Content Warnings: Time Travel Fuckery, Alternate Universe Fuckery, Character Death that debatably counts, Suicide, a short Sex Scene, attempts at Stockholm Syndrome, Kidnapping, non-detailed Torture, general Abuse, the intense and vaguely defined set of mental issues that come when your brain just gets overloaded with being Yourself but hundreds of times with hundreds of slightly-to-extremely different memories in slightly-to-different worlds aka "byakuran's mental state must be a fucking trip"

Once a human tastes food for the first time, they always end up hungering for more than base sustenance, whatever "more" might mean for that particular individual. Maybe they look to be sated, content and full and warm. Maybe they look for a taste that can't be beat, by their estimate. Maybe they simple look for something new, something interesting- a change in palate. On some level... He thinks Shoichi Irie is like that for him.

Byakuran doesn't need him. Of course he doesn't. But if he's being completely and utterly technical, he doesn't need a lot of the things that he takes for himself, because none of it actually matters in the end. It's all just a game, something he does because it's interesting. That would be easy enough for anyone to understand, right? Sometimes you turn on a game counsel and feel the need to get all the achievements, and other times you do it because you want to see how far you can strain the system until it shatters completely. It really all depends, and sometimes, they're both the same thing. One day, in one universe, he'll complete the Tri-Ni-Sette, and that will be that. In terms of gaming, he supposes that would be the end all for the main objective. Very fittingly, he comes to learn that it is the most difficult task, no matter how much he prepares and plans. Well, it would be a boring game otherwise.

It comes as quite a surprise that what would be a simple side quest any other game is almost just as difficult.

The very first time- if anything can even be called a 'first' at all when it's all happening together, at the same time ,and yet completely separate- he decides to lay a claim to Shoichi Irie simply because it feels as though it's what he should do. Another thing to check off the list. Besides, there's a little fondness to it, he supposes. That's not too surprising. Everyone always has that brief bit of fondness to the first character in a RPG that is kind to them, or makes the first move. He can remember playing a game with a female PC, and being charmed despite himself when a male knight almost immediately gave him a gift. Nothing special, nothing exciting or edgy, but amusing enough.

Shoichi Irie isn't a knight in any meaning of the word. Byakuran's impression of him at his young ten-years-younger self is that of a typical awkward nerd, although he has to admit that one's first impression probably isn't reliable when it involves time travel panic. Yet that doesn't change the most important part of their meeting, and it's that he owes everything to that young flustered teenager who had run into him in the street. He hadn't given him a rose or sweet words, but rather something so much more valuable.

There are numerous jokes to be made about the tropes and cliches which are so prevalent in otome games, but Byakuran has found they aren't exactly wrong in some cases. The Shoichi Irie he finds in this timeline fits so neatly in so many little boxes when he meets him for a second impression, watching him play at a seedy bar in a grubby dark side of town. Gone is the frantic nervousness, wore down into something much more exhausted that weighs down underneath his eyes and leaves just a little too much room underneath his shirt. Just a passing glance is enough to tell that the bassist is down on his luck. Probably not helping is the fact that he's not really fantastic at his instrument of choice either. Judging by the way his bandmates are either in no better position or spit quiet words out at him with narrowed eyes, Byakuran can tell that they no doubt owe a lot of money from having all their nice equipment. For types like that, just like in all of the little romances he's played through a screen, it doesn't take much but a little bit of attention and kindness to draw Shoichi in. He doesn't even need to do it that often, to his amusement, able to spend plenty of time building up this iteration of the Millefiore while attending to Shoici on the side.

He's successful with his Millefiore. Of course he is. Having cheatcodes to the universe makes it so very easy. Bit by bit, he lavishes care onto his little side quest, first bringing him in with compliments and indepth conversations even Byakuran is pleasantly surprised to find he enjoys. Then come the casual outtings, treating him to coffee or lunch, the two of them so absorbed that it reminds Byakuran of how fun these minor little things can be as a detour. He makes sure Shoichi never has to pay, the ill-gained money in his pockets always more than enough. Sometimes it's a fight to make it happen, of course. Despite his situation, Shoichi always seems to want to be self sufficient, and there's a fire in his eyes that tugs at the interest of Byakuran's heart. So down on his luck, and yet he still tries to struggle like this. How cute. Still, Byakuran manages to convince him one way or the other.

Yet the game can't stop at merely pampering a "love interest"...

He makes the offer at the backstage of one of the many trash bars Shoichi plays at, his back against the wall while his arms have wound lazily about Shoichi's body. A year of pampering has lead him to looking better than he did before, and a few minutes of Byakuran grinding his thigh inbetween his legs has him looking even better. Forget the nervous teenager that awoke him to all of this, forget the dead eyed man he'd seen on stage once. There's that brilliant flickering fire behind Shoichi's contacts, brow stubbornly crumpled, skin flushed so vividly it looks as though it should hurt, and his lips slick from every heavy breath that rushes out of him as he digs his fingers into Byakuran's shoulders to weather the ride. Even when his entire body shudders, nails digging in past cotton, he still tries to press a bruising kiss to the side of Byakuran's neck. Of course he can't let Byakuran control the whole situation that easily.

(His first clue, and one he ignores for longer than he would admit.)

"You're so cute, Sho-chan," he murmurs into his ear, dragging his fingers down along his spine. Against his leg, he can feel Shoichi's arousal straining painfully in tight denim. Almost better is the way he shivers when the warmth of his voice rushes through his ear.

He can barely speak, so wound up in lust as he is, but Shoichi pushes through. "Who's ever heard of a bassist being cute?" he rasps. There's a ragtag sort of afterparty happening in the bar proper, drowning out the sounds of their rutting, so he does his best in keeping quiet. All that does is make his voice low and husky, drawing Byauran's eyelids halfway down. That's more than good enough, he thinks, and he eases up on the pressure. Shoichi blinks up at him, dazed and aroused, unable to stop Byakuran as he adjusts himself until he's sliding down the wall and inbetween Shoichi's legs. Understanding hits him quick enough, and he braces one arm against peeling wallpaper. It doesn't escape Byakuran how his breathing only gets all the harder.

"I want to keep you," he says, his own voice low, possessive, and he can almost see the way it drops right through Shoichi's gut. His fingers make quick work of popping open the button to his jeans. "Will you let me, Sho-chan?" Using the very tip of his tongue, he flicks up the zipper and takes it between his teeth, eyes staying locked on his precious love interest's own gaze the whole time as he drags it down.

"That's..." The words are choked in his throat, and he tosses his head back as Byakuran slides his aroused cock out into the open air. "You've given me so much... and now you're asking me that?"

"But I want to hear it, Sho-chan." Grinning slyly, he drags his tongue up from the very base of Shoichi's cock and flicks tip against tip. Satisfaction pools in his stomach at how the hips in his hands jerk. "Let me keep you, or else I won't let you come even a little bit." He nuzzles his way back down, hot breath ghosting along sensitive skin, until he can wrap his lips around his balls. It's harder to watch Shoichi like this now, buried into his hips, but he can still hear the way his hand slaps across his mouth, muffling the harsh gasp he makes. In contrast to the quiet his love interest is desperately trying to maintain, Byakuran lives to shatter that. Underneath the yells and laughter and pounding music of the bar, he sloppily licks and sucks along the aching arousal that's right at his face, every sound an obscene prayer. He knows it works up Shoichi, too. It's hard not to pick up on it, feeling how his legs shake and his hips tremble from the effort of holding back.

There's not even any reason to edge him for long. Soon enough, Shoichi is gasping and keening over his head, squirming desperately into Byakuran's mouth. "Dammit- dammit, Byakuran- take me! I want you... Nn-" He glances up at that, pleased at what he sees: Shoichi looking down at him, teeth digging into a finger from where his hand isn't quite covering his mouth, arousal twisting his expression so desperately. "I want you... to take me. Keep me. Please-!"

At the end, when Shoichi is slumped against him and drifting down the tides of post-orgasm, Byakuran indulgently curls his fingers into his hair to keep his face pressed into his shoulder. "No takebacks," he purrs, ignoring the soreness along his back. "I'll keep you forever now, Sho-chan. Even across universes."

Blissfully unaware of threat and lie alike, Shoichi laughs breathlessly against his shirt. "Romantic."

When Byakuran says it, he says it as a lie. But what do you call a lie that becomes a truth when you never meant for it to be?

Never one satisfied with leaving a side quest partially forgotten or abandoned the first time through, Byakuran pushes all the way. He helps pay off Shoichi's debt, convinces him out of a band he's clearly miserable in. With the money he's so quickly managed to accumulate, there's no question of how easy it is to get Shoichi to live with him. Free of any real obligation, Byakuran watches in faint interest but mostly amusement as his love interest begins to relax. He's really, truly, unbelievably still nothing impressive with a bass, but at least he seems more content as he fiddles with it and all the other songs he tries to write. What's more relevant to Byakuran is how Shoichi gets back into what he dismissively calls his "old hobby". Byakuran had always wondered how a bassist's teenage self could end up time traveling... and the answer, he realizes with every idle computer program and toy Shoichi makes, is because Shoichi Irie is in fact incredibly intelligent. So intelligent that it seems a waste that he ever became a musician, a fact that he makes sure to pass along to his many other selves.

This intelligence comes back to bite him when he returns to his high rise apartment after a nice long trip dealing with a minor emergency. It was nothing serious, just some minor complications one Federico Ferrino left behind in his death. Truly the Vongola had a lot of resources, to be such a bother even in death. Yet he finds them to be less of a bother than the sight that greets him once he steps into his apartment. Shoichi is curled up in an armchair that's been forcibly turned so that it's facing in the direction of the front door, knees digging against his chest. He jolts a little at the sound of the door, eyes going to Byakuran faster than a gunshot.

Now now, what could have happened, he wonders? Byakuran rolls the question in his mind even as he carelessly drops his bags to the side, already making his way over to his love interest like a good boyfriend would. "Stomach again?" he asks, reaching out to sweep his fingers up into Shoichi's bangs. It's been a while since the bassist has had to deal with his infamous stomach aches, brought out whenever he's too tense, too nervous, too stressed. "Sho-chan, I didn't realize you would miss me that much!"

His hand is grabbed before he can fully pull it away, musically calloused fingers folded almost delicately around his own. Byakuran blinks, eyebrows raising, before he looks properly into Shoichi's face. All the expressions which would normally be there- sulking aggravation, restless worry, soft fondness- are completely absent. Instead, his brow is wound tight together, and there's something... new to his eyes. Dark green is focused fully on him, steeled in a way he can't quite recall ever viewing before.

"Byakuran," he says, desert grave quiet, "what do you do for a living?"

Everyone makes mistakes on their first blind run, of course. Byakuran has made a couple, despite his various connections that are all to himself, and he generally doesn't worry about it. This particular mistake is that he's left Shoichi alone, guarded for but not watched, for far too long. With all the things Byakuran is getting up to, well, he doesn't have full and complete control of the world yet. News anchors will talk, radio personalities will gossip, and the internet churns so quickly with facts and facts that are twisted and facts which only have the name but not the definition. Shoichi has been busy. He's been paying attention. It's all he's been able to do.

Lying doesn't really have a point here, not with how much Shoichi has pulled together. Besides, Byakuran has never really lied to him, has he? Shoichi doesn't react well to that statement, but it's true. He's only been vague, never giving the whole story, only bits and pieces. Maybe he could do damage control, if he really tried. Byakuran doesn't. It's so much more fascinating to watch his love interest yell and demand and accuse, arm sweeping out in scythe sweep of a gesture.

Shoichi has never burned so bright, not in this universe, and Byakuran is enraptured by this glitch he's made happen.

They sleep in separate rooms for a while after that- Byakuran taking the lavish and comfortable master bedroom, Shoichi self-exiling himself to a sterile guest room that's never once been touched. It only takes a couple of days before he breaks the barrier he's erected, settling himself gingerly onto the couch besides Byakuran one evening. None of the lights are on yet, with only the setting sun illuminating Shoichi's back from where he sits, eyes on him. "I'm sorry," he tells him. "It was a lot to take in," he says. "Can you just promise me that you'll be honest with me from now on?"

"Of course, Sho-chan," Byakuran tells him, while promising no such thing. This, too, is a lie.

Shoichi must know it as well. He promises nothing either, and he writes I'm sorry once again on a letter he leaves on the counter in their darkened home when Byakuran returns one day. A surprising amount of his things are left behind, with only the most sensible of clothing that's been taken, along with all the basic necessities of a healthy human such as toiletries. When Byakuran checks one of his bank accounts, he's not surprised to find a lot of money withdrawn. While he could pursue his love interest, he doesn't. Instead, he carries out the end of this particular life, this particular run, all the while quite aware of how the patches of rebel forces which never cease to defy him are granted a sudden boost in knowledge. It doesn't really matter, in the end. This reality is a bust, and he toys with the different ways to end it.

Somewhere, out in the rebel hideouts that he systematically quashes, he's certain Shoichi Irie dies... but he dies far away from Byakuran, out of sight.

It's a "Bad End" if your love interest betrays you and dies. Byakuran passes along the message to Byakuran of everything he's gone through. It would be embarrassing if this was the side quest that he missed, after all.

Probably the problem Byakuran ran into, Byakuran muses as he thinks over this particular set of alternate memories, is that Shoichi was a civilian kept in the dark for so long. Sure, he had been running around in all sorts of seedy bars in that universe, but being in the same vicinity as some two-bit thugs isn't anything like dating a powerful mafia don who with blood soaked up to his knees. If he intervenes a little earlier... That sounds right. A slightly earlier intervention, nudging those morals a little further in the right direction, and Byakuran thinks that might finally help complete this little sub-plot. He just needs to get a little creative in when they meet. How they meet.

When he meets Shoichi Irie, he's not the flustered teenager that gave him this opportunity and he's not yet the boneworn bassist who played in side alley bars. Instead, he's seventeen and clearly frustrated with the world, or perhaps merely his place in it. Byakuran only needs a day to see how people take advantage of him. It's nothing so crass as outright bullying, not most of the time. Instead, they merely pile on expectations and requests onto him, disregarding his interests, disregarding anything else he might have on his plate. In a different way to that time in the bar, it's easier than anything to slide his way into a friendship with him. Nudging him along towards what Byakuran wants for him... It's a little more difficult to get the subtleties of that exactly right, and he spends a couple of lives dealing with that. It's not a complete waste; he'll need such skills for other people who aren't Shoichi.

The best way, he finds, is simply phrasing things as harmless pranks in high school, things to tease those who frustrate him so much, things he can build upon so steadily. Shoplifting is a little harder, not something that his Sho-chan really has the hand dexterity for, but it's easier when he can frame their targets as absolute bastards who deserve it... or detach them so neatly from his life that they don't really matter.

What his real curiousity is, however, would be what he told himself from dating that tired and beaming bassist. It's a waste to keep him as a petty thief. Yes, even if there is a kind of casual amusement in throwing stolen candy into his hair while Shoicehi does his best to scowl instead of laugh. The good news is that he has dozens, hundreds, thousands of other selves' knowledge at hand. It's child play to talk tech with Shoichi, to convince him to stretch his intelligence right past the digital defenses of so many organizations and countries. From high school, to college, to them with degrees stealing out the secrets of the richest and most influential to do with as they please. It hardly takes anything at all to convince Shoichi to join his Gesso, this slowly budding and blossoming Millefiore. This should be it, he thinks. It took a try or four, but he's finally got this route down.

He thinks that all the way to the day he triumphantly comes back from his meeting with that little Giglio Nero heiress, satisfied because of the box he has in his hands. "Ta daaaaa!" he sings as he enters the office where Shoichi is waiting. His love interest looks pretty good in mafia black, he has to say, even when he's clearly fiddled his tie right out of place and jumps what seems like a solid foot into the air. "The meeting went great, Sho-chan."

"I feel like you'd say that no matter what actually happened..." Still, he moves out of the way, letting Byakuran flop loosely into his chair. Shoichi slides his hands into his pockets, trying to seem calm, before he takes them out to rub his palms against his legs. "Were you able to resolve things mostly peacefully?"

Gamma's fingers broke, one by one, feeling surprisingly like nothing for how long they'd clutched his pool stick. Genkishi had to be skewered to the wall, blood dripping from his mouth, simply to keep him out of the way. When Aria had finally conceded, she'd closed her eyes for a brief moment with a box keeping their hands joined together, and a smile had crept onto her face. "Oh, the things that will happen," she'd said, eyes too blue, too strange. For a second, she'd almost looked human.

"Mhm," Byakuran says, because that's the easy answer, and they have the Giglio Nero- what remains- on close watch. He won't make a rookie mistake again, won't make it easy for Shoichi to stumble onto such a dark little thing. Setting the box down onto his desk, he flicks open the latch. The second Shoichi turns his back, Byakuran plans on getting nothing less than the absolute best replicas that he possibly can for the Mare Rings... but for now, there's no harm in keeping them right here before him. He has no idea when these were last touched, even by their mistresses, but the Mare Ring have a crystal clear shine to them that's so smooth that not even water would stick. He'd slid the Sky Ring back into its place after reveling in its quickly comfortable warmth, and it almost seems to glow again at his presence. In fact, it even seems to glow all the brighter than before. His eyelids dip just a little lower. "Amazing, right...?"

He can feel Shoichi's arm brush against his chair, nudging it a bit. "All that worry, for some rings..." His voice isn't into the disregarding tone it tries for, however. It's even... dazed. Byakuran's first thought is that he's coming down from his anxiety high. That impression lasts for all of a single second before Shoichi's hand reaches over from the side, drawn to the box, and Byakuran realizes that the Mare Sky Ring wasn't glowing any brighter than it did when he first saw it.

Yellow blends into orange so well. Shoichi burns bright yet again.

The knowledge hits him like a bullet train, a feeling that he passes along the second he has the time to spare for it, and he almost doesn't care that, in this world too, Shoichi once again slowly turns again, once again pokes his nose into something he shouldn't have no matter Byakuran's efforts. It's fine to lose that particular sidequest this time around, because he's gotten a key bit of information that can potentially help in all the others. At the same time, it makes what was once a silly little romance route gain so much more prominence to the main story that Byakuran can't help but marvel as the flow of it.

The Mare Rings can't speak, can't communicate, and yet Byakuran can't help feel as though they're the most people-like things he's dealt with ever since Before. Their preferences in wielders tend to be specific, although they can be flexible if no better choice presents itself. The Rain Ring tends to lean towards bright and malicious, people who can demonstrate a sense of mocking humor before they clean away the filth of the battlefield. In contrast, those with any sort of commendable patience draw in the Cloud Ring, and the Storm favors anyone with a shimmering energy beneath an otherwise... passive facade.

The Sky Ring is his forever, in every single iteration of the universe that can possibly exist.

The Sun longs for Shoichi. Every time. Without fail.

Byakuran can understand why. Anyone would understand, he's fairly sure, if they'd ever seen the way his eyes steel in resolution or the energy that burns from his body or the sheer brilliant gold of his flame. In worlds where he forgets, or where he slips up, or where there's merely a spot of bad luck, the Arcobaleno Curse seeks out Shoichi for the intensity of such a Sun.

That happens rarely.

Byakuran laid claim upon him first, after all.

In one life, Byakuran decides to go for a change of pace. Not every romance route can be won through simple kindness. Sometimes, you have to get a little bit creative, or you have to push for a certain event to go off. Sometimes, a Good End is reprehensible in the cruelty it takes to get there. At least, for normal people.

He draws the Gesso up as soon as he's able, throws all of himself into making them a strong Family as quick as possible. Quick enough to have someone watching over Shoichi, make sure that he doesn't drift too far from where Byakuran can see him. He goes through a fairly standard dull life, the few times Byakuran takes the time to check in on him- a brief flirt with playing a bass, graduating top of his class. Nothing to pay attention to. It's after Shoichi's first year of college that he instructs some of his people to kidnap him one night, when he's on his way home from a concert of a band he likes. It's quick, silent, and completely professional. More than a few of his own must be wondering what Byakuran is doing... but that's the case in every life he lives.

All they have to do is listen to him as he plays a game so long and expansive that they can't even begin to imagine it.

There's no reason to go straight into the harshest form of cruelty, not right away, not in this life. There are a lot of ways to twist a will, to shatter it and pull it together in some other shape entirely. Byakuran starts off with the kind of lodgings that would be perfect, if one were merely willing to ignore all the ways in which it's a cage: sinfully soft furniture, nice lighting that can go from comfortably dim to softly warm, a bathroom large enough to be another bedroom, no windows, one entrance and exit, hidden cameras in more places than the obvious. Byakuran follows the advice of another life, and makes sure that there isn't a kitchen or access to the outside world via electronics.

Shoichi Irie, in every bit of his incarnations that Byakuran can remember, is always devilishly clever, after all. Even when he had been a bassist who'd skipped college, trapped in a cycle of debt and unfulfilling gigs.

He's also always incredibly attractive, even now, disheveled in last night's clothes, hair falling in a mess around his face, glasses askew on his face. One hand is curled against his shirt, a warning of the stomach aches that are to come, and his expression is twisted in such alarm that it stirs a heat inside of Byakuran's chest. This isn't one he's indulged in yet. Not for the first time, he appreciates the ability to play with such a purposefully destructive game. "What do you want with me!?" Shoichi asks, sharp, panicked, and yet going right to the point. He doesn't ask who Byakuran is, which is almost a shame. There are some amusing answers he could give there. And yet, he supposes this question is more important. At least, for someone in Shoichi's position.

"Now now!" He laughs, draping himself in one of the armchairs that are around. He practically sinks into it. Really, he hopes Shoichi comes to appreciate that much in the time that he keeps him here. "I'm not going to torture you or anything, if that's what you're thinking." Not in this timeline, at any rate. Not yet. "Let me introduce myself. I'm Byakuran Gesso, and it's nice to meet you properly here. I'd like you to work for me."

Shoichi draws one leg up cautiously, foot digging into the mattress. What he's prepared to do is anyone's guess, only that he feels the need to be a little... steadier, perhaps, in case he needs to do something. The hand not clutching his stomach does similar. "This isn't... exactly the normal way to get someone to work for you," he says stiffly, and Byakuran's heart flutters. There's that Sun brilliance, hardening his eyes and burning him up from the inside out. He hardly had to push at all for it to appear, even in a situation like this. "What do you want me to work on, exactly?"

"Oh, nothing that you aren't already going to college for, Sho-chan." The nickname makes Shoichi twitch a little bit, unaware as he is of how intimate they are long before he was born and long after he dies and even here in the present. They're completely and utterly bound. He simply doesn't know it. He will probably never know it, at least in most lives. "I'd like to pick your mind for the treasure trove of ideas I'm sure you have in there when it comes to technology. If you simply go along with it, you'll find your time here to be quite nice!" Byakuran tilts his head to the side. "And if you cooperate, Sho-chan, then you'll be out of here in no time at all. I'm positive we can work something out, don't you agree?"

The wary pull of his eyebrows downwards says Shoichi doesn't believe him, which he shouldn't. "I'm getting the impression that I don't have a particular choice," he says, still not easing up in the slightest. "Do I at least get the dignity of asking some questions...?"

Byakuran crosses his legs and let his hands flow to the side in gesture. "All you like, Sho-chan!" He doesn't promise he'll tell the truth.

"Then... Why me? I haven't even- I don't have a degree of any sort. I'm not even close to graduating." The hand at his stomach moves upwards, digging into his chest. "Why kidnap a college student who's probably not even knowledgeable enough for the kinds of things you might ask for? Aren't there smarter technicians and engineers who could do what you want?"

There aren't. Byakuran knows this for a fact, knows that he would have stumbled upon them a long time ago if anyone had that ability. Yet no one had done what Shoichi had. No one had gone through time, no one had broken it so thoroughly as he had. Byakuran can't even claim that honor yet, as much as it would amuse him to. No, he merely flows across the many timelines, the many universes where he exists.

Shoichi is the one who reached out where he shouldn't have, and Byakuran knows for a fact, after listening to him speak in the kinder timelines, that he can break even more if he really tries.

The trick is to get him to really try.

"I have utter faith in your potential," is the answer Byakuran gives, grinning and flashing a wink to Shoichi. "But you don't have to worry. Ask for anything, and I'll make sure to provide it for you. Just knock, okay, Sho-chan?" He's kept for a while longer, listening to question after question that Shoichi fumbles to pull out from his mind, and he's not surprised when he almost immediately calls through on that 'knocking' thing to start pulling in book after book to his room.

Despite it being a simple non-answer, the line about 'potential' is also fairly true. Byakuran passes along all sorts of little tasks for Shoichi to do, starting subtle at first with computer programs on an isolated channel that Shoichi never gets to keep. Then, various little quizzes, seeing if he can outdo what they already are using in the Gesso and Millefiore. Byakuran rarely delivers them himself. Why would he? That's something for those far lower on the ladder who have nothing better to do, or at least nothing more important than Byakuran's pursuit of this sidequest. Instead, Byakuran likes to visit Shoichi in the middle of his time. Sometimes it's while he's working through the latest task he's been given, papers sprawled out all over the floor and a pile working up on the desk Shoichi does his best to remember to use. It's a nice change of pace from the repetitive motions of running a mafia empire. Shoichi doesn't take to it well at first. "Of- what? Of course I'm not," Shoichi says, honesty stuttering out before he can stop himself the first time Byakuran outright asks. "I know your name and literally nothing else, and you're just- is this a test?" His mouth screws up, eyes narrowed over them. "To check if I'm... I don't know, cheating or something as I work on this?" When Byakuran bursts out laughing at him, a lobster of a blush spreads over Shoichi's face in a heartbeat.

"I told you before, didn't I?" Byakuran says when he's calmed down, sprawled out in an armchair. His head lolls to the side, lazy smile still in place. "I have full confidence in your abilities and potential, Sho-chan."

"Shoichi," he mutters quietly, not really stopping the nickname.

"The only reason I'm here is because I'm bored. Besides, you haven't asked for a rubber duck yet. I thought it might help to bounce your stress off something~."

"Rubber ducks should be a little cuter," Shoichi mumbles into his shirt, already ducking back down into his work while still a bit red. It takes a little while for him to eventually start reciprocating Byakuran's attempts at conversation, but what are a few visits in comparison to the eternity that Byakuran has? The multiple visions of eternity, in fact. So it doesn't feel long at all before Shoichi begins to speak back to him, gesturing to a paper here and there as he spills out his train of thought or his frustrations on a certain aspect of his latest project. When he finally does that, the other visits Byakuran takes begin to go a little more smoothly as well instead of Shoichi sitting awkwardly in a chair as far away from Byakuran as possible while Byakuran does all the talking. He knows it's not only his imagination when Shoichi begins to show a little more warmth in response to his visits.

There aren't many other options for him down in this windowless room, where time doesn't feel real, where he can't even sense time, and Byakuran is his only constant person. There's a certain thrill in indulging in such a thing, at least for this life.

One day, Shoichi doesn't fight against the way Byakuran presses up behind him while he's reading, white-clad arms lazily winding around him. He only glances up at him from the corner of his eyes, thumb worrying at the page in the book he's been working through. "I don't exactly have to point out my room is bugged, right?" he says stiffly, a little bit of red burning at his ears. "Is there any shame at all that your- everything is being recorded while you're doing this?"

"When you're the kind of person I am, you end up being watched all the time anyway, Sho-chan," he laughs, directly into Shoichi's ear just to watch him shudder. He's not the only person in the world who has such a reaction, and yet Byakuran can't help feeling more satisfied when Shoichi does it. That's the thrill of having a favorite character, he supposes. Everything he does, Byakuran can't help but hyperfocus on. "Now, what kind of things are you thinking of that would get you so worked up about being watched? And in relation to me as well?" The tone of his voice says everything that doesn't get a word ascribed to it. The blush spreads from Shoichi's ears to the rest of his face quicker than the heartbeat it takes to provide that much blood. Byakuran never stops the cameras from recording... He only goes back once he's done indulging in Shoichi's body to cut those particular parts out and save them for his own records.

More interested in this indulgence than the rest of the videos, and relaxed in what has to be his victory this time, Byakuran misses the little things that will give Shoichi away in other universes. The way he begins to sleep more reliably in his bed instead of falling asleep by accident anywhere else. How his hands duck underneath his pillows, still so "absentminded" as to be holding his glasses inbetween his fingers. Byakuran learns later how the sound of his apparent snoring hid the sharpening of his glasses frames against metal bed frames. Byakuran had made sure they were metal, so that Shoichi couldn't use the wood chips of such a frame for whatever his brilliant mind could come up with. A pity that ingenuity works with everything at its disposal no matter the material.

In one universe, he punctures his own throat, slides the needle inbetween the rows of his own lungs, and chokes on his blood before medical services can pull him back from the brink.

In one universe, he breaks through the system keeping the door shut and makes a run for it. He succeeds, or he fails, or he does both in the end, but it's a loss on Byakuran either way.

"All you have to do is give yourself to me," he says one day, one universe, popping open a bag of gummy bears. It wasn't his first choice, but the little gas station he'd stopped at before getting here hadn't had any marshmallow treats, and, well, as long as it's sweet, maybe he doesn't care as much as some might think. The same could be said for how Shoichi has been forcefully tied to a plain metal chair, handcuffs biting into his wrists and rope binding his legs. To keep him from doing anything reckless, a gag keeps his mouth pried open. Tears and spit alike drip down his face, splatter against his pants...

His eyes are still so very stubbornly burning. A sort of fondness warms his veins, and Byakuran pops one gummy bear into his mouth before he reaches downwards. Fingernails catch along knots in Shoichi's hair, curls always so thick when he's first woken up in the morning and hasn't had a chance to compose himself yet. Byakuran is intimately familiar with all the little quirks like that which make up Shoichi Irie. It's a consequence of playing the same route, over and over and over again. For all the bad ends he's steadily accumulating, Byakuran doesn't regret it.

"Although I am curious," he continues, drifting his hand downwards until he can curl his fingers around the back of Shoichi's head and guide his gaze up to him. "What made you change your mind like this, Sho-chan? What made you so desperate that you'd want to risk killing yourself, or run away from here? I like to think I've been taking care of you so well that there can't possibly be a problem. You can have just about everything you'd ever ask for."

It's only the two of them in the room, all guards dismissed without a second thought. They'd protest if they saw Byakuran reach down and undo the gag keeping Shoichi so quiet. Free of the obstruction, Shoichi takes a quick second to cough and catch his breath. Trapped in this place, at the end of the rope, he's clearly lost some of that quaint politeness which he'd grown up with, because he turns his head slightly to the side and spits to clear his mouth. Byakuran supposes he should marvel that it wasn't directed right at him. "Isn't it obvious?" he says, voice a little raspy, unused. "You brought me here in the first place because... I'm so smart, right? That's what you told me. And... did you think I wouldn't put everything together? Realize what all my work was adding up to, even if you never showed me the final product, or the result?" He gives a hard swallow, head bumping against Byakuran's palm once again. "It's not like I want to believe it... but what else am I supposed to think, when you keep me trapped in here?" Teeth grinding against each other, he grits out, "I don't even know if my own family is alive!"

They aren't. That thought idly occurs to Byakuran right as Shoichi says it, because he vaguely remembers glancing at a report he'd gotten of a little bit of a scuffle against Hibari-Kai over in Japan which had taken out a good dozen of lives or more, and he'd seen the Irie family listed among the deceased. It hadn't occurred to him that it was anything important. It still isn't, he supposes. What's the point of saying it here and now? Idly, he scrapes his nails along the back of Shoichi's scalp and watches him go utterly still. "And would you return if you got a brief chance outside, Sho-chan?" he asks, amused. Shoichi's silence is an answer all its own, and Byakuran moves on without really giving him a moment to spare for a potential lie. "You really need to go with the flow, ha. I think you'd find you would have a much easier time of things if you did."

Shoichi swallows again, throat bobbing. His stare doesn't waver. "Your flow."

Byakuran tilts his head to the side and smiles. "It's the same thing in the end."

"If I refuse?"

"Then I'll just have to persuade you otherwise."

Persuasion, in this instance and a few others, meaning that he spends some of his time breaking Shoichi where he can. Sometimes physical. Sometimes mental. He already has a good deal of factors on his side for it all, really, from the oppressive atmosphere of never even knowing what time it is and having not known for a great deal of time, to the nice little case of Stockholm Syndrome he's nestled right into Shoichi's chest. That latter part he makes sure to especially cultivate. Every broken limb, he helps nurture back to full and proper health again. Every sickness Shoichi catches, whether purposefully encouraged or which comes along as a side effect of all the stress, he takes care of. Even when he threatens to drown Shoichi, serene moments where he holds him down by the throat and watches his mouth work helplessly with every bubble of air that works upwards, he's the same person who tends to him in the aftermath. He dries him off, checks that his lungs are still working right, does work that a medical professional could be proud of.

Pain and pleasure are two things that are so closely related. Fear and hatred and love and obsession, Byakuran thinks, are probably very much the same. If they are, then maybe he'll be able to make this work like he's been trying to across multiple lives.

It takes him around a year to look down into Shoichi's dull eyes and realize that he's broken him and, unlike so many other things in the world, there's no possibility of pulling this back together into something whole again.

The Mare Sun Ring longs to be on Shoichi's fingers. Byakuran thinks he can relate, wanting a thing that continues to not want you back.

Spoiled kindness isn't working, and neither does abject cruelty. If that's how it is, than Byakuran can't possibly imagine what he's doing wrong in this area. Still, in the end, it's only a sidequest. A very important sidequest, but not a necessary one. The Mare Sun Ring might want Shoichi Irie out of every other pawn in the whatever world it exists in, but it knows how to settle for things, too. Shoichi might be its type, might have the most brilliantly burning Sun Flame anyone could imagine, but there are others who, while not the ideal personality, have a Flame that can satisfy the conditions of a Mare Ring.

He's not giving up or anything. That would be embarrassing for someone who's playing the game so determinedly like he is. Rather, he's... merely taking a break.

Of course, it seems like even when he's taking a break to focus on other aspects of the game, he still ends up paying attention to Shoichi whenever he ends up crossing his path. Even if the route is harder than expected, Byakuran can still enjoy some aspects of it, especially when it's not so pressing on his overall run. Shoichi is still surprisingly pleasant to indulge, especially when he's so early on in the stage of things that the criminal aspect of it all isn't so obvious. It's easiest to enjoy Shoichi then, trading food and sharing earbuds to the same music and talking about how fragile and sturdy the world is in equal measure. When it's only theory, it's easier to get Shoichi to play along with it. In a way that Byakuran is slowly starting to get used to across his many lives, he inevitably turns on him sooner or later regardless.

Sometimes a country's government- usually Japan, occasionally Italy, America when it's not a trashfire- will rope him in as an agent to keep track of him. Byakuran has to admit those lives are a little bit amusing, and he can never help playing up the cliche of it all when he can. The powerful mafia boss playing cat and mouse games with the determined cop, or secret agent, or general law enforcement... While he takes some time to relax in how he'll next properly approach the Shoichi situation, he doesn't worry about the end result, and merely enjoys the journey. There's something to be said for an approach like that, especially when Byakuran uses Shoichi's own handcuffs against him to pin him against the wall, teasing him about the lengths they've gone through with each other, and the sexual tension is thick enough for a chainsaw.

Other mafia Families clue in to the sheer skill that Shoichi Irie actually possesses, once every few lives, especially when the world begins to advance technologically so quickly that they have to start paying attention to engineers and those who are up and coming. Those realities are sometimes a little bit disappointing, because the destruction of the rest of the Families, especially those who have connections to the Vongola, are always the first ones he crushes underneath his heel. It's a pity that he doesn't get more of a chance to toy with Shoichi in those lives.

Oh well. He'll always have other lives, other realities, other rounds. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter.

Then there are the timelines where Shoichi takes things into his own hands.

This world has already been broken, shattered, vast expanses of ruined cities beyond the walls of his little fortresses where he experiments with his little civilization games. Here, people either submit, or they risk the destruction beyond civilization that doesn't deal kindly to those trying to carve out a life there. So with that said, he really has to marvel at the underground labs which Shoichi has created for himself. In the places where his people haven't stormed through, covering the floor in dirt and dust, it's impeccably clean. One of the few, perhaps only, places where the grimy destruction of the world hasn't seeped in.

Befitting of such a brilliant engineer and technician, a defiled treasure trove of equipment fills the sparse amount of rooms that make up the shelter, and one has already completely self destructed with its remains utterly destroyed beneath the rubble. If they can recover enough, Byakuran has no doubt that the impact on numerous worlds would be immense. "If"... being the key word in that sentence. Shoichi is a genius in any of the worlds that bear his beautiful existence. For all that he can create, he knows exactly how to destroy it again. Almost more than Byakuran, Shoichi Irie has the perfect ability to completely ruin things, and yet he so rarely does it, save in moments like these where it's to deny Byakuran everything he possibly can.

His men corner Shoichi in a room that could, in some cases, be arguably titled as a bedroom. Byakuran has a closet that's bigger. The mattress on the floor barely offers any substantial protection between the body on top of it and the hard ground beneath. The body on top of it has pressed himself back up against the wall with guns pointed at his face giving him no real option, and his hands are held up with the knuckles bumping into plaster. This one looks a real mess, Byakuran marvels, and he takes his time slowly looking over the engineer who's been tirelessly and fruitlessly attempting to undermine him from beneath his very nose. A life of living outside of civilization has clearly taken its toll on Shoichi. What clothes are out here are basically as good as trash, and that includes the denim jacket on him that's at least two times too big with more holes in it than Shoichi's hopes must have by now. The loose black tank top beneath it is hardly any better. That his actual pants and boots manage to fit, for all their worn nature, is quite impressive. Figuring out glasses in the wastelands has apparently not been a priority for Shoichi, because he's squinting hard towards the armed men who can very easily take his life. It's an action that almost makes him look more defiant than tired, than worn down to the very bone. He's even disregarded scissors, possibly the most hilarious thing, because a good portion of his hair (definitely not all of it) has been pulled into a very lopsided ponytail near the right side of his head.

Lazily, Byakuran raises up a hand to dismiss his men. "Go look over the technology here," he orders, voice deceptively airy. Maybe it's because of such a tone that they hesitate. They shouldn't, not when he levels them with a cold gaze full of threat, and that gets them moving again a hurry. He waits patiently for the sound of heavy bootsteps to be as much in the distance as they can get before he steps forward to take up the whole doorway. "Hey there, Sho-chan. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

With the absence of armed guards, Shoichi collapses back a little bit, although his hands stay right where they are. It would be a gesture of surrender for anyone else in the same situation. "Yeah," he says, voice following the same slump of his spine. "Yeah, it has. Years." It didn't take much for this particular world to crumble apart, after all. And yet, still he struggles to preserve it. The defiance is in more than the glare, now, and Byakuran marvels at it.

Hands in his pockets, Byakuran inclines his head to his old friend. "The offer is still on the table," he reminds him. "Don't you think that would be so much more appealing, Sho-chan?" He even laughs a little bit. "You'd be able to have a shower and everything! Maybe see things more clearly, hm?"

Shoichi is filthy, thinner than in most timelines, and clearly has worked so hard that he's not had the chance to sleep often. Even with every bit of that weighing down on him, he still slumps his shoulders with an annoyed huff. "Was that... an actual joke about my eyeglasses? At a time like this..."

Even when everything is going at it's absolute worst, he can still get that kind of reaction out of him. Byakuran laughs once more. "Well, it's the truth, too!" Tilting his head ever so slightly to the side, Byakuran puts about the same amount of effort into the way his eyelids dip. "It's all the truth," he says, which is a lie. "The Sun Ring would be perfect on your finger," he says, which is the truth. He'd left it back in the hands of the Sun Guardian he'd chosen for this world, once it had become clear that he would not accomplish his goal in this reality either. That meant, technically, there is no reason to make a claim on Shoichi in this world either. What purpose could he serve, besides potentially passing along more information to Byakuran in another world?

And yet still he wants it. Wants Shoichi. Again and again, he's courted and broken and threatened countless Shoichis, all for naught. Even if this world is useless...

He can only imagine the rush of satisfaction that would drown him if he managed to successfully capture one of the few individuals in all of his many existences who fascinates him so. Sometimes, in some places, he even almost ponders if Shoichi Irie is more his Player 2 than a love interest whose Good End he's tirelessly chasing across numerous different realities.

Only a thought experiment in the end, that sort of thing. There's a reason he ponders it more in the late night while some version of him drifts off to sleep, or turns over the idea while his body runs through the motions of a shower. If there is actually a Player 2 against his campaign in one of the many worlds, he's yet to meet them, for one thing, and he's fairly certain that there would be more of a fight than all of Shoichi's desperate struggles.

Surely he must know it too, but all Shoichi does is let out a slow exhale that scrapes up against lung and throat alike. Typical for someone who has dared to live out here in desolated wastelands. "I bet it would," he says, a cough forcing a pause into existence. It's too much for a body that's become so thin and weak. "But my answer hasn't changed, you know."

"So stubborn, Sho-chan." It hardly takes a step before he's within the room, and filling up a good portion of the space. A mattress can barely fit in here, so even with so little movement he's already right between Shoichi's legs. "It might be better for you over all if you just went along with it." Smiling, he tilts his head to the side. He has no doubt that it's as empty as he feels. "Everyone has a lot of questions for you back at my base that they'll get out of you one way or another."

"Do threats actually ever help to convince anyone to do anything?"

They don't, and they never would with Shoichi. His lives have connected well enough that he is well aware of how Shoichi will stay true, even when he's bleeding out, slow, alone. There's always something beautiful about the way that fire burns right to the final ember of his existence. Byakuran thinks he could watch it for an eternity, if only he didn't have the main story to get through first. Regardless, he leans down and forwards until he can pull Shoichi effortlessly up to his feet. Even with his clothing, he hardly weighs a thing, especially in comparison to Byakuran with immeasurable power behind him that could still grow so much bigger. "I thought you should at least know when you're making a mistake," he says, watching as Shoichi's hands finally swing downwards. His fingers shake, quietly but violently. More from anxiety than ever any fear, Byakuran suspects, and always more exhaustion than anxiety. "We're friends, Sho-chan, so, really, this is the least I could do!"

This close, and Shoichi doesn't really need to squint anymore to see Byakuran clearly. Weariness draws them a little further open, yet his gaze doesn't shy away from Byakuran's. In the world above them, in the world at large, so much has been dragged into ash and filth until brown and gray cover it as thick as any blanket. Even in places far away from civilization, the color seems to stick thicker than smog. Here, Shoichi's eyes are still a deep green, so deep as to be untarnished jade, an oasis refusing impossible odds, poison that has burrowed past skin and flesh and blood and into Byakuran's bones. "Friends, huh," he says, voice a breath, an invitation.

"At the very least," Byakuran murmurs before he accepts it, before he leans in and sweeps up those lips in a long slow kiss. Shoichi doesn't push him away or, considering the atrophy of his body, make so much as an attempt. No struggle, no kick, no protest, not even so much as a bite. If anything, he actually leans in, palms pressing against the wall as if he's chasing something, too. Only a centimeter keeps them separated when their lips finally part. Against all odds, the fire in Shoichi's eyes seems to burn all the harder. Byakuran know the answer even before he wastes any breath on its opposite. "It's still waiting for you."

He's still waiting for him.

A kiss has hardly done anything for Shoichi's chapped lips, the breath which rustles out from between them drying that brief wet respite. It's hardly done anything for that look in his eyes, either. "Well, it'll probably have to keep waiting." Byakuran watches the muscles in his throat stick and bob, struggling for even a simple swallow. "There's nothing else for me to do in this world. There's no point."

On the technical aspect, he's right, of course. The Tri-ni-sette cannot be completed in this world, even if he were to include Shoichi's perfect brilliant flame to the Mare set. Everything Byakuran does in this particular world is only for his own amusement right now, even if that means dismantling society chunk by chunk, or seeing how far a group of people can be pushed before they shatter into pieces. Even Shoichi isn't different from this. If he were to finally complete his route in this world, of all worlds, what would he do then?

If this was Shoichi the bassist, he could have kept him sweet and separate from the dirty business of a world collapsing in on itself with his goading, could have ducked into their not-so-little apartment and played a more domestic mini game.

If this was Shoichi the student, he could fill his spare time molding him into something else, treat him customizable, put together all the pieces of a broken man until he wasn't quite whole but certainly together.

If this was Shoichi the criminal... If he had stayed...

Well. There's no world where Shoichi has ever stayed by Byakuran's side as he's reworked the world into something entirely different. It's simply not a part of the route.

Byakuran accepts this easily, because he's had to dozens of times before, in dozens of other incarnations. All he does is chuckle a little bit. "So pessimistic, Sho-chan!"

"Optimistic, actually." That's certainly a surprise, and Byakuran has to pause, still smiling but with his eyebrows raised a little bit now. Shoichi grins at him, with just enough teeth to be a threat. He's never felt threatened in all of his lives now, not since he was a kid in some life forgotten a long time ago, and yet that doesn't take away the intent. "How long do you think you can keep this going, Byakuran-san? How many worlds do you think you can completely dominate?"

"Ha. Well, Sho-chan, I think the answer should be fairly obvious, shouldn't it?" He inclines his head back towards the door, hands preoccupied with Shoichi's weight. "If I can do this much to this kind of world, then I doubt there are many others that will be as much of a challenge." The real challenge is in completing everything, in putting together the exact right variables that will give him all of the Tri-Ni-Sette.

The real challenge is in completing everything, including finally keeping Shoichi Irie at his side.

Despite this fact, Shoichi doesn't stop grinning, although some strength has drained from it. All his fire can't give him the energy that his physical body lacks from little sleep and about as much food. "Well," he says, "we'll see about that. But nothing lasts forever, Byakuran-san. No one does." He grits his teeth together... and something cracks.

Later on, his doctors and researchers will marvel at the fake tooth layered over one of his real ones that had laid within Shoichi's mouth. Such a thing would be delicate and tricky work even as a mere piece of art, yet Shoich had gone somewhere a little deeper. Literally, he'd gone deeper, apparently digging into old forgotten Estraneo strongholds and the secrets that had been abandoned a long time ago. An interesting invention- one of many, across many worlds, many mistakes- had been research into warping the body with the use of Sun flames via a set of specialized modified fangs. Creating a whole new jaw would have been impossible for even Shoich's genius, at least with everything else he'd stacked up on top of his plate, and, considering the layout of the world, he'd probably never be able to get the necessary requirements for giving his body such base animalistic characteristics... But he didn't need to.

All Shoichi Irie had needed was the base concept, the base technical aspects that could help active a Sun Flame within his body without the use of a Ring and set off some internal trigger.

Sun Flames are activation. The Sun is energy. Too much energy, heart beating so fast as to burst, lungs quicker than the air they can absorb, mind falling apart from energy and crashing in on itself...

They'll marvel at it all, the people he sends to investigate this, and a few will ponder if they can use this sort of technology to keep a tight rein on anyone beneath them, even if there will have to be obvious changes depending on the kind of Flame that one primarily has. Byakuran will let them ponder and experiment, because of course he will. In a world without any real goal, any real meaning to continue this particular save, he might as well, right?

Yet he'll never go on to use their findings, not in the way they intend, not even in other worlds.

In the moment, in that underground bunker where Shoichi Irie lived out his last days frantically working on something that could never possibly have any meaning, Byakuran can only watch the way he jolts suddenly with an exhale so sharp that he breathes out blood... and then he goes limp.

Byakuran doesn't smile. He can't even act surprised. All he can really do, after a quiet moment of staring at a corpse, is lower it slowly back down onto the mattress he's slept on for who knows how long.

Next time, then. If nothing else, he'll always have next time.

"Byakuran-san, please, pay attention, I need you to have full understanding of Merone Base, okay?"

"I am paying attention," he says, lips lilting up in a smile. It's not wholly a lie. He's always listened to Shoichi in multiple realities, even if he hasn't listened to him on some occasions. So he's intimately familiar with many ideas that Shoichi has brought up, some of them more solid in most realities than others.

The best realities for this sort of thing are the handful where Shoichi's life has him meet someone born on an entirely different little island, separated from Japan by an entire continent. Byakuran doesn't really mess with the workers on the lower end of things, which Spanner definitely qualifies as despite his own mechanical genius, but he keeps an eye on anything that is prone to influence Shoichi. In the universes where Shoichi Irie and the aptly dubbed "Spanner" meet, Shoichi almost always comet collides into his talent with technology. Whether those are universes where Shoichi temporarily joins him... That's a little more in the air. A coin flip, honestly, one of those things that is practically prayed to like the RNG in a gacha phone game.

That such existences are also the ones where Shoichi falls in love with another, where he burns so bright in a different direction, is something Byakuran is pretty sure he's not jealous about. Why would he be? That happens in the occasional RPG, where your companions fall for each other if you never make a move towards them. Byakuran thinks of such occurrences, of such lives he's lived with different love interests himself, and then stops thinking of them.

For this existence? This one in particular has Spanner working deep in the machinations of the Millefiore, not inclined to a leadership position that would take him away from the robotics that he loves so much. And Shoichi, in this one...

"Could you at least look at me when trying to feed me that lie?"

Byakuran laughs again, shoulders shaking a little, before he rolls his head back along the couch to look at him upside-down. Shoichi the the Right Hand Man, the inevitable betrayer, stares right back at him before heaving out a sigh. Theoretically, he's supposed to be clad in Millefiore lily white at all times, especially when dealing with official business here in Byakuran's very own expansive office. Yet it's a testament to the privilege Shoichi possesses that he can be half out of it already, revealing not a slick suit or combat ready tank top but one of his many ratty and worn band tees. If any of their subordinates caught sight of Shoichi in such a state, it would only further fuel the rumors Byakuran knows are out there, that Shoichi Irie slipped into his bed long before he slipped into one of the Millefiore uniforms. In some ways, they might almost be right, just never in the way they'd ever think to think.

If only Shoichi would want him enough to try and seduce him, and for more than the simple fact that such a thing would be a gut-busting experience. No matter the many different worlds, there's always some... core to these characters. And it is a core part of Shoichi Irie that he'd never really be what one could call "seductive".

"I'm looking," he drawls, long and low, and something about all of it clearly has Shoichi jolt and his mouth twist. He doesn't blush, apparently old enough to have restraint in some areas even if not all of them, but Byakuran can recognize the little things like that. The Cheshire Cat smile on his face only widens. "What, Sho-chan?"

"Byakuran-san, you're..." A huff pops out of him and he strides over closer. "You know what, nevermind."

"Now now!" Byakuran laughs, reaching behind him to pull Shoichi closer once he's in reach until his arms are folding over his shoulders and he can better see the schematics his supposed right hand is fiddling with when Shoichi adjusts his own arms. Still he keeps his fingers slipped through those reddish brown curls. They're soft, comforting. A reminder that, at this stage in the game, he can still enjoy the little occurrences. Those are the kinds of things which help keep a person playing over and over again. "I encourage complete and total honesty in my subordinates, Sho-chan. It's not good to bottle things up inside, either!"

For all of Byakuran's power- the physical where he's become steadily good enough in close combat, the political and social where he could destroy a person's life with a single message, the flames of his which burn through the barriers of separation and the barriers of flesh- For all of that, Shoichi in every iteration never seems to falter enough. He always manages to drum up a look of faint unimpressed exasperation, regardless of his situation. Byakuran likes the one Shoichi is wearing right now, the type where his fondness softens all of the harder edges until it bleeds through completely. If it ever becomes a dam, Byakuran suspects that will be one of the times when he's won. "You only say those sorts of things," Shoichi mutters, "because you find it funny when I get pissed off about things such as Glo Xinia and get petty."

"I don't say it only because of that!" he says, even as he laughs. He laughs because it's true, and he laughs at the ways it's not, and because he'll enjoy these moments where he can be with Shoichi with the Mare Sun Ring on his finger almost fake enough to make him think that this is a perfect run.

But he's still waiting for that inevitable betrayal. There is always some core part, isn't there?

Shoichi's core has never made him take the final step into staying by Byakuran's side.

Shoichi the Double Agent is a new one, although that only makes things a little more interesting. It also explains a lot, honestly, from how Shoichi had insisted on being able to take care of this younger Vongola with no reinforcements, to how he had kept their block against the Ten Year Bazooka's effects so close at hand. Byakuran has to hand it to him- he could have been a world class actor in another world. Opposing him outright, or a heel turn at the last moment, those are the choices he's used to. Yet he'd forgotten, in his apathy, that there was indeed a third option when it came to Shoichi Irie. There was nothing ever stopping him from going along with Byakuran's plans while readying a knife for his back the whole while. Faintly, he wonders if he would have bothered to stop any bit of Shoichi's plot, at least in this world.

Probably not. All of his selves need to ignore at least one thing or go along with one plot if only to see how that might affect the timeline relevant to a completely different self.

It's enlightening, too, listening to Shoichi explain the entire situation for the benefit of the younger Tsunayoshi Sawada's group. While he likes to torment his many opponents with his supposed omniscience, Byakuran knows his abilities far better than anyone else. Certainly, he's far closer to the very concept of omniscience than any human would normally be... but he's not quite there yet. If he knew everything, if he had the walkthrough guide to the game of his life, then he would have accomplished his main goal a thousand lifetimes ago instead of having it vex him so much. No, he only knows as much as any aspect of himself knows and shares with the rest of himself. He can't be in multiple places at once, or, rather, he can, but they're so detached as to sometimes have no bearing on one another. Every life is its own, even as every life is him.

So, up until this point as he patiently takes in the meeting of his foes and Shoichi, he can't ever have imagined that Shoichi the Underground Engineer had been thinking of this when he had questioned Byakuran's ability to continue the game. It's a brilliant play, a reality breaking move to match his own... and all he can do is smile, smile, smile.

The inclusion of a love interest for the main character can really drag a game down, or raise it up to something so popular as to be overwhelming. A rushed and poorly thought out romance can dock a point or two from a review, while a truly heartbreaking or varied one can be the main reason why anyone even touches it.

Once upon a time, he had thought that Shoichi Irie had been just a minor side quest. Enjoyable enough on its own, sure, but no more than delving into a cave during a fantasy game for some fetch quest or another. Entertaining in a mindless fashion.

Yet even now, even without the Mare Sun's quiet intense longing for a finger that won't ever slip into it, he thinks that was foolish of himselves. Shoichi was never so simple as a minor side quest.

He was as vital a part of the main storyline as any party member, as any guiding NPC, as any fridged lover.

Byakuran wonders how he'll die this time.

Shoichi Irie doesn't die.

Oh, he certainly does a lot of things that would logically lead to the death of most other people who attempted to do the same. He volunteers to be on the frontlines, despite lacking box and Ring both, staring Byakuran straight in the eyes as he says it. He helps control a moving tank of a headquarters to defend himself even when he's being shot at. He removes himself from that tank, despite the metal being the best object of defense available to him, and forces exhausted legs to keep moving.

He looks at the most powerful person in all of existence and makes demands of him despite the fact that he can't even get up on his own two feet without assistance. All the while, he burns. Byakuran basks in it, even as he refuses to let this particular part of the game go on any longer and denies all Shoichi would want for. This has always been a game between them, more than even the Vongola that so often seem to have a tendency of being his biggest obstacle in so many worlds. So, more than Tsunayoshi Sawada, more than the one of two remaining Arcobaleno in the world, more than anyone else, he savors the look of desperate frustrated outrage on Shoichi's face. Out of his list of things he wants the most in the world, it's not at his highest shelf, only perhaps in third place, and yet that's more than good enough. Having that burning and sheering brightness focused on him alone will always place even when not in first.

Of course... When first rolls around... When Yuni reveals herself, reveals that very puzzle Byakuran has been tearing so many places and times and lives over, well, every gamer wants to get first place. Byakuran forgets him, save for the briefest flicker of a thought that he ought to thank him in one life or another for helping make this the run that finally succeeds.

Loss is a new feeling, in more ways than one.

He's lost his battle, and his war, fire stripping away flesh from bone, bone from existence.

He's lost the game.

He's even, and especially, lost his sense of self as those flames do more than be rid of the physical. They sever him, completely, utterly, the changing of one blood red sky to something softer and quieter, and he's never realized how much was bearing down on his mind until it's all been stripped away from him. In the last few seconds where he still exists- only himself, this self, this Byakuran Gesso who has lead this Millefiore family to where it is today in this very moment- there's so much space to simply... think.

On a lot of things. On the very Player 2 that the Cervello once told him of, that Aria knew about with those amused deep eyes of hers, that a starving man in a lab cleaner than he was plotted so hard to bring into creation. On if perhaps this was a tester's way of playing the game, but not how it was to be played. On if he had only been wistful when he thought he'd seen a face twisted in quiet despair from beyond their little arena.

Next time. He wonders if there'll be a next time.

"Just... don't? Alright? Can we please just, stop? I would appreciate it if you could stop. Just... stay in bed and don't start a fight with the three other absurdly powerful people that are in this hospital."

Shoichi (the teenager, the young genius, thrice lived) tucks Byakuran into the hospital bed so securely like he thinks cotton will be enough to stop really anyone from doing anything. Byakuran lets him, and only partially because he's surprisingly wore out. This, too, is a new experience, different from the many memories that still overwhelm him from other lives he knows but hasn't lived. Then again, none of the lives that he'd lived had ever focused on anything but that one, singular goal. He's never gotten to experience what it's felt like to be shot at with full strength by one of the Arcobaleno, or seen just how much power the Vindice had been hiding beneath their dark coats for so long.

Not in many lives has he gotten to be so close to Shoichi like this, watching a face much younger than what he's used to crumple up in an exhausted exasperation that apparently never aged a single bit since the day he was born.

It's a brand new hospital room that he's been moved to, now, and it's completely empty save for the two of them. Everyone else who'd been present, those who would have been his Millefiore in another life, another future, have been looped into clean up efforts on account of the fact that none of them are so gravely injured like he is. Even Bluebell, although he's fairly confident that she'll do more playing than helping alongside the new friend she'd made as she's been steadily absorbed into the Giglio Nero. That's been slowly happening with all of them, he's noticed quietly, and that's probably for the better. He might not have the walkthrough guide for life- perhaps never had it- but he's seen enough clips to know that they'd find nothing and neither would he if they stuck with him in the same path that he went down in one future that's now ceased to exist for himself.

The person at his bedside right now must know this as well, and yet.

"I don't make any promises," he tells Shoichi, smiling as the teenager slumps into a chair. He doesn't look as bad as he could be, because Byakuran has seen him go through the full spectrum of destroyed and devastated and depressed... but he does look dead tired, bags under his eyes better suited for the grave and his hair messy from lack of sleep or care. The frames of his glasses smack into his knuckles when he reaches beneath them to rub at his eyes.

"I really wish you would." Hands dropping down to his lap, he shifts awkwardly in his seat and glances back toward the closed door. There, armed guards are waiting just outside. For all his effect on the various aspects of reality, for the sheer potential of what he can do, Byakuran is always being watched. Yuni has accepted his assistance for this latest disaster, of course, but she's surprisingly clever. That's how she'd waited so patiently in another future, getting the Cervello into the perfect position to grant her access to the exact right place at the exact right time. Similarly, she'd agreed and complied with the Vongola when they'd requested surveillance on him. Byakuran doesn't blame them. He's not sure he's entirely attached to a lot in the world to do things like levy blame at anyone for just about any reason.

Shoichi is a direct contrast in that he doesn't even remotely belong here, and everyone knows it. Everyone on Tsunayoshi Sawada's side is a part of the Vongola officially now, with even the actual toddler related to another mafia Family. The Varia, well, they don't need any introduction to those who are a part of this life. The same can be said for Mukuro Rokudo's lot, all criminals in their own right, and every single one of the Arcobaleno are wanted for their skills in both ways that can mean. Shoichi Irie is only a middle schooler at a good school whose family has been told that he was going to a tutor who could refer to him a good college. Instead, the last some nights, he's been involved in the life and death battles of overpowered criminal organizations and helping build a giant super robot that most college students could only dream of. If he wanted to wash his hands of everything, then he would have at least a 50% chance of success with how soft hearted the Vongola, Giglio Nero, and Cavallone could all be.

Yet here he is, one heel bobbing up and down through the air down to the floor while his hand remains loosely curled over his stomach.

"I've killed you, you know," Byakuran says casually, stretching his fingers along the too-clean sheets of his bed. From the corner of his eye, he can see Shoichi's leg promptly freeze its jiggling. "In a lot of different timelines." Even if it wasn't directly, well, his hand was always buried deep in that particular pie.

It takes a long few seconds before Shoichi remembers to breathe. With his exhale, the invisible strings keeping his body upright seem to vanish and he slumps forwards. His hands tightening into that curly hair are a sight Byakuran is intimately familiar with. "I know, Byakuran-san," he says, polite even after all of this, across multiple realities. Polite even he sounds as though he would rather be having anything but this kind of conversation, preferably in a bed of his own somewhere.

Well, with how their first meeting in this particular universe had involved Shoichi yelling at everyone else about how he wasn't to be trusted, it's sort of a given that he knows. Regardless. "I thought you might need a reminder," he replies, head falling back a little further into his pillow. Despite how long people can end up staying, hospital pillows really are garbage, he's come to find. Even when the mafia is involved. And a little bit of the yakuza.

Shoichi's fingers keep sliding further backwards, catching tangles and tugging free of them until he can rest them over the curve of his neck. "Thanks for that," he deadpans. As with many worlds, Byakuran seems to have a talent for getting rid of his patience, even in the times where Shoichi never holds it against him. With that, his head drops, glasses threatening to bounce right off of his face.

It occurs to him, then, that there might be something else responsible for the darkened skin under Shoichi's eyes and the weight dragging his spine ever further down towards irreparable back pain. It's something that he's had to deal with for... something that feels like years, but which he knows, by the way people quantify time, hasn't actually happened. Yet that realization only makes Shoichi's choice to be here over anywhere else in even this whole building alone a... puzzling mystery. His smile shifts a little bit, not as bright and careless, and he finally asks the question he's been wondering for days and days now. "Why are you here, then, Sho-chan?"

That gets Shoichi to looks up at him again, blinking a few times in pure befuddlement. "What?"

"I've killed you a lot of times," Byakuran answers patiently, still looking straight at him. This young, and his eyes seem a little darker than the brilliant green he has so many memories of. "I could kill you in this universe, too. So why are you still here taking care of me, Sho-chan? There are others you could get to do this."

Shoichi breathes in slowly again, and removes his hands from his neck with about the same speed. "I've been wondering that myself," he admits. "But, Byakuran-san... You haven't killed me yet."

...Huh. That actually wipes the smile from his face. When all Byakuran does is stare, head flopping to the side too quickly to be called a 'curious tilt', Shoichi promptly flusters a nice red and jerks his shoulders up. "I know!" he snaps, which would be an overreaction if they didn't know each other so well. Have known each other so well even without ever having met before in this lifetime before a little over a week ago, maybe. "I know the, the yet is kind of a, it's a pressing point, there's nothing guarantee that you won't just... do the same terrible horrible things all over again!" Every ounce of stillness is gone from him now. Free from their anchor along his own skin, Shoichi's hands start to go flying everywhere as he gestures wildly. "I- I remember the kinds of things you can do, I know for a fact, and you've definitely proved that you can just... You're not any weaker from that point in time, as far as I can tell! But I just-" He draws one hand back, raking it a lot more harshly through his hair than before. "I can remember you dying." Brows drawn tight together, his eyes... They're not burning, not in the way that Byakuran has become so accustomed to, and yet they're an altogether different kind of intense that has him forgetting to even blink.

Shoichi says nothing more on that, says nothing on what was going through his mind as he watched even Byakuran's very bones turn to ash on the wind. He doesn't need to. In every lifetime of his that Byakuran has ever seen, his goal has always been to oppose him eventually, inevitably.

It's simply never been a goal, Byakuran realizes then, that he'd ever reach with any element of personal happiness attached.

A single shuddering breath breaks the silence, and Shoichi continues with a trembling voice that's only barely calmer than his frantic explanation from a second before. "But you haven't killed me yet," he repeats, like a spell. "Whatever will happen in the future, or any other futures, it just... It hasn't happened yet. So I'm just going to deal with the now, with what we've actually done, before anything else."

That phrasing tips him off to what's going on in that brain of his, and Byakuran eases back into his pillows a little bit more. "Hey, Sho-chan," he says, making sure that he's snapped out his own brain before continuing. When he's sure he's gotten his attention, Byakuran smiles. "You remember two different lives, hm?"

His flinch says it all. Most of those who were tightly bound with that one particular future were, to his understanding and one way or the other, given some memories of the event. Byakuran's knowledge of it is incomplete, admittedly, on account of that self being dead by that point, but he can extrapolate enough. The latest battle demonstrated well enough the combined abilities of the world's greatest scientist, the unparalleled abilities of the Millefiore's once-own professional Gola Mosca engineer, and everything that Shoichi Irie is. Transferring memories across time would have been easy enough for them to do, to the embarrassment of no doubt many other scientists in the world.

Yet there's a problem with that. For all the others- the tenth generation of the Vongola, the reclusive and violent lot under Mukuro Rokudo, the Varia- they'd only remember the memories of that single time, perhaps an entire lifetime depending on what adjustments had been made for individuals such as Xanxus and Dino of the Cavallone. Yet even before he had died, Byakuran had learned enough to know that Shoichi Irie wasn't anything like the rest of those who would remember that future, and in a way that had nothing to do with his favoritism for the other. Shoichi had been able to do what he'd done because a future version of himself had trapped a younger version of himself in his future long enough to suppress his memories of time travel, implant sleeper memories of that entire future along with plans to stop Byakuran, and then send him back into the past with the hopes that would stop something. Anything. By the time Captain Shoichi Irie of the Millefiore, double agent, had prepared his machine to let the Vongola's tenth gen go back to their own time, he'd already been carrying the memories of an entirely different life and future around with him.

When Shoichi Irie the simple teenager had gotten those memories again, he'd remembered not just one other life, but two entirely separate ones, layered on top of the memories he has of his own life in this universe now.

Forcing himself to relax to what Byakuran finds to be mixed success, Shoichi leans forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands holding onto himself. "How... How do you deal with it?" he asks softly.

Byakuran jazz hands towards himself.

Shoichi squeezes his eyes shut in accompaniment to the scrunching of his mouth. "Alright, I- nevermind. I take back that question. It's obvious how you dealt with it."

"Ha ha."

"Stop that." Reaching up, he drags one hand down his face. "Please. Ugh, I think I'm going to be sick again..."

"You've picked no better place for it, Sho-chan!"

"Please, just... stop that too." Sneakers scruffing against linoleum, he slumps backwards into his seat and delegates one hand to wrap around his stomach again. His other hand stays right where it is up against his face. "Okay, if you can't... promise that you won't get into a fight with the other super-powered forces of nature also being treated in this hospital, can you..." He falters, for a moment, no doubt remembering so many promises that Byakuran failed to keep. "...Just don't do that again. Alright? Don't... try any of those timelines again."

There's a lot Byakuran could say about that, how he's clearly lost so many rounds that he can at least gracefully step back from the controller, that he's honestly become sort of tired after so many different lifetimes where he worked so hard for something that he couldn't get past... But he doesn't. That's a conversation that can, maybe, come at a different time. For now, he only continues to smile slightly in Shoichi's direction. "There are other things I want to do now, Sho-chan," he answers, which isn't really false in any way. It's only simplified.

Shoichi takes what reassurance he can squeeze out of that response, nodding his head as if it's made of lead. "Okay," he says, quietly. "Okay. So I guess that's... taken care of for now. I guess." Even with armed guards, it's good to see that even Shoichi is aware that Byakuran is only really contained when he wants to be. "Now all we have to do is just... focus on the present." He whistles a breath out between his teeth. "Easier said than done." While Byakuran's own case far outdoes just about anyone else's situation, well, that doesn't change the fact that they're both in the same boat of remembering more lives than 99.9% of the planet. How are they to move on so neatly, "live in the present", when their minds are tied up in so many knot of other futures, other experiences, that they can barely stay put together?

Byakuran nudges his hand a little closer to the metal railing of his bed, the failed purpose of which is to keep him in place. "Taking over the world is still an option, Sho-chan. And I'd still make you my Number 2, even."

The expression directed his way would be alarmed, if it wasn't weighed down with so much exasperated annoyance instead. "Byakuran-san, what did I just say." Prying his hand away from his face, Shoichi huffs. "Maybe Yuni-san would know... Even if I feel bad about bothering a little girl about this sort of thing. She wanted to talk with me anyway sometime this week..."

Consider Byakuran's interest stirred. "Oh, Yuni-chan wanted to talk with you? About what?"

Rolling his head back, Shoichi is too exhausted to even look at him this time. "She wasn't clear. Just that she wanted to talk with me and... Daisy-san...?" The sudden laughter that bursts forth from Byakuran's mouth has Shoichi snap up in surprise. "What? What's so funny!?"

Grinning widely, Byakuran wipes away a tear of mirth from his eye with the heel of his hand. "Nothing big, Sho-chan," he says, which is so transparent a lie that he doesn't feel bad about it. Once again, he suspects he's been outmaneuvered by a child, although the women of the Giglio Nero are so strange and otherwordly that perhaps he shouldn't be surprised. He has a suspicion of what exactly she aims to speak to Shoichi about.

Which leaves all the burden of effort on him now, doesn't it?

He allows his eyes to slide shut, comfortable exactly where he is. This entire time, perhaps he's been playing the game all wrong, gotten the objectives all mixed up. Perhaps this isn't even the game he thought it was. If that's the case...

"I think I want to try things your way, Sho-chan."

And, for the first time in so many lifetimes, he feels a light touch at his own hand in return.

Author's Note:

So this was actually a fic written for the 2019 Summer Gift Exchange over on tumblr, hosted by khrsecretvalentine, and I rolled tumblr user lighteningdancer, who I know fairly well because they're a follower of mine. I was really excited about that! And then I got to read their admission form, and their request was basically "literally anything, I enjoy any and all content in this fandom, please feel free to use my gift as a chance to maybe write a thing you always wanted to or that you haven't had an excuse to write yet"

and i was like

oh fuck

that's really way too much creative freedom for me

because i *want to write everything forever* and have too many ideas, fucking rip in peace me

But after careful consideration, I decided to choose this idea that I was meaning to write because I've always really wanted to dig into Byakuran's mental state. Like, yeah, I think the Mare Ring helped keep his brain from just melting out of his ears with his AU-connection ability, but, like... That's still knowledge/experience of literally soooooooo many different lives, and, I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I can barely keep my shit together in just one. I thought his one admission to the Cervello where he explicitly compares it all to a game was really telling, because honestly? That seems like an understandable coping mechanism, even if it fucked up an untold number of worlds. Can you really connect with other people when your view is just so... stretched? Warped? If a person is dead in one world but alive and happy in another world, how are you supposed to feel about that? So I really wanted to explore that kind of... detached viewpoint Byakuran has.

And of course, I think one of the best ways to explore that is to explore Shoichi's influence on Byakuran's many lives. They're really integral parts to each other's stories, and I think you can really tell that from one scene in particular in canon, and I noticed it particularly in the anime. It's the scene where Shoichi reveals to the Vongola that he's on their side and, in turn, Byakuran reveals he's been listening in on this conversation.

The first thing that caught my attention was when he said he wasn't surprised that Shoichi turned on him, and that he was even EXPECTING it. That's an interesting statement coming from someone who has access to an untold number of alternate realities. Like, Genkishi and the Real Funeral Wreathes were all different people before Byakuran found them and decided to twist realities so that they'd be loyal to him, right? So what would make him so sure that Shoichi would turn on him? How many lives had Shoichi lived where he'd just... never gone with Byakuran? It had to be enough times that would make up a majority, right? And I thought that was incredibly telling of Shoichi's own character as well.

(which i also wanted to explore in some way in this fic. honestly, shoichi deserves a whole fic like this from his own point of view, doing tons of cool shit.)

Secondly, when you pay attention to that conversation... Again, the setting is that Byakuran is speaking through a hologram to the Varia, the Vongola, Spanner, and Shoichi. Yet, as I watched and listened to that conversation, I noticed... Byakuran didn't actually pay any mind to either of those groups despite them technically being his biggest rivals and the one he was constantly trying to get the Vongola rings from. Instead, even if it's not reflected in the subtitles, you'll find from listening that Byakuran says "Sho-chan" like a fucking broken record. At the end of the Future Arc, he acknowledges Tsuna as the Player 2 meant to confront him... but in practice, he treated Shoichi just as much as a Player 2.

Anyway, these are all the sorts of things that I had in mind as I was writing this fic, and they clearly came through because lighteningdancer loved it so much that I received just paragraphs and paragraphs in review of it on the khrsecretvalentine post. Now, after months of forgetting to edit this fic and clean it up, here it is for everyone else, and I hope you all enjoy it just as much as lighteningdancer did.