So this is different from the story I wanted to write, but somehow I got inspired and wrote all of this in one day. I only proof read it once, so I apologise for any errors.

Enjoy.

"How can you tell every single time?" Kurisu cried, burying her head in her arms. When she didn't get a reply, she sat back up and jiggled Maho's arm, causing her to sputter juice everywhere. "How?"

"Aargh, why are you asking me? Isn't it obvious?"

Kurisu blinked. "I-I didn't think - I mean - does everyone know?"

"How should I know?"

"Senpai!"

Maho snickered. "It's always written all over your face. I don't know how to describe it, exactly, but your eyes go wide -"

"Pupil dilation, that's natural, but how can you tell every single -"

"Listen to me! Do you want to hear what I'm saying or do you just want to sit there and spiral?"

Kurisu forced herself to exhale, and inhale. Maho was being a liar, and she needed to uncover the truth. "How?

"I told you, it's all in your body language."

"But you never pay attention to stuff like that, and yet you always - I mean, you couldn't tell that Jamie was pregnant even by the fifth month when she ate salmon and peanut butter salad every morning. What did you say to her?"

Maho flushed. "Don't remind me."

"What was it? Oh yes, you said -"

"No!"

"-she wanted to give herself food poisoning."

"That's not what what I said, okay."

"I should have recorded it. I knew I should have."

Maho ground her teeth and took another sip of juice, primly ignoring the spill on the breakroom table. This reminded Kurisu that she couldn't allow herself to get distracted. She had to get Maho to confess.

No matter how embarrassing the truth was.

"So. How can you tell?"

Maho sighed. She glared at Kurisu. Kurisu glared back. She had never lost a staring contest yet.

Maho's shoulders slumped, and Kurisu grinned. Her smile quickly dropped as she remembered what she was asking about. "You really want to know the truth? Fine. It's your tone of voice."

"W-what do you mean..."

"You always get really loud and noisy. And you always use all this weird slang I've never even heard of..."

"Uh-huh..." She would have to stop arguing with him. And stop using atchannel phrases. Both of these were going to be tough. It was a rare day when Okabe didn't tease her about something or the other, and how could she not get riled up when he called her Moneybags? At least she made money, that was ten steps ahead of that useless little monkey wrench...

Ah, that was a good insult.

"...And you tend to zone out..."

"Very funny..."

"I'm serious. You bump into people all the time when you're talking to him. And then - aargh, this is so embarrassing..."

"What?"

"Nothing. All this. It's embarrassing to even think about. Just go to Japan and get it out of your system, will you?"

Kurisu made a face and slumped over the table. Everyone knew. How utterly mortifying. How was she ever going to look Maho in the face again? "What was that last thing?"

"There is no last thing."

"Of course there is..."

"Do you really want to know?"

"No..." Kurisu groaned into the table. "I'm done."

The members of the Future Gadget Lab had grudgingly assembled for their 17,372nd Round Table meeting. Unfortunately, a crucial member - the subject of their meeting discussion, in fact - hadn't arrived yet. Naturally, the meeting dissolved into chaos without a leader to direct its snarkiness and social awkwardness at, and everyone quickly became busy trying to assign the blame for Okabe dropping his phone into his iced coffee. This was a crucial issue because it would determine who would pay Faris the money it had taken to secretly get it repaired.

Daru finally held up his hands. "Okay, okay, I admit it, okay? I was the one who started it. But that doesn't mean I was the only one to blame." His gaze swiveled round to rest on Luka, who immediately shrunk into the sofa. Mayuri and Faris shielded him. "Don't you dare look nyat Luka, Daru! He didn't do nyanything. You're paying, and that's that."

"B-But I did do it..."

Nobody was surprised. Okabe was easy bait these days. If even Luka had been tempted - well, nobody was judging him.

"I just saw h-him last Tuesday, a-and he was passing by the shrine, so I wanted to say hi - I-I mean, see if he was doing okay -" Mayuri patted his arm in consolation. "- And he was talking on the phone - and I realised that he was talking to Kurisu, so I wanted to go say hi to her too. I hurried a little bit because I didn't want him to shut off the call before I got there, so I just ran up to him and tapped his ba-shoulder, and he was so startled...he flung his phone across the road."

"What?" said Faris, confused. "It was broken since last Tuesday, nya? If that's true, then...you ought to pay up, nya.'

"No, it wasn't! W-we checked to make sure the phone was okay. It was shut off and there was a scratch too, and I offered to pay h-him, but he told me there was no need... He wasn't lying, right?"

Everyone jumped as they received a text message. "I have evidence he wasn't lying..." Mayuri read out slowly. "What do you mean, Moeka?"

Moeka hid behind her phone, now that everyone's attention was centred on her, and typed put a flurry of emails that Mayuri read out.

"Moeka says that she knows the phone was working, because she saw Okarin talking to Kurisu at Chuo-Dori last Friday. And she didn't want to let him ignore her, so she sent him a text message, and..."

"What?"

"She says that Okarin disappeared."

Moeka hid behind her phone as everyone stared at her again, this time, with a vague sense of horror, instead of the sense of community that comes with being an accomplice to a crime. She rapidly typed out a clarifying email.

"She says, "I didn't mean to be dramatic! He didn't disappear. He just ran away and then replied telling me I must be wrong and it was someone else in the picture I took." And there's a pouty face, look." Mayuri held her phone aloft so everyone could see, but more or less all of them averted their eyes.

Mayuri shifted uncomfortably on the floor. "Now I feel bad again for almost making Okarin drop his phone into the toilet..."

"That's it, Mayuri's paying, otsu!"

"Nyaaaa, you didn't tell us that... We all assumed you were the innocent one!"

"I didn't mean anything by it! I was really sorry... I was sitting right here, doing my homework. Then my pen ran out of ink so I went to the development room to borrow a pen but none of them were working. So I came back out, when I heard Okarin's voice from the bathroom. I immediately realized he was talking to Kurisu! So I said, "Hi, Kurisu!" as loud as I could. I had to be loud, or she wouldn't have heard me." Faris shook her head.

"After that, Okarin scolded Mayushi a lot and Kurisu was yelling at him for yelling at me..."

"The real question," Daru said dreamily, "was what they were planning to do in the bathroom. And if they were both in bathrooms at the same time. Hah, ha, ha, aha..."

"It's definitely your fault, nya." Faris cut in. "No, nyat you, Mayuri, I mean Daru! Nya, he must have said something perverted that injected a spectre into poor Kyouma's pure soul. Pay up, you disgraceful rogue, nya."

Daru adjusted his glasses, unruffled. "No matter how much you protest and insist that we're all to blame, we know that you're the one who actually made him dump his phone into his drink. You must have said that you were posessing his phone or something, and he must've thrown it in his drink to prove you wrong. You're the one who actually broke his phone, so you should pay."

"It wasn't like that, nya!"

"Feris would never go that far while teasing Okarin." Mayuri agreed, puffing out her cheeks.

"Look, nya. I told you, nya, when I first said that we should contribute to fix his phone. He was at MayQueen on Monday, and he had ordered an iced coffee like usual, but nyo omurice. So I went over, nya, to make sure he didn't want any. And I - before I could even ask him, nya, he dropped it in his drink! There was nyathing I could do! It wasn't my fault, nya."

Faris' phone rung with an email. "What did you say to him?" She read out.

"Nya, I didn't say nyanything, nya!"

"What did you say, Faris? Hmm?"

"Nyathing!"

"Come on, tell us."

"It's okay, Faris." Luka said softly. "We all did it. Just tell us."

"I said..." Faris sighed. "I said, are you talking to your girlfriend, nya?"

Everyone sighed as the ridiculous levels of Okabe's tsundere-ness sunk in. Before they could errupt into arguing about the contribution again, Okabe walked into the lab, looking cheerful. This surprised everyone. After all, his phone was out of commission, and as far as he knew, he couldn't pay for repairs until next month, if he wanted to be able to pay rent. The Kurisu-deprived Okabe had been a sad sight.

"Okarin! Look, we have your phone."

"You do?" Okabe asked, smiling. "Huh."

"She means we repaired your phone for you, nya! We felt bad for teasing you so much, so we repaired it."

"Okarin?"

The resident Mad Scientist broke into maniacal laughter. He swiped up the phone, dialled a number and switched it to speakerphone. "The experiment is a success, Christina! After all the sacrifices I made in the name of science, I finally succeeded!"

"No, you didn't, you monkey wrench."

"Of course I did. I said that if I acted sad enough, they would repair my phone. And they did."

"B-but-" Mayuri blubbered, confused and betrayed. "You were sad because you couldn't talk to Kurisu! You were so sad you didn't want to move from the couch! You were so sad you didn't even say fu-a-a-a-a when I said I was your hostage to cheer you up!"

"My dear innocent hostage," he reached down to pat her head, "I was sad until I remembered, unlike you unscientific people - shame on you, Daru! - that I can access email services from any laptop with a wifi connection. Behold! The Chaos! Of the internet! FUAHAHAHA!"

"You mean you were emailing her all this time, nya..."

"Of course."

"I wasted my Goblet of Eternal Sighs on your case, nya."

"That's right."

Luka blinked. "I-I didn't do anything wrong?"

"Never, Lukako."

Okabe's phone buzzed. He looked down, then blinked. "Ehh, not answering that. I'll remember your faithful contributions forever, though. Alright! I'm off."

"Okabe! If you're not even going to get them to answer the question, don't call me up at 4 in the morning, you idiot!"

"Oh yeah. How do-"

"Not answering." Daru cut in.

"Not answering." Mayuri agreed, crossing her arms.

"Me neither, nya!"

"Everyone, please." Kurisu's tinny voice said. "I just want to know. Forget Okabe, we all know that he's an idiot. Just tell me. How can you tell when we're talking to each other on the phone?"

One by one, they melted. "He becomes lost in his thoughts, nya."

"His eyes become really big, I can show you a picture if you want." Moeka whispered. "Delete that!" Okabe yelled. Moeka paid no attention.

"You guys argue a lot."

"And h-he walks fast when he's talking to you... And h-he talks fast too, and very loud."

"Actually, Okarin argues a lot with everyone." said Mayuri with a finger on her chin. "But you can tell he's talking to Kurisu because after they're done teasing each other, his voice becomes soft and understanding."

Everyone murmured their agreement.

Okabe ran out, despite all of the Future Gadget Lab pledging to answer the question in full, maybe even in essay format. Once he was out of range of their comments, he relaxed his pace. "That good enough an answer for you?"

"Mmm." Was all he got from her end. She seemed too embarrassed to speak any further. "Well, goodnight-"

"Wait!"

"What?"

"I - Next time you call me at this weird an hour you better have a good reason, you hear me?"

"Uh-huh. Also, monkey wrench?"

"If you can call me whatever you want, I can call you whatever I want!"

"Shh, Christina, or you'll wake up the neighbours."

"V-very funny. I bet that baby's crying in the background because you woke him up."

He chuckled. "I missed this."

Her voice suddenly turned dry. "Apparently. You didn't even get up from the couch? Overdoing it a bit, don't you think?"

"Well, I-" A shadow passed over his face, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. "I was sad about my phone."

"Your phone?"

"I've - had it for a long time."

He wasn't sure if Kurisu heard the strain in his voice, but she didn't pry any further. "Okay. Just...tell me if you feel sad."

"Yeah. I did, remember?"

She sighed. "It's hard to understand what you're really trying to say in a text. How am I supposed to know that you're depressed when you put on that mad scientist act? I need to hear your voice."

"Yes," he giggled, "You need to to hear my voice."

"I said goodnight, Okabe!"

"Goodnight." He smiled softly.