Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“So that’s it? You’re just running away?”

It’s the first thing Aiba says, as Date enters his apartment. Mizuki’s apartment.

“I’m not running away…” He lies. Why he feels the need to do so to someone who can see his thoughts like an open book is beyond him. …As is why he never got that update that prevented her from being able to do so. Maybe because after years of living with her he didn’t have anything to hide anymore.

He closes the door behind him, walking straight to the couch and lying down on it, groaning. Now that he’s home, the embarrassment of what just happened is playing on his head in repeat.

“And there I was thinking you didn’t have any shame.” The usual sass from Aiba, even if it’s delivered a little softer than usual. She’d known how this night was going to go. He’d known how this night was going to go. So why had he still gone?

…Hitomi had invited him over for dinner. That wasn’t weird on its own, because he’d slowly been making amends to her. Except it wasn’t just Hitomi that was going to be there. It was Iris. And Mizuki.

Worse, Mizuki with no ‘Bibi’. Those two girls had been basically attached to each other since the Naix incident a month back, and yet Mizuki had made the deliberate choice to not invite Bibi along. As much as he got the impression that the senior Mizuki didn’t think much of him, at least she’d have been a buffer.

A buffer between him and his past.

Because that’s what the dinner had been about, hadn’t it? A family reunion. Hitomi and Iris, the family of Hayato. Mizuki and Aiba, the family of Date.

He'd been doing pretty well since returning. Cracking jokes, fixing bridges that had burned when he'd vanished for six years. Settling into the life he'd left behind, and ignoring the itchy, burning feeling under his skin. So, despite his best judgement, he’d agreed to go.

And yet, seeing them all at that table… It had been too much. Hitomi didn’t look that different, but Iris and Mizuki were undeniable reminders of time gone by. Honestly, he might have counted himself lucky that he’d been the one to wear Aiba and not Mizuki, or he’d have been hit with a stronger image of how she’d grown.

(Rock paper scissors, coin tosses… there were quite a few ways Date and Mizuki had decided on who got Aiba. She always complained about it, but Date thought that maybe Aiba was flattered by the attention. Even if things got heated when Mizuki accused him of cheating…)

Guilt. That’s what he’d felt. Guilt, pain, regret, the feelings he’d been battling with ever since he came back from Atami. Ever since he’d remembered who he was.

Who he was…

He'd immediately excused himself on the grounds of feeling ill and had gone home. Yet, he made the mistake of glancing back when he’d left. They’d all looked disappointed… and unconvinced.

And now here he was. Slumped on his own couch, complaining about it to the one person he could always talk to. The one person who’d been paying very close attention as he thought all this over in his head.

“Is that was this is about?” Aiba asked, gently. “About you still wearing that mask…”

“What this is about?” Date asked, confused. “It’s about me vanishing for six years! It’s about me not being there for her, again! It’s about all the people I let down, and-“

“And yet you lingered on your own identity.” Aiba states. She always sounds so certain… either it’s a machine thing, or he really is that easy to read. Probably both. “I have a hard time believing it somehow isn’t connected to this. Hitomi’s forgiven you. Iris has forgiven you. Even Mizuki has forgiven you! Despite all that, it seems you can’t forgive yourself.”

“Did Boss update you with a therapy subroutine or something?” Date asks, scratching idly at the mask, and the vocal collar hidden under his jacket. “I just… can’t face them right now, okay? Not all of them together. It’s too… seeing both my pasts together like that, it…”

He struggles to make his point, but Aiba seems to get immediately at what he’s saying. If anything, she’s a bit too perceptive. She reacts with glee he thinks almost isn’t appropriate for the situation. “Ah hah! So, this is about your identity!”

“I… wouldn’t put it like that.” Date says, unconvincingly. Slowly he’s relaxing, after the mad dash to get here. It’s not like he doesn’t want to talk to Aiba about these things. She’s one of the only people out there he feels like he can say anything to. “But seeing them all together like that, it’s bound to be complicated. All that history with Hayato…”

“Who you still don’t consider yourself to be.” Aiba says, ignoring his half-hearted attempts to dissuade her. She knows he wants this, really. “Although, I don’t think that’s a big secret. Why else would you be wearing such an inappropriate mask?”

“Hey! People have known me a lot longer than they’ve known Saito!” Date argues. “Is it really inappropriate to claim what was mine?”

“Do I really need to point out Hitomi’s history with Saito stretches back much further?” Aiba says, unamused. They’ve had this argument too many times to count since he’d returned… and before it, too. She’d been against the mask from the beginning, though she’d given in once she realised what it meant to him.

He steps up from the couch, heading to the bathroom. His own reflection looks back at him, unimpressed. Better than a maniacal grin, anyway. How anyone could look at his face and see Saito was beyond him… the difference was night and day in expression alone.

“Don’t trail off and leave it at that.” Aiba pushed, insistent. He appreciates her letting him say it, instead of just dragging it all out of his mind. It means something, to actually be able to say it out loud himself. “You realised something back there at that table, didn’t you? Among all that pain you’d been trying to keep down. I still think you should have talked to someone about that, by the way…”

“The only person I need to talk to is you. Even if you can be a bit of a pain about it.” Date says, absent mindedly adjusting the mask a little. “The last thing those three need is me dumping my problems on them, after I’ve already done too much already.”

“Your problem is their problem. It all stems from the same…” Aiba trails off, and Date can just imagine her frowning in annoyance. “Hey! We’re getting sidetracked again!”

“You’re the one who did that, this time.” Date smirks. “Want me to open up about my feelings to someone or want me to open up about my realisation to you?”

“…I can ask for both.” Aiba says, as she begrudgingly adds: “But I think for now I’d rather focus on the moment. Tell me Date, what really caused you to run away back there?”

“You know how I said things have never been normal when it’s the five of us?” Date asks, thinking back to that dinner table. “It got me thinking. I realised something else… the moment everything went wrong.”

“I find it hard to believe there’s a single moment.” Aiba says. “Probability dictates that several moments, many of which were out of your control, were what ultimately-“

“Can you wait till I’m done to start trying to comfort me?” Date asks, semi-amused. “Don’t tell me you’re not at least a little curious about what my conclusion was. That moment.”

“Perhaps a little.” Aiba says. “Even if it’s most likely nonsense.”

Date finally walks away from the mirror. He’s not sure if he can stand to look at himself as he says the next part. Instead, he goes to the couch once more, now sitting as opposed to lying. He clasps his hands, looking down at them. No matter what he does, they’re still Hayato’s. The scars are in the wrong places. It feels so different. No, he can never escape. No matter what mask he wears.

“I’ve… damn it all.” He curses. “I decided that the moment I swapped bodies was the moment it all started to go wrong. When my life started to spiral out of control. Everything can be traced back to that one moment.” He hisses, anger rising just thinking about it. Saito… and his quest for revenge. He’d gotten his body back, but at what cost? Aiba vaporising his skull. He could have died anywhere at any moment. He’d have deserved it. But no… it just had to get to the point where he’d stolen that body. Date’s body.

Now he was stuck in Hayato’s.

“That’s…” Aiba sounds like she can hardly wrap her circuits around it. “I understand that you associate a lot of your struggles with Hitomi and Iris to their history with Hayato, but… how could it be responsible for all your troubles? Nothing could have predicted that boulder. Not even my advanced calculations could have guessed what would have happened after Tearer triggered that explosion.”

“It’s not the explosion I care about. It’s after that I’m hung up on.” Date laughs, without humour. Here, alone, there’s no image he needs to maintain. No mask he needs to keep on. …He’s aware of the irony. “You know why I think I didn’t remember? Why I didn’t remember Mizuki, or any of it? Because life was just so damn simple.”

Aiba’s silent. Good. He needs to let this out.

“I didn’t have a conflict with my past. I didn’t need to deal with the fact that I used to murder people out of a twisted sense of justice. I didn’t have to live up the image of a man who died with a psync malfunction…” Date says. His words are dripped with shame. The idea that he’d been too weak to remember Mizuki. And yet… there’s no denying that life at Atami had been a peaceful one. And now it was tearing him up inside. “…I felt like I was missing something. You. Mizuki. My life. And yet, I never bothered to investigate it. Was… my subconscious preventing me?”

Aiba remains silent. Is she judging him? Is she shocked? Or maybe she just knows he’s not finished yet.

“…I love you.” He says. Words he’s said before, and desperately needs to reaffirm now. “You’re like a part of me. Wouldn’t as much call being without you as having a phantom limb as I would call it a phantom soul. I love Mizuki… She deserves so much better from me. And yet… I still didn’t remember.”

“Date…” Aiba finally tries to step in, but he won’t let her.

“I wish Saito had just died in some ditch, without me even knowing his name. Tombed in some corpse, forgotten.” Date scowls. “I wish the memory of Hayato would have died with him. I could have been close to Hitomi without feeling constantly torn between two different people. I could have come back when Mizuki needed me, because I wouldn’t have something to cower from. Life… could have been so much simpler.”

“You don’t mean that.” Aiba says, firmly. “You have no way of knowing how things would have played out, if they’d have changed like that. Everyone deserved to know the truth! To say otherwise… I’m sorry Date, but it’s selfish.”

Gently, he reaches his hand up and takes Aiba out of his socket. She wobbles for a second, before gaining her hamster form. She still manages to give off an air of disapproval, even when she can only express herself with an eyeball. “Is it? If we all could have just moved on, and been happy together… does it really matter if that truth remained buried?”

“How would you know you’d even be happy?” Aiba questions. He brings her up to his chest, but it seems like she’s not in the mood to cuddle. Fine by him, he just wants to hold her. “Date… I’m worried about you. You wouldn’t hold over people to this standard that you’re holding yourself. I’m wondering if you can even empathise with your own struggle…”

“I told you my realisation. That’s what you wanted, right?” He yawns. “That feeling of switching bodies… it’s the one experience I have I don’t think you could ever truly understand, Aiba.”

“…I can’t for certain say that’s not true.” Aiba says, begrudgingly. “I suppose if we’re making wishes, it’s that you could have someone to talk to who DOES understand. But whether I entirely understand what you went through Date, I’ll always be there to lend an ear nonetheless.”

Of course she would. His one constant… barring a certain six-year detour.

But he’s feeling tired. There’s a lot he’ll have to answer for tomorrow, and he’d rather be rested up for it. “How’s your charge doing?”

“31 percent.” Aiba says, after a moment. “Tomorrow Mizuki said she was thinking about finally taking me up on my offer to go to the museum, so I’d rather be charged for it.”

“Well, better get you ready for it then.” Date says, standing up and walking over to her charging station.

“Don’t think we’re finished here.” Aiba says, well aware he’s running from this conversation just as much as he ran from that dinner. “I’d like to return to it, when we both have cleared heads. Though for you, I’m not sure how long that’ll take…”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Goodnight, Aiba. But I think you’ll find my minds not so easily changed.”

“Don’t I know it… stubborn idiot.” Aiba says, not unkindly. “Mizuki’s wrath tomorrow will be enough of a wakeup call, I’m sure.”

He grimaces at the thought, as Aiba’s seaweed extract body collapsed back into the ai ball, and she fit snugly into her socket. The yellow of her eye faded… Aiba was switched off.

Time for him to do the same. As he got comfortable, he couldn’t shake his thoughts today. The thought it could all have just been better… Hayato’s body has been nothing but trouble. Isn’t in the nature of humans to ask ‘what if’, anyway? And there’s so much he could change if he could.

He dwells on it, right till the moment he falls asleep.

If he dreams, he doesn’t remember it.

----

He wakes up to the sound of someone in the bathroom, making a hell of a noise. Mizuki, no doubt about it. She’s always crashed around in there like a bull in a china shop, though she’d fervently deny it whenever he brought it up and write off the whole thing as ‘him being a pervert obsessed with what people do in the bathroom’.

Yeah, it’s his pervy nature that wakes him up early in the morning. Sure.

He yawns, stretches, and steadily gets to his feet. One glance at the charging socket confirms his suspicions, Mizuki has taken Aiba. It’s empty.

That’s alright. Aiba won’t tell on him, or anything. She’ll just wait for him to be ready to talk about it… which will probably be never. He doesn’t need Mizuki holding onto what could have been too.

With that out of the way, he turns to much more pressing issues. Checking to see if she vandalized any of his stash last night out of annoyance. He’s been working hard on rebuilding his collection, and he doesn’t need a vengeful Mizuki hampering his progress.

Carefully, he turns the speaker around, scratching at its back until he finds the right point to… there we go. The back falls out, and it reveals a sight Date never could have expected.

Magazines… there were tons of them! It reminded him of the glory days of his collection. But… they were all destroyed by Mizuki when he was gone! How on earth had they…?

His excitement dies down the minute he picks one up and moves it out of the dark confines of the speakers hollow. It’s… not got a naked woman on it. It doesn’t even have a nearly naked woman on it. Worst of all, there’s not so much as a fully clothed woman on it!

…He groans, looking down at the magazine, as the truth hits him. So, this is how Mizuki got her revenge… and with Aiba’s help too! She’d moved the rest of his stash and replace it with… this!

Why else would the interior of the speaker be full of various insect magazines?

Oh to be betrayed by his two closest… alright, so maybe this isn’t unexpected. It’s certainly a lot more elaborate than Mizuki’s usual approach of destruction, but she’s more then rich enough to afford all these without even breaking a sweat. He sighs, dejectedly putting the magazines back and sliding the speaker back into place. Maybe if he grovels enough, she’ll tell him where she hid his stash?

Absently he wipes some sweat from his forehead and goes to remove the mask. Mizuki’s likelier to forgive him if he…

The mask isn’t coming off.

He can’t even tell where it ends, and his body begins. No groove to peel it off from. He scratches at his neck… and realises too that his vocal collar is missing.

“What the hell…?” He mutters. In his voice. Not Hayato’s.

Oh. Oh, there’s no mask. It’s his face.

He stands there, stunned, not even noticing the sound of the bathroom door opening. Seems Mizuki’s just as tunnel visioned as he is though, because he can hear her opening the fridge without so much as a word to him.

He scratches again. And again. Nothing changes. There really is no mask.

He turns around, to vainly ask Mizuki if this was somehow a joke… only to be hit with something somehow even more surprising.

Yes, it was Mizuki in the fridge. She was tending to her clione, kneeling over them. But that’s not what has his attention. It’s the bright yellow jacket she wears, the large ponytail. His attention is on the fact that Mizuki looks like she’s twelve years old.

She’s muttering to herself (or maybe to her clione.), all while Date can just stand and stare.

Finally, he wills himself to move. A step forward, and then a croak of surprise. No response, she’s alone in her own little world right now.

“Mizuki…?” He asks, finally able to muster the willpower. And that gets her attention.

She looks towards him, confused… before her expression twists into one of fear and shock.

Before he can even ask a question, she’s let out a battle cry. He should know, because it’s the one HE taught her, back in the day. But the warning isn’t enough to save him. Mizuki’s elbow goes crashing into his stomach, sending him bending over and weezing… giving the short girl the perfect chance to slam her fist onto his head.

Date’s thoughts were a jumbled mess. The last thing he sees, before darkness closes in, is a scared Mizuki watching over him with wide eyes, nudging him with her foot as if making sure he was real.

He passes out, then and there, with his world flipped upside down.

Chapter Text

“Come on… Come on, pick up…”

It’s a voice that sounds like it’s coming from miles away, while at the same time being right next to him. Coming into focus as Date comes into consciousness.

His vision is blurry, and he feels uncomfortable like he’s being squeezed. All he can see is an abstract shape of blue and yellow pacing in front of him. What happened…?

His head… it feels like an elephants tapped danced over it. Or he’s had one too many while drinking the night away. Hell, if he’d been drinking at Marble it might have been both, Mama could get be deceptively lively for someone who spent their days standing behind a bar and polishing fish.

Piecing his thoughts back together isn’t easy, but he’s had plenty of experience.

That’s right… He’d woken up in his apartment. The speaker had been full of magazines, but they weren’t the right type. The mask hadn’t come of and then Mizuki…

Mizuki?!

Date’s eyes widen as he goes to rocket out of the chair he’s been lying in, only to realise too late that his stupor isn’t the only thing restraining him. A rope ties him to the chair, and his leap to his feet is promptly turned into a downwards plunge face first into the floor.

“Stay right where you are! Don’t try anything or I’ll… I’ll…”

That’s Mizuki all right. It’s easier to believe what he’s hearing then what he’s seeing. But It's not like her to have such trouble coming up with a threat, so she’s clearly rattled.

“When you say, ‘Don’t do anything’ does that mean I have to stay here?” Date mumbles, cheek pressed into the ground.

“You’re only face planted because you tried to escape!” Mizuki says, accusatory. Even so her legs move past his limited line of sight, and the chair is effortlessly pulled backwards. He really weighs nothing to her, huh?

“Escape? This is my own…” Date’s objection is cut off, as Mizuki walks in front of him, giving him a wary stare. She’s got a phone in one hand, and her metal pipe held out in front of her by the other like she’s prepared to use it at any time.

Oh yeah, and what else? She’s twelve years old.

It had all happened so fast. Turning around to see Mizuki, and then she’d been on him before he even had a moment to think. He’s able to credit several of the more prominent aches around his body to her swift takedown. But now he actually has time to take in what he’s seeing… and from how Mizuki’s staring at him, it almost seems like she’s doing the same thing.

He doesn’t even know what to say. What can you even say to this? She’s there, right in front of him, no doubt about it. And he’s not about to claim a hallucination beat him up, both because that’s entirely illogical and also because he still has his pride.

There… has to be some kind of logical explanation for this, right? Just like when he’d been convinced that the world had changed… When in reality he’d just mistaken Manaka for Iris. He’s just looking at this from the wrong angle, right?

Maybe this is Mizuki getting back at him. She hired some kid to wear a similar mask, maybe with a vocal collar, and then…

No, this ‘Mizuki’ had beaten his ass, and pride-wise a regular child is only a few steps up from a hallucination.

It only gets to the point where Date realises he should ask something, anything, when Mizuki strides forward and tugs on his neck. And when Mizuki tugs at something, you really feel it.

“Ow! Hey! Hands off!” He splutters, as Mizuki makes a spirited attempt at popping his head off his shoulders like an action figure. “Haven’t you heard you’re not allowed to torture prisoners?”

“You sound like him…” Mizuki murmurs, stepping backwards and looking him over again. Slowly she begins to circle him, disappearing from sight. “And I checked for a mask… I was sure there’d be one…”

“That makes two of us.”

It feels like Mizuki. Not for a second does he sense he’s looking at a fake. If his hands were free, he’d probably be tempted to reach them out and similarly check to see she wasn’t wearing some kind of disguise, but with how agitated she seemed, it would probably lose him whatever arm he put on her face.

He feels her prodding at his back.

“Are… you looking for a zipper?” He asks, suddenly exasperated.

“Well I don’t know!” Mizuki spits back, embarrassed, as she stomps back in front of him. She’s still clutching onto her phone. Come to think of it, when he woke, didn’t he overhear her saying she wanted someone to pick up? Was she trying to contact someone?

“Look…” Date puts on his best attempt at an appeasing voice. “You’re confused. I’m confused. I don’t think either of us are going to get any less confused while I’m tied to this chair. Could you please just untie me? I’ll answer any question you want.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Mizuki asks, unimpressed. “Everyone knows you asked the questions BEFORE you untie your captive, dummy. Yeah, I’m sure you’d love for me to set you free! Some creepy old man I found in my apartment!”

Does she… not recognise him?

No wait, that can’t be right! She was so convinced he was an imposter she’d been moments away from giving him a full body search!

“You know who I am, right?” Date asks, cautiously. “I mean, obviously you recognise me.”

Mizuki looks uncertain, glancing down at her phone desperately, before her expression hardens back into a stern defensive wall. “I don’t know. Who are you?”

“Date? Kaname Date? Rings any bells?!”

“…Kaname?” Mizuki looks genuinely surprised. “Not Masamune?”

“That’d be a bit on the nose, wouldn’t it?” Date says, flatly. This back and forth between Mizuki feels bizarrely familiar considering the situation. It’s helping him ground himself at least. “I’d get a lot of funny looks walking down the street, wouldn’t I?”

“Do you tell your name to everyone who you see on the street? That’s egocentric.”

“Not what I…” Date groaned. “There’s clearly some kind of misunderstanding here! You know a Masamune Date? And don’t get smart with me about history books!”

“Shouldn’t think it’d be too hard to get ‘smart’ with you considering you broke into a detective’s apartment.” Mizuki grumbles. It does his heart some good to see her back to her usual self on the insults game at least. “I… Don’t know a Masamune ‘Date’ exactly… Do you not know about him? Do you not know about anything?! Cause if you expect me to believe that… Ugh, you look exactly like him!”

Ah ha. Clues. Doesn’t need Aiba whispering in his ears to recognise them, no matter what she claims. So, this was still the home of a detective, and this ‘Masamune’ guy was his mirror image and presumably the detective in question. But had a slightly different name?

“I know you’re Mizuki Okiura.” He ventures.

“You’re the weirdest and least informed burglar I ever saw.” Mizuki tilts her head. “A little late on that one! It’s Mizuki Date now!”

Wait so… Date was still in his full name? Immediately any foothold he thinks he’s getting in this conversation crumbles into the ground. All he knows now is he’s sometime after the New Cyclops Serial Killings. At least that would be his guess, several of his others had turned out false anyway.

“Not a burglar.” He rallies against the only point in that sentence he had any clear understanding of. “In fact, what I remember is going to sleep in my apartment and waking up in it too. I bet I even have the keys on me!”

Doubt. As much as Mizuki’s trying to hide it through her insults and tough demeanour, she’s uncertain. That’s why she was trying to contact someone, that’s why she was entertaining his questions. And him saying the apartment belonged to him gave her so much pause she didn’t even bother trying to cover it up with irritation.

“Look, just…” He pities her, she’s as confused as he is. Even if it feels like he’s fallen into another dimension he’s still Mizuki’s father and it doesn’t make him happy to see her distressed. “Speak to me here. Who is Masamune?”

“My roommate’s partner…” Mizuki doesn’t put up any resistance. She wants answers, and perhaps she’s starting to see he does as well. Knowing her she’d probably say no one could be that good at acting stupid. “I saw the two of them last night, but I think they might have ended up at Marble… They’re not picking up, and then I find you here? That can’t be a coincidence!”

“And Masamune looks like me?” Okay, this was something. He was getting somewhere. At least, until Mizuki’s response dashed that hope.

“I just said that! Exactly like you!” Mizuki scowls, though she’s unable to keep it up, melting into a worried frown. “Well… Sometimes, I guess.”

The way she was speaking about it so vaguely it’s like she thought she wasn’t allowed to tell him. That’s the only excuse Date can think of as to why she’s dancing around the point like that.

“…If you can’t tell me about him, can you at least untie me?” Date asks. “Do you really think I’m going to hurt you?”

Mizuki gives him a sceptical look.

“Do you really think I’m capable of hurting you? I don’t even have a weapon.”

He's not the only one with pride, and that gets Mizuki thinking. Probably about how she could lay his ass flat on the ground in five different ways before he could even think.

“You wouldn’t be able to hurt me even if you did have a weapon!” She decides. “Alright… But you’re going to sit where I can see you until my roommate arrives!”

“The roommate who wasn’t picking up their phone?”

If looks could kill… Well, he was more concerned about the rest of her that was much more capable of that task.

“You want to know things? Want to act clueless? Well, that’s fine! But I don’t know how much I can even tell you until they both get back!”

Roommate… You know he hadn’t even thought about it, but she had said his lookalike was her ‘roommate’s partner’ instead of living here.

…Maybe he does need Aiba’s help to concentrate on clues sometimes.

“What about your roommate? Can you tell me about them?” Date ventures, while Mizuki works at the rope he’s being tied up with, a tricky task considering she resolutely refuses to let go of her metal pipe. It looks like she’s made creative use of her jump rope, bondage being one of the tamer options. He’d hate for her to use it as an improvised whip, for one.

“I just told you no more questions! If you wanted to ask, you should have done it before I untied you!” Stubborn about the strangest things. That’s his Mizuki. Though he’s starting to get the idea this wasn’t ‘his’ Mizuki after all. “You’ll see her soon enough.”

Her. Last name Date, that Mizuki inherited presumably through being adopted. Still called them her ‘roommate’ despite being parent of child, just like the Mizuki he knows. Partner to someone who looks very similar to himself. Does that mean…? Could It be…?

Is he going to see a thick and milfy version of himself?! Oh, if he could only be so lucky…

It feels like he’d been on the edge of a breakthrough there, but his mind has needs.

Finally the ropes come loose, and Date’s able to stand. Mizuki stands behind him threateningly, the look in her eyes just daring him to try something. Part of him still wants to reach out and touch her, confirm that she’s real… But that would definitely constitute as ‘trying something’.

So instead he collapses on the couch. This is all too much for him, he’s exhausted.

“You made a fuss about me untying you, and the first thing you do is go to sit on a different chair?” Mizuki asks, bewildered.

“There’s such a thing as ‘comfort’ you know.” Date says, making himself comfortable. “This is where I was sleeping before little miss ‘bolt from the blue’ relocated me to a much less comfortable chair.”

“Really? Because the way I remember it you were sorting through those creepy magazines in the speaker.” Mizuki says, leaning on the other side of the couch and casually holding her metal pipe above his head.

“Right. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to-?”

“I don’t wanna talk about them.” Mizuki answers, gravely.

“Fair enough.” Date shrugs, turning to look around the room. In reality, he’s looking for something more specific, though he can practically feel Mizuki’s suspicious look drilling into the back of his skull.

Let’s see, computer’s there, Mizuki’s weights are there and… Ah, bingo. The hanger where they keep their clothes.

Mizuki’s are the same as they always are, but where his should be… He wouldn’t have necessarily guessed the clothes owners were feminine, but they were certainly owned by someone a good deal shorter than him. The hanger contains both a black coat, not as thick or as long as his. Looks like there’s more room to breathe around the neck too… and no purple, just black.

Well, someone else lives here, that’s for sure. But… What does that even mean? The dynamic between Mizuki, Masamune, and her roommate is tangled in his head.

…He misses Aiba. For various reasons, logical and emotional, but mainly because right now she’d probably have as many answers as could be given. She’d be surfing online and she’d at least have given him something to work off. Without her he’s only half the detective he claims to be.

He glances towards her charging socket hopefully. No, it’s empty… She’d probably be coming home with Mizuki’s roommate.

“Did you really appear out of nowhere?” Mizuki suddenly asks, softly. Despite her claims that she’d be watching him like a hawk she seems to have gotten distracted by her own thoughts. “On the couch? That’s where you sleep, right?”

“I did.” Date nods. It sounds unbelievable, like one of Iris’s conspiracy theories.

“My friend, Iris. She used to go on about crazy stuff allll the time.” Mizuki’s clearly thinking the same thing. “About other timelines and different worlds. It’s all unbelievable, but I checked around. The windows are locked, so is the door… I was in the bathroom but I would have heard something if you broke in! It really is like you appeared out of nowhere…”

“Used to?” Out of everything that catches Date’s attention.

“She doesn’t really talk about that stuff anymore.” Mizuki shrugs. So, Iris had gotten cured of her brain tumour here as well, wherever here was. That was good to know… Though there’d been a tinge of sadness in Mizuki’s voice. Just another mystery to be solved.

When did she stop holding her metal pipe? That was dangerous.

“You’re getting a bit comfortable, aren’t you?” Date asks. “After yelling at me about being a strange man in your house.”

“My hands are as deadly as any pipe. Besides… You feel familiar!” Mizuki pouts. “You really do remind me of Masa, even if you’re way more irritating than he is! I guess you can’t pull off the cuteness factor as well, huh?”

“Wha-?! I’m cute, aren’t I?” Date asks, hurt. So does ‘Masa’ look like him or not?!

Mizuki gives him an unimpressed look.

He can’t help but feel a little guilty. Without any of the baggage of six years lost between them, it’s almost easier to banter with this Mizuki, even if she seems different to the one he knows. He doesn’t have his own doubts holding him down…

Although that reminds him.

“Can you answer a question for me? It might sound a bit alarming.” He warns.

“What part of this isn’t? I don’t think anything can surprise me now…” Mizuki says, grumpily.

“How long has it been since the New Cyclops case?”

Mizuki pauses, surprised. “The New Cyclops Killings? How do you not know-?”

She doesn’t get a chance to finish. There’s the sound of a key rattling in the door, and immediately she’s backing away from him and towards the front door.

“Um… Just stay here! I need to try and warn her.” Mizuki says a quick excuse, before ducking behind the door between the living room and the entrance. Date was left alone. Now was the moment of truth it seemed.

“Alright… Take your time.” He says to no one in particular. But he’s starting to feel self-conscious. Mizuki was a kid, no matter how mature she tried to sell herself as. She was all too happy to lend an ear to things like Iris’s conspiracy theories… and even as an adult she was loyally following a fake belly button washing ritual he’d taught her as a child.

Appearing in here out of nowhere? She might believe it, but trying to convince a grown woman and her partner? He’d sound like a crazy person.

He's aware of what sounds like a muffled argument going on besides the door and strains his ears to listen. Yet one of the voices… It almost sounds like…

“-But have you seen him anywhere? In my eye socket one moment and gone the next! I’m aware he gets antsy, and I know he’s got a streak of mischief a mile long, but he knows I need him to… to…”

Oh. Date and the woman stare at each other, and all of a sudden, the clues now spread openly in his mind, he’s painfully aware of how stupid he’s been.

It's Aiba. One eye closed, and missing her highlights and translucent hands, but it’s undeniably her. She might still have her tattoos, only it’s hard to tell because of what she’s wearing.

That black buttoned coat from the hanger, unbuttoned to show a white shirt beneath it. She’s actually wearing pants and shoes, something he never thought he’d seen in a lifetime outside of her occasional dress up games with Mizuki.

She looks so… human. And it’s easy to focus on her clothes and the small differences then it is to linger on the main fact. That she’s standing right there in front of him, very much Aiba in all the ways that matter.

Her eye is wide with shock, as she takes an unsteady foot forward.

“Masamune?”

“Aiba…?”

It felt like time was frozen, until the moment was interrupted by a shy voice from the door.

“I told you you’d be better off waiting there while I explained things…” Mizuki shifts uncomfortably, hiding behind Aiba. “There’s a lot to explain…”

That seemed to be the understatement of a lifetime.

Chapter Text

“Is it… Is it really you? That’s… it’s impossible, right?”

It’s Aiba who comes to her senses first, her hand subconsciously reaching up over her closed eyelid, while her other eye remains locked on him.

He wills himself not to do the same... and to close his hanging jaw before he starts catching flies with it. Until now the absence of Aiba in his empty socket had just been a foot note at the end of all the other insane stuff that was happening, right until she walked out in front of him. Now her absence was like a void.

Except she’s not absent, she’s right in front of him. No hologram or anything, it’s uncanny enough seeing her on the right side of his vision.

Touch her. Can he touch her? Just to make sure she’s there? No, NO, that’s way too weird right? Unlike everything ELSE going on here, which is clearly above board!

He tears his gaze off her long enough to realise he’s outstretched his hand like some kind of creep! Okay, just gotta reel it back in as soon as he remembers basic motor control…

That goes right out of the window when Aiba reaches out her own hands and takes his between them.

He always thought she looked warm. Maybe it’s the red colour of her hands, maybe it’s just the slight warmth she brings to his socket, or maybe it’s because he mostly associates shrimps with being cooked. Either way her hands are shockingly cold.

“You… You’re actually… That is to say…” Aiba sweats. “Who are you again?”

It's such a familiar line, he has to laugh, or as much as that choked exhale of air counts as one. In absence of anything else to say, he falls on an old default.

“Kaname Date. MPD, special investigation team ‘ABIS’… Psyncer.”

And it’s like some sort of spell has been broken, and time flows again. Aiba lets go of his hands, steps backwards, and gives him one of the most perplexed looks he’s ever seen on her face even throughout all those years of them putting up with one another. He’s aware of Mizuki again, hovering around the edge of the exchange and nervously waiting for reality to flood in.

And reality indeed does flow in, like a cold splash of water to the face. Aiba looks like she’s seen a ghost, as her hand snaps to her side, fumbling for an evolver holster she doesn’t seem to be wearing.

“Kaname Date?! Who on earth are you? How did you get in here, and what are you doing with Mizuki?! Why do you… Why do you look…” Aiba looks him up and down as if doing so will radically change his appearance, clutching her own head. “Masamune… I thought you were… Ugh.”

Oh right. Aiba having just come back from what Mizuki claimed was a late-night Marble trip probably didn’t make any of this easy to digest.

On second inspection of her appearance, things he’d overlooked start to make themselves clear. Hair dishevelled, slight bags under her eyes… and the way she’d staggered into the room might not have been entirely from shock. All the hallmarks of a Marble hang-over.

Christ, he’s never seen Aiba drink anything except the occasional somnium bottle of wine. Although if she got drunk here as quickly as she did while psyncing…

And while he’s been taking in Aiba, Aiba’s been taking in the room. The chair out of place, the untied jump rope laying haphazardly around it… Her expression turns practically offended when her gaze settles on the opened speakers and notices the magazines spilling out from it… and lastly she turns to Mizuki, who’s doing her best to look innocent in spite of everything.

“Welcome home?” She shrugs. “In my defence I did tell you to wait in the hall…”

He can tell just from her expression as Aiba comes to one universal conclusion: She’s too tired for any of this shit.

“Explain. Now.” There’s a twinge of confused desperation in her voice. She’s human all right. “…Please?”

----

Once, while sitting in a cold and sterile hospital waiting room awaiting the result of Iris’s operation, he’d wondered how it felt. To spill a story as ridiculous and contrived as the Naix Conspiracy and yet have total belief that it was the truth. She’d shown faith and conviction so strong it had almost shaken his. Just for a moment, despite Aiba’s insistence to the contrary, he’d almost wanted to believe her.

Well now he understands. Not just telling a story so unbelievable it seemed to spit in the face of logic, but also what it meant to bank on someone believing you in spite of it.

Aiba sits on the couch and hears him out while he stands across from her and starts speaking like a mad man. It’s honestly more then he deserves, a stranger appearing in her apartment wearing a face she recognises.

(Because this isn’t his Aiba. He’d gotten swept up when he saw her, but it was the truth. Just like the girl standing next to him nodding along furiously to his story wasn’t his Mizuki. And as for her ‘Masamune’… Well, he has his suspicions. So many questions have piled up that they’ve started to overflow and become answers.)

It's a short and simple tale, at least. Between waking up here and getting jumped by Mizuki there really isn’t all that much to say. But it has so much compressed insanity within it that it almost makes it worse.

“Another world.” Aiba says, flatly. It’s not a question but a statement, putting on display just how ridiculous this all is. “You came from another world.”

“Yeah…” Date says, breathlessly. “Yeah that’s…”

Not even the half of it really. But if he says, ‘Oh, also I’m from six years into a future you may or may not experience yourself’ before Mizuki’s even heard it then there’s no way he's getting out of this without a one-way ticket to the insane asylum.

“And you just… appeared here?” THAT one’s a question. If only because Aiba’s probably weighing up a breaking and entering charge in her head and needs more details.

“I know it sounds impossible to believe, but he did!” Mizuki insists. “I was in the bathroom, sure, but as soon as I went out to check my clione he-“

“So you didn’t actually see him appear then?” Aiba’s eye narrows. “How are you so sure he didn’t get in through a window that was left unlocked?”

“So he just climbed his way up all those stories bare handed then?” Mizuki pouts. “And locked the window behind him with a key?”

He probably does have a key, but suddenly that no longer feels like a defence if Aiba finds that out. She’s not buying this at all.

“Why would anyone even want to break in here?” Mizuki continues, frustrated. “It’s not like we have anything valuable in here!”

“Well you never know…” Aiba tilts her head slightly to get a better look at the magazine pile behind him, in case he’s slipped one into his turtleneck. As if he’d snatch an entomology magazine... He only prefers his women with six limbs if you get extremely generous about the definition of ‘limb’.

“And he FEELS like Masa!” Mizuki insists. “He acts similar, he looks similar… You’d feel it if you stopped grilling him; I know I did! Besides, when you came into the room the two of you were basically starstruck with each other, so don’t you dare pretend you didn’t also see it!”

“That’s…” Aiba’s cheeks flush a little, and she shoots him a grumpy look as if it’s his fault somehow. Well, anything except suspicion or confusion was fine in his book. “…A coincidental resemblance, that is true, but I was merely caught off guard and-“

“Where is Masamune anyway?” Date asks. He likes to consider himself something of a martial artist, he taught Mizuki everything she knew (except the stuff she taught herself), and there’s one lesson he’s always taken to heart: strike your opponent while they’re off balance. “Must be alarming, having an AI-ball vanish from your socket like that.”

Not so much as a shot in the dark as a shot in the dim. The way she’d reached towards her empty socket when she saw him, the way Mizuki spoke about ‘Masamune’. It all seems like one strange dream… But getting to the bottom of dreams is the work of a Psyncer.

Besides… He’d hit his mark.

“You know about AI-balls?” Aiba asks, suddenly paying close attention to his left eye. Instead of getting more surprised, he can practically see gears turning in her head, machine or not. “Hold on… You introduced yourself as a Psyncer. At ABIS…”

“Advanced Brain Investigation Squad?” Date smirks. What a turnaround to suddenly have most of the answers and leaving Aiba reeling for a change. He can’t help but feel a little smug. “Where you use a psync machine to peer into the dreams of suspects, or ‘somniums’. The machine can also be used to-“

“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point. But that’s impossible!” Aiba rises from her seat, her expression much more focused. Good, he’s never let a hangover keep him down before. “I’ve been at ABIS for six years, and I’ve never seen you once! I suppose next you’ll say Pewter modelled Masamune off your appearance, and this was all one big joke! That Boss hires secret Psyncers? Or perhaps that I’m simply going insane.”

Well two out of three are wrong, but he’ll let her learn about Bibi in her own time.

“I’m handsome enough to be a model, aren’t I? I can see why you’d think that, but no.” He puts his hand on his chin, striking what he hopes is an enigmatic pose. The world has gone crazy… Might as well just go with the flow while he still has answers to give. Besides, let up for even a moment and reality might come knocking again and make a way more convincing case then he can.

“See?” Mizuki waves a hand. “Acts just like him.”

“Like a narcissist?” Aiba frowns.

“Exactly! Always thought the two of you had that in common.” Mizuki settles into the empty seat Aiba left behind, listening on with an almost giddy interest. And why not? To her, ‘one of Iris’s stories come to life’, didn’t have any negative connotations.

“…I really wish you’d called me before I walked in on this.”

“I really wish you’d buy a phone. Cause I did call you! Kaname’s right, where is Masamune? Without him it’s like you drop off the face of the earth!”

“That’s what I wanted to know…” Aiba replies. It’s the most troubled she’s looked since stepping into this room, which really says a lot. His disappearance must be eating at her a lot.

“You mean he disappeared from your socket? Just like Kaname appeared on the couch?” Mizuki says, triumphantly. He’s not sure when she became entirely on ‘Kaname’s’ side (that feels weird), nor about the implication of Masamune seemingly vanishing the exact moment he appeared, but he’s grateful for her help. If she and Aiba are anything like him and his Mizuki, maybe it’s just for the thrill of being on the side that Aiba isn’t. He’s yet to meet a more stubborn girl… who isn’t her genetic double.

“That’s…” Aiba doesn’t even have a response. She just looks towards the empty charging socket with a look of helplessness, before turning to Date with a suspicious glare. “Well it can’t be a coincidence that he vanishes and you appear! What do you have to do with this?! Do you know where he is?! I need him back!”

She’s speaking so urgently. Well, no wonder she’s so urgent about it, AI-balls were high tech devices. Although that never stopped Aiba from slipping out and getting up to mischief in the night. Masamune’s probably out for some alone time…

Still, she sounds almost desperate. He needs to get the situation under control.

He'd been happily letting them argue among themselves, all while trying to rack his brain for something, anything that might be used as proof without accidentally implicating himself as a burglar with his keys and setting them right back to square one.

Still, the way Aiba’s behaving doesn’t really sit right with him. Looking dishevelled, it seemed like she’d raced all the way home from Marble even without Mizuki’s calls making contact. Yet another byproduct of Masamune vanishing? Come to think of it, Aiba’s never vanished from his socket when he wasn’t at home. No wonder she was unnerved.

Plus, unlike this Aiba he now had his own phone anyway, so all he’d need to do is call her and…

Phone! He had his own phone! That was it!

“Hang on! Ladies, there’s got to be a better way of solving this.” Date rummages around in his pocket. He’d gone straight to bed after high tailing it from the Sagan household, meaning he should still have it on him. Sure enough, he pulls it out.

It's not the most advanced phone in the world… In fact, that’s probably the case even six years in the past, but it kept him going while he was at Atami. And since he and Mizuki decided to split Aiba he’d had no reason to get rid of it.

But it’s got pictures, and that’s what he needs.

Sure enough, after a few moments of scrolling, he’s able to find what he’s looking for.

“Just… Look at this, okay? Come to your own conclusion. I promise I had nothing to do with Masamune vanishing. Well… Deliberately at least.”

It's a photo of him and Aiba. He’d tactfully selected one without the older Mizuki… He’s starting to think that bringing up the future in general would be a mistake unless absolutely necessary… Her only inclusion being that she’d taken the picture and sent it to him.

Aiba’s on his head, tugging on his hair with one paw to support herself and waving to the camera with her other. He’s wincing but still smiling.

Another reason he’d kept the phone… Taking pictures of friends and family suddenly became a whole lot more important after six years of not being able to remember their faces.

Aiba snatches the phone from him, glaring down at it like she’s expecting to see some kind of ransom for her partner, only for her expression to change into something more inscrutable as she processes the image on its screen.

“Hey, let me take a look…” Mizuki complains, and without a word Aiba hands the phone down towards her. Mizuki peers at the phone, amazed. “Another AI-ball! I’ve never seen one that looks like that before…”

“Pardon, but haven’t you only ever seen Masamune?” Aiba asks, her accusation momentarily thrown for a loop.

He can tell he’s made a breakthrough as Aiba crouches back down behind Mizuki to get another look at the photo. When she looks back at him, she’s not on guard or suspicious. The disbelief is still there, but… Sometimes that’s the last step before acceptance.

“That’s… you.” Date admits. He wishes he had a better way of explaining it, but in this regard, he’s as lost as her. “In my… world… timeline? I don’t know. Whatever it is I know that where I come from, you’re my AI-ball and partner. And… I’m willing to bet that in this world ‘Masamune’ is me.”

“It… certainly seems impossible that an AI-ball exists without me knowing of it…” Aiba admits. “But the idea of jumping from one world to the next. I-I mean…”

“Kaname! Look at this!” While Aiba’s been grappling with the idea, Mizuki has a firm wrestling hold on it. She’s already pulled out her own phone and quickly passes it towards him.

It's got a picture in it. It’s Aiba, looking amused. He can’t help but notice she seems to be in better condition than she is now… But who’s he to judge after all the nights he’s spent at Marble… and he realises with some embarrassment he’s taken in the details of her face before the picture’s focus.

She’s carefully holding up an AI-ball by its ‘neck’ with two fingers. With the pointed ears, tail and paws it’s clearly some kind of chubby cat. Most striking is the glowing purple of its… no, his… eye.

So this is Masamune. This is him. Or rather, some other version of him.

He's lost. He’s totally lost. He’s been riding on a short wave of satisfaction from piecing together answers, and now he’s totally out of them… He has no idea where he is, why he’s here, and who these two are.

Well they’re… It’s Mizuki and Aiba. The most important people in his life, his family. But he doesn’t know them, doesn’t know what’s different about them! Hell, the future he’s come from might not even come to pass in this world! So why is he here?!

Maybe if he swipes and sees a few more pictures he can-

“Hey!” Mizuki puffs up her cheeks in outrage, snatching the phone back. “Those are private! But… Yeah, that’s Masamune. I guess you know what I mean when I say that he’s a lot cuter than you, huh?”

She waits for a response, some banter like they’ve done before, but she doesn’t get it.

Date just stands there, frozen. What the hell is he going to do?! His short-term goal had just been stopping Aiba from kicking him out… and now he has nothing.

“Are you okay?” Mizuki asks, sounding a bit more worried.

“You… really don’t know what’s going on, do you?” Aiba asks, hesitantly. “It’s a strange look on you. Normally you’ve always got some smart idea… But, if this is true, I suppose you’re not my Masamune, are you? If you appeared out of nowhere, then Masa, he…” Her voice fills with dread. “Oh no.”

“No I’m not him.” Date shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t know how any of this happened, or why it happened or… Oh god.”

Is he missing back home? Has he suddenly vanished on them again, after only just coming back? Mizuki would be heartbroken. And since he’s just disappeared into thin air, she might never find him again. Would she give up on him? Would she keep looking in vain? Which is worse?

Okay this is moving too fast all of a sudden. He needs to calm down. He needs to-

Aiba moves forward and embraces him. It’s so sudden it stops him in his tracks, as she wraps her arms around him and squeezes.

She’s so tiny. Or maybe he’s only feeling that way because he’s as tall as he used to be? Either way she’s not even tall enough to rest his chin on. He could probably wrap his arms around her and lift her with no effort.

He doesn’t give in to that particular intrusive thought, but he does hug her back. She’s just as lost as he is; that’s for sure. It’s almost envious how well Mizuki can take this news compared to them. If he hadn’t run into her first and gotten time to prepare himself, this whole thing would have blown up in their faces.

Although, as neither he nor Aiba are willing to let go, he’s not quite convinced that it hasn’t already.

“I don’t want to be weird about this, but aren’t the two of you basically strangers?” Mizuki, however, is entirely willing to break the pair of them up. “I mean, who knows where your Masamune and Aiba are!”

The thought of their respective other halves is enough to bring things to a halt.

“I apologize.” Aiba coughs as she steps backwards, deliberately not meeting his eyes. The embarrassment is palpable. “That was very impulsive of me. I just assumed that since you knew an Aiba then it would be welcome…”

“It was! It was!” Date quickly reassures. “I’m just surprised, that’s all! I mean, the closest we’ve got to a hug before is me just squeezing you!”

“Squeezing me?!” Aiba looks scandalised.

“I mean the other you! The small you! The AI you! The… This is really confusing.” Date groans. “I mean you can just call one version of me Masamune and the other ‘Kaname’.” Which he’s not getting over anytime soon. “But both versions of you go by Aiba? How come people don’t call you Date! They call me Date!”

It's the most grounded topic of this impossible situation he could have picked. It’s not quite bringing them down to earth, but it at least lets them talk to each other like normal people.

“Well I am a feminine woman of great beauty…” Aiba looks at him like he’s a particularly dim child for not immediately clueing onto this. “…I should think ‘Date’ doesn’t really bring to mind my cuteness. So naturally people call me Aiba.”

“All that while still being able to take advantage of student discounts.” Date whistles, impressed. Judging by the death glare he earns from her, it’s a testament to how uncertain Aiba is about him that she doesn’t come in range to elbow him. “I’m guessing you don’t want me calling you Date then?”

“Aiba is fine… Though your tastes are clearly just as awful no matter what form you take.” Aiba sulks.

“Well, you’ve got an advantage over my Aiba at least.”

“Oh?” That catches her attention.

“You don’t have the option to make your boobs bigger, so I’ll cut you some slack for not designing that body yourself.”

“It’s you.” Aiba says with complete certainty. “I don’t know how or why, but it really is you… Kaname.”

She’s never said his name like that before. It… Doesn’t sound half bad, honestly. It’s strange how formal she is with him, despite also being closer to him than anyone else.

“In the flesh. But you already knew that.” Date spreads out his arms, gesturing to his body.

“And you really don’t know how you got here?”

“If I had the ability to travel through reality at will, I wouldn’t use it to get mugged by a little brat in my own home. It already happens enough back in my own reality.”

“It’s hard to imagine wailing on Masamune…” Mizuki murmurs.

“But you wail on Aiba?” Date asks, uncertain of how to even picture that. It was just too alien.

“…When she deserves it.” Mizuki’s voice goes dead cold as she glares at the insect magazines still left in a pile. As if remembering them, Aiba rushes forward to tidy them away.

“So… Is it like a sexual thing?” Date kneels down slightly and whispers to Mizuki. All he can picture is his own porno mags, and replacing that mental image with insects didn’t do good things for his brain.

“I think the world is better off not knowing.” Mizuki whispers back, gravely. “All I know is that if they really were just for research, she wouldn’t hide them away like she’s ashamed of them.”

Disturbing… Not like good sensible kinks, like bones or cuckoldry.

“Well. Now that those RESEARCH PAPERS are safely tucked away!” Aiba dusts herself off, rising back up from her frantic clean up. “Kaname… I have no idea what’s going on. But it’s clear neither do you. Can I ask you to come with me to ABIS?”

“ABIS?” Date frowns. “Why would we go there? I pop in from another reality and you want to go to work? Sounds…”

Like something he’d do. He’s never claimed not to be a workaholic.

Aiba, for her part, just rolls her eyes, evidently done with all this. “For Masamune! Remember? He’s the reason I rushed home in the first place, and as disturbing ad your sudden appearance is I still need to find him! I need him back! …Plus he’s the only lead we’ve got, if we can use his GPS to determine his location. For that I need Pewter! And if I take my eye off you, I’m afraid you’ll just vanish, and I’ll be left with neither you nor Masa!”

…It’s a fair concern. And at least it’s a plan. He hadn’t the slightest clue where to go when he finished explaining, but Aiba’s already come up with something. Sounds about right.

Even if it sounds more like she’s motivated by Masa being missing than anything else.

“And I’ll come to!” Mizuki insists.

“No.”

The answer from Aiba comes quicker and firmer than Date expected. The audible sound of someone putting their foot down before an argument could even be made. He’s a little taken aback… But Mizuki looks as if she’d been expecting it.

“Finders keepers! I found him!” She scowls, crossing her arms.

“Shouldn’t you be in school? It’s a Monday!” Aiba argues.

“I had to call off because a weirdo suddenly appeared in my apartment and my guardian wasn’t picking up!” Mizuki yells back.

And then there’s silence. Date gets the feeling he just witnessed something he shouldn’t… And both girls reach the same conclusion too.

“We’ll be going now.” The tension in the room is thick enough to cut it, but Aiba still puts her hand on his shoulder and steers him towards the door. She obviously regrets it, yet no apology comes. “You should… Make the best of your day off.”

“Yeah…” Mizuki says, looking down at the ground. “You’re… Both coming back tonight, right?”

“…Right.” Aiba hesitates for one moment too long. “As soon as our business is concluded.”

“Okay.” Mizuki doesn’t call it out. “…See you.”

And just like that they’re outside the apartment. Date’s left reeling from how quickly things had taken a turn. Just when it seems like they’d been starting to calm down after his sudden appearance. He can’t make heads or tails of what he’s just seen.

Aiba doesn’t look at him as she starts to walk down the corridor, but he’s left with one burning question that, just for this moment, screams louder then all others.

“What the hell was that?!”