A/N: Sorry it's been a while since I uploaded, I've been doing very important things like

Math homework

?

Nothing at all actually

Listening to taz and coming to the conclusion that pylar is the heroes version of johnchurch

Anyway this fic is gonna turn into "Hiro hangs out with my OCs in college" for a bit, sorry

The muted rumble of late-night traffic filled Hiro's ears like static as he tossed and turned, trying fruitlessly to get to sleep. It wasn't even louder than usual that night; he was just having trouble drowning it out the way he could most nights. Something was pressing on his mind, and he knew he wouldn't get any rest until he worked it out. Finally, he gave up trying to fall asleep and simply laid still on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He didn't want his squirming around to keep Ando awake.

Hiro was almost certain that the girl who'd had a crush on Kimiko in college—who'd been her girlfriend in the original timeline—was Anzu. Anzu's accusation of "I just keep wasting my time on you" furthered that hypothesis, assuming Anzu remembered Kimiko from college. Neither of them had mentioned knowing each other previously, but maybe it just hadn't come up. Either way, there was only one way to know for certain if Anzu had been the girl from Kimiko's art class all those years ago: go back to that time and find out.

As he gingerly shifted off the bed, careful not to disturb his sleeping fiancé, Hiro wondered if he should leave Ando a note or something. He decided against it, though; he'd just make sure to come back to the same time he'd left. Grabbing his glasses off the nightstand, Hiro squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on the campus of Tokyo University, in the spring of Kimiko's freshman year.

Sure enough, that was where and when he found himself a moment later. Fortunately, it was still night when he materialized on the campus, so nobody was around to witness a strange man appearing out of nowhere. Of course, this did raise the question of what Hiro would do now—just wait until day? He certainly didn't want to sneak around inside the school in the dark like some kind of stalker. How would he go about conducting this investigation to begin with? Realizing how little he'd thought this through, Hiro cursed under his breath and smacked himself on the forehead.

To his surprise, his self-exasperated curse was met with a sleepy-sounding murmur of startlement. Hiro jumped a little at the unexpected sound, which he realized had come from above him. Turning to look around him (which was of course difficult in the dark, especially since it was a cloudy night) he noticed that he was standing next to a tree. Nestled in the crook of one of the tree's lower branches, about half a metre above Hiro's head, was a formerly sleeping figure, barely visible as an outline against the dark gray sky.

"Oh, no," Hiro muttered aloud, getting a sinking feeling. These types of situations generally didn't pan out well for him. He took a cautious step away from the tree, wondering if he should just call this off and go home, before realizing that panicking would only raise the attention of the person in the tree. Clearing his throat and doing his best to sound like a college-age individual, he said, "S-sorry, I didn't see you there."

"Oh, uh, I didn't see you, either," the kid in the tree replied. "Uh, hang on a sec…"

There was a rustle and bit of fumbling followed by a click, and Hiro was flooded with a pale yellow beam of light. It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the flashlight, but once they did, he could make out the other person a bit better. Crouching in the tree, flashing balanced precariously between his knees, was a boy with long bangs that were dyed purple at the tips, an ear piercing in his left ear, and a tattoo peeking out under the right sleeve of his somewhat ratty, paint-splattered gray hoodie. It was immediately obvious that this was an art student, which Hiro found quite promising—maybe this boy knew Anzu.

"There, is that better?" the art student boy said, not bothering to ask what Hiro was doing wandering around on campus so late, and apparently not noticing that Hiro was quite a lot older than any university student. "You can borrow this flashlight if you want, but you'd better give it back, 'cause, uh, I kind of borrowed it myself, so…"

He waved the flashlight up and down as he spoke, making it hard for Hiro to concentrate on what he was saying. "I don't need a flashlight, thank you," Hiro said, shielding his eyes when the beam was pointed directly at his face. "I'm not exactly supposed to be out here," he admitted, "so I don't want to hang around longer than I need to."

"Oh, you're not…?" The kid in the tree leaned forward, squinting. Hiro was worried he'd fall off, but the boy had a tight grip on the branch. "Huh, I thought you were, like, a new professor or something. So, then, um, what are you doing out here in the middle of the night?"

"Oh, I'm…" Shrinking back a little under the student's suddenly suspicious gaze, Hiro decided it would help to be at least partially truthful. "I have a sister here—Kimiko Nakamura, do you know her? I was in the area, so I thought I'd drop by."

"Hell yeah, I know Kimiko-chan!" The boy broke into a grin. Dropping his flashlight to the ground (in retrospect, maybe Hiro was supposed to have caught that) he swung his legs over the branch and hopped down from the tree. "She's the one I borrowed this from, actually," he went on as he bent down to pick up the flashlight. "Uh, I'm Taro, by the way. What can I call you?"

Hiro opened his mouth to introduce himself, but before he could say his name, Taro groaned and slapped himself on the forehead.

"Oh, right, duh! If you're Kimiko's brother, you must be Hiro, right?" A couple seconds later, Taro's smile twisted into a look of confusion. "Wait a minute, I thought she said you were her younger brother. You're, er… an adult?"

He said the last word as if he wasn't quite sure it was accurate. Hiro chuckled; it wasn't the first time someone had challenged the authenticity of his adulthood. Actually, he was starting to regret starting out so honest. Sure, it would've been hard to pass for a twenty-year-old at his age, but it made more sense than a man in his thirties hanging around the campus of a university he didn't work at in the dead of night.

After a moment, Taro shook his head and placed a hand on Hiro's shoulder; Hiro blinked, surprised at the unexpected contact. "Oh, you're a jumpy one, huh?" Taro said, retracting his hand and stuffing both hands in the pockets of his sweatpants, which were just as paint-splattered as his hoodie. "That's fine. My hands are kinda cold anyways. So, um, I doubt Kimiko'd be up, but how about we head inside? I'm freezing out here."

"Let's do that," Hiro agreed; it sounded like as good a course of action as any. As Taro led him to the university dorms, they made a bit of awkward conversation. As it turned out, Taro had been up in that tree doing a nature sketch for his visual arts class but had fallen asleep when it had gotten dark out. However, it hadn't actually been for his own assignment—it had been for Kimiko's.

"Kimiko took visual arts to hang out with my buddy Anzu, but, well, she's a math and sciences girl through and through," Taro explained. "Kimiko's great, but she can't do art to save her life, so Anzu and I have been doing her assignments for her. I, er, think Kimiko has a crush on Anzu," he added. "And Anzu's definitely got a thing for her. Thing is, Kimiko's got a boyfriend who's gonna be coming here once he finishes junior high—some punk named Ando."

Hiro snorted at Ando being referred to as a punk. His fiancé was one of the least punk people Hiro knew, unless he counted himself. Taro gave him an odd look, but didn't make any inquiries.

"Sooo we've got some kind of love triangle stuff going on," Taro concluded as he came to a stop in front of a dorm room with a sign hanging on the front of the door that said "Keep out" in Klingon. "It's, well, it's weird, but that's college, right?"

"I guess," Hiro said. Pointing to the sign on the door, he remarked, "I guess you're a Star Trek fan?"

Taro's face coloured a little as he opened the door and stepped into his room. "Yeah, a little, I guess," he said. "Uh, and you?"

Hiro grinned. "Yeah, I love Star Trek!" he said, doing a little bounce on his heels.

Although he wasn't planning on staying in the past for long, it was always nice to find common interests with someone. Maybe once he got back to his own time, he could try to reconnect with Taro sometime. After all, aside from online forums, Hiro rarely had anyone to talk to about his beloved science fiction franchise. He'd tried several times to get Ando into Star Trek, and although his fiancé had watched a few episodes of the original series and one or two of TNG, their levels of enthusiasm for the franchise would always have quite a large gap. Plus, those online forums weren't always nice. As a biromantic ace, it made Hiro quite uncomfortable to see people complaining about the gay couple on Discovery.

Pushing those thoughts to the back of his head, Hiro asked Taro, "So, who's your favourite captain?"

"O-oh…" Taro dropped his gaze to the floor, and then slowly lowered it again—not to look at Hiro, but at the glossy poster of Benjamin Sisko taped to the wall next to his bed. "It's, uh…" Taro looked Hiro up and down apprehensively, as if trying to get a read on who Hiro's favourite captain was (for the record, Hiro liked all the captains equally). "…Kirk?"

Hiro laughed. "You don't have to be shy," he said. "You're not the only DS9 fan out there."

Although Hiro tried several times throughout the night to spark up a conversation about Star Trek—or about anything, really—Taro seemed too tired to socialize much more, especially not with someone he'd just met. At around 4:00 am, Hiro fell asleep on the floor next to Taro's bed. The floor—and the dorm in general—was surprisingly clean, although there were a few paint stains here and there.

The next morning, Hiro was woken up by a blaring alarm clock. He winced, covering his ears. The sound came to an abrupt end a moment later, accompanied by a smash; Hiro sat up to see the alarm clock lying in pieces on Taro's bedside table. Taro, whose hair was bedraggled and completely covering his eyes, yawned and then fell back into bed.

Hiro wasn't sure whether to force Taro to get up or not. Sure, having your alarm set for a certain time probably meant you were supposed to be somewhere not to long after, but Hiro hadn't gone back in time to make sure a college student wasn't late to class (would changing whether or not Taro got to class on time change the course of history? Hiro doubted it, but butterfly effect and all that).

Fortunately, Hiro's little ethical dilemma didn't last long. There was some rattling outside the dorm's window, and a moment later a girl with long pigtails which were died bright red cranked the window open and popped out the screen. As she climbed into the room, her eyes met Hiro's and she blinked incredulously at him.

"H-hi," Hiro said nervously. "Are you friends with Taro?"

"No, I'm sneaking into his room to kill him," the girl said sarcastically. "And you're next."

Her voice sounded familiar, and when he gave her a second look Hiro realized why. He hadn't recognized her since she looked so traditionally feminine—she was even wearing a soft pink pajama top with the word "FEMME" emblazoned across the chest in big pink letters—but standing before him was none other than Anzu Noguchi.

"Hey, you look kind of familiar," Anzu said, looking over her shoulder at Hiro as she shook Taro awake. "Hey, 'Ro," she said to Taro as he reluctantly sat up, mumbling about needing more sleep, "I'm pretty sure I drew that guy the other day."