Archive of Our Own

Something is wrong with Gaku.

It's a very subtle wrong. In fact, if you weren't suffering at the hands of an infinite recursive time loop hell-prison, it would be nigh on impossible to notice that anything was amiss in the first place.

Lucky for Takumi—and there are innumerable scare quotes around the word """lucky""" to emphasize the irony and facetiousness of calling being trapped in an ever-spiraling hell of repetition and forgetting """""""lucky"""""""—he is stuck in a horrible infinite recursive time loop hell-prison of his own making and he does know his (comrades? family? unit?) friends well enough to notice the slight oddities in Gaku's behavior.

The oddities are actually almost horrifying when cast in relief—although that might be exacerbated by the looming threat of the G'ie constantly haunting any attempt at survival than anything else—but when he brings it up to Hiruko, she just blankly stares at him as though he's started suggesting they prostrate themselves before V'exhness and beg her mercy instead of fighting back. That's fine. He's joked about him being the more emotionally intelligent among the two of them so it's just another moment he can point to in retrospect and go, "See? You need me around for more than my good looks and powerful hemoanima!" (In jest, of course, because he would never say something so mean in earnest. He loves Hiruko and knows how much these decades of attempts at freedom have worn on her. Humor is just a coping mechanism he's taken to instead of immediately guilt-spiraling because he's finally cognizant of their shared torment.)

(Also because she would immediately cave his skull in for the audacity alone and then never let him live it down, using it as blackmail material for at least five to ten more loops after the fact.)

"What are you on about?"

Takumi just shakes his head at her dry question. "I told you: something is wrong with Gaku."

"What does that even mean? He seems the same as always to me." She raises an eyebrow at him as he huffs in frustration. "Don't take that tone with me. Use your words."

"He's too Gaku." Hiruko squints at him, confusion mixed with derision all over her face. Back up. Try again. "Y'know when Zen'ta copies someone and they wind up being like...the most surface level version of themselves?" A nod. "That but weirder."

"You think Gaku has been...replaced?"

"Well..." Takumi thinks about exactly how to explain his thoughts. "No? Maybe? I don't know..."

"You...don't know?" She sounds unimpressed.

Right. He's incredibly bad at this, obviously. No need to rub it in. "Didn't you notice?"

A weary sigh—one she only lets out when he's being particularly obtuse and she's mostly fondly amused by his antics—gently escapes her lips. "Obviously not, or we wouldn't be having this discussion."

How to clarify? "Gaku is...it's kinda like watching someone go through the motions. Moving in ways Gaku would move, talking the way Gaku talks, saying very Gaku things..." It's an imperfect explanation but it's the best he has. "Doesn't that seem odd to you?"

A beat. A long beat, an eternity of awkward processing. Takumi can feel his face slowly heating, like a stovetop on simmer, panic and embarassment grabbing at his organs and twisting them like one of Moko's weird chokeholds that she always threatens any misbehaving boy with. "No?" Dammit. "But I'll bite this time. You are, as you said, better at this than I am. More...adept at reading people." He could kiss her. Platonically. Thank you for his life.

"Ohthankgod." The words come rushed out of his mouth, one fast exhale, and he almost collapses as the pressure relieves itself. "I wasn't sure how I was going to convince you otherwise. I need your help, after all."

A thin smile pulls at the corners of her mouth. Satisfied and touched, she inclines her head for him to lead the way. So he does.

They have to figure out what the problem is, after all. They shouldn't waste a single second on stupid shit like debating if Takumi is right (he is) or berating Takumi for being paranoid (he is) or even complaining about how finding Gaku is like finding a porno mag in a bookstore (which isn't as hard as Hiruko says it is and she knows it, she literally is being a rude bitch about it on purpose because she likes being mean to Takumi specifically and getting his goat about shit that doesn't matter in the long run because they are Captial-T Tired after Literal Decades Of Time Loops and this is entertainment to her). As, y'know, nonspecific examples. Things one might conjure from the ether as a hypothetical and not actually a thing that is happening because that's some primo bullshit and why would you even be like this?

(Don't say a goddamn word. Just...don't.)

Gaku is in the kitchen, in the back area, just out of reach of the Ration-o-Matic's long, flailing limbs. He's got a stewpot on and is making some kind of bone broth, face screwed in concentration. Prespiration beads on his face, collecting in the furrows of his brow, dripping down his nose, and he constantly uses a sopping, ugly-ass towel to dry off so he doesn't oversalt the broth. Such is his devotion to his culinary craft. King shit.

Takumi gives exactly negative fucks about the extremely tedious requirements of making broth from scrap and, with the grace of a young boy in the adult section of a novelty shop, stumbles into his space to put an unwashed hand on Gaku's shoulder.

Gaku does not yelp or shriek or make any unmanly sound. Nope. He very masculinely shouts in surprise and beats Takumi in the face with his slotted spoon like a brave soldier, leaving a wet, pink, meat-scented imprint on his friend's cheek.

"Dude, what the fuck?!"

Takumi wipes his face with the back of his hand, a tense smile corrupting the halfassed apology he tries to insincerely give. "Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I just...had a question?"

Gaku's brows furrow. "Now?" He looks back at his stewpot, his precious, precious broth, simmering gently and bubbling with potential (and also heat). "I'm - I'm kinda in the middle of something right now."

"It won't take long." A blatant lie. "And if you want, I can get Kurara to watch your broth.."

Gaku shrieks. "That woman stays away from my fucking pot or I riot. I'll blow myself up if she sets foot in my fucking kitchen."

"This is the communal kitchen."

"My fucking kitchen." Gaku brandishes the spoon at Takumi like he's holding back the unwashed, hungry masses at the gate of a banquet because they're too fucking poor to afford the entry fee. "She does not fucking step foot near my precious, precious baby."

"Jeeze, okay." Takumi laughs, hands held up in defense of his poor, slapped face. "But, like, I promise it won't take too long. Do you really need to babysit the pot the whole...hours?"

Gaku squints. Stares. Searches for something in Takumi's guileless face. Then he frowns and puts down the spoon, whipping the towel off his shoulder to hang far away from the burner so he isn't lugging it around "Fine. Make it quick though."

The two leave the kitchen and Gaku follows their Team Leader outside, then around the back of the Academy, and to a secondary location. This is, of course, a rookie mistake. Hiruko immediately leaps out of nowhere, picks Gaku up by his throat, and pins him to a tree, her big fuckoff axe—why the actual hell is she in her Class Armor with her Class Weapon right now?!—under his chin.

Gaku doesn't cry or struggle or claw at her hand or kick his legs like a little bitch or anything. He fights back like a goddamn chad. He doesn't start sobbing and choking, snot running down his nose and tears pouring out of his eyes. That would be pussy shit. He is not a pussy.

He is, however, mortal and needs to breathe and also a big scary woman is almost decapitating him with her weapon made of blood. Anyone would be absolutely fucking panicking if that happened to them. Fucking cut him a break.

"Wh-what the hell?!" Takumi doesn't move, even as he watches Gaku with scary, stern eyes. He looks at Gaku like he's an enemy - like he's dangerous. What the fuck?! "Takumi! Call off your fucking dog!"

Takumi does not call off his dog.

"Who the hell are you?" Hiruko snarls.

"Who am I?!" The question squeaks out of him like someone clenching a balloon in an angry fist. Not the most macho fucking sound he's ever made but jesus tapdancing christ Hiruko is so goddamn scary and her axe is so goddamn big and he is allowed to be fucking scared. "I'm Gaku?!"

"Are you?" Takumi's response is this low, supervillain type 'pacing around the hero as they're locked up' type monologue. He sounds so serious and, for a moment, Gaku isn't sure what's going on. Then it clicks.

"You think this is a trick or something?" Panic—manly, adult, heroic panic—strips away any pretense from his words. He is, for better or worse, having a shitfit and it is justified as all hell. "Why the hell would I be infiltrating you chucklefucks if I was some kind of spy or shapeshifter or what the fuck ever bullshit you think is going on? Are you insane?!"

"You're good at pretending to be Gaku, that's for sure." Takumi continues talking, Hiruko content with threatening his life. "But your act was too perfect. You should've been less good at your job."

What? "What?!" What the actual fuck was he on about? "You - you think I—?!" Too perfect a job at being Gaku? Was that an insult? If he wasn't seconds from pissing himself (as a defense mechanism to get Hiruko to drop him), he might feel more offended. He just doesn't have the brain space to be upset when he's too busy being fucking scared witless. "If you're worried about that then—"

Hiruko presses her axe against Gaku's throat and he literally chokes on his words. Rude. "Takumi, are you sure?"

Takumi's eyes—which, until just now, have been something that were always trained on other people—bores holes into Gaku's skin like frier grease. He squirms to un-compress his windpipe, wriggling in Hiruko's clutches. "I—"

"Just kill me!" That is enough to get both their attentions. The two of them turn to look at him—Hiruko without even a raised eyebrow, Takumi like someone slapped his grandma in front of him—so he continues, unbidden. His brain-to-mouth filter is so broken he just starts spewing refuse. "I'll get picked up by the Revive-o-Matic and get put together again. Won't that prove I'm not that fucking shapeshifting Commander bitch or whatever?!"

Hiruko's grip slacks. Gaku considers, for a single moment, wriggling out of his coat and running away like a brave, brave boy. Then he notices how very incredibly terrifying her eyes are and reconsiders.

She looks like she wants to for real kill him (and not even in a hot way). Like outright brutalizing him until he's a Gaku-shaped smear on the courtyard. Gross, terrifying, and immensely good at making him a million percent less willing to try and escape.

"What did you say?"

What did he say? "Kill me?"

"After that."

"I'm not the shapeshifting commander?"

Takumi's next words are more terrifying than anything Gaku has ever heard in his long life. "I never told you about Zen'ta."

Oh. He fucked up. Shit.

"How do you know about Zen'ta?" Now even Takumi sounds like he wants Gaku dead in a way he could never recover from. Fuck. Shit. Piss.

"I—" This is a shitshow. A wash. Gaku sags in Hiruko's grasp and stops fighting. Why fucking bother? None of this matters. "Fuck it. Just go ahead. This is a mess and I'll just give it another go next time. Can't believe that you got up my ass about being too Gaku. Fucking joke, all of it. Just my rotten luck." It always is.

He closes his eyes and bravely awaits his death. A death that...

...

...never comes.

Gaku cracks an eye open and chances a glance at Hiruko and Takumi. Maybe they've decided he's not a traitor and they won't kill him because nothing is wrong and he just ran his dumbfuck mouth like a water hose for no reason?

Hiruko looks constipated. That's the only way to describe the way her face is pinched and twisted and almost collapsed in on itself. Constipated or maybe even that she ate a lemon whole and it's disagreeing with her on a personal level.

Takumi, on the other hand, is as easy to read as always. His big eyes are wide in confusion and his mouth is pulled in a concerned frown. He looks a bit like Gaku slapped him across the face with his bare dick. Disgruntled and concerned and horrified and just...lost.

Me fucking too buddy.

"What do you...mean by that?" Maybe Gaku's hearing is finally going due to the whole being choked out and threatened with an axe thing. Maybe he's finally going insane. Maybe he's finally crumbled beneath all that pressure.

"By what?"

"That you'll give it another go. You'll try next time." Takumi doesn't look at Gaku but he can feel the weight of his attention. "What does— what did you— what?"

Man. Damn him and his rotten luck. Gaku takes as much of a deep breath as he can muster and sighs. "Can you put me down? I'll - I'll explain if you do I just...can't do it while Hiruko has me by my fucking throat. Hurts."

They exchange some kind of silent communication using their eyes and their faces alone, then Hiruko lets Gaku down—though she doesn't put away her Class Weapon, nor does she step any further back than decapitation distance. Cool. Good. Neat.

Gaku takes a breath, then another, and then pulls his shit as together as it's ever going to get considering the circumstances. "Okay so uh...please please please don't fucking kill me about this because that shit hurts so goddamn bad but like...so there's a reason I know about the shapeshifting ball commander bitch."

"I should very well hope so." Yeah, okay, right, fuck, Hiruko doesn't have a sense of humor. Forgot that.

"Right! And, uh, like, um..." How to put this. "This isn't the first time I've done this."

Blank stares. Hard crowd, okay.

"So I know about the shapeshifting commander orb lady—who I guess is called Zen'ta?—because she's been really annoying before and it's hard to forget the various commanders after the twentieth time that they've shown up." This is a gross oversimplification, of course, but he doesn't have time to spend ten straight days—give or take a month—extolling the truth of the matter and preaching the virtues of Not Killing Him Because He's Smart And Good At Parties Which Means He's Valuable So Please Be So Very Nice To Him. "And, uh, yeah. I'm still me. Still Gaku. Just...been around longer than uh—" They're outside so they don't have any of the wall clocks but he thinks he knows what day it is this go round. "—day twenty-eight?"

"Thirty-six." Hiruko corrects.

"Whatever." Why the hell does he even care? Why does she care? "But yeah uh...yeah."

Talking might not be his strong suit. Or, rather, talking is his strong suit but saying anything of substance isn't his strong suit. Judging by the way that Hiruko seems to once again be contemplating murdering him, he must not have gotten his point across.

"I," he speaks slowly, like Takumi and Hiruko are stupid and need their hands held while crossing the street, "am stuck in a time loop."

"You too?" And then it makes more sense than ever before.

Takumi had called him 'too Gaku'. The only way he would know what a standard level of 'Gaku' would look and sound like is if he had seen Gaku over and over and over again, enough times to have proper data on Average Gaku Levels For Gaku Per Hundred Day Period.

But why was Hiruko—

"You've never acted like this before."

Oh so they're both in a time loop. A time loop that he didn't know about.

How?! The odds are astronomical and yet—

"That's because maybe we never crossed paths?" It's as good a guess he has as any. Now that his life isn't in danger, it's incredibly easy for Gaku to ease off the panic and actually think. It's still not his strong suit by any means—he is, after all, a wage slave long before he's anything close to a bookworm—but he's had untold years to get better at actually puzzling shit out and he's learned to trust his instincts. His instincts are telling him that he's right on the money so why second-guess himself? "You two kinda share a loop, don't you?" Their silence speaks volumes to the affirmative. "And my loop is so separated from your loop that this is the first and only time we've actually met up like this."

They look at him like he's stupid. Fair enough. He tends to be very, very stupid, but not this time. This time he's a goddamn genius. Never been wrong in his life!

"So, uh, I haven't met any of you who were aware or in the loop or anything and you haven't ever met a me that was looping, which is why you thought..." Wait. "Too Gaku?!"

A snort rises, unbidden, from Takumi and he shoves his face into his fist—like that will hide how funny he finds the situation. Hiruko, thankfully, remains as stoic and stone-faced as always.

"What the hell is 'too Gaku'?! Is that - is that supposed to be an insult or something?! 'Ooooooh! He's acting too Gaku so we have to put him down like a lame horse!' Am I a joke to you?" An edge of hysteria creeps back into his cracking voice.

"Yes." Trust Hiruko to cut to the bone with just one word. Damn.

"S-sorry..." Takumi snorts into his hand again, shoulders shaking with stifled laughter. "It's just— can you blame us?"

No. "Yes! I am Gaku! There is no more or less Gaku I can be at any given time! It is physically impossible!" He has tried. "The universe hates it when I am less than one-hundred-percent Gaku!" And often kills him or the people near him in retaliation.

"You were—"

"What was it you said?" Hiruko cut Takumi off mid-explanation. "'It's like watching someone go through the motions.'"

Gaku gapes at them, mouth wide in surprise and some level of horror. "Excuse me?"

"You were just...it was a bit like watching someone play the part of Gaku. Only - only you are Gaku so it was extra weird and I didn't—" He stumbles over his words, trying his best to justify the insane nonsense he's spewing.

"So that was just cause to attack me?!" So he's still a little panicky. So sue him.

Or, no, wait. Don't. He doesn't have the money. Spare him that struggle and just kill him instead.

He's really flip-flopping on whether or not he wants to or is okay with dying today, huh?

"Considering Zen'ta—"

"And the G'ie."

"—and the G'ie," Takumi nods in agreement with Hiruko, "can you blame us?"

Knowing the G'ie...

"Yeah, that's fair." He sighs, heavy with the weight of many, many years of fucking it up so severely. "But I can be mad about it. You threatened me with death for being bad at, what, acting natural?! I'll level with you two: it is so hard to pretend to be the person I used to be. I don't actually know how old I am anymore. Being seventeen forever sucks shit. Vampires are fucking liars. Being me forever is awful and hell and I hate it. So I slipped a little! Cut me some fucking slack!"

The looks on their faces are enough proof that, while he might have a few decades on them in terms of 'time spent in loops', they do understand the sentiment.

"I do my best though. Nobody ever really notices and so shit just...works out." Maybe he's being childish but it hurts a little. Being told your you is too you for people to actually like. Makes him feel...less, in a way. Like he isn't worth knowing or caring about.

"Gaku—"

"Look, I don't want to be here any more than you do." No mushy fucking feelings now. Time to deflect! "So why don't you follow me back to the kitchen so I can check up on my soup stock and we can talk there, okay?"

Hiruko is unmoved. "Why would we let you dictate how our time is spent and where this extremely important discussion takes place?"

Too bad he can play that game too. "Because I have information you don't, you won't subject me to Total Death just because I asked for a change of scenery, and I'm making ramen for everyone so if I fuck up the stock then it's a wash for you too."

And, like always, Takumi comes to his rescue. "Sure. Lead the way."

Now he has to figure out what to tell them. Easy-peasy! Nothing to it! Yay!

(There is a non-zero chance that Hiruko will still cut his head off his body. He should choose his words carefully.)

Gaku is...

Now that the façade is dropped, there's a strange type of grace that Gaku exhibits as he walks his way through the halls of the Last Defense Academy that feels...familiar. It reminds Takumi of himself and Hiruko, of knowing these halls better than their own houses, of countless loops running from horrors and chasing each other and a dozen other dumb things. He seems at-ease walking the halls, even skipping over the small chunks in the floor where one fuckup or another has left a tripping hazard without so much as a second glance.

It makes Takumi feel—

—a lot of things, actually.

Gaku settles back at the stove, fussing over the stock he was making like it's a choleric baby, and doesn't give Takumi nor Hiruko so much as a sidelong glance as he works. Takumi can feel Hiruko simmering like the soup as he draws out the conversation until, finally—

"Do I need to make good on my threat?"

Gaku jumps almost eight feet in the air and turns about like a startled cat. "Fucking—!" The oath dies on his tongue as he clocks just how serious Hiruko is. "Right. Fucking...right. I said I would explain myself. Sorry, I, uh..."

"Your loop?"

"Yeah!" He nods, delighted. "Yeah, that!"

The two of them wait in patient silence as he organizes his thoughts. Or, rather, Takumi waits patiently; Hiruko is seething.

Lurking? Looming?

Whatever her expression - she's actively trying to set Gaku's head on fire with her eyes and sheer irritation alone. That makes sense, however, because if there's one thing Hiruko hates: it's not knowing something.

Not knowing Gaku—or a version of Gaku among the infinite permeable Gaku possibilities—was in a similar but disparate time loop as the two of them is genuinely ruining her day. Week. Year? Loop.

All this to say: Takumi is going to have to try extra hard to play peace-keeper between the two because, even if he is an older and wiser Gaku, he's still Gaku and Hiruko does not tolerate foolishness lightly.

He can already feel the headache forming. A piercing pain between his eyes, right at the bridge of his nose, shaped exactly like a lead pipe being smashed into his skull. Whether or not he's going to have to pull fragments of his nasal bones out of his eyeballs all depends on how badly he fucks this up. Or how badly Gaku puts his foot in it.

He hopes Gaku can just...be an adult for once.

(Oh, fuck, he's putting his trust in Gaku. Oh shit is so unbearably fucked. He might have to burn this timeline to the ground at this rate. Shit. Fuck. Damn.)

"Okay so I don't - first off: I have no clue how I got...here." At Hiruko's singular raised eyebrow, he clarifies. "Not like, in the SDU or whatever, but in the time loop. I sure as shit know why I wound up at this fucking hellhole..." The muttered aside might not have been meant for them to hear but both of them did, exchanging glances that speak volumes.

He has to know, right? Hiruko's eyebrows wonder.

Probably?! Takumi's grimace replies. But even if he does, is it really safe to actually talk about that specific information while Sirei is out and about?

Fuck no. And that is that.

"The time loop is...at first it was a fucking nightmare because I - another hundred days of this?" His voice pitches, slightly hysterical, a sob holding hands with a laugh. Takumi can hardly blame him. "And then, after the second loop I realized that maybe this was it, right? My chance to do whatever I wanted. No strings attached."

Takumi can only imagine the kind of things Gaku got away with—or whatever he might have done in a timeline where he felt there were no consequences. It makes an involuntary frown pull at his mouth.

Gaku at least seems rightfully unhappy with his conduct. "It sounds like a good idea at first—"

"Does it?" Hiruko wonders disingenuously.

"—but after a bit, it just...sucks being the one person no one likes. Ever." Gaku turns back to his soup and tends to it as he talks, shoulders slumped all crooked and weird, like he isn't sure how to bear the burden of it all. "Being the asshole doesn't feel good for too long so I tried being the hero. That...was worse somehow." A wry (defeated? exhausted? depressed?) snort escapes his nose and he gestures with his spoon as he talks. "The universe doesn't really like Gaku as the main character. Nope! That gift is reserved exclusively for you, Takumi."

If it wasn't for his tone, Takumi could take what he's saying as some kind of personal attack. It feels like one, that's for sure, carefully chosen words that pierce something vulnerable beneath his years of armor and brittle plating, but it doesn't feel...

"Me?"

"Yeah! The whole world revolves around your choices, your emotions, your fears and cares. Usually because you come in, guns blazing, and take charge with your future knowledge and make yourself the Team Leader—or Sirei does. Sometimes because everyone else of any import dies and the vacuum is filled by you and Eito, the most gung-ho people at LDA!" The idea that there are timelines where a version of Gaku knows the truth of things but Eito still gets away with what he did in Takumi's first hundred days makes him feel— "And maybe I was jealous but one time I just...asked you. I was tired of the dozens and dozens of attempts at being the big dog on campus and being the fucking hero—which never ended well because, again, the universe seems to fucking hate me but it sucks your dick on the reg—and you know what you said?"

Has Gaku ever asked for advice? And, if so, has Takumi ever said anything that wasn't just 'can you not be a fucking idiot and-or creep for five fucking seconds'? He can't remember, even with Special Recall feeding him every instance of Gaku ever being the Gakuest Gaku to ever Gaku.

Thanks for the super useful specialist skill, humanity. Ten out of ten. Five stars. Peak ability. Never fails.

Gaku takes his silence as a cue to continue. "You said you had no fucking clue what you were doing. In fact, you were surprised that it looked like competency from the outside because you were always just flying by the seat of your pants."

"That sounds like something Takumi would say." Thanks for the vote of confidence Hiruko. "I bet his shoes tasted delicious too."

Gaku snickers though, so he probably did just put his whole foot in it—or at least Gaku thinks he did. "Yeah, well that's kinda the funny thing, right? That loop we were looking for these fucking, uhh, boxes and shit had gotten just so off-track." Yeah, the box timelines tended to do that. "And there's this - this moment, right at the end, where the heroic moment is happening. Capital-H Happening. Takumi and I are standing against Eito as he opens the boxes, ready to make his wish. I can tell that Takumi has nothing going and I'm trying to figure out how to steal the wish from Eito and bring everyone back when it occurs to me: I can just make a really fucking Gaku decision."

Oh no.

"Oh no." Hiruko says it aloud.

"Yeah." And now Gaku has the decency to sound ashamed. "So I ask Takumi to trust me and he does? I guess I'd done a pretty good job being a tolerable level of Gaku that loop or whatever because he just literally gave me a fucking free pass." If Takumi could go to that timeline and beat his own head in, he would. What? Gaku??? He trusted Gaku? With something this serious?! "Yeah, uh, baffling to me too. But I kinda...did it though? Like, sure, my wish was awful and embarrassing and stupid and dumb and I hate looking back on it, but it brought back Darumi and Kyoshika."

"What," Hiruko asks—without any shame or care for Takumi's rising secondhand embarrassment—like hitting a grand slam, "was your stolen wish?" Blunt and spectacular.

"To be a harem protagonist?" Gaku shrinks in on himself.

Takumi wishes the ground would swallow him whole. May Sszanshin open up the earth and just consume him. Put him out of his misery.

"In my defense—" He stops dead in his tracks as his face pales. Hiruko must be giving him a Look—probably the one that makes her look like she enjoys eating babies raw with her teeth and nothing else—because he stops trying to argue his case.

"You said Darumi and Kyoshika were alive after your wish?" Takumi very quickly tries to change the subject. The verbal equivalent of slamming the silent alarm under the desk at your job. They need to pivot and fast! "So it worked, right?"

The way Gaku's shoulders tense as he goes back to his soup makes Takumi wish he could go to that timeline to kill Gaku and then himself for allowing this to happen.

"I can't be a hero. It's, like, a fundamental law of this fucking universe or whatever." He doesn't even try to explain himself further. Good man. This will not save him from the wrath of Hiruko later, but for now she's not willing to disembowel him. "And being hated and the butt of every joke sucks fucking massive amounts of penis. I don't know if I should've made a smarter wish or a less weird one but when I wished for that, I just wanted my friends back. Sure, it was...weird and gross and I felt bad about it—"

"Thank god you at least have some modicum of shame left in you."

"—but I was terrified that if I tried to usurp the whole main-character protagonist shit Takumi had going on that things would monkey's tail into something a billion million times worse than two dead girls and Eito being a creep."

"Monkey's paw."

"What?" No, yeah, what? Is she really doing this? Now?!

"A wish gone awry is a monkey's paw situation."

"Noted." Gaku sounds about as enthused as Takumi is. "It worked...ish, so I figured out that Takumi was right." Don't say that. Not about the harem wish. Fuck, dude. "He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Ever. And neither do I. But like...maybe I could just...support him? Or everyone? I don't have to be a big fucking hero but I also don't have to be the world's most condescending and shitty douchebag either. There's this - this middle ground that exists and, yeah, it probably isn't about wishing to be a goddamn harem protagonist because that was a one-off fuckup of colossal proportions and I will not do anything like that ever again, but it exists. I can live in that space and do good and be good while not ever not being...me. Whatever the fuck the universe wants me to be—probably comedic relief or some kind of pervert punching bag, if I'm being honest."

Takumi can't speak for Hiruko—nor would he ever in a million years pretend he's allowed to—but there's a strange kind of envy bubbling in his chest as he listens to Gaku speak about finding his place in his own never-ending timeloop torment hell-nexus. It's - it's unfair that Gaku of all people actually doesn't seem to want to escape. And, yeah, it's shitty of him to feel that way and to do so vehemently about Gaku—who is his friend, in a way—but...

But—!

"How—" Hiruko's voice catches and cracks slightly. "How do you—"

Maybe Gaku is better at reading people than Takumi gives him credit for because he just smiles at her and shrugs. "In the end I figured out that maybe, even if I never escape or whatever, at least I have my friends. I dunno...maybe I'm a fucking sap, but like..." He pauses, spoon dripping liquid back into the pot. When he speaks again, his words are choked and squeezed, like he's doing his best not to cry. "Takemaru really really likes ramen. Like, sure, he looks like the kind of dude who'd fuck up just about anything, but his mom used to make this really wild ramen for him using leftovers from her work with like...softboiled eggs and kinda fucked veggies and bricks of instant noodles but homemade stock."

Oh.

Fuck.

Well now Takumi just feels like an ass.

"Every loop I celebrate someone's birthday. I don't tell them, of course. Don't want 'em thinking I have some kind of ulterior motive or that I'm altruistic or someshit."

"Fucking god forbid anyone think well of you." Shit. Hiruko sounds choked up too. Damn. Maybe Takumi should cry so nobody thinks he's a heartless bastard.

"But every loop I make someone's favorite meal and I share with everyone but it's exactly how they like it because I learned." And now Gaku just sounds...fond. Full of love and other mushy emotions. "I learned everyone's favorite foods—exactly how to make them, too—and I learned everyone's favorite music or pasttimes or whatever and I let them bitch at me or about me and I throw parties and festivals and I listen. Sometimes I even bitch with them."

Hiruko doesn't say anything. Neither does Takumi. What all can they even say in the face of such ravaging sincerity?

"I can't be a hero and maybe I'll never escape this but until then...I just want to like...make everyone happy."

And they held him at fucking weapon-point for being just—

"Way to make me feel like the asshole."

"I mean," Gaku snorts, "you objectively were. I was minding my own damn business and you marched in here, took me to a secondary location, and threatened my life and livelihood. Primo asshole behavior. How will you ever make it up to me?"

Fucking hell...

"When's your birthday?" Gaku blinks at Hiruko in confusion. "Your birthday, Gaku. When is it?"

"Uh...the, uh, twenty-second? Of - of December?" Once again, he's squeaking. This time it's from confusion instead of terror.

"And your favorite food?"

"I like whatever." Hiruko shoots him another Look—less murderous but no less terrifying—and he quickly doubles back. "No, but, uh, gun to my head, fucking, uh...I like Kurara's curry?"

"Everyone likes Kurara's curry, idiot. It came free with having tastebuds."

"Second place is hamburg steak. Lopsided patties, fucking cheap meat, stale bread made into lumpy crumbs, ketchup, and like...plain rice. Nothing fancy, just...comfortable." A flush creeps across his cheeks, neck, and ears, like he's ashamed to be talking about himself.

"Okay." Hiruko nods, firm, resolute.

Takumi has no fucking clue what she got out of that but she seems satisfied.

And besides: if Gaku can find happiness making food for others and being the class clown, then maybe there's hope for them too.

(He just...doesn't want to think that maybe this is as good as it gets. That his life will only ever amount to this time loop, this never-ending moment, his existence as some kind of savior 'protagonist'. It's terrifying.)

(But...well, even if it's petty: he can do better than Gaku. He can be happier than Gaku.)

(And maybe that's why Gaku does what he does. Maybe that's just proving his point.)

Gaku stares at Takumi, then Hiruko, then Takumi again. His eyes wander down, at the plate in Hiruko's hands, and then back up at the woman holding said plate. He licks his lips, weighs his options, and takes a wild swing at a hornet's nest.

"What the fuck is this all about?"

Takumi—the traitor—exchanges some kind of loaded look with Hiruko and doesn't say a damn word. Hiruko, on the other hand, tilts her head. "You don't want it?"

Of-fucking-course he wants it! Hiruko goddamn Shizuhara made him hamburg steak and rice—probably with some assistance from Takumi because she doesn't look like the type of girl who could cook her way out of a rice ball with instructions and he looks like a mama's boy who absolutely used to julienne carrots because she told him to. But also—

This reeks of trap. Or poison. Or some kind of mean-spirited joke on his behalf. It would be just his rotten luck to get food poisoning because Hiruko and Takumi found him annoying and wanted him married to the toilet and-or his fucking bed for until his fever broke and he was properly rehydrated and not puking anymore. Which could be forever and would suck.

"It's fine, Gaku." Takumi sounds...not exasperated, like Gaku assumes he should considering the circumstances, but fond? Amused? Like he's unsurprised that Gaku is putting up such a fucking fuss about food of all things. "I promise it's edible." Not delicious. Not tasty. Edible.

High fucking praise, my man.

"Sure." Gaku takes the plate from Hiruko and sits his ass down at a table to eat. The two of them hover over him like fucking vultures. He curls around his food protectively. "Hey!"

"We just want to see how you like it." Takumi, bro that he is, politely offers as a consolation and balm to Gaku's shot nerves.

It doesn't work because Hiruko is giving him the stink eye to end all stink eyes.

Fuck it, we ball! Gaku takes a bite and—

Doesn't cry. Doesn't stop eating to sob into the sticky and bland rice. Doesn't almost choke on the shitty meat and bread grit that's cooked unevenly and tastes like pan char. He doesn't do that at all.

"Tastes just like how mom makes it." And he isn't even lying to make them feel better.