A/N: Hi. Let's continue with the story shall we?
Date: November 15, 2036
Divergence: 1.048596* (Steins Gate)
*Worldline shift in 2020 - Not the exact same worldline as it was before the shift.
Time until Overwrite: ERROR - NEGATIVE VALUE - CANNOT COMPUTE
Okabe awoke with a start. Sweat covered his brow and his breathing was shallow. Loud bangs were reverberating all around him, forcing him out of where he was and onto the floor covering his ears. Flashes of tumbled buildings, fires, and piles of bodies were intermittently appearing before him, bringing him back to the war he had tried so hard to escape. All he could do was yell incoherently, he was trying to make it all stop but the visions and the noises got louder and louder. The bangs gave way to screams of agony, gunfire, orders being barked, the crying of young children, the hungry snarls of flames. His eyes were clamped shut, but he could still see clearly, his ears were covered tightly, but he could still hear with clarity, nothing was making it stop.
Under all the sounds that engulfed him, he could vaguely hear his name being called. It was drowned out by all the noise, but he reached for it. In his mind's eye, the lithe form of a woman took shape before him, her chestnut colored hair flowing amidst the terror and chaos of war. She had a worried look on her face, and she kept calling out his name. The sounds of war were getting drowned out by her voice, something sweet and angelic, welcoming and soft, soothing and stern. The sounds of war gave way to total silence, the sights he was forced to go through were fading away.
Okabe woke up gasping for breath, he was drenched in sweat, his clothes were stuck to his skin and his breathing was as ragged as it was in the dream he had. Kurisu was sat next to him, a worried arm resting on his chest and a look of anxiousness covered her face. Okabe sat up despite the light weight sitting on his chest. He tried freeing himself from the cumbersome covers that were attached to his sweaty appendages. He looked around the room, no signs of war, just a plain old half-gray/half-red bedroom with hints of sun poking through the blinds. He leaned back against his bed's headrest and tried catching his breath as best he could, trying to get the gory images out of his head.
"Are you okay?" Kurisu asked from beside him.
He took a couple more deep breaths, calming his heart rate as he did.
"Okarin?"
Okabe looked over at his worried wife, her face still showing signs of distress at his discomfort.
"It's nothing," he said. "Just a bad dream."
Kurisu got out of bed in a flash. "Let me fetch you some water."
"Kurisu, you don't have to," Okabe tried calling out, but his wife was already out the door.
Okabe looked over at his nightstand to see his digital clock, the letter he left himself, and the bottle of Reading Steiner pills. The clock read 6:59 in the morning right before it started beeping loudly once it turned over to 7. Okabe hit the snooze button and comforted himself in his bed. He was accustomed to having nightmares like that, but they never ended the way it did this time. He could only guess that Kurisu's actual presence in his life was beginning to take a positive toll on him. Even if it didn't remove his nightmares completely, he was glad thay maybe he wouldn't have to experience them for long.
He took another deep breath before he tossed the bed-covers off of him and stood up. He stretched his arms upward and looked out the window, opening the blinds for him to behold the sight of downtown Los Angeles. Kurisu spent most of the day before trying to fill him in on what day-to-day life was usually like for the pair. He was very obviously taken aback when he heard that he now resided in the United States instead of Japan considering he had never set foot off Japan save for that one instance when he went to rescue Mayuri and Suzuha. Luckily for him, Okabe could speak, read, and write in English thanks to how often he had to cooperate with American rebels in order to plan his raids and supply runs. The real problem however, was Okabe's day-job. He was a professor at Victor Chondria University, a Neurophysics professor. He had absolutely no idea what that field of science was about save for a couple mentions here and there before the war began on the Beta Attractor Field. Today was his first day taking over his past self on the job, but Kurisu hasn't really been much of a help. Apparently, the only thing she knew for certain was that her husband was quite eccentric when it came to teaching courses and, as a result, only sat in on his class once because she could feel the embarassment of being his wife.
Today was a Monday, the first day of the week. Okabe sighed and started making his way to the door until he bumped into Kurisu at the entrance and got water all over his shirt.
"What the hell are you doing, idiot!?" Kurisu asked almost as if she were the one that fell victim to having water spilled on her.
"I was getting out of bed so that I could serve myself breakfast," he said. "I told you I was fine."
"Why are you getting out of bed, though? It's early in the morning, you could have just sat there a bit with me."
"There's classes today at 8 and 1:30 if I'm not mistaken. I have to start getting ready."
Kurisu frowned. "You're not gonna cancel your classes for today? I thought you said you didn't know much about Neurophysics as a scientific field?"
"You never told me I had the choice to do that!" Okabe threw his arms up in the air. "I don't know how any of this works, my narrow-minded assistant! Why do I keep you around if you insist on not telling me important details?!"
The air that was heavy with callbacks to the past was beginning to lighten up as Okabe finally settled back into himself.
"You're keeping me around?! What kind of joke is this?!" Kurisu retorted.
"Out of the way, assistant! I'm going to teach these classes today, regardless of what you have to say!" Okabe pushed through Kurisu who offered very little resistance to begin with.
Okabe got halfway down the hall before Kurisu started again. "Oh yeah? Who's going to serve you breakfast?"
"Why, myself of course."
"Even after that mess of an omelette you made yesterday?"
"It wasn't a mess, it was actually quite scrumptious."
"Fair enough. How are you going to get to campus from here?"
"I'll just use that droid-phone-thing to guide me to where I need to go, it has a map right?"
"Of course. Do you know what building your class resides in?"
Okabe flinched. His answer didn't come quick enough so Kurisu pressed onward.
"Do you even know what you're going to teach your students?"
Okabe clicked his tongue and breathed through his teeth. An idea suddenly hit his head and he turned around.
"Then prove your worth to me by guiding me to my classroom, assistant. I believe I know exactly what to lecture about this time around."
"Oh? And what'll that be?"
Okabe smiled and turned to Kurisu who had her arms crossed, facing him. "Sit in on the lecture and you'll find out."
A small smile escaped from Kurisu. She closed her eyes and shook her head before making her way down the narrow hallway toward him. She placed her finger on his left shoulder, turning him around by dragging it across his chest. She walked past him as he stood there staring incredulously at the woman.
"Get yourself changed, dummy," she said once she got to the entrance of the kitchen. "I'll make our breakfast."
Okabe laughed. "It seems like my assistant is already working on regaining my favor!"
Within a second of saying it, a steak knife flew past Okabe's face and embedded itself in the wall further down the hall. Okabe's eyes widened, he looked at the wall then he looked back at the kitchen which was inhabited by his fire-eyed wife who had gone into an attack stance. A couple seconds passed in such a position before she straightened out, flipped her hair, then shrugged her shoulders.
"Would you mind getting my glasses, Okarin~?" Kurisu asked in the sweetest voice he'd heard her speak in. "I seem to have forgotten them on my nightstand."
Okabe didn't know whether to scream, comply with what his wife asked, or run. He chose to do all three at once.
"Are you crazy!?" he yelled at her while dashing to the room, passed the knife, to get her glasses. "You threw that thing without your glasses on, down a hallway that could barely fit the both of us!? Did you even think for a second that maybe you'd hit me with it!?"
Okabe grabbed her glasses, and hurried his way out of the room, grabbing the knife as he passed it again.
"Why wouldn't I?" Kurisu said with an outstretched hand in wait for Okabe. "You called me your assistant three times in a row without any sort of retribution on my end. It's only fair that I get it when you called me your assistant the fourth time."
Okabe placed the glasses in her palm. Almost as if she were a pressure sensor, her left hand flew from her side, grabbing the knife out of an unsuspecting Okabe's hand by the handle and threateningly held it to his throat. He could feel the tip of the knife on his Adam's Apple and felt it poke at it when he gulped down his saliva in fear and anxiousness.
"K-Kurisu?" he said. "You're not being serious, are you?"
Okabe felt the pressure ease off his throat as Kurisu backed off and twirled the knife in her hand.
"'Kurisu' just rings a lot better to the ear, don't you think, darling? Was it that hard to say?"
Okabe made a little more room for himself by backing up from his wife. "You think threats to my life will make me forget to remind you of your role, Assis-"
Kurisu's eyes shifted back onto him, giving him a stare sharper than the knife she currently held.
"You know what? I'm just going to go change."
"That seems like a good idea," Kurisu said while putting the knife away in the drawer she grabbed it from. "Breakfast will be ready when you get out."
Okabe quickly shuffled back into the bedroom and closed the door behind him.
Oh my god, I just threw a damn knife at him. Kurisu thought.
She was impressed with her ability to appear threatening to her husband, but she couldn't help hyperventilating a little at the fact that she just threw a knife down the hall at Okabe without her glasses on.
What if I hit him? What if I had thrown it one inch farther to the right?
Kurisu bent down at the stove to grab a pan from the cupboard, maybe cooking would distract her from the stunt she pulled. She placed the pan ontop of the stove and turned it on before turning around and getting the ingredients she needed out of the fridge. She placed the necessary amount of butter in the pan and began mixing the eggs with the salt and pepper while she waited for the butter to melt completely. Once the butter settled, she poured the contents of the bowl onto the pan and began adjusting it to make sure it went in properly. She then filled the omelette with cheese and ham and topped it off with a perfect flip onto the plate she had ready.
She then repeated the process for her own omelette, save for putting ham in hers, and placed both on the table in the dining room.
When she re-entered the kitchen to get the pair's coffee ready, she saw Okabe coming down the hallway once more, wearing a black shirt with a bright red necktie and a labcoat ontop of it. He had black slacks on with his favorite pair of shiny dress shoes. Kurisu got flashes of the time before Reading Steiner came into effect for Okabe as this was usually the style of clothing he went with, albeit he usually wore white with a black vest instead of something entirely black. This new style-choice seemed to fit him a lot better though, and she found him a lot hotter than usual because of it. She couldn't afford to let him know about such a thought with her body language so she did her best to continue on without stopping to look at him.
"Your omelette's on the table," she told him trying to keep her eyes off him. "I'm getting your coffee ready."
"Why thank you, assistant," he said walking passed her. "I'm glad you're back to seeing the good in serving me."
She could feel her eye twitch the same way it did when she threw the knife at him and she cornered him on the kitchen table with nothing but her hands.
"Do you want to die?" she asked. "Just because you look really hot in that outfit doesn't mean you could go back to calling me that stupid nickname."
Okabe raised his eyebrow at her and Kurisu didn't know the reason why until it hit her.
She backed off. "I-uh-I d-didn't mean it like that...idiot."
"You can't pull that tsundere stuff on me when we're married, Christina."
"Now just who are you calling tsundere, you no-brained scientist?"
"I'm afraid you mean mad scientist, my darling assistant," he laughed before putting his hand on her head to create space between them. "It seems like I'm running a bit late so let's abbreviate this a bit, shall we?"
Kurisu let out an angry snort before going back to the coffee pot and pouring the black elixir into two separate white mugs. She assumed that this version of her husband would like his coffee with just a packet of sugar so she went with the idea while sweetening hers up a little more with some milk. She grabbed both mugs and walked into the dining room where Okabe was already seated and waiting for her to enter.
She placed his mug next to his plate and found her seat at the table.
She looked at him once more, getting her eyes caught in his.
He smiled. "Let's dig in, shall we?"
AGHH. I DID IT. I wrote myself into a bit of a hole at the end of Chapter 7, but I feel like this was the best course of action. I really liked how this chapter turned out despite it being short and I hope you enjoyed it too. I imagine you all can assume what the next chapter will have in store and I promise it will: be interesting, possibly cause an existential crisis or two, and be longer than these last couple chapters. I'm getting back into the swing of things, but don't expect anything for a bit because it's a tough topic to tackle through the eyes of someone like Okabe.
I hope you guys enjoyed another chemistry chapter with the lovely duo, I swear I'm trying to get the sense of being 40 years old down, but I can't help bring some of that teenage bickering between them because it's just so natural.
I promise (here's to hoping I keep it) that it won't take as long as it did for me to push chapter 9 out as it did this chapter because I actually have something that can guide my ideas unlike chapter 7 which kinda ended in a dead end save for a single plot point that can't exactly be resolved within a day. I hope you guys will keep on reading and I doubly hope that y'all can send some reviews in so that I can have a general sense of your guys' satisfaction with my performance.
Thanks for reading,
Quil~