The Equation of Hearts

√𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝟸𝟺ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـﮩ٨ـﮩ

Kato returned that night rather bashfully, dropping the bags at the front door. He didn't know anything about the gym, but he was challenged often by the people there with Odele to watch. Like when he was asked to work on a pull-up bar. Truly: Kato hadn't a clue how it worked. But seeing someone use one to demonstrate, he tried. And he was apparently really good. Though he felt nothing.

"Isn't this... supposed to strain me?" He looked at Odele who watched him do pull-ups.

"Usually? Not feeling anything?" He tilted his head. Kato shook his head. "Try ab workouts. Check him out," Odele pointed to a bodybuilder pushing himself up and flipping on the bar. Kato mimicked him and nothing happened. "Too easy?" He sighed - his pride was severely damaged. Kato just hummed and did a handstand on the bar, doing push-ups before going on one arm, "how much do you weigh?" He sighed.

"I'm light." Kato replied,

"And that is?" He grumbled.

"I haven't checked. But I feel light." He continued doing what he was doing,

"Great, how are you this built and know absolutely nothing about the gym? Not even sweating. I hate this." He scolded.

"Sorry." Kato apologised.

But that was the past. He returned to his dad. "Irū's out."

"Is she safe?" Kato looked back at the door, ready to go out,

"With Soji. Don't worry." He sighed and hummed, "getting your wrist guards fixed. How was work?" He popped his neck and looked through the ranges of papers he was working on. They were papers he was marking.

"There's a formal I have to go to..." he began, "here's the address." He showed his dad who looked at it and hummed,

"Oh, I know that place," he looked at it and got his phone, "they have a library on the ground floor by the lobby. When you can, could you actually get me a book?" He asked fluidly. He didn't need a book, he just wanted to give Kato an errand because he liked them apparently.

"What book?" Kato pulled off the blindfold and looked at his dad.

"Here, this one," he showed a book - Physics of Binary Star Evolution: From Stars to X-Ray Binaries and Gravitational Wave Sources. Wordy. But interesting. "They should have that." He grumbled.

"Okay, I'll find it." He promised. His promises like that were so believable. It sounded like he didn't know how to disappoint. And yet, Kato still felt he could do more. Tenshi liked that though, he sounded very assuring to be around. Tenshi crossed his arms and leaned against Kato,

"Let's make you a room." He looked up at Kato.

"No, I'll be leaving soon."

"You won't stay for Ramadan with us?" He questioned.

"There are more of you to save." He mumbled.

"Hey," Tenshi sat down on the couch, "you know, the chance of you getting stuck in the next dimension is high. You've never spent so long in a world, but now your window to find and save the next of me is shorter. I heard you lucked out and managed to get six worlds done in a month once. But you understand how narrow a chance that is." He tried to persuade him, "you... shouldn't risk getting stuck now. Stay the whole 9 months, see how your dad is. 450 is a high number. You've done more, and I know for a fact that you're away from the breadth you've spread by chance alone in this world. After all, you make a new world and that makes more new worlds. That can't happen in the original where you don't exist. The quantity of worlds where I die isn't increasing. The number of worlds you made where I live is always increasing. That's the amazing thing about this." He rambled about what he truly loved, and Kato sat down to listen, he shared the interest now; "I mean, looking and thinking about it, the division impact will happen at least 449 of the 450 times we've estimated you've been doing this. A conditional chance because if you come to a world you can't exactly have that as a part of the chance."