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[ A rare video post for Hiro tonight - but then again, this is a rare occasion. He's already gotten past the initial crying phase, so he's just numb and a little blotchy more than anything else, but his voice still shakes a little when he talks. A plain bedroom backdrop, clearly from where he lives in Heropa.

He takes a deep breath. ]

Has anyone seen my brother Tadashi? He's - he looks like this - [ A picture of Tadashi flashes on the screen for a moment. ] - and I'm getting error messages from his comm. Nobody I've talked to has seen him and ...

[ His voice trails off to a whisper. He can't even get through a whole post without tears welling up in his eyes. ]

I just - I need to know, please. If anyone has any idea. I need to know he's still here. If he's not, then ... then he's ...

[ Ported out. And dead. ]

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Maybe he started not to because there was somebody more worth protecting than his own feelings. That doesn't mean he can't get hurt.

[While Hiro is feeling Tadashi's absence, Ken is seeing Minato in his death. No matter how much time he spends with him, how many times he holds his hand and feels his warmth, it will never leave Ken's mind just how cold he had felt at his viewing, dressed blandly in a white kimono and never to open his eyes again. He had looked so strange. He almost wanted to put his headphones over his ears because he felt unrecognizable.

How had Minato felt when he raised his finger to the sky and gave up his life to seal Nyx? How had he felt when, at the end of a long, terrible journey, he opened his eyes once more and found himself in a new world? Did he think about himself? (He doubts it.) Did he let himself grieve? (Did that even occur to him?) And Ken didn't realize until just a month ago just what situation his leader was in.

Tadashi Hamada was more in sync with his emotions and memories than Minato was. That, Ken can conclude objectively. What happens when a man who grew up in a warm loving family with friends and dreams and a future suddenly has that robbed from him? As a member of the ragtag team of kids who didn't have any of those, Ken cannot even fathom. All he knew was that when Tadashi comes back, Hiro is what he'll need more than anything else.

He throws his arms forward, grabbing his friend by the shoulders. He doesn't make him look up, but he won't let him not hear this.]

If he's not going to think about himself, you have to! Just as he cared about you for all those years. Just as he loved you for your whole life. People like him such at caring about themselves. They'll try to laugh it off or pretend it's not even there and they're going to try to worry about you instead so that it's like it never happened. Even if they're falling apart inside.

You and I can't afford to only stay on the side of the protected. We were left alive. We have to grow.

[ Ken would have to lift his head physically to make Hiro meet his gaze; as it is, he keeps his head bowed, blinking back acidic tears at the corners of his vision. He can't argue with any of that. He knows that, if his brother returns, he's going to be a mess - he was a mess already when Hiro told him to begin with. Surely he will need someone he can confess everything to, to be his support...

But can Hiro do it? That he's less certain of. There have been vanishingly few times when Tadashi's been open with him. Many more times when Hiro's come to his brother with something. Hell, it's only been recently that Hiro's managed to see his brother as a flawed person, flesh and blood. His brother had been just this image of unbreakable adult perfection up until the fire. Up until coming here, in fact. Adjusting to that is difficult. Would be, even if his brother were the type to lay his troubles on other people.

He takes in a long, shaky breath. ]

I don't know how.

[ To grow? To think about his brother? More former - he can't see far past his own pain right now. ]

[Ken doesn't force him to look. Ken won't force anything out of Hiro, not really -- he understands too well, although he's starting to understand now that with this, they're different. They may have a lot in common, but the details where they count the most are different. Hiro will never come to like Callaghan as Ken did Shinjiro; Ken hasn't had to run into his mother like Hiro got to see Tadashi alive. Even with Minato and Shinjiro's deaths, he was able to reach a closure before coming here, and there's no power or technology or even desire to bring them back. For Ken, the deaths were and still are a finality, and perhaps that made it easier to move on from it.

But that doesn't help Hiro right now. Putting an end to his musings, Ken looks down at their feet -- his, still small and yet to grow; Hiro's, already too big for his body. How tall will the two of them get? How far will they one day go? Will they ever be as strong and reliable as the people they pined for?]

... You can tell him, okaeri. And let him say tadaima, [he answers, just barely audible over the roar of the wind.] You can let him know how much you missed him. That you're glad he's back. Because more than we are of losing him, he was scared of leaving you. I'm sure of it.

[ In a way, having Tadashi back in his life is much worse than him simply being gone. Before, Hiro was mostly on the way to recovery; how it's an open wound being torn open every single day. He'd almost been used to having Tadashi here... ]

What if he doesn't come back at all?

He was never supposed to in the first place.

[Maybe that sounds cold. Maybe even cruel, to Hiro and his grief. But Ken drops those words as simply and calmly as he spoke everything else, bringing his hands together in front of him, weaving his fingers together.]

Your brother, Aragaki-san, all the people who're alive here even after dying -- in most worlds, if we never came here, we were never supposed to see them again. That's what death is. We've been lucky.

[He takes a breath and looks up.]

They could all disappear again at any moment, just like they did back home, and never come back. What you do after that is your choice, but those of us that were left alive ultimately have two choices: to continue living, or to chase after them. And I... I won't let you do the latter.

[ Hiro flinches twice - both at that first statement, and then at the end too. Of course they're living on borrowed time here. As much time as Hiro can purposefully borrow, to the point of living the rest of his life here if this place will let him. As long as his brother is here, he never wants to go home. Hell, even if his brother isn't here, he has to stay. If only for the possibility of seeing Tadashi alive again.

That, ultimately, is what prevents him from the second option, however unhealthy the impulse might be in other ways. His hands clench the railing as he lets his gaze drift downwards to the city below. That thought passes through his head. Lingers for a moment, but the temptation can't last more than a moment. Not with Aunt Cass waiting at home and Ken right here and Megaman only a text message away. Slowly, he takes a deep breath - and his hands unclench. ]

Living hurts. And you have to get up and do it again every day. I was - I was feeling better back home, before I came here and he showed up.

[ He hates the words as soon as they leave his mouth. That ugly little part of him that almost wishes he didn't have to deal with it again, even if it meant Tadashi were dead for good. ]

Do you ever feel like that?

[Briefly, like the feeling of being on an elevator as it starts to descend, Ken feels his stomach drop. It passes quickly, but it doesn't change how there's sweat on the palms of his hands just from watching Hiro in that moment; it's momentary, but all his nerves stand on end ready to leap forward and catch him if Hiro were to-- but it doesn't happen, and instead he tries to maintain his calm as the wind near-freezes the cold sweat on his temple. It occurs him belatedly to wonder if this was how Minato and Akihiko felt when they found him at the station back in May, and he reminds himself to make it up to them more than ever.

And as he thinks of Minato, he thinks of how it feels to be alive here, living alongside Shinjiro, who lost his life because of him, and Minato, who gave up his life for everybody. Ken was feeling at his first when he first arrived here, but when he returned in October, when it had just turned April in Iwatodai...]

... I do. [He casts a glance out toward the city, taking in the lights, then looks up at the moon above them. It's white. Small. Innocently reflecting the sun's light. The Dark Hour does not exist.] Every time I saw Aragaki-san before, there was a part of me that wondered why we had to do this all over again. I'm sure he felt the same way -- he thought his death was how it should be, but he had to be alive again, and he had to deal with me again. I couldn't move forward from him, either, with him still around.

[should he tell the truth? Should he reveal this? He was determined to keep this secret and he'd deliberately stayed silent about it, but it almost feels like a betrayal not to tell Hiro.]

Right now, I feel that way about someone else, sometimes.

[ He's sagging back away from the edge now, letting go of the railing entirely. No more chance of that today; he scared himself a little just now, even without realizing how Ken reacted. He still doesn't see when Ken continues, doesn't even look up. Fumblingly, he fiddles with the strings on his hoodie. Comforted, somewhat, by knowing someone else feels the same way. Maybe he's not just a selfish jerk after all. (Or maybe they both are, but he can't see Ken in that light.) ]

Besides Shinjiro? [ The question comes out quietly, tentatively. ] Someone from home?

Yeah. He's kept it hidden from me, and I don't know how to tell him that I know now, either.

[He has a feeling everybody knew but him. Jaime did. Nico knew. Tadashi.. probably did, too. He could just picture Minato thinking he could raise it as something they had in common, something to offer Tadashi as a point of understanding. And Hiro, too. Akihiko and Shinjiro probably also knew.

But now he knows, and now he knows more than anybody what happened to to SEES after Minato's death.

He remembers calling him right after his return and realizing how much he'd missed him, and instead of an explanation, a carefully worded sentence, he murmurs out just the name.]

... Minato-san.

[ There's no surprise in Hiro's expression. Technically Minato had told him in their very first conversation ... More of an "oh duh" look when he realizes. Of course Minato would be the other person. He just didn't realize that Minato's friends knew yet. ]

... why can't you tell him?

[Even Minato hasn't been told that Ken knows. Or if he had any suspicions that Ken did, he was ignoring them.]

If you didn't know why someone died -- not just some philosophical reason behind it, but the actual cause and everything about it -- and were struggling to move on, and you somehow found a way to go back to a time before they died...

[after facing the manifestation of your regrets in the form of the person you missed most; after fighting that Shadow and hearing its scream; after seeing their face for the last time with an expression you never, ever wanted to see -- after all that, to be handed a key to the past... Yukari's sobs and Aigis' cries ring in his ears still. He can see Akihiko and Junpei's clenched fists, Koromaru's tail tucked between his legs, Mitsuru biting down on her lip so hard that she bled at one point. Realizing, the moment they realized that they might be able to reverse at least one of their losses, how much they missed him]

... what would you do?

[ There's no hesitation - the answer seems obvious, to him. ]

I'd go back. Of course I'd go back. If I could have gone back with the porter, I would have.

[He asked knowing what Hiro's answer will be, so he doesn't react to it. He almost forgets to breathe with how hard the wind is blowing, but he lets out a quiet sigh and turns his head slightly.]

Even if it might undo everything you did to save the world? Even f there was a chance that the person's death was caused by saving the world, would you still do it?

[ He swallows slowly. ]

Who cares about the world if he's not in it?

If the world is destroyed, your aunt will die, too.

And your friend, Baymax. Gogo-san, Wasabi-san, Honey-san, and the other person, Fred. And the person you tried to save, too, will die anyway. Even then?

[ Hiro flinches at that. ]

That's ... that's different.

It's not different. That's what it means.

But it's not... a shameful way to think. It's just how important that person was to you. We fought over it, too.

We? Who?

We. [He raises a hand to his chest where the Gekkoukan School's logo is embroidered to his blazer.] SEES. After Minato-san's death.

[ Hiro's eyes go wide. ]

What - but you're a team, right? Why would you fight over that?

We're a team but we're all different people. Some of us were willing to risk anything to have him back. Some of us didn't want to risk wasting his sacrifice and undoing everything we fought for.

... In the end, we decided to move forward to tomorrow. We know what he did, what he had to do, and that even if we went back, we'll end up making him make the same decision again. We owe it to him to keep living the lives he saved, you know? But that doesn't mean, every time I see him here, I don't wish he could go back and live the life he deserved to, too.

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