Chapter Text
gardenias are no longer whispering your face
I
"boundless by the time I cried, I built your walls around me"
The world had begun again, and although it hadn't done so in the clean way promised by the false prophets of the new world, nor with heroic speeches or neat endings, the facts were plain for all to see to anyone who had been unpetrified.
The entire process had been slow, clumsy, full of failed attempts and advances that barely compensated for the mistakes. Humanity wasn't reborn: it was rebuilt, from the life that had stopped, with the sole purpose of recovering modernity to the very last vestiges of what was known.
And at the center of it all was Senku Ishigami. Not as a savior, since he didn't like the idea of receiving glory as a heroic figure to whom tributes were paid—although that didn't apply when he was recruiting people to do the heavy lifting he couldn't handle—but as a director, since he and the group of experts made the decisions, but the voice of reason always seemed to be his. The charisma he possessed, or believed he possessed, helped him get his way, especially since those around him did everything they could to gain more followers.
Structures rose where before there had been nothing. Glass replaced stone, metal was reborn through processes that only the Scientific Kingdom could replicate with precision. Each discovery was another piece in an infinite puzzle, one that Senku assembled with the obsessive precision of someone who couldn't afford to fail or give up.
Because the future depended on that, on science and the progress it brought. Everything depended on it. However, there were things that didn't fit into any scheme previously studied and discussed by the brilliant minds of the time. They were things that didn't respond to formulas or measure results; things that, even without apparent use, persisted, whether as a nameless memory, as a feeling that refused to disappear, as a voice he could recognize and remember for far longer than he had expected.
"Senku."
Sometimes, amidst the noise of progress, he thought he heard her.
Not like a clear echo, nor like a defined memory. It was something more diffuse, more unstable. As if time itself were erasing her, layer by layer, without asking permission.
He frowned then, because when he looked up or turned his head in the direction of that voice, he found nothing but the immense and empty indifference of the outside world. He still heard that peculiar voice, but he no longer remembered the last time he had truly heard it.
He tried to piece it together. But there were things that science still couldn't restore. And perhaps… never could. So much time had passed that he had doubts about himself and his own reality.
"Senku," Luna insisted, "Dr. Xeno is asking if you've finished the blueprints for…"
"It was you," Senku said with an obvious tone of disappointment that didn't go unnoticed. "Yes, I have them."
He picked up the papers that were in front of his desk and stood up.
"Let's go see him."
.
The world was new, but Senku had no time for wonders, for his sole motivation during his wild teenage years was to rebuild the normalcy of the past.
In his memory, he relived his early twenties, his almost-twenties. It was at that moment that his life began to take on a color and aroma that, years later, he would miss intensely, for his memory did not seem to be as infinite as he had believed it to be.
"If the proportion isn't exact, the glass becomes useless," he murmured without looking up from the makeshift notebook of that time. "And if it becomes useless, we lose time. And if we lose time..."
"The world doesn't move forward," someone finished for him, with a hint of mockery.
Senku didn't need to look to know who it was. A simple smile appeared on his face, almost automatically, as it had become a habit whenever that happened.
"Exactly," he replied with his usual nonchalance and tranquility.
He had said that hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. It was a constant, a personal law that governed each of his decisions. Nothing was random. Nothing was unnecessary, because, for Senku, everything had to serve a purpose; only in this way could and should everything advance toward the scientific future he longed to achieve. The problem was precisely that: he was finding a function for everything, and not a reason for its existence on its own, or to achieve something that his limited scientific reasoning couldn't answer at that moment in his life, despite shouting things at the top of his lungs.
The charcoal crackled softly beneath the container created by the incredible hands and skills of old Kaseki. Senku barely adjusted the structure, measuring with his eyes every detail, every possible margin of error. He could ignore the noise of the surroundings, the distant conversations, even the wind. But not that.
"Senku."
The voice always reached him, and seemed to revel in it, even without being aware of it at that moment, which he would come to regret, but he wasn't ready for that yet. Senku barely raised his gaze, a small smile offering the girl his undivided and undivided attention.
Kohaku stood beside him, as if she'd always been there, arms crossed, leaning slightly forward to observe him, effortlessly invading the space Senku usually kept strictly defined. It was curious, to anyone else present, that the scientist allowed this kind of closeness with everyone else, but not with her. Kohaku was an exception to every rule Senku had previously established.
"You're frowning again," she said accusingly. "That means something went wrong."
"It means I'm thinking."
"It's the same thing."
Senku snorted and rested his chin on his left hand.
"If something had gone wrong, I would have fixed it by now."
"Then you're overthinking."
"There's no such thing, lioness. You can never overthink. You just do it, that's all."
Kohaku smiled slightly, as if that answer confirmed something only she understood, and the silence that followed was neither awkward nor overwhelming for either of them, the only ones present in the laboratory, while outside the life of the kingdom could be heard.
Senku refocused on his calculations, but now there was something different. Not a distraction—that would be inefficient and entirely wrong—but a constant presence moving at the edges of his attention, a presence seeking to enter his world according to its own laws and will.
He had already learned to work this way; to anticipate when Kohaku would ask a question that didn't need an answer; to recognize the sound of her footsteps even among others; to notice when she lingered longer than necessary, observing, saying nothing.
It was efficient. Useful. He told himself this as if it were a mantra, though he didn't quite understand why, since it was more than obvious that Kohaku's presence wasn't a nuisance, it was a reality that had appeared in his life to stay permanently… at least, for as long as necessary.
"And what are you doing now?" she asked, breaking the silence again after a few minutes of calculations and scribbles.
"Trying to make this work."
"That doesn't explain anything."
“You don’t need me to explain.”
“I want to understand.” Senku looked up this time, assessing her for a second. He could have ignored the question; he could have continued working; but he didn’t. He couldn’t do that to Kohaku, for her questions stemmed from the genuine curiosity of a warrior and someone hungry for knowledge, though perhaps not to the same degree as he was.
“If the temperature isn’t kept constant, the material loses stability,” Senku explained, pointing to the container. “And if it loses stability, it’s useless.” Kohaku watched him with genuine attention, as if every word carried weight.
“So… everything has to be perfect? You can’t allow for even the smallest margin of error?”
“It’s not that simple, lioness. Science allows for errors; the best inventions were, precisely, errors at first. However, it has to be something functional for humankind.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?” Senku didn't answer immediately, only pausing to observe the curious gaze those blue eyes cast upon the hot bowl, because, in theory, it was hot, but in practice…
"For what we're doing, yes." Kohaku didn't seem entirely convinced, but neither did she seem to fully understand what he was saying, so she didn't press the issue. She simply nodded slightly, as if accepting the answer without truly agreeing with it.
And yet, she didn't leave, remaining there as if that space also belonged to her by right. Senku didn't comment on it, nor was it as if he longed for someone else beside him.
There was no reason to; it wasn't that he sought her company; it wasn't that he was growing accustomed to her; it wasn't that, without realizing it, he had begun to build something invisible, silent, around them both. A space he didn't name, a space he didn't analyze, a space where Kohaku was always present.
The glass finished forming with a slight change in color. Senku studied it carefully, evaluating the result: functional, efficient, and absolutely correct, just as he had expected.
"Done," he finally said.
Kohaku leaned in a little closer to get a better look. She smiled after satisfying her curiosity and turned her face toward him, offering him that enthusiastic and curious smile.
"It's pretty."
Senku frowned and put his pinky finger to his ear.
"It's useful."
"Okay, but it's also pretty."
There was a pause, a minimal and almost imperceptible pause. Senku looked at the glass again. Then, for no apparent reason, he thought that maybe…
"It's not relevant information, but I appreciate the compliment."
Kohaku laughed softly.
"It's not relevant to you, but for someone like me, who doesn't understand much about science, the appearance of things says a lot."
"And what does this improvised piece of glass tell you?"
"That it wasn't made to do or cause harm." For now, it was a nice sight.
And perhaps he was right. But Senku wasn't going to analyze that. Not yet.
At that moment, all Senku wanted to analyze was the effect that smile had on him.