. I still don't understand. Why do it then? Why him?"

People didn't do things for no reason. Conviction, however, did not automatically come with understanding. Sometimes their bodies moved before their minds did. That's why they trained to capitalise on this fact to keep themselves alive even after seeing their comrades slaughtered.

Jin saved Four-Eyes because it was the right thing to do. Everything else that came after was a matter of responsibility.

But even that was a stupid lie.

So Jin told him the truth. "It's a future worth fighting for, don't you think?" It was easier than he thought it would be because it was something he must have said before. Wistfulness tasted a lot like candied yuzu peels on his dining room table, his mother a mere step away. It tasted like summer rain. Ephemeral.

"That's a stupid reason," Kazama scolded. The curl of his mouth was dark. Unhappy. "I still don't understand."

Jin shrugged, struggling with the last drags his cigarettes had to offer. He coughed into his wrist, hoping Reiji didn't come over to thump his back. "You just have to see for yourself."

"Fine. I will."

Whoops. Kazama was probably going to legally beat the shit out of Four-Eyes now—but that was who he was. Jin really couldn't see this turning out wrong. Kazama was a powerful guy to have in your corner and his Four-Eyes needed all he could get. Even if it came in the form of this tiny not-so-subtle busybody of a senpai who never missed out on fostering the potential of his precious kōhai.

As his brother once did.

—·—

"I would like to ask you to please join Tamakoma-2."

Osamu stands there. He doesn't close the door behind him, so the light swells behind his back, spilling out into the dark quarter Jin has reserved for the nighttime dalliance. Their own shadowy talk between pillars, conspiracy thickening in the heat of their close breaths. Osamu's glasses glint hard, a familiar conviction on his face, but older. The nicks of age have not been merciful, and though Osamu carries the same strength that kept him upright at the press conference, even that has been changed from the experiences that have battered themselves into him.

He's wearing a blue shirt. Pale, in this light, but undoubtedly blue. A different Osamu, a more bitter Osamu, wore a black uniform with orange stripes and called him Jin. As that Jin also called him Osamu.

This haunted Jin for a very long time.

"You have your Side Effect," Osamu says. "I didn't think there would be any point in beating around the bush."

"Let's hear what led you to this conclusion."

They talk. About dying bodies locked inside a dead man. About what it means to not have the time to waste, and ever-present pressure on their shoulders that does not lift until the dead are finally dead. But no one wants that, so they talk, perhaps a little indulgently, like it is worth fighting the current that will inevitably sweep them all up into her embrace, running over their skin, and then bones, and then marrow, until there is nothing left to take.

(Tamakoma sits on a river it was built to study. They like to swim out there in the calmer summers. Jin sees Osamu wading in ankle-deep water in some of his visions. In others, he is too far to see.)

People live with the knowledge that people die. That is what they do. Regardless of the method, that is the destiny they're always headed towards, and sometimes you learn to live closer to death. You sit with it on the couch, the latest news story playing on the screen while your phone is silent and heavy, refusing to ring back even though you've called five times already. You stand with it, holding a quiet vigil over Yōtarō's cradle, articles of SIDS fresh on your mind. You accept it, picking up Osamu and Yūma's new high school uniforms while they're busy with Defence Duty. You hang them in their closets, inconsequential futures flashing in your mind as you thumb the buttons and smooth the fabric flat with a hand.

"I don't know how long Kuga has left." Osamu's hands fall loose from the fist they balled themselves into. He's stopped looking at Jin, focused on an uncertain point in time. "One year…maybe five? Or it could be much shorter. We don't know."

Jin closes his mouth. So he won't ask after all.

"I want our squad to go on an Away Mission as soon as possible so he can see Replica again."

They don't talk about saving Kuga. They don't talk about prevention. Osamu has learned to play a little more carefully with his cards, but in what he chooses not to say, he's revealed everything.

It is good to hope. It is more sustainable to be practical.

"I'm sorry." Osamu's head lifts. Jin makes sure their eyes meet, the river loud beneath their feet. The full breadth of sincerity trapped in ice. "I can't join Tamakoma-2. There are other things I have to do right now."

It takes the wind out of Osamu's sails. There's still a pallor to him. A lingering fatigue that makes standing up from chairs an entire procedure and a bottle of medication in their medicine cabinet a necessary fixture. Osamu sighs. "I'm sorry I made an unreasonable request."

"Don't blame yourself much. What happened to Replica-sensei isn't your fault."

"Kuga said the same thing. Replica did it to save—"

"No."

(Osamu leans on his crutch. "It feels like we have the same conversation over and over again, Jin." His smile is already odd for being there at all. A bad habit he picked up from his closest friend. "Why is it always you who has to apologise?")

"Because it's my fault that Replica-sensei is gone," Jin says, looking away from Osamu. It was his turn to stare at the architecture. The door is still open. Are they listening? Four-Eyes isn't generally a loud guy, but these walls are old and full of wicked gossips. "I could have let Chika escape early on, but I didn't do that."

("Would it make you feel better if I hated you?" Chika tugs on her skirt, yanking it down until it covers her knees, the hemline even all the way across. Her eyes are drier than Jin. She hasn't cried at all. Not once. Jin has seen her cry, in another world, in another future, but not this one. Osamu would be mortified if he knew what a spectacle they were all making for him. "I could easily do that. Sometimes I think I do resent you, just a little bit. But if that's what you want, then I want no part of it. I can't believe you'd use me for your own self-pity too."

"No, that's not…" He shouldn't lie.

Chika smiles. "I'm not like Osamu-kun, you know."

Jin's throat is dry. "He would have wanted you to be safe," is all he can say, in the end, liquid red eyes burning holes into his back.)

"It worked well, in that respect. But you almost died and Replica-sensei's gone." That girl—Izuho—refused to go home, stubbornly set on waiting for Chika to reform even though it had been explained to her that it would take at least half a day for the cubing process to be reversed. It wasn't until she saw him, until he said his name was Jin, that she collapsed to her knees and finally cried. There was red on the tips of her gloves. Closer to brown, given how long it took to wrestle Hyuse into the jeep and seatbelt.

Yoneya offered to walk her home. At Jin's nod, she finally relented and demanded to be notified the second Chika and Four-Eyes woke up. Yoneya looked at Jin for a quiet moment, hand on the girl's shoulder. Then he deactivated his Trigger, taking the red coating off the inside of his palms and arms and replacing it with the long sleeves of his Mikado First High School uniform.

Jin did not flinch. He couldn't, not with a prisoner left to deal with and Yūma's shadow on the wall. Yūma did not move. Not even after Jin finally approached him after seeing Izuho and Yoneya off.

It was only when Shūji came back with a Mini Replica in hand that Yūma detached himself from the waiting room greys. There was work to be done and both of them knew it was impossible to even entertain sleeping for the night.

(It is a conversation he wasn't meant to overhear. Jin's coffee is getting cold, but there is no way down the stairs that doesn't end with both Four-Eyes and Yūma finding him out. All this will do is delay the inevitable, but the information he gets here can be priceless artifacts for a better future. "Did he apologise to you?" Yūma asks quietly. His voice is so cold. Like a deep, deep sea, waiting for the order from the sky to turn violent. "Has he talked to you at all?"

Instead of answering, Jin hears Osamu shake his head. "Even if he did, I wouldn't accept it. It wouldn't feel right."

"Osamu, you haven't slept at all since he told you about how he deliberately let them target her."

"They took Replica, too. Yūma, you can be mad about that, but not about me."

"It's Chika," Yūma stresses. There is so much pain in his voice, and it was not his to feel at all, but he was the only one left who could.

"It's Jin-san," Osamu says, utterly calm. Like that explained anything. Like it was an equivalent exchange—the very person who set Osamu on this path or the very person who set Osamu on this path.)

A smile starts to curl at his lips. Unbidden and hungry. Desperate to know what Osamu would do, seeing Jin smile at a time like this. His sins laid bare on his washed hair and well-rested eyes. Nothing to blame on any torment of guilt. Just Jin, and Jin alone.

"I know I should have apologised to you sooner…" Jin breathes. His real flesh-and-blood lungs shrink at the cut of cold air that he scarfs down before letting it wisp out slowly. Like Kazama's smoke, like the heat no longer trailing off of his cup. "I'm sorry."

"No," Osamu shakes his head, starting to stand. "You don't have to."

(It turns out, Osamu's headstone doesn't accept apologies either.

The rejection doesn't help the cold water flooding Jin's every waking moment. It drags him down deeper into the silt the longer these terrible days go on, but it does make him laugh and think of Osamu first, before Mogami.

It does not become any easier after that. But the next day dawns without much fanfare and Jin is there to greet it in Osamu's place.)

"I'll help out when you guys get in trouble. I promise."

"Okay…!" Without needing to be asked, Jin extends a hand that Osamu gratefully takes. His hot chocolate is a useless thing now. Merely liquid to be sloshed as he moves to take a drink.

"Jin—"

(Jin-san!

…Jin-san.

Jin-san?

I…Jin-senpai…

Jin.)

"—san." Jin freezes. It's quieter than any other variation. His Osamu. His gentle lamb of a boy, stepping onto the altar with his sweat and his conviction. It's so easy for him to push his neck into the blade Jin holds out, eyes slipping closed, hands finding Jin's by habit. Those blunt nails dig into flesh, but never enough to actually hurt. "It's true that I almost died, but you helped us out so much."

Here is a funny little truth: this conversation has never happened before. Not this one. Not this back-and-forth from death, to time, to apology. Many futures have come close, but when you order them from left to right, Jin would be able to pluck this out from the many hundreds that had been thrown his way in incomplete fragments and echoes of nightmares.

When Jin came up here, he really did have no idea what Osamu was going to say or how it was going to go. That was the thing about Osamu. He just did things that no one else would actually have the audacity to do.

And that's why he's here.

That's why Jin turns to look, letting his surprise show on his face before it melts into a smile. His smile. His very own softness trapped in the amber light of Tamakoma's stairwell, the door still open, miraculously free of any listeners.

"I figured you'd say that," Jin says. And then he walks back down into the warmth of his home.

.

.

.

(There is no future that he sees where Osamu is old. The futures wound around Osamu's fingers are too volatile for that. That is the other edge of potential. While it has allowed the future to move again, it does not allow it to stop, not even for one moment. The months of late December to late March are religiously harsh on Jin's constitution.

However, that does not mean there are no futures where Osamu is older. Where his knees don't work as they used to, just a smidge before his twentieth birthday. He sits next to Jin, rubbing the handle of his cane as he does. Most of the times, they're at Tamakoma. Sometimes they're at Border.

Rarely are they on the small balcony of Osamu's room, old college textbooks with neat handwritten post-its stuck on the open pages from another boy with light-coloured hair that fancied himself a mentor. That one left Jin's kid hollowed out for a purpose that should never have been his, but he willingly accepted it anyway.

There is plenty Jin can do. There is plenty that Jin does. One of the things he can't do anything about is time. The other thing is other people's actions. He can plan and prod all he wants, but Jin cannot make decisions for them.

Only they can.

Which means no matter how much he may wish it may not be the case, sometimes people will hate him. Other times, they will forgive him. Time and time again, staying at his side even after his usefulness has run out.

"Why?" Jin asks.

"You saved me," Osamu says. "I don't know if it's because you saw some great future or if it was because I was just some kid you couldn't help yourself from getting involved with—no, don't tell me." He looks out to the sky, a softer edge on his glasses. Blue on the arms, kissing the soft hairs on his temple. If Jin were self-centered enough, he might have called Four-Eyes a copy cat. "That's really all there is to it. I can't exactly blame you if you got me killed when you were the reason why I even got as far as I did."

"You really don't regret it?" Meeting Jin. Following Jin. Continuing to be with Jin, even after everything that he's taken.

"I was busy," Osamu says, the words light and easy. He runs a hand through his hair, pinching the length at his neck and frowning, like it's too long for his comfort. Jin cuts Osamu's hair nowadays. It's easy to do it, especially when Osamu still lives with them at Tamakoma, going to school on Jin's old bicycle with Yūma and Chika following after him. "It's not like I had the time, right?"

Jin opens his mouth to answer.)