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Nanashi had never been fully aware of the ability he'd been born with. Viewing the world as a series of numbers that could be cracked through some quick calculations had always been the norm for him. He had no reason to believe that others were different, that the lens that was permanently slid over his vision did not exist for everyone else.
It made him quieter, for he didn’t see the need for conversation when he could glean information at a single glance. Perhaps it was a little off-putting to others, even to his parents, but he didn't see anything wrong with that. That was simply his world. Thus he continued to grow, consuming information at an increasingly rapid pace as he swam eagerly down the river of time, keeping pace with the gentle current.
The first time he realised that he was considered abnormal, that this gift he had taken for granted could do harm just as easily as it could go good, was on his seventh birthday.
At that age, he'd only had one friend, the others not wanting to bother with the quiet child who stared at them for minutes on end. A friend whose name he could no longer recall. (A lie for he never forgot anything, every single scrap of knowledge burrowing into the corners of his mind, but he'd buried that name under years and years of regrets.)
“Nanase! Will you come with me?” His friend had grinned, bouncing on the balls of their feet as they'd taken his hand with no hesitation, as only children could.
“To the surprise birthday party!” he’d said without a second thought, grinning as well. The image of the cake floating in his friend’s mind seemed delicious, and his mouth had already begun to water.
To his utter shock, his friend did not respond with a cheer. Instead, tears started welling up in their eyes. “I… I spent so long preparing, and you…”
They fled, then, leaving Nanase alone in the hallway, unable to comprehend what had just happened, something uncomfortable squirming in his stomach.
By the next day, he thought it would have blown over, that it was all just a misunderstanding and they could return to being friends. But they never looked his way again.
(It was only years later that he would understand that he had ruined the surprise, that they must have thought he'd known all along and yet continued to let them make a fool of themselves. After they'd both grown up, perhaps they would be able to laugh about it. But at such a young age, everything just seemed bigger.
That was true of him, too, considering the memory never left him. A stone permanently dropped in the river, carried along by the rapids.)
Nanashi blinked at the girl patiently standing on his doorstep, face as serious as ever, hands primly folded before her.
“Come on in, Misane,” he mumbled, ushering her in. After the first few times that she'd turned up without prior notice in front of his door, he'd started keeping the living room clean, finally clearing all the detritus that had piled up over the months of working on his secret project.
He still didn't understand why she was here. Sure, she had trouble connecting with others as well due to her somewhat cold countenance, but nowhere near the extent he did. Surely she must have realised that no matter how kind he acted, it couldn’t cover up how odd and disgusting he was. But she was still here.
She was still here.
“How's the time machine going?” she asked after a few rounds of easy conversation. His lips twitched at the faint blush that dusted her cheeks as he retrieved her emptied cup and turned away.
“Good,” he answered, pouring her a new cup of tea. “Should be complete within the next two weeks.”
Her crush on him wasn't hard to pick up, no matter how she tried to obscure it. It was funny, thinking that anyone could have feelings for him, especially a girl 8 years his junior. But it's not like he could blame her.
Love was an irrational emotion, even if it could also be translated into numbers. It interrupted regular sequences and threw wrenches into his calculations that he had to take time to untangle. If he had been younger, his heart just a little lighter, he might have returned these irrational feelings of hers.
Now, he could only think that it was the one thing keeping her in his life, anchored to his stagnant passage along a river that had started to dry up.
Nanashi tried. To be a better friend, a better person, someone who people would want to talk to. As the years passed and he shot up in height, he did his best, practising speeches in front of the mirror and shoving away anything that could be considered off-putting.
But, inevitably, he would slip, falling back on the numbers that ran effortlessly below his fingertips. And his friends would recoil and pull away, until he was left all alone again.
There came a day when he simply chose to give up, dropping out of school and secluding himself in his apartment. It's not like anyone would miss him. And this way, he didn’t need to watch his every word to avoid stepping on a minefield. This way, he couldn't hurt anyone.
And it wasn't all bad. An estranged cousin barged into his life, heralding hot chocolate that warmed the tongue and quieted his errant thoughts, together with a listening ear that was always there for him.
Drifting aimlessly down the river… He couldn't call it lonely.
Nanashi hadn't been expecting to see Misane here, in the past. Puppy love was one thing, but the dedication to follow him through a machine that he had no guarantees worked was something else.
He couldn't understand it, not at all.
So he smiled blandly at her, glad when she deflected the question he was expecting her to ask, shying away from the truth without any input from him.
It was bizarre, watching her interact with his past self. A past self that he remembered from years of loneliness that never abated, a time when he'd shut out everyone else and thrown himself into working on the Master Program in a bid to do some good with the ability he had.
Perhaps, at this age, he mused, he could have fallen in love with her. And perhaps that could have changed the trajectory of his life.
But he’d already changed it, by being here in the first place. The future he came from had already been destroyed, rended to nothing by his own hands. Treating his past self with kindness, not wishing to add to the abject fear and loneliness that had clung to his back during this time, even though the one he hated most was -
There was nothing much else he could do but continue on towards his goal, watching with careful eyes as the river split around a fork that had not been there before.
At some point, he must have guessed that Mikado was his future self, for he couldn’t muster much shock when it was revealed. It made sense. Too much sense.
He could see himself turn into Mikado as the deceptively peaceful water eroded his spirit and dulled his hope even further. Doing everything that Mikado had done, for the sake of fulfilling a dream he'd nurtured for so long, to finally do something good. All of that was not surprising.
What did surprise him was the spark of warmth that had lit in his heart over the past week. Talking to others, learning about them, making friends… They were all things he never thought he would be able to do again, and it made him feel as if he was cradling a bright star in his hands - a fragile hope, with a light that could still be extinguished if he did not care for it.
Even a freak like him could be warm in this world.
The spark ignited into a small flame when Misane embraced him outside the control room, sobbing.
Telling her not to care, not to worry… That was only what he'd deluded himself into believing. All along, he'd been selfish. All he’d ever wanted to be loved. And he’d found people who would love him for who he was, so long as he himself continued to make an effort to reach out to them.
He could see himself doing all that Mikado had done. But he no longer had a desire to.
And so it was simple enough to tell Mikado to stop. He knew how he processed his own thoughts, and they weren't quite that different yet.
Mikado wouldn't understand why he was doing this, but he would stop. And so he did, departing with Misane as quickly as they had arrived, leaving the apartment more empty and quiet than it had been before.
The thought that Mikado would never understand made him unbearably sad, but he knew the sharp emotion would fade with time, though he refused to let go of it. The future that had once been set in stone would no longer come to be - the river’s course had been permanently diverted as it ran down a hill, and it could never flow back up it. And he would work as hard as he could to protect the one that Misane had gifted him.
Waiting, waiting…
Years passed. He fell out of love with a girl he had known for a week, knowing he would see her again and truly be able to get to know her this time. He broke his heart multiple times, but kept going. Time would pass, and the scars would fade.
Working on the new Master Program, he met Misane’s father, who rarely talked about her, but did enough to reassure him that she still existed in this altered timeline. His own memories wavered sometimes, her hazy image dissipating completely. He would grasp onto the wisps with all of his might, slowly piecing them back together with more and more pieces missing each time.
Perhaps she wouldn't remember him at all, those memories of a bygone time completely erased by her own impulsive actions. But even then, he would simply smile, greet her cheerfully, and keep moving forward. Time would pass, and one day, he would no longer feel the pain. There were so many open arms where he could seek comfort now, explaining the emotions tumbling through his heart regardless of the obscured truth.
On a clear, sunny day, eight years after a girl with blue hair turned up in his futon, he sat down on a bench in a park, smoothing his pants out and uncrinkling the well-worn letter in his lap.
In the distance, a familiar face approached.
He smiled.
“Nice to see you again, Misane!”