The crowd around them slowly fades away as a lanky man hands the short crimson haired girl a golden badge. The two of them lock eyes with each other as they're the only two people left in the universe, that is until a girl in a cat maid costume bumps into the man.
"Nya, Kyouma san is out and about messing around his other girls?!?"
Okabe responds in a rattled tone "No Faris, I-I was just recruiting this girl to my laboratory."
Faris gives a little smirk to Okabe, then pulls both the girl and Okabe with her.
"Can you let go of me already Faris? there's no need to drag two people in this big cro-"
Faris quickly pulled them into May-Queen where she decided to make a profit off of the two.
"I can't believe I let her drag me here just to invest my hollow wallet into her paycheck.."
The girl smashes her hands on the table and causes a scene.
"I don't know who you think you are, but I can sue you for trying to abduct me for your science experiment!"
Okabe was able to maintain his composure because of his many fights with Kurisu in the past, but this wouldn't stop him from taking a few jabs at her.
"Well Christina, girl genius, I thought you would be excited to be the assistant for the Mad Scientist HOUOIN KYOUMA!"
Before he could start rambling on Faris interrupted the two play actors with her service.
"Anything you two would like to order aside from a noise complaint?"
the two sat down, took their order, and restarted their argument. This time with their inside voices.
"So you make what you call Future Gadgets right? Are they for scientific research, or just little playthings you made up."
Okabe, slightly annoyed from her argumentative nature, decides to call check on her. He grabs her hand and runs out of May-Queen before they can pay the bill. Oddly enough Kurisu didn't attempt to let go of Okabe's hand even though this was the first time she'd ever met him. Eventually Okabe reaches the future gadget laboratory with one girl genius in hand. He approaches the stairs before a voice calls out his name alongside her signature "Tuturu".
"Ah, Mayuri, Isn't it nice to see you... Are you done with school for today, or are you here to be sheltered from the organization?"
As Mayuri gives her same dumbfounded smile at Okabe, Kurisu immediately shakes off his hand, with a little red on her cheeks.
"Okarin, is this a new lab member?"
"Uhh, Yes Mayuri, this is Makise Kurisu, Lab #004-"
"Now hold on, I never said I agreed to joining your lab"
Mayuri, shocked by the radiant sass coming out of Kurisus mouth, tries to guilt Kurisu into joining the lab.
"Just when I thought I was going to have another girl to talk to..."
By this simple sentence alone, Kurisu folded and joined the secret gadget laboratory.
Okabe slowly rises from the couch, remembering vague images of Mayuris death, Cern, and his memories with Kurisu, he looks off into the corner, staring at the phonewave. The machine that put him through hell and back, off of pure curiosity he had accidentally sent himself through a chain of barron world lines. Ones where Lukako was magically a girl, ones where Mayuri would die at the same time no matter what, and one without Kurisu. No matter what short term good could come of the phonewave, Okabe knows using it will only cause more trouble.
Okabe grabs a hold of his Dk Pepper, taking one glorious savory slurp before adjusting his thoughts. While he may of finally found a world line where both Mayuri and Kurisu are safe, he now has to rebuild the relationship he had with Kurisu. After all he is the only person with the ability of reading steiner. With his experiences from the previous world lines, it should be a piece of cake to get Kurisu to enjoy his company again. Although it would mean developing whatever gadget she can think of, good or bad.
"You've been standing there for the past 5 minutes Okarin, don't you think you've done enough pondering for one morning?"
Okabe anxiously jumped from the unexpected comment from Daru.
"There's never enough pondering for the Mad Scientist Hououin Kyouma, My plan to bring down the organization requires the utmost thought of my superior mind!"
Daru completely unfazed by Okabes antics replies
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'm supposed to be the guy who hacks anyone you desire, who am I kidding, the only person I'd let order me around are my waifu's"
He says as he softly touches his computer screen of a loli
"If only you could use those hacking skills to make your waifu real"
Okabe walks out of the room like he's too busy being a badass to care about what Daru was going to say, before bumping chest first into Kurisu's head.
"OW! Can't you even watch where you're going?"
"When I opened the door I wasn't expecting a chinnibuyo college student to be blocking my entrance"
Okabe quickly apologized to Kurisu before offering her a Dk Pepper as compensation.
"I wasn't able to enter the lab yesterday because it was getting too late, but I was expecting something more than this..."
Kurisu looked around some more, finding a bunch of strange items around the room, before stumbling upon the phonewave.
"This is interesting though, a phone attached to a microwave, What's it supposed to do?"
The Mad Scientist chuckles to himself before bursting out in his usual maniacal laughter.
"Of course the girl genius can't figure it out, It's quite simple actually, you can send emails to the past with it."
Kurisu's eyes widened with curiosity, before quickly coming right up to Okabes face.
"emails to the past, like a time machine?"
"Well it's not exactly a time machine, but it does send messages to the past."
Okabe saw this as an opportunity to strike, as Daru was too busy with his fictional women. He stepped closer to Kurisu, causing her to blush before she stepped back, and walked towards the phone wave.
"So can you prove to me that this machine does what you say it does?"
Okabe thought there for a second, remembering the tortuous journey he went through because of that machine. He could easily get Kurisu to stay with them if he proved the phone wave could actually send messages to the past, but would it be worth the risk of suddenly switching world lines.
Even though this was supposed to be the world line known as "Steins;Gate" Okabe still had an uncomfortable tingle just from the thought of sending a D mail.
"Of course I will show you my creations true power, The power to time travel!"
"You mean, MY creation?" Daru interrupted.
"Give me your number Christina"
"Who are you calling Christina!"
"You obviously, I wouldn't be calling Daru or his wives over there Christina, nor would I even want to."
Kurisu flustered by Okabes shotty reasoning, reluctantly gave Okabe her number before using the phonewave. Once the parameters were set in place Okabe decided to send a D mail that couldn't possibly alter anything.
"El Psy Congroo"
-Sent-
A warm shivering tingle pulsated throughout his entire body. Before long he was standing in the middle of an abandoned building, with a radio in hand. He looked into the sky to see the smog filled atmosphere covering what would be a sunny day.
"This... Isn't... Possible..."
