“I wish Y/N L/N loved me more than anyone else in the world.” The words were supposed to be a joke. A stupid superstition. An experiment with no scientific basis whatsoever. Senku snapped the branch cleanly in half and tossed it onto the cluttered lab table. “Ten billion percent nonsense.”

He immediately returned to refining his latest formula, scribbling calculations into his notebook. There was no mechanism. No evidence. No reproducible results. Just another irrational belief people made up because they couldn’t explain something. Then the science club room door creaked open. Senku didn’t bother looking up at first. “Club’s closed.” No response. He glanced over. You were standing in the doorway. Not unusual. What was unusual was the way you looked around the room as if you’d never seen it before. Your eyes wandered over the desks, the beakers, the windows. Then they landed on him. And stayed there. A strange smile spread across your face. “Y/N?” You pointed at yourself questioningly before slowly walking toward him. A chill crawled up the back of his neck. Senku’s gaze flicked toward the broken branch on the table. No. Absolutely not. There had to be an explanation. He quickly shoved the branch into his backpack and stood up. “What happened between you leaving school three hours ago and showing up here looking like a character from a horror movie?” You only smiled wider. And for the first time all day, Senku found himself staring at a phenomenon he couldn’t immediately explain.