Some changes here: no horrifying PTSD flashbacks/worldline jumping during the party, at least not that Kurisu witnesses (I hold that Okabe still went out to the park and howled at the heavens afterwards), but a more direct revelation of worldline jumping, and also extra days to use later. Laundromat scene almost entirely stolen because that was one of the best parts of the movie.

Personally I’m pronouncing ‘relive’ (which I made up) as “ree*-laiv” (rhymes with ‘speed-dive’) but you can pronounce it how you please.

Chapter 1: Kymatological Barbecue, Chapter 3: Vetitive Liaison

 

Chapter 2: Relive Atrophy

About half an hour later, I was starting to feel more like myself again. Okabe stayed with me, getting me a cool damp cloth for my head and then sitting his gangly self down near the couch where I lay, just watching me. It should have made me uncomfortable, I could have accused him of being a pervert and started another fight, but there was something about this silent togetherness that seemed… normal, somehow.

“You feeling better?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered, trying to remember what I’d been doing when drunk. I’d hugged him, I think. That wasn’t too bad. I could live that down, and if I got teased, I could always blame it on the alcohol. Was that what adults did for fun? I’d studied the effects of alcohol on the brain, but feeling it for real… It wasn’t that much fun. People were strange.

“Why were you asking about the time travel again?” he asked.

Fortunately, I had an answer for this one. “I’m a scientist. I don’t want to accept the idea of past life encounters, destiny, world lines… or time machines.”

He smiled, as if to himself. “I know,” he said very quietly.

“But even though I try to deny them in theory, something keeps bothering me… My head gets all messed up…” Sometimes my dreams felt more real than reality, and how was I to make heads or tails of that? My confused feelings for him aside, how was I supposed to deal with insane fantastical situations like evil future dystopian European research dictatorships? That just couldn’t be real. But something told me it was, even though that was obviously impossible.

He shifted, and something fell from the pocket of his lab coat onto the floor. I turned to look and saw a package in gift wrap. “Hm?”

“Oh.” He looked embarrassed. “Well, I lied earlier when I said I didn’t get you anything.” He picked it up and handed it to me, carefully not watching me now.

I opened it carefully, and there was – a spoon and a fork, with the most adorable little happy faces on them. “Ah! For me? How did you know…?” I’d never told him about my father’s promise, did I?

“I guess that didn’t happen,” he said, almost to himself, and I looked at him in concern.

“In another… another worldline, I told you I wanted a spoon and fork?” Maybe not specifically to do with the promise?

“Yeah.” He seemed sad that didn’t happen in real life- I mean, this timeline.

I guess it made me sad too. Some other Makise Kurisu had experienced so much more with him… I worked to remember, images and feelings floating just out of reach in the recesses of my brain… We’d struggled, fought for Steins;Gate together, and he’d been broken over and over and over again, and all I could do was watch… I was glad I couldn’t remember clearly. Except for the part where he kissed me for the first time. I mean, where I kissed him for the first time, after he told me he loved me for the first time. That was… worth remembering. “Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate it.”

“Yeah?” He smiled shyly at me.

“Yeah. It does feel weird, like you can spy on my thoughts, but… at least you used your knowledge for something kind, so I guess it doesn’t really matter that you found out through… nefarious methods, ohohoho.” I gave a weak mad-scientist laugh, and he snorted a laugh of his own. “I’m going to nap off the rest of this alcohol, okay? You can go get some dinner if you like.”

“Mmkay,” he said, but he didn’t seem inclined to move. I closed my eyes.

There was a cautious knock at the door. “Yes?” Okabe called, and Daru opened it carefully and poked his head in, before sighing in relief and opening it all the way, carrying a pile of dirty dishes for the sink.

“Glad I didn’t walk in on anything!”

“What do you mean?” I asked suspiciously, lifting my head from the Uupa pillow.

Okabe immediately began to study the Uupa carpet as if he’d never seen it before. “No, no, don’t be silly, Daru.”

“Like, steamy stuff,” Daru said, his expression a strange mix of embarrassed and lecherous.

I shrieked at him. Good thing Okabe hadn’t given me a knife.

 

I spent the next couple days getting organized for my job, gave my first lectures, and spent the evenings at the Future Gadgets Lab with Okabe, Mayuri, Daru, and whoever else happened to be around. Okabe was tinkering with some kind of air-conditioning unit he was building out of a fridge, but it didn’t seem to work very well. I told him so, but my speciality was neurology, so I really couldn’t help much with engineering or whatever this counted as. He just shrugged and kept working on it.

But I also noticed he seemed to be having sudden migraines, and it worried me, even though I didn’t want to admit it to him. I didn’t remember him having those before. Mayuri hadn’t mentioned them. Was he okay? There were so many reasons why someone would get migraines, from having a genetic predisposition to them, to eating too much MSG… I looked up the causes just to be sure, and so many of them could apply to him.

We were walking home from May Queen three days after the party when he was hit by another one, grabbing his head suddenly with a gasp of pain.

“Okabe?” I asked anxiously. “Is it another migraine?”

“I…” He couldn’t say much through the pain, or didn’t want to, but he straightened up and tried to look normal. I knew him much too well to be fooled by such a weak cover-up, though.

“You know, migraines are often caused by a seratonin imbalance in the brain. There’s a number of factors that could cause migraines, like eating too much MSG or salty foods, or not eating at all, or having your sleep cycle disturbed… Do you think it’s any of those things? You’re not genetically predisposed to them, are you?”

He tried to smirk down at me. “Are you worried about me, Christiiiina?”

I ignored the teasing and asked the question I didn’t want to ask. “It’s… not to do with… that, is it?”

His face closed down immediately. “With what?”

“With time travel!” I cried. “Is it to do with the things that happened a year ago?”

He wasn’t looking at me, his face set and expressionless. “No.”

“You’re lying.”

“How do you know!?”

“Because I know you, stupid! So it is to do with time travel!”

He glared at me, but I stood my ground. But I had to blink-

No Okabe. Empty space before me. I gasped and took a step back, rubbing my eyes. Where had- was he doing other dangerous experiments? Was he fooling me somehow? People don’t just vanish into thin air!

Blink. He was back.

“Okabe!” He was clutching his head over his eye again. The pre-frontal lobe was deeply involved with short-term memories, holding thoughts in the consciousness… though that wasn’t necessarily why he was holding his head there. Just experiencing something or remembering something wasn’t enough to make it hurt like it looked like he was hurting… Normally, at least, I couldn’t say anything to the effects of inadvertent time travel. And it wasn’t even necessarily activity in that part of the brain that would cause it to hurt. Ugh, if I was a medical doctor I might be able to tell! “What was that!? What just happened!?”

Without answering, he turned away from me with a flick of his lab coat and strode off down the street with his long stride. I had to jog to catch up.

“Hey! Don’t ignore me! Okabe, tell me: what did you do?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he growled, and I shut up, letting him walk away from me, watching him go anxiously.

 

Next day was laundry day. I wasn’t inclined to use the hotel’s overpriced services, so in the morning I put my things in a bag and headed out for the little laundromat Okabe had shown me once.

He was there. I’d maybe sort of expected it. “O-okabe…”

“Hi, Christina.” But the way he said it was so tired. I decided not to call him on mangling my name again.

“Look, I’m… I’m sorry about pushing you last night.”

“It’s all right.” The way he said it made me think he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Maybe later, then.

“What are you doing here?”

“That’s my line,” he said, and though he didn’t have the energy to smile, apparently he had the energy to put on Kyouma. “While removing the medals known as ‘dirt’, acquired in the course of my research, I was recalling my accomplishments. I don’t wish to be disturbed.” Translation: he was brooding again.

“Too bad. This isn’t your lab, and it’s certainly not where you live-” which was the lab. “Scoot over and let me by. It’s not like I enjoy doing laundry with you or anything.”

“Gah!” He huddled up as I edged past him where he sat square in the middle of the laundromat, opening washing machines to find an empty one. “Hey, don’t just open people’s wash while they’re not here…”

“Don’t just leave your stuff in when it’s done,” I said, pulling the edge of a white garment out of a washer. “And you should probably get a new lab coat, this one’s so worn-out even though it’s just been washed…”

“Kurisu,” he said, staring at me with a wry, partly-confused smile, “that’s Daru’s laundry.”

I turned back to the garment, got a better look at it, and realized it was a giant pair of underwear. I shrieked and slammed the lid of the washing machine, diving for the hand sanitizer.

“Daru would be so sad to know you reacted that way…”

“It’s underwear!” I cried. “I don’t want to be touching a boy’s underwear!” Unless it was yours? No, no, no, pervert brain, betraying me!

“I texted him about it,” he continued as if I hadn’t done anything. “He’ll be down eventually to change it over. Mine’s in the dryer over here.”

“You need to stop wearing that worn-out thing!” I exclaimed, trying to cover for my colossal error. “It’s no wonder I mixed them up without taking a close look!”

“A worn-out lab coat is part of the scientific aesthetic!” Kyouma protested, tugging at his lapels.

“W-well, there’s a limit! You still need a new lab coat!” I exclaimed, pointing at the one he was wearing. “Look, there’s a rip in the sleeve! And it’s so threadbare and old and stained with Dr. Pepper and who knows what else…” I sighed. “I can at least stitch up the rip. Give it here.”

Okabe’s eyes widened, and he stared at me. I took a step back and blushed without knowing why. He looked…

“What!?”

“N-nothing. It’s nothing.” He obediently stood and pulled off the lab coat, leaving himself in a plain grey t-shirt. It looked really good on him, it wasn’t too baggy or too tight, and it really showed off his shoulders well…

I blinked and blushed and hastily accepted the lab coat he was holding in my direction. “It’s normal for me to having a sewing kit.”

“…That’s right.”

“And… I… did get you something after all.”

“Hm?” He looked curious.

Luckily I’d brought it, having finally worked up the nerve- I mean, forgiven him enough to slip it in my bag. I’d given Daru’s present a couple days ago, but Okabe was… special. “Here you are. This is the sort of lab coat we wear in America. You should always have a spare. It should fit your height, they’re all tall over there.” I’d had to look hard for one that wasn’t too short; I knew he liked it to be dramatic and flowy, but that was considered more of a hazard in a real lab. This one repelled liquid, though, so hopefully it would resist Dr. Pepper better than the one I was about to mend.

I didn’t miss the little smile on his face as he accepted the unwrapped package, carefully unsealing the plastic and pulling on the coat. Well, he looked fantastic in a t-shirt, but there was just something about a lab coat that suited him completely. And not that there was anything too different about Japanese lab coats from American ones, but just the fact that it was crisp and new made him look good, too.

To distract myself, I pulled up another stool and found my sewing kit where it always was at the bottom of my purse. “Now, just to warn you, don’t complain about the results. I might be decent at Home Ec, but it’s been a while since I had to practice. And I’m out of white thread, so…”

“That’s right,” he said again, very quietly.

I looked up from threading the needle with the next lightest colour in my kit – pink. “What is it?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Quiet Okabe meant something was wrong. Not to mention vanishing Okabe or migraine-suffering Okabe. How could I help him return to his normal annoying self without hurting him further? “Is it something that happened on another worldline?”

“Yes. And yet, no.” He sat, looking wistful.

I bent my head to the sewing. “What was that self-contradicting statement?”

“It’s because of my Reading Steiner that I can observe other worldlines and still retain memories of them. And among those countless worldlines that continued to converge and diverge, I drifted, and miraculously reached the only one I really wanted to be on.” I felt myself shiver and looked up. “On this worldline, you are sitting here with me, and Mayuri is working part-time at May Queen… That’s enough for me. I can’t ask for more.”

So my dreams were right. He had suffered for Mayuri and me, to undo the circumstances of death and fate itself. “Okabe…” I whispered.

“I wanted the you of this worldline to get to know me normally, so maybe I’ve said too much. Sorry.”

“W-what?” I asked, but he interrupted me.

“That’s all I’m going to say. Your hand has stopped, Assistant.” There was a teasing gleam in his eye, and surprisingly, I was happy to see it.

“I know! But… I… I just wonder if everything you say is true.”

“It’s natural to doubt the existence of worldlines…”

“It’s not that,” I said, my needle moving steadily now. The stitches weren’t coming out very even, but they would hold the tear closed, and that was all that mattered. “If countless worldlines really exist, I find it hard to believe that you alone carry memories of them. That this Reading Steiner is something completely unique to you.” Hadn’t he himself told me my dreams were real?

“Do you dislike that?” He sounded curious, as if observing my answer abstractly.

“Not really,” it would send everyone in the world to therapy forever, “but… for example, I’m sitting here sewing up your coat. It shouldn’t be possible, but I have the strong feeling that it’s happened before.” He was staring at me and I laughed a little. “The term deja vu comes to mind, doesn’t it? It did for me, but it happens so often when I’m with you.” In California, now here, I’d only been with him a few days, really, but so much of my time with him felt like time with an old friend, even if I wasn’t paying attention to the shadow memories. “Tell me, have I done this same thing in another worldline?” I showed him the hem of his sleeve, stitched together a bit messily.

He stared so long with his lips parted that I knew the answer. “I knew it.”

He looked me in the eyes. “What’s your point?”

I put down my needle, since I was done the sewing part anyway, and got ready to expound on something I knew about. “Deja vu is considered to be an anomaly caused by the overlapping of the short-term memory and the long-term memory. In other words, it’s a phenomenon created by a temporal discrepancy of memories. Reading Steiner is the retention of memories of multiple worldlines generated by the alteration of the past.” Or so I was theorizing. “Thus, both are memory anomalies created in the brain by temporal displacement. I just confirmed a different worldline occurrence based on a memory I had acknowledged as deja vu.”

He turned to face me, his stool rattling as he shifted his weight. “You’re saying that deja vu is a form of Reading Steiner?”

“It may be difficult to demonstrate, but it’s possible.” I lowered my head shyly. “I want to write a paper on it when I get back.”

He bowed his head too, a little smile on his face. “No matter when you are, you never change. You experiment-loving girl!”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I told him, without any of my usual ire, cutting off the end of the thread. “After all, isn’t that one of the best qualities of a good scienti-”

I looked up just as the lab coat fluttered down to drap across the empty chair. “O-Okabe! Okabe!!”

I picked up the empty coat, looking around wildly as if that would bring him back. Panic sweeping over me, I stuffed the coat in my purse and sprinted in the direction of the lab.

“Mayuri! Hashida!” I exclaimed as I crashed through the door. “He- he just- we need to find him!”

“Hmm?” They were both looking at me in confusion. “Find who, Makise-shi?” Daru asked.

“Tuturu?” Mayuri said.

“Th-that guy!” Don’t tell me they forgot the idiot who they spent all their spare time with! “You know, him-!” Why did I not want to say his name? “The one who founded the Future Gadgets Lab!” Wait, could I not remember his name!? He was so important to me, I couldn’t have forgotten-!

Mayuri and Daru looked at each other, then Daru looked at me and pointed to himself. “That would be me, Makise-shi.”

“Whaaat?” I cried. “Then whose lab coat is this!?”

Mayuri came to look at it. “Isn’t it yours, Kurisu-chan?”

I looked down at it, at the tag. It was an American brand. Who else would have an American lab coat? “I… I guess you’re right. What was I so worried about? Oh, by the way, Hashida, your laundry is ready to go in the dryer. You should do that right away.”

“Okay, okay,” Daru sighed.

That left me with one nagging thought that slipped away even as I grasped at it – if it was my lab coat, how come I had gotten a men’s size medium? I was a women’s size small…

 

Chapter 1: Kymatological Barbecue, Chapter 3: Vetitive Liaison