"...yeah. Later." He has exceeded the recommended hourly allowance of apologies even for a Canadian.

So Yutaka roof hops away.

Haru gets an Uber because he still has dyspraxia.

He ensconces himself in his room with a bag of cookies and eats his way through them steadily with one hand while he writes with the other.

God, that was so fucked up and he's so sorry but what else could he have done. No, really, could he have done some other less fucked up thing. He should... have come up with approximate gameplans for both broad possible classes of response he could have gotten, and then he wouldn't have blurted out something stupid and hurtful. That's something he could have done. Could have skipped the mind control... well, like, yes, no one was mind controlling him into doing it, but then he wouldn't know, and now he... probably knows? He knows more. A larger number of different things would have to all be conspiring for him to not know, at this point.

The two reasons he's not dating Yutaka are, one, that Yutaka did some fucked up things, which he isn't going to do any more and in specific is not going to do any more because he caught ethics like a fucking case of the cooties off Haru, and that's the most romantic thing Haru can think of, that's his personal stupid fanfiction plot that's like chocolate-covered crack, that he's just that good and that admirable that even ignorant and innocent he can bring the villain to his knees and have him eating out of his hand. Metaphorically. He's pretty sure he does not literally want to hand-feed Yutaka though given the density of personal revelation he's been having lately he does give it fair consideration in a margin in small handwriting. It would maybe be cute to feed him a forkful of cake or something if they were eating cake? There doesn't seem to be anything deeper there. Moving on.

The other reason is that Haru doesn't remember their history in which they were dating.

And Haru hates that, he hates that with a terrific violence, like he can't breathe through the lungful of nothingness that is his memories of the last two times he lived through March, and he pauses, briefly, in his scrivening, to ask Kyubey, and - yes, he could wish his memories into place. But then what. Then where would they be. That wouldn't help with saving Tokyo at all and it would leave an inferior world in which to do so if they succeeded anyhow and if they failed he'd be back on that morning, his letters to himself on his desk, having forgotten this very moment that he is even now trying to catch on paper against the possibility -

Haru hates that he doesn't remember and it makes him want to demolish the forgetting's sequelae in - revenge. Fuck this ignorant amnesia and the time travel it rode in on. He could re-read all his notes about the missing time, and look at all the photos again, and reconstruct something serviceable, he could pretend, really hard, that he remembered, and then he could kiss Yutaka and say "now where were we" as though he knew what they were doing and he could have him then and there and -

Haru grabs a tissue and wipes his eyes.

He's really jealous of the hypothetical instance of him who gets seduced away to Bondi Beach. That sounds really nice. Ren went there once on Christmas break while Haru was at Charlie's, she loved it. And he'd itch, he'd know there was something he wasn't telling himself, but if he believed his letter that it was part of the plan, that it would in fact in the long run help save Tokyo that he spend this month that he'd lose later at least enjoying being in a doomed timeline, he'd do his part, and accept the roll of the dice that got him the cushy vacation with his time traveling boyfriend job instead of one of the versions where he has to break into the Prime Minister's house.

And Yutaka doesn't want to because if a later loop of Haru gets different information and tells him to fuck off that's worse than nothing, which is completely fair.

Haru hates that he doesn't remember because if he remembered he would be in love and then it would be easy. The Haru in the photographs would just take that chocolate-covered-crack declaration of repentance and - what do you do with chocolate-covered crack, do you eat it? do you smoke it? this metaphor is unsalvageable - he'd take it, anyway, and he'd say, I love you, I forgive you, don't you ever do anything like that again, we'll figure this out together.

This Haru is not a photograph and he does not remember and he's crying about it but he's not in love and that makes it difficult.

What does he want. To be seduced away to Bondi Beach to fucking save Tokyo and as a stretch goal to be mentally intact and magical and to eradicate malaria and stuff.

What does he have. Yutaka's eternal devotion. The wish-potential to put malaria in the ground.

How does he best use the latter to get the former. That's the tricky part, it always is.

What kind of person is he.

Are you still out hunting witches or -

No, we killed it very dead.

Congrats. Come over?

Knock knock.

Come in.

In he comes. "Hello, Haru."

"Hi." Haru's eyes are a little red, he doesn't have a complex about someone observing that at some point in the past his tear ducts may have operated according to their teleological purpose. "So - uh, this is hard to say but I think if I'd tried to workshop it into a nice polished script it'd have taken long enough I'd've had to put this off till tomorrow, ugh -"

If there's anything that can turn Yutaka's smile into a look of pure panic it's seeing a Haru who looks like he's cried. Yutaka is suddenly on his knees in front of him, looking up at him. "Haru, what's wrong? Please, don't cry, why did you cry? It can't be because of me, I don't, I'm not worth that—"

"- oh my god, no, I just, I did a lot of notebooking, I didn't realize that would freak you out so bad -"

"...okay. Okay. If you say so." He slowly gets back up to his feet but he looks very dubious about the idea that this wasn't somehow his fault.

"Anyway I was observing that it would be really convenient if I were - still, or again - in love with you because then I would know what to do."

He stops, and vibrates in place like a taut violin string being plucked with a thimble.

"I do not know how to interpret that thing you are doing."

"I'm not do—" he starts at a pitch high enough it could be called a squeal, then he clears his throat and tries again. "I'm not trying to do anything. What—do you mean—I don't—"

"You're like... quivering. - or do you mean what do I mean about it being really convenient."

"That. I mean that."

"There's." Haru flips open his notebook a little, rereads a couple things, closes it again. "There are two reasons we're not dating right now and one is that you did some bad things and the other is that I don't have continuity with last loop's version of me. And those are both - reasons, but they're - solvable independently? And you do seem to have fixed the first one and I can - guess, mostly, extrapolate and - try to inhabit, the way it'd be if I remembered, but the facts don't match the feelings, except, again that could be solvable independently -"

"C-could you, um, tell me what you want me to do in small words that I couldn't possibly misinterpret or read into or overthink because—"

"Do you think if you took the brakes off you could just get me to fall in love with you again."

He closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath.

Opens them again. "There is nothing I would love more in this world, Haru."