Touichirou didn't know whether to all this the future or the present.

Figuring out what to call this time, of course, was of the upmost importance. He had to know where he was and when he was. He didn't like not knowing things, it made him feel like he was falling, but worst. It made him feel like he was falling but also a small child. He had fallen down a lot when he had been small. Down the stairs, tripping over his feet, the time he tried to walk on the kitchen counters. He hadn't been able to catch himself with his telekinesis back then. He hadn't been able to do much with his telekinesis back then.

Not reliably, anyway.

Touichirou hated that, too, his powers not listening to him. This hadn't happened since he had been a child. Something about time travel must have messed his powers up. He held out his hand. The pencil in it fell to the ground. He decided that he didn't like that. It stood on end and spun a circle on the floor. Mother would have hated it, him drawing on the floor. But Mother wasn't around right now.

He did NOT want his mother.

He didn't need her. He wasn't a small child anymore and he didn't like feeling like he was. He was perfectly fine, just a little lost, that was all. It was no worse than the time he and Fukuda spent the weekend lost in the woods. Fukuda had, of course, gone top pieces as he tended to do despite him having powers more suited to the situation than Touichirou's were. He hadn't gotten sick from eating the wrong kind of mushrooms after all, and he hadn't been the one to get sick from eating the purple berries either. He hadn't been good at healing other people back then, either, so really Touichirou was the one who should have gone to pieces.

But he hadn't, and he wasn't going to now, either.

He was fine. He was safe. He was trapped in a stranger's home thirty three years from his own home with everyone he had ever known scattered to the end of the earth. Mother and Father were gone and…and well he did need Mother to feed him, of course, since that was what Mother's did. He also needed her to clean and press his clothes, too, not that he had any spares…he needed her to get him new clothes. He needed Father, as well, to provide Mother with the money needed to provide him with all of the things he needed. So in a way he did need his parents.

Monetarily, not in the way a small child would have needed their parents.

But he was fine. This person, Reigen, had agreed to provide him with free room and board for the foreseeable future. There. All of his major needs were taken care of. He even knew people, now, too. People who he may have been able to call friends. He wasn't sure. Fukuda had declared them to be friends upon their first day meeting each other. None of these people had declared themselves to be his friends despite already being friends with his son…so maybe these things went without saying?

His head hurt.

Everything hurt. He didn't let it show. He wasn't dying, that was the important thing. He remembered what it had felt like to be dying. The burning pain, the fever, seeing things that weren't there. Laying down, closing his eyes, and thinking that it would be alright if he never opened them again just to make it stop…yes, he knew what dying felt like and he was not dying. He ran a hand over his scar. If only he had met Fukuda sooner, then he could have avoided so much pain in his life. If only he had Fukuda with him now…no, Fukuda would have just gone to pieces. He was much less mature than Touichirou. Touichirou was fine to sit on the floor and get caught up on thirty three years of television, a very important aspect of his mission, while Fukuda would have been rolling around on the ground screaming for his mother.

Yes. Touichirou was much more suited to handling this situation.

"Hey kid, you alright?" asked Reigen as he picked small pieces of wood off of the floor. Touichirou shrugged and scooted to the side. Mother always hated it when he was in the way of her work.

"Fine. Just remembering what it feels like to die." Said Touichirou. Reigen stopped what he was doing and gave him a look, the same look that people had been giving him for his entire life. it was comforting in a way, to see that some things hadn't changed.

"Do I want to know why?" asked Reigen

"To remind myself that things could be worse, obviously." Said Touichirou. Reigen sighed and then sat down beside him. There was enough space on the couch for him to sit but maybe he, too, wanted to watch up close. He knew that it was a bad habit but Mother wasn't around to tell him that he was going to go blind so, yes, he had no intention of listening to her despite the damage he was doing to his vision.

"You know, it's ok to freak out." Said Reigen

"I'm not freaked out." Said Touichirou

"Alright, fine, you're clam now but you were seriously freaking out before. It's alright to be upset. A lot of big things are happening and-" said Reigen

"I'm not upset, I'm perfectly calm. I was perfectly calm before and I am perfectly calm now and I will be perfectly calm in the future…continuing future. You have no need to worry about my emotional state. I'm not a child, I'm fine." Said Touichirou

"Really? Are you sure you've been perfectly calm this whole time? Because I used to have a coffee table and now I don't." said Reigen

"That was an accident. Sometimes I lose control." Said Touichirou

"It's alright to lose control sometimes. Just try not to take it out on my stuff, alright? And anyone I know." said Reigen

"I have no intention of losing control. My control was shot then because…I don't know. Passing through the time stream, perhaps. My control is perfect now. Watch." Said Touichirou as he picked up every little splinter of wood from the floor, the rug, the couch, and even the little pieces that had been embedded in the walls. He put them all in the plastic bag Reigen had been carrying and even tied it up for good measure.

"See? Perfect control." Said Touichirou

"Uh-huh, and you could do this the whole time?" asked Reigen. Touichirou nodded. Of course he could, picking up small objects was child's play. He was clearly no ordinary psychic. The only other telekinetic he had ever seen, barring everyone he had met today, had been a guest on Supernatural Detective. He had barely been able to bend a spoon, ridiculous, and the fact that he had gone on after Mogami hadn't helped matters either. Touichirou was clearly the best psychic in the world…or maybe just the best of his time…

"Yes. Of course I could, I'm the greatest psychic to ever live." Said Touichirou. What? Had his power been in question? He was the unquestioned lord and master of the world by now! He was…he was older than Father, right now, and that was the other version of himself. Right now he wasn't even fourteen yet…and he was shorter than Fukuda.

He wondered how tall he managed to get.

"And you didn't help because….?" Asked Reigen as Touichirou looked him up and down. He hoped that he didn't end up this short. He hoped that he wound up taller than Reigen, and smarter too. Or at least with the ability to be able to tell when a person was incredibly busy with incredibly important work.

"I'm clearly busy." Said Touichirou motioning towards the television.

"If I pause it will you help me then?" asked Reigen

"With what? It's very clean in here, though a mother could have done a better job. Where's yours?" asked Touichirou

"Condiment City." Said Reigen

"Oh…yes, that makes sense, you being an adult. Where's your wife, then?" asked Touichirou

"I don't have one." Said Reigen

"Girlfriend?" asked Touichirou

"Nope." Said Reigen

"Oh. Are you considered to be unattractive for this time period?" asked Touichirou. Reigen didn't seem terribly unattractive. His eyes were nice, and he may have been short but he wasn't as short as Touichirou, and his hair looked very soft. If Touichirou had been a girl then he wouldn't have thought that Reigen was unattractive…but he wasn't a girl so he really didn't get to have an opinion about these sorts of things.

"No, I just never found the right person to settle down with. Why don't you have a girlfriend? How would you feel if I asked you that?" asked Reigen

"Obviously I do have a girlfriend, and have been married. I have a son after all, and a daughter too who has a different mom. So I've been with two girls and you haven't been with anyone. I win." Said Touichirou. Finally. He felt like himself again. He had won, and against an adult, too. That was almost as good as beating Fukuda.

"You're fourteen." Said Reigen

"Thirteen and three quarters, and that means I double win." Said Touichirou. Reigen was pretty good at cheering people up, he'd give him that. He was so good at cheering people up that Touichirou couldn't even remember what it was that he'd needed cheering up about. This mission had gone perfectly and now he had done what it was that he'd set out to do. Getting home was…a thing that would happen…but right now he was going to enjoy the future.

1986 or 2019, he always won.

"Yeah, I'm not in competition with a middle schooler about this or anything. Now how about you help put my coffee table back together and then we'll be even?" Said Reigen. Touichirou closed his eyes. He could feel the pieces but…it was like doing a puzzle. His limit was twenty four pieces before he got frustrated and one hundred pieces before he broke the box over Fukuda's head. This felt more like the time he had tried to do the one thousand piece jigsaw puzzle….

"Just buy another one." Said Touichirou, turning to the face the television. He didn't care that it was paused. He could watch the quality of the still image. It was better than laserdisc and Betamax put together. Yes, this was what he would do for the remainder of his time in the future. It was a better pastime than putting things together, anyway.

Puzzles were boring and Touichirou didn't much feel like being bored right now.

"Sure, I'll just go check my money tree and see if anything's ripe." Said Reigen

"You're being sarcastic, aren't you?" asked Touichirou

"Of course I am. Come on, kid, help me out. You break it you fix it." Said Reigen

"….it's in too many pieces…" said Touichirou quietly.

"What?" asked Reigen

"Are you deaf or just stupid!? I said that it was in too many pieces!" said Touichirou

"Whoa! Whoa…whoa. Alright, alright. Sorry, I didn't know that you couldn't-" said Reigen

"It's not that I can't, it's that it's not worth my time. It's a puzzle and puzzles are boring and I don't have time to be bored. When I rule the world I can have people be bored for me and…and I suppose I have those sorts of people now so why don't you go and bother one of them?" asked Touichirou. He kept his eyes on the television. It unpaused. Good, at least Reigen had the good sense to know when to drop something. He could kind of see why someone like Mob kept him around.

He had his uses.

One of which was keeping Touichirou company…beside him…on the floor. Touichirou ignored him and focus on one of the greatest works of cinema the world had ever seen, and he was counting those OVAs that he and Fukuda had stolen from the adult section of the video store…and to think that there were two more of these films…and so many other things out there for him to watch and transcribe. Maybe even something Fukuda liked since a part of him may have felt bad that Fukuda was missing out on this.

He was, in some ways, better company than Reigen.

Reigen was sitting and looking at what Touichirou had been assured was a cellphone. This was, of course, despite the fact that he had seen a cellphone before. Father had one. It barely had a screen, was much larger, and didn't contain the whole of human knowledge. Also the whole of human knowledge could now be found on the internet. It wasn't just text anymore, either. Photographs as well…and color was the default. It had been such an amazing thing to have a color monitor when Father had gotten him his computer, Fukuda didn't even have a color monitor and he'd had his for longer. No buttons either, just touch screens, like at the cultural tower. Truly amazing.

Though Fukuda would have stopped staring into it long enough to actually be good company.

He would have been making his usual irreverent remarks, maybe even some conversation, occasionally he would even say a funny line back but in this tone that made it a thousand times better…if Fukuda had been here then maybe it would have been better…or maybe if they had been in their own time period. No, Fukuda would have been freaking out if he had been here…

So it was ok that it was just Touichirou.

"Alright, so you don't like puzzles." Said Reigen. Touichirou rolled his eyes.

"Yes. We've established that puzzles are a boring waste of time." Said Touichirou

"What about lifting things? Can you handle that for me?" asked Reigen. Touichirou rolled his eyes again and raised Reigen a meter off of the ground. He was going to add this to the list of positives about being here, alone in the future. He could roll his eyes to his heart's content.

"Alright! Alright! I believe you!" said Reigen. Touichirou put him down, the whole time not taking his eyes off of the screen in front of him.

"Is that all or do you have something else to ask of me?" asked Touichirou

"Well if you're not too busy can you help me carry a coffee table home?" asked Reigen

"If you're buying one cant you just pay for someone to deliver it? Mother does so all the time." Said Touichirou

"I'm not paying for it, I'm taking it off of someone's hands, so no. Looks like you're going to have to help me." said Reigen

"I don't feel like it." Said Touichirou. Reigen sighed and paused the television.

"You're going to stay? You're going to work." Said Reigen. Touichirou had no way to argue with that. The trade was fair. Room and board for work and…and it wasn't as though he had anywhere else to go. His new friends…acquaintances he had made had all made it clear that he couldn't stay with them. So it was Reigen or trying to live in the woods again…and there wasn't television in the woods. He could always have tried to find Fukuda's parents but they had never been particularly kind to him…so it seemed that he had no choice….

He hated this feeling.

"Fine." Spat Touichirou as he stood up and walked over to the genkan. If Reigen wanted help then, fine, Touichirou would help. He stepped into his shoes and tried to lace them up…and only succeeded in making knots. He was upset. He always messed up when he was upset. He needed to calm down before he tore his shoelaces again. Mother had told him that if he tore them one more time she was going to make him walk around with broken shoes, she was tired of replacing them, even though it took her no effort at all and anyway she was the mother and he was the child and it was her job to extend effort for him and-

-and there was no way he was going to be able to untangle this knot.

"Whoa. That's…uh…something." said Reigen as he slipped his own shoes on. Touichirou tucked his laces into his shoes. Fukuda did this sometimes when he was lazy. If it was good enough for Fukuda then it was good enough for him.

"You're not going to actually get dressed?" asked Touichirou as he grabbed the borrowed sweatshirt and pulled it over his head. He didn't dare use his powers for this, he was in such a state that he was sure he would rip it, and then where would he be? He had already destroyed one coat. Mother was already going to kill him when he got home.

"We're just going around the block, thankfully." Said Reigen. Touichirou shook his head. Father would have ended him right then and there if he had tried to leave the house in sweatpants and a sleep shirt…but Mother and Father weren't here. If he had wanted to he could have left the house in his pajamas…he could have done anything he wanted….

The possibilities were dizzying. He was going to stop thinking about them now.

"Good, this had better not take long." Said Touichirou. He had things to do, yes, that was it. He had so much to get caught up on and…and anyway Reigen wasn't fit to be seen with him dressed like that. Touichirou made sure to make this quick. He hurried out the door as soon as Reigen opened it. No point in dragging things out.

He had a mission to accomplish.

"Slow down, you don't even know where we're going." Said Reigen as Touichirou walked ahead. He ignored Reigen and jumped down the metal steps, and then up, and then down again. They each made a different sound as he jumped on them. Fukuda would have loved this, being as musically inclined as he was. It was fun, in a way…

But he had a mission to accomplish.

He jumped down the stairs for one last time and waited for Reigen to catch up. There were people walking around, not a lot of them thankfully, but enough that he couldn't help but stare. Aside from the strange clothes and the tiny, what he assumed to be, headphones this seemed normal. He didn't know what he had been expecting. Not Galaxy Express or Astroboy but something a little more…futuristic.

They didn't even have a single lunar colony.

The future was proving to be a mixed bag, there was so little futuristic about it. Aside from the infinite information machines that people carried around with them. He needed to get his hands on one of those. He'd only held one briefly and only then played games on it. He needed to do the responsible thing and look up how he took over the world, and history, and also who won the next thirty three world series since it seemed to work out well for Biff in the bad timeline, and then maybe when he was done he could see if they had Space Invaders on those things. It was important to keep his priorities in order.

That was why he was the leader and Fukuda was the second in command…even though he was gone…so technically Touichirou was a leader with no one under his command….

"Walk more quickly." commanded Touichirou. Rather than do the intelligent thing and listen Reigen chose to stop walked altogether. People even had to walk AROUND him. How could one person be so-so-so stubborn!

"Calm down, I'm trying to get my bearings here." Said Reigen

"I thought that this was your neighborhood." Said Touichirou

"Yeah, it is, but I never go this way. The train station and everything else is in the opposite direction. There isn't even a good ramen place this way." Said Reigen

"I thought you had an instant information machine." Said Touichirou

"It's a phone." Said Reigen

"Fine. I thought that you had a phone." Said Touichirou

"I do but it's old and slow." Said Reigen. Touichirou made a mental note. Technology was still slow when it got old. Humanity hadn't reached it's peak yet…but he was in charge. How could humanity not have reached it's peak with him in charge?

"You should get a new one, then." Said Touichirou. Reigen shook his head and began walking.

"Is that your catchphrase or something?" asked Reigen

"What do you mean? It's simple. When something stops working you buy a new one. That's what stores are for." Said Touichirou

"It's not that simple kid, not in this economy." Said Reigen

"Father says that our economy is unparalleled." Said Touichirou. Reigen stopped again…what? Did people get out of breath more easily in the future or something? Was gravity worse and he just hadn't noticed because of his powers?

"Kid…about the economy…" said Reigen

"I don't know much about the economy. If you want to talk about the economy then I suggest you pick up a phonebook and call my father." Said Touichirou

"Yeah, listen. I don't know how to tell you this, or even if I should tell you this, but wait…if I tell you this then maybe you can warn the past….but then obviously you don't since we're still in this mess…I really should have paid more attention in science class." Said Reigen

"Yes, you obviously should have, but you're a grown man so you're just going to have to accept the reality of the situation. Now what is it that you think I shouldn't know?" asked Touichirou. Finally, something useful to someone other than him and Fukuda. Father would want to know about this. He had a big merger planned, he had said, something career making. Touichirou didn't know much about Father's career, he didn't need to know about such things since he was going to be the ruler of the world someday, but anything of interest to Father was worth bringing back.

"The economy kind of…fell apart in the early 90's and we never really got better. I don't know anything else, of course, so for me this is normal but coming from a time when things were really good it's got to be a shock for you. I mean I don't know how much this means to you, being a kid and all-" said Reigen

"It means nothing to me but it will mean a great deal to my Father. Keep walking." Said Touichirou. That was…he had to tell Father…but then Father would get upset and when Father was upset he often couldn't tell the difference between what he had been upset by and who was near him….but of course he had to warn his father.

He had to be a good son.

"Are you alright?" asked Reigen, reaching out towards him. Touichirou shrugged his hand away and began walking.

"I said to keep walking. Do you want it in English too? I'm fluent. I even have my mother's accent." Said Touichirou as he walked away. Reigen jogged and caught up to him, coughing the whole time. Touichirou made a mental note to never take up smoking.

"No, Japanese is fine." Said Reigen

"Good. Is there anything else terrible I should know about the future?" asked Touichirou. Reigen pulled at his collar.

"It's been thirty three years, a lot of…terrible things…have happened. Hey! How about some good news?" asked Reigen. Touichirou nodded. Good news sounded good right about now. Reigen still had his uses.

"What's good?" asked Touichirou

"Uh…what are you interested in? You want to know more about movies or videogames or-" said Reigen

"What of Atari?" asked Touichirou. He had heard that they were up to 7800 now, but only in America which made no sense since it was a Japanese company! The import fees alone put it out of his reach, not unless he saved his allowance up, but he had never been good at saving his money…well, he was going to have to get good because the economy was going to collapse so badly that people had to live in tiny apartments without being able to afford even the most basic of necessities.

"I'm mostly a Nintendo fan." Said Reigen

"You and Fukuda would get along, then. For some reason he thinks that the famicom is superior to the 5200. Nothing could be farther from the case, of course, but he won't shut up about his new famicom disk thing that he got for his birthday. It's not that graphically superior and the games are too…too busy. Honestly, I regret asking mother to get me one." Said Touichirou

"Wait, if you hate the famicom so much then why did you have your mom get you one?" asked Reigen. Touichirou wondered if people were dumber in the future. It would have made sense, maybe there really was lead in the water like mother insisted.

"Because Fukuda has one, obviously." Said Touichirou

"So you got one…for him?" asked Reigen

"No, I asked for one because I needed to prove to him that the 5200 is the superior console…and also because he kept on trying to make us go to his house instead of mine to play videogames and I prefer my own house. I have more things than he does and everything he does have I have a better version of." Said Touichirou

"That's…something." said Reigen

"It is. Something good. I wish that he hadn't wasted his big birthday present on something as stupid as a famicom disk. He should have gotten something useful, like a laserdisc player, that way we could at least swap films. My film library could have doubled but no, he had to get a famicom disk." Said Touichirou. He heard heavy breathing and slowed down. Reigen was dying…no…laughing. Laughing!

"I fail to see what's so amusing? Fukuda used up his one birthday gift, good gift, and in turn I had to use up any goodwill I had saved up with Mother in order to get an add on for a console that I don't even like. Thanks to Fukuda I'll never get a 7800…the import fees alone would be too much…" muttered Touichirou

"Sorry, sorry. I was just laughing at…at all of this. Sorry. You're just…you're a kid." Said Reigen

"I'm thirteen years old, nearly fourteen. I'm not a child anymore." Said Touichirou

"Alright, yeah, you're not a little kid but your priorities are…you know what? I have no room to laugh. When I was your age I borrowed my mom's credit card and tried to get a Game Cube. Of course I didn't get far and the owner called my mom, apparently she knew everyone…so yeah. I was once your age too." Said Reigen

"What's a 'Game Cube'?" asked Touichirou

"Nintendo." Said Reigen. Touichirou sighed.

"They got you too." Said Touichirou

"I went willingly. Anyway, we're here. Now listen, when you help me carry make sure to, you know, make it look like you're carrying it too. By hand I mean." Said Reigen as they stopped in front of a completely non futuristic looking apartment building. Another disappointment…and another bit of confusion. He had planned to have the world under his command by the time he turned twenty, twenty one if things went slowly. Surely it was common knowledge that he had psychic powers by now.

"Why? I can just carry it with my powers. It's easy." Said Touichirou. Reigen pulled at his collar again and glanced to the left, the right, and then the left again. Touichirou did the same and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

"The thing about that is…um…people aren't used to psychic powers yet and if you start showing them off to random people they can get confused or scared." Said Reigen

"That makes no sense. I mean I know why I can't do things like this in my time, Father would kill me and Mother would take over once he got tired, but you can't presume to tell me that things haven't changed in thirty three years? I rule the world. People should be used to this by now." said Touichirou

"Kid, listen. About you ruling the world…it's a big, non-centralized place and…and anyway people aren't really used to psychic powers in this time period aside from in very specific settings. This isn't one of them so pretend to carry this the normal way and….um….I don't know. I'll stop by the used game store and get you an Atari?" asked Reigen. Touichirou…he must have heard wrong. That was…was that considered a fair trade in this time? In his time that would have been the height of stupidity, especially considering the fact that Reigen lived in an apartment so small that it could barely fit two people…

He wasn't going to question it.

"Which one?" asked Touichirou. If he said 2600 then no deal…a partial deal. He'd had his 2600 since he had been little. He had played most of the good games for it. He needed something new…though the prospect of playing Space Invaders again was almost too tempting….

"Which is the one you want?" asked Reigen

"A 7800….with games! Adults are always forgetting that consoles need games." Said Touichirou. Father said that when making a deal you had to go high, the other person would go low, and then you met in the middle. A 7800 with games was better than he ever could have imagined…so of course it was going to probably end up being a 5200, which he already had, with a few games…but maybe one of those would be Space Invaders…

"I'm not that old, kid, I know that consoles need games." Said Reigen

"Well I don't know what you know, I can't read minds, and anyway Mother is always forgetting that consoles need games. She thinks that everything is Pong." Said Touichirou

"You know something? My mom thought the same thing when I was a kid." Said Reigen

"It makes sense. Mothers predate consoles." Said Touichirou

"No, my mom is only…" said Reigen as he counted on his fingers. Touichirou tapped his foot.

"Today, Reigen." Said Touichirou. Reigen did that thing where he practically jumped a meter in the air. Touichirou wondered if people were just more excitable in the future or if this was a trait Reigen alone possessed. He was leaning towards people being more excitable. Sho had been pretty volatile when he'd met him…but then again Sho was his son.

He'd have to meet his daughter to see if this was something that they had gotten from him or their environment…and probably their mothers, too, so he could see who he wound up with.

"Ok, yeah, not the time for…alright! How about you don't use your powers in public, or tell people that you're from the future, and I'll get you a big bag of videogames." Said Reigen. For a moment Touichirou forgot how to breathe. He was grateful for how dumb people were in this time. It worked out well for him, anyway.

"We have a deal." Said Touichirou, holding out his hand. This was a good future, he decided, even though he was far from home and everyone he had ever known…but now he at least had some of the comforts of home, and he was even doing better than when he left. This barter economy people were reliant on was worrying…and Father wasn't going to be happy when he heard about this…

But Father wasn't around.

Sure the economy was worrying and he was beginning to wonder if he had taken over the entire world. Reigen had said that it was difficult to centralize…so did this mean that he only ruled Japan? He could deal with that. He was getting better at dealing with disappointment. No lunar colonies, nothing really futuristic like flying cars or robots to take care of the drudgery of existence, and he and Fukuda didn't even seem to be in contact anymore…his parents were missing…but at least he had videogames.

This future, present, whatever wasn't all bad. It wasn't that great but it wasn't that bad, either.