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"Yeah, let's first clarify where we and the enemy are" Tsukasa said and Senku grabbed a piece that resembled the Perseus.

"Right now, we're here" he said and placed the ship in the river zone.

"Do we know the enemy position?" Minami asked to Ukyo as he grabbed some instruments to measure the distance on the map.

"I'd say we have their rough distance based on the angle and timing of Chrome's signal" he informed before placing a mark in the forest, "They're around here, somewhere."

Tsukasa placed another pieces on the map, "Which means the enemy is right near by"

"Incredibly clear" Matsukaze said impressed by the accuracy of the visual structure.

"B-But they know where we are too, right?" Ginrou asked, "Don't you think we should take the Perseus and flee?"

"As long as they have the patrol planes, there's no point" Ukyo informed with a thoughtful look, "If anything, we'll lose out ability to run to land as soon as we retreat to sea."

"And we don't have the enough firepower to fight back right now" you added looking at the map, "It will take us a lot of time to create something even close to a gunpowder factory"

"Yeah, right? That's what I was actually thinking too" Ginrou said changing his opinion.

Everybody stared at Ginrou for a second that felt to long for your own liking.

This guy, you thought.

"Hyouga" Tsukasa called, "What would you do if you were the enemy, Doctor Xeno?"

The aforementioned step closer to the table, "I'd make a pirate ship" the mangaka artist handed him a little piece, "Assuming the enemy is proper, that is... I would not be contested in firepower, so I would approach in a small high-speed boat and quickly take over," he threw it against the Perseus one to make his point clear. "A large ship would have no chance to escape."

"The same tactic as modern pirates" Tsukasa commented.

But they have more experience than us, you thought, they wouldn't reinvent something big and slow as a ship... and a motorboat is extremely loud, we would notice them right away.

"The scout plane has determined exactly where out Perseus is" Hyouga continued, "I'd also attack from the sky, no matter how capable we may be in close-quarters combat...," He threw the plane piece directly onto the Perseus one, "We can't fly."

Discreet but fast ship...

"They have absolute air superiority in this battle" Tsukasa said, "We aren't going to win."

Discreet but fast...

Ryusui snapped his fingers energetically, "Precisely! In other words, to combat a plane, we need a dogfight! An aerial duel!"

Some amused exclamations filled the room after the golden retriever's words.

Discreet and fast...

Ah, shit.

"A d-dogfight?!" Minami asked surprised.

"And to that end..." Senku continued, "We're making the Perseus carrier! So all hands get this thing built as soon as possible!"

***

After the strategy meeting, the entire team moved in unison to remove the main pole and the glass panels from the greenhouse immediately.

"Something's wrong with you," Senku said behind you as you watch the rest of the team work from the railing. You turned around to observed him and he was accompanied by Ryusui with the blueprints at hand, "What is it?"

"I've been thinking about the strategy of the enemy," You started talking at the same time as the wind made the leaves of the trees move noisily, "I think they are building something, just like Hyouga said, but I don't believe it will be a ship or a motorboat as we might expect"

"What are your suspicious?" Ryusui stepped closer into the conversation.

Senku looked at you expectantly.

"I think they are building a submarine" you finally said and they let you continue. "It seems logical to me; a huge ship would be noticeable from afar, and let's not talk about a motorboat, those are loud." You sighed as turn around to watch the rest of the crew, "I didn't mentioned it because it's just a thought and causing unnecessary scandal is stupid..., but it's a possible outcome."

You returned you gaze upon them as they remained quiet while they took your words.

Senku seemed thoughtful for a moment as he analyzed the situation. "Indeed is a possible outcome" he repeated your words.

"How sure are you of that analysis?" Ryusui asked you.

You couldn't tell if he was testing you like everyone else or if he wanted you to be accurate. Right now you didn't care about that, you just wanted everyone safe against this professional scientist enemy.

"Like Senku says, ten billion percent sure of it"

They both looked at you for a second and nodded.

"Then we have to keep it quiet for the moment." Ryusui said, "As you mentioned, unnecessary scandal is pointless."

Senku nodded and stepped closer to you, but some footsteps took away his words.

"Wow" Minami appeared and you tried to recollect yourself from the conversation, "They're really building a runway on the deck, but will be really be able to take off from here?"

You followed her gaze towards the rest of the crew and the deck that was beginning to take shape.

Ryusui made an approval sound, "An ultralight plane only needs twenty meters to take off"

"Yup" Senku added with a happy smile on his face, "And for the landing, we'll grab it with a wire, just like a real aircraft carrier."

"More than enough!" Ryusui's face said it all, he was in bliss thinking about piloting that plane as soon as he could. "Who do you think the pilot's gonna be?"

"We're modding the plane itself too!" Senku accompanied the blonde man in his bliss, "It'll be stupid fast compared to building it from scratch!"

"Jeez, you two!" you laughed taking in the moment to relax a little.

"Seriously, your eyes!" Minami scolded them, "It only took you five seconds to lose your poker face! You were just looking for an excuse to build a carrier, weren't you?!"

"Take it easy," you commented through laughs, "We really do need it, actually"

Minami turned to you, "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"How's the plane going?"

"Oh, good" You rolled up your sleeves, "I've cleaned it completely. Tomorrow Kaseki and I will dismantle it to fix piece by piece and make it better"

She seemed confused, "Make it better? How?"

You smiled, "You'll see"

And, the men listening the whole conversation, smiled too.

***

The sun hit on your skin as you dismantle the wings of the machine with Ukyo's help as Kaseki did the same with the skis.

"Since we're driving the plane on wood planks, we're starting by switching the good old bamboo wheels" Senku explained while cutting in pieces the bamboo branch.

"Got it!" Yuzuriha said.

"You brought all that bamboo from Japan?" The old man asked.

"Yeah, bamboo is the one OP material advantage that we have over them." You heard the voice of your childhood friend as you watch Ukyo walking to the edge of the trunk.

"Oh, that's right," he agreed, "There's no bamboo in the US"

Ryusui walked were you were sat at, "So that's why they use these glass skis instead of wheels."

"Skis give them a change to, maybe, land outside their runway in the corn fields" Senku added, "They've thought this through".

You whipped the sweat from your forehead, "Yeah, right now, none of us have rubber, so we can't make tires. We need to improvise with what we have," you looked at the dismantled skis, "They were pretty clever designing those"

 "They took their lack of materials as an opportunity to add more" Ryusui said, but it seemed more to himself than for the rest of the present crew to hear. He laughed, "Indeed, our enemy is really clev-"

You watched him as he went quiet.

"What's wrong, Ryu?" you asked. Ukyo approached to keep helping you with the airplane wings.

"Well, asuming Dr. Xeno is so clever, as a pilot, I recognize that scout plane's flight pattern," he explained, "It was intimidating us, letting us know there's nowhere to hide... that or they're trying to pin us down here. You can always trust sailor's instincts!"

Well, if they indeed create a submarine, obviously they would want us to stay still... it's easier to attack an unmoving target, you thought.

***

"Gen-kun, Chrome-kun and Kohaku-kun... Abandon all of that and forfeit the corn, and we'll be saved should we escape into the open seas" Hyouga said.

"No way we'd ever do that!" Taiju interfered with his characteristic energy.

"I figured as much" Hyouga said with a monotone voice, "But the enemy doesn't know that. That's our situation."

"So they should be attacking us soon" Tsukasa added.

Senku let a small laugh escape him. You observed him and his knowing gaze gave away that he had a plan in his mind.

"In that case, why not save them the trouble and strike them first?"

Tsukasa understood right away, "We'll send a special squad to capture the enemy's science source, Doctor Xeno"

Senku nodded and grabbed some pieces and placed them on the table, "On the team will be Tsukasa, Hyouga, Ukyo and... Suika"

You looked at the little girl being surprised at the mention of her name for the mission and you smiled. Finally she can be part of complicated missions, you thought, even though you knew that Senku never overlooked her.

After the meeting ended. The special squad prepared themselves to part ways.

"Suika!" you called the little one.

She ran to you with a big smile on her face, "Now Suika's on a mission!"

"Yeah, you are," you caresses her gold hair, "I'm sure you are very capable, be safe"

"Sure thing!"

And you saw her leave with the strongest warriors from the crew into the forest till quickly their shadows were one with the darkness of the trees.

"Getting emotional?" You heard Senku's voice and you turned to look at him. He had his arms crossed over his chest while holding some blueprints in his hand. 

"Just reassuring her" You admitted while smiling to the memory of your younger-self being reassured by your father, Byakuya and Senku's words when you needed them the most. "Sometimes we need to hear this things"

He lifted a eyebrow, "You got emotional" it wasn't a question but a statement.

You sighed, "Maybe I did a little"

"Why is that?" he asked till he found a spot beside you still observing the trees and the movement of its leaves. 

You sighed. "This whole scientist versus scientist things is stressful and a heavy reminder that we need to be prepared for every situation" you started while playing with your fingers, "Is a chess game, you sacrifice movements to progress, but in this case you sacrifice people."

"Nobody's gonna die" he reassured you and you snickered in return.

"That's your plan, but in a strategy game you eliminate the leaders and superiors to conquer the village"

Senku seemed to understand where you were heading, but he asked anyway "So your point is?"

"I think they want to kill you"

***

Growing up with Senku meant a lot of things for you. First of all, that hard work pays well, it's always worth it. Second of all, to never give up and always keep trying. And third, there's no such thing as coincidences; everything was backed up by science and reason.

So this random female running into your ship smelled really suspicious from the very beginning as she pleaded for help with tears in her eyes.

"Get her inside to treat her wounds!" Taiju's scandalous voice was heard as the girl was in Kirisame's arms and was led aboard.

You didn't trust the girl with pink hair.

It was too much of a coincidence that this lost girl appeared right where you all were, just after the plane registered the ship's location. Why didn't she appear a little further north or south? Why did she suddenly abandon Dr. Xeno? Did she escape by pure chance and find you, her caped heroes, to rescue her from her hell? How lucky she seems to be!

Lies.

She was most likely a spy.

Not that you could blame her when Gen was doing the same, but with the huge difference that he did it without you all telling to do so. It was unintentional.

"She's suspicious," Nikky said by your side with crossed arms over her chest, "Is it safe to bring her aboard?"

You were glad not being the only one suspecting the pink hair girl.

"Sure we can!" Moz said, "She's got a cute face!"

"I mean, Senku's a dude too" Yo said, "He's head over heels, he probably has a thing for pink hair girls"

"I'm not sure about that" Yuzuriha intervened a little nervous.

You rolled your eyes at the stupid chitchat and walked through the deck looking for Kaseki. Knowing Senku, he probably wants to interrogate her about Dr. Xeno, you thought.

You found Ryusui and Senku at the railing observing the new member on board. "That woman... There's a fifty-fifty chance- no, a seventy percent chance she's an enemy spy" Ryusui said looking at her direction as Minami talk to her.

"Not a problem!" Senku said laughing, "We're going to extract everything she knows about Xeno's crew and trasmit an encrypted message to Tsukasa's special squad! The most powerful weapon in a science battle is information so it's a battle between spies..., we're two sly foxes outfoxing each other!"

"I knew it wasn't what it looked like!" Yuzuriha said glad their comments were mistaken, but you couldn't tell why.

You followed the girl with your eyes as she went downstairs to the infirmary in company of Minami. You squint your eyes. Maybe she's looking for Dr. Taiju, you thought. If this is a war between scientists, then they only need to eliminate the other one.

"You're taking it to lightly" You commented more to the air than directly to Senku.

Ryusui heard you and laughed, "He's being confident"

"Yeah, and that's the problem" You started your explanation. "Dr. Xeno sees Senku as a possible threat to his own science kingdom, so the most logical movement it's to try and eliminate him. The question is how"

"So you think that she's here to do that?" Ryusui asked squinting his eyes.

"Yeah" If your instincts were right, you urgently needed to create something to protect Senku. "I'm going with Kaseki, if you guys need me, you know were I am" and made your way away from the deck.

Ryusui gave you a knowing look.

***

Senku tried to interrogate Luna multiple times, but he was to direct, so Yuzuriha and François gave you that responsibility. You wanted to complain openly, but couldn't. Without Gen, you were closer to gather some answers from her accordingly to Nikki's point of view.

"It's in moments like these when I miss Gen" You complaint even though you were the one to send him to the follow-the-pilot mission. "Never say a word of what I said to Gen, he will never drop it". You said to Yuzuriha and Nikki as you took care of supervising the highly-potential-spy woman. Honestly, it wasn't something that interested you, but given the opportunity, you will keep and eye on her to protect Senku as much as you can. "«Luna, follow me»".

Luna followed you without a word as you both walked till reach the plane at the other side of the ship. You wondered how longer it will take to finished the plane with her presence by your side.

"«So, what did you do before the whole petrification thing?»" You asked as you lay down and checked under the plane after you installed its new bamboo-tires.

The sudden question took Luna by surprise. She didn't expected any small talk from you since your evident discomfort and annoyance with her presence. "«Why?»"

"«Just a little conversation since you will be staying with us for, who knows how long. Is that alright?»". You truly didn't care but needed to take information from her. "«Also, you don't look like someone that did heavy work, so it just me being curious and noisy»".

"«Ah, well...»" Luna mumbled, "«I was a medical student»".

"«Oh, that's cool»" You took the screwdriver and opened the compartment that protected the engine. "«Give me the flashlight by your side»".

Luna followed your instructions. "«I guess... it was cool, but I had something different on mind at the time»". You hummed so she could continue, "«I wanted to marry a successful man and have peace for the rest of my life. So I thought that going to a medical university I would find that person. But the studies were outrageous and I almost give up. Turns out that it was way more complicated than I expected»".

You kept your eyes on the engine; it was a little dirty and damage after the crash thanks to Senku's acetylene gas. "«Yeah, that often happens; things don't work out the way we want, but that doesn't mean you have to give up»".

Luna looked how you worked. She wondered how much knowledge you had seeing you doing all that without doubting once. "«What about you? Did you had a problem like that?»"

Should you lied or tell the truth to her? Luna sounded honest while commenting about her life. Maybe you could do the same and share your worries with her. After all, François recommended to win her heart. You couldn't do that by lying.

You shut your eyes close for a second after sighing.

"«Kind of, just a little different from your problem»". There's no way back now. You took some cables and disconnected them to study further. "«I found someone I care about, but he's not that interested in romantic relationships in general»".

"«Oh»".

"«Yeah, but I can't complain because I'm busy like this most of the time»" You shrugged under the plane even though Luna couldn't see you. "«He's also busy all the time, so there's just no time for something so complicated as relationships»".

"«Why not?»"

"«Look around and guess»". You said roughly while unscrewing some parts of the motor. "«We are in the middle of a battle between scientists in the stone world»". You all already observed the advanced technology Dr. Xeno had in armament, it was evident that he was well prepared, meanwhile you were at a disadvantage. You could easily die with a single misstep. "«If anything happens, we must be ready for every outcome, even death»".

"«Oh, right»". Luna sounded disappointed but quickly changed her voice. "«Yeah, yeah, a capable woman must be prepared for everything»".

You frowned at her words.

Capable woman? What is she on about?

You needed Kaseki to manufacture new parts; some of them were irreparable. "«Anyways, you seem tired»". You got out from under the plane, sat down and looked at her. "«Escaping Dr. Xeno must have been complicated I suppose»".

"«Yeah»" Her voice sounded more like a whisper than an affirmation.

"«May I ask how did you even stumbled into his group?»"

She made a gesture like she was memorizing the moment thousands of years ago, "«We were in some kind of reunion, I was about to go on a date with a really charming man! But then the petrification happened!»"

Well, that's not so useful, you thought. "«What kind of reunion was that one?»" You tried to laugh it off.

"«Something about the petrification of some birds»"

Nostalgia hit you like a truck.

You remembered the conversation and theories you had with Senku through a phone call about these birds. You remembered the swallows made of stone and Senku analyzing their population, their distribution and compared it with social media posts while he mentioned you everything about his investigation over their physical structure while you were fixing engines at your father's workshop.

With that simple phrase you traveled through time.

I'm tired of this, you thought as you got up and stretched. "«Well... I'll go and talk to our craftsman and scientist; I need to ask them something. You can stay he-".

"«Can I go with you?»" Luna's sudden interruption and interested seemed suspicious to you. You needed to be careful, she was a spy after all. All of you were in enemy territory and they were looking for Senku.

"«Eh... sure»".

You looked for Kaseki downstairs as Luna followed not so far away while observing each member of the crew attentively.

Is she looking for Senku? you wondered as you keep walking.

"«I never asked you»" You heard Luna's voice and you turned to look at her. You thought she was done asking things, but it looked like she wasn't. "«When did you learn english?»"

You shrugged mindlessly, "«I did when learning mechanics, a lot of text books where in english. And then, in the army everyone told me to learn because is useful, so here we are»"

"«Why did you learn mechanics?»"

"«Because of my father's influence, then because I was really interested on the topic»"

"«And the army, you mentioned the army, why is that?»"

"«My father took me there to learn»"

"«So you are a military mechanic?»"

You couldn't tell why, but it felt like there was some pressure on your shoulders with each answer you gave and question you received.

You felt like the tables had turned.

You felt like a target.

"«Yes»"

That was the last thing you responded before stumbling with Kaseki and quickly tell him about the pieces you needed for the engine before running to the deck while Luna kept following you like a kid trying not to get lost in the supermarket.

"Right on time!" You heard Ryusui's energetic voice. When you turned your head, they were at Bar François. "We have something special for our guest."

Luna looked at you, like waiting for you to say something.

"«Go, it's for you»" you simply said while crossing your arms and watch her sat in one of the many chairs and be attended by François.

"Hey, here" Senku's voice took your attention from Luna. He had an ice cream at hand in your direction. "It doesn't have alcohol"

You smiled, "Funny" you received it gladly, "Just because I had a headache, it doesn't mean that I will no longer drink, though"

There was something in Senku's eyes when you said that, you wanted to ask what it meant, but you knew it was pointless. In the meantime, the crew reunited immediately to discover Senku's last invention as the night fell upon you and the stars welcome you.

Everyone enjoyed the dessert made by science.

A little memory from what we lost after the petrification.

Something so small but meaningful, you thought as you watched around you the happiness in everybody's faces.

"«How did you...?»" Luna was out of words by the delicious invention in her hands, "«Do you even have vanilla?»"

"«When you don't, you make do»" Senku replied effortlessly as he sat onto the lab-car to admire the unpolluted sky. "«Two million years of human tenacity. You reach into the fundamentals of reality, into the molecules, and make things that aren't supposed to exist. That's the real thrill of organic chemistry»"

You coughed, "Nerd"

"«I-it came out pretty nicely, huh?»" Luna's voice was lost for a moment, "«In Xeno's words, it's extremely... elegant»"

Elegant.

Elegant.

Elegant.

You've heard that before.

Senku looked at you as realization hit you both.

"Luna..." you muttered breathless.

"«Was Doctor Xeno a former NASA scientist?»" Senku asked what you both had in mind.

"«How did you know?!»" She was equally surprised.

Senku's room memories flashed quickly through your eyes and his laptop. All the emails, all the conversations and recommendations made with that classic signature at the end of every word displayed before two kids's eyes.

Elegant.

Science is elegant.

"Doctor Xeno..." Senku said, "He got me started on rocket building"

"He's Senku's science mentor" you finished.

***

"In summary, Xeno and you are master and disciple in science, awoke around the same time and made use of nitric acid" Ryusui explained after listening your explanations, "One for the science of giving life, and the other one for the science of taking it away."

"Yeah, basically" you muttered.

"SAY WHAT?!" Taiju exclaimed right on your ears, "Our rocket-building teacher was the enemy science boss?!"

"Jezz, Tai" you covered your ears, "Yeah, is the same man. Luna told me she met him at a reunion about the swallows's petrification"

"That's some stupidly useful information we got out of Luna" Senku said, "Dr. Xeno..., if he's out enemy, the Medusa may end up being our secret weapon."

"Th-that thing still works?!" Ginrou asked.

"The battery's completely drained, you know that"

"What do you mean then?" Taiju asked.

"The enemy doesn't know is out of battery" you said.

"Dr. Xeno knows all too well how powerful weapons of science are" Senku explained, "He's trying to take over the new world with them, so there's no way he would turn a blind eye to the super science weapon that is Medusa."

Ryusui snapped his fingers, "I see now! The question isn't whether or not it can actually be used. It's precisely because the enemy is an overly capable science user that the weapon transforms into the perfect fluff of an unstoppable ultimate weapon"

"Yeah, that's the idea" Senku nodded lightly.

"So, if I have this right..." Taiju started, "We're using the spent Medusa as a way to intimidate them?"

"Correct!" you said, "We have the perfect person to keep the show up"

"Who?"

"Gen!"

"Ah! That's true!"

"Jeez, Tai!"

You rolled your eyes and laughed at your childhood friend behavior. But your eyes landed on Luna at the railing of the ship.

Is she staring at the forest?

Why?

You noticed Ryusui staring at her too. You approached to him in silence and called his attention, once he stared at you, he made you understand that something was completely wrong. You nodded in the quiet understanding and you approach to Luna as careful as possible.

When you were close enough, you saw her mouthing something to the forest.

Is someone out there?

Is the enemy nearby?

"«Hey, Luna»" You saw her went stiff in her spot, "«Are you alright?»"

"«E-eh... Yes! Of course I am!»"

She's trembling, sweating cold and acting more strange than usual, you noticed.

Nervous.

She's lying.

Your eyes went right to the forest as you heard the rest of the team discussing something about encrypted calls.

"«Hey, th-there's nothing in the woods»" Luna tried to persuade you. But you couldn't believe in her words anymore. "«Co-come on, let's go for more ice cream»"

How close is the enemy?

How many are they?

"«Come on, Y/n»" Luna insisted while pulling your arm, "«There's nothing there»"

"«Let go!»" You pushed her away from you.

It's irrelevant how close or how many they are.

If there were many of them, they could attack at any moment with their weapons. This isn't about majorities or battles between groups.

Someone as intelligent as Dr. Xeno would have tried to do it elegantly as possible. There's nothing elegant about people fighting with their fists.

So...

The only possibility left...

"Sniper!" You shouted as loud as your vocal cords allowed you to.

"Everybody hide!" Ryusui shouted too. "Get behind something!"

The entire crew ran through the ship trying to find a place to refugee from the sniper. Some didn't even know what a sniper was, so confusion filled the entire environment as you tried to discover the sniper's location through the trees.

You looked at Luna as saw her staring directly at the same spot from before.

So there it is, you noticed.

But so did Senku.

"Shit" you heard him muttered as he ran to the opposite side of the ship to the Bar François.

They're locking for him, he's the target!

"Senku!" you screamed.

And you heard the shot.

No.

It already landed before the sound came.

"Senku!" You ran towards the bar only to witness his body lying motionless on the floor.

𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸

"Yeah, although, until we make contact, we're just guessing" Ukyo commented. "What we know is that there's a scientist who appears to have revived on their own"

"And most importantly, they're ready to off us" Ryusui added.

You scratched the back of your head at Ryusui's words. If he was right, all of you could be in danger now, and it would be even more complicated than Ibara in the Treasure Island. "Yeah, even though it could have been just a warning for us... something like 'hey, see what we've got!' or someth-..." You tried to change the mood a little, but a familiar sound stopped you. You could hear it growing louder, and louder by each passing second. You knew that sound to well for your own good and Ukyo looked around for you knowing you could understand the situation right away.

"It's that an engine noise?" He asked you.

You didn't want it to be true, but "It's sounds like it," you said and walked to the hatch as fast as you could.

"Are they following us?!" Kinrou asked screaming at the lab-car.

"No" Kohaku said quickly looking at the river, "I've been keeping a close eye out, but I don't see anything that looks like a boat and we traveled this fast on this thing all night. I doubt they could catch up to us that easily"

"Senku, move!" You pushed him to watch your surroundings. "No, Kohaku!" You screamed at her because of the boat's engine noise, "Look at the sky!"

The noise become louder as everybody watched the sky and the plane appeared through the clouds. Ah, fuck. The plane descended until it was at tree level, and your suspicions were confirmed. The person that attacked us it's from the army, you noticed. No civilian would drove a plane like that. So low, so ready to attack, so-...

"Y/n! Senku!" Taiju screamed, but the scientist was lost in thought at the invention before his eyes and you were lost in the analysis over the person attacking your friends and your existence, "Senku! Y/n!" he called again to recover both of your attentions back and Senku finally woke up from his trance while you kept your eyes on the plane, "What do we do now?! Wanna try waving hi?"

"I'm pretty sure we should be waving a white flag. Maybe there's a chance we can talk it over like friends" Gen suggested and you scoffed.

"That's stupid Gen, that person shoot to kill!", you looked at them and entered the lab-car again and went to Ryusui's side.

Ukyo agreed with you, "Yeah", he added, "I hate to say it, but they wouldn't be flying so low if they didn't intend to attack us!"

"Ryu!" the sailor paid attention to your words, "We're in a river so we can't lose him, but you can zig zag to avoid being shot so easily!"

"I'm flooring it!" The blonde man laughed, "Hang on, everyone! Full speed ahead!"

Your childhood friend was still observing the plane through the hatch. "Get inside the lab-car!" You pulled him inside as he was still mesmerized by the flying machine, "Jeez, Senku!"

The river channel offered a devilish curve that could be of some use, but you knew very well that there was no escaping an plane. All of you were required to follow the course of the river, but the plane was free to fly wherever it wanted. You all were trapped.

You heard the sound of the machine gun following close until its bullets impacted with the lab-car and, through the periscope, Ukyo mentioned that the motorboat was being attacked. "Stop the lab-car, Ryu, they need help" you said as adrenaline filled your body and opened the door to see the warrior team in the water, "Is everybody okay?!" you screamed.

You saw Ginrou yelling for Matsukaze and Kinrou scolding him for all the commotion, Yo firing into the air while losing ammunition and Hyoga yelling at him for the same reason, while Tsukasa, Kirisame and Kohaku came out from under the water and as soon as Kohaku saw you in the lab-car's door, she screamed "It flew in front of the sun!" to warned you all, but that little sentence sent shivers down your spine.

"That means it's a professional" you muttered to yourself, but the rest of the crew heard you. An expert pilot who knows what the enemy sees, and he knows the sun would blind us all. Now you knew a few more things of the situation; the enemy has technology and, whoever shot you all, has knowledge. It's not some amateur but a professional.

"Then they're dead-set on shooting us dead!" Gen mentioned after your words.

You thought this could be the end, after all, how can you fight against air and a machine gun mixed together? Simple: You can't. But Senku was by your side and he moved as quickly as possible to change that thought of yours; he grabbed materials and some river water to mixed them together. "You never know when something might come in handy, eh?" he laughed and you knew he had something in mind.

He never gives up.

"What's that flask for?" Ginrou asked from above you all in the roof of the lab-car. When did he got up there? Doesn't matter now.

"Hell if I now!" Chrome said while making a knot with a rope that Senku gave him. "We can ask him later!"

You saw the last adjustments your childhood friend did to that flask before throw it in Kirisame's direction. "We're counting on your throw!" he said to the young woman, "What do you need to make it happen?"

"Stable footing and a rope!"

Chrome gave her the rope and Taiju, Kinrou and Kohaku provided her the stable footing using Taiju's back. Kirisame spun it around in the air above her head and throw it against the plane that was descending to attack in that moment.

When the flask impacted, you saw the smoke coming out of the plane and heard the pilot trying to start the engine over and over without a pleasing result and keep falling from the sky. "Oh, I see...," you muttered to yourself as the plane crashed into the trees and a flock of birds fled from the noise and commotion, "You drowned his engine with the solution"

"That's right, ten billion percent points for you!"

"How, though?" Gen asked completely confused about the situation.

"It doesn't matter!" Ginrou exclaimed as the warrior team approached in the motorboat, "They might come back with more men! We should run away! Let's hurry!"

You felt Ryusui approaching the hatch of the lab-car, "Run?" the blonde asked with an amusing smile on his face.

Senku copied his smile "Like hell we will! We're doing the opposite!"

"There's something lewd about your eyes!" Gen mentioned completely scared of the cause of it and you laughed at his concern.

You thought about it too since the given opportunity, "I know the reason why they have their eyes like that, and I agree" you added as you heard the voice of Kohaku mentioning something about a vibe and something naughty.

***

"You saw where that plane crashed , didn't you?" Senku mentioned while moving through the forest. "We're headed there before they call for backup"

You searched for clues about the plane like the rest of the team as you heard Gen approaching you. "So, Y/n-chan, why did you agree on this?"

"Because is a huge opportunity for us if we found it"

He looked at you with a huge question mark on his face, "But isn't this person a professional? You say it before in the lab-car"

"Yeah, but we are not looking for this person now" you explained quickly as Kohaku walked over you two.

"What do you mean?" Gen asked, but before you could answer him, Kohaku grabbed your arm.

"Get on my back!" Kohaku said. It was supposed to be a recommendation, but turns out that she gave you no other option than to obey to her demand as you hop onto her back.

"Shit, not again" you muttered before Kohaku ran as quickly as she could and jumped through the trees. You had sudden flashbacks to Treasure Island while your stomach was screaming for solid ground beneath your feet again. I hate these gorilla rides, you thought as Kohaku finally stopped jumping.

Kohaku screamed that she found the crashed plane as you recovered your organs from all that movement, "There's no one inside!" she warned the rest of the team that gathered at the roots of the gigantic tree. "They must have fled already. We could have intimidated them into giving us information"

You took a breath, "It's a professional" you looked at her, "They would have give us nothing."

Kohaku gave you an unsatisfied expression in return.

"Well, that drop is ours, then" Senku said shrugging his shoulders.

"Yup, finders keepers" Ryusui agreed with a smile on his face.

Everybody was surprised for the decision, but you knew it since the plane crashed.

"Ah, so that's what you were getting at" Gen mentioned and remembered your words. "You were after the plane"

When you recovered your stomach, you watched the machine carefully as you heard some noise below you two and you hated to admit that it was a beautiful plane indeed; it was a beautiful and elegant model for the stone era and, since they lacked the materials to make wheels, they managed to build skis.

They indeed have someone that knows how to create this machines, you thought and you felt Kohaku's hand on your arm. You looked at her and immediately knew what she was thinking about. You sighed, "Okay, let's go down," you said, accepting your fate of an upset stomach. You held onto her back again and felt the air enveloping you as she jumped from the tree. Worst than a roller coaster, you thought to yourself as you two landed.

"So?" Senku asked you as your feet touch the ground.

"Give me a second," you held a finger up to stop him from talking as you support yourself onto your knees. You took a breath and recover your composure after a few seconds under Kohaku's confused expression, "It's in perfect condition; it needs some repairs due to the crash, but everything else is fine."

"Good" your childhood friend smiled and you saw as Taiju began to cut down the tree. It didn't take that long until the plane was in your hands and transported to the ship. And, thanks to the gorilla team, a huge sequoia trunk served as a base for the plane as everyone continued their journey across the river. "The righteous Kingdom of Science is more than happy to take it off their hands" Senku said in complete bliss and you nodded even when he couldn't see you.

"We take enemy resources for ourselves" Ryusui celebrated by his side, "Such fine tactics!"

He looks like a golden retriever waving it's tail like that, you thought to yourself trying not to laugh as you watched them by Gen's side.

"Your eyes aren't making it very compelling!" Gen exclaimed, "You just wanted that plane, didn't you?! I mean, Senku-chan's face when he saw that plane earlier... I could hear his heart screaming. He was saying it with his eyes: This is exhilarating!"

"Yup, I sure was"

"Well, yeah" you agreed, "Building a machine like that in this era is a hell of work" you added while scratching the back of your neck while you remembered the visits to the army and your father's words and instructions to take care of these machines and engines.

"Guys!" Kokaku's voice made you all to run to the hatch of the lab-car, "I found something rather fascinating on this so-called airplane that we took!"

***

"This is fantastic!" Ryusui exclaimed.

Tsukasa observed carefully the skis of the airplane at Kohaku's discovery, "Those would be corn kernels and leaves"

"That's right..." Ukyo mentioned from inside the lab-car, "The enemy sent a plane after us. That means there has to be a relatively level, open field nearby that would serve as a runway"

"I see! A cornfield runway!" Taiju said.

"In theory, we should retreat after an ambush" Tsukasa said and you nodded, "But there's just too much to gain in pursuing them, even if it means taking a risk."

"Pursue? Who?" Gen asked from the door of the lab-car.

"Isn't it obvious?" Senku looked at the mentalist, "We're tracking down the enemy pilot. If we can find ourselves a cornfield, we can skip over years of prepping the land and growing crops." The young scientist watched the whole crew, "Don't forget why we're here; we came all this way to find corn."

"No, I mean... Who's pursuing them?"

"Isn't it obvious?" you asked repeating Senku's words with mockery in your voice while looking at the mentalist.

***

Chrome, Kohaku and Gen went to follow the enemy's pilot in the forest while all of you went back to the Perseus in the meantime.

After some minutes, the radio alerted for the incoming call and Senku received it. "Do you hear me, Perseus?" Chrome's voice came through the tubes. "We just had a change of plans, and we need to-"

"You can stop right there" Senku stopped him and Chrome's confusion made present with sounds with questions marks.

"Oh, right, we're on radio" Yuzuriha commented.

Tsukasa hummed in agreement, "The enemy are scientists too, so there's a good chance they're eavesdropping"

"That's true, they seemed to be one step ahead of us all the time" Ukyo commented.

"They have more experience than us" you added while crossing your arms and thinking about the machines and its materials.

"And they know Japanese" Ryusui added. "At least, that should be our assumption"

Tsukasa step forward to the radio, "Tell us as simply as possible: What's the situation? And who's there with you?"

"It's just me and Koha- a woman" Chrome informed as he corrected himself.

Tsukasa turned to the group, "A, Gen's been abducted by the enemy or B, Gen is infiltrating the enemy by pretending to have betrayed us"

Ryusui snapped his fingers, "It's B," his confidence was scary, "You can trust a sailor's instincts!"

Senku laughed at his words, "Instincts have nothing to do with it, that's ten billion percent the case"

And he turn off the radio.

"You're hanging up already?!" Yuzuriha asked surprised by his actions.

"They'll figure out where the radio signal's coming from if we stay on the line too long" Senku said.

"We don't know how advanced their science is" Ukyo added as you nod. "This is nothing like any of our previous battles... Science has always been our advantage, but this time, they might surpass us"

"So it's a hardcore battle between science users" Senku admitted.

"And strategy" You added.

Suddenly the radio sounded again in the room.

Magma approached to it annoyed, "Damn it" and he pick up the call, "What the hell are you doing?! Chrome, what are you, an idiot?! Didn't I tell you not to ca-"

"«Ah, hey there»" A sophisticated and calm voice spoke in english. "«I see, so this is your frequency, this is how you stay in touch»." You observed Senku as the other man spoke; your friend had a weird look in his eyes as he analyzed the situation you were all in. Senku looked a little stressed. "Nice to meet you, youth Kingdom of Science."

Magma laughed, "So you're the bad guy!" he approached the table while punching in his own hand like ready to hit him, "I like your grit!"

"I apologize for my poor Japanese, but this isn't something I can explain to any ordinary idiot" This unknown man made Magma angry, so Yuzuriha, Minami and Nikki had to hold him still, "I'm Doctor Xeno and I want to talk to your science leader," you observed Senku as he prepared himself for any outcome, "Connect me to Doctor Taiju"

What did he say?

Doctor Taiju?

Senku blinked more than once processing Dr. Xeno's words as everyone else was equally confused.

Oh, this is Gen's idea, you thought holding in a laugh. He chose someone that could fight and weren't scare for an incoming attack as the enemy's target instead of Senku.

"Oh, that's Gen for you" Senku said after blocking the tube's microphone.

"He set up our toughest guy to be the decoy" Ryusui said, "He's supposed to be the science user's bodyguard..., makes sense"

"What?! I am?!" Taiju exclaimed and then he proceed to put on some glasses he found for who-knows-where, some fake mustache and proper clothing that reassembled the one Senku always wore at school. "In that case, I'll fight in our stead!"

Energetic as always, you thought to yourself.

"Do we need the costume?" Minami asked and you laughed a little. "Isn't it a voice call?"

"It's always important to get in the spirit" Ryusui added.

Your childhood friend approached the console to receive the call, "Taiju here, Doctor Taiju!" He was literally screaming to the microphone, "Doctor Xeno-san, was it? There's something I want to tell you! Listen up! Shooting people out of the blue with a machine gun is wrong!"

"Hey there, sorry about my soldier Stanley" Dr. Xeno said, but you didn't feel it like he was completely apologizing for the attack, "I just wanted you to see that you're no match for our science" You didn't need any further proof to understand that after seeing the machines he got. "Dr. Taiju, as a man of science, I'm sure you understand just as well what that means. We've already completed our Haber-Bosch plant"

"Ah, shit" you muttered.

"Ah?! H-Harvard what?" Taiju didn't know what the other scientist was talking about, but he played it out, "Good work, Dr. Xeno! It's impressive!"

"What's this Haber-whatsit?" Minami asked worried.

"Haber-Bosch plant" Senku corrected her, "An ammonia chemical factory. To put it simply, it can create not just a ton, but limitless gunpowder"

"I see!" Taiju heard the explanation to keep improvising, "In other words, you can use your machine gun as much as you like! Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"You're definitely quick to catch on, Doctor Taiju" The other scientist said and you bite your tongue to contain yourself from laughing.

"Taiju-kun might be quite the actor" Ukyo said and you nodded.

"I think he's just a simpleton" Yuzuriha added a little nervous caused by the whole situation.

You stopped the urge to laugh to replace it with an analysis of the caller; He was too confident, so sure of himself and very intelligent... like Senku, you thought as you step forward the communication console, "«I'm assuming that you're the one that built the MG42»" you said out of the blue as you caught the attention of everyone on board.

There was some silence from Dr. Xeno's side, like he was analyzing your words carefully. "«Oh, so there's a military on board»", his voice sounded interested for some reason instead of perplexed or confused.

"«Wrong»" you informed him, "«And you didn't confirmed what I said»"

"«Yes, I built it. We have the resources and knowledge that I assume you already observed with the airplane earlier»" His voice was so serene you knew you were walking thought eggshells with every word. "«And now I'm asking, how did you know about the machine gun if you are not from the army?»"

You looked at Senku deciding whether to speak or ignore his question. Your childhood friend nodded and you sighed. "«I'm a mechanic that served frequently in the army»"

"«Oh, a military mechanic, I see, that's even better!»"

You were confused by the energetic outburst. "«What about it?»"

"«It's interesting, you seem very useful»" His tone was to certain and you didn't liked it. "We are a group of grown-up professionals as you may know, we aren't like you happy little boys." You didn't liked Dr. Xeno's words, but you couldn't deny that you all were at a disadvantage against their experience. "I want you to surrender without causing a fuss and work for us, that's all we ask; we have a lack of manpower, you see"

"What the hell is he talking about?" Magma suddenly asked, "Lack of manpower? There are plenty of statues lying around for him to revive"

Unless they don't know about the revival fluid, you though as Ryusui's spoke your mind out with the same conclusion.

Senku let a small laugh, "That's one thing that doesn't quite fit in the framework of existing science."

"Those who maintained consciousness for the thousands of years after being petrified can be revived with nitric acid" Dr. Xeno explained, "We are the chosen ones who were able to accomplish just that and it seems implausible that the dozens of you kids are all such heroes... How did you awaken the statues?"

Taiju couldn't find the words to explain, but Ryusui walked to him and stopped him before the information could reach the enemy on the radio.

"The revival fluid is our only advantage, so don't hand it over to them" The blonde man said with a warning tone, "These people fired a machine gun at us on sight, they'll mow us down with a giant army the moment we tell them"

Senku agreed approaching to Taiju, "Yeah, they have the capacity to make a shit ton as soon as they find out recipe with the nitric acid at the factory and alcohol from corn. Which also means if we can grab that, we automatically have our Corn City," he placed his hands over his waist and his smug smile appeared, "We get out billions of people's worth of revival fluid"

Taiju approached to the radio right after Senku finished his explanations and, with his usual energy, he screamed: "We won't tell you about the revival fluid! Request denied!"

The small silence that came later felt like a unwelcome warning in your head.

"I see" Dr. Xeno sounded disappointed, "Then the negotiation has failed..., how unfortunate"

And the radio turned off.

Some seconds later, Suika voice alerted you all, "Th-There's problems! That plane thing is coming back!"

All of you ran to the deck to observe the enemy's intentions. You saw the plane above you all and immediately knew they were doing a reconnaissance flight.

You had a bad feeling about it.

"They've found us!" Ukyo said, "The location of the Perseus and all"

"The enemy had more planes?!" You heard the voice of Yo behind you.

You wanted to reply to him, but you heard "Why did you assume they'd only have one?" by Nikki's voice.

"It's a scout plane this time," Tsukasa said. "Looks like we can't expect them to risk flying as low as they did for the river chase again"

"We can't reach them with our spears or bows then!" Ginrou cried.

"How are we going to fight against a plane, Senku?" Taiju asked.

Senku laughed and turned to look at the machine resting over the sequoia trunk, "We have our own plane, the one they gifted us." Suddenly he turned to look at you, "And someone that can fix it"

And you gave him a knowing smile, "Yeah, I can."

𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸

Why was he messing up his sleep schedule?

Was he working on some secret project? You heavily doubted that because every single one of them was discussed with the team, so it couldn't be that his motive to exhaust his body to those extremes.

You wanted to ask so bad the reason behind his contradiction, but you weren't the only one with this concern; everyone in the Ishigami Village noticed his unhealthy new routine, and every time someone brought the topic, Senku said he was fine and that it wasn't a big deal.

So you didn't bother being the next one being dismissed by the prodigy scientist as the moon announced the end of the day, he would eventually tell you his reasons, but now you kept listening for a little while until his words were just carried on by the wind and long forgotten by you. "Sorry Senku," he stopped talking and looked at you, "I would love to keep listening to your explanation, but I can't keep my eyes open any longer; today's been a rough day" you yawned at the end of your explanation and Senku nodded. He knew you were tired, after all, he was the one telling you to go and look for some materials with Chrome and Kohaku.

"Yeah, go and rest, tomorrow we'll need other materials" He explained as he wave his hand in a simple and unhurried movement.

***

The quiet of the night welcomed you as you opened your eyes in the middle of the night. You usually didn't woke up this early, so you were very confused as to why the sudden change in your sleep schedule. You didn't feel cold to woke up by it, in fact, you felt extremely warm. Instead, the feeling of being tucked and embraced along with a soft breeze in your neck called your attention.

It was very dark for your eyes to see clearly, so you had to pay attention with your other senses; you smelled some chemicals around you, but you were in the lab for so long that you wouldn't be surprised these smells were impregnated in your clothes and hair. Then, the only sound in the environment was your breathing and some crickets at the distance. Finally, your hands felt warm, abnormally warm. Usually you are comfy in bed with the perfect temperature, but now you felt your bed a little hotter than usual.

You moved a little to get comfortable and go back to sleep when you heard some groans complaining for the disturbance. You recognized that tone as confusion invaded your whole being, "S-Senku?" You stumbled over your words still analyzing the situation you were in at its fullest. It took you a few seconds to understand that he was inside your tent, sleeping by your side and hugging you, "Wha-what are you doing here?"

"Shut up, I'm trying to sleep" he muttered while hugging you closer to his body.

You blinked a couple more times to adjust to the darkness and observed him carefully. Senku had his eyes closed as he settled his head in the space between your neck and your shoulder with a slow and calm breathing; he was relaxed in your presence.

I'm trying to sleep.

I'm trying to sleep.

I'm trying to sleep.

His words repeated in your mind continuously and more questions appeared in your mind.

Why is he doing this?

When did he arrived?

Why was he in your bed hugging you?

Was he waiting for you to go to sleep to get in your tent?

Not that you complaint about it, but this was extremely weird. At least, coming from him.

"Your thoughts are to loud" he mumbled against your skin and you almost laughed at how cute he sounded with his voice being muffled out; it was like seeing his kid version all over again when Byakuya mentioned something that flustered him and he denied it over and over again for how cheesy his father sounded.

You caresses his hair thinking of those childhood moments that were to old but you held close to your heart, "Sorry, I'm just curious of your presence right now"

He grumbled in discontent again. "It's nothing, really"

You narrowed your eyes in skepticism even though the darkness was stealing your expressions from his eyes. "I know something is up you if you did this, Senku" you could feel the warm of his body enveloping you completely as he moved closer and closer, "What's bothering you?"

He moved his head a little to speak so his words were clear. "Nothing important," and he rearranged himself again into your neck.

So stubborn as always with this kind of things, you thought, "It's just us right now, you can talk to me". You pulled the cover so his shoulders were protected from the cold night that threat you two.

He sighed and you felt his body moving a little to speak, "I've been having nightmares"

It sounded so simple, so unimportant, something like a child would say to cherish their mother's embrace, but you knew that coming from Senku, it weighted a lot, it meant a lot. He wouldn't have done something like tonight if it wasn't important. So, if it was because of a nightmare, it had to be a terrible one.

"Do you want to talk about it?" you were cautions with him, trying to not rush him into emotions because it wasn't his field, trying to hold his hand gently through his hard time, trying not to scare him like a wounded little animal from a threat.

"Not really, it's illogical"

It's not like you're complaining about it, but you were hoping that the darkest could give him some freedom over his characteristic vulnerability shield of his. After all this years, he was still the same adamant scientist hiding his true emotions.

"Is that's why you haven't been sleeping that much lately?" you asked caressing his shoulders like a lullaby.

Senku nodded, "It's the same one every time I close my eyes, and once it happens, I can't sleep again even if I try over and over again"

"Oh" you held him closer, "Well, you can try and rest now"

He nodded again and settled back against your chest. You didn't need more words, so you kept petting him and giving him quiet comfort trying to erased his worries away, even when you knew that's physically impossible.

The crickets in the distance sang to you both as you felt your eyelids grow heavy and fell into the arms of Morpheus.

***

The morning arrived calm and restorative. You heard some people talking away from your tent as you settled back into your sheets to sleep a little longer until your responsibilities called, but someone complained about your decision.

"Mmhm... s-stop moving" Senku mumbled still half asleep and you opened your eyes instantly at the sound of his morning voice.

You looked at him carefully thinking it had to be some kind of dream. You pinched yourself to check if the event before your eyes was real, only to realize that it was.

Senku was in your tent.

He was hugging you right now.

What happen last night wasn't a dream.

You remained still as you watched him sleep peacefully for a few minutes; he looked so calm, like he could finally rest from the worry of civilization over his shoulders. You moved some rebel hairs out of his face and caressed his cheek. He was still the same kid you grew up with, the one that used technology to scare off bullies, the one that took care of his father and his admission to space, the same Senku that helped you with your school homework and tests, the same one that took care of you when you got sick and the same kid that now was trying to restore the humanity from zero.

"Will you keep watching me sleep or what?" his voice called you back to Earth as you wondered what nightmare had kept him like that for so long, but you knew he wouldn't tell you, so it was useless to ask.

Maybe it was the first time that he could sleep like that since the nightmares, you thought. "So, how did you sleep?" you asked him as he scratched the back of his neck.

He remained quiet for some seconds processing his current state; he felt way better than before, he felt rested and the headache disappeared. Probably the nightmare gave him a break this time. "Good."

Simple and straightforward as always, you thought and laughed to yourself. "Good" you smiled at him. "Maybe you need to sleep here now" you joked.

But he always gave you surprises.

Could it be fate?

Destiny?

Luck?

No.

He didn't know, but he wanted to find out.

Your worlds weren't supposed to coexist together, it was impossible and complicated. Like greeks goddess loving mortals, like a sheep loving a fox, like a human believing in a devil's promise, like water embracing oil.

It was impossible.

And stupid.

Everything started that messy rainy day when Senku was investigating the weather and its thunders. He was at the shore, completely soaked and trembling in cold, his lips were almost purple, but he refused the idea of leaving the perfect opportunity behind because of it.

The rain left no doubt as to its intensity and that it would continue for hours and hours as more clouds gathered together and create the product Senku was looking for: Thunder, thunderbolts and lightning.

He quickly took a messy notebook from his jacket as he hold the pen ready to annotate when they appeared, powerful, loud and dangerous. The first one was a fraction of second present before him, the next one didn't last a millisecond, and the third hit some rocks on the coast.

He felt his hands cold, so cold they hurt as he wrote, but Senku wouldn't back down because of that too. He needed this information for his next experiment. But, as if the universe knew that his luck was within certain legal limits, the weather changed a little. That change was enough to make only a couple of lightning bolts appear before they vanished, leaving the rain as a mockery to the scientist.

"Damn it," he cursed at the missed opportunity as steam escaped from his mouth. But his stubbornness, and perhaps the universe, gave him something in return for his pathetic sacrifice for his physical health.

He saw you.

Senku blinked once, then twice as if his sight was playing a joke on him now that his results were denied from him, like if he completely lost his mind, as if he was going crazy. But he knew better than that. He was fully sane and in his five senses as he ran to the edge of the ocean and watched you closely from head to tail.

"This can't be true" he muttered in disbelieve to himself as he observed your features. "This has to be a joke!", but it wasn't a joke, you were real. You were completely still, maybe passed out in that beach as the cold water embraced your body and the sea ​​waves revealed your real being to the shocked scientist.

Senku, still in denial, knelt beside you and checked your pulse praying for all of this to be some product of his tired mind, maybe an hallucination from his sleep deprived brain and coffee overdose.

But you were very much real.

Not an hallucination.

Not some joke.

Real.

Your pulse was in the tips of his fingers and your breathing was as low and calm as the singing of birds at dawn, in contrast to the chaotic scene before his eyes: the storm and thunder that threatened you both.

The young prodigy scientist took a breath as he thought of what to do with you. Maybe he could call someone, maybe another scientist or publish pictures of you on internet to spread the relevant discovery that would change the course of world as everyone knew it. But he stopped those thoughts as quickly as they come; he knew what some people would do with the information and with someone like you. People would rush to the sea and capture all of your species and it would be a whole disaster: Some people would sacrifice many of you to understand your insides for scientific reasons, others would sell you all to the black market and commercialize with your organs, others would used you for fun like a fish in an aquarium for money and some perverts would use you as some spectacle and other unmentionable things.

He instantly knew and disliked that important knowledge was used with other purposes rather to understand and comprehend the planet you all lived in.

He looked at your passed out body and took the most irrational thought he ever had, probably the first and not likely the last; he grabbed your body and carried it to the rented space where he was working while researching lightning, which had become the last thing on his list of priorities.

The rain gave no fucks about his weak form as he dragged you from the shore completely soaked from head to toes as you were still with your eyes close. "Shit" he cursed his lame body condition as he finally open the door and moved through the compartment to his bathroom. "This is the worst idea I've ever had in my life" Senku said as he leave your body at the entrance of the bathroom and filled the bath tub with water to finally let you rest in it.

He sat down on the floor and observed your sleeping body as he thought of everything that had happened in just a few minutes.

Senku grabbed his head and gravity-defiant hair as he couldn't believe his previous actions.

He should have leave you on the shore.

He should have called someone else.

He shouldn't have done all of this.

You shouldn't be in his tub.

He was supposed to investigate lightning for his experiment, just that. He was supposed to report his discovery in a few weeks. He was supposed to behave like a scientist would.

He had to behave.

He had to regain his composure.

He looked at your tail and he finally settled his mind to understand that all this situation was completely real. He sighed tired from all the exercise and the cold.

So he gave up on today's lightning observations as he was satisfied with an sleeping mermaid in his bathroom and went to change his soaked clothes for something dry and comfy.

***

The next morning was to quiet for his own liking. He was expecting chaos, loud noises and probably screams coming from his personal toilet and cleaning room from you.

But nothing.

It was quiet with only the exception of running water and some splashes.

He opened the door slowly, without making any noise to alert you and saw you awake. You were playing with some bubbles and splashing water all over your head and body while laughing, like you had no worries on the world.

You were smiling.

You were pre-

No.

He opened the door completely to announce his presence and you stopped your movements instantly. For a moment he thought that you would try to escape or to shout to him in fear, but the only thing you did was observed him and analyze him like he was the weirdest creature on the world.

For a couple a minutes that was the conversation; quiet glances while admiring the other being.

While you were analyzing his limbs, his legs, Senku stared at your curious eyes; they were a little big different from the human's ones, they were slightly bigger. Maybe to be able to observe in the darkness of the ocean, he thought. And he observed your neck, you had gills just like the fishes.

"What's your name?" you suddenly asked without raising your voice or sounding scared. You were looking for information just like him. But, instead of physical features, you wanted to know him.

"Ishigami Senku" he said with simplicity, he didn't need long and tedious introductions. He wanted to end all the questions in his head as soon as possible, but he knew he couldn't rush things like that. "Your name is?"

"Y/n" you said it just like him; straight to the point.

Senku smiled just a little, but quickly dropped the smile. "Are you hungry?" he asked and you seemed to think a little at the question. Maybe you doubted in what he could give you, maybe you suspected it could be poisoned or something, he thought. But, to his surprise, you nodded.

"Just a little" you finally said, "I can eat whatever, so you don't need to worry that much"

"Oh, okay" he went to the door knob, "I'll be back with something." As the young scientist went downstairs, his thought process began doing mental notes of the whole interaction.

First of all, you weren't scared.

Second, you asked for his name like it was asking for the weather or the time.

And third, you accepted his food offer.

Why?

Why...?

Why aren't you scared of him?

Senku prepared something simple for you once he reached the kitchen so he could go back as soon as possible to make questions. In his way back to the bathroom, he grabbed his messy notebook and a pencil to register everything.

He opened the door and you were still playing with the bubbles.

"Hey, here" Senku said as he gave you the food and sat down in the floor to stare at you.

You received the food with a soft smile and start eating without problems, technically, devour the food. You were more starved than you initially thought. 

He observed you and finally let the most urgent question out of his mind as you ate, "Why aren't you scared of me?" his voice was clear, but there was some unresolved thoughts in between.

You kept munching and, with your mouth full, you said "I've seen other humans through my life" you explained and he listened carefully, "And you're not like them"

The scientist frowned, "How do you know that?"

"Because you didn't kill me"

You said it in a monotone voice, as if what you had just said had no weight. But the prodigy scientist took your words and understood that, probably, others sirens were found and killed the moment they got in contact with humans. Senku didn't stuck on feelings, so he moved on with the interrogatory as he search for a notebook and a pencil. "What is your usual diet?" he asked because he needed to know to fed you later.

"Meat and algae, but, as I say before, I can eat whatever"

The scientist wrote that down, "How old is your species?"

"Very" you seemed thoughtful as you played with your wet hair, "We have stories from thousands of years ago"

"Give me an approximated number" he needed straight answer, not vague words.

"Maybe four thousand years, give or take"

"Did you always avoid humans?"

He looked up from his notebook as he was met with silence. You kept playing with your hair as your eyes watched your tail.

"No" you said while remembering your fathers stories, "We once were adored by humans, they would look for us for guidance in the ocean and others used to talk to us to understand us better"

Maybe the pirates and greeks, Senku thought as he analyzed your words.

"But suddenly some of us disappeared without a trace" you added, "And then we understood that the humans that adored us, start to kill us for their enjoyment, so we hide and forgot about the surface for a long time"

"Then why were you at the shore that night?" he asked the question that hunted him since that storm.

"I was looking for a friend of mine" you said with a sad face, "She was nowhere to be found, so I looked really close to some ships and then, while escaping from their eyes, I ended up in that storm"

"So it doesn't matter if you have a tail, you are trapped anyway in the ocean"

"Yeah" you didn't liked his conclusion for your outcome, but it was the undeniable truth. You kept playing with you hair as he wrote.

"How many languages can you speak?"

"All of them"

"When and how did you learn them?"

"We are everywhere" you said as you made some bubbled with his soap. "So we learn all the dialects, even the sea one"

"The sea?" Senku frown, "How?"

"Everything is connected, if you listened closely" you smiled at him and he become more curious.

***

Days passed after that morning, you were back to the sea and you were still answering his questions without a complaint as he sat at the shore.

He was fascinated and intrigued about sirens more than ever. Senku, never, in all his life, thought that he would be investigating about it because, as everyone else in the world, he thought that your species was a mere legend, a myth, a fairytale. But now he was drowned in your voice and explanations as he filled more notebooks with his writing.

"Can I ask something?"

You are doing it already, he wanted to say, but since you were easy going and gave him no trouble since the beginning, he hold himself, "Sure" he said instead.

"Why did you saved me?"

He let the pencil to his side as he thought about it too.

There was no logical explanation for it. The more he thought about it, the more he convinced himself that you would have survive, maybe, to that storm; you were made to support all the intensity and the depths of the ocean, so a little storm wouldn't have been much of a problem. But his mind went to the possibility of someone else finding you and taking your life with your body out of the shore.

He couldn't tell you any of that even if you knew about the human cruelty.

"Because it was the logical thing to do," he said instead while shrugging and avoiding your curious eyes.

Senku heard a little laugh from you. He thought that you would insist on that topic or say what he was thinking about, but nothing came out of you.

You played with the sand by grabbing it and let it fall grain by grain, sometimes slowly, sometimes faster. You were like that for a few minutes while he observed you in silence.

The young scientist appreciated moments like this with you.

Two species completely different enjoying a shared space in calm while doing the most common things together.

"You've got a lonely soul" You suddenly said as you moved your tail till submerged it in sand and Senku thought of it as when humans do that to their legs.

He scoffed at your words, "Why do you say that?"

"I don't see or heard anybody around, and you are always with that thing in your hands" you said and he looked at his hands; you were talking about the papers with his annotations, he noticed. "What's that?"

"Annotations"

"Of what?"

"About you"

About you.

The words felt heavy, but you didn't understood why, but for the moment doesn't feel important, so you let it slide. But you observed him attentively as the seagulls sang and the wind played with the sand.

He was curious.

He was careful.

He was smart.

Dad was wrong saying that all humans were the same after all, you thought to yourself.

"There's no one around because I'm here alone," he explained as he gazed at the endless ocean before you. "I'm researching the weather for future projects, but then you showed up and, well, I gave you priority."

"Why?"

He snickered, "You don't meet a mermaid every day."

Was it the only reason?, you wondered, "But why are you by yourself?"

"Relationships are a pain in the ass" he said and thought about the expression, "In your case, a pain in the grills." You laughed a little and he continued with his explanation, "Feelings are complicated, illogical and most people leave their rationality for them, so they don't think correctly about anything"

You heard him and, even if there was truth in his words, there was something hiding in between, some odd feeling you couldn't name. You lacked knowledge for your vocabulary, so you could only do comparisons, "Then you are like a coconut," you said while looking at him.

"What?" he was confused with the analogy. Why was he a fruit?

"Because you are tough at the outside, but soft in the inside," you were trying to explain yourself the best you could, "The very first time I saw you, you looked distant, a little complicated to talk to, but when you worried for me, I understood that you weren't like that," He listened carefully at you even though he wanted to fight to your explanations, "You cared"

He scoffed, "Like I said before, you don't meet a mermaid every day." He was running away from the emotions again. "It's evident I would be careful with you"

You smiled knowingly, "Won't you ever open up to me? Even just once?"

He looked at you as he put the pencil in his pocket, "Wait, don't tell me you're falling in love with me?"

"I ain't looking to fall in love" you said with that simplicity of yours that he couldn't argue with. "I'm just tying to give you some warm to hold"

He narrowed his eyes, "I don't need that" Senku got up as he grabbed his notebook, "See you tomorrow"

You saw him walk back to his lonely compartment as his trace was printed in the sand and the wind flew through his gravity-defiant hair.

"Maybe you do"

***

"Are you sure?"

"I want to know more about your world," Senku said, and you nodded. You took his hand and lead him to the most remote place in the world so that he could learn about it. He accepted your hand and you showed him the path you usually used to the surface and what you usually saw in your daily life like manta rays, sea ​​turtles and puffer fishes. You showed him the home of a lot of fishes and protected him from the sharks that threatened to turn him into food.

You kept an eye on him the whole time in case he needed to go back as Senku followed you blindly through it all to the deepest part of the ocean as he breath from those tanks of his, as he called them.

The young scientist was amazed with all the places you display for him. He did a mental note of everything, from certain species that were report extinct to the nature and its condition that human usually ignored because of its unknown location.

Suddenly, you adjusted your grasp on his hand and swam between some rocks that lead to a secret spot.

Your secret spot.

Senku was shocked of the quantity of human artifacts that were in your possession. You had many from the lost ships that once crossed the oceans in the most complicated storms and never reached the port. Other elements belonged to infamous pirates that had impressive battles with other captains. Another bunch of artifacts were from the the most prestigious aristocracy who traveled and who, unfortunately, encountered thieves.

All of them protected by the depths of the ocean and time.

The scientist was impressed. He did a mental note of everything his eyes could registered and gave you the signal to go back to the shore. You nodded and lead him to the surface by the same path as before.

As you two held hands in the vastness of the sea, you thought about him and everything in the last months you shared with the scientist.

For an unknown reason for you, you wanted him to stay.

You saw his eyes discovering the world beneath his foots and you liked it. He would be even more amazed for the mysteries beyond his tanks. After all, he was limited by his body and his technology.

You wanted to show him the depths of the ocean, even the places you father tell you not to go. You wanted to show him everything the human eyes couldn't reach.

But, maybe it would be hard for him to adapt at first, but he was clever, he could do it and you knew it. But you know how hard it's to leave a place you've known your whole life; all your group had to abandon your childhood place because of humans. So it was a tough decision.

All your thoughts stopped when you reached the cold wind and the sand and you saw some seagulls tormenting a poor crab as the little one tried to escape from them.

"Oh, I need to write everything! Now!" You heard the young man by your side as he looked for his notebook from the little bag he left in the starting spot of your adventure. "But first, I need to make a bonfire, I don't want to get sick" and he ran to get some wood.

You watched him as he made fire and let him enjoy his moment as the cloud announced the next storm and the crab ran away from being food. You observed his smart red eyes filled with passion as your secret spot become his most valuable investigation and your collection of artifacts his new biggest passion.

You wanted to show him everything.

You wanted to show him more and more.

And, if he allowed you, you wanted to be by his side as he discovers the secrets of the sea.

"I was thinking of something and I want to share with you" you carefully said to him as he keep annotating things.

He didn't even bother lifting his gaze up from the paper. "What?"

"Don't you want to live in the ocean forever?"

You saw in stop motion as he stop writing and his expression was completely unreadable. Silence remained between you two while the sparks of the fire and the waves of the sea kept you company.

You looked at him carefully. He was having an internal battle against his own decisions. "Why would I do that?" he finally asked after so long.

You shrugged, "You seemed glad discovering the seas mysteries, so I thought that it would make you happy to live here"

Happy.

Happy.

Happy.

Senku indeed felt blissful, but it means sacrificing everything he did over the years in the surface. It wasn't an easy decision to make, especially now with his inventions, experiments and the promises he made to a lot of other scientist all over the world.

Was it worth leaving his whole life behind for the happiness of a life in the ocean with you?

He was conflicted.

Part of him said yes. Other part of him said no.

He wanted to, he couldn't denied it, but he couldn't spoke his words as he wanted to. He needed time to think of this clearly, he needed time to fulfill his previous promises, he needed time.

"I..." his words were caught in his throat, "I need time to think"

"Sure" You didn't seemed worry for the doubt in his voice or the lack of a straight answer. It was like you knew something he didn't and refused to tell him. "I'll see you around then" you said before submerging in the ocean without waiting for an answer.

Senku kept sat down in the sand as he saw you leave.

And the ocean felt bigger with your absence.

***

Senku went to the beach the next day. But you were nowhere to be found.

The scientist tried the next day, the same result.

It didn't matter how many times he called your name, you wouldn't appeared.

Where were you?

Were you hurt?

Were you captured?

What happened to you?

Did someone else find you while you were waiting for him?

Weeks passed and the poor young scientist found no answer of your destiny.

It was as if the ocean had swallowed you whole.

You simply disappeared.

And the worst thing of all of this is that he couldn't call anybody to look for you. How can he explain that the lost person was in fact a mermaid he met and never reported?

How the media would react to that? Maybe they would call him crazy and take his scientific membership because of madness. Maybe someone would believe him, but that person could also make his nightmare true and haunt every siren on sight.

"You seemed glad discovering the seas mysteries."

Your words were haunting him.

"So I thought that it would make you happy to live here."

He wanted to know where were you to tell you that he, in fact, wanted to live in the sea. In the calm of it, in the mysterious that it holds, in the darkness if it meant to be with you.

He regretted not accepting the moment you brought it up.

"Fuck!" he hated the feeling in his chest as he grabbed his things and left the rented space where he met you.

***

"Why did I decided to came back here?" Senku asked himself as he placed his stuff on the couch and memories came back to him after years of trying to leave everything behind.

The memory of you was still printed in his mind since that day.

He tried to ran away from these thoughts and feelings painting them as hallucinations, like his mind was to sleep deprived to fully understand the reality, like you never existed, like the adventures and his annotations are some kids game.

He scoffed as he remembered your conversations.

"Then you are like a coconut."

Yeah, I'm a coconut.

"You are tough at the outside, but soft in the inside"

Yeah, always hiding the vulnerable parts of myself.

"You cared"

Of course I cared.

The wind messed up his already messy hair as he opened the door and walked to the shore. The afternoon was mercilessly cold; the crabs on the shore ran for shelter and the seagulls went to their nests while the ocean crashed mercilessly against the sand and some rocks.

The scientist left his footprint imprinted in the sand as steam escaped from his breath.

Senku wouldn't mind being swallowed by the sea in that moment.

"Oh, you came back!"

Your voice.

The scientist turned around and saw you.

There you were, just like the first time he met you; you were lying on the sand, a few seaweed by your side and your hair completely soaked. It has to be a damn dream, he thought to himself as he tried not to run to you. But with every step he took, he realized more and more that you were real.

He couldn't denied it any longer. He missed you.

"Where were you?" he asked bluntly once he was by your side. He didn't care if the sand was wet, he sat down nowadays. "Where were you all those years?"

"In the sea" you said with that characteristic calm of yours he couldn't hate. "I was waiting for you"

"What?" Senku was dumbfounded, "You were waiting for me?"

"Yeah, you said you needed time to think" you smiled at him, "So I gave you time."

"But you disappeared, you weren't here the following days."

"Because you needed time" he looked puzzled at your incoherent explanation. "I didn't want you to feel pushed towards it, so I took care of my home in the meantime"

He ran both hands over his face. "You didn't need to do that, or at least you could have warned me"

It surprised you how blunt he was after years without seeing him. "Were you worried?" you asked while touching his shoulder.

He sighed with his hands still covering his face, "Yeah... I thought someone else found you and, well, kill you"

You were speechless after his confession and it moved your heart to listened to his worries and fears. You caressed his shoulder and gave him a sweet smile.

"Well, I'm here now"

Senku looked at you and finally breathe.

"Yeah, you are"

***

"Hey, here you go" Senku said the next morning as he walked to your side and handed you something, "For your collection"

You stared at the artifact. It had numbers on it and something moving on its inside, but you couldn't guess what it was. Either way, it was fascinating and beautiful under your eyes.

"Thank you, Senku!" you said while observing the object, "But I didn't get you anything."

Senku smiled softly at you, "You gave me everything." And when you looked up to match his gaze, you smiled back while holding your feelings.

The scientist sat down by your side at the shore as the birds and the waves were the only sound surrounding you two. He enjoyed the soft breeze messing with his hair and the salty smell of the water before him.

He missed this.

He missed you.

And he didn't want to miss any of that ever again.

"I want to live in the ocean with you" he suddenly said and you observed him in shock. "I mean it"

"What about your plans?"

"I already did all of them" he watched the sky as he spoke, "The last years I've been fulfilling my experiments and projects so every promise is complete and nothing left undone," he diverted his eyes on you, "So my next step is to investigate the sea at its fullest, with you"

You felt relieved; all this years waiting for him were worth it. Some days you were scared he wouldn't return, but since the adventure you had on your secret spot, you knew, since the moment you saw his eyes, he needed to come back to keep investigating.

He was thirsty for knowledge.

Eventually, he would return to you.

"I'm happy to heard that" you admit to him. "When do you want to start moving?"

"I need to do something first" Senku said, but his curiosity won before he could get up and walk to the rented space. "But how do I become one of you?"

You smiled maliciously, "There some things you don't know about, Senku-kun." He lift one eyebrow and you took a tree branch and start drawing on the sand. "This could be a legend, a myth or a real event," you started, "It is said that, when humans evolved, one chose to remain in the sea to escape greed. We come from that being, from the evolution of that creature."

"What does that person has to do with becoming a mermaid or triton?"

"Everything!" you exclaimed and kept drawing, "Some creatures took pity on this being's loneliness and granted him the ability to bring more like him to the bottom of the sea." You draw the trident that was under your father's power. "This can make you one of us."

Senku analyzed your words and the story itself. "So, we need to talk with your father?"

"I've already told him" you laughed a little nervous, "At first he was reluctant to the idea, but I convinced him"

"How?"

"It doesn't matter how" you dismissed his curiosity and let the ocean erase the story from the sand as the man in front of you erased your worries.

***

"You ready?" you asked as you offered your hand to him.

That day the clouds weren't present. It was a beautiful day, completely clear and sunny. The sand felt hot as the scientist took off his clothes, because they were useless in his new home, and grabbed your hand.

"Yeah" he nodded, "Let's go."

And the scientist disappeared from the shore as he submerged into the ocean.

The last persons that saw him called him crazy to go back to that cabin that was to far away from civilization. Others kept calling to his phone, even when the recording said "Ishigami, don't bother calling, I've decided to go home very far away from cellphones connections". And other insistent colleagues went to the rented place to find a note written by the scientist.

His eyes found yours, "Yeah, sure. What's up?" he left some annotations in the table to listen to you as he always have done through the years.

You took a breath and made the question you've been eager to know. "I've been wondering if you ever want to marry me"

"What?" He frowned and his voice sounded harsh, like a punch in the guts. "I'm too busy for relationships," he said the stupid sentence you've heard since you were kids, but you were hoping, pleading, you were an exception to that self-imposed rule, "You know that."

You tried to calm yourself a little, "I... Yeah, I do know that, but I thought that maybe we could try, it's not like there's to much difference from what we already have, right?"

And you regretted asking when you heard his voice saying "This is why I don't do relationships" while running his hand over his face. "No, it isn't the same. I know we've done a few things, but that ain't mean that I can dedicate all my time to a relationship and..." he sighed, "I can't."

You were perplexed and hurt by his words. "What do you mean 'I can't'? You've restored big part of the civilization from the Stone World, I've seen you face multiple obstacles in your life, you've survived lots of attacks and even more..., but you're saying you can't commit to a family together? To a future together after everything we've done?"

He nodded more composed, "Yeah, I have to finish this whole time machine and think forward with the inventions to restore all the humanity"

You were out of words.

You blinked taking in his heavy words foolishly thinking that maybe, just maybe, in between the reality you didn't wanted to face he was saying he wanted a future with you, that maybe he was saying something in between lines, that maybe all he said was a mere lie.

But no.

Machines, inventions, calculations, annotations, research and more took all his time from you. But you couldn't blame science; it was wonderful and gave humanity lots of things. Science didn't chose him to investigate every mystery the world could provide. No. Science didn't chose him. Senku chose science over everything else... Even his life.

But you couldn't blame your childhood friend for his uncontrolled passion. You couldn't blame him for his wishes to help people and discover more and more. You couldn't blame him.

But you blamed yourself for believing he could chose you over it, for believing that part of him wanted you as hard as you wanted him, for believing in fairytales, for believing in romance, for believing it could work.

And now, all your hopes...

All your fantasies...

All your dreams...

Everything with him...

Vanished.

Like dust in the wind.

This ain't a dream with a happy ending. It was the harsh reality that gave you a broken heart.

In your quiet pain and hid tears you nodded and gave him a last smile, "Okay" you said as you were walking backwards towards the door. "Yeah, you're right, you're busy and... have better things to take care for...," you sounded breathy trying to hold in tears and the last dignity you had left. "Thanks for your time then, Senku."

"Wait-!"

And you felt your heart squishing inside your chest as tears finally hugged your helpless state at the other side of the door.

Funny.

Once Senku said that the heart was just an organ. But now it hurt like it was being torn apart, like needles slowly burying themselves and letting him bleed mercilessly. You couldn't see you path as tears made blurry your vision and you felt like you couldn't breathe from the impotence.

You just wanted him, that's all...

Why?

Why?

Why?!

Why do you have to feel like this when you know he didn't said all of that to hurt you?

Maybe because you thought that holding him close, all the shared looks, the synchronized laughs, the quiet hugs, the late conversations and the hands holding the other one in the middle of the night meant something to him after all this time.

But turns out, it didn't.

It meant the world for you, and maybe so little to him.

You ran far away to hide from the curious eyes that could be around and found a spot near a river. The moon and the stars were reflected in the water and you could only thought about Senku liking that view.

Screw him, you thought. There's nothing you can do about his choice. You chose him, but Senku chose a life of science. You have to live with that for the rest of your life. Now you have to forget about these stupid feelings of yours and move on.

But how can you forget someone with whom you even shared your breath?

***

Thirteen million one hundred forty-one thousand four hundred forty seconds passed from that moment and you still felt the prick in your heart every time you saw the scientist around, each day becomes more bearable, although there are still days when you wonder how things would have been if he had accepted you into his heart. But now, you were good at pretending that you didn't care and that that unfortunate night never happened for your own sake.

Only once Senku tried to talk to you, but you dodge him. You needed to let him go, so you got close to other people out of Senku's usual social environment to escape, to forget.

To forget the foolish fantasy you had since a little kid of him and you growing old together after Byakuya said you two looked cute.

To forget the conversations you used to love.

To forget his smell of chemicals and tea.

To forget the sound of his laugh.

To forget his damn smirk.

To forget his red eyes.

To forget his voice.

To forget him.

To move on.

To heal.

Your heart still yearned for him and you knew it. It was inevitable. You two used to be so close and now you have to pretend to be a mere citizen helping in his chaotic ideas like everybody else. You had to play the fool that follows the king anywhere he goes and accomplish all his wishes without complaining.

"Hey, you're alright?" a sweet voice called you. Your heart was so loud that you forgot about what you were doing. You were in the middle of the corn city helping to create alcohol and a man stood in front of you with a tractor by his side. "Do you need help with that? Seems heavy"

You blinked twice, "Yeah, sure, thanks" you quickly move to carry all the corn as you apologize, "I was distracted, sorry"

"No need, let me" he smiled at you so softly that the next nights you dreamed with it and you regain your faith in love.

Slowly.

Steady.

Patient.

This new love was gentle and had no intentions of running away. Instead, it provided security, understanding, and caresses.

You felt loved.

The tears become laugh.

The quiet nights become loud.

The insecurities become faith.

Red eyes were replace by brown ones.

Green hair were replaced by silver one.

Scientific comments were replaced by romantic ones.

Talks about inventions were replaced by a future plan.

And what seemed like a dream became reality.

You always dreamed about getting marry and having a family. Now you were doing it, though your dream had someone else in mind, you loved this life you got by the farmer's side.

It was calm, quiet, relaxing and lovely. You had everything you wished for right now.

***

You looked pretty on that dress.

He couldn't tell you.

Time wasn't on his side that stupid night. He wanted to reach you, but something came up and took his precious time.

Again.

He remembered the words you said and the ones he said back. And he regretted them all. You ran from his life as soon as he close the door on your face at the mention of romance, but that's not what he wanted.

Now you were kissing somebody else's lips, caressing somebody else's hair, worrying about somebody else's problems and making somebody else happy.

You left him behind moving forward on your desires.

He got stuck with his inventions and had no one to talk to.

So unfortunate.

"If you missed her that much, once the time machine is over, you can try and have her back." Gen commented when he noticed Senku's eyes following your figure at the distance while you walked by your husband hand taking care of your child.

"No." He remembered the conversation that lead to that outcome; Senku remembered your face and its emotion once he said no to you and then the happiness you had on your wedding day. "Now she is happy, happier than I could ever offer."

Gen nodded understanding what he meant by that.

That's slightly old-fashioned, he thought unimpressed. "I haven't heard that one in a while"

"Yeah, cheesy, but a lot of old people keep saying it," you shrugged. "Anyway, do you serve something or not?"

After all, she's working, he thought for a moment and walked towards the counter, his clothes soaking the entire entrance. "Yeah, I will." After some seconds debating between a cappuccino or a mochacchino, he looked at you, "What do you think will taste for like a cigarette?"

You frowned confused. No customer had ever asked you anything like that before. Maybe he's , but you played along. You looked at the menu behind you, "Maybe the black coffee; it's bitter, but people get used to it, eventually..." You looked at him, "Just like with cigarettes."

He nodded and you registered his order for him to pay. Once done with it, Stanley took a seat and closed his eyes; he missed his cigarettes, he needed one so bad. He needed the addictive taste on his tongue and the heavy air filling his lungs that has been with him since he became a young adult. The addictive taste that offers him some solace in the chaotic life he chose. The addictive taste he couldn't shake as his life moved on. Sometimes he forgets how he survived the military training without smoking once in a while, it's like his mind erased those gaps. Now, as a commander, he can smokes any time he wants and he's happy with that, but his childhood friend, Xeno, called him lucky to have the title, even though it was pure mockery because the two of them knew he did his best.

"Here" your voice interrupted his thoughts. When he opened his eyes, you didn't have his coffee order at hand, you had a towel. He frowned at it, "Dry yourself, you're soaked," you quickly explained.

He looked at the towel and grab it carefully, "You didn't have to."

"I know," you said, watching the soaked and embarrassed walk he made towards his seat. "But I'm doing this because you got the whole entrance wet. I don't want you to get the seat and table wet too." He nodded in understanding and use it as he watched you leave to the counter again without another word.

Stanley watched you work as he dried his hair and clothes. Your gentle hands using the tools, the carefulness in the measures and the precision in your eyes as you took the orders and attend the costumers.

He looked away.

The military awaited for his order to arrive as he thought about his training. He mentally reviewed his precision, the best shots he made, the name of his soldiers and the weapons that needed to arrive the next week. "Here's your order" your voice distracted him again and he muttered an almost inaudible acknowledgment in return.

You gave him an smile and went back to work as you took the wet towel with you.

His eyes followed your figure as you keep talking with the new costumers that, like him, find refugee in your coffee shop from the rain. But, for some reason, he didn't feel like the rain was that bad after all.

***

"Oh, hi" you greeted him with a soft smile, "You're here again, black coffee with taste like cigarettes?" you asked with a mockery smile.

He nodded, "Yeah, the same one as before" he commented as he wondered how did you remembered him after days without seeing him, but maybe remembering faces was part of your job.

"Okay, in a few minutes it will be ready" you said and he went back to the same seat as the first time he met you and looked around him; the coffee shop was relaxing, quiet and the scent of coffee invaded everything. It felt refreshing somehow after the usual smell of gunpowder, the dirt and the sweat of his companions and the soft music contrasted with the regular screams he heard every day.

Stanley liked this feeling.

This calm.

This sounds.

This smell.

Maybe he could accept this change.

Just maybe.

A little.

***

Again and again and again.

Snyder knew he couldn't have distractions now.

But he was becoming addicted to you.

Your gentle voice as you greet him and took his regular order, your soft eyes that starer directly at his and your delicate but precise movements making his black coffee. And, the little moments were you had time, you talked to him about trivial and everyday things like old friends catching up after so long.

He enjoy the little talks even though you did most of it and he listened.

This become his routine; visit you at least once a day to see you. Sometimes he would do it twice at day. Once he did it three times because he accidentally forgot his wallet.

And, without him noticing, he start leaving the cigarettes. He usually smoked a whole two boxes in a day, but now its just one. His childhood friend laughed when he found out. "What's making you leave those intoxicating things of yours?" Xeno asked and Stanley shrugged, "Leave it alone" he said. Honestly, the military didn't noticed until he saw all the boxes in his night table and in the hall furniture accumulating.

***

Stanley noticed the change in him; he wanted coffee, but now simple coffee, he wanted the black coffee you made him. It had to be yours because he tried another coffee shops, but no one tasted like yours.

"I'm condemned" he muttered to himself as he understood what happened; he was falling for you.

But how he can tell you about this feelings?

How can he tell you about he leaving every once in a while to the army?

How can he make you happy if you ever get together?

Are you even interested in him?

He was a simple costumer to you. A regular one that asked for black coffee with some taste like cigarettes. A quiet costumer that heard your rambling about your day, about how you fought with an old friend, about how you haven't seen your father in a long time and how your mother wants you to marry someone soon. A costumer that choses the same spot with perfect view to your workaholic hands serving coffee. A costumer that didn't liked coffee until he met you.

You changed him into something he never thought possible with only your charisma and gentle attention.

But he knew he wasn't what you were looking for.

You smelled like coffee.

He smelled like cigarettes.

And you scrunched your nose at the smell of his jacket over your shoulders one day of rain as you exited the coffee shop to late for your liking and he made you company.

You two were too different.

He was rough.

You were sweet.

He was in the army.

You were at a coffee shop.

He didn't have any passions.

You did have them.

He didn't thought about the future.

You did regularly.

He was quiet.

You were loud.

He listened to you.

You talked to him.

He didn't like the rain.

You loved it.

He wanted to leave the city someday.

You wanted to stay.

He liked the silence.

You liked crowded places.

He liked rock music.

You liked classical music.

He thought of you daily, and maybe he never crossed your mind.

Because he smelled like cigarettes and you smelled like coffee.

***

Stanley knew he was doomed the moment he asked for you one day you weren't at the coffee shop. The other girl mentioned something about vacations and something about two weeks or so, honestly he felt weird not seeing you and he barely heard her.

He missed your coffee that day and the next one, and the next one, and the day after the other one and the other day.

He didn't knew why he was insisting so much about looking for you when it was obvious that you wouldn't be there.

It was spring now.

There was no risk of downpour or a weird weather to refugee in your coffee shop now.

There was no reason to look for you.

There was no reason to wait for you.

There was no reason to-

"Oh, hi!" He turned around and you were there. "I'm sorry, but today I don't work, I have the day off, but you can come here tomorrow and I'll serve you your usual coffee"

Stanley nodded obediently and his fears vanished.

As well as his pack of cigarettes.

***

The next morning he rushed to the cafeteria with the excuse that he had gone for a run and that he happened to be passing by even though it was obvious he just made that up. "Hey," he greeted you as you smiled at him, "How you doing?"

"I'm fine, Stan" you greeted back and as you grab a cup, "The usual black coffee cigarette?"

But the military looked thoughtful for a second; a version of him you've never seen before. "Actually, I want your recommendation for today." He wanted to let his guard down for a second, to be vulnerable before you, to trust you.

You looked surprised, but obeyed with a huge smile he missed seeing those last days. "Sure, I have the perfect taste for you" you commented and annotated something in the cash register, "It'll be a surprise!" Stanley smiled back and nodded. He sat in his usual spot to admire you from afar and wait for your recommendation to figure out if to keep with this or to keep quiet forever.

"So, here you go!" you sat next to him and observed him attentively. To your surprise, you didn't felt the scent of cigarettes as usual, instead, he smelt like cologne. Did he quit smoking?, you wondered, but said no word about it. You saw him savor the coffee, pleased by the daintiness present in his manners, as if the coffee reflected an internal struggle.

He left the coffee alone while it processed its flavor and watched you. "It's delicious" he muttered more to himself than to you.

"Right?" you smiled in delight, "It's one of my favs" I just made it for you, you kept to yourself.

Stan felt relieved as his thoughts became one; you. "Thank you" he said and watched you hand. Should he grab it? Should he just stared at it? What should he do?

You saw his internal debate and laughed internally about it. He looked cute without meaning to.

"I'm happy you like it" you commented and grabbed his hand.

He saw your hands together and let a soft smile decorate his face, "I will like to know more about your recommendations."

But now it's too late.

Now you were kissing somebody else's lips, caressing somebody else's hair, worrying about somebody else's problems and making somebody else happy.

You got married and have a child.

A child with another man.

Not with him.

Senku always said "I'm too busy for relationships" because of his purpose of restoring civilization. And now he hates the feeling in his chest as he saw you leave.

All this confusion started from the day the scientist woke you up and they saw Senku worried about you, a little more than he pretends, and because you were glued to his side every day. The villagers saw your loving gestures towards him like caressing his hair when he was stressed or accompanying him to every place he went, sometimes you even helped with the heavy work so he didn't exhausted himself and, in the cool nights, you took care of him when he spent his whole time working with new ideas till falling asleep on his worktable.

There were times when the villagers thought you did too much for him and he too little for you, but perhaps that was just how your relationship worked. After all, they didn't know what relationships were like in the 21st century.

In any case, everyone was expecting some kind of announcement from the village leader about the two of you; perhaps that you were together or that you would be getting married soon.

But for months the scientist said nothing and they almost lost hope.

Until one day, Senku, tired of the expectant stares directed at him, said that you were just a friend.

The villagers were confused because he was being ambiguous about everything. It sounded more like an evasion than his true thoughts, but they all knew that Senku would never admit what he really thought when feelings were involved.

So he sent you on a mission with Chelsea, Kohaku, and Gen so he could rest his mind and thoughts, but he told you he needed some materials from another country as an excuse. You doubted that was the only reason, but you blindly obeyed his request.

"Don't blow up the lab while I'm gone" you said jokingly. Usually he would snicker of laugh at your comment or answer with his smartass mouth, but now he only stared at you and nod.

Your smile dropped and turned at the ship.

Senku needed time to progress without interruptions, but now he needed extra pairs of hands since you will be gone for a few weeks.

"Time for the next project" he said to himself and when back to the lab as he gave you one last glance as you leave.

***

The ship arrived to Japan and you were exhausted. The materials Senku asked for were more complicated to find than you originally thought. "Let's get this to Senku and take some rest" you mentioned to Gen, he immediately agreed with you while Kohaku took the heavy containers to lead you all to the lab and Chelsea followed you.

"Jeez, Senku-chan better have an explanation for all this materials" Gen commented while barely walking behind you. He was exhausted after the long trip.

"Maybe they are for the time machine", Chelsea tried to guess enthusiastic and then she stared at you, "What do you think?"

You shrugged thoughtful, "I genuinely don't know, it's the first time he doesn't say a word to me"

Gen was surprised at your statement. He saw you two extremely close and he wanted to know. But Chelsea beat him, "Oh, did something happen between you two?"

"Not really". You remembered the last conversations and they seemed normal to you, and even the 'emotional' ones were normal. You knew Senku didn't take anything to heart of how practical and competence he was, but he was acting strange the last moment you saw him before leaving. "I don't understand what's going on inside his head"

"Don't worry, we don't either" Gen added in mockery.

You weren't pleased by their comments. Since you knew Senku, you knew he was direct with his things; if something was dumb, he spoke it, if something was incredible, he admit it. He liked simplicity and efficiency, so all of this situation was new to you... And you didn't know if to take it as a good sign or not.

"Don't worry" Kohaku spoke to you, "It's Senku the one we are talking about, maybe he has a reason and needs time for his explanation"

Maybe you were overthinking to much into it, you thought. After all, Senku now has the responsibility of the world in his hands, so it's highly probable that he's tired. "Yeah, you're right" you mumbled and kept walking.

When you arrived to the lab, you heard a lot of noise inside and all of you knew that Senku was overworking, again, and probably was working with Chrome or Kasuki.

"Senku!" you called from the door, "We have the materials you needed!"

All the sound of the machines stopped.

Everything was quiet now.

No replies, no sound, nothing.

"Well, that's new" Gen muttered by your side, "He would usually say something by no-"

Some noise could be heard from the hallway that caught all the group's attention. "You're here!" Senku ran to the door and seemed euphoric.

"What the f-...?" you couldn't finish your exclamation since, literally, Senku jump on you and you both were on the floor. Chelsea and Gen beamed in joy for the gossip and Kohaku was extremely confused about everything. When you came back to your senses and understood he was on top of you, you pushed him away, "Senku! What are you doing?!"

"It's just... You've been away for so long!" He said trying to hug you again and again as you push him away. "I've missed you so much!"

If you felt confused before, now you were perplexed.

Is Senku saying how he feels?

What happened since you were gone?

"Tell me about your trip!" Senku insisted as he helped you to get up. "Let's go and walk while you tell me every detail", and his smile was so wide you thought you were dreaming.

Although Gen enjoyed the whole dramatic situation, he was puzzled by Senku's sudden change in behavior. Kohaku was astonished and thought it was another experiment. And, Chelsea, believed he was trying to flirt in his own way, in his own scientific way.

***

"This is for you!" Senku said while giving you a pretty box with a loving smile on his face.

You received the present and saw chocolates on the inside. The smell made you remember the moment he made them in Valentine's Day when building the ship for 'motivation'. You smiled at the memory with endearment because you knew that all of that was just an excuse so the people from the 51st century could enjoy and taste the foods you all had from before the petrification.

Something sweet and delicious that most people liked.

That you liked.

"Thanks, Senku" you tasted the chocolate and smile at the little gift with huge significance for you. It was the perfect amount of sweet and bitter that you mentioned you adored. So he made it by hand, you noticed.

And his eyes shined like you were the most precious person in his world.

***

You were discussing a topic with Ryusui and François when Senku approached with a mug of coffee for you and, without a word, leave you to keep your conversation.

Ryusui didn't ask, but his glance was obvious. He was curious. "I... I don't know why he did that" you said while shrugging your shoulders with a puzzled expression.

"I do know why" the blonde man said with a smile.

"Why?"

"Because he's in love with you" he said simply, but it hit you deeply. "He made it for you because he cares". François prepared him a cup of tea and he drink it, "Even though I never expected to see him do it so directly" he laughed.

"So... What do you think about his behavior then?" you tasted the coffee and the savor remained ingrained in your memory.

Ryusui snapped his fingers, "Ha, ha! That he's finally flirting with you!"

You doubted that was all, but you couldn't argue with him because you had no evidence to back you up.

"Senku-sama is very reserved" François commented while serving you two some biscuits. "He has his own ways to say he cares and to show his love"

You nodded thoughtful.

***

Senku started to act completely out of his character.

If the chocolates and the coffee were confusing then, Senku following you everywhere you went to, was in fact a lot weirder. And now the villagers were disoriented about his previous statement, months ago, while watching him giving you heart eyes and holding your hand while walking through the place. This ain't how you treat a friend, they all thought.

And Ryusui's words repeated on your mind.

Because he's in love with you.

Because he's in love with you.

Because he's in love with you.

You knew his words were honest, but you couldn't believe them just like that.

Senku wouldn't show his love this openly, you thought.

But you still held his hand hoping that this dream wasn't over yet.

***

You two were laying on the grass as you enjoyed the clouds and the soft breeze on your faces. The shadows that casted from the tree's leaves feel soft on your skin as the time passed and your heart beats were one.

You liked this; how time seemed to stopped giving you this shared time with him. Finally a time without rushing for the next project, without rushing to fulfill the next task, without rushing for civilization to come back.

Finally a moment to breathe, finally a moment to enjoy, finally a moment to be with him.

But...

This is not the Senku you knew.

You knew Senku was acting really strange and Gen laughed at his new antics and talked about it with Chelsea and Kohaku all the time because now the whole village talked about it too.

The following days were filled with Senku showing you great romanticism; he listened attentively, publicly displayed his affection (which baffled the villagers), and showered you with compliments that you couldn't understand the source of or the reason for, he held your hand as you walked toward the village and constantly hugged you.

But who is he?

What happened to the Senku that you used to know?

Where's the guy obsessed with science, mechas and Doraemon?

Where's the scientific, straightforward, always hiding his feelings and vulnerability guy that you grew up with?

This Senku was being a gentleman and you kind of like it. You liked the way he talked about his thoughts and feelings. You liked the way he hugged you and caressed you hair. You liked his attentions on you and the time he spent on you.

But it felt off and incredibly wrong.

Now Senku was giving you beautiful flowers that once you mentioned you liked when you two were kids. And even though your soul reached heaven with his gift, your mind knew that this wasn't him.

Is this another experiment?

Measuring love signs?

Maybe testing affection and its public displays?

Or maybe testing your reactions and your tolerance to his behavior?

Tons and tons of questions invaded your mind as the smell of the flowers made tears escape from your eyes. Tears that Senku immediately saw and worried him, "What happen? Don't you like them? Did they hurt you?" He hold you close and watched you patiently while waiting for your words to explain what was wrong.

"I do like them, those are my favorite" you said, "Thank you". You looked at him, you looked at the cracks in his face, at his rebelious gravity-defiant hair and his analyzing red eyes on you. "But I know this isn't really you"

This was Senku.

But not your Senku.

Not the Senku that said all the time that love was a waste of time.

Not the Senku that analyzed every situation to come up with a solution.

Not the Senku that prioritized humanity and civilization over his own life.

Not the Senku that you loved.

Not the Senku that you grew up with.

Not the Senku that you will fight for.

Not the Senku that you followed to the stone world.

Not the Senku that you were willing to give your life to.

Maybe in another life you will now what is like to feel loved by him, but you couldn't accept this love, this love that wasn't his, this love disguised with his face and voice.

"What do you mean?", he asked and frowned. Even his expressions were his, but this gestures, this gifts, this caresses... this love... it wasn't him. "I'm Senku"

"I don't know who you are" you muttered while the wind carried your love away with it. "But thank you for this"

You were about to leave, but his gentle hand grabbing your arm stopped you.

"I don't understand..." He looked at you completely hurt by your actions, "What did I do wrong?", his voice tremble and you couldn't look at him. Those eyes that weren't his, this voice that wasn't his, everything hurt you. "I can fix it... whatever's wrong I can solve it"

He's pleading eyes were a sight to admire, but "No, Senku" you freed from his hands, "There's nothing to fix" and you left him lying in the grass.

***

Because he's in love with you, the words repeating in your head like a curse as days passed was intoxicating. Since that afternoon, you ran from the scientist every time you saw his hair or heard his voice. Sometimes the rest of the villagers looked for you because he requested your help, but you always excused yourself with another task.

You were running from his love.

Ironic, you thought. You were the one following him around and giving him love and now tables have turned.

"Have you seen Senku these days?" Kohaku asked you when you were helping her with the food.

Today you were helping her with the last shipment of fish. "No" you said simply, you were tired of the questions about him.

"Maybe you should"

And Kohaku's voice called you attention a little because she sounded mysterious, like she knew something you didn't. "Why?"

Kohaku looked at you as you cut a fish in half, "He did something"

You lift your gaze to find hers. "Something... what? Dangerous? Stupid? Scientifically unbelievable?"

"You need to see it with your own eyes"

And curiosity killed the cat, or so you heard.

***

You walked reluctantly to the laboratory and entered quietly. The last thing you wanted was for Senku to jump on you like that time you came back from the trip to get the materials he asked for.

The corridors were quiet because of the time; almost everyone had already left, but you knew a couple of people that stayed till the moon shined and the crickets made music.

And you assumed one particular person was still here because of the sounds coming from the time machine room. "Careful with the measurements!" You heard his voice from the room. So you we right that he was still here.

The further you walked, the louder his voice became. But something felt off. His voice was the only sound around you; it was as if he were talking to himself, something he didn't usually do.

You reached the door and slowly opened it to observed what was going on inside before stepping in. You didn't want to barge in and ruin something.

"Hey, you need to tighten those screws and the panels!" Senku screamed at Senku.

You blinked twice not believing the scene in front of you; two Senkus discussing with each other about the machine while dressed exactly the same. You couldn't tell the difference between them and you still were puzzled that there were two instead of one. "What the fuck is going on here?" You asked as you opened the door and the two Senkus looked at you like a like a raccoon caught red-handed.

"Oh my-!" The Senku adjusting the panels screamed at your presence, "You are here! I thought I've never see you aga-!"

"Yeah, yeah! Cut it out!" The other Senku screamed annoyed. "Keep working!"

But clearly that attitude made you realize who's who.

The annoyed Senku approached you and you knew this Senku was the one you grew up with. He was clearly tired; exhaustion was reflected in his face, in the dark circles under his eyes and in his whole demeanor. "Hey" he greeted you quietly. He needed immediate rest, you noticed. Even his voice sounded tired.

"Why there's two of you?" You asked immediately, without beating around the bush and without stuttering.

Senku sighed. "I made a clone"

You couldn't tell if he was saying it because he was tired of others, perhaps asking him the same question, or because he was tired of not sleeping. "A clone?" you frowned and he nodded. That explains everything, you thought.

"He was supposed to help me while you were gone," he explained and looked at his copy who was adjusting the screws on top of the machine, "But as soon as he heard your voice, he ran to you."

"Why?" You were referring to why the clone ran towards you, but you left the question ambiguous.

"Because he's the unfiltered version of me" Senku showed you the notes he made and cleared his throat, "He's the... mhmm... ", he couldn't find the proper word to describe his replica. He knew the word, but he couldn't dare himself to say it out loud. But you knew what he wanted to say. A clone that loved stronger than you could ever do, you thought at the bittersweet discovery. A version of you that's not hiding his feelings and thoughts. A version of you that loved loudly. "I made the calculations wrong and the machine made a replica of me with one emotion as its principal virtue," he scratched the back of his neck, "Basically, he's the caring version of me" he finally let the words out, even though he tried to simplified them.

You didn't know how to feel about the situation.

So you were right; you were walking around the village with a copy of Senku.

A romantic version of Senku.

A Senku filled with love for you.

Pure, wild and unfiltered love for you.

And Senku, the one you knew since kids, the one that you missed, the one that you loved, was hiding from you in the lab working on his time machine without telling anybody about it.

"Unbelievable" you muttered to yourself and you ran your hand over your face.

"I, uh..." Senku tried to explain better what was going on inside his head, but he couldn't. He wasn't used to talk about emotions, to show them with affection. The way he showed it was through creations, through making someone's life easier, to helped them with a problem.

But how could he help you when he was the one running away?

How could he help you when he was the one to push you away?

How could he help you when he was the one trying to understand himself?

How could he help you when he was the problem?

When you were away, he used the time to understand himself, and when his copy, his romantic copy, jumped on you the second he heard your voice, he knew. He liked you, but he was bad with all the romantic spectrum, so he let the replica ran wild with you.

But you weren't pleased with that version on himself.

To begin with, you yelled at him when he jumped on you, you accepted the gifts but you didn't seem happy, and his romanticism was rejected after a few days.

You pushed him away.

So what did you wanted from him?

How could he please you?

He knew you for years, but at the same time, he didn't know what you wanted in a partner.

So he hide.

He ran.

And now you were pissed at him, you found his experiment and the truth was revealed.

The copy of Senku looked at you and understood the situation. Maybe you didn't want him, but he could help you with the original scientist, he thought. "What he wants to say is sorry!" he screamed from the machine.

You two looked at him quickly and then stare at each other again; the original Senku pointed at his clone, "Yeah... that"

You crossed your arms and nod slowly.

Words couldn't reached your mind, you were still analyzing the whole thing and questions filled the space between you two. "How did you even made him?"

"By somatic cell nuclear transfer", Senku saw your face and dismissed your confused expression. "It's a long explanation"

"Since when?"

He sighed, "Since you left"

"And why did you hide in here?"

"To continue with the machine" And he shrugged like it was obvious.

You lift an eyebrow, "Since I arrived?"

"Yes, I did it to avoid you while I sorted out some... thoughts." You narrowed your eyes offended by his response. He quickly noticed and exhaled. Now or never, he thought. "Listen, I..." He pressed his pinky finger to his ear, and you knew he was stressed. "I want you to stay close to me."

You looked at him for a whole minute processing his words.

"What do you mean by that?" you frowned. "You just admitted you hid from me... and now you want me around?"

This is why he escapes from romantic relationships; all the explanation thing is a pain in the ass for him, but you were worth it. "I know it sounds illogical and dumb." He pinched his nose exasperated by the turmoil his emotions were causing in his head. He only hoped he wouldn't ruin what you had because being in a situation where science had no place was difficult for him. All of this was difficult. It wasn't trial and error, it was a permanent mistake if he got it wrong; you might never want to talk to him or be near him again, and that's what he didn't want to happen. "But I did it because you are an efficient person and your help makes work faster and better." He looked at you attentively, "I need you around."

You didn't know what to say, you've never seen him so emotional before. But you knew he was being honest. All the struggle, all the intern battle, all his words. Finally all those years waiting and waiting paid you off.

"It took you long enough," you smiled at him and hug him. He didn't know if to hug you back or what, so he decided to place his hand on your lower back and call it a hug in his mind. You chuckled at the weird hug, "You know? You're cute when you try so hard"

"Shut up and don't make it weird"

"Just don't do that ever again" you muttered and broke the hug. "What are you going to do with him?" You pointed at his clone.

He shrugged while observing his replica, "Just let him work with us, he's useful"

"Don't tell me you say that because he's, literally, you" you laughed.

"Nah, he knows a lot..." Senku returned his eyes on you, "And maybe he can give me some free time" he commented as if nothing, but you knew the weight those words carried.

It all happened because of a meteorite that deviated from its trajectory and was going too fast for all of you to dodge it. The engineer mentioned an solution for your dilemma, but the conditions were harsh and space didn't help at all.

He died due to a malfunction in his suit as space claimed his body.

The captain told you and the pilot to recover the course and tried to fix the problems on board as he tried to do what the engineer mentioned before. And, after some minutes that felt like hours, the captain's communications failed and you two knew he was gone.

And space claimed another body.

Despair and fear invaded your senses as you were unable to solve the problem, while everything around you screamed at you both that your death was imminent.

You felt powerless.

The pilot placed his hand on your shoulder for comfort before he tried one last time. Because, as he said, "You don't know until you try everything." But the space didn't believe in attempts, only in facts. The space was not pious, it was cold and rigid. The space held no understanding of hope or willpower.

And space claimed his body with gentleness as the pilot gave him his last breathe.

Now, you were the last one standing. The last thing you could do was a transmission that would probably take hours to reach Earth and for CAPCOM to hear it. But, there was nothing that they could do to save you.

You could only tell them so your words could help in the future, so your words could inspire someone and the next mission went well.

You didn't know how people on Earth would take your words, but it was all you have.

You saw how the ship's glass cracked after another meteorite impact.

"Danger: glass cracked, oxygen dropping low." the ship's voice warned, "18% oxygen left. Please, repair the tear or approach the nearest suits"

This was the end.

And all you could do was accept it as it came to you as the tears in your eyes floated away in front of the broken glass. "I'm sorry, Senku"

And the coldness of the space hugged you and all noise became silent.

Space claimed the last body in its infinite vastness as the ship flew without course.

***

"We received an transmission!" An employee warned to the whole room.

Senku's attention were on edge after not receiving any data from the ship you were on. You all were supposed to report in periodically, but hours have passed since the last communication and someone from CAPCOM mentioned a meteor shower that had not been factored into the route calculations.

The director of the NASA facility appeared and told the employee to play the broadcast on the room's enormous screen.

You appeared with a really bad look and Senku knew something was wrong. "For anyone seeing this call, I'm sorry for the informalities, but... Today we faced a meteor shower and it far surpassed us... The crew is dead and I'm the last one, but... I'm not gonna make it", Senku's heart squeezed inside his chest as he heard your broken voice, "I assume that, the moment this call reach you all, I'm going to be dead because of the ship implosion"

Everybody in the room held their breath as the devastating news hit them. The director, trying to keep his cool, informed the media retinue to prepared an audience to inform this to the people.

"I can only add that we were doing as much as we could to fix the problems, but we couldn't beat the unpredictability of space", your voice broke, "And, as a last message to my partner..." the alarms could be heard from the background of the broken ship, "I know you will see this, Senku"

Everybody in the room looked at him. They suspect something was going on in between you too, but they never asked if it was true or not.

"I'm sorry for not being able to come back" your tears floated in front of the glitching screen, "But I want you to know that I've enjoyed every moment by your side and that this..." you looked at your surroundings, "It some trial and error". You returned your eyes to the screen, to him. "But we weren't any of that, and, before you say it's cheesy, I don't regret any minute"

Senku tried to hold his tears from escaping.

"The only thing I regret it's not being able to hear your scientific explanations as old people" you let a soft laugh that contrasted to the chaotic scene behind you as the space destroyed the ship. "Goodbye, Senku."

He needed you.

Meanwhile, you weren't to different from his situation. Sometimes you asked yourself if he did it on purpose or not, but he often would eat juicy fruits and the juice would drip from his mouth like an invitation, and your mind was to fucked up to ignore the slurping sounds and the way his lips embraced the fruit, so you found your relief at night when everybody was asleep.

You needed him.

You two got caught up in this dirty dance that the fruits started and needed to escape from this tension that consume you both.

And, of course, Gen was enjoying every second of it. He didn't expected you both to fall deep in his little experiment, but now, he knew he needed the results, he couldn't watch the two confused subjects chasing each other without an ultimatum. So, Gen needed to plant the final incentive to get the test subjects to start dancing to his tune.

***

All this growing feelings because of an watermelon, you thought while watching the scientist, your childhood friend, working in another experiment. Since the watermelon, you've been questioning yourself about this emotions of yours; if they were mere sexual instincts caused by shared past, then it wouldn't be a problem, but, if it was more than that, it could lead to heart to heart conversations that you very much knew Senku wouldn't do and your whole dynamic would change.

Was it worth it?

Perhaps trying to satisfy that desperate urge you had wasn't the best option.

You were conflicted.

"What's on your mind?" Gen voice startled you. You looked at him and saw his curious gaze on you with his characteristic hands inside his large sleeves. "It's obvious something is bothering you"

His singing voice wasn't a good signal for you, but in this moment, you couldn't care less about that. "I'm having troublesome feelings" you shrugged trying to downplay it.

"Let me guess..." he joked as he made a thinking face, "Senku-chan" he snapped his fingers and you nodded. "Well, troublesome feelings you said, tell me about that"

"Maybe I shouldn't be around him in a while, he doesn't do feelings and everybody's been keeping an eye on us caused by the tension" you scrunched your nose, "I know it's pretty obvious"

Gen analyzed your words carefully; even if he wanted the drama between you two, he needed the whole context to pull the correct strings. "But did you always had this feelings towards him?" And you shook your head, "Since when then?"

"We have always been friends", you played with your hands trying to calm down the wild beating in your chest, "But, I just... I've seen him differently for some days by now"

"Then why not to give it a shot?" Gen knew it was Senku the one you two were talking about, but the scientist seemed immersed in his thoughts lately. And since he woke you up, he always kept you close, so Senku never pushed you away.

You deadpan at him, "It's Senku" you stated with obviously.

"It's worth the try" and he walked away to leave you with the seed of intrigue in mind.

***

"Senku-chan" Gen's voice startled him a little, "I've seen you a little stressed lately, maybe you need to relax a little and see where the wind leads you"

Senku frowned, "What are you talking about, mentalist?" he kept pouring the chemicals together and annotating the changes.

"Oh, you know" his singing voice was bad omen for the scientist. "You work so hard every day, I assume you deal with a lot of chaos"

Senku lift an eyebrow at him, "You have to deal with that to make progress"

"Yeah," he shrugged. Gen wasn't a fan of hard work, "Everybody needs vacations"

The scientist was tired of his mind games thanks to his stupid experiment suggestion; you started to act strange thanks to Gen's ideas and he knew that, it wasn't a surprised after your swallow-the-banana act days ago.

"So that's your point?" Senku leaved the chemicals on the table to watched him. "You're telling me to rest?"

"I'm just saying" Gen shrugged again as he walked away from the lab, "You can relax a little once in a while"

But Gen wasn't talking about projects.

***

The next days were calmer.

And weirder.

No teasing, no fruits spectacles or suggestive demonstrations.

Senku was confused about that, but he didn't mind the quiet, but the questions remained in his mind every moment he saw you around.

What did change?

That day you were helping him in the lab with the chemical measurements.

Why did you stop?

The next day you listened to him and his new projects for the village.

Did you grew tired of him?

You were having fun with Suika and Kohaku in the beach.

Is it the end?

He needed to know.

***

"Hey" he greeted you as you entered the lab to check on him.

You smiled at him, "Hey, everything's alright?"

I should be asking you that since you stopped chasing me, he thought. "Yeah, I just need a little of sulfuric acid"

"Okay, right away!" You said and looked for it in the shelves.

Tension.

Even when you weren't trying, when you weren't chasing him, when you weren't surprising him with fruits, he felt the tension around you two in that little compartment.

He wanted to reach you.

He wanted to break this tension.

He wanted to break free from expectations. 

Senku wanted you. 

You can relax a little once in a while, Gen's words echoed in his mind.

Is this what he truly meant?

"Here's the sulfuric acid" you mentioned as you showed him the dangerous liquid. You left the chemical on the table and, just as you were about to pull your hand away, he grabbed your arm, "Senku?"

He watched you carefully.

All these years wondering, all these years waiting, all these years longing for you, all of it at the palm of his hand as soon as he speak, as long as he confess, as long as he make the first step into it.

"I..."

His eyes were glued to yours searching for a glimpse of rejection, a glimpse of doubt, a glimpse of something that wasn't love. But your eyes were waiting for him patiently.

No questions, no rejection, no doubt.

A single step.

"I... just..."

"Yeah?"

I've been waiting so long for you, he wanted to confess, but it sounded to cheesy.

I want you, he wanted to admit, but it sounded to needy.

Be mine, he wanted to say, but it sounded to desperate.

"You know what? Fuck it" Senku said and grabbed your face to kiss you deeply, hungry, desperate. All this stupid build up tension, all this unsolved feelings, all this sexual desire finally exploding into the fighting tongues and desperate touches.

You tried to keep the messy and harsh rhythm he made as he quickly grabbed you by the shoulders and pull you close to him to protect you from the curious eyes of the people outside the lab. You broke the kiss and let your heavy whimpers escape while recovering from the crazy beating on your chest. "What are you doing?" you asked trying to sound casual and not like you ran a kilometer, but you failed miserably.

"Solving the tension between us" he simply said as he took his tunic off in a quick movement.

"Wait, like, right now?!" you screamed in whispers as you saw him undress himself.

"Then when?" he was just in his underwear, "They will heard you at night, you are kind of loud"

Did he heard your moans?, you asked to yourself. But he was right, at night, every little sound becomes really loud without the sound of cars or people having fun like in your time. You looked at him and proceed to undress too under his attentive eyes on your movements. Comically, you felt kind of shy doing this with the high possibility of the villagers finding you two in the middle of it, but at the same time it excited you and you didn't know why, maybe it was the adrenaline kicking in, or maybe the excitement of being accomplices in this act, either way, now you didn't care.

You took all your clothes off and approached to him as whimpers and moans escape from Senku's mouth as he stroked himself over and over again to release the tension he built up over these days as he admire you and awaited for you.

You knelt in front of him and you replace his hands movements.

You sucked and he tried to hide his moans with his right hand as the left one caressed your hair and helped you to keep a steady rhythm. The rest of him was being stroked by your hand as you keep licking his tip and leaving kisses all over his shaft.

"Ah, fuck" he muttered and it was like music in your ears. His voice being completely fucked up because of you gave you some sense of pride you never knew you needed in your life.

He look down and saw your careful movements on him; how you swallowed him whole and your saliva covered him as your hands pet him charmingly.

It was like seeing a whole constellation in person.

This was exactly what he dreamt about every night since you teased him with the banana, but you caressed his thighs and leaved kisses all over his crotch which immediately exceeded his fantasy expectations.

You kept stroking and sucking as you felt how wet you were getting over this scene in front of you; Senku's thighs trembling while he threw his head back trying to hold back moans as he caressed your hair.

God, you found your new obsession.

"I'm... close" You heard Senku's voice as a small whisper as you continued to pet him, "Don't stop". It was the closest thing to a plead that you ever heard from him as his breathing was almost inaudible. You kept licking his tip and stroking his shaft in different places and with different rhythms to make his pleasure to last a little longer. "Fuck"

Yeah... Fuck, you thought, this was something I weren't expecting, but I would never complaint.

You felt his body shivering more than before and his moans escape animalistically from his throat and, a few seconds later, you felt a hot liquid fill your mouth and, without a second thought, you swallow it. Senku panted in bliss and watched you astonished, "Wait, did you-?"

"Yep" you interrupted him with a innocent smile on your face.

He looked puzzled for a second, "I was about to warned you that it taste salty primarily due to its alkaline chemical composition, which includes minerals such as zinc, calcium, potassium and sodium, in addition to water and fructos..."

"God, shup up", you rolled your eyes at his explanation, "Like if all that mattered"

"Jezz" he didn't expected you to be that straight forward, but he thanked you mentally for that.

You stood up and kissed him again while your hands caressed his shoulders and you grabbed his neck to pull him closer, and he drew you towards him by the waist.

Science explained that you don't really touch any surface, but you couldn't care less right now about that fact, you wanted him close to you, to touch every inch of his body and caressed every hair and muscle, to kiss every part of his body until every inch had your lips imprinted on him.

You were drunk in sensations.

You were drunk in him.

Since the watermelon, every breath you take, every gaze you gave, every word you said... You wished was his.

Kohaku was right that you needed time. Time to comprehend that everything you search for was right beside you from the beginning, everything you prayed for right in front of your eyes, the man you wanted was given to you from before and he stood by your side right now in shared complicity as you two please each other.

Senku held you close and broke the kiss, "Come here" he ordered you as he showed you the table and you sat on it. "Lie there". He caressed your body completely exposed to him and his hands found your legs to split them apart.

"This is what you thought about that day, right?" he asked and his breath hit your entrance. You moaned at the sensation as he kept you still, "You wanted me here, doing this to you". Senku approached his lips to your pussy and gave it soft kisses as a starter, but then he licked it while he used your thighs as support so you didn't squished him.

"Ah, that's it" you whimpered as he licked your clit and then your entrance. This was the scene that allowed you two to get to this point; Senku between your legs as your juices dripped over his chin while he grabbed your thighs, the scene you dreamt about since he ate the damn watermelon. "Feels... so good, Senku", you caressed his hair and grab some to pull him impossibly closer to your vagina.

He kept licking and slurping and you closed your eyes holding in the sensations he gave you.

Senku liked the sounds that emanated from you as he, after years, finally tasted you. When he first met you, he thought of you as a friend and he always thought that you would remain that way, but as time passed, his eyes saw you differently. And when he knew about his dad, he appreciated time. That's the reason he woke you up. Being without you hurt him, and he learned how precious time was.

And now he wanted to enjoyed you as much as time allowed him to.

Your breathing become unsteady as pleasure overtake you and you felt some tears escape from your eyes. "Keep going" you muttered and covered your eyes as the other one kept caressing his hair.

You felt as he stopped, "Are you crying?"

It took you a little of effort to answer, "No, I'm not"

"Don't lie" he teased you by applying pressure on your clit and some wild tears escape without control.

You whimpered and panted hot and heavy breaths, "Oh my-" you held your breath for a second to not to scream and caught everyone's attention. "Maybe I am a little..., but because it feels so good"

"Crying because it feels good" he repeated your words in a breathy summary. He didn't knew that from you and it fascinated him in ways that ignited something inside him, something he didn't knew but liked a lot. Senku returned to your pussy and licked knowing the perfect spots for your pleasure. He wanted to see that reaction from you again and again.

You held back tears and whimpers as he did you good.

And Senku enjoyed every second of your pathetic intent as he watched you attentively.

Crying because it feels good.

Crying because it feels good.

Crying because it feels good.

The words repeated like a broken record in his mind.

Sneku wanted you to feel good.

Insanely good.

He caressed your legs as he bite you.

"Oh, my-" you bit your lip quickly to suppress the moans, "Senku!" you reprimanded him in whispers and he snickered against your sensitive skin.

Your broken voice called something primitive inside his being as tears filled your eyes.

Your moans sang to him like a siren to a sailor and your caresses in his hair felt like water after being thirsty for months.

He couldn't feel more satisfied.

"Senku" you whimper his name like a prayer as all your nerves flew through you, "I'm close". Your unsteady breathing telling him to speed up as he held your legs and kissed them gently. The gesture calling your attention at how it contrasted with the intensity of before.

This was his way of telling you thank you.

He returned his attentions to your entrance and you held him there.

Say my name.

Say my name.

Say my name.

He prayed.

You kept moaning quietly, as you could, as pleasure took every piece of your self and his name become your breathe and every beating of your heart was thanks to him.

Senku received your climax as your moans became silence and your shared heavy breaths filled the room with smell of chemicals and sweat.

You both panting uncontrollably as bliss filled your minds and your sore bodies asked for time out.

"So..." you reached for your clothes as you kept overthinking about your relationship; Are you still friends? Friends with benefits? One sun set stand? Or something more? All the tension might be gone by now, but what if it came back? Or, now that you two gave each other this kind of attention your dynamic is different? You needed answers as your clothing protected your heart. "What do we do now?"

Senku analyzed all the years by your side, all the years waiting for you and people's implications over you two. Maybe he needed to lose up a little his walls, to let you in and to enjoy the time that, he knew, couldn't come back. Between you two there was something worth keeping and to take care of, something that bloomed and he needed to preserve it as much as he could.

"I'm bad with words... You know that" he mumbled as his lungs came back to normal, "But I want to try" he looked at you. "I want you in my life"

Relief passed through your body and you smile at him, "I want you too".

𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸

STUCK IN A FEELING | CHAPTERS

𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸

"Be honest, Suika, I won't mind" you let the glass on the floor as you sighed expecting the worst-case scenario possible in your head. "Did I do something embarrassing last night?"

She seemed thoughtful about the question. Suika took some seconds before saying "I wouldn't say that it was embarrassing, but you fell asleep on Senku"

Ah, shit.

"Okay, I get it." You got up from your bed and grabbed the glass, "Let's go, there's something I must do, and I will teach you some things while we are in the route"

She jumped with joy and followed you.

***

Days passed and you taught Suika how the engine of the ship worked as well as many vehicles from your time. She listened carefully as you speak and showed her the tools and pieces to work them with. Kaseki and Chrome join to heard the explanations and you showed them blueprints of those machines.

And while you taught them, Senku supervised from afar.

"Hey, Senku-chan" Gen greeted him with a knowing voice, "You seemed distracted, any reason for that?"

"What are you talking about, you damn mentalist?"

Gen looked at him while Senku kept his gaze on you all, "Since the party after the poker game you have been acting a little different"

"How different?"

"Thoughtful"

"That ain't that much different"

"I guess so", the white and black hair man shrugged. "But you always keep an eye on her"

"You can't drop the topic, can you?" Senku tried to avoid the topic as much as he could. Since the beginning Gen tried to make him talk about you. "We focus on the road map, that's it"

Gen doubted that it was so simple.

And Senku often thought about that night.

***

"Yeah, we will" and you kept drinking. You wondered for a while some things and you discovered that overthinking tasted bad with alcohol, but you needed to ask. "What will you do after we finish this Why-Man?"

"Why you ask?"

I just want a normal life with you in it, you thought, but you couldn't say that to him. "Just curious"

Senku frown and shrugged, "Keep working in the next project, you know that"

Maybe it was the effect of the alcohol kicking in, but you wanted to tell him everything you kept secret inside for years. All this people's comments, all this moments, all this time... "Don't you want something else?"

"Like what?"

You got up and stared at him. You knew that look of his; he was hiding himself because he clearly knew what you meant by that, but he decided to play the fool. When you were kids, you asked him the same question and he replied that his experiments and knowledge were all he aspired to in life, that love was a foolish thin and a complete waste of time. Maybe it was useless talking about this with him, you thought, but maybe something could have change after so many years.

You walked to the railing and the waves salute you, "You know, like a family or something". The wind hit you and the alcohol too. What did François made for you?

Senku scratched the back of his neck thoughtful, "Why do you ask that? I mean, Is that even relevant right now?". He watched you as you hold onto the ship. "Hey, you're okay or are you already drunk?"

"I can handle it" you dismissed his worry by waving your hand and turn to walk to him.

"As I said, it's not relevant right now, first we need to finish the road map for the cities, then proceed with the rocket and see if we can survive the Why-Man" he explained and your head hurt a little, "And if we are lucky and solve the mystery, then see what's the next thing to do. So thinking so far ahead it's a waste of time and you know that"

You rested your head in his shoulder as dizziness filled your whole body, "Jeez, you talk to much"

"You asked" he shrugged and smiled smugly at your state, "And now you're probably with a headache".

"I'm not," you lift your eyes to find his, "Shup up, Senku"

He snickered "Make me". Senku thought you would walk away or ignore him like when you were teenagers, but he didn't expected you to grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed him.

The moment your lips met his, he could have just push you away, but he didn't want to. He let you because, for once, we wanted to enjoy a moment, to enjoy something without hiding himself, without pretending he didn't care. And he knew he didn't need to hide around you, you knew him very well, but the expectations were louder and tasks demanding; his time was focused on the crew, on the trip, on the future of the civilization.

But now your lips tasted like your beverage and like hope. And maybe he could use part of his time thinking of a future with you.

Like he used to before the petrification.

You were the drunk one right now, but Senku thought he was dreaming, he felt light as a feather as he grabbed the back of your neck to keep you closer.

Your kiss was soft, relaxed and a little messy, but at the same time innocent and hopeful. You probably wouldn't remember this moment, but you didn't care. You wanted him to know, to Senku to understand what you were hiding, for him to wait and to not lose hope and encapsulate himself from you.

He wanted to keep going, but he broke the kiss, "Wait" he tried to push you away as gently as he could while you tried in vane to kiss him again, "You're drunk."

You pouted and look at him, "Are you being soft right now?" you teased him.

"You wish" he rolled his eyes and deadpan at you.

You laughed softly against his shoulder, "Oh, you are! You're cute." Your state told Senku that you definitely were out of your senses.

"Shup up"

"Make me" your voice became barely a whisper as your laugh disappear.

"You know I can't do that now", he hold you as you rested your weigh on him, "First the road map, and maybe we...", he heard your breathing change its rhythm and your limbs to lose it balance. "Did you really just fell asleep on me?" he snickered, "Unbelievable"

You two stayed like that for a while as the moonlight illuminated the ship and the waves alongside the screams of the people were the only sound; you rested on his shoulder and he held you close so you didn't fell.

Senku thought about the conversation, your childhood together and all the things that he kept hide. He wondered of how to tell you that his point of view changed, that he wanted something for himself for once. Could he tell you?

"Is she okay?" Suika's voice caught his attention while she watched your state with worry.

"Yeah, she's fine, it's been a while since she drank alcohol, it was obvious that she was going to get dizzy" Senku shrugged, "Just let her rest in her room"

"Okay" Suika held your hand and walked beside you to lead you to your room.

The taste of alcohol in your lips remained in his memory as he watched you leave.

***

"Land!"

Music to your ears. As much as you enjoyed the ocean, you wanted to do something more than to check the engine and the lab-car only to verified that it was in perfect shape over and over again.

"Finally", you stretched in your seat on deck, "We've arrived"

"Yes, we finally made it" Suika was so happy beside you as the wind was blowing on you two and against the sails. "The Americas!"

As the fog dissipated, the land become visible. The shore was filled with human statues and a sour feeling presented inside you.

All the thoughts you had when you woke up came back to you. All the city was gone, nothing could be recoverable... everything's gone. And the people were trapped in stone; tons of them trapped on the shore, in the dirt and under water.

"What a devastating sight", you thought.

***

"Finally in the US!" Taiju screamed as everybody descended from the ship.

"Lilian's homeland" Nikki mumbled beside you.

"Ha!, so this is North America!" Kohaku looked everywhere like a cat in a new place and you laughed a little at her energy, "I've heard a lot about it, so I've been wondering what it's like... but it doesn't look much different from Japan"

"It's just forest" Magma commented.

"That's because everything humanity build before is gone, but if that wasn't the case, the were be tons of constructions" you explained.

"Yeah, I guess all the distinctly United States landmarks are all gone" Yuzuriha added.

The group admired the sequoias and their immense size when you felt Suika hiding behind you from a bird. "That one's scary" she commented and you hold her close.

"Suika, let's go"

"We'll split into two teams here at the Sacramento River" Ryusui mentioned, "The resource acquisition team will remain on the ship, and the corn scout team will head toward the interior."

"I assume the battle team will be escorting the scout team to deal with any wild animal encounters" Tsukasa said and you had a bad feeling about the place.

"Yeah, and in any circumstance, Y/n knows how to shoot" Gen added and you deadpan at him.

Everybody split to their respective vehicle and the mission started.

The battle team ship wasn't at a high range from the lab-car as you all followed the river.

"Let's get this corn search started!" Chrome said.

"So optimistic, Chrome" Gen commented, "You have no idea how big United States is"

"We aren't even sure US's beloved corn hasn't already hybridized" Senku explained from the lab-car's hatch. "There's a region called the Corn Belt. If there's still corn around, that's where we'll likely find it"

"Okay, well, the point is we should find corn up this river, right?" Chrome insisted in his previous statement. "Let's get moving!"

You laughed, "Gen's right, you're very optimistic Chrome"

"Yeah, that's why he's our exploration leader" Gen added.

Ukyo opened the periscope and watched the exterior. "Fall is almost over" he informed, "We are at the end of corn season."

"Yeah, that's why we needed to hurry" you remember the fight over the days and laughed a little about it.

"Yeah, but it won't be an issue" Senku mentioned, "The planet goes through a thing called precession, basically, it's the same thing as how a top teeters as it spins". You looked at him while he explained as you heard the relief in his voice. "Luckily for us, thanks to the planet's axis moving slightly over the past three thousand seven hundred years, the climate is offset by about nine days"

"Nice" Taiju was radiant, "So we just barely made it!"

"What has me more worried is the subtle ecological changes as a result of the change in climate" the scientist added, "We'd better hope we don't get attacked by any big creatures"

"Senku, don't start" you pleaded. You knew that, every time he said something like that, it happened.

Gen made a noise.

"What?"

"There you go jinxing it again, Senku-chan!" he screamed. "No, I get it now! It's not bad luck or anything, there's no such thing as luck!" he lose it. You blinked astonished as he rambled. "Science man Senku-chan's just telling us the worst-case scenario because he knows it'll happen!"

"You done?". The crocodiles hit the lab-car and all of you lost your balance and stumbled, "Senku, get inside!"

"It's a float of US's crocodiles!" Ryusui informed trying to control the lab.

"There'a so freaking many of them!" Chrome screamed.

"Yeah, this is their territory now" you mentioned as the battle team ship approached. They all started to attack the crocodiles and Ryusui could maintain the control of the ship. "Ah, well, this is going to take a while"

***

"We're in the US, which means we aren't leaving before we have some of this" Ryusui snapped his fingers as everybody relaxed at the shore of the river as crocodile hamburgers were being made by François.

"How's the lab-car" Senku's voice appeared behind you as you checked the wheels after the attack.

"Hard to say" you started, "Thankfully is not that bad, but some bolts are broken, and don't get me started by the bites"

"Are the wheels perforated?"

"Yes and no" you got up and showed him, "Some aren't that deep, but this one is."

He observed you as you pointed to the spots, "How long will it take?"

You hummed, "Just a few minutes, probably half an hour, with Kaseki's help it will be faster though"

"Senku!" Tsukasa's voice called your attention. "One of the crocodiles had swallowed this," and he threw something at your direction and Senku grabbed it.

"Corn" your childhood friend mumbled.

"That means we are close" you said and smiled at him.

"Yeah, we've found the key to reviving all of humanity upstream!"

You quickly grabbed your tools and went to replace the broken bolts. "I will finish this thing so we can go first thing in the morning"

"Alright" he smiled and walked away.

Suika approached you and listened to the things you were teaching her as you fixed the wheels with attention.

You were filling the holes caused by the crocodiles bites when you heard someone approaching. "Hey, leave that for a moment and eat" Senku brought a plate for you.

"Thanks, Senku"

"Anytime"

***

"This is the life-giving corn!" Chrome said holding the one Tsukasa found inside the crocodile's stomach.

You observed them from the copilot's seat while Ryusui drove. "Yeah, the OP corn crop of the US" Senku exclaimed, "The great Yellow Dent"

"OP corn?" Gen asked.

"It taste horrible though, but we can get alcohol out of it insanely efficiently" Senku seemed happy.

"Which means we're finally reviving the whole world!" Taiju screamed in happiness at the lab's hatch.

Senku followed him, "Although, I have no idea how much of this corn is left"

"But is all good, we only need a little and we can grow a ton more" Taiju added and you nodded even when they couldn't see you. He was right after all.

"It'll be a race against time either way" Ryusui mentioned, "We need to face our enemy before they get to us first; to face Why-Man"

"Yeah, we're gonna get right to work making Corn City" Senku said.

"We can be sure they're growing up ahead" Ukyo mentioned.

Chrome was happy with the information, "There's got to be a crap ton!"

But something felt weird in all of this. "Does corn really drift conveniently down the river, though?" Senku asked and you understood the real question behind. It couldn't be a coincidence that you all found the corn that easily.

"Could be someone out there that did all the work?" you mumbled and the group heard you.

Nobody answered, but everybody had the same thought; if there's someone out there, is it friendly or a possible threat?

***

Ryusui stopped the ship when Senku asked him to do so and the battle one stopped theirs too. Everybody went to the shore and awaited for Senku's instructions while he created something.

"What are you making in such a hurry, Senku-chan?" Gen approached the lab-car, "A white cloth over the light?"

"You'll attract bugs with such a bright light at night" Taiju warned Senku.

Senku grabbed an insect catcher, "That's the plan. It's a light trap... We can tell what's in the area from whether or not we attract phototactic bugs" Tons of bugs appear right away above the light and the scientist caught a few. "If I'm right about this... European corn borers, these moths thrive on corn, so there's a boatload of corn nearby"

"Butterflies, huh?" Kohaku watched the bugs flying around the light, "They're beautiful"

"Well, they're moths" Gen corrected her.

"Butterflies are moths, we humans just gave them a different name" Ukyo mentioned, "They have a mystical beauty about them, huh?"

You walked around in the meantime to stretch your legs a little while they all talked about the insects.

The crickets echoed in the forest loudly and the river remained quiet. Something about tonight felt uneasy to you.

You saw Tsukasa supervising the forest and you approached him, "Hey, is everything alright?"

"I sense..." There was something in the forest, something at the top of them. "Bloodlust"

"What is it?" Kohaku approached at his words. "Is it a beast of some sort?"

"We don't know" you informed and tried to listen to the creature threaten all of you. Suddenly a familiar smell hit your nose.

Gunpowder.

This person's armed.

It's a heavy machine.

Suddenly you heard a click and you recognized that sound. "Is a machine gun!" you screamed at the group and all of them looked at you, "Everybody cover yourself and get on the boats!"

Bursts of bullets emanated from the top of the tree and panic began in the crew. The person attacked the path to the boats and the most prepared warriors.

So this person knows who to attack first, you thought while running to the lab-car, but you were stopped by bullets on your way there.

One of the bullet's rubbed your arm and you hissed at the cut.

Shit.

You could only ran as Tsukasa helped the defenseless ones and Kohaku tried to dodge the bullets. Gen and the others got inside as the bullet's rain hit the lab-car. 

That was your opportunity, as the mysterious person attacked the ship, you could tried to catch one of the bullets on your way.

You all needed information after all.

As Senku protected himself with the lab-car's hatch door, you found one in the sand and saved them in one of your belt pockets.

The bullet rain followed you as you got inside the lab-car and heard Ryusui's voice on the front, "Don't underestimate a sailor's maneuvering!". You only thanked mentally that he didn't went out of the ship as he drove you all out of that shore.

Your breath was crazy on your lungs as you tried to recover yourself from the adrenaline.

"Are you all relatively safe?" Ryusui asked.

"You... could say... that" you mumbled.

"How? Who would have a machine gun?" Gen shivered as he spoke. And it was understandable, in the stone world, to create something like that was nuts.

And here you thought Senku's gun was shitty, you snickered to yourself. Every gun was shit against a machine gun.

"The only possibility is that someone revived on their own, like Senku did" Ukyo commented and you nodded. It was selfish of all of you to assume you were the only one's awake. Maybe there's people awake on Africa, South America or Europe, who knows. You couldn't know.

You fiddle with your pockets looking for the bullet as you panted. An 9mm, you thought as you analyzed it, you weren't pleased by the sight of it. It had two cannons; a machine gun with that capacity and power.. it could be an MG42. That's the easiest machine gun you could create in this era. And, if they had that much power in the stone world, you could expect more from this person... or group.

"Y/n-chan?" Gen checked on you. "You alright?"

"I'm fine"

"No, you are not" Senku knelt in front of you. "Let me check that" You couldn't hide from him, so willingly showed him your arm and he cleaned the cut. "What information did you gather?"

"Huh?" The guys were confused, "Information?"

"This is the bullet they used, an 9mm" Ukyo caught it, "I supposed it's a double cannon MG42"

"Oh, right, you know about armament and strategy" Gen remembered your first conversation.

"The person that attacked us knew who were the strongest warriors among us, this person cut out our path so we didn't reached the boats and used heavy weaponry" you sighed. Senku applied a cloth in your wound.

"So?" Gen asked.

"My guess?" They looked at you expectantly, "It's from the army"

𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸

"You know?" You heard Ruri's soft voice behind you. You didn't know how long has she been there and you didn't care as you felt a few tears run wild in your face. "When we heard your name for the first time, we were confused of who you were that the funder of the village mentioned you". She walked to stand beside you in front of the speaker. "We asked Senku and he only said that you were important, someone that could help everyone in the future"

You heard the same words coming from Kohaku before. You let a little laugh escape remembering that moment.

"He trusts you" She said and you looked at her.

"I know he does," you murmured between sobs. "I've done everything I can to not let him down"

Ruri smiled softly at you and patted your shoulder.

When you arrived to Japan, Senku, without a word gave you the disc Kohaku mentioned in the Treasure Island and so you went to listen to it while the rest went to awake the sleeping beauty, the stronger fighter on the stone world.

Tsukasa.

And without missing a beat, everything moved fast after that; orders, shipload, supplies and provision for the next destiny.

You were fixing some parts of the lab-car when you heard someone clearing their throat. From under the car you saw some legs and quickly guessed the person waiting for your attention. "Do you need something from me, Minami?"

"I... I wanted to apologize" Her voice seemed nervous and timid. You frown from confusion even when she couldn't see your expression.

You slide yourself with the help of the creeper and, from your spot, gaze at her. "Why would you apologize? As far as I know, you didn't do anything to me."

She hugged herself and looked apologetic. "I didn't trust in your knowledge when Senku talked about you" Oh, so that's the issue, you thought. "But now I see how wrong I was, I'm so-"

"Don't" You interrupted her and straightened still sat on the creeper. "I don't need that" You stretched while you yawned.

"But... I misjudged you" She looked confused at your dismissal.

"Yeah, whatever" You shrugged. "You are not the first and won't be the last, so, it doesn't matter to me as long as I can still do my job and be helpful" You stand up and smiled at her. "I'll worry once I discover I'm not longer useful"

She laughed a little, "You sound strangely familiar, did you know that?"

Familiar? To who?

You didn't understand what she meant by that.

"Hey, now that I think about it, you never saw them" Now you were completely confused; what's Minami talking about? "Come with me for a moment"

You sighed and left your tools on the floor. You cleaned a little the dirt on your clothes and followed the journalist to a little place with the cameras Senku created. From there you could hear the shoutings about the supplies for the ship and so many others requests.

Jeez, the village is a complete chaos with the next trip so soon, you thought.

"Watch them" Minami said and then you understood her previous words. She was referring to the photographs she took when the village built the boat.

Lots and lots of pictures hang on the wall.

Pictures of Ryusui in the snowboard with the ghost of Kohaku by his side, Suika playing with Chalk, Ruri on the beach with Kohaku's ghost in the background, Ryusui doing measurements, you welding engine parts completely focused, everyone doing the massive drawing in the dirt to use the pantograph, the classes the kids took to learn to write and read, Senku building the tools with Kaseki and Chrome, you doing the blueprints with Senku by your side doing calculations for you and many other pictures.

"Why are you showing me this?" You asked still admiring the pictures. You felt a little emotional thanks to the recording, and seeing this didn't help your heart.

She shrugged a little. "Because memories are important, and maybe you needed this to take a little break from work"

"A break" you snickered as you quoted her, "Nice excuse"

You kept watching until you saw a pictured of you with Senku; it was the moment you two admired the ship when it was completed. The exact moment you looked at the ship and Senku's eyes were on you.

Minami saw the little smile that appeared on your face and she felt that her job was done.

***

"What are you doing, Y/n?" Suika asked as you kept moving your hands with the pieces on the table in front of you.

You showed her the messy blueprints you made, "A modern gun"

Suika looked curious and confused at the same time that you thought she was really cute. "Another gun, why? Senku made one in the island"

"Because he made a shitty one", you said easily as you pointed into the forest.

"Woah, careful with that!" Gen said while dodging the direction you were pointing. "A gun?"

"Relax, Gen" you left the gun in the table. "It's not loaded, I'm just checking the scope, that's all"

"But why did you built one?"

You sighed defeated. "Because, in the Treasure Island I saw how helpless I am", They both looked at you and knew what you meant by that; you couldn't defend yourself against Ibara and you died. "This is just in case things go completely wrong"

"I get it, but..." Gen's worried voice called your attention. "Do you know how to shot?"

You nodded. "Yeah, like I told you once, the military teaches you many things"

***

Kaseki and Yuzuriha led the team towards the dome that Senku had instructed them to build. "We've finished the spaceship road map!" they said as the massive globe came to view. It was so magnificent the whole place filled with 'whoa' and surprised sounds.

You crossed your arms and snickered. "I think you offended them when you said quick and messy model" You whispered close to Senku's ear when you saw his surprised expression.

"Whoa, is this a city?" Chrome's voice caught your attention.

"I'm interested in the superalloys!" Ryusui's energetic voice came in. "I want it!"

"You have crazy hungry eyes" Gen wasn't surprised about Ryusui's greediness.

"We're going to be digging up materials from all over the world" Senku explained. "We're going to wake up statues everywhere and build new cities!"

"That a little bit ambitious, isn't it?" Gen asked sweating cold.

"It's realistic" You commented, "We need a lot of materials and people"

"We're finally going to save all seven billion humans, right?!" Taiju screamed happy.

"Yeah, that's right" Senku turned to his friend, "We are all building it together". When the presentation was over, a few went to talk outside the dome while the rest decided to stay to hear about the trip plan. "It looks like we are circumnavigating the planet eastward"

"Good", Ryusui showed the route with an tiny boat through the globe as Senku mentioned. "A cross-Pacific voyage right from the start!". Some people were surprised by the route map due to the large amount of water and the distance to the next destination. It was pretty understandable for the non-modern people, they never made a trip like that before. "We're just like Columbus discovering the New World, so the first one to discover land will be awarded one hundred thousand draco!"

In a blink of an eye in the middle of cheering screams at the offer, Minami took Ryusui out of the dome.

You looked at the scene completely lost. "What was that about?" you looked at Senku and he only shrugged.

***

The chirping of crickets could be heard at dusk accompanying the stars.

The sound of some well-known steps behind you caught your attention from the moon. "Do you need something, Senku?"

"Nah, not for the moment" He sat next to you to watch the stars.

From the distance you saw the last remaining people doing the some arrangements for the ship as they went to sleep. Today was chaotic, tomorrow probably even more.

Let's enjoy the moment, you thought and stare at the sky once more. "You know? Maybe this will sound stupid, but I'm kind of glad for the stone world"

Senku watched the moon, "It does sounds stupid, why is that?"

"With light pollution we couldn't admire a starry night like this," you felt the cold breeze that announced the arrival of autumn and enjoyed the feeling of cold on your skin, "Now we can see as many stars as we want."

"Yeah, you're right" he mumbled and, unnoticed by you, his eyes stared at you from the corner of his eyes. "But it did sound stupid, all civilization's gone" and he snickered.

You let a laugh, "I know, I know" and your eyes found his, "But I also know that you can restore it". You took the disc out of one of your belt pockets and gave it back to him, "I'm ten billion percent sure of that".

Senku grabbed the disc and smirked. You kept believing in him blindly, he thought to himself and stayed by your side to admired the constellations.

***

"So, we're waking up all of humanity" Senku announced to the whole crew as he pressed the stress point on his ear with his pinky. "We're gonna need a ton of alcohol"

"Oh, that's right, the revival fluid is mostly alcohol" Yuzuriha mentioned.

"If we're going to wake up a mountain of people, no grape wine or potato wine is going to suffice" Kohaku added crossing her arms.

Senku spined the globe and watched the continents, "And that's why the first city we make is going to be...," The globe stopped and he pointed at the destination, "The city of corn in America"

The conversation continued regarding the importance of corn and how it was vital to rebuilding civilization, not only for the alcohol it provided, but also for the food it supplied. When the reunion was over with the promise of rebuilding United States, you checked the ship engine with Kaseki while everybody went to do the last arrangements for the ship.

"Everything seems okay" You mentioned to Kaseki while grabbing your tools and saving them in your belt.

"Oh-ho-ho, everything is ready", Kaseki was overjoyed, "We can set sail without problems"

You heard some steps approaching, "The ship's ready, Senku" you warned him before the scientist could ask.

He smirked at the news, "Then let's go". Senku called the rest of the crew so everybody went on board. You were curious for the next adventure, maybe it could be relaxing, or maybe more dangerous than the last one, but it didn't matter as long as Senku was alright. "Time for our global city-building tour!"

This time Suika was allowed to go with all of you because of her good job at the Treasure Island as long as somebody keeps an eye on her; you volunteered to do that as well to teach her a lot of things.

The new trip began and everyone was expectant.

"This is our first step on the road map to the moon" Kohaku said while admiring the ocean.

The smell of the ocean enveloped you and you remembered your childhood when two children dreamed of reaching for the stars and beyond.

You looked at Senku as he seemed thoughtful, just like you. "We're going to the moon, immediately" he said admiring the horizon.

"Yes, we are"

***

You heard Minami's voice as she walked around the ship interviewing people for the future while you where watching the ocean through the control room trying to ignore the elephant in the room while Ukyo talked to you about the radar and its instructions.

Everything was okay, but after a few minutes, a wild storm appeared and some discussions started on board.

And the elephant couldn't hide any longer.

"Seventy days!" Ryusui stated.

"Forty days!" Senku fired back.

You knew that the trip would take its time, but you weren't expecting them to fight over it with this much energy.

Suika ran scared of the outcome and Taiju came to stop them. "Fighting is bad!"

"Well, technically is not a fight" you mumbled and watched them being split by Taiju's strength.

"Fight?" Ryusui asked confused about Taiju's assumption. "We are not fighting, this is a discussion"

Taiju seemed confused, "Diss? You were dissing each other?"

"Yeah, that's right, meathead" Senku wasn't interested in further explanations, so he shrug it off and played along, you rolled your eyes, "We're fighting."

"Fighting is bad!"

"Crazy ability to learn" Gen said amused by Taiju's simplicity.

"You should have seen him when we where kids" you muttered and saw how the captain and the scientist on board kept and defend their opinions with conviction.

Ukyo walked to them, as the rest of the people in the room, and immediately understood the dilemma. "You're talking about the route to the US, right?"

"Yeah, that's right" you mentioned as Senku snickered.

"We departed from Tokyo," Ryusui explained, "And our destination is the US"

"Here," Senku stuck a pin into the map that was on the table and observed the people in the room, "What's the quickest route to San Francisco?"

"Straight, right?"

"Hang on, that's too easy" Chrome intervened, "This has to be a trick question"

Ryusui snapped his fingers pleased by the answer, "That's it! That's called the rhumb line, where you go in the same direction for the whole route. It make navigation easy, and it's how shops have been doing throughout most of history." All of the crew looked at him and the map with his explanation, "We're spending 70 days on that route to the US."

"So we nailed it!"

"Wrong!" Senku exclaimed, "Time for the happy right answer reveal... The shortest route would be this one" And he showed a route that looked longer, a few of them were surprised by his words.

"But that obviously take longer!"

"You don't believe me? Try comparing it for yourself on that globe" Senku awaited for Suika, Kohaku, Taiju and Chrome to do their measurements for the trip as they looked for ropes and a scissor, "What do you think?" he asked you.

"That you're showing off" you crossed your arms and watched them as they did the test.

"I'm talking about the route" he copied your stance and narrowed his eyes while looking at you.

"Oh," you shrugged, "Depends of our priorities, Ryusui's is the crew because they are newbies, but yours is the corn city and the thing is, if we don't get there before winter, we would lose our time in the US".

He sighed, "You're ten billion percent right"

Some exclamations called your attention; the guys finished their measurements, "The route that looked further on the map is actually a lot shorter!"

"That's what happens when it's a sphere" Senku approached them to explain, "That's the actual shortest distance, the great circle route, we're using this shortcut to get to the US in 40 days."

Ryusui faced Senku. "Seventy days! We're taking the rumble line!" The captain shouted. "The great circle route would have us steering constantly depending on our position, It's the max difficulty route!". You leaned against the wall of the room; this was going to take time. "The stress of the crew isn't even comparable!"

"Fourty days! Great circle route!" The scientist screamed back. "We're a ship of science! As janky as it is, we have our great lord the GPS! We can, ten billion percent, stay on course!

The tension felt heavy on the room as they confronted each other, "Guys, chill out, we can talk about this".

"It's super scary seeing out top two duke it out!"

Ryusui hit the table to catch Senku's attention, "They may have had some training, but they're still newbie sailors! I guarantee you we'll go down because you aren't crossing the Pacific with idealism!", the blonde man's point was correct, but the current instance was different from a normal trip, "I'm telling you, as a sailor, what's realistic!"

Senku straightened up a bit. "We won't make it in time for the yellow dent corn. We'll barely make it by fall if we arrive in 40 days" He explained more calmly his reasons, "That's as late as we can be if we're making revival fluid. Dick around for 70 days and it's going to be too late. We'll be losing a whole year of our insanely precious time... I'm laying out the logic as a science user"

"And we all are fighting against time and the Why-Man" you added, "We are being threaten by it and the petrification beam"

The room fell silent as both points of view were analyzed. Everybody knew that both of them were right, but what decision should be made?

Gen walked until he found his place behind the captain. "If they're both are right, I think I'm with Ryusui-chan on this one", he stuck his tongue out mockingly, "I can't stand arduous work."

"Why am I not surprised?" you mumbled beside your childhood friend.

Gen pointed at you, "You can't say much, you obviously are on Senku-chan's side"

You lifted your eyebrow, "Well... yeah, I see his point" you shrugged. What's he implying by that? How is that important for the current discussion?, you asked to yourself as people chose their side.

"Well, I support Senku" Kohaku mentioned, "Y/n is right, we are fighting this Why-Man, we need to get there as soon as we can"

"Of course you would say something like that, Kohaku-chan," Gen wasn't amused by her words, "You are always the immediate action type"

You looked at Ryusui who remained quiet, he seemed thoughtful. "Double the ration distribution for the crew" he said as lifting his gaze on Senku.

"Yeah, that's the answer" Senku agreed.

François step closer, "That'll halve our maximum voyage time, are you sure?"

Senku turned to look at her, "We'll be fine as long as we get there earlier"

Ryusui sighed, "We'll subtract ten days from our trip. No more than that, any more and I will step in for the sake of our crew".

Oh, here we go, you knew the outcome of this.

"Senku, I'll have to fight you" Ryusui warned him.

"Forty days" the scientist insisted firmly, "That's our time limit".

Ryusui was furious. Now that you think about it, maybe it's the first time you saw him that way. You have seen Senku mad before, so this spectacle wasn't new to you.

"Guess we'll have to do it!"

Men, you thought.

***

"Why did Ryusui asked for suits?" Senku complaint as you fixed his handkerchief around his neck.

You shrugged and warned him to stay still, "Because is poker, it's supposed to be elegant, or that's what he said"

He rolled his eyes, "Either way, you don't need the suits to play," he pouted and you snickered as his words.

"It's to impress those of this era" you finished your adjustments and admired him from head to toes, "And, even if you complain about the whole thing, you can deny that it suits you" you smirked at him, "Ha, get it?"

He snickered, "Of course I do, it's lame"

"Well" you walked to the door, "I'm going to keep an eye on the radar, somebody has to"

 He seemed confused for a moment, "Wait, aren't you going to watch the game?"

You shrugged, "I don't need to, I know you'll win"

"So much blind trust on me" he muttered and, because of the silence in the room, you heard him.

"I literally grew up with you, Senku" you drop the door handle and walked back to face him, "I know you will win, I don't need to be there to know that"

But I want you to, he thought. "Okay then, I'm taking that confidence of yours and give it good use"

You smiled at him and walked to the door, "See ya, winner"

***

You heard some noise and you immediately knew the game was over. You stretched on the chair and awaited for them to appear. It was the first time in so long that you had a moment for yourself since you were awake. Every day was filled to the brim with work, decisions and loud companions, so this moment felt somehow nostalgic for you.

Waiting for something, waiting for someone to find you.

It was like when you were petrified; you didn't knew what was going on, but you waited and waited.

And so they found you.

He found you.

"Senku won," Ukyo appeared with his fancy outfit in the control room, "Now we are doing his route, the great circle route". You nodded and heard the noise on the deck and watched as the whole crew celebrated and had fun. "Why don't you go too?"

"I will, eventually"

***

Laughs, screams and dices being threw filled the environment.

"Why don't you join us?" somebody asked when you refused to play.

"Maybe in other moment" was your usual excuse.

You didn't want to get used to gambling, the army and the workshop had a lot of it when you went there and you wanted a break from all that. You heard Ukyo's comment about some drinks, that's what you were looking for.

Something to distract yourself.

You wanted to drown some thoughts you had while helping Senku with his suit.

"François!" you saw her and immediately took a seat. She greeted you and immediately started to prepare something for you.

"Oh, finally you appear!" Ryusui's voice ringed in your ears, "You missed the poker game"

You shrugged and gave him a smirk "I knew who was going to win"

"Oh, you mean Senku" he laughed and gave you a knowing look, "I see"

François gave you your so dear drink and you disappear from your spot at the bar. You wanted peace, to relax and to ignore the feelings on your chest that ran wild like a new engine on a expensive car.

You sat close to the front of the ship and admired the moon with all its secrets.

"Now we'll be in the New World in no time" Senku mumbled by your side and you startle; you didn't hear his footsteps while you were overthinking.

"Yeah, we will" and you drank your words with the cocktail.

The last thing you remember was something about letting you rest.

𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸

𝗥𝗜𝗗𝗘 𝗢𝗥 𝗗𝗜𝗘 | 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦

𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸

"It seems that you are in full capacity" a manly voice entered the room and your vision focus on the man with a lab coat, "The program should be completed by now"

"Who are you?" a robotic voice emanated from you, followed by mechanical movements limited by a lack of flexibility.

"Dr. Senku" he presented himself while checking the laptop, "I made you"

You analyzed his answers and checked him and his current health measures. He was completely healthy and his heart rhythm was accelerated.

Status: overjoyed.

"What's my purpose? My directive?" you asked while focusing on him and his slow movements.

He looked at you and gave you a little smile, "You were created to accompany, that's your purpose" he explained and showed you the screen, "You check the people's behavior, health status and take care of them"

"Understood, Dr. Senku"

"Just Senku, you don't need formalities"

"Understood, Senku" you corrected yourself and programmed yourself to upgrade your data base, "Then who I need to take care of?"

His heart rate accelerated even more as he scratched the back of his neck, he was embarrassed you scanned. "For the moment, me"

New order: Take care of Senku.

***

For the next months you did your sole purpose; take care of Senku. You woke him up, prepared his meals and check on him every hour of the day.

Your scanners upgraded every moment you noticed his behavior. When he was frustrated, happy, sad and in his creative mode. He was, somehow, very predictable. You never scanned him feeling upset to the point of depression or completely angry. Once you asked him why, and his only response was "It's inefficient for my job".

You kept track of his progress with his inventions and experiments regularly by annotating them and helping him when he needed you. Sometimes he would invite people to the lab, and you would help them too. But you were confused by the rapid heart rate they exhibited when they saw you; you registered it as shock, but you didn't understand why.

When you asked Senku about it, he shrugged and said, "They weren't expecting a full working robot in the lab, just that, don't pay attention to that," and you obeyed as he ordered you to do.

"As you order, Senku"

New order: Don't pay attention to weird stares.

You kept doing your daily tasks and learned the way Senku liked his coffee, his tea, his ramen. You often followed him around the lab and the house, but never outside and you never asked why. You were programmed to help him, to take care of him, maybe he didn't need your presence outside of the space that you knew.

"Do you need my presence out there" you once asked as he walked to the door.

"No, I don't require your assistance" he grabbed his phone and keys, "Clean the rooms while I'm gone, I won't take long"

"As you order, Senku"

New order: Clean the house.

You started with the kitchen, then the dining room, then the laboratory taking care not to mess any experiments or projects with delicate cables, then you went upstairs to his room and proceeded with a small wardrobe that seemed forgotten in the immense house.

You cleaned some small objects from a box until you found a dusty picture.

You took a cloth and cleaned the glass and the frame.

It caught you attention the moment the picture was revealed.

The scene was beautiful; two persons hugging each other at the amusement park. One of them was Senku, your scanners detected he was in his twenties and so the girl by his side. They looked happy; she was radiant and Senku was overjoyed too.

He seemed in love.

You watched the picture and then looked at yourself on the full mirror in Senku's room.

You scanned the person beside Senku and you understood he made you to look like her.

Who was the woman on the picture?

What happened to that woman?

Why did you never seen her around?

Why did you look like her?

Why did Senku made you to look like her?

"So you find the truth" his voice was unmistakable, Senku was behind you and your scanners detected sadness and something you never registered before; Senku was mourning.

You turned around and observed him while he rested in the door frame, his state was evident; his eyes hidden under his eyelids and his heart rate was slower, hurt and, as humans say, broken.

"Senku" you called him and he closed his eyes like it hurt him to heard your voice calling his name, but you needed to ask, "Who is this person? Why did you design me to look like her?"

He sighed and you scanned that he was dealing with his emotions.

He was hurt, in grief.

"She was my partner" he explained in a quiet voice, "She died". He walked through the room till reach his spot beside you and took the picture from your robotic hands. "Your design was based on her because I couldn't let her go"

"You are mourning"

"Yes, I still do" he couldn't take his eyes from your smile framed in the picture, "Your voice, your appearance, your duties, your whole existence, everything you do is based on her", he sounded hopeless, tired, devastated, "You take care of me like she used to do."

You registered his answers, his feelings and his heart rate in your data base. "You miss her" 

He snickered and you registered as trying to protect himself from vulnerability. "You don't even know what that word means"

"You may be right, as a robot I don't understand most of the emotional spectrum, but you've managed to make me understand them" you explained, trying to prevent him from taking refuge. "But I can register that the absence of this person is hurting you"

He couldn't let the picture go from his hands.

He missed you.

"Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?" you asked while patiently waiting for his answer.

He look up from the picture to you and the only thing he saw was your presence by his side, not the robotic one but your real being smiling at him like you always did.

He missed the days with you in the lab, your laugh, your eyes, your hugs and kisses. The way you remembered his projects, the way you knew the way he liked his coffee and tea, the way you hugged him when winter arrived and the way the leaves fell around you in autumn.

Even if he created a robot with your appearance, he knew you couldn't come back to him. You were gone.

He could only embrace memories.

Memories of your shared time, the memories of your caring eyes and gestures, memories of the promises you couldn't fulfill know that you were gone, memories of a future together that didn't exist anymore, memories of your love.

You were gone, but he was grateful of you.

Grateful.

Grateful.

Grateful.

Grateful you chose him as your companion, as your friend, as your lover.

Senku let a tear run wild as he accepted the end of it all.

"Yes" he said the quiet room as feelings drowned him, "Stay."

"As you please, Senku"

You kept trying to please yourself thinking of his hands on your waist and his dick in your insides, but nothing compared to his real being, to his real touch, to his real words and praises and his real kisses all over your body.

You were frustrated, desperate and grumpy.

The worst thing? Finals were so close and you couldn't concentrate. Every time you were reading, you feel the tingling feeling of frustration building up that taste like incoming failure.

So you were frustrated, desperate, grumpy and very much fucked up.

In your pathetic state, you walked through the rooms following the familiar path you were used to since the heated conversation about you being disappointed in men because they couldn't satisfied you in bed and Senku claiming he could, since then, you two continued sleeping together in an agreement of friends with benefits because you two were fucked up to do something related with unsolved feelings.

You knocked on the familiar door and you heard the familiar voice telling you to come in.

Once inside, he looked at you confused about you visit with his eyebrow lifted while his hands remained on his notebooks and the pencil static and almost forgotten in his right hand. The only sound in the room was his laptop with a video of an scientist explaining things you didn't understand.

Even if you went to his room often, your face and stance told him everything he needed to know; Senku knew something was bothering you.

"You were right" you huffed defeated as he kept his eyes on you, "I need you"

Oh, so that's what we are talking about, he thought and returned his eyes to his laptop to rewind the video. "We have discussed this before", he annotated something on his notes unfazed by your words, "No sex while in finals"

You let a frustrated sigh, "Please, I'm literally begging you, I need this" you grabbed his shoulders so he paid attention to you, but his eyes remained in the video, "I can't focus on my notes, I can't concentrate in anything..." you leaned close to his ear, "I need you."

"Then pleasure yourself," he said, shrugging in his chair as you step back.

Did he listen to you at all?, you thought to yourself while you deadpan at him even when he didn't watched your face, "I... I can't" you mumbled.

He sighed and put the pencil down in his desk while stopping the video. Senku turned and looked at you while as he settled into his chair and exposed you his thigh, "Ride me then". You looked at his left thigh and, without a second thought, you sat on him. By instinct, his left hand went to your waist and stayed there giving you support. "Do your thing while I study, and lower your voice, I need to hear the video."

You nodded and your hands went to his shoulders as you applied pressure to your crotch. The sensation felt like reaching heaven after walking through hell for weeks. You bite you lip to lower your whimpers as you finally moved on his thigh and you felt the beginning of pleasure knocking at your door and tingling in your brain.

The warmth of his body felt delicious as his hand gave you little caresses that did wonders on your lower area as you moved as you pleased. You kept moving trying to find the perfect rhythm; sometimes slower, sometimes faster and sometimes mixing them at the same time that you applied different levels of pressure to let all your frustrations go.

Suddenly, you felt his hand getting inside your clothes to hold your back and, when you looked at him, Senku seemed unfazed by your movements, but his eyes betrayed him; even if he watched the video, his eyes were dilated and his breathing was rapid. You kept your pace as you felt hotter with each movement as his hand traveled through your back to unclip your bra.

"I thought you wanted to study" you murmured between gasps.

He gave you a quick look before returning his eyes to the screen, "Don't overestimate my actions" he removed your bra and throw it somewhere in his room, "I do it for me" and he caressed your breast as a anti-stress ball.

You whimpered at the touch while riding his thigh.

Perhaps this was the closest thing to paradise you could ever experience in your entire life.

You hugged him by the shoulders for support while he continued to stroke you. "Fuck" you panted in his neck as you felt so close for reaching your climax with each movement.

"Quiet" he ordered while typing something on his laptop with his free hand.

"Easy to say," you complained breathless eyeing his immaculate shirt. You fiddled with the buttons, undoing the first two at the collar and chest.

"Careful" he warned, but you couldn't care less. You kissed his neck while moving your hips and feeling how all your worries disappear.

Senku become your safe place since that night and he knew that. Whenever something happened in your life, you looked for him and he listened. A lot of people thought that he was just being permissive, that he just tolerate your existence around him, but the truth was that neither of you two knew what to do with the growing feelings. So you both stayed trying to understand the silence, the caresses, the rhythm and the harmony that your bodies created.

You kept your movements on his thigh as he hold you close.

You bite him and he let you mark him.

You inhale and he exhales.

"I'm close" you informed him and he stop writing.

"I know" and he holds you with both hands.

His attention remained on your breathing, eyes and your messy dance over his leg. He liked the tired look on your face when you were close, it was so vulnerable, an expression nobody else could appreciate but him. And he wanted to see it as much as you allow him to.

You hold him tightly and felt the relief of your body escape in moans and messy kisses over his neck and face.

"Better?" he asks as he caresses your back and waist while you kept riding him to let the last shocks of pleasure leave like calm waves on the sand.

"Yeah" you panted and lift your head from the space between his neck and shoulder, "But I would have liked it to be different."

Senku rolled his eyes and smirked, "Let me guess" he looked at you, "Me inside you"

"Yeah"

He sighed, "When finals are over"

You lift an eyebrow, "Is that a promise?"

He snickered, "Yeah, I promise"

Maybe one day you will talk about the feelings, but for now, you two kept taking care of each other.

***

Walking for hours, every day, become part of his routine at this point.

The birds didn't sang that day because the cold days were getting closer, and every living being needed refuge. And maybe Senku needed to stop making this walk, maybe he needed to come back to the warmth of the village and its chimneys, the warmth of the fire, the warmth of a hot meal or a cup of tea.

But he needed to see you.

He needed to watch your face.

He needed to clean you up of the moss and the grass.

He needed to cover your statue from the cold. Maybe you couldn't feel the cold from the wind or the heat of the sun, but he didn't mind.

He needed to protect you from the erosion of time.

He kept walking like everything depended on it.

Because for him, it was like that.

Senku originally thought of bringing the statue with him, but there were three problems; first, he didn't had the strength to lift it to the village, second, he didn't want questions about it and third, he thought of tearing it apart, but he didn't had enough glue at the moment.

So, his only solution was to leave it in its original place and keeping and eye on the petrified human.

***

Nobody questioned Senku's behavior because many people from the village knew that he had his moments of ideas and planifications by his own, so they leaved him alone when he walked into the woods, instead they kept an eye on every project very closely so everything was alright the moment he came back.

But the closes to him knew better, and they wondered why Senku walked into the forest, almost every day, at the same hour of the day and came back exhausted and sweaty without explanation.

They knew asking to the scientist the reason behind his actions wasn't useful; Senku never talked about his personal things or thoughts.

So they had no other option than to spy on him.

***

"He's losing his mind"

"Why is he doing that?

"Maybe Senku is doing a experiment"

"No, I don't think so, he wouldn't be acting this way"

"It doesn't matter, his mind is gone"

Senku was just cleaning a statue in the middle of the forest, like every day since he found it, but today is the first time that Kohaku, Suika, Chrome and Gen saw him doing his ritual to preserve the human made of stone in perfect condition.

"No, he's protecting that person" Gen commented in the conversation. The eyes of the descendants of the astronauts looked at the statue and then the care Senku applied to it.

"Wait, the statues are real people?"

"Yeah, they are" Gen noticed Senku's precise hands cleaning the statue and the way he looked at the person, "And it seems to me that that person is very dear to him". And then it hit him; since the revival fluid was in Tsukasa's possession, Senku couldn't wake you up.

"That's terrible, having a important person so close and so far away at the same time" Suika muttered while playing with her hands.

They never saw that part of Senku before; the caring one, the soft one, the one he only keeps to himself when no one's around.

"Let's go" Gen said, "This is a private moment for him". And all of them retire in silence letting the scientist have a moment to be vulnerable.

***

Days passed, hours, minutes, seconds. Senku's secret remained in the shadows of the forest with the statue. Nobody approached the area, which to the outsiders was the closest thing to a sacred place.

Senku took care of the eroded parts and look at the statue.

But time was always a complicated topic.

For most people even a minute was a debatable theme; for a few, a minute could feel like five minutes, and for others, it was just a blink of an eye.

But not for someone like Senku.

Time was precise, calculable, and crucial. He needed every second to achieve his goal of restoring civilization; he couldn't waste a single millisecond. A person could die in milliseconds if the proper calculations weren't made.

That's how precise he needed to be.

Therefore, something as demanding as a partner was out of his thoughts because a partner needs shared time, heart to heart conversations, tons of affection, respect, confirmation words, gifts, constant care and trust, specially trust. A lot of things that Senku wasn't used to because people were unpredictable; their feelings were unpredictable and complicated, they always had been.

So, instead of dealing with them so they can interfered with his work, he rather avoid them and those situations at all.

"And, hypothetically, if I were interested in finding a partner," Senku didn't take his eyes off the measurements on the screen, "Who would be interested in me? I'm not a romantic man who gives flowers or writes letters by hand."

"Well...", Gen looked at you, "You'd be surprised, there are all kinds of people."

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

Senku opened his eyes and stretched as usual. Last night they finished assembling the machine with all its parts; today they were going to test it.

He got up from his bed and went to get dressed, but last night he forgot to kept his shoes in place and he tripped on one of them. He sighed and got dressed as usual; his lab coat and the honorific cape Suika made for him years ago and the shoes he accidentally kicked.

Senku went to his small kitchen to get something to drink from yesterday and poured himself the first thing he saw on the counter. Unfortunately, he left some cold coffee and coughed from the strong taste of the forgotten chocolate at the bottom of the cup.

"Shit" his lab coat now had a coffee stain on the chest; so, when the day is over, he'll have to clean it.

He went out of his compartment and when to the lab twenty minutes away from his home. He walked so agitated over the coffee stain that he almost missed Chrome's waving energetic as always at him. "Senku! Today we'll see if the time machine works!"

"Could you please not scream so early?" He covered his ears with his pinkies and kept walking with the engineer by his side. "But yeah, let's see if finally works"

"Guys!" Suika greeted them, "Everybody's here, come on!"

"Look who finally decided to show up," you said with a mocking smile to the scientist, his eye tickling from all the commotion around him in the early hours of the morning. "Oh, you stained your lab coat, be careful with the chemicals inside"

"No shit, Sherlock" he didn't needed your teasing so early, especially after a little mistake he'd done and you chose as the running joke of the day.

You snickered at him, "Fuck you, Watson"

"Uh, tension" Gen mumbled, "Interesting"

They all gathered inside the room were the machine rested and begin to prepare everything for the test; Dr. Xeno and Sai typed some instructions on the computer, Suika and Chrome supervised the measurements, you were taking notes of the calculations and Senku watched everything in the lab.

"Ishigami, everything is alright to go" you informed him and stood by his side waiting for his next instructions.

He nodded and watched your notes, "Then we can proceed" he said and the rest of the scientist walked over to him. "This is exhilarating"

Senku approached the time machine and programmed a timer, just to test it, for April 20, 5757, for two minutes. He didn't want to mess things up by sending someone back years without a solution, so he opted for a safer option. He placed some objects in the specific zone for the machine and told everyone to step back for safety reasons. Everyone did as told and waited for the machine to work.

But nothing happen.

Senku was confused; the numbers were right, the structure was perfectly done, the conditions and objects were in perfect shape. What happened?

"Ow, Why didn't the machine work?" Suika sounded disappointed.

Chrome was by her side, equally disappointed.

"We need to reevaluate, Dr. Senku", Dr. Xeno gave him a coffee and walked to the measurements.

"Yes, there's no point in feeling upset now" the young scientist said and take the notes out of your hand. "What could have gone wrong?"

***

After so many restless hours, they didn't find an answer to the mystery.

"Ishigami, it's enough, you've been doing this for four hours without a break" You didn't like him torturing himself with his inventions, sure, you were amazed by him and his mind, but sometimes he didn't know when to stop. "Why don't you check it tomorrow? You need to rest and you know it"

He kept his eyes on the numbers on the screen, "Pity is not going to solve this" he sighed.

"I...", you nodded and grab your notes, "Yeah, you're right, sorry to bother"

Even though, it wasn't pity, you thought.

***

The moon made its presence and the birds went to their nests, the stars glow above everything known to mankind and the people prepared to go to bed.

"You know? You can leave" you heard behind you while you watched your calculations and notes. Senku appeared with a shitty look because of all the time spent searching for the reason the machine didn't work.

You kept your eyes on the notes and drink a sip of your long forgotten cold coffee that now tasted like shitty hopes, "I didn't want to lave you alone in the lab", you explained trying to sound nonchalant about it.

"You don't have to" He said looking at you from the door edge with his hands on his waist. "You can go and have rest, I'll need you to check on the machine tomorrow"

"And you should keep and eye on that stain" you grabbed your things and walked past him, "Clean it up before it becomes permanent; we don't want our favorite doctor to have a stain on his lab coat, which is now not entirely clean."

He snickered and watched you leave.

***

When Senku arrived to his apartment, he leaved everything in order so he didn't tripped with anything tomorrow morning and cleaned his small kitchen.

The silence of the place invaded the site and he sat for a moment to review your notes with the measurements and calculations made that day; your precise notes and neat handwriting caught his attention because before he hadn't paid attention to them.

He couldn't understand why the machine didn't work when everything seemed fine with it.

He dropped the papers on the table and went to bed without changing his clothes.

"Shit, the stain" He remembered he didn't clean it.

Maybe tomorrow.

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

Senku opened his eyes and stretched as usual. He wanted to go and see the time machine and see what went wrong yesterday.

He got up from his bed already thinking about some solutions for the time machine when he tripped. "I remembered I placed them somewhere else" he mumbled to himself already confused by the shoes.

He sighed and he noticed he was with his pajama and not with his shirt. Then he reached for his lab coat.

Now this is weird.

The lab coat was completely clean.

Senku went to his small kitchen to get something to drink, and now that it was clean, he wouldn't drink old fucked up coffee. Unfortunately, he indeed left some cold coffee and coughed from the strong taste that now he remembered as broken hopes.

"Shit" his lab coat now had a coffee stain on the chest.

Again.

He went out of his compartment and walked to the lab. He was so confused about his weird morning that he almost missed Chrome's waving at him. "Senku! Today we'll see if the time machine works!"

"Could you please not scream so early?" He covered his ears with his pinkies and kept walking. "But we need to check why did it fail first"

"Fail?" Chrome looked at him confused. "What do you m...?"

"Guys!" Suika greeted them, "Everybody's here, come on!"

"Look who finally decided to show up," you said with a mocking smile to the scientist, his eye already tickling from all the confusing things going on. "Oh, you stained your lab coat, be careful with the chemicals inside"

"No shit, Sherlock" he felt like in some kind of déjà-vu.

You snickered at him, "Fuck you, Watson"

"Uh, tension" Gen mumbled, "Interesting"

They all gathered inside the room; Dr. Xeno and Sai typed some instructions on the computer, Suika and Chrome supervised the measurements, you were taking notes of the calculations and Senku watched everything in the lab extremely careful.

The machine was programmed the same way as before. Senku already knew it wasn't going to work.

"Ishigami, everything is alright to go" you informed him and stood by his side waiting for his next instructions.

He watched your notes, "Is not going to work" he mumbled and you couldn't heard him. "Let's cancel the test"

"What?" You were confused, he wouldn't do that without seeing the results, "Why? We didn't even turn it on"

He didn't looked at you, "Because nothing will happen."

"How do you know?"

"I just do"

"But how?"

Senku remained quiet, he wasn't sure if he was right about what was going on since this morning, but he saw enough signs to know this wasn't a dream, and even clear as day that the machine wouldn't work again.

"Ow, why didn't the machine work?" Suika sounded disappointed.

Chrome was by her side, equally disappointed and confused as to why Senku didn't want to do the test and declared it a failure even before turning it on.

"I don't understand why you cancel the test, Dr. Senku", Dr. Xeno gave him a coffee, "but I assume you must have your reasons".

"Yes, I do" the young scientist said and took a sip of the coffee. "I'm still confused about a specific situation"

***

Everybody was confused about Senku's behavior.

"He seems a little out of it" Suika commented while drinking her tea.

You stared at the scientist from afar with the group, "He knew the machine wouldn't work from before" you stared at them, "He doesn't do that, he never calls it quits"

"Yeah", Chrome agreed, "He said it when we greeted in the morning, he just knew"

"Dr. Senku wouldn't made a decision like that just because" Xeno commented, "He always has his reasons"

***

The moon made its presence and Senku was thinking about the crazy day piece by piece; the shoes, the clothes, the stain, the calculations, the machine.

He needed to do his last experiment of the day.

***

When Senku arrived to his apartment, he leaved everything completely messier than that morning.

He grabbed her lab coat and completely soiled it.

He took all his clothes of and went to bed.

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

Senku opened his eyes and immediately got up.

He walked careful through his room and dodge the shoe, the one he always tripped over, and he noticed he was wearing his pajama when he knew he took all his clothing off.

Then he quickly looked for his lab coat.

The lab coat was completely clean.

"Time loop" he mumbled to himself and sighed, "Shit"

Senku got dressed and walk out of his compartment without stepping a foot on his small kitchen.

"Senku! Today we'll see if the time machine works!" Chrome screamed at him while waving.

He remained quiet the whole trip till the lab. "Guys!" Suika greeted them, "Everybody's here, come on!"

"Hey," everybody listened to the young scientist, "Let's cancel the test for today" The whole group was in shock and extremely confused by Senku's instruction. Yesterday he seemed radiant about the machine, but now he says this.

"Why?" Everybody said in unison.

He sighed. "Because I'm trapped in a time loop"

***

"What's a time loop?" Suika asked stealing the question from Chrome's mouth. Everyone reunited to discuss Senku's situation.

"A theoretical concept where a specific period repeats indefinitely, returning to the same initial state" Dr. Xeno explained being completely interested with the young scientist's dilemma. "It's a science fiction concept. It wasn't proved its existence until today on Dr. Senku". All their eyes fell on him.

Everybody was confused about the situation because nobody knew what to do next. "How many times had you repeated the same day?" you asked while taking notes.

"You don't need to do that" Senku said watching you writing and you stopped.

"Why not?" Chrome asked and his reddish eyes followed him, "We need to take notes to comprehend the situation"

"It's pointless, everything I do will come back to normal as soon as the loop resets, you all won't remember this conversation because it never happened and I'll have to explain myself again" Senku explained and looked at you again, "I've repeated the same day three times now"

"What?!" Gen was in complete shock, "That can really happen?"

"Oh, that's horrible" Suika mumbled.

"That's why you cancelled the test?" you asked and watched him with caution, "You knew it wouldn't work"

"Yeah, on the first day we spent hours trying to understand why it failed, but we found nothing, even when the machine was in perfect condition and with perfect numbers." Senku explained and watched the faces of his scientific team.

"Then we can exclude the machine for the time loop" Xeno mentioned.

"That's what I thought" Senku commented and sighed with his pinky in his ear.

Suika seemed worried at the current conversation, "But then, what caused the time loop if not the time machine?"

Nobody could answer to that question.

"That's what we don't know" you commented and let your notes to your side, "We must find the answer"

***

"What if it was the machine?"

"It never worked"

"And certain conditions?"

"Like what? Mystic forces of the nature or the beyond?"

"Yeah..."

"That doesn't exist"

"But, what if...?"

"It useless thinking about that, 'what ifs' don't lead to anything more than overthinking"

"...then I'm clueless"

"I figured"

"Hey! We are trying to help"

"I know, but there's no such things like mystic forces, just science"

"Yeah..., you're right"

You just stared at the sky and the birds flying around freely, not restrictions, no knowledge or concept of time, not having to worry about time machines that didn't work or your friend trapped in a time loop.

Careless and free.

Ignorance is happiness, you once heard.

Senku only sighed by your side. You two were lying on the grass watching the clouds trying to find the cause of his problem.

But nothing.

Every thought was dismissed by the scientist.

"Hey, love-birds" Gen sang and watched you two, Senku rolled his eyes by the implication, "Any ideas about Senku's time problems?"

"No, nothing" You straightened up and remained sat on the grass. "We don't know what caused it", you got up and leave before Gen kept up with his love-jokes.

The two men watched you leave and the white-and-black hair man smiled maliciously. "Well, if there's no cause, you can use it on your advantage" Senku lift his eyebrow at him. "Think about it, you always complaint about running out of time to do certain things or to test some, then, you can use this day to experiment and do things you couldn't do before"

Senku's eyes opened, "You are damn right, mentalist"

***

When Senku arrived to his apartment, he mentally prepared for the exact same day.

Tomorrow will never come anyway, he could only use the time he was that day as its maximum potential.

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

Senku got up and prepared for the day.

In 4 minutes Chrome will appear, he counted the seconds till he heard Chrome's loud voice. In 6 minutes and 35 seconds Suika will salute us, he counted the seconds and he saw her at the distance. We well spend twenty minutes talking about my problem and fifteen minutes discussing its causes, he kept counting the people's actions thru the day.

If he knew how much things happened in the day, he could know how many time he had to investigate, experiment and do new research. He calculated that, if he omitted walking to the lab for the time machine and the explanation about his problem, he could have a whole hour and then the rest of the day.

He ignored the questions about the machine and the cancelled test and proceed to do other pending investigations with the rest of the scientific crew behind him watching everything he did.

And he thought a few more dangerous experiment than others.

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

Senku made an error with some calculations and burned himself experimenting with chemicals and fire.

Everybody scolded him for being reckless.

But how could they know the reason?

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn and Senku mixed some chemicals, that he knew could kill many people, on the lab and it exploded.

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

Senku made two different projects, both equally successful.

But they wouldn't exist the next day.

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

Senku lay down on the grass looking up at the sky.

Maybe, for today, he could rest the whole day.

"Hey, Senku-chan" Gen sang approaching to him, "May I interrupt your relax time with some silly questions?"

He didn't even opened his eyes, "What do you want, mentalist?"

"I've noticed your weird behavior, more strange than usual, and I figured that something is bothering you" Gen sat down a few steps away from him.

Senku shrugged without looking at him, "I'm trapped in a time loop"

That wasn't an answer Gen expected from him and he didn't know what to say about that, but he needed to try, "I see, I didn't know it was possible, I thought it was science fiction or something"

"Yeah"

Gen watched him, "How many days?"

"Seventy five"

"Jeez," Gen wasn't even sure how Senku was handling the whole situation, and he knew it was useless to ask, Senku barely talked about his feelings and emotions. "I guess you find something interesting to do all those days"

"I've been doing experiments and researching", he sighed tired of the thought of the never touching a glimpse of tomorrow, "You gave me the idea"

That statement surprised the mentalist, "Oh, so then, what's the problem?"

"I'm stuck and my projects can't work in a single day; some need more time to progress and others need pieces that, as soon as Kaseki creates them, would disappear for the next restart of the cycle."

"Oh, and did you find the cause of the loop?"

"If I had, I wouldn't be trapped right now."

"Yeah, true" Gen understood his problem, but there's no way to fix if there's no solution. Maybe he could give him another idea, "Well, you always complaint about couples"

Senku frown from his spot. "What the hell are you saying now?"

"That maybe, now that you can't work on your experiments, you have time to date someone"

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn and Senku sighed.

He was fed up with the stupid routine: the shoe, the coffee, the shouting, and everyone's constant questions about his behavior. And, to top it all off, he was running out of projects and experiments. He needed the time loop to end; he couldn't make any progress in a single day; he made progress, but it wouldn't last.

And then Gen gave him the idea to date you, to get to know you better given the circumstances of his dilemma. And the idea wasn't as horrendous as he first thought it would be.

You were always there since he woke you up to help them with the spaceship and the following years you remained by his side taking notes about his comments, projects, successes, failures, everything. You constantly watched his back with his the research and ideas to help the society and you didn't expected him to be a genius of some sort. You served him coffee or tea, covered him with blankets on cold nights when he fell asleep and listen to his rambles about equations and chemicals.

And Gen mentioned you were interested in him for a while back and, that maybe, you two could work.

But...

How do you date someone?

What topics would be interesting to discuss?

How can he make you interesting in someone like him?

A partner was a demanding task indeed, they needed a lot of things to last, and he knew a few things that were like the basics to have one.

Fisrt, a lot of time together; he could do that, you were smart and were with him in the lab all the time, so maybe you could share time after that or something.

Heart to heart conversations; Senku wasn't used to that, he almost never talked about feelings.

Tons of physical affection; he didn't reject the idea.

Respect; he did respected you and you did the same. You constantly teased each other for fun, but neither of you weren't aggressive or disrespectful with the other one.

Gifts; you two were very alike, so you would never expect roses or letters from him.

Constant care; you both already did that. It wasn't that evident, but you cared.

Trust; he did trust you and you trust him.

Maybe it can work, he thought. But how to approach you?

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

Senku got up and looked for you earlier than usual.

"Hey, Ishigami" you greeted him, "Weren't you supposed to be on the lab now?"

"Yeah, I just..." Words, emotions, vulnerability. Senku struggled a little. "I... wanted to discuss something first"

You were confused, he didn't often struggled with words. "What is it?"

"I'm trapped in a loop"

"Oh" You processed his words, "Wait, what? A time loop? But that's science fiction"

"I know" He deadpan tired of hearing the same words, "But it's true, I've repeated the same day eighty times"

You blinked a few times a little confused but understanding the situation.

You nodded, "What can I do for you then? Look for some answer? Run some tests on you?"

"No, you don't need to do that" He pressed the stress point in his ear with his pinky so he could relax a little after saying his true intentions of his visit, "Have a date with me"

The words reached your ears, but it took you a while to comprehend what he wanted.

"I... I'm sorry, what?" you couldn't believe him now, he said his trapped in a time loop but he wants to date you instead of dealing with that, "A date? You with me? Are you sure you are okay?"

"Yes, I am fine" he scratched the back of his neck, "So? What do you say?"

"I say that it was a good joke" you patted his shoulder while passing by his side to go to the lab, "Gen told you to say that? Tell him it was good, I almost believe it"

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

He fucked up.

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

He fucked up. Again.

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

He fucked up. Again and again.

You often thought it was some joke, that he wasn't being serious about it or that he hit his head with something.

Senku was rethinking about Gen's words about your compatibility, or maybe, you were so sure he wasn't interested that you didn't believe on the date idea.

He fucked up anyway.

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

Senku watched you from afar. You were laughing with Suika and Chrome. In Senku's calculations and analysis, it could be from an inside joke.

"Anything interesting over there?" Gen's voice caught Senku's attention and he turned to look at him. "Oh, so you were looking at her, got it"

"What are you implying by that?" Senku lifted his brow at him.

Gen smiled like the Cheshire cat, "Are you finally interested in dating her, Senku-chan?"

Senku wondered if to speak or to keep it to himself, but thinking that the mentalist wouldn't remember this chat..., "Maybe"

"Wait, what? Really, Senku-chan?!" He couldn't believe his ears. "Oh my-, this is incredible, why?"

"Do I need a reason?"

"It's just, you always said you didn't have time for something like that because of the sake of civilization"

"Well, I have some time now" A lot of time, actually. "Do you...? shit, do you know how could I approach to her?"

Gen felt like if he won the gambling game in the Perseus years back. Senku asking for advice wasn't in his prediction for that year, so he thanked mentally to every sacrifice so that could happen.

"My dear, Senku-chan" He grabbed his shoulder, "I'll provide you the best help you could ever ask for"

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

Gen told Senku to learn about you, get to know you better from the inside, not literally though. To learn about your dreams, hopes, ideas, personality and not with the scientific eye Senku did days ago.

He watched your daily interactions, the way you expressed yourself, the way you annotated things, your body language and the way you interacted with him every second of the day.

You were careful, precise, but warm. You tried to do your best every time, and you kept everything writing on the notebook he once made for you. You acted by careful thoughts and didn't just say whatever comes to your mind.

Every day you analyzed his behavior, his glances, his body language, his answers and explanations carefully. And then he understood that you always kept an eye on him.

Senku never noticed how obvious you were about your interest on him because of his undying concentration for his experiments. But now, having the time on his side (partially), he noticed all this details.

"Hey" he walked by your side.

"Hey" you greeted back, you were a little unprepared by the sudden talk with the scientist, he would often look for you only when you were writing measurements and his explanations. "Do you need something?"

"Not really, just some simple chitchat"

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"It's just... you almost never do some unnecessary conversation"

Senku stared at you, "Does it bother you?"

"Not really" you shrugged and kept walking to the village, "I might like it" and you smiled at him.

He smiled back.

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

He looked for you immediately when he woke up.

***

"What happened? You look upset"

"You will not remember a thing of what we did today"

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you never do... And I want you to remember me"

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

And Senku knew he liked you.

A lot.

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

And Senku knew he was screwed.

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

And Senku knew he was in love.

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

And Senku knew he have a day with her.

He could live stuck in that day forever if it meant being with you.

He didn't want to live without you now.

He wished he could go with you to space someday.

"One more day with her"

Thursday, April 21 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds sang at dawn.

Senku stretched and dodge the shoe. He got dressed in his usual attire and ignored the small kitchen with the disgusting forgotten coffee.

He looked for you the moment he went out of his compartment.

"Hey" his usual greeting to you that felt like fireworks in his insides.

You looked at him and he mentally thanked you, "Hey, Ishigami"

"Can we talk?" his usual practiced question so you wouldn't mistake his intentions.

"Sure!" and you smile and he knows everything is alright.

***

You two would try and fix the machine as Senku's excuse to keep talking and for him to finally confessed his feelings towards you. Today he finally did. The others days he couldn't let the words out and you never knew.

"I... I think you would be a really good partner for me"

You looked at him surprised by his words, "You really do think that?"

"Yeah" and he felt his heart beating faster and faster, "I do".

You smile softly at him, "I would like that too"

And he smiled back.

And after some hours dealing with the machine, you two couldn't make it work. You two stared at each other and shrugged at the same time.

You laughed a little, "Let go, there's nothing else for us to do"

"Yeah, you're right"

The walk to his apartment was slow but comfortable. Senku really needed a moment like this; feel completely calm and to forget about his misery when the day resets, so he appreciated your warm hand in his and the smell of your hair.

"I don't want this day to be over" he muttered and you listen closely.

"Yeah, me too" you hold him tighter. "I would like this day to repeat over and over"

He made a face you couldn't see, "Believe me, you won't like something like that"

You snickered, "I'm just goofing around, I wouldn't like to be trapped in the same day all my life"

"Good"

When you two arrived, he talked about the mess inside caused by his lifestyle, but you shrug it off. "I'll help you clean all of this" you said grabbing a trash bag and dropping the coffee cup and some other things inside.

He mentally thanked you and looked at you carefully while you kept cleaning, "Stay", you turned around and looked at his face, searching for something that, for a instant, would indicate that what you had just heard was a lie or a mistake. "Stay tonight"

You nodded and let the trash outside his apartment. When you came back inside, he wait for you to keep talking and drinking some tea.

Senku looked at you the whole like wishing you wouldn't disappear tomorrow morning.

He would wait for you, over and over if he needed to.

Friday, April 22 of 5757, 7:00 a.m.

The birds didn't sang that morning.

Senku didn't wanted to open his eyes and be faced with disillusionment once again. He only wanted to wake up with you by his side and let the nightmare of the loop behind.

He dreamt was waking up to you and staying by your side.

For once he wished he'd talked to Gen to let him introduced you two before all this situation happened, before we invested all his time with machines and inventions instead of meeting you.

Now he wanted all his days to include you in them, for you to look at him like last night, to support him as you always did in the laboratory, and for your caresses to belong only to him.

Senku sighed at his impossible dreams and hopes. He needed to got up and do something that day anyway, so staying in bed wasn't an option even if it was the only thing he wanted to do right now. He was about to stretch as usual, when he felt something hugging him and keeping him from going to the outside world.

He looked to his side and you were tangled to his body; your messy hair resting on the pillows and your face hiding in the space of his shoulder.

Senku blinked many times thinking it was a dream inside the loop.

"Just five minutes, Senku" you mumbled and hold him tight to your body. Your voice sounded raspy and sleepy.

It wasn't a dream.

"What are you doing here?" he asked concerned. He was pretty sure you wouldn't be here by morning.

You didn't opened your eyes, "You told me to stay last night", you caressed his shoulders and neck. "Are you regretting your choice of words?"

"No, I'm not"

He looked around him, and everything was in different spots from last night. He sighed relieved and let himself be embraced by your warm.

Finally the loop was over.