Dismayed but hoping that Anzu didn't mean what she'd said, Hiro retreated into Kimiko and Anzu's bedroom. He closed the door behind him with a sigh, his back sliding partway down the door as he slumped a bit. Ando, who was now sitting on the bed looking over some of Anzu's drawings, glanced up in concern. Not caring to give his fiancé a play-by-play of the exchange he'd just had, but knowing Ando would ask about it, Hiro pre-emptively changed the topic by grabbing a stack of Anzu's artwork and flipping through it for anything worth commenting on.

He found something fairly quickly, which he honestly hadn't been expecting—a drawing of a young woman with flowers in her hair, wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the logo for the university Hiro and Kimiko had both gone to. In fact, upon examining the drawing closer, Hiro was fairly certain that the girl in the drawing was Kimiko—not through facial recognition, because Anzu had given all of her older drawings generic anime-type faces, but by the little strawberry-shaped earrings she wore. Kimiko had owned a pair like that when she was in university; she'd received them from her first girlfriend during their short-lived relationship.

The only reason Hiro remembered any of this was because, while the Nakamura household hadn't exactly been homophobic, the LGBT+ community wasn't something he'd been very aware of for most of his childhood. Therefore, his sister dating a girl had stuck in Hiro's mind—he highly doubted he'd remember as clearly if she'd received the strawberry earrings from a boyfriend instead.

But wait, Hiro remembered suddenly. In the timeline he'd created where Kimiko had spent the better portion of her life dating Ando, she hadn't had that college girlfriend. At first, Anzu having drawn her long before they met seemed to serve as more proof that Anzu had precognitive abilities, but that didn't explain how Kimiko had gotten a pair of earrings shaped like strawberries in this timeline.

"Ando, babe, take a look at this," Hiro said, leaning over to his fiancé. "You and Kimiko were together the whole time you were in university, right?"

Ando blinked, evidently surprised by Hiro's question. "Of course," he said, setting down the stack of drawings he'd been looking at—from the look of it, mostly still life. "Nowadays I wish we hadn't been—well, that's not entirely true; I love you, but I was really into Kimiko before I found out she wasn't into guys—but yeah, we were together pretty much the whole time."

Hiro's brow creased. He studied the drawing once again. Maybe he'd thought wrong, and it was just supposed to be a random girl and not Kimiko. "…And there was never any point before we got together when either of you was seeing another person?"

"Not that I can remember, no." Leaning over onto his side to look at the drawing Hiro was holding up, Ando traced his finger along the top of the page. It came away dusty; Anzu had kept her artwork tucked away beneath her bed for quite some time. "Why do you ask?"

"Doesn't this kind of look like Kimiko to you?" Hiro asked. He pointed to the earrings. "I seem to recall her owning a pair like that in university, but I don't know who she got them from. Do you remember?"

"Ohh," said Ando, like he was having some great realization. Grabbing the paper from Hiro, who shot him an indignant look, Ando held the drawing up to the ceiling light. "Those were from that girl who was in Kimiko's art class in first year—remember her?"

Hiro didn't know who Ando was referring to, but he assumed it was the same girl Kimiko had dated in the original timeline, so he nodded anyway. It was odd, though; the way he remembered it, the mathematically-inclined Kimiko had only taken that course in liberal arts because her girlfriend (then just a crush) had taken it. In a version of events where Kimiko had been in a committed relationship, it was hard to say how she and the girl from her art class would have become friends.

"I always thought that girl was jealous of me," Ando went on. "Kimiko didn't believe me even though it was obvious her friend had a crush on her. I don't think you ever met her, but I bet the two of you would've gotten along. She was pretty into comics and stuff."

Interested in comics… in love with Kimiko… took an art class in university… Things started to slide together in Hiro's mind. "Ando, do remember that girl's name?" he asked. He couldn't recall it for the life of him, but all of a sudden he had a sneaking suspicion what it was.

"Oh, I don't know," Ando sighed. "It was all so long ago… I do remember it sounded kind of similar to mine, though—maybe Unko?"

"Or," Hiro said slowly, well aware that he could be completely wrong about this, "could it have been—"

"I just keep wasting my time on you!"

Hiro jumped at the sound of Anzu's furious voice that came ringing down the hall from the living room, accentuated by the sound of a fist hitting the wall. All thoughts of the past forgotten, Hiro sprung to his feet and ran down the hallway, pulling Ando along behind him. In the living room, they found Kimiko and Anzu frozen in place—although not in time, which the analog clock on the wall proved the passage of—like a tableau, their unflinching gazes locked on each other. Both were breathing heavily, and both seemed scared to be the one to make the next move. Kimiko was sitting on the couch with her knees drawn up to her chest, hands clutching a cushion that she held in front of her like a shield. Anzu was leaning over her, lips drawn back in a snarl, her fist resting on the wall behind them, just a couple centimetres above Kimiko's shoulder. That spot in the wall now had a crack where Anzu's fist had landed and blood was starting to pool at Anzu's knuckles; she'd clearly just thrown a pretty hard punch.

Hiro and Ando stood in the door frame, unnoticed by the two women. Hiro wanted to speak up, but he was sure anything he'd contribute here wouldn't be welcome. It seemed as though they might just remain stuck in that position forever until the landline phone on the computer desk rang. Gaze sharpening as though she were snapping back into reality, Kimiko moved to answer it; Anzu stepped aside almost too quickly, grabbed the phone, and thrust it into Kimiko's hands before storming off back toward the bedroom. She pushed past Hiro and Ando without comment; Hiro wondered if she even noticed them standing there.

"H-hello," Kimiko said into the phone, staring wide-eyed after Anzu. A moment's pause, and then, "Sorry, wrong number."

She hung up just as the door to her and Anzu's bedroom slammed shut. As soon as the phone was back on its receiver, its click drowned out by the slamming door, Kimiko's eyes flickered up to rest on Hiro. A mortified look washed over her face.

Hiro expected her to break down crying again, or ask them to leave, or maybe ask how much they'd heard. Instead, she shifted to cover up the bloodstained crack on the wall. "She wasn't aiming for me," Kimiko said with more force than necessary, like she was trying to convince herself more than anything. "It was… a warning. And I deserved it."

"I'm sure you didn't—" Ando began, but Hiro laid a hand on his fiancé's shoulder and shook his head. This was obviously something they should both stay out of.

"…You two should really leave," Kimiko muttered after a moment. Her vacant gaze hovered around Hiro's face, but her eyes never met his. "Anzu and I will talk this over. Alone."

Hiro was reluctant to leave his sister and her fiancée to themselves, fearful that the situation would escalate further, but he gave her a respectful nod and turned to leave. On their way out, Hiro didn't realize his hands were trembling until he took Ando's hand just to feel its warmth in his own. It was a warmth he needed on such a cold winter day. As they stood at the bus stop at the end of the block, Hiro repeatedly tightened and loosed his grip on Ando's hand as an outlet for the anxiety building up within him. Ando didn't comment, but he did raise his free hand to brush some hair out of Hiro's eyes, giving him a soft smile of reassurance. It was empty reassurance, though, because neither of them could know whether or not Kimiko and Anzu would work things out.

It was odd—Hiro had only known Anzu for a few months. It didn't seem like long enough to be as attached to her as he was. Having to pick a side between her and Kimiko would be impossible, and if the couple broke up now, like this… Hiro would be forced to pick a side, he just knew it.

When they were back in their apartment, Hiro collapsed onto the sofa with a sigh and flipped the TV on. He didn't really care what was on; he just needed to take his mind off what had just gone down. After watching a couple minutes of a painfully generic harem anime, he changed the channel to an action show.

"Hey, hey, why'd you do that?" said Ando, reaching for the remote. "Don't you want to see which girl the dude ends up with?"

"Why's it matter?" Hiro said. "They've all got the same face."

"But different personalities."

Biting back a laugh as Ando hoisted himself over the back of the couch into Hiro's lap, Hiro tucked the remote behind a pillow so it was out of reach. "You just want to watch that show because the women all have huge breasts," he said mock-accusingly.

Reaching behind Hiro for the remote, Ando fluttered his eyes. "Why, my dear, how could you accuse me of such a thing? You know I watch it for the plot!" He paused, dropping his jokingly offended tone and starting to chuckle. "Wait—wrong word."

"You're such a naughty boy, Ando," Hiro teased. Bringing the pillow out from behind his back, he gently bopped Ando with it. Ando took the opportunity to grab the remote, sneaking in a kiss while he was at it, and changed the channel back to the harem show just as the protagonist ended up facefirst in a girl's skirt—presumably by accident, considering how these shows usually went.

Ignoring the ridiculous, fanservice-y anime completely, Hiro lowered the pillow he was holding and wrapped his arms around Ando, interlacing his fingers behind his fiancé's back. "I love you so much," he murmured. "I can't wait until we get married, babe."

"Me neither," Ando agreed. Dipping his head to kiss Hiro's hand, he added, "We're going to have the best wedding ever."

Hiro nodded vigorously, closing his eyes and trying to picture it in his mind's eye. The thought crossed his mind to ask Anzu to draw him a picture of their wedding, but he didn't know if pre-cogs could take requests—and besides, it would be more fun to see for himself how their wedding would pan out.

Despite their best efforts, not a lot had been written in those wedding planner journals yet. They hadn't even begun to think about where to hold it—because taking Hiro's powers into account, they could have their wedding anyplace or even anytime they wanted. Having infinite options made choosing so hard. And as for who to invite… when he really gave it some thought, there weren't many people Hiro was close to. He'd always been an otaku, and although he kept up good relations with the other people with abilities, it was hard to imagine inviting somebody like Peter or Mohinder to his wedding.

But it wasn't really the ceremony that mattered, did it? The important part was that Hiro would finally be marrying Ando—his colleague, sidekick, best and dearest friend since childhood, and soulmate. The two of them were so lucky to still have each other after everything they'd gone through, and Hiro couldn't wait for them to become husbands. That thought—Ando being his husband—just felt so right, so fundamentally proper, so inevitable to Hiro, like there'd been no other way things could possibly turn out ever since they met in elementary school.

"You're my destiny," Hiro whispered between kisses as he pulled Ando closer to his chest. "And I don't need a pre-cog to tell me that."