In the next world line Ferris and Daru fell in love, so Daru and Ferris left the lab in the hands of Rukako, Kurisu and Okarin. In the following world line Rukako never existed, but for that a blond haired and blue eyed girl called Kotori Aishii. After that Okarin lost track of the changes. After a while Nae disappeared along with Mister Braun. One week later Okarin found himself not in the lab anymore, but in an apartment in the outskirts of Akihabara. Even though everyone already disappeared from Okarin's life his Reading Steiner overflow didn't stop. Every day he switched to a world line with a minor difference to the one before. Luckily Okarin didn't change Attractor fields anymore, but he still didn't want to be there. He desperately wanted to be in the Steins; Gate world line in the Beta Attractor field, but he knew that wasn't going to happen.
Okarin was about to give up hope, when he noticed something dominant. In these 2 and a half weeks one person never left his side: Kurisu. Whenever he switched world lines the first thing he always saw was Kurisu's troubled and crying face asking and yelling at him, "What is wrong?!". But Okarin never answered. Okarin just blankly stared her in the eye and let her be in pain, keeping her in the dark. Every time.
"Okabe! Please talk to me! Please don't ignore me! What's wrong?!", Kurisu asked while yelling, tears streaming down her face. "Please tell me what's wrong! If not, I can't help you!", Kurisu had been yelling at Okarin trying to get his attention for the passed five minutes and she started to loose her voice. "No...!", she yelled letting her head hang.
"I'm sorry".
"Huh?", Kurisu said while lifting her head again.
"I'm sorry for not telling you, ever. I'm sorry for not telling you today, yesterday... I'm sorry for not telling you the passed 14 world lines. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry", Okarin said as he started to cry. "It's fine", Kurisu said and smiled, kissing Okarin on the cheek. "Now what's wrong. You mentioned something with world lines", Kurisu asked curiously. "I see. I dragged you to this peaceful boring life, as your inner mad scientist hasn't died out yet", Okarin joked feeling a bit better letting all his sorrows out. "I came from a totally different attractor field and have been wandering around world lines for the past weeks", Okarin started to explain. "Really? Isn't there like some penalty or price to pay if you do that repeatedly?", Kurisu asked now sitting next to Okarin on the floor. "That's exactly what I'm dealing with right now. One and a half years ago I tried to save my childhood friend from being killed. I leaped back in time hundreds of times not thinking about the aftermath. Now I'm paying the price", Okarin sighed and wiped his tears away. "So you just switch world lines? It's a rampage of your Reading Steiner? How is that suppose to help?", Kurisu stated thoroughly confused. "How do you know about my Reading Steiner?", asked Okarin. "Oh, um... I don't know", Kurisu stuttered. "Ah well, that doesn't matter. I'll explain to you later. I only have one day until I shift into another world line, so we have to do this as fast as possible. Do you think you can just listen to me for a bit and ask only important and relevant questions at the end?", Okarin asked Kurisu who nodded. "Okay, every world line merges to another world line at some point and then branches off again. So to switch to another world line without a time leap machine I have to cross that bridge by saying something dominant from the world line. Like, if for example on world line Alpha person A dies and on world line Beta person B dies. Now in the time span of merging, time span alpha - beta, I would have to mention the death of person A's death to transfer to world line alpha. Same goes for world line beta. But this is not the problem. My Reading Steiner is overloading so if I switch world lines my Reading Steiner sends me to another world line. So it's basically impossible to get back to the Steins; Gate world line. The reason why I switch world lines though is not clear yet, but I think it get triggered by memories of other people in other world lines. So my Reading Steiner brings me to a world line where that person doesn't exist or isn't in my life", Okarin finished explaining and took a deep breath. "The solution is easy though", Kurisu said, "Just clear the cache of your Reading Steiner by going to Hypnotherapy and then switch to the Steins; Gate world line, right?". "Right...". Okarin stared dumbfounded and impressed at Kurisu who found a solution so quickly in under a minute while Okarin was dealing with this problem for weeks. "But can I get an appointment in a day?", Okarin asked sceptically. "I don't know. We could look though", Kurisu answered while getting up and walking towards her laptop on the floor. "By the way, are we living together?", Okarin decided to ask after a few minutes of silence. "Yes, in the Steins; Gate world line I suppose then that that's not the case?". "Exactly", Okarin answered. "Do we even have a romantic relationship?", Kurisu asked. "W-we have a romantic relation... Um... yeah, kind of", Okarin stuttered blushing. Kurisu turned her head from the laptop towards Okarin. "Yeah, you're definitely not from this world line", she stated and averted her gaze back to the laptop screen. "There is a doctor's office around here who takes patients without appointments. Want to try to go there?", Kurisu said and turned to Okarin. "I still have some time until my next leap, so why not", he agreed and smiled.