After sharing control with TKO, nothing was ever the same for KO. His fear of losing control had lessened. He was more aware of his other self, both in an empathetic sense and in a physical one. The other's consciousness tickled at the back of his mind, ebbing at times, but never disappearing.

Currently, he was sitting in the break room at the bodega. He had been feeling some negative emotions brewing from the back of his mind for the past couple of days, and since the incidents with attacking customers and his breakthrough with TKO, he had been trying to be more attentive to TKO's moods. If the other boy was feeling bad, he wanted to know why.

He entered his mindspace. TKO's house looked pretty much the same, though the upper windows were open. He walked up to the door and knocked briskly.

There was no response.

He knocked again. "I know you're in there!"

There was a long moment of silence. "It's unlocked," TKO said gruffly and distantly.

KO entered, noticing that most everything that TKO had destroyed inside his house had been replaced. The place was a bit… angry for his taste, but he liked anything that made the other boy happy. He passed through the poster filled living room and followed the sound of lazily plucked guitar to the bedroom. He opened the door to find TKO, sitting in a bean bag chair and playing guitar.

"What." TKO said flatly.

KO made a matching bean bag chair and belly flopped down into at high speed. "Hi, TKO! I'm here to cheer you up!"

TKO carefully set his guitar on the ground. "Why."

He kicked his feet playfully. "I thought it felt like you might be feeling down. So I'm here to help!"

TKO looked away. "You don't want to help."

KO held up a finger. "Aaaaaactually, I love helping! I'm a good helper." He smiled brightly.

TKO frowned balefully. He stood, walking over to examine a poster and putting his back to him. "I want out."

KO frowned and buried his face in his bean bag chair. He could hear TKO start to shuffle around the room. He listened as he paced from bed to wall and back, stomping loudly. KO put his hands over his head. He did not want to have this conversation.

Eventually, TKO continued speaking, his words dripping with distaste. "I want out, and you want me trapped. I've been thinking about it, and even if I do escape, your stupid friends will just hug me back to you. So, get out of here. You're not gonna help."

KO stood up, his hands outstretched in a placating gesture. "You know I can't let you out. You got really mad and hurt my friends. Maybe I can let you have more control during fights, but I really can't-"

TKO leapt through the air, his fists sparking with purple lightning. He whirled past KO and made contact with the punching bag in the middle of the room, swinging it back hard with the force of his strike.

"That's not fair," said TKO. He punctuated his sentences with strong hits to his punching bag. "You get everything! Control! Friends! And what do I get?" He whirled around, stalking towards a pale faced KO. "Fake sugary cereal? I'm sick of it!"

KO backed away, his expression troubled. "I'm sorry, TKO. I didn't know you felt so bad about this."

He snarled, a wordless noise. "You don't get it," he growled. "You don't get anything. You're so stupid."

TKO stalked across the room and threw himself facedown on his bed. KO crept up behind him quietly. He reached out his hand and touched TKO's shoulder. The other boy whipped around and bared his teeth at him.

"What."

"What would you do? If you had control?"

TKO sat up, drawing his knees up. KO sat beside him on the bed. There was a quiet moment of calm as TKO thought over his answer seriously. KO fidgeted with his wristbands quietly.

"...Does it matter?"

"Yeah! Of course! You can do all the things you want to do. What sorts of things do you like?"

"Nothing." He buried his face into his knees. "Fighting."

"That's silly! There's lots of things to like! Videos game, cartoons, chocolate milk, working at the bodega-"

TKO looked up, angry. "I don't like any of those things! Those are things that you like! I'm a whole different animal." He flashed his teeth dangerously.

KO stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Okay, so none of those. But you do like some stuff! You like loud angry music and sugar cereal and spaghetti."

He shrugged dismissively.

KO looked down at his toes. "If you don't have anything that you want to do, then why do you want control? Most of the stuff you like, you can do in here. And you can wreck anything you want if you want and nobody will get mad."

TKO sighed. "But its all fake. Everything in here is fake. I want… I want to be real, to be an actual person. I feel… First, I was trapped in here in that stupid cage, and then I was trapped in here with lots of fake stuff, and that was better, I guess. Being able to do stuff when we went after Shadowy Figure felt good. And I don't just mean when we synced up. Even when we were sharing half and half, it was fun."

"It was fun," agreed KO.

"After fighting together… it made me realize that I didn't just want to be a battery to help you fight better. I want to actually do stuff."

TKO looked vaguely embarrassed at his outpouring of emotion. KO hopped up from the bed. He smiled broadly and held out his hand to the other boy. He stood up on his own, watching his hand warily. Undaunted, KO grabbed TKO and pulled him to the center of the room.

KO quickly made a whiteboard and some markers. He handed the purple one to TKO and uncapped his blue one. "Okay," he said. "We just need to draw up a plan of action." He started to draw a big sloppy T chart, labeling one side 'KO' and the other side 'TKO.' "We just need to figure out exactly what we both want, and then we can figure out how we both can be happy."

TKO grimaced. "This looks dumb."

"No, look, it's fun!" KO wrote down 'TKO to be happy :)' on the KO side. TKO snorted disbelievingly and shouldered him out of the way. He quickly wrote 'some control' on his side. KO put down 'not hurting my friends :(' and 'TKO makes some friends :)' on his side.

"This isn't going to work," warned TKO. "All I want is to live in reality. And you're not gonna allow that. This is stupid."

KO tapped his uncapped marker against his chin thoughtfully. "Hmm. Well, the only reason I don't let you out is because I don't trust you to not be naughty. Buuuuuut, I can't learn to trust you unless you have the opportunity to not be naughty." He started to pace the length of the room, mumbling and tapping his chin with the marker. TKO smirked.

"Your chin."

"So maybe we can work something out where we share? Like we both kinda take turns being in charge?"

"Your chin."

"Not long turns. Not whole days, but maybe like a school period? That's not too long. And you've shown that when you want to you can take control of my arms or legs temporarily, so maybe that would be enough to keep my mind at ease?"

"The marker."

KO stopped pacing, beaming at TKO with unbridled enthusiasm. The other boy snorted and pointed at his chin. KO made a gesture at his face, dispelling the marker marks on his chin and the marker itself.

"Okay, TKO! Let's share!"

TKO, still smirking, held out his hand. "Let's share."

KO happily shook his hand.