Senku had been wrong. It was not fun. It was annoying.

Getting any kind of breast pump to work meant dealing with Kaseki's weird insinuations and Chrome's complete inability to function.

Kaseki chuckled when Senku told them Kohaku's measurements, nudging him and just being generally weird. Like Senku was feeling Kohaku up while she fed the baby or something.

Senku had eyes. He could make educated guesses. And breasts were very malleable and could mold into whatever they made, so it wasn't super critical that it was perfectly sized. But still.

Chrome, meanwhile, was perpetually bright red and still wouldn't look at Senku. Seriously? One overheard comment and that was it?

Why were they being so weird about this?

He legitimately lost his temper at them, yelling at them to get to work so they could save the damn planet. He then stormed off to wake up Xeno.

As he held up the bottle of resurrection fluid, though, he paused.

"Oh? What's this? Has someone learned not to charge in blindly when waking people up?" Gen said from behind him. Sneaky.

Senku snorted. "As if." But he still couldn't make his hand move.

Why? They needed a rocket scientist. They had one right here, one already used to living in this stone world. It was perfect. Serendipitous. When did anything ever go so smoothly for them?

Senku normally would have just thrown the fluid on the man and dealt with the consequences. They'd make it work. They always had.

So what was holding him back? What had changed?

Okusei, he realized. I have a kid now, a helpless little infant, and I don't trust Xeno to not use him as bait or for leverage to get us to wake up Stanley.

Xeno probably wouldn't threaten a baby. Probably. Endangering the baby was likely the only sure-fire way to make sure Kohaku killed any attacker instantly and without mercy, and who knew what the others, like Tsukasa, would do. Xeno would realize that.

Damn it. Senku hated being illogical. Hesitating to wake up their best chance at getting to the moon as fast as possible because he was scared of an unlikely threat to a well-protected baby?

He threw the liquid on the statue. He ignored the cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was illogical to the extreme.

Gen hummed. The other members of their little "council" had gathered as well, Tsukasa joining them. No one looked especially happy to see Xeno break free, especially when he started ranting.

Senku hadn't realized, as a kid, that his mentor was so…unhinged. They'd never talked in person, after all, and there was only so much tone an email could convey. Normally Senku didn't care a single millimeter if someone was weirdly passionate about something—that was his favorite kind of person. But Xeno was different brand of passionate—the kind that taught ten year olds how to make a rocket and then mentioned they could also make a ballistic missile the same way, that it just depended on where you aimed it.

And Xeno didn't seem to care much about people, excluding Stanley. Senku would always find the solution that could save everyone. He didn't think Xeno wouldn't put in the extra effort to do the same.

Eventually, they secured Xeno's cooperation in exchange for the promise that Stanley would not immediately be placed in prison once the world got back on its feet. All seemed to be going well.

Then Suika walked into the main courtyard of the fort with Okusei, chatting with Kohaku.

Xeno tilted his head. "Ah, so Kohaku had her baby, then. She seems to have recovered quickly, even for someone so strong and young. It must have been an easy birth."

In an instant, Senku's mind was filled with the vivid, imagined mental image of Kohaku lying on the ground as Luna desperately tried to keep her alive, as Chelsea clutched a tiny baby and begged Kohaku to stay with them, to stay awake. Kohaku, still and quiet and wrong. Heart not pumping, neurons not firing. Just…dead.

An easy birth.

Sometimes Senku hated having a good imagination.

Gen was saying something, hopefully distracting Xeno from the fact that Senku was having a moment.

He was pulled out of it when Kohaku saw Xeno and snarled, leaping forward and pulling out her daggers, bringing up both of them to the man's neck. "Just so we're clear," she spat, "if you touch my baby, I will cut off your hands and then stab you through the heart." Then she pushed Xeno away and stormed back to a wide-eyed Suika, dragging her and the baby away.

Xeno stumbled back a bit and rubbed his throat. There were two small cuts there, not deep enough to bleed. "Never liked babies anyways," the older man mumbled.

After a moment of heavy silence, where no one expressed any concern for the threat they'd all heard against Xeno's life, they started brainstorming what to do next.

But Senku was a bit distracted. Kohaku was not going to be happy with him. Should he expect to be held at knifepoint, too?

He was able to refocus on the rocket effort, though, adding what he thought their next steps should be. Afterwards, they all broke off to their respective tasks (with Tsukasa casually but obviously following Xeno around).

And Kohaku was waiting for Senku, arms crossed, a frown on her face. Before he could even start to explain himself, though, she said, "I know we need him. I will not go out of my way to fight with him and will do my best to never be around him." Senku released a breath, but Kohaku wasn't done. "But I was not joking about killing him if he touches Okusei."

Senku couldn't find it in him to say he understood and was fine with it (that he even felt better about having woken Xeno up in the first place with her obvious threat), so he just nodded.

As he approached, she shifted on her feet, not meeting his eyes. "Okusei's asleep again. I want to go for a run. You have him." And then she sprinted off into the trees.

Well, at least she still trusted him with the kid. Senku slowly opened the door to the room they shared and saw Okusei fast asleep in his cradle. Senku had work to do, so he carefully lifted Okusei out of his cradle and headed off back to Kaseki and Chrome.

Both of them had calmed down, it seemed, not being weird anymore. Good. Senku used his foot to push an open crate over to his desk and set Okusei inside of it. Safely contained while he worked.

Okusei made little noises while he slept, tiny grunts and whines. Every time, Senku would glance at him to be sure he wasn't waking up, and every time ended up staring at the baby for a few seconds longer than he planned to.

The kid was so small. Everything was scaled down from an adult human size—ears, nose, mouth. His skin was smooth and soft, chubby cheeks a bit flushed. His white-blond hair was a mess, sticking straight up in odd places, but even it was thin and soft.

Senku slowly reached down and brushed the back of his finger against one little cheek. Warm and soft, as expected.

"Nothing quite as distracting as a baby, hm?" Kaseki said quietly from just behind Senku. "Especially when they're calm."

Senku thought about protesting for half a second before nodding. It was pretty obvious he was distracted.

"Also, why on earth did you put this cute, precious baby in a crate?" Kaseki griped. "The wood isn't sanded! He could get splinters!"

Senku snickered softly. "Your cradle is too sturdy and heavy for me to move. I had to improvise."

Kaseki grumbled a bit but promised to work faster on the loom so they could make baby wraps. He then pulled out a box which had the first rudimentary breast pump prototype inside. "I would have liked to use some different materials," Kaseki said, "but gathering them would take time, and it sounded like you wanted this as soon as possible."

"Ten billion points for you," Senku said, examining the pump. "I'll ask Kohaku to test it out when she gets back."

Kaseki nodded, then looked at the baby again. "Oh ho! Our fine little fellow is awake!"

Senku glanced down to see a calm, quiet baby gazing up at them.

"He really does look just like you," Kaseki said, squatting down to brush the thin hair back from his little forehead. "These red lines make it even more obvious," he said, talking about the nevus simplex on the little forehead.

"He's got Kohaku's nose," Senku said, shaking his head, "and her mouth."

Kaseki chuckled, then straightened. "Well, that does it! I'll finish the loom now and we can make some baby wraps!" And then he was off.

Senku shook his head again, then looked down at Okusei. Still calmly observing. It felt weird to leave him in the crate when he was awake, so Senku picked him up as gently as he could. "Hey, kid," he said with a grin. "How're you doing?"

Okusei blinked and wiggled once before settling down again.

"Hm. I wonder if you recognize my voice," Senkui said idly, moving the baby to one arm so he could hold his pencil with the other. "If I had to guess, I'd say you know Kohaku and Taiju's voices the best. Taiju is the loud one, by the way. And you'll probably call Kohaku 'mom' or something." Senku knew he was being ridiculous. Babies didn't understand words, even if it was beneficial for them to hear people speaking. "I wonder, what will you call me? Dad? Father? Senku?" He snorted. "That'd be hilarious. Your first word is just 'Senku,' skipping all that babbling."

He sighed and leaned back a bit. "Well, how about I just tell you what I'm working on? Maybe you're a genius baby and can think of something better."

Which is how Kohaku found him, explaining about the possible thermal pollution from certain extraction processes and ways to deal with it to a wide-eyed Okusei. He looked up at her. "What's up?"

"He's hungry," she said matter-of-factly.

Senku looked down at the kid. "How can you tell?" Was there some cue he was missing?

"My breasts feel full," she said. "How else?"

Senku supposed that was a reliable way for a lactating mother to know when to feed. He grabbed the breast pump and told her to try it out.

She looked skeptical, but positioned it how he told her to and manually started the hand-powered suction pump. Her face went through a whole gamut of emotions, eventually settling on a very small frown. "I don't particularly like this," she told him, "which is a little frustrating."

"What don't you like?" Senku asked, bouncing the kid lightly. They could change the shape of the pump, the level of suction, any number of things.

Kohaku's frown deepened and she looked away. "…Never mind. It's fine."

Senku wanted to groan. It obviously wasn't. "Just tell me what we need to change. Kaseki can adjust this pump or make a whole new one. It's not a problem."

Kohaku's shoulders hunched forward a little, an odd posture from the normally brash and brave warrior. "It works fine. It feels fine. It's all fine, okay?"

Senku wasn't looking for a fight and he was getting a little frustrated. Was anything today going to go easily? Okusei started wiggling, fussing a little, and Senku held out his hand for the small amount of milk.

Kohaku looked at the open bottle she'd taken from the pump, her face screwing up in a weird expression. She then, frustratingly, dumped out the milk she had just expressed and snatched Okusei from his arms.

"What—?"

"I don't…!" She huffed and moved the kid to suckle from her breast. "It felt…I…I just don't like it, okay?" She turned away from Senku. "I'll feed him myself."

Senku crossed his arms and leaned back a bit. Francois had recommended they not try bottle-feeding until four weeks had passed, so they may have jumped the gun on this one. "Alright," he said. "Kaseki is working on the loom now, so we should have baby wraps soon."

She nodded. "I won't slow us down, I promise."

"We have a baby," Senku said dryly. "There's no avoiding being slowed down."

But Kohaku was adamant. "Don't say that! You focus on your work," she said, "and I'll worry about the baby."

"What kind of nonsense are you talking about?" Senku asked, realizing there was something weird going on here. "No one's expecting you to…"

She was about to run, he could tell. As soon as she could move without dislodging the kid, she'd bolt.

So he stood up. "Sit," he told her, grabbing her shoulders and maneuvering her in front of the 'chair.' (It was a box, but it did the job.) He huffed as she looked up at him, confused. "No one is…I'm not expecting you to watch the kid all the time."

"But you're busy," she protested. "You've got things to do to save the world."

"So do you."

She laughed, a harsh, angry laugh that he hadn't heard from her before. "Yeah right. We've got plenty of warriors here now, ones much better than me, and just as strong." Okusei started fussing then, little cries as he wiggled. Kohaku tried to shush him, holding him up against her chest and rubbing his little back. Still he fussed, and Kohaku looked like she was about to start crying, too. "Ones that didn't get themselves pregnant like an absolute idiot."

This again? "You're not an idiot." And there was no possible way for a human woman to 'get herself' pregnant. It took two to tango, as the saying went, and if anyone had 'caused' the pregnancy, it was, strictly speaking, him. "And we need all hands on deck, as much as we can be."

The baby was starting to fuss more. Senku had noticed something earlier, so he tested his hypothesis:, he set one of his hands gently on the kid's back and started talking, just talking about whatever came into his head as he looked around. The kinds of plants they were surrounded by, the stability of certain shapes of buildings, weather-proof roofing techniques.

And the kid calmed down, stopping his fussing almost immediately and then being lulled to sleep as Senku talked. Kohaku sat still, her eyes wide.

"He wants both of us," Senku said softly, not taking his hand off Okusei's back. "He needs both of us." He swallowed, then looked away. "So don't say illogical things like you'll take care of him on your own."

He's my kid, too. Don't take him away from me.