"...if there was a way for me to give you full access to everything I'm thinking and feeling at all times, I'd give you it."

"I really think the hypnosis thing was quite enough and I'm going to do my best to convince any applicable other-timeline Harus of the same thing so they don't even have to do that!"

"I don't really understand why it upsets you so much but it makes you so very loveable."

"Should I try to explain it?"

"Sure."

"It feels really fundamental to me that - the way somebody thinks is who they are. You're a magic rock now, and you're still you, because you think the same way, and if you magically turned yourself into a jellyfish - which to be clear I'd rather you not do - you'd still be you too, even though you'd have fairly little biologically in common with your present self if you did that. Doing mind control things is... it can be acceptable if someone wants to change something, and that's the way they have available to them, that's a self-instigated process like how I notebooked myself into wanting the flu gone more and it just uses different tools even if it makes me kinda uncomfortable. But - I'm not sure if I would have actually said something quite as categorical as you reported, that you should only be willing to mind control someone if you're willing to kill them? There's lots of short term things that are obviously less severe than that. But - it's comparable in kind, you're saying, this person here is unsuitable for some purpose of mine, they need to be different. The way they'll understand or react to whatever is going on is inconvenient or insufficiently legible and it's my prerogative to change that. And I don't like having - done that to you - not just because it was unnecessary but also it was, you weren't lying to me -"

"...I mean okay like I understand that in general but in specific you weren't changing anything, just asking questions, and if it's just that, just knowing what's there, then that's—I want you to know? And if there's—some other Yutaka that's mostly like me and remembers the things I do but is a little bit different and he's different in a way that makes him better for you then I want to be him and I don't know how different he'd have to be for me to stop wanting that. This Yutaka is a lot different than the Yutaka from two months ago anyway."

"One of the ways people are is that they're active processes! Which form -" he swallows a little but forges on - "memories and opinions and intentions, and have a natural way of doing that, and natural ways of changing how they do that over time. And it does make it a lot better that you were okay with it! A lot! But it wasn't exactly a completely free and uncoerced choice, you - rather desperately wanted me to believe you and have the information that I needed, it's not like you were like, hey, Yamanaka, hypnotize me, sounds like a lark."

"...well sure I don't want to give her access to my brain I want to give it to you."

"Right but I can't do it yet."

"Well. Alright. It's less awesome that she was an intermediary, I'll grant you that." He nuzzles Haru.

Pet pet. "Please don't develop a kink for mind control, it would be so much work to navigate."

"Well I have a kink for being used by Haru however is most convenient and pleasurable to him personally but beyond that I think I'm good."

Squirrrrrrm.

Dinner continues to be delicious in the best restaurant in Tokyo, but eventually it's done. "There's a routine," Yutaka says, thoughtfully, as he and Haru wait for the parking valet to bring them his car, "where I go, oh, by the way, have you done X thing, where I know you haven't done X thing, and maybe I downplay it like oh it'd be cool. You know, kind of like how I did here. Except I know the answer, if I ask you, have you ever seen the Tokyo skyline at night from the SHIBUYA SKY, the answer is 'no', but you know that I know the answer is 'no', so I don't even get the cool vibe."

"That's okay, I think we'll weather the experience with aplomb."

"Anyway, have you ever seen the Tokyo skyline at night from the SHIBUYA SKY?"

"I have not but I bet I'm about to."

"You are! Unfortunately the last-minute reservation can't get the people who had already made their own reservations to not be there but I trust it will be pretty anyway. But if you wanted, a different idea is that we could stop time and I could carry you to the very top of the Tokyo Skytree tower, where no one else can be."

"I'd expect that to be frigid and also I'm not invisible, but it's a fun thought."

"If time is stopped, you don't need to be invisible. And besides, I've come stockpiled with clothes in my bag of holding. The only problem is that I can't create platforms in stopped time. Probably something for next time."

Nod nod.

And here's their car, so Yutaka can drive them to the SHIBUYA SKY tower.

It is very pretty up there.

And since it's full of tourists and foreigners people are probably not going to bat an eye if they snuggle up while they watch the lights, Yutaka behind Haru with his arms around Haru's body and his chin resting on Haru's shoulder. "We'll save Tokyo," he murmurs. "You and I, together. All of those lights, all of those people, millions of them. They're going to live, and it's going to be thanks to us. They might never know. But we will."