Temporal Paradox - Suguru Geto x OC

Chapter 10

"Sorry, there's things everywhere."

"Somehow, you've managed to make this big room look small," Suguru exhaled in mild irritation. The fact that he had to tiptoe his way across the room was quite embarrassing. There were so many things lying on the ground that he felt like he was walking on lego.

"It'll look better by the end of the day, trust me," Torako motioned for him to sit on her chair. "I've already got the projectors up and everything."

'Why does she have so many?' Suguru pressed his lips into a thin line as he wondered. His purple eyes directed to the corner of her room, at the area near her bed where two, long silk bands were fiddling with a soldering iron and a compact microcontroller.

He sat down with a blink, stunned by this shikigami's intelligence as it delicately fused wires together.

"What is it making?" Suguru looked over at Torako.

She did not reply at first, choosing to focus more on setting up the camera on one of her computers. As she swiftly clicked a key on the keyboard, the side of Suguru's face suddenly emerged on the screen.

"Camera's on."

Satisfied, the girl then turned to stare at her shikigami, watching as it began trembling under its master's scrutinizing gaze. It was almost a pitifully adorable sight.

"A maze-solving robot. Disassembled it years ago. It was a little project from my teacher," she finally answered, placing a hand under her chin.

The expression she wore looked somewhat condescending in Suguru's eyes.

"Did you find it boring because of how easy it was?" he asked, his eyes meeting hers.

Torako's lips curled further, and it was a slightly more condescending smile than before.

"Maybe. Possibly." 

It was an answer Suguru had expected, so he didn't know why he even felt the need to ask. His senior was quite similar to his best friend, after all. It was the kind of narcissism he had already gotten used to. It was just that one of them was more vague about it than the other.

"Alright, focus." Torako inhaled sharply. She flicked her hand at the computer screen, motioning for Suguru's eyes to follow.

"Now, this whole experiment could have unpredictable effects on your safety and efficacy. It'll take a lot of complex biochemical processes to modify the potency of the miraculin proteins in these berries, which means that it could take us a while until we can completely get rid of the vomit taste." Torako reached for the box of Miracle Berries in his hands. "Luckily, if something goes wrong, Velma would be here to help. Surely, she can heal toxins and... whatnot."

Suguru's throat dried when it only took him a second to figure out that Velma was Shoko. The resemblance must've been in the short brown hair, he solved.

"You're fine with that, right, Snow White?" Torako's grin had a new sharpness to it when she opened up her loose fist, revealing fingers that had been folding over half a Miracle Berry.

The more Suguru stared at it, the more saturated its red shade became, almost to the point where every other colour began to pale in comparison.

"You didn't poison this one right, Evil Queen?" Suguru said with mirth, opting to play along with his senior's joke. He tossed the berry in his mouth and began to chew. From underneath his lashes, he saw Torako's lips curve into a new smile, showing a little bit of teeth.

"Maybe next time." She clicked the recording button on her keyboard. "But, right now, chew away. Make sure to smile at the camera, too."

Suguru huffed out a small chuckle but in his heart, complained, 'I feel like a lab rat.'

Now that the berry was in Suguru's mouth, Torako suddenly felt doubtful. Her knowledge within the biochemistry field was a little sloppy, after all. While it was inevitable to fail once or twice, she had been so confident that this method would work. Just imagining the disappointment on Suguru's face bruised her ego. If it had a face, that frown would surely feel like a straight left from Antonio Tarver. She turned away in an attempt to hide her grimace.

"Listen, I wouldn't get my hopes up too high for this. I mean, Ieiri and I have been discussing... it's not exactly something that can be achieved with the technology of our time, at least, not easily. I guess, what I'm trying to say is–"

"Forty percent."

"What?" When Torako spun her head around, she found that the berry and the orb of curse had already been swallowed. Her mind must've been so packed with apprehension that it had made her lose all sense of time. She didn't even realise that she had rambled for that long.

Faced with this embarrassing realisation, a tiny tinge of guilt weighted at her heart; Suguru must've felt exhausted listening to her.

When Torako pushed aside the initial embarrassment, she hardened her gaze once more. "Forty percent... That's a little bit more than what I predicted."

"What was your prediction, then?" Getting comfortable, Suguru settled his arm on the top of the chair.

"Thirty-four point sixty-seven percent, rounded. Vomit tastes different depending on what you've eaten, so that calculation is based on vomitting on an empty stomach. I did consider..." Torako paused, sighing in shame before continuing, "tasting my own vomit. But even then, the notion of curses tasting like vomit is still just a comparison. I don't know what those orbs actually taste like..." Seeing the face Suguru made, she began to regret ever saying that.

Suguru didn't utter a single word for a long while, and Torako too, refused to look at his face after that disturbing confession. She could tell that he was still staring at her, though. The imaginary holes on the side of her face was proof of that. But still, Torako did not once turn her eyes away from her bed. In those moments, she truly believed that she would rather train.

And when Suguru finally said something, she felt like burning herself.

"... Senior... you were gonna force yourself to vomit and taste it...?"

A crooked frown pulled down the corners of Torako's lips. "I know, I know. It's gross. But you do it almost every day, kinda. It was for the sake of research and– of course, your sake."

"..."

She shouldn't have said that! She should've just kept her mouth shut! Damn it!

'Junior! I swear, I'm a genius scientist and not some disgusting degenerate who likes to taste her own vomit! Please, don't label me like that!' in her frantic mind, Torako screamed. On the outside, she only exhaled regretfully.

But it wouldn't have mattered either way, because Suguru had already decided. After all, even when he hadn't said anything, his mortified expression all but told her everything.

'I'll just... cut this part of the video out...'