It was hot. The box fan standing in the corner, cranked on high, and his wide open bedroom door did nothing to alleviate the stagnant humidity. Geiz laid face-down on his bed, limbs sprawled akimbo, loose tank top and basketball shorts still too much fabric on his sweaty skin. Cicadas could be heard even over the loud hum of the fan, only somehow making the air seem even hotter, and even this late in the afternoon the sun beat golden light against his curtains, lighting his whole bedroom with tones of deep yellow.

His judo certificates and trophies were nowhere to be seen. Stacks of manga and empty bottles of Pocari Sweat flooded his desk, a trash can full of protein bar wrappers and tissues overflowing beside it. A laundry basket full of clean laundry was stacked in the opposite corner, a pile of dirty clothes haphazardly scattered around the same area.

His phone buzzed loudly against the nightstand where he left it, and he grabbed it, absently wiping off condensation from a nearby water bottle on his shirt. Swiping down the top bar, he saw it was a text from Sougo. He huffed to himself and tossed the phone back down on the bed without opening the message. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to Sougo- he had long since accepted they were friends. They would have been good friends through shared trauma even if he hadn't regained all his memories.

But that was the whole issue, wasn't it. His memories cast a cloud over every interaction they had. After that first agonizing night alone with his thoughts, he limped his way to meet his classmates, barely able to look at his mother in the kitchen as he left. Sougo offered him a lift up on his bike once he exited Nine to Five, and he accepted, sliding onto the seat as Sougo began to pedal.

At first it had been easy, a part of him so used to this simple, safe world that empty smiles and casual banter had taken no effort. But as they sat on the school roof that afternoon for lunch (two identical bentos courtesy of Junichiro), hot spring sun beating down on them, Sougo turned to him with a teasing warmth in his eye, fiddling with the Ride Watch he had seemingly produced from nowhere.

"So, we fought with these things a lot? I was just kind of winging it, but it seemed like you knew exactly how to use yours! Pretty cool, Geiz."

Geiz froze, chopsticks with chunk of steamed egg halfway to his mouth. He remembered the hours he spent honing his techniques before he ever left 2068, determined to be strong and fast enough to have a chance at taking down Ohma Zi-O. Showing up, bloody and bruised, to fight Sougo to the death with his own hands. Mastering his Typhoon form and speeding to block a kill shot aimed at Sougo with his own body-

"It'd be a sad universe if you were a better fighter than me, Tokiwa," he defaulted, and Sougo laughed, eyes squinting together in such a genuine expression of joy that Geiz's heart ached desperately. He grabbed at Geiz's hand, chopsticks still precariously handling the egg, and pulled it closer to his face. He grabbed the egg between his teeth and slurped it up, continuing with a full mouth.

"You'll have to tell me what my kingship was like, so I have time to prepare in this world too," he teased, and Geiz winced. Sougo didn't mean anything by it, he knew, but it was still too much to talk about.

"Yeah, sometime later." The bell rang, and that was that.

After that, if Sougo or Tsukuyomi tried to pry into what he remembered, he changed the topic. Tsukuyomi eventually learned to stop asking, but Sougo.. he couldn't give up. It felt like the more Geiz resisted giving details on their previous timeline, the more Sougo would joke around and try to guess what he was hiding. Things from the wildly inaccurate ("Did we all look super weird? Did we have seven fingers?" "Tokiwa, what the hell are you on about?") to guesses that hit a little too close to home, ("You just won't tell me because I bet you made an embarrassing confession to me and I turned you down!") he was relentless.

He coasted through final exams, earning a solidly average score, and once he was free of school, he found he couldn't find it in himself to sort through how he felt. It was easier to lay there, easier to respond to his two friends with noncommittal one word answers, making up excuses every time they asked where he had been. He hadn't even seen Woz in over a month.

Geiz rolled over on his bed, flipping his pillowcase over and heaving a sigh of relief at the cool fabric on his sweaty neck. It would be cooler in the living room or kitchen, with their open floor plans, but his mother was prepping dinner, and seeing her was almost as hard as seeing Sougo. His father was nearly constantly at work, but his mother, an elementary school teacher, stayed home in the summer months, making her a constant presence in the home.

He felt sick thinking about Sougo again. Before, Sougo had deliberately asked Woz to stay away, to keep this timeline intact, so they didn't need to fight- so he didn't need to remember. And yet here he was, so similar to his past self in so many ways, so obviously desperate for the very details he had tried so hard to avoid. Was it Geiz's responsibility to respect past-Sougo's wishes, and keep everything to himself? Sougo had clammed up at the idea of being a ruler who had hurt people- how was Geiz supposed to tell him that they met when he came back in time to assassinate him? That Sougo had grown originally to be a violent, malevolent dictator, capable of feats of evil not even Geiz himself wanted to recall? He had redeemed himself and broken the chain of events by not repeating history, but that didn't erase the trauma Geiz was suddenly forced to confront all over again.

Then came his own guilt. Because in the end, Sougo had achieved his dream, and Geiz had failed. He had grown into the kind of man the world would be happy to follow; a kind and empathetic ruler. And Geiz had fallen for him.

Sougo had given that up, too, to live a simple life with his friends at his side safely; to give them all a chance at their own dreams, dreams that had been snatched up by the circumstances of their birth. A chance that Geiz had thrown away, he reminded himself, by injuring himself. He flexed his ankle almost instinctively, stretching the muscles in his foot to prevent any stiffness like they had taught him in physical therapy.

Reaching up, Geiz wiped sweat from his hairline with the back of his arm and groaned. His stomach was tied up in knots, and all this thinking was just making him feel hotter. A shower would definitely help cool him off, he decided, and rolled onto his knees while yanking his tank top over his head. As he approached the door to his room and tossed the shirt onto his dirty clothes pile, however, he heard a faint shuffling down the hall. Sliding open the door, he nearly walked into Sougo, who was standing right on the other side with one hand raised as if about to knock. Wearing his customary baggy button down and comfortable pants, somehow his hair seemed even longer than the last time Geiz had seen him.

"Geiz!" Sougo beamed at him, entire face lighting up with warmth. "You didn't answer my text, so…"

Geiz's face flushed hard, somehow hyper aware of Sougo standing barely a foot away from him in the doorway, shirtless and sweaty. The combination of his nudity and being called out for ignoring his best friend was doing a number on his nerves, and he put one hand on the back of his neck reflexively.

"So you came over," he responded dumbly, and Sougo laughed a little.

"Yep! And damn, it is still so hot out, I'm surprised I didn't get gross biking over here." Sougo looked down, fanning himself with one hand, seemingly just noticing they were still in the doorway. "You, uh, going somewhere?"

God, this was awkward. How did he talk again? How many days had it even been since he had interacted with one of his friends in person? It had to have been a week and a half, at least.

"Shower. Do you want to wait in my room?" Talking to Sougo was the last thing he was capable of right now, but figured it was only polite to offer, stepping aside to let him through the doorway.

"What, I'm not invited?" Sougo teased, brushing past him and plopping himself comfortably on Geiz's bed, pulling out his phone. Geiz stared for a moment, smelling Sougo's cologne lingering where he had been standing. A graduation gift from Junichiro that It was perfectly normal really, Sougo had always been a flirt, lacking even the most basic of boundaries with his closest friends. It was always out of love and it received nothing more than an eyeroll, or maybe a thrown pillow before. But Geiz remembered what they had had now, remembered pressing Sougo against a brick wall with his own body, trapping him in, their breath mingling. The duality of his feelings overwhelmed him for a moment, half of him ready to take Sougo seriously, the other half prickling and deeply guilty.

His heart picked up, even as he scoffed. "Yeah, you wish," he added, maybe a little too quickly, because Sougo looked up from his phone at the breathy tone in Geiz's voice. Geiz quickly slid the door shut, and fast-walked down the corridor to the bathroom. Sliding the door closed behind him, he leaned on the sink with both hands, pressing his sweaty forehead to the mirror. The cool surface felt amazing, although when he pulled back after a few moments he made a face at the greasy mark he had left behind.

Stripping down methodically, he went into the shower room and turned it on, barely tolerable on the back of his hand. He washed quickly, enduring the cold spray against his heated skin, and part of him was reluctant to turn off the spray when he was finished. Dragging the process out looked appealing in the face of Sougo and his questions, his kind eyes and the humid heat of Geiz's bedroom. His skin was pruning though, and he was starting to get goosebumps.

Toweling off, he was struck with the realization that he didn't bring a clean set of clothes- ordinarily, he would just walk back to his bedroom in his towel. He was torn now. Did he put his dirty shorts back on? Walk back in his towel, Sougo be damned? He groaned out loud again, scrubbing at his face with both hands.

He thought about the old Sougo's eyes traveling his torso, lingering on the flex of his biceps as he dabbed blood off a shallow gash near the ball of his shoulder, ("It's going to hurt Geiz, come on, squirming will just make this take longer,").

He put the shorts on and left the bathroom, damp towel slung over his shoulder.