A/N: lol I ended up rewatching ep 1 and 2 for this chapter www

He ran off into the room even before the thought had crossed his mind about it. But now that he was inside the room, he admitted that this was the best action for him to do.

Ace pressed the button on the doorknob to lock the door behind him. Yeah, this was the best decision.

Because if he had stayed with the others a bit longer afterwards, he was sure that the others would try to do the one thing he really didn't want to do. Take him along to visit Keiwa at the hospital. Even though the hospital should be the last place for him to be at. Because Keiwa was there at the hospital. And that place was somewhere someone like him shouldn't go.

.

"Aaah! So I played it cool for nothing? You've got a boyfriend already?"

"I'm not her boyfriend!"

"So, you're telling me that I still got a chance?"

Sometimes he couldn't help but wonder. If back then he hadn't ended up encountering Keiwa and Neon during that final round of the DesiGra with the Whale Jyamato, perhaps now Keiwa's life could've been different. Perhaps Keiwa's life could've been happier.

Because then Keiwa wouldn't have ended up catching the eye of some problematic member of the audience and ending up joining the DesiGra. Keiwa wouldn't have ended up finding out the truth about his parents' death or have Sara's life been constantly in danger and being manipulated by Kekera who only cared about turning Keiwa into some distorted vision of a 'superhero'. Keiwa also wouldn't end up being caught in between his battle with the DGP management.

Keiwa's life wouldn't have ended up spiralling out of control as it did and Keiwa wouldn't have had to die several times...

"If you don't give up, you can change the world."

"How am I supposed to believe that? I thought our world would just go on... where nothing bad happens. Where people get jobs, get married... and no one ever wins the lottery to become a billionaire. Just a world... where we can live happily ever after..."

"But now... you're telling me the world can just come to an end like this?"

"Don't worry..."

"I'll end this world... so that we can do it all over again."

Yet, if he hadn't saved Neon at that time and met Keiwa afterwards, what other aftermath could've happened to those two people? Would he have been better off not meeting those two—never meeting Keiwa and never getting so close to him?"

"Thank you for saving us last time..."

If he had never met with Sakurai Keiwa...

xxx

"How's Ace?" Sara immediately asked as soon as they reached home.

Tsumuri shook her head at both Sara and Win. "No change. Ace didn't even respond much to me calling out to him to open the door... and he didn't even come out of the room once—"

Immediately Win frowned at her. "Wait, Ace never came out of the room even once after we went out to the hospital?" he asked before turning his head towards Sara. Sara nodded in understanding.

"I'll go get the keys to the room—" said Sara urgently before turning around to go to her own room. Tsumuri continued to fidget with herself.

"I'm sorry... I should have done something—" Tsumuri started to say as Win just waved the concerns away.

"Don't sweat on it, we thought that he could've come around after calming down a bit... this thing had been hard on every one of us after all."

Tsumuri nodded slowly. "I guess I still have a lot to learn—" she turned to look at the empty space behind Win. "That aside, did Michinaga-sama and Neon-sama not come back with you two?"

Win let out a soft shrug. "Neon-chan said she needed to get something back at her apartment and Michinaga went along to accompany her. But I suppose everyone needs to take a break once in a while—"

Sara came back out with the keys as Win took them from her and unlocked the door. But then he realised that he still couldn't open the bedroom door despite already unlocked the door.

"Something's blocking the door—" exclaimed Win as he started to push his weight a bit more and managed to open it big enough to see inside the room. Sara let out a gasp as she saw Ace's legs from the other side of the door.

"It looked like Ace had passed out for a while—" she started saying as Win frowned.

"Do you think you can fit through the gaps? I don't think I can fit through..."

Sara scrunched her nose a bit. "I think I can manage a bit—see if you can make the gap a bit wider, Win-san," she said again as Win did as told. And then Sara slipped herself deftly through the gaps and entered the room. She slowly moved Ace's unconscious body aside so that Win could open the door properly without any trouble.

"His body's burning up," said Sara as she removed her hand from Ace's forehead.

Win let out a long sigh before kneeling over to carry Ace on his back. And then Tsumuri and Sara helped the man move Ace onto Keiwa's bed. He checked on Ace's temperature again before turning towards Sara and Tsumuri again.

"Seems like he had a mild fever, but I guess that made sense if he hadn't had any drop of water or bits of food since we left."

Sara nodded. "I'll make some calls—!" she said as Tsumuri offered to go get some water and cloth. The two ladies started to scramble around the apartment to get things sorted out. Win let out a long sigh.

Just as he thought that they were starting to make some progress...