Yutaka looks at the time. Memorises it.

Kyūbey?

Hello!

Would you mind coming over here a moment? I assume you can tell where I am from the contact?

Just a second!

Here it is, trotting into Yutaka's room!

"Hi, Kyūbey!" says a magical boy Kyūbey has never met, in his magical boy outfit. "Nice to meet you this timeline 'round."

And then Kyūbey's pressed against a wall and time's stopped. "Now listen here you motherfucker you had better explain in detail to me where witches come from."

Kyubey's tail twitches. Its facial expression remains the same. It geeshes against the wall just a little more than something with bones would.

Witches run on despair just as magical people are powered by their hope and joy!

"Witches come from magical people. Stop," he slams the wall with Kyūbey, "being," slam, "so," slam, "fucking," slam, "misleading all the time you slimy fucking bastard!"

It might as well be a stuffed animal. It doesn't even make a satisfying noise when it hits the wall. It's too soft.

"I'm fucking waiting. I have all the fucking time in the goddamn world and you don't.

"Explain."

When there is no longer enough positive emotion to provide the magic that a magical person must have to operate, they convert to running on negative emotion instead, which is more sustainable.

"That makes no sense. Why? What's the point? Why make magical people, if the thing we're fucking for is killing ourselves? What do you get out of this you creepy fucking doll?"

Magical energy.

"Are you really going to make me drag everything out of you. Stopped time costs me almost nothing, you gain nothing from continuing to act like this."

"Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you here? Why do you make magical people? I'm certain you have multiple agents or bodies or something and it would not be hard for me to hunt each and every one of them down one by one until I exterminate your species from this planet."

I'm Kyubey. I am from Earth. I am here to harvest magical energy and that is why I make magical people. It would be very hard.

"I have infinite time. Literally. I don't think you understand how thoroughly outclassed you are. You could answer me now and save both of us some time, or I could dictionary crack you. Your choice.

"What does that mean. How does making magical people let you harvest magical power."

Humans are unique in the universe for having emotions in healthy members of the species. These feelings are convertable into generic energy, somewhat like the way human civilization uses electricity. Taking control of the process of making wishes and the conversion into witchhood afterwards and collecting the full grief seeds allows galactic society to run and may stave off the heat death of the universe. But I am not afraid that you will destroy this body. I don't feel anything about it at all. You can if you want to, and it doesn't matter and will not affect me very much.

"Galactic society? You just said you're from Earth."

Yes, Kyubeys are constructed on Earth to appeal to human sensibility. There is no reason to have Kyubeys elsewhere in the universe.

"Why are wishes necessary? Why does conversion into witches generate magical energy? Why not just create the witches directly if you can just do that?"

An extreme differential between the emotional valence of having been granted one's heart's desire and having fallen to despair is essential for energy efficiency.

"That's bullshit. You're, what, you're—humans are unique for having emotions? What the fuck does that mean? Why—

"—soul gems. What's, they become grief seeds. They, you, what does despair have to do with the way gems get dark?"

It is both a cause and an effect. Eventually a magical person will fall into a mood that depletes their magic, or run low enough on magic that it deteriorates their mood. Then the conversion can take place.

"...holy shit. That's fucked up. If I go low on magic I'm mind controlled into being—no that makes total sense actually, fuck, how'd I never notice—"

"—I trusted you. We trusted you to be on our side. How—is that—you're—"

"—this isn't the behaviour of a species humanity can be at peace with, you know. This is the kind of thing that would mean war. Maybe you don't care, maybe you think you could take us, maybe you're right. But by choosing to do this you have marked humanity as your enemy."

Magical shortcuts are what has brought humanity to where it is now. Human beings were using stone tools for millions of years before inventing cooking, do you imagine it took no magic to make the leap? We have been with you at every stage of development. We have been behind every stage of development. It is really a beneficial trade if you think about it.

"Oh that's pure bullshit you sanctimonious self-important asshole. The account of the development of human technology does not have discontinuities like that other than the invention of agriculture and the industrial revolution and, sure, if you wanna say some magical person came up with those, fine, whatever, we would've gotten that eventually. The timeline of human progress does not match a series of discrete individual heroes. But whatever, do you have any parting shots before I erase your memories?"

Parting shots are an emotional behavior.

"Fine, anything you want to tell me that you think I would benefit from knowing or our relationship would be furthered by even though you won't remember it?"

No.

"Alright. Goodbye, asshole."

Rewinding fractions of a second to just skip back to right before he pauses time is also exceedingly cheap, so he redoes that conversation in stopped time a few times to see which parts of it are path-dependent. He never said he wasn't going to dictionary crack Kyūbey if it cooperated, after all. But it does seem like it was telling the truth, or at least that it's very consistent with which lies it tells. Can never discount that possibility. He is never taking anything this creepy little creature says at face value ever again.

Okay. Now time for his delayed emotional reaction.

...he's not having much of one. It seems like now that it's no longer fresh and he's already vented his anger on the weird alien he's just feeling numb. Although, well, who knows, he's the king of denial and emotional suppression, it might come hitting him later.

Actually, scratch that, it's absolutely going to hit him later when he finally sees Haru again. He will not look at Haru in his bed, he doesn't want to break down crying.

So. He transforms again, roof hops to Haru's place, and drops Haru's notes to self on Haru's desk.

And alongside those he adds a note, in English:

I don't actually know the contents of these notes, but it is VERY IMPORTANT that no matter what they say you DON'T USE TELEPATHY.

DO NOT TRY TO USE TELEPATHY NO MATTER WHAT, IF POSSIBLE DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT

I can provide other evidence of magic than that. Text my number whenever you want, but absolutely under no circumstances use telepathy.

He adds his number to the bottom of the note, and then goes to sit on the roof.

why??? why not?????

Oh he is, don't worry about it.

The creature that mediates it is untrustworthy for reasons that only became apparent after the last thing you wrote

That was VERY shortly before the fight! what did he do?

I don't actually know what your notes have covered so far but

it turns out witches are actually magical people who fell into despair and/or ran out of magic

if either happens the other does too

and it knew and the process through which this happens generates energy that they harvest

it's the whole point of the endeavour

I told Ren I needed to skip school and she's just left. You can come in.

Knock knock.

Haru opens the door. He blinks assessingly at Yutaka, and stands aside to let him in.

Oh yep. Yep. Here it is yep. He steps inside then immediately turns his face away and covers his eyes. "I, I, I," he swallows, "I'm g-going to c-cry for a little b-bit here but y-you can a-ask s-stuff."

"I've got all day. I told Ren I needed a mental health day and the notes say you've got all my assignments anyway."

"I d-do. I don't kn-know what the n-notes s-say, th-though."

"Lots. I haven't read them all, just the shortest layer of summary. I'll read more while you're, uh. Collecting yourself and confirming that I'm alive. I guess." He sits at the kitchen table with his empty toast plate.

"O-okay."

He sits down and rests his head on his hands and sobs quietly.

Haru's notebook situation is kind of a monstrosity, a great big nested-index pile of stuff all collected in a three-ring binder and full of extra paper stapled or paperclipped in. He pages through it. He skips around a fair bit. Eventually: "Yutaka? Do you want breakfast?"

"I'm f-fine but th-thank you."

Read read flip flip read.

"Do you need a hug?"

"S-so m-much. I'm sorry, I kn-know you d-don't—but—if you'd b-be o-okay with—th-then yeah."

Haru scoots his chair closer and hugs him.

Yutaka hugs back, tight, and sobs harder. "I love you. I l-love you so much. I kn-know you d-don't, b-but—I l-love you. I will always love y-you, f-forever, n-no matter what. I w-will a-always be y-yours."

...pat pat??

Yutaka squeezes Haru tighter and doesn't say anything more. He just sobs.

Haru is not going to attempt to dislodge him for like at least a couple minutes.

He is going to take more than a couple of minutes to calm down.

"Did I turn into a witch or did I just die and somebody else -"

"You d-died once and th-then turned into a witch at the e-end when we had all run out of s-seeds and you g-gave me th-the rest of your m-magic so I'd have enough j-juice to go b-back."

"Oh."

"I'm s-sorry. Just f-five more m-minutes." That won't be enough for him to calm all the way down but sue him he's selfish. He knows the Haru that loves him would want him to be selfish this way.

He just kind of wishes the Haru that loves him had frontloaded the love in the notebooks somehow. It feels a lot more like an imposition like this.

"Okay. It's okay. I'm all right."

"Y-you are." This time.

"If this is going to keep happening we need to figure out some way I can read and be hugged at the same time."

"I, s-sorry," he says, pulling away and sniffling. "Sorry. I'll g-get out of your w-way."

"You don't have to, it's just that clearly we have two urgent tasks at the start of each loop and it would be neat if they could happen at the same time? Or does that make the hug worse if I'm also reading, I - I only have the summaries -"

"No, i-it wouldn't make it worse. I l-like it that you're g-getting your m-memories back. I could h-hug from b-behind and not look if th-that's not uncomfortable?"

"I'm counting on you not reading them whatever physical configuration I do that in," Haru says, shrugging a little uncomfortably, and he shifts around as suggested.

Okay. Good. Cool. So he can. Hug. And continue to cry on Haru's shoulder, though at least the sobbing has mostly subsided by now.

Haru turns pages back and forth and makes occasional small noises or breathing irregularities and occasionally pats Yutaka's hand.

Yeah. Yutaka will just. Be here. And hug. It'll take about twenty more minutes for the crying to completely subside but he won't release the hug even after that.

Haru has a lot to read and he is now multitasking-enabled, so the hug can continue. A couple times he starts to ask a question but then, apparently, finds it in his notes.

He kind of dozes off after a while. Doesn't actually fall asleep or anything, just enters a sort of half-awake state in which he's not aware of anything but Haru's breathing and the warmth of Haru's body against his.

After a while Haru starts adding to the notes. Soft pen scratch noises. "I want to splice in the note you left about the telepathy, I need a stapler -"

He twitches awake then reprocesses Haru's words. He's still in his magical boy outfit so here's a stapler.

"Thanks."

Staple staple. Write write.

"I copied a whole stationery shop last loop, if there's anything else you want."

"...good to know." Sigh. Write write.

Back to waiting.

"Okay," Haru says, closing the notebook-monstrosity. "What do you need?"

"To save Tokyo. To stop the creepy little doll from turning more people into horrible monsters."

Then, in a very, very small voice:

"You."

"But nothing urgently. Although, I..."

"...don't think this is the loop. For what it's worth."

"I don't think so either. I also didn't think last one was at the time."

"Yeah. I... didn't, either. Not really. But I didn't want to—look at it—because I needed the motivation. I needed a reason to try, so that I'd see—what'd fail."

"Your mental health was already obviously the limiting factor and that does not get any less true if your mental health collapsing could turn you into a witch. Is... the process where you get me to fall in love with you and then I am for the rest of the loop... still a good plan, if we are doing this... many times."

"Yes," he says, vehemently. "I—you're my reason. To keep going. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I know that's—a lot—but it's you. It'll always be you. I'm not a good person, I'm not that good, I'm not good enough to, to, to do this, to keep doing this, for—for as long as it'll take—not just for Tokyo. I'm just not. I can't, I don't, I don't have the strength. I'm sorry. I wish it was you here and not me. You'd do this better. But I'm the one stuck here, and I—need—I need you."

"I - I'm not sure you understood the question, that's not what I meant. I'm not going anywhere, except in, uh, all the senses that's not true. But I could imagine finding the Fifty First Dates thing - I haven't even seen that movie, but - I could imagine finding it more painful than sustaining, having to do it over and over? And I can be here to help you and give you advice and try to come up with ideas and stuff without fifty first dates, it that would be better. But maybe it wouldn't, maybe that would suck, I don't know."

"I don't—I don't need your help—or, I do, I do need and want your help with—ideas—but I need you. I need to—be yours—and I need you to be mine. I'm sorry. I am—banking a little on the fact that you like to be the most important thing in someone's life, I'd be a lot more reluctant to say this—but I need you to love me. I need you to love me and only me. I need to be your one and only, and I need your love. Just yours, and no one else's, never anyone else's."

"I am not flinching about the - how shall I put it - the intensity, here, that's fine, it's sweet, my question was a different thing, but, sounds like that's - my answer, I guess." He squeezes Yutaka's hand. "And there's, uh, proof of concept. If what you want to do, what you need, is - this over and over."

"Yeah. ...did you not already have a way to put it in your notes?"

"Iiiii did but it was, uh, very note to self, it said, um, that I appear to be into 'lunatic stalker energy'."

He's startled into a giggle. "Oh. Yeah. That. Is absolutely me. I'd say I'm sorry but I'm really not, I'm just really lucky."

"It just apparently goes really nicely with me having an ego the size of the Sun, I guess."

"...although it just occurred to me that—I don't know if you'd like this, given—but—since we know this loop won't be the last you could—wish your memories back.

"I selfishly don't want you to become a magical boy and have Kyūbey's attention and the risk of potentially witching if you get too sad but—separately selfishly I want you to love me. I already said that."

"I would be tempted by the possibility of flying under Kyubey's radar if that were possible but it's - not, right, I'm already a potential."

"...yeah. It found you first, after all."

"What are we doing this loop, do you have an agenda for it?"

"Starting to get to know each of the other magicals and learning how they tick. Azumaya first, I think." They found his identity at the end of last loop and his place looked abandoned rather than moved out of so they concluded he must've been eaten by a witch—

—wait. "I think the witch we fought in his territory when we were looking for him might've been him."

Haru picks up his pen and goes to write that in.

"I guess the idea where we get a couple hundred potentials from all over the place and all wish collaboratively on getting rid of Walpurgisnacht is definitely not happening."

"It might, but they'd need to each individually want it enough to contribute and that'd require knowing how to make them care and when I have only a month that'd be having to talk to more than seven of them a day."

"And then there's a lot of magicals who can turn into new witches really easily."

"Oh. Yeah." He hadn't thought about that.

"Which, not that I love letting Kyubey control the rate of this happening but it's a rate that doesn't most of the time lead to human extinction, probably, though I don't know what the plan for Walpurgisnacht was. - does this thing have a gender, my notes have 'he' but you've been saying 'it' -"

"...I used to say 'he' because it—sounds like a boy, when it speaks into our heads, and uses the boy personal pronoun—but—it's an alien. It's some kind of evil alien farming humans for electricity. It explicitly made its body look cute so we'd trust it more. If it has a gender it does not have a human gender."

"Do you remember what I used to say back when I knew about everything before you did?"

"'It'."

"Probably I picked up 'he' from you, then..." Scribble scribble. "I guess I'm curious if a different wish gets me different anything else. And it'll let me put all my notes in better order in the places where I only have stuff secondhand..."

"Yeah. It would."

"Okay, yeah, if the thing I'm doing this loop is just - being support and doing grief seed stockpiling while you do the -"

He startles and tenses up.

"- what -"

"I—you—I don't—want you to hunt."

"You... can undo it if I turn into a witch again same way as you did every time I died, though? Right?"

"...right. Yeah. I, I can—sorry. I. Just."

"I don't have to, it just seems like the obvious thing to do if I'm magical at all."

"Yeah. Yeah. Sorry."

"So I'd basically be doing this solely for the memories - or, in the long term, the notes I can get out of having a better angle on the memories - and the dyspraxia cure, both of which are pretty good, plus bonus information that probably doesn't matter about whether my costume looks the same." Write write.

"...magic exists. And—Kyūbey said they took control of the wish mechanism—I should've asked more about that, I don't know, but—it's too early to decide that we can't have our cake and eat it too. I don't want to say it's impossible for you to keep your memories, I don't want to—just give up."

"...that makes sense. Uh, as long as you are... keeping yourself clear of obstacles that could turn you into a witch if it ever becomes clear that the cake won't work that way. I don't... think it is likely to be recoverable, if you do that, and I think I still wouldn't think it likely if you died and turned out to reset then too."

"Yeah. I'll be—fine, no matter what, eventually. I had this boyfriend who once taught me how to write my thoughts and feelings down until I got them the shape I wanted them to be and was happy with them. You two would get along, I think."

...wiggle.

Hee hee hee. "You're so cute. I love you."

"Well, I guess I could make you take me on fancy sushi dates till I can get all my mental ducks in a row to say it back but apparently I could also just take a magical shortcut. ...will Kyubey leave on its own after I wish if we want privacy or will I have to awkwardly show it the door."

"It will, it's pretty uninterested in the daily activities of humans."

"How much does the wording matter - I can probably find this in here somewhere but even with the indexing it's slightly less work to ask -"

"It basically doesn't? It goes by what you care strongly about."

"Any other steps I'd be skipping if I just - called it over right now?"

"Just give me a moment to make sure I don't look like I hate its guts—" Deep breath.

"No, that's fine."

"...is it a problem if it guesses, from my wish, that there is time travel involved?"

"It didn't interfere last time. It might've been hoping that I'd succumb to despair, or at least predicting that it'd happen eventually, so it didn't matter if it took me subjective years to get there."

Nod.

Kyubey? Can you come grant me a wish?

It walks out of Ren's bedroom. Yes, I can!

And it jumps right into Haru's lap.

GET OFF HARU'S LAP

He is Zen. He is detached from Saṃsāra. He is at peace with the universe.

Haru himself jumps slightly but plays it off.

"I wish for all of my memories back."

And there's the lightshow and the transformation sequence and Haru is spinning around in Yutaka's arms to cling to him tighter than he's ever done before and press his face into Yutaka's shoulder really really hard and he's making a high haunted whining noise.

Kyubey can tell when it's not wanted. It lets itself out the window.

"—Haru? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Haru, what's wrong—"

"Being a witch is really really really bad and it was not very long ago."

Oh. Oh no. Oh his Haru. His poor Haru. He holds Haru so tight. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't know, we didn't know—"

"Mmhm. I know. Not your fault. It was bad though. Don't do it. Fuck."

"Tell me what you need. What can I do to help you, how can I make this better, my radiant sun?"

"If I can't like. Do stuff. Without going into spirals that could make it happen again. How long do I have to write things down before it's too expensive for you to undo this. I like - I think that if we were taking this loop off and the only things I had to do were emotional processing and hiding in your lap all the time I'd cope but I cannot imagine trying to fucking. Do grocery shopping. Let alone show up to school even with all my assignments already done. Someone would say something very slightly wrong and I'd start having a panic attack and - and maybe I'll be better in fifteen minutes and maybe I'd be better tomorrow and the longer I wait the less reversible it is, so how soon do I need to be sure."

"To be sure of, to—oh. Oh." Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. He, he means—fuck. "Twelve hours would be. The absolute maximum." He shivers. He didn't realise it'd be—bad enough Haru would rather—God. God. "Haru, my Haru..."

"I might be fine in fifteen minutes. I might. I just. Fuck." Cling, cling, cling, very fortunate that this operation also left him fully comfortable extracting maximum snuggle from his boyfriend.

Yeah. Fifteen minutes he can do. And hug his Haru—his Haru—not that the other Haru isn't also his, all Harus are his, forever—but this one knows that, so they can just comfort each other. Love each other.

After a minute Haru figures out a configuration where he can mush most of his face into Yutaka simultaneously with writing - it involves sitting on his lap facing him with his arm going under Yutaka's arm and his eyes just barely peeking over his shoulder - and he writes things, shivering occasionally, pausing sometimes when he needs that arm for hugs more than he needs it for writing.

His poor Haru. His poor, poor Haru. "I love you."

"I love you and I hope I am okay in fifteen minutes because it is going to be so annoying if I have to stop doing that for a little while lest I freak out and turn into a despair monster in the middle of history class!" says Haru. "Ugh. I could probably get Ren to say I fell down the stairs?"

"Probably. I'm planning on entirely skipping school this loop, probably..."

"That's not going to get that asshole on your case?"

"What's he gonna do about it?"

"I don't know, I've barely seen him and you had to translate everything he said, I - I cannot get super worked up right now," deep breaths.

Huuuuuug. "Don't worry about him. Just, just figure out what you need, tell me how I can help, I'll be here for you."

"It was just. Really bad. I don't know if I ought to go into any more detail out loud. - hold this," he hands Yutaka his gem, "bail if I start getting too dark too fast."

"Okay will do." Aaaah that's terrifying.

"I am coping. It's just that I'm maybe only coping because all I'm doing is coping." The light's holding steady in the gem, for now.

He kisses whatever part of Haru is currently available to be kissed without unhugging and without taking his eyes off the gem.

Haru writes for a bit longer than twenty minutes, all told, and a couple times starts to say something and then stops himself.

Twenty minutes iiiiis starting to make Yutaka nervous but he won't say anything and will wait until Haru does.

"You really really really really have to not witch, which is why I am not describing it to you," Haru tells him at the end of this time, setting his pen down. "But if there is anything that not knowing is freaking you out more than any possible answer I guess you can ask. - also if it were in any doubt I forgive you for the phone sex loop thing."

Oh God he had completely failed to even think about that, and good thing too because he did not need to add any more anxiety to the past twenty minutes. "I love you. Thank you. I—just want you to be okay. I'm curious about what witching felt like but not in a—freak out way.

"What do you want to do, my radiant sun?"

"I am presently very ambivalent about a whole lot of things. But I think the one I'm picking is the one where you take this back for me," he pulls out the most recent notes. "And then I can be useful for anything this loop. I can try this again when it's not quite so recent. Maybe only once we're actually in Australia or Paris or whatever and explicitly not trying to accomplish things and all I need to do is be clingy and demanding and this will somehow constitute a decent vacation for you because you're kind of nuts. I love you."