This is not the choice of Steins;Gate.


    This is my choice.


    And it is hard.


    He loses track of how many times the words have crossed his mind. It feels less like one big thing, and more like the gradual buildup of a thousand small cuts.


    It''s the difficulty of ESL after the enervating crash-course he took before he left. It''s the jet-lag he''s still unsure if he ever recovered from. It''s in the breadth of open spaces along the central California coast, where vineyard lands and arid hills stretch for miles, without the tight compression of buildings dominating the landscape like an over-crammed bookshelf. It''s in those weird things they call "taquitos" at American 7/11''s, when he''s walking to an early class at Victor Chondria''s satellite campus, wishing he had the succulent taste of a fresh pork bun instead to start his day. And, most of all, it''s found in the unaffordable price of Dr. Pepper, leading him to break his sacred rule and settle for store-brand cola.


    The calls from his parents kind of help, though. Despite Kurisu''s mastery of his mother tongue, and the eagerness of the Japanese Student Association to help him feel at home, he longs to hear his language out in public — but there''s too many consonants and not enough long vowels. His mother''s voice brings him home for a while every Friday night, though he can feel the immense distance when it crackles and echoes through the speaker. She told him him last time of his father''s back problems — how they''ll have to hire more schoolkids to stock shelves at Okabe Green Grocer — to compensate for the inevitability of age and how time presses on.


    Oh, and how time presses on. And there''s no microwave with a turntable to spin it back.


    Okabe thinks this as he sits alone in the quaint two-bedroom apartment, getting rather peckish as he scratches away at his engineering pad. At least numbers are universal, he thinks to himself. Though some of the phrasing in the mid-level Calculus questions confuse his understanding of English, the formulas are always the same. They''re a law of the universe: unavoidable and punishing to anyone that tries to get around them. Those classes on Sequences and Series are something he understands firsthand: he knows with his soul that there are different levels of infinity; some eternities that become zero when compared to others, some that confluence to the point that they approach a single value. Maybe that value is a watch that''s lost its time; or the Shinkansen screeching down the track through a pass-by station; or a heart attack; or the leather-clad assassin that deems a cherished friend non-essential to their future.


    The derivative is not worrying about the state, but the change in state. Number seven of 13-through-39 odd in his textbook is just the same process, just as this chapter of his life in central California is about forcing himself to look at where he''s going instead of individual points in time in his past.


    Defining assumptions is the first step in the engineer''s process.


    And I’ll assume that I can never go back.


    It''s nearing the time that she''s supposed to call him. He can feel the excitement rise towards that wholesome feeling when he hears her voice: it''s been months since he''s heard from her.


    The phone rumbles on his desk.


    He clears his throat to prepare his voice, straightens his hair, sets the phone where he can stand and greet her, and re-folds the collar on his lab coat, then accepts the call.


    "Hey, Okarin! Tuturru!" Mayushi says. It looks like she''s out in public somewhere: maybe near the Crossfield at a coffee shop. Beneath the bucket hat, her hair is far longer than he last remembers it, and he can see that she''s developed even further, so much further away from the young girl he swore would be his hostage.


    "It''s Hououin. Hououin Kyouma," the mad scientist insists. He reaches into his pocket to put his phone to his ear, before realizing the phone is on the desk recording him. Instead he crosses his arms with his hands in the pose of divine scientific inspiration, releasing the cackle he rehearsed when nobody was around to hear it. "The plan is in motion. I am closer than ever to the heart of the Organization!" He slams his palms against the desk. "Tell me, double-oh-two—is all safe on the home front?"


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    "Mayushi''s getting ready for Comiket," she says. "She found a cosplay group and some new friends for her and her friends!"


    The camera pans to the right: besides Kaede and Fubuki, a blonde-haired gyaru with piercings and dark pink contacts looks at the camera. The man behind her wears a dark-blue samue, chowing down on some street noodles.


    "Hey there! Maiy''s told us so much about you," the girl says, even more upbeat and energetic than the childhood friend he called. "Is this a cosplay of your own? Are you trying to spread our moe culture in America?"


    His face flushes instantly any time a normie observes his antics. But like the skateboarders that practice outside his complex, he''s learned the same lesson through practice: to commit to the trick.


    "I''m taking the sacred fight to the Organization, to the heart of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil beneath the heavenly realms! The Revelation is upon us.”


    The traditional-looking man leans over the girl''s shoulder, eyeing Okabe''s outfit. "A mad scientist costume, nice. Not sure what it''s from, but that''s some nice seam work: ironed, too. Did you do it yourself, or did you buy it?"


    "This . . . This is —" He looks down at the logo emblazoned on the front. The lab coat is light gray instead of white, the one he got at orientation for Victor Chondria. "This is what I wear in lab at school."


    "Okarin doesn''t just wear it to school. He wears around the whole town," Mayushi says, as the camera flicks back to her. He''s become accustomed to the cringe that contorts the muscles in his face, but seeing her heartfelt smile is worth it, and something that will never change.


    He converts all the cringe to a wide, sinister smile. "That''s right. Because the streets speak of the white ghost, the Baba Yaga, the Mad Scientist that dared to leap through time..."


    "Oh. Mayushi has to go. The fabric shop is open, and Gojo-Jun has some stuff to show us," she says. "She just wanted to call to say that she misses you, and loves you. She hopes you are doing well, so fight, fight, yeah?"


    The words warm the cold scientist''s scheming heart. He deflates to sitting back in his chair, leaning closer so he can catch every last detail of how she’s changed.


    "Fight, fight, for sure," he says. The warmth recirculates in his body. "Call me again in a couple weeks, okay?"


    "Mmm!" She responds, before signing off with one last tuturru. Like the word "aloha" in that Hawaiian movie Kurisu showed him, he guesses it means both hello and goodbye.


    The phone clicks, returning to the home screen. His stomach rumbles when he realizes all he''s eaten today is two breakfast taquitos from the gas station and some shitty sushi from the corner store. Before diving back into his homework, he lifts himself from the desk and shambles to the kitchenette in his green slippers, digging in the freezer for the foil-wrapped, dirt-cheap breakfast burritos that he and Kurisu meal-prepped the week before.


    The reflection stares back at him when he approaches the wall-mounted microwave. His stubble''s longer than it''s ever been, and he runs his fingers across the sharp black hairs.


    "I am mad scientist," he mutters, doing half a pose with the foil-wrapped burrito before chuckling to himself. "So cool, or whatever, sunovabich." He chucks the burrito into the microwave, hitting the start button three times to cook it for a minute and thirty.


    Okabe''s about to return to the desk, muttering to himself about how Kurisu must be late because she''s running that panel for the New York branch, when he hears a crackle start behind him.


    And then it all comes back to him. The worst form of time travel is in the feelings that keep the sufferer fixed to their past: an inescapable Time Leap that needs no headset—and when the foil sparks smoke and blue lights that emanate from behind the glass, he drops to the floor, covering his eyes and ears, whimpering as he draws his hands in his pockets to feel for the watch Mayushi gave him as a parting gift.


    That watch is an extension of his own heartbeat. He resoldered a new battery just so the voltage could give it that kick, kick, kick, checking for the pulse of this worldline when the Divergence meter isn’t around.


    Kurisu isn’t around right now to calm him down. He’ll have to do this himself. He scrambles to the microwave, tripping over the transition from carpet to linoleum, and though he bumps his head against the cabinet, he still manages to lift himself with a hand on the fake-granite counter.


    He presses the release button and throws open the door. A dark, billowing plume of smoke exits, setting off the fire alarm in an instant.


    Stupid!


    They could barely afford the security deposit on Kurisu’s meager salary. There’s no lukewarm relationship with the landlord like with Mr. Braun. And it’s going to be so many hours longer as a barista if he has to replace the damn thing.


    He takes off his silver lab coat to fan the white disk on the ceiling, standing on a kitchen chair. His heart is racing. He can hear the pulse of blood in his ears, riding the combined feeling of every bad memory from the summer of 2010. The thought crosses that the Rounders are just around the corner. SERN’s wired to his house. The bullet is loaded in the gun that’s predestined to arrive in the same place it always does, and when he flaps faster, feeling the tears begin to crest his eyes, wondering if he’s lost beyond recovery, the screeching stops, and the entry door opens behind him.