Home

She's been spending less and less time in America, although, just months ago, it's where she would've called home. It wasn't out of comfort that she said that – it was out of resilience and repeated actions. Still, since she'd gone and graduated from high school, and furthermore was now nearly finished with college, there was nothing keeping her from the place she called home more frequently – an old, run-down, ridiculous 'laboratory' with a half-scrawled sign on the street outside of its' steps, belonging to a madman. When she stands in front of the door this time, she has good news, but her mood is questionable at best. Flustered, and internally kicking herself for not being more comfortable about this, she is startled beyond belief when a familiar face comes at her.

"Kurisu!" Mayuri is just as lovely as she remembers, full chest, fluffy skirted dress, large eyebrows, beaming smile, and all. She carefully takes note of the stairs, and instead of tackling her, grabs her in a tight embrace. "I missed you so much! Are you staying for a while?"

Thinking of her unpacked things, the lectures she has scheduled for the next two months, and her dilemma of struggling to find a place to live, she smiles. It's beleaguering work, but somehow, the notion that it exists warms her heart. "Yeah, I'm moving."

"For good?" Mayuri perks up, dark eyes growing impossibly wide before shutting with the force of her smile. "Mayushi's so happy! Okarin—oh, Okarin is out…Daru!" She finally lets Kirisu through the door, and patters over to her other friend. "Daru, Kurisu is moving to Akiba!"

Hashiba, who had headphones on and an intense look of concentration, was startled to see both of the girls there, after he was done looking angry, and then smiled after Mayuri explained what she'd interrupted him to say. He smiled, and said sincerely, "Okarin'll be glad to hear that." The young woman that had just turned seventeen agreed with him, nodding and humming.

Kurisu felt flustered, and hoped she wasn't showing it on her face. Thinking about what his actual reaction would be made her snort. "Where is the loser, anyways?"

"He's out buying food, and something new for class. He's taking some chemistry course, and he's determined to outwit the professor." Daru was the one to answer her, and they both shared a sort of snort-chuckle about his reply. No matter how crazy he acted, though, Okabe was no idiot by any stretch of the imagination, even if he couldn't always explain his theories to other people. At the very least, he couldn't explain them without dashes of internet references, lengthy delusions, or rambles and demeaning nicknames that any sane person would have dismissed before he started talking about anything relevant. She sat on the couch, listening happily as they told her what they had been up to – Mayuri would be graduating in the following Spring, but she was uncertain of whether she wanted to get a job or go to college. She was happy staying with her parents and working at the maid café, so she figured she might just take another part time job when she finished to help them pay the bills. Daru worked at an electronics store on the weekends, but didn't bother doing much else. Apparently, he thought he might be able to get an internship at a famous technology-advancement company, but for the time being, he was happy collecting his games and working on finishing his degree. Okabe was, well, the same as always – delusional, loud, and shameless. His grades were good, his rent was paid, somehow, and he looked as unruly and rail-thin as he had the last time she'd seen him, according to their joint testimony. As for the others – Moeka, Ruka, Faris – they were busy in their own ways. The first young woman still worked in the electronics shop below the lab, the second for her father's shrine, and the third was head of the café now, as she'd been ready to be for years. Just as they were about to go into more detail about Faris's love life, the man in a lab coat slugged through the door carrying too many things for his scrawny arms to handle, and nearly dropped the bags and lone box of miscellaneous equipment by catching the toe of his shoe on the door's entryway.

"These shoes – my assistant must be here!" He said that despite his lack of air, and Kurisu sighed in response.

"Need help?" Reluctantly, she pushed herself up from the couch and readied herself to be bossed around, and was surprised when he straightened himself up, put his hands on his hips, and did not, in fact, command her to start reveling in his glory, or whatever the wordy excuse to make her help him shelve the beakers would have been.

"The Great Kyouma Hououin will not be requiring aide at this juncture in time – the inability of yours to malfunction under duress is hardly qualified for the delicacy of my instruments!"

"Man, why can't you just out and say you're worried about Makise being tired?" Daru grumbled good-naturedly, but his friend merely let out that bellowing, ridiculous laugh. Kirisu sighed. "At least get them out of the doorway."

Kurisu and Mayuri helped him, regardless of his rants, put away the glasses, beakers, food, and other equipment before reconvening on the couch. Okabe and Daru chatted about some anime or another after he'd eventually settled down (relatively speaking), but he decided to leave around ten or so, taking Mayuri with him, and leaving the two scientists (well, one scientist, and self-proclaimed mad scientist) alone in the lab. It took four tries, behind the front of his alter ego, before Okabe managed to drink his Dr. Pepper correctly, become almost dangerously quiet, and even had cheeks tinted with the faintest blush. His decorum managed to make Kurisu nervous and flushed in turn, and it was just weird. "Let's go on a walk!" She blurted, completely ignorant of the time and place, but he seemed to appreciate her idea, and so said, "I concur, assistant," before scurrying off of the couch and putting his shoes on.

The night was a little chilly – it was April, after all – but neither of them seemed to mind it very much. Still, he noticed after a particularly strong breeze rolled by, and she huddled in on herself to brace against the wind, and offered her his coat. It was such a shocking gesture that she hardly had time to retort properly, and even then blushed throughout her delivery. "Who wants to wear your smelly old lab coat!" He snorted and draped it over her shoulders anyways, and she reluctantly thanked him while he put his hands in his pants pockets. After that exchange, things were more normal between them – they chortled, joked, debated, and walked for a mile in a circle near the lab, before deciding it was just a bit too chilly to continue and headed inside.

They sat on the couch together for a long time, not saying anything, and it was, Kurisu admitted to herself, nice. He had draped himself over the couch the long way, and she was sitting between his legs, warm and cozy, and paying too much attention to little things—the way he tapped his fingers on nothing in particular, the way he played with her hair. Mostly, she noticed this sort of far-away look in his gaze as he stared at her, as though he were somewhere between frightened and unbelievably relieved to see her sitting there. Eventually, his head fell on her shoulder, and his eyes closed. Even his arms she had let wrap around her, and she curled her fingers around his longer ones. "I missed you," She whispers finally, swathed in his clothes – they smell like Dr. Pepper, something a little bit burnt, cleaning fluid, and something musty – all very undeniably Okabe-like. The truth in the statement is somewhat frightening in its' intensity.

"Mmm," He mumbles back, and the air from his nose tickles her neck. Wrapped in his arms, while he's quietly drifting off, and she is dangerously close to unconsciousness as well, on his stupid, dinky little couch, in the laboratory that is hardly that, she can't believe she's ever slept anywhere else. When she wakes up, she's been given a proper blanket, a pillow, and has even been tucked in. Above her, the lanky brunette is still toying with her hair, as if amazed.

"I'm not going anywhere," She sleepily murmurs to him, reaching for his hand and squeezing it in reassurance.

"I love you, Kurisu," Okabe mumbles back, pressing a quick kiss to her dry lips, closing his eyes and crouching next to her. It isn't the first, or second, or probably even the tenth time he's told her that. She knows he means it more every time, and she's never felt more loved, more at home, more alive than when he whispers the affirmation into her skin. His eyes are so full of pain and shock and a tender, broken soul just on the verge of beginning to heal, and while she had at first wondered how on earth she had managed to fall for such a crazy, delusional goofball, she couldn't imagine what things would be like without him. What home would be, to her, without Okabe.

"I love you too," It's been a year, a really strange year, full of ups and downs, and confusions about what was real and what wasn't, travels back and forth between Japan and America, long phone calls, video messages, and debates well into the middle of the night with him, but now that she's moving back, she doesn't want to remember what it was like before. She's finally managed to say it to him, with her eyes wide open, and she really, truly means it, not just feeling emotionally drawn to him through vague half-memories—in their timeline, in her tangible life, she's fallen in love with the man.

It's laughable, really. When she finally wakes up for good, there's a decent breakfast waiting for her, the sight of her boyfriend freshly washed with his hair down leaning out of the window, and she smiles. "Those chemistry experiments can't wait all day, mad scientist."

"You dare refute my abilities, assistant! You shall be the first to witness the reactions I've plotted up – fifty different ways to deny that horrid, disrespectful Organization member's claims!" Okabe puffs up, and she sighs, playing along.

"Yeah, yeah. So, where do we start?" Okabe rants again, but Kurisu, for all her scowling and debating, wouldn't trade this for the world.