pickle wiener

You'd only met them a handful of times, enough to exchange greetings and short conversations but hardly enough to call yourselves close. The thought alone made you hesitate. 

Would they think it was strange? Would they feel awkward having you there? Would you be the awkward one?

"Please?" Your thoughts came to a halt as a voice came out. Kid had taken both of your hands into his own, his grip gentle as he looked at you with determination. His amber eyes searched yours while his brows furrowed into a pitiful pout. "I promise it'd be fun."

You glanced away, seemingly weighing the options though he wasn't giving up.  "I'll stay by your side, I promise." He lifted his pinky toward you– you stared at it for a moment before a soft sigh escaped, interlocking your own finger around his.

A smile spread across his lips, warm enough to rival the summer sun itself. Were his eyes always that cheerful.?

⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊୨ᰔ୧₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹

Golden sand glistened endlessly beneath the afternoon sun, warm against your bare feet as it sank slightly with every step you took. Blue waves rolled toward the shore as the sea reflected the sunny sky. A salty breeze drifted past, cooler than the desert winds back home– sounds of crashing waves and calls of seagulls filled the beachy atmosphere.

You followed behind the group toward the shade of a large palm tree while Kid matched your pace without a word. The moment everyone reached the covers, a duffel bag flew through the air before landing with a soft thud. Its owner; Blackstar, had already sprinted away to the vast sea.

"!?Oi. Get back here!" Soul called after him, watching in disbelief as the loud male launched himself straight into the shallow water. Laughter and more splashing immediately followed.

Your gaze lingered on him, a worried expression visible on your face. Beside you, Kid let out the smallest sigh. "You'll.. get used to him." Even he didn't sound entirely convinced. Meanwhile, everyone else busied themselves preparing for the day.

Liz rummaged through bags in search of sunscreen while Patty wore an oversized sunhat on her head, one so wide it smacked Tsubaki in the face when she turned around. Kid, however, had an entirely different concern.

His amber eyes slowly drifted toward the pile of bags. A tiny wince crossed his face. They weren't straight. Some leaned to one side while others rested on uneven sand. A quiet look of horror settled over his features.

He adjusted the sunglasses, pushing them atop his head, dark lenses disappearing into his equally dark hair as he inspected the surrounding area. Then, his gaze landed on a small roofed beach hut placed farther down the shoreline.

"We'll be back there." The announcement drew everyone's attention at once. Confused eyes followed the direction of his finger before slowly returning to him. Without another word, he gently took your hand into his. "Come on."

Kid led you away from the group, the warmth of his hand steady against yours but before turning away completely, you glanced back. Liz wore the same unimpressed expression as Maka. Though, for a faint moment you caught the corners of their mouths twitching upward into a smile. 

"...Good enough." Kid gave a small nod of approval as the two of you stepped beneath the shade of the beach hut.

A wooden table sat in the center, surrounded by two chairs. He set both bags aside before taking a seat. A generous amount of sunscreen landed in his palm before he began rubbing it carefully over his face, making sure not to miss a single spot. "How are you doing so far?"

His voice was quieter than before. He'd noticed how your attention kept drifting toward the others.

The girls had already settled into the beachy atmosphere while Soul joined his cyan-haired friend in the ocean, the two sending large splashes of seawater into the air accompanied by distant yelling.

"Hot." You finally returned your gaze back and placed your bag beside your chair. Kid let out a quiet chuckle, applying another layer of sunscreen over his arms. "I'd say you look the part as well, hm?"

You paused midway through digging your own bottle out of your bag. Processing what he meant by the comment before it registered. A small laugh escaped you before you playfully tossed the bottle toward him.

"Less ogling, more applying." Kid instinctively reached out to catch it though it slipped straight through his fingers. The bottle bounced off his knee as it laid on the sand.

After retrieving the bottle, he handed it back before continuing on with the protection. "What do you want to do after this?"

The sea breeze brushed past strands of hair that had escaped his sunglasses, a few dark locks falling across his forehead again. He brushed them back absentmindedly, amber eyes settling on you with quiet curiosity.

"What do you wanna do?" You returned the question. For a moment, only the sounds of the ocean filled the silence between you. Waves crashed lazily onto the shore as distant screams filled the beach.

"Me?" Kid perked up almost immediately. "Well.. I was planning on building an exact replica of my mansion." His posture straightened as he spoke, enthusiasm slipping into his voice.

"We can build it together.! Every window, every detail–" His amber eyes practically sparkled as a boyish smile found its way onto his face before he even realized it. Oh god.

Your gaze wandered back toward the others instead. "What are they doing?" The question cut him off. Kid froze from his rambles, his earlier excitement fading into confused eyes.

"..I heard them talking about volleyball?" His shoulders slumped ever so slightly as he glanced toward his friends, eyes closing for the briefest moment in quiet defeat. " Do you want to join them.?" 

You considered the offer. It probably wouldn't hurt to get to know his friends better but the heat was ruthlessly overbearing. "It's too hot to play."

The afternoon sun still shone scarily above– the ocean breeze occasionally drifted to the shore though it was far too gentle to make much of a difference. Kid followed your gaze toward the group. "I'm sure they'll find some shade."

He glanced back at you before gesturing for you to come closer. "Could you help me with the back, please?" You gave a small hum in response, taking the sunscreen from his hand. "How about we just build your sandcastle..mansion instead?"

A generous amount of lotion landed across the center of his back. Your palms spread it outward, smoothing the cool cream over his skin. The disappointment from moments ago vanished almost instantly.

A pleased smile curled onto his lips. He'd won after all.

You continued rubbing the sunscreen lower until your hands eventually reached the small of his back. "What are you doing?" Suspicion slipped into Kid's voice before he even turned around, his neck craning just enough to glance at you over his shoulder.

Suddenly, you suddenly pinched his waist. Nothing. No reaction. Kid slowly looked back at you, utterly unimpressed. "You seriously didn't think I was ticklish, did you?" He let out a small huff– before you could pull away, he caught both of your hands.

His fingers slipped between yours, loosely intertwining them together. "Worth a shot." You shrugged innocently.

The male only smiled. Still seated, he shifted closer until his knees lightly rested against either side of your legs. Looking down at him from where you stood, you couldn't help but notice the faint flush across his cheeks and the subtle redness of his lips. Probably from the heat.

⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊୨ᰔ୧₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹

You sat on the sand with a bored expression, a wide brimmed hat was enough to shade most of your face. A few meters away, Kid was still working, precisely and exactly. 

He’d been shaping the exterior of his sand manor for a while now, occasionally leaning in to adjust an edge or check for perfection. According to him, letting you help was “too risky.” His words. So you were left to sit and watch this construction project.

In the distance, laughter could be heard. The others were playing volleyball under shaded trees, shouting and having fun. You sighed, leaning back on your hands. "Kid, when do I get to start?"

He didn’t look up. "Soon, love, soon.. I just need to perfect this angle first!" You let out another sigh, tracing doodles into the sand beneath you. When suddenly, a volleyball came flying in from the direction of the game, grazing the top of your head and slamming straight into the sand structure.

It collapsed instantly and your hand immediately flew to your head, rubbing the spot where the ball had passed.

Kid, on the other hand, froze and fell sideways into the sand. “My angle..” Your eye twitched. Slowly, you turned toward the group. Apologetic faces stared back at you from a distance. You turned back immediately.

The male’s hand twitched before he slowly pushed himself up again. His gaze dropped to the ruined sand structure, finger pointing accusingly at his friends before shifting it towards you. “..Did they hit you?” His voice had changed.

His hands reached toward your hair immediately, brushing it lightly. “Are you okay?” You nodded, ensuring everything was fine. “Yeah, only a little bit.” From behind, Patty’s voice rang out. “Kiddd! Can you throw it back?! I was dominating-” Liz’s hand snapped over her mouth before she could finish it.

His fingers paused near your hair. “I guess the hat protected you.” He murmured, almost to himself before turning around to grab hold of the ball– throwing it back to the group.

“Let’s go back.” Kid said, standing up and brushing sand off his shorts. “It’s hot out here anyways.” He stepped in front of you, blocking the sun as he held out his hand.

Far behind, Soul exhaled quietly as they all watched the two of you head back toward the shaded hut. “Oi, Patty. You almost got us chewed out.”

“..Guess he’s changed.” Liz added under her breath, watching Kid walk ahead like nothing had happened.

⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊୨ᰔ୧₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹

By the time you both made it back to the hut, the tension from earlier had already started to fade. Kid disappeared for a moment only to return shortly after with two ice creams in hand. One was placed carefully into yours, the other held loosely as he settled beside you.

You sat there quietly, watching the others in the distance again. Their voices were still loud, still chaotic. It almost looked.. fun. A small smile tugged at your lips before you even realized it. Maybe next time, you’d join them.

Kid noticed immediately. “See?” He said lightly, following your gaze toward the group. “They’re good people.” You gave a soft hum, licking at your ice cream. “I know they’re good people.”

That earned him a faint smile in return. For a moment, the two of you just sat there, the sound of waves filling the silence. Then he glanced at you again. “You’ve got something on your lips.”

You blinked– looking down to see what it was. “I don’t see anything?” Before you could ask more, he leaned in. A small smear of ice cream was dragged across your lips with his thumb then he kissed you.

Your brain froze, not from the cold but from his action. Meanwhile, Kid was already sitting back again, licking the remaining ice cream off his thumb as if nothing had happened at all.

"Okay," you mutter, leaning closer to the mirror, liner pen hovering. "One more pass. Just... even it out a little—"

The knock at your door is less a knock and more a declaration of war.

"You're late." Kid's voice, muffled through the wood, is doing that thing where it's trying very hard to be calm. "Seven minutes and forty seconds late, which is an asymmetrical amount of time, and if you could open the door before it becomes eight minutes exactly, I would consider it a personal kindness—"

"It's open!"

The door swings in and there he is: three white stripes, immaculate suit, expression already halfway through a lecture. "Do you have any idea what it does to a person, standing outside counting seconds that refuse to be divisible by—"

He stops.

You're sitting cross-legged on the edge of your bed, mirror in one hand, liner in the other, one eye pristine and the other a smudged tragedy. You watch, in real time, as every gear in his head grinds to a halt and switches tracks.

"...Your eyeliner," he says quietly.

"I know."

"The left wing is exquisite."

"I know."

"The right one looks like it lost a fight."

"I KNOW, Kid, that's why I'm late!"

For a moment, he just stands there in your doorway, and you brace yourself. This is it. This is the moment your boyfriend, the actual son of Death, should collapse onto your floor, wailing about garbage and asymmetry. You've heard the weeping many times before.

Instead, he crosses the room, plucks the liner pen from your fingers with the gravity of a surgeon accepting a scalpel, and sits down on the bed facing you.

"Hold still."

"...What?"

"You've been fighting this battle alone for, I assume, the better part of twenty minutes." He tilts your chin up with two fingers, turning your face gently toward the light. His gold eyes narrow, scanning your face like it's a blueprint. "That was your first mistake. Symmetry is not achieved through panic. It is achieved through patience, precision, and—"

"Being pathologically obsessed with it?"

"—expertise," he finishes, but the corner of his mouth twitches. "Close your eyes."

You swiftly do as he says as a soft smile graces your lips.

Because here's the thing nobody tells you about Death the Kid: for someone who can be reduced to tears by a crooked picture frame, his hands are unbelievably steady. The pen glides along your lash line in one smooth, unhurried stroke, his other hand cradling your jaw like you're something fragile and expensive. You can feel him breathing — slow, measured, the way he gets when he's shooting.

"You flick too fast at the end," he murmurs. "That's why the wing hooks. You have to commit to the angle before you begin the stroke, not during."

"Are you seriously coaching me on eyeliner right now?"

"I'm seriously coaching you on geometry. The eyeliner is incidental." A pause. "Also yes."

You crack your other eye open just enough to look at him. He's completely absorbed — brow furrowed, lips slightly parted, holding your face in his hands like the fate of the world depends on the trajectory of this wing. Maybe, for him, it kind of does.

"We're missing our reservation," you point out.

"We're not missing anything." He leans back, examines his work, leans in again to make a correction so small you're positive it's imaginary. "This is the date now."

"Sitting on my bed while you do my makeup."

"Sitting on your bed while I perfect your makeup." He switches to the other eye, thumb brushing your cheekbone, and his voice drops into something softer. "Besides, the restaurant has you for two hours. I have you right now, in good lighting, holding still, letting me fix this mess you made. Frankly, this is the best date I've ever planned."

"You didn't plan this."

"Fate planned it. I'm merely executing."

You laugh, and he makes a small scandalized noise — "Hold still, do you want to look like a Picasso?" But he's smiling too, you can hear it, and his hand steadies your jaw again with a tenderness that makes your chest go warm.

It takes him another fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes of tiny corrections, of him pulling back to squint at you from three different angles, of "turn toward the lamp — no, my left," of his knee pressed against yours on the rumpled blankets. At some point you stop being impatient about it. At some point you realize you'd happily sit here all night, being fussed over by a boy who touches your face like it's the most important thing he'll do all day.

Finally, he sets the pen down. Takes your face in both hands. Turns it left. Turns it right, eyes practically  shimmering.

"Perfect..." he breathes, with the reverence most people reserve for religious experiences. "Absolutely, flawlessly symmetrical. You are- you're balanced. Do you understand how rare that is? Eight out of eight. No, beyond that. You've transcended the scale."

"You did most of the work."

"I refined a masterpiece. There's a difference." And then, before you can tease him for it, he leans in and kisses you with a careful precision on your forehead before pulling back, looking immensely pleased with himself. "Equidistant from both wings. I checked."

You couldn't help but chuckle at his antics that, frankly, you should be used to by now. "You're ridiculous."

"I'm thorough." He laces his fingers through yours and settles back against your pillows, tugging you with him, dinner reservation officially dead and thoroughly unmourned. "Now. Sit still and let me admire my work. And next time you do your eyeliner-"

"Call you first?"

He kisses your temple. Left side. Then, deliberately, the right.

"Obviously."

Attending is weird. And old-man Cherry said it best; the brain's ability to detect some stimuli whilst filtering out the rest was truly just spectacular, and perhaps one of the only things you can attribute your maintained sanity to amid the stone world chaos – chaos that only seemed to be expanding. “Habituation” as Thomas and Spencer coined it.

Oh! Write that one down… 

The human brain was just so exhilarating, truly the most complexly crafted mechanism in the known universe, and you would be damned if you’d ever let the centuries worth of experiments, and knowledge, and science, and theories, and sacrifices, and what-have-you become obsolete to the clock-hands of time. The moment you awoke from the depths of stone-bound consciousness – bright red eyes glaring down at you, wide and yet weary despite a beaming smile, you finally understood what you had been placed on this earth to do. 

It’s a daunting feeling every person has to face come time, the choice of deciding what craft they deem important enough to dedicate a single lifetime to. Important enough to leave a life's worth of a mark on the earth for, an imprint etched intricately by the thinning skin of two aging hands. And in that fluorescent moment, as your eyes squinted against light absent for three millennia, you glanced left to see green where your desk once stood, and right to see the bare parts of the boy that made your cheeks flush in science club (and god, did your cheeks flush again). Yes, in that moment it dawned on you that your purpose on this impossibly green earth was to ensure none of the most brilliant minds of psychological science would be lost to stone. 

So you wrote. You wrote for every weary moment that passed and embedded itself on the rocks of the mountains that formed in its wake, because nothing better had yet been reinvented. You wrote as the population of two grew to a population of four, then four to five, and five back down to just the two of you. And you wrote into the moment you realised modern minds weren't the only ones left inhabiting the desolate planet you once saw skyscrapers adorn, and that primitive ones prevailed too.

You wrote in your little hut by candlelight, after a day's work of winter prep had been put to rest. And eventually you wrote in Chrome’s lab while Senku sat sketching blueprints beside you and the kingdom of science laboured at the collective ideas the two of you deemed worthy of fabrication. 

And when said kingdom finally acquired proper writing materials, Senku made sure they reached you in that weird silent display of affection he does, and once again, you wrote into what you deemed to be the official, contemporary (but not very modern), psycho-encyclopedia. And you’d be sure that every drop of knowledge from your mind bled into the pages of fibre darkened with soot-stained ink. 

This was your life’s work. A weird thing to deem by 20, but you were sure this was what your purpose was; this frayed, stained, and crinkled leather-back book – only yet half full – scribbled with knowledge of a time long gone, but definitely not forgotten. 

“Attending,” god, it really was weird — because despite all those complexly drawn out thoughts hidden behind your eyes trained on said book, it suddenly occurred to you that you were sitting in the midst of one of the busiest moments the stone world had surely ever seen.

Out in the open, you leaned over a glass table as levers and pulleys strained every which way at incomprehensibly large planks of wood, with dozens of people bustling around you ensuring Senku’s newest idea came to fruition. A boat- no, a ship – and god, was it loud. “Habituation,” thank everything for it, because you’d have written jack-all today without it. Probably would have forgotten your idea. 

Your idea that lingered — a cognitive thread that refused to loosen its hold. It had been needling at you for days, itching at you enough that you’d finally raised it with Senku the night before, hoping for something resembling an answer. Just as he always confided his outlandish ideas in you for psychological perspective, you hoped his biological expertise could return the favour. 

You knew he was an unhelpful prick when he stuck his pinky in his ear and shrugged blankly with that dumb look that made you exhale through your nose.

“How would I know? You’re the Neuroscientist.” 

You almost kicked him to sleep on the pebbles outside. Alas you didn’t.

And science said if no one had an answer, then it was worth exploring. So, when your eyes finally cracked open after a near-sleepless night, you teetered quietly out towards the glass table overlooking the kingdom of sciences newest project, careful not to wake Senku in the faint hope that he’d actually rest, and the others in heavier hope of a little goddamn quiet. 

Thus you sat from the early break of dawn, eyes fighting their own heaviness as the day remained still, through to the beaming heat of the afternoon – where the primitive world finally remembered just how loud it liked to be. All the while, you jotted down your newest theory in the ratty leather-back book Senku made you years ago.

If Loftus describes memories as fallible, and recollection as constructive rather than chronicle, and yet so many people describe the events of the petrification in such detail, then the preservative qualities of the petrification process must not be pertinent just physiologically, but also be applicable to the brain cells and neural pathways necessary for memory recall. Perhaps, I should collect self-report data on individualistic petrification experiences, that way I can assess the hypothesis scientifically. A significance test might be the most efficient way to test this- Pearsons, maybe?

“Y/n!”

White lines turned to multicoloured configs as your eyes snapped to the owner of the voice. 

That's right, “Attending.” Weird, how the brain does that. The cocktail party effect, as Cherry said- oh, you should remember to write that one down too- 

“-Y/n!”

“Huh?” 

“Did you even hear a word I said?” Gen’s voice carried thick through the air, despite all the clashing voices contending for a hold in place. Your eyebrows shot down in a furrow of confusion and a twinge of irritation, before one arched sharply in recognition. 

“I heard my name.” You retorted. 

“Your name is not a word,” Gen countered dryly, “so, I’ll take that as a no.”

Through his tone you noticed the hitch of his breath as he puffed on his words. It was only then you noticed just how tired he sounded. Through the breathiness, and the beading sweat. He was working on Perseus today.  

“Sorry,” you muttered, already turning back to the page, pining to get back to your writing. “Thinking.”

Gen snorted. “Typical scientist habits. We ought to get you genuises a handler.”

You didn’t rise to his bait. Instead, your pencil hovered for a moment before scratching the thought down anyway, your fear of losing the thought trumping your interpersonal attraction to the group.

Festinger’s Group Cohesion Theory, another one you couldn’t forget to write about…

“-huh, Y/n?”

“What?” Your eyes snapped up again, sharper this time, agitation leaking through before you could stop it. You didn’t mean to be so short-tempered, but you were working against the clock here, and there was much else Senku needed from you despite it. Couldn’t they see you were working? Just as they had their job, you had yours, and you weren’t privy to being interrupted so often. Gen was a mentalist, he knew that attention, once broken, was never so easily reclaimed.

This time Ginro stepped forward, imitating a similar breathlessness to Gen, with that typical helpless Ginro-desperation leaking through his tone. 

“Y/n, we're stuck on the instructions and don’t know what to do! It says something about accounting for… uh- testicle stress?” Ginro’s eyes glanced down at the wrinkled blueprints, with irrationally fearful eyes, “It’s one of those science-y words Senku uses when he wants to scare people and it makes no sense! What does it mean?!” 

Your pencil stilled, eyes blinking slow as you finally digested the full scope of the scene. Your attention finally shifted as you took note of the many weary eyes glancing at you with hopeful expectation. Hope that you would relieve them of their stress. Expectation that you would clear up their gaps in knowledge and aid them on their journey to task completion, and their eventual next meal break, one you could smell simmering away somewhere inland.

However, hope, you learned, was a feeble thing, because misplacing it meant the inevitable disillusion of optimism. It was truly unfortunate that you knew their hope was exceptionally misplaced, and it almost made your blood boil over that they had interrupted your expertise for something so obviously out of your field.

“I-I don’t know.” You deadpanned in utter disbelief, “I’m a neuroscientist not an engineer.” 

You watched with perplexity as the faces scattered around the half-built ship dropped in despair, and hopeful eyes shifted into ones completely lacking faith. You could almost see the black cloud that had settled over the top of them, gloomy and dreary with resignation.  

For half a second, you stared at the slumped shoulders, the exaggerated sighs, the way despair settled far too heavily for a problem that had such an obvious solution. The scene bordered on near absurdity in their reactions, as if their stone aspirations of a modern world had been macerated with just a few timid words. As if there wasn't a very loud… very capable… very obvious answer pacing somewhere just beyond the hull.

That realization cut clean through your confusion, compelling it to settle into a regretful twinge of irritation that left a tick forming in your right eye. Maybe it was just the exhaustion assuming its place, but alas you felt it twitch. All as the moment festered into the recognition that they were now wasting a lot of time, a lot of cognitive load, and a very valuable thought pattern for something that wasn’t nearly a catastrophe. Let alone something that was even your problem.

You sighed, rubbing at the migrating headache that had begun pulsing at your temple, as if stimulating the skin would coax the synapses to fire in successive order again. “Guys,” you said, tone flattening as patience thinned, “this isn’t that hard.”

A few heads lifted, the prospect of a brilliant mind coming to their aid on the horizon.

“I study brains,” you deadpanned, attention already drifting back to the page. “Not boats. If you want to know what torsional stress is-” you eyed Ginro as you enunciated the word slowly before glancing back at your book, then pointed over your shoulder without glancing, “-go ask Senku. That’s literally what he’s here for.”

Taiju was the next to step up with a strained frown pulling at his lips, a cue you were familiar enough to recognise as the precursor to a complaint. It was a gesture that made you oddly reminiscent of your days back in school, where he’d do just so before nagging Senku and you both to no end, a giggling Yuziruha somewhere nearby. You always feigned annoyance in that moment, though you wouldn’t admit it was charming in the particular way Taiju could be. You would just sip your strawberry milk and catch the smirk Senku pretended not to wear as he silently admired the scene. Though, while on the topic of things never to be admitted, Senku would deny this vehemently too. 

Nostalgia theory, be sure to write that too…

“-But, Y/n!” Taiju protested suddenly, the frown returning in full force. “Senku told us to stop bothering him.”

You barely had time to register the implication before Yuzuriha had chimed in, leaning in from behind him with an apologetic smile that softened the complaint immediately.

“He actually told everyone to stop bothering him,” she clarified lightly. “Very explicitly.”

Kohaku was next to join the conversation, one you had already deemed trivial on a day so scarce of time, though, at this rate you discerned that it wasn’t ending any time soon so you leant back with a huff. 

Her arms folded over her chest, posture already mirroring a scolding she’d likely endured firsthand and a bite in her tone that unveiled her disapproval of Senku’s preferred work-ethic. At this rate, however, you were starting to understand why he demanded the quiet.

“He’s working with Kaseki on the “rudder.’” Kohaku said flatly, directing her words with air quotes. “Said it was important, then got pissed when we asked too many questions. If you ask me, he could stand to explain things better instead of barking orders.” 

“Its a good thing no one asked you, then.” Chrome muttered under his breath, a comment that earned him a stern fist to the side and a snarl from the owner of said fist. 

“Since you’re feeling so confident today, why don’t you go ask Senku for his help?”

Chrome frowned with a wince, “No way!” He spoke as he rubbed a soothing hand to his ribs. “He yelled at Suika today. That’s how I know he’s pissed, he’s never yelled at Suika. If I went up to him, I think I’d become an example.”

You were well aware that Senku had been a little on edge recently, with the piling stress of the ship's construction, and the constant need to be the most decisive, and quick-thinking person in the room. You could see the pressure settling heavier on his shoulders with each passing day the ship wasn’t completed – not exactly in the way he spoke, but in the rare moments where he didn’t. In the moments where it was just the two of you at the end of a long day and he didn’t feel pertinent to small-talk. When he would let you ramble about your interest and theories without contributing or competing in the playful way he usually would. In the silences he let linger a second too long because his brain never quite stilled.

You tried to make up for it when it counted. By fielding the questions he didn’t have time to answer and redirecting the noise away from him when it grew too insistent but you were only so knowledgeable in chemistry, and had your own load to bear. It was no wonder he snapped when he had prepared the construction team as best as he could, only to be bombarded by questions regardless. You suppose it was inevitable, but still.

Your thoughts lingered longer than they should have and you were halfway through reconciling when movement sliced violently through your peripheral vision.

Ginro's flailing arms abruptly overtook your field of view, a descending shadow made up of pale and frantic limbs cast against the sunlit shipyard, snapping you out as it loomed far too close. For a fraction of a second, your mind lagged behind your eyes until recognition struck.

He was about to slam the messily sketched blueprints onto the glass table. The same table where your book sat open. Your very precious, still-wet-with-ink book.

Your arms reacted before conscious thought had time to intervene and it was one of the few moments you found yourself grateful that your body had outpaced your brain. Your hands snapped back, hugging the book tight to your beating chest, with a finger pinched between the still-wet pages to keep them from bleeding into an inky abyss. A heartbeat later, Ginro’s hands came down with a clatter forceful enough to jolt the contents of the table a few millimeters airborne. 

A heaving Ginro unveiled tense and sweaty beside you, and if looks could kill, Ginro may as well have dug his little grave with the glare you sent him. He realised the mistake he made far too late and froze beside you, shoulders rigid, eyes darting first to the blueprints now splayed innocently across the glass, and then up to your face.

His lips wobbled with apprehension as his voice shakily vibrated, “I-I-” He smiled wearily. “Sorry?”

That twitch in your eyes was almost a second heartbeat at this point, and with the prospect of nearly losing an entire day's worth of work over- over-... Ginro, you had finally felt that final gear spinning that indicated you had reached your wits end. 

“Okay,” voice cutting low and level in a way that carried far more weight than shouting ever could. “That’s enough.” 

The sound of wood against dirt pierced through the air, dense with unease, as your feet shoved the rickety chair backwards. Your arms came down in a swift motion as you settled the book gently over the blueprints, and with hands now free, you gripped the table's edge hard enough to feel the imperfections in the grooves, attempting to ground your irate nerves. You weren't angry, these people were your closest friends, but their irrational panic was bordering absurdity, too close to theatrical. You were already overworked as it was, and now too petty to deal with this spectacle alone.

You inhaled once and heaved with a shout. “Senku!” Cutting through the dense air like a bell.

And like that, the once bustling shipyard stilled as if a switch had been flipped. What once had started with you drowning out the blaring scene to centre your own focus, had turned into a scene in which you had become the center of everyone else's. Habituation was long gone, replaced by your need to go back to that peaceful, productive state you’d been in earlier this morning. The eyes of confusion had evolved into ones of apprehensive fear, and the hiss Gen pushed through his teeth told you just how unnerved they were with your decision.

It was quiet for a beat, quiet enough to hear the tide hit the rocky shore twice before footsteps crunched against the pebbled dirt just a ways in the distance. The array of people besides you tensed in agonized anticipation of a lecture that was patently soon to come, but you just stood biting your lip, ticked off and bored, already tired of waiting for a response. 

Senku rounded the corner with a painfully ordinary slouch. Goggles, recently discarded, dangling loosely around his neck with nothing but a slight twitch of his lip to indicate the miniscule amount of irritation he bore. His hands smudged with lingering grease stains crossed loosely over his chest as he cocked a brow, red eyes boring directly at you. “What?”

The group stood unmoving, already dumbfounded by the flatness of his tone. 

The gears in Chrome's brain couldn’t begin to comprehend the difference in reactions so shortly spanned. The first and last time he approached Senku earlier that day, the man had snapped so sharply Chrome could swear he felt a glimpse of Sulferina’s ghost peeking through. Senku was a near walking reaction waiting to go critical today. 

He understood why – the man had a lot of work to be done in a very short amount of time. But yet, here he strolled so casually around the helm, voice steady and unremarkable, just mildly annoyed at an interruption he had close to bit a head off over an hour ago.

And you just glanced at him as if his question was unfounded, as if he was foolish for even questioning your intentions, “Come here.” As if it were obvious.

And he did. He just did. No arguments to mimic the handful of ones he put up against the others, no scolding to demand they stop bothering him, or flat palms pointed up to ask if they could see how busy he was. He just walked over like you held a rune to turn time itself into stone, like you had already made the decision for him.  

Senku’s feet carried him directly beside you, stopping close enough that the edge of his boot brushed the table leg. He planted two fists firmly on each hip and leaned forward, expression flat and condescending. “What is it?”

“Your inability to write coherently is becoming my problem. Come fix it.” The words landed so unceremoniously, stripped of all caution. You spoke to him as if the man was just a childhood friend, and not some otherworldly genius so far out of your reach that they barely knew how to approach him sometimes. 

Oh… 

They realised. 

Because that was exactly what he was. 

To them, he was the crazed polymath scientist who rebuilt the world in a frantic swirl of ideas. But in that moment, they had almost forgotten that you were the mad neuro-psych scientist who helped him do it. Because, to you, he was just the childhood best friend who matched your sporadically manic ideas. 

To you, he was just your boyfriend.

Gen let out a slow breath, the confusion finally wilting as it clicked into place. He knit his brows together through a self-deprecating smile, feeling a little foolish now that he thought about it, because really, it hadn’t been subtle at all. He closed his eyes and sighed.

“Right,” he muttered. “Of course.”

“What?!” Suika gulped.

Gen waved a hand vaguely, still smiling. “I feeear I may be a little slow on the mark today,” he said, the humour creeping back into his tone now that the tension had deflated. 

There was a beat. Then Chrome, who had been watching with cautious attention up until now, puffed up slightly as the realisation finally landed.

Oh.

How could he have missed it? The two of you who turned up at his lab door with stacks of wilting papers in your hands and paper cuts on Senku’s, already talking over each other in a language Chrome had to learn to keep pace wth. The way you argued sometimes, sharp and relentless and oddly in sync, like a married- …oh. Right.

Well, in his defense, he wasn’t stunned by the oversight itself. Nor by the being-together part because everyone knew that already. Every newly unpetrified friend arrived at the same conclusion sooner or later, that you liked Senku and more astonishingly, that he was even capable of normal people emotions. The revelation usually earned a horribly concealed snicker from you and an overextended eyeroll from Senku.

Chrome wasn’t shocked about what everyone already knew. No, what shocked Chrome was something else entirely.

It was the way Senku was acting with you, that Senku would ever act like that with you. 

He had snapped at everyone else without forethought, barked orders and bared teeth like it was today's motto. And yet the second you called his name, he softened like Cesium and appeared by your side at beck and call despite having made it abundantly clear how busy he was.

Senku was being… soft.

Soft.

Chrome’s lips twitched, the thought settling somewhere between disbelief and amusement. And as if the air itself carried the same conclusion, Gen’s smile beside him sharpened with a similar realization too.  

Chrome leaned forward, eyes glinting with mischief now that the connection had finally been made. Just a half hour ago, Chrome feared nothing would ever bring this partner down from his enduring stress, and yet, here he now realized the solution had been sat, scribbling away into the book he had crafted just for her. “Is that mark you missed related to her?”

Gen grinned. “Yes, call it a mentalist blind ot-spay.”

Catching the drift of thoughts the two boys had collectively found, your eyes darted sideways, a gleam of warning conveyed behind a tilted eyebrow as you murmured, “Mentalist mind your usiness-bay. I’m doing this for you.”

Senku was ticked off as is, the last thing you needed was an all out argument because Gen couldn't help narrating his emotional state like a party trick. God, you’d never hear the end of that one. 

Senku – either none the wiser, or more likely opting to ignore the provocation, followed your outstretched finger down to the wrinkled blueprints he’d scribbled up haphazardly late a few nights ago. His focus sharpened almost instantly. 

“These aren’t incoherent,” he muttered. “They’re just unfinished.”

“Unfinished?” You echoed.

“Yeah,” His shoulder loosened as if the rest of the world had quietly fallen out of priority the moment you asked, “The diagram’s garbage.”

In an attempt to get a better look, Senku reached forward and pushed your book aside, the leather cover dragging softly across the glass as he cleared space. Around you, several people stilled, breath catching in one collective gasp, eyes following the course of the book as if it had been tossed into the ocean, because it may as well have been. This was the same book Ginro had nearly been buried for so much as brushing against, and here Senku was, haphazardly dragging it around as if you hadn’t considered committing a stone-aged crime over it.

You didn’t even blink. 

Your attention, baited and steady over a topic you hadn’t cared any less over a mere 10 minutes ago, remained fixed on the blueprints, finger already tracing the flaw he’d just pointed too.

Senku glanced past you, eyes flicking briefly over the rigid postures and baited breaths, and he couldn’t help the eyeroll he sent the group at their theatrics. 

“…Huh,” you said as if it were old news. “That’s inefficient.”

At the pull of your voice, Senku turned back without hesitation. He reached for your pencil, flipping it eraser-side down, and began scrubbing at the graphite with quick hands.

“The load is redistributed here. If it was torsional failure, you’d hear it before you saw it.”

“…Hear it?” Ginro croaked.

“Like screaming metal,” Senku dragged his voice as if the thought alone delighted him. Ginro perked up straight as a board, and let out a strangled squeak with fists clenched tight to his sides. 

Your hand shot up and flicked Senku on the head, “Stop being mean.” Senku replied with a chuckle before flipping the pencil once more to the graphite end. 

“They’re following the load-bearing assumption too literally. It needs redistribution here-” he tapped the page once, then again, “-and here.”

As if the concept had just been transmitted into your mind, you perked up with a sudden breath as the explanation clicked. “Ooh!” You dragged the word. “So if you mirror the brace here, the torsional load dissipates instead of-”

“-concentrating at the joint,” Senku finished, already nodding. “Exactly.”

Just a few feet away, Chrome and Gen shared a very quiet, very exasperated glance, because no matter how often you two did it, they would never comprehend what in the orld-way you too were babbling about and why it always ended with the literal completion of each others sentences.

“But,” you continued, already reaching for the pencil again, “that only works if the secondary supports aren’t rigid.”

Senku paused as the implication fell on him. It wasn’t a long pause, but long enough for the watching eyes to tense. 

“…Yeah,” he said, as if the thought had never occurred to him. You suddenly leaned forward, right arm brushing against his left as you tugged the pencil from his fingers and bent over the blueprints. Senku didn’t resist or comment, only shifted closer to watch as you sketched in the adjustment, red eyes following black graphite lines materializing with every stroke your hand made.

“You’re just relocating the stress,” you added quietly. “It’ll collapse somewhere else.”

Senku hummed in thought and leant forward to study your markings clearly. And in an act Gen deemed to be unconscious, the group watched as Senku’s arm slid up your side and rested just in the dip of your back, almost as if using your body to steady his own. “Flexible coupling,” he muttered. “I assumed they’d compensate.”

“It won’t.” The words weren’t sharp, just simply pointing out a fact. “Same thing that happened with the footbridge model we made for physics A3, remember.”

“You mean the one that collapsed because you insisted on testing it during science club,” Senku replied without missing a beat.

“I was proving a point.”

“You proved several,” he said. “Most of which ended with us being banned from the lab for a week.”

A sly, and yet oddly reminiscent smile slowly crept up to adorn your lips as the memory flashed in your brain. Senku’s wide eyes as the model collapsed, the splintering sound of balsa through the room and the chorus of gasps as fragments skidded onto the active bunsen burner, sending the accompanying beaker flying from the bench to shatter across the tiles. You swear you would have walked away with a mere slap on the wrist if the lesson of the day hadn’t been “safe handling of erosive waste.” 

Whoops.

“Semantics.” You laughed. “Like I said, I study brains, not bridges.”

Gen leaned in close to Chrome as he registered the words, one arm crossed and the other rose to block the left side of his mouth, which pulled to the right, “Coulda fooled me.” 

You didn’t dignify Gen’s comment with a response, just huffed softly through your nose and leaned back over the table, already dragging the blueprints closer.

“Alright,” Senku said, eyes narrowing as they tracked the altered lines. “If we redistribute the brace like that, we’ll need to adjust the support angles or the whole thing’ll sag under the weight.”

You nodded once, “Okay, then we alter it here.” Senku reached for the pencil, missed, and smirked when he realised you’d already claimed it. 

“Fine. Draw it.”

And you did. Your hands sketched quickly, mouths moving quicker as the two of you spoke over each other in barely-finished thoughts that evolved into barely-comprehended ones to the untrained ears of your friends.

“If we widen the base-”

“-we can increase the load.”

“Only if the hull flexes.”

“It won’t with Kaseki’s framing.”

“Then we’re good.”

By the end of the exchange, the lines on the page had turned into intersecting spirals of formulas that almost resembled the inside of a brain. For a moment, the shipyard faded from attention, no pulleys, no shouting, no clatter of wood and stone. Just the quiet hum of thought passing cleanly between two minds and it was in that moment you realised you had reached  that peaceful, productive state you were so desperately aiming for once again.

You leaned back first, scanning the final configuration. “That’ll hold.” 

And Senku followed not a beat later, eyes sweeping the diagram with a sharp nod. “Yeah. That’ll hold.”

He glanced at you first, finding himself admiring you in the silent way he always did. Your ability to keep up, your intelligence, your glimmering eyes. He’d never admit it when he did it, of course but he didn’t have to, because that prick-in-his-side mentalist had already made mental note of it for teasing purposes later. For when the scientist was being just that little bit too cocky.

You were the next to look up, catching the familiar set of his shoulders and that oddly calming presence that coaxed your anxiety into retreat, if only for a moment. And then that strange thing happened where for an instant you felt twelve years old, giggling beneath Senku’s linen covers with a dim flashlight pressed to yellowed pages decidedly not written for eighth graders, both of you whispering theories in the dark and hoping Byakuya wouldn’t scold you for being awake past bedtime again.

You remembered that one time you had gotten too excited. 

Senku pieced together some absurdly complex chemical concept that prompted you to connect invisible dots about the neuro-chemistry of the brain. You jumped in exhilaration at the discovery – you couldn’t help it of course, you were a twelve year old kid giddy by the possibilities in a world yet to be explored. But you had accidentally knocked the flashlight in Senku's hand in the process, sending the metal flying against the fabric, and rolling down to the floorboards with a traitorous bang. 

You remembered the way your eyes locked with his, wide and glassy and fearful with anticipation at the silence that followed. Then the footsteps began. 

The clock began and the neural pathways fired. You were first to shove the manuscript under his pillow, Senku was next to roll the flashlight as far under his bed as he could manage, and you were last to send a jolting kick to his side that sent him clambering to the floor with a muffled yelp, just as the door flung open and you rubbed at your eyes, already mid-performance.

“What did I say about-...?” Byakuya's voice trailed off.

“What happened?” You murmured through a feigned yawn.

Senku sat up and rubbed his head, the white strands shifting against his fingers, “I must have fallen in my sleep.” 

Byakuya stared at the two of you for a long moment, eyes flicking from Senku on the floor to the suspiciously rumpled bed, then back again once more. All culminating into the moment where, at last, he sighed. 

“…You’re hopeless,” he rubbed at his temples. “Both of you. Go to sleep.”

The door shut. And you waited three seconds. Then four, before Senku’s head popped up from the floor, eyes bright and feral with that malevolent look of victory he did.

“See?” he whispered, still rubbing at his head with a slight moan. “Perfect execution.”

You remembered the way you had bit your lip to keep from laughing, shoulders shaking as you fell back onto the mattress with more force than necessary. “Good catching on.” you whispered back. “I’d say we always do our best work under pressure.”

Senku crawled back up beside you, careful now, movements precise as if the danger might still hear you breathing. And you watched, in the dark as he paused, then held out his fist, small and barely visible in his room absent of light now that the flashlight was a goner. It wasn’t a question, he had already made your mind up for you. 

So, you found it without looking, your knuckles met his just as quietly as he raised it, before twisting sideways in a pinky looping hold.

Strange, you noted, how you found yourself pulled back to that memory after more than three millennia of its formation. Your scientifically trained brain couldn’t help but reach for a solution. Habituation theory explained how it was possible, even amid a room full of onlookers and noise. Nostalgia theory accounted for the sudden vividness, the way memories, when anchored to emotion could collapse time into something juvenile. And now the cocktail effect, the only thing to explain your sudden pull from the warm embrace of nostalgia at the simple call of your name.

“Y/n.”

It cut cleanly through the haze, sharper than any clang of shipyard metal or shouted instruction lost to the wind ever could. You blinked once as the construction yard snapped back into place around you, the heat and noise settling over you like it had just materialized from nothing.

And when you looked up, Senku was already there, like he always was – gaze flicking from the corrected diagram to you, then back again. The satisfaction in his expression settled into his posture in that subtle way only you ever seemed to notice, and it spoke more comprehensively to you than any words of a theorist ever could. He didn’t smile. He didn’t speak. But you knew what came next.

Because he had already begun lifting his fist at the exact same moment. Because it was never a question, he’d already decided, and somehow you’d agreed before the thought had fully formed. 

Conditioning! Write that down later!

Senku huffed a quiet laugh at the blank look on your face, clearly clocking the delay. “You’re ten billion percent too smart for your own good.”

Your knuckles met his, quietly before twisting into a pinky interlocked loop. 

“One of us has to be,” you murmured with a quiet laugh. “Good work.”