No more than ten minutes after Senku left Kohaku to nap, the kid was whimpering.

He frowned. Babies had to eat, and that was something he couldn't really provide, so he'd have to wake Kohaku back up. Damn—he'd wanted to let her sleep longer.

So back he went, and the whimpering grew louder. "Shh, shh," he hushed, bouncing the kid. "I know, back to mom."

Kohaku was completely out. He chuckled and sat on the little stool by her again. "Hey, lioness," he said, "your cub is hungry."

She groaned. "Not…a…"

He shook his head. That nickname never failed to get a response. "Seriously. The kid needs food."

She mumbled and pushed her way up to a sitting position, then just sat there with a furrowed brow.

"Lioness?"

She scowled at him, then frowned again. "How is this supposed to work?" she asked as if to herself, eyeing her breasts and then the restless baby.

Senku shrugged. "I mean, I've read stuff, but I don't have any practical experience with this."

Kohaku made a face. "Some village women wanted to teach me things, but I didn't think I'd ever have a kid, so I didn't go."

Senku snorted. "Well, we're off to a great start, then." He looked down at the sad baby in his arms. This helpless little guy needed them. "Why don't you just…try? And we can see how it goes."

She looked up at him with a raised brow. "We?"

"Yeah."

She blinked, then shrugged and started pulling down the straps of her dress to expose her breasts.

Which is, of course, when Chrome came around the corner. "Hey, Senku, do you—" His eyes bulged and he quickly turned around. "Woah, sorry, never mind!" he called as he ran off.

"I'm feeding a baby, you ass, don't be weird!" Kohaku hollered after him. She muttered and held her arms out to take the baby. Then she sat there for a second, staring at the kid with narrowed eyes. "What the actual hell," she said, "am I supposed to do now?"

He snickered and she made a face at him. He closed his eyes for a second. "If I'm remembering what I read correctly…babies have an instinct to latch on. Hold him kind of…yeah, like that, sort of reclined. You put your nipple above his lip and he should take it from there."

She looked so incredibly uncomfortable with the whole experience that he was starting to feel bad for her. She maneuvered the kid and her breast into position, but when the kid latched on, she hissed and instinctively tried to pull away. "Ow, ow, ow," she muttered, wincing. "Ah, kid, let go!"

Senku quickly slid his pinky in the corner of the kid's lips and her breast to break the seal the kid had made, and Kohaku looked like she was trying very hard not to cry as the kid lay in her arms, little mouth still moving like he was trying to drink, tiny face screwing up with disappointment.

Kohaku tried to do it again, with the same result. "I thought this was…I don't know, natural," she said, sniffing. "That I'd just know what to do." Tears started filling her eyes. "I can't even feed my own kid."

Senku took a deep breath. Getting stressed wasn't going to help anyone. "Most moms you know had other moms there to help," he reminded her. "All you've got is me, unless someone else in our group somehow knows about breastfeeding, so we've got to make it work, okay?"

She inhaled slowly and nodded. "Yeah. Okay."

"So, what hurt?" he asked.

She explained and he thought about it for a second before telling her to try holding the baby along her side, demonstrating what he meant. He grabbed some cloth and tucked it into a pillow shape to help support the kid's bottom half as she changed her hold.

The kid latched on again. It looked like he was in the right position, but Kohaku had a weird look on her face.

"What's up?" Senku asked.

She shook her head. "Sorry, just…feels weird."

"Not bad, though? Not painful?"

"No, just…oh. Woah." Her eyes opened wide, staring down at the kid. "Um. Yeah. Weird."

Senku saw that the kid was now drinking and figured the 'let-down' reflex had been triggered. "He's got your appetite," he teased, laughing when she glared at him.

The kid was making the funniest little noises as he ate. Were those just first-time eating noises? Would he make different ones as he got older? The kid was also pretty wiggly, his fists coming up to press against Kohaku, his little legs kicking.

Senku realized with a start that he and Kohaku had just been staring at the kid in silence for two whole minutes. Senku wasn't even sure why it was so fascinating, but he felt like he could watch the kid for hours and not get bored.

Kohaku, meanwhile, was relaxed again, smiling gently. She brought one hand up to run over the baby's thick hair (Senku hadn't realized babies could be born with that much hair), then tracing the tiny eyebrows and nexus simplex lines.

"You know, you didn't answer me before. Have you thought of any names?" she asked.

He shrugged. "No, not really. Is there something the village does for names, though? You guys are all named after stones and elements. How did that get coordinated?"

She tilted her head. "The priestess will recommend a few names from the Hundred Tales to pick from when a baby is born. We usually go in the order of the tales." She sighed. "But who knows when I'll see Ruri again. And it's not a tradition I'm super attached to, so I'd be fine with any name. No, we'll have to name him ourselves."

He nodded. He'd never been good at naming things in a way that wasn't literally naming them after himself, so it would take some consideration (he didn't think Kohaku would allow "Mini Senku"). "I'll think more about it. No need to hurry. We can just keep calling him 'baby' for now."

Kohaku laughed and smiled at him. "Will we just call him by stage of life, then? Child, teenager, adult, elder?"

Senku grinned. "No, we'd call him 'baby' his whole life, obviously."

Kohaku rolled her eyes and tapped the baby's nose. "Don't worry, baby. We'll name you when we think of something good. Don't listen to Papa, he's full of nonsense."

Senku almost fell off the stool to hear himself referred to as 'Papa.'

Kohaku settled back a bit more, making sure the kid was still drinking. "Oh, little baby, I wish you could meet your grandpa," she said softly. "He's waiting for us at home. You'll be such a surprise, and he might be upset with me, but one look at your little face and he'll fall in love, I know it."

The baby blinked up at her with his big brown eyes and Kohaku kissed her fingers and pressed them between his eyebrows. "Hey, Senku, what are these red lines?"

"It's a nevus simplex. Some of this little guy's capillaries are a bit too big and close to the surface of his skin. It doesn't hurt him and will probably fade in a year or two. Nothing's wrong."

She traced the 'v' shape of the marks and looked at Senku. "So he didn't somehow inherit your scars?"

"Ha! No, scars can't be genetic."

She reached over and touched Senku's forehead, tracing her thumb along his scars the same way she'd traced the baby's marks. "Your scars didn't disappear with the petrification."

He shrugged. "The erosion must've been preserved."

"Do…do they hurt at all?"

"Nah. I forget they're there most of the time."

She hummed and turned back to the baby, brushing his hair off his face. "Senku…I was dead."

Senku froze, then sighed. "Yeah."

"Like…well and truly dead. Can…can the device…?"

"Can the petrification reverse death? Sure seems that way."

She bit her lip. "Isn't that a good thing? We won't have to lose our friends and family."

He shrugged. "At first it may seem that way, but there would be consequences. Does the device stop aging? How long can a person be dead before being revived? What if we can't get somewhere to petrify and revive someone in time? And…it would be a big responsibility. Lots more people on the planet, maybe a disproportionate amount of the elderly. Would we have to start choosing who lives and who dies? That has the potential to become very corrupt very quickly."

Senku wondered if anyone else had put the clues together. Tsukasa would, for sure, and Gen probably would, too. They had to be careful. One misspoken word could spell disaster for any world peace they were hoping for.

"For now, though, don't talk about it. If the wrong person hears…" She nodded and that was the end of it for now.

The kid had stopped drinking, now just resting at Kohaku's breast, looking very much asleep. "Senku," she whispered, "what now?"

Senku frowned. "Well…what feels right?"

She stared at him incredulously.

He threw his hands up. "I wasn't super interested in baby care, okay? I looked up some basic stuff in case, I don't know, some person gave birth on a train I was on or something." He sighed. There was just so much he wished he'd read or learned, but he was just one guy. "A lot of articles recommended that new moms follow their instincts. Pediatricians recommend things for each mom individually, but we don't exactly have one of those. As long as we keep him fed, breathing, the right temperature, clean, safe, and loved, I think he'll be fine."

Kohaku's shoulders dropped. "I want my mom," she said very quietly.

And Senku was suddenly struck by the realization that his dad would never get to meet this little kid, never know that, against all expectations, Senku had made him a grandfather. He had to blink a few times to keep tears from falling.

Byakuya would have loved you.

Actually…that gave him an idea.

"Kohaku, how do you like the name Okusei?"

She looked at him, eyes shining with sad tears. "Does it mean something to you?"

He shrugged and looked away. "My dad's name was Byakuya, and my name is Senku, so it kind of fits the theme."

A hundred nights, a thousand skies, and a hundred million stars.

When he looked back at her, she was smiling, tears running down her face. "I love it," she said, then carefully picked up the kid so she could look at his tiny face. "What do you think, baby? Are you named Okusei?"

The kid's mouth stretched wide in a gummy smile, his eyes still closed.

Logically, Senku knew it was just the little guy stretching his face muscles or having gas or something. Babies didn't actually know how to smile as a sign of happiness until they were a few months old, he was pretty sure.

Oh, but that smile was the brightest thing he'd ever seen. He reached over and rubbed his finger over the little guy's soft cheek, realizing that he was smiling just as wide.

Kohaku hummed happily. "Well, I think the answer is pretty obvious. Welcome to the world, Okusei. We're so happy you're here."