The chaos of rustling in the bushes to their right wasn't what startled him so much as the chill that went up his spine at the sound that preceeded it.

No... No, that wasn't it, it couldn't be, the odds alone--

Senku Ishigami inwardly cringed at the possibility of "it" as he unceremoniously removed his girlfriend from his lap. He pushed himself off the boulder he was sitting against, got up from the grass, and walked to the edge of the forest; nervous, his senses all ablaze.

No, he bargained, trying not to panic and genuinely surprised at how difficult that had suddenly become to control. It couldn't have been her. She was sent to collect medical herbs hours ago, of all kinds, for the winter stock, she was--

But as he reached the edge of the forest, he looked down. On the ground near the bushes that had so effectively spooked his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend with their fearsome rustling, he crouched and spotted them: the patches of little purple coneflowers which were littering the forest floor in front of him.

Echinacea.

...Fuck.

Senku stood up slowly, a pit of dread growing quickly in his core. His eyes had gone wide with a worry he couldn't have hid if he wanted to. And he didn't want to. Kohaku was, along with Taiju and Chrome, his best friend. He knew her so well by now. And there was no mistaking it now. He had heard her little scream, seen the blonde and blue flash disappearing behind the hill... But he also didn't understand why he was suddenly so anxious. She would be fine, anyway, out there on her own.

The woman can handle herself. Why are you so worried?

Somehow, just thinking that she might have seen him kissing Luna made him palpably and irrationally anxious... After all, what did it matter if she did?

Of course it matters.

He shook himself a bit, and started walking a bit closer to the forest.They weren't anything more than just friends. Kohaku was his friend, so, of course she "mattered" to him. The logic was sound. It was silly to think otherwise... But he couldn't stop worrying, and was thus left to wonder: why did it matter if she saw him kissing Luna?

10 billion percent, it matters.

Not even his hypothesis on all this was complete, but he suddenly felt that his friendship with Kohaku had taken a nasty hit. That it was in danger, somehow. It shouldn't be... Should it? He played reason-racketball in his head. No, see, that would be totally illogical, since they were just friends--

A brain in love is the most illogical kind of trouble.

He stopped dead in his tracks then shook it off without hesitation.

Word association via the word 'illogical,' i.e. idea processing. A coincidental and fleeting thought. Nothing more. We are friends. Good friends. It's natural to worry about the state of a friendship. Simple.

Logical.

But now, it seemed, he had put all that in very real jeopardy. All because he let Luna kiss him, and why? Because he was bored? Because he was curious? Because she was easy? Because it was all a ruse and wasn't in any way real to him, anyway? His most cherished relationship now in danger all for the sake of a stupid, apparently unnecessary experiment; to get out of a situation he disliked by using blameless and irrefutable reason: Luna's lost wager.

He made sure to continue facing the forest, and not give the cowardly cutie behind him an inkling about his emotional state. After a minute or two he tried to casually turn around, but found he was rooted to the spot, trying to outweigh any other possible reasons or outcomes of this scenario. He kept staring into the darkness in the direction those desperate fleeing footsteps had gone. He wanted to believe otherwise, but the evidence was mounting. And ignoring evidence wasn't within his wheelhouse as a scientist.

He needed to make sure.

"WHAT WAS IT?? WAS IT A WILD ANIMAL??? ISITDANGEROUS!?!?!?"

Oh for the love of... Breathe, Senku. She redefines annoying, surely, but you're finally off the hook thanks to her broken "promise."

Patience, now.

And with that thought, he found he couldn't help himself, and smirked. "Yeah, you know what? I think it was."

Luna's face went so hilariously white that he would have burst into laughter if he had seen it. "WHAT?! OMIGOD OMIGOD SENKU ARE YOU SERIOUS WHAT WAS IT?!?!"

It was all he could do not to turn around and have fun torturing her with the idea. Instead, he said it to the dark path he would soon have to follow.

"...A lioness."

Luna blinked, at first silent... and then began to scream in earnest. "W H A T?!?! LIONS!??! IN JAPAN!?!? OMIGOD SENKU I'M SO SCARED PLEASE YOU HAVE TO PROTECT ME--"

Her voice is 10 billion nails on a chalkboard.

He felt her wrapping her arms around him, and instinctively pulled his hand out of her grasp as soon as he felt fingers closing around his own. As far as he was concerned, she no longer had any claim on him whatsoever; so he no longer felt it necessary to indulge her.

Should probably tell her, though.

But unfortunately, he had not since the initial burst of sound from the bushes been able to tear his eyes away from the place it came from, and the direction it went.

"S-Senku?"

He paused for a minute, then made up his mind. "I'm going to go check it out. I'll be back later."

"You're WHAT!? You CAN'T!!!! I WON'T LET THE LIONS EAT MY BOYFRIEND!!!!"

On that note, he finally turned around to look at her. She had gone out of her way to use beauty science all over herself in preparation for their rendezvous tonight, and he could have almost gone so far as to say that she did look cute. He wasn't blind. He knew, objectively, that she was an attractive girl... but her particular charms were utterly useless on him from the start. He had only agreed to be "hers" in order to try and bridge the gap between his people and Xeno's. Now, she suddenly looked like a snivelling child. Her nose was dripping and she was hiccuping slightly, bottom lip trembling and teary doe eyes looking at him for safety and comfort. He had to work hard not to cringe, and couldn't help but feel she was exaggerating to get his sympathy.

Senku looked at her lips again--comically puffy and pouty--and thought about how he felt damn near nothing while kissing them just a moment ago. He had expected no less, in fact it was why he agreed to kiss her in the first place: so he would have a valid and irrefutable reason to end it. Luna sniffled and came closer to him, reaching her hand like a child reaching for her daddy. It was all he could do not to roll his eyes in a circle from heaven to hell right to her face.

"Yeah... about that..."

Somewhere in the distance, roughly east by south east and perhaps half a kilometer away, he heard the faint, fading yet distinct sound of something-- no, someone --that had been running through the wood getting tripped up. He heard her struggling, and then continuing on, until the sound waves all but disappeared.

But now, at least, he had an exact heading.

"Stay put, I'll be back in a bit--"

"NO YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME HERE, I'M YOUR GIRLFRIEND--"

He was genuinely surprised at his own sudden flash of anger at her chaotically helpless energy. Senku was never a cruel person, but trying to remain polite would now become a challenge if she delayed him going after Kohaku any longer.

"I absolutely 10 billion percent can, and will. You stay put, or go back to the village or whatever, I really don't care." By this point his voice had gone ice cold and he was already entering the woods in that east by south east direction. He wanted to end it then, to point out the broken promise and the fake, political-relationship that had tanked with it... but he feared she would go somewhat psycho and chase after him as he went after his lioness. He blinked, pausing inwardly at himself by the light of the posessive indicator he'd inadvertently used, and decided to shake that one off as well. "Just don't do anything stupid, like following me."

"Mine" as in the village lioness. Our kingdom of science's lioness. The power team's lioness... My friend, the lioness. That's what I meant by "mine," of course. Logical.

And before he vanished into the darkness, reasoning away posessive pronouns and other grammatical nuances, he turned his head to the side: that classic, mad scientist smirk slapped across his features.

"...Lionesses are very dangerous, you know."

"THEN WHY ARE YOU GOING?!?! PLEASE OMIGOD SENKU, DON'T--"

"Relaaax," he practically cackled, almost as if he were mocking her, though he hadn't meant to. He was angry at himself, after all. He just didn't understand why. "I'll be fine." He then turned back to the forest, pulled out one of his small handheld flashlights that Kaseki had just invented for the citizens of the Kingdom of Science, and walked into the trees.

The forest was dark, but his lioness had honestly done a number on it in her desperation to get away.

Again, "mine" as in the whole Kingdom's. Of course. That's all.

A comically clear-cut path had been carved from the echinacea-decorated bushes all the way into the distance in the direction of the southern river. He walked steadily, not wanting the sound of his approach to be picked up in the slightest. Slowly and quietly he followed the trail, quite literally feeling like a hunter stalking its prey, and frowned to himself.

No, not prey. She's way too strong to be prey to anyone.

10 minutes later heard the sound of running water, and his approach became even more strategically careful. The last thing he wanted to do was startle her, but if his gut instinct was correct, then she had seen everything. And if she had seen everything, then some serious damage control needed to be done to make her understand what happened and why. The closer he got, the more carefully he went: both on foot and in mind, dodging being seen, trying to catch an understanding over why this concerned him so much, moving forward by hiding behind one tree to the next. Slowly, steadily and methodically placing one foot in front of the other, he inched closer to his goal; the way he always did in all areas of his life.

Soon enough, the sound of the river was loud enough to muffle his footsteps... but not quite loud enough to muffle a different sound; one which he had never heard before, and decided immediately he never wanted to hear again: Kohaku, tough as nails Kohaku, his lioness... was crying down by the river. And she wasn't just crying.

She was openly and uncontrollably weeping.

The most he had ever seen her shed were tears of joy when he'd saved her sister Ruri with the sulfa drug. This... This was completely unprecedented.

Oh, what the hell have I done...

He quietly found a spot behind a tree that stood almost directly behind her, unsure of what to do.

I need more data before I act.

He settled in and listened, watching from a carefully concealed spot. Her shoulders--no, her whole body was shaking. Interspersed between her desperate attempts to catch her breath and regain control of her emotions, he was barely able to make out the words that were falling out of her, mingled in her misery.

"S-stupid... so stupid! Of course this was going to happen, so just... j-just-- aagh!" She grunted in frustration and pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. "Dammit, no... just stop it, already!"

He watched her head and arms go into a small frenzy, erratically moving as though she were trying to shake off something that was crawling on them, then went back to hugging herself. Her body was spasming with the force of her grief. Senku watched on, shocked by the level of her emotional reaction and trying to hypothesise what else, other than what had happened, could have caused this.

This isn't about me. It can't be.

He struggled to stay still, wanting to walk out and comfort her, but simultaneously feeling as petrified as he did that fateful day over 3,705 years ago. Kohaku slowly relaxed, her verbal sobs becoming softer and more controlled; eventually--over what seemed an eternity to Senku--abating into nothing. She sat at the river's edge, silent, breathing softly and occasionally wiping away one or two of the 10 billion tears which continued to waterfall down her face. As he watched her, he realised his chest had become as tight as a piece of coal on its way to becoming a diamond Medusa battery.

Okay, I have to do something now, I have to fix this somehow, I--

Her sudden burst of laughter both scared the shit and knocked the wind out of him. She sat up a bit, looking up at the moon again and wiping away furiously at her face before finally calming down once more. He swore he heard her chuckle under her breath as she spoke again to no one visible:

"He was never yours to lose."

Senku felt suddenly sick to his stomach. The pressure in his chest would now with 10 billion percent certainty crush him from the inside out. Who was she talking about? Who had she lost? Was she really...

...Is she talking about... Is this really about... me?

He began shaking himself inwardly with rage and regret at what he seemed to have inadvertently caused in his carelessness. He had no idea anyone could ever hurt this intensely over him...

Nor he for them, in return.

He heard her getting up, and as she pushed up on her knees and came to standing, he got lost in the shape of her. Her elegant, powerful silhouette was that of a woman who was long done being a little girl... unlike his technically-girlfriend waiting back at the village for him to return, probably snivelling into some other dude's chest thinking it would make him jealous.

Tch. As if.

He moved slightly as if to stand, about to reveal himself, but still, inexplicably, couldn't move. He watched her gathering up the echinacea, primrose, and tea tree leaves which she had collected so far that had fallen along the river bank in her chaotic arrival, and tucked them away safely in her harvest sack.

She's going to leave, idiot! Go talk to her, explain yourself! Make her understand it wasn't what she thought--

He watched, mesmerised as Kohaku sighed deeply, looking back at the moon. She grimaced at it, spit on the ground, and began making for the trees... facing further south and away from the village.

South? Where is she going?

His lioness sighed again, and began to walk away from the water.

SENKU. GET UP. NOW.

By the time his feet had recieved the forcedly jammed signals from his brain, she had jumped up into the trees, bounding effortlessly from one branch to the next in the air like she had when she was chasing down Homura.

"No, wait--"

He was too late, though.

"Wait, Kohaku!--"

He could barely see her in the distance now, she was moving so fast, all he could manage to focus on was that blonde and blue blur flying through the canopy, getting smaller by the second. He finally stumbled out of the trees into the clearing she'd just been standing in.

"KOHAKU!!"

He was answered only by the cold, autumn wind.