The holiday break was all but over for Mikomi. It was Sunday afternoon and he was making his final preparations to drive back to MUT as classes were set to resume the next day. Karoline was folding some of Mikomi’s clothes after doing his laundry. Even though Mikomi had insisted on doing it himself, his mother wouldn’t hear it. Perhaps it was her motherly instinct that didn’t allow her to stop taking care of him but Mikomi figured that there was no point in trying to change her mind. Ryunosuke sat on the couch as he, too, would be returning to work tomorrow. Mikomi was a bit uneasy about him doing so since his surgery wasn’t all that long ago.

“So… are you sure it’s not too early to go back?” he asked with a bit of concern in his voice.

“Don’t worry! I’ll take it easy. I won’t stay late as I’m sure Cassandra can handle things for me if the need should arise. You know… until you told me that you wanted to be involved with the company, I was going to hand it over to Cassandra should the day come when I had to step down and retire. She is more than capable of continuing the future of Onyx Technology Ventures. With that being said, though… It still makes me proud to know that my son wants to carry on my legacy. That’s why I have to do my part until you’re ready to take the reins.”

“Thanks for having faith in me, Dad. I promise that I’ll do my best.”

With that, there was a knock on the door. Mikomi was already standing relatively close by so he went over and answered it. On the other side of the door was Ryan but he didn’t look like his usual, cheerful self. He sensed it right away but decided to greet him casually like usual.

“Hey Ryan, what’s up?”

“Say Mikomi… do you think you could come outside and talk for a minute or two?”

“Geez… first Sebastian dragged me outside into the freezing cold and now Ryan? Do people think I enjoy freezing my ass off or something?”

“Sure,” he said with a bit of reluctance.

Mikomi grabbed his coat and headed out the door. Ryan led him out to the sidewalk where he stopped on the sidewalk, letting out a bit of a sigh, his breath becoming a puff of smoke in the cold air. That puff of smoke accented how cold it was which led to Mikomi getting straight to the heart of the matter.

“So why do you want to talk to me out here?”

“Well… I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and I made a life decision that I wanted to talk to you about… privately.”

“Ryan is making a serious life decision? I mean, I know everyone eventually realizes that they need to do something with their lives but this seems pretty sudden for him. I wonder if it had anything to do with our run-in at the cemetery. Did something finally get through to him?”

“You see, Mikomi. You’ve kind of filled me with this sensation. Just looking at you, I kind of feel a certain way. I feel things that keep me up at night, making me wish that I could just act upon those feelings but I never could find a way to do so… until now. That’s why I’m here, Mikomi. I’m here to tell you something very important!”

“Um… What’s going on here? That look on his face… the tone in his voice. Surely he’s not going to… wait… what if he is!? Oh, GOD! No, Ryan, no! I’m not that kind of person! I know we’ve been close friends and all but this is a little much!”

“I decided that I, too, am going to go to college.”

Oh…

“Watching you chase your dreams made me feel… well… kind of worthless. Here you are working hard at being the guy who will lead your dad’s company into the future and I’m sitting at home playing Shadow Wing and trying to complete all the side quests and whatnot. I kind of felt like I was wasting my life away. It bothered me when I thought about it and I wanted to do something with my life aside from sitting around and playing video games. So, I started looking into colleges and what they had to offer. I saw one that offers some classes on programming. I figured if I could learn a little bit about what you do, maybe I could be useful someday.”

Mikomi let out a huge internal sigh of relief. He felt as if he had just dodged a lethal bullet.

“Well... I’m happy that you decided to pursue a goal. Programming isn’t easy, though. You need to have some fundamentals and a basic understanding of how flow charts and algorithms work as well. You can’t just type in a bunch of characters and miss a semicolon here or there. You have to be able to have great analytical and problem-solving skills, too. Trust me… when I came up with the solution to the A.I. my dad was working on, I had to spend countless nights thinking about how to resolve all of the issues. It’s a thankless job.”

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“Yeah, I know. I may not be a great problem solver and sure, I’m not good at thinking but I looked up some programming stuff already and for some reason, it’s coming naturally to me so I figured that I would give it a shot. I can’t grow as a person unless I try something new, ya know?”

“I guess you’re right. If you think you can handle it, then I don’t see a reason why you can’t just go for it. Where are you going to go to college? I don’t want to sound rude, but your grades from high school won’t exactly get you into MUT.”

“That’s the thing, Mikomi. The other reason why I stopped by today is I’m here to say goodbye.”

Mikomi’s eyes widened. As soon as Ryan said that, he knew that he had looked at colleges that were, most likely, out of state. He didn’t have to worry about this in the original timeline since the two of them had ended their friendship but he couldn’t help but think that this was a response from this timeline in relation to them still being friends.

This has to be the balance I’ve been looking for! Of course! I’m worried about the world balancing the things I did to save my dad but after I changed the world for Serah, I changed the world for Ryan. I kept our friendship going so if the world was going to try and rebalance things, he would be next on the list… not my father! His accepting an offer from an out-of-state college means that we would drift apart and see each other less and less. It would almost be the same as if we were never friends. This HAS to be the balance and it’s happening almost a year after I saved our friendship. This gives me a very important clue because in a year my dad would have….

I think I just figured out how this world works!

“Uh… Mikomi? Are you okay?”

“Oh! Uh, yeah… sorry. I guess that took me by surprise. I’m assuming you’re going to be moving to another state to go to college?”

“Yeah… the college I want to go to is out in Arizona. I’m not a fan of the desert but it has the program I’m looking for.”

“So, I guess that means you accepted the offer from the college, then?”

“No… not yet. I applied and I got a letter of acceptance. I still have to decide whether or not I’m going to go. It’s a really big decision for me and I guess I have some doubts about it. Even though I’m starting to find a purpose in life, I’m wondering if I’m good enough to see it through. If not, it’s going to be a waste of money and I’ll be stuck flipping burgers or something as I work just to pay off my loans. I haven’t even told my parents that I’ve been accepted yet. I wanted to come and talk to you to see what I should do. I know you already told me to go for it but to be honest… I guess I’m scared.”

This is perfect! Since Ryan hasn’t accepted the offer to join the school, I can mess with the timeline again! Since I have a good idea of when the world will attempt to rebalance things, I can stay one step ahead of the world and keep making changes. There’s also the possibility that it may cause a rogue rebalance, though and I won’t be able to control or predict it. That puts me in a risky situation. I’d hate to make Ryan into an experiment but at this point, I think it would be better than losing him altogether.

“Hmm… I believe I have an idea. Since you’re on the fence about whether or not you want to pursue programming, why don’t you come work for Onyx Technology Ventures?”

“WHAT!? NO WAY! There’s no way I could do a job like that! You guys hire nothing but highly skilled people. What would someone like me do in a place like that?”

“Well, you wouldn’t be programming or anything. Maybe you could just do odd jobs around the office and during your breaks or your spare time, you could shadow some of the programming team members and see if it’s something that you’d like to do. I know that Michael would be willing to teach you stuff. He’s a bit… eccentric but he’s more than willing to help people, despite how grumpy he can get about it. Even if you don’t get into programming, you’ll have a good-paying job and I’ll eventually become your boss so you’ll have job security. What do you say?”

I can’t believe that I’m trying to talk Ryan into joining Onyx Technology Ventures. On top of that, I’m already acting like the CEO I used to be. I must be out of my damn mind but this plan might just work.

“Even if I said yes, how am I supposed to get in the door? It’s not like I’m going to be applying to MgWonald’s or anything.”

“Easy. I’m the son of the CEO. All we have to do is ask my father and I’m sure he’ll find something for you to do there. Let’s go ask him right now!”

Before Ryan could even answer, Mikomi grabbed him by the wrist and led him back inside the house. Ryunosuke looked up from the newspaper with a quizzical look.

“Dad. Ryan just told me that he wanted to take up programming. I wanted to know if it’s possible that he could get a job at the company doing some odd stuff around the office and then learn in his spare time. You know... Get some hands-on experience to see if it’s something that he truly wants to do.”

“Hmm… to be honest, Alice has been working extremely hard and could use an assistant. I could even delegate tasks between the two of them which would make my life, as well as hers, a bit easier. Since I’ll be taking it easy at work while I finish recovering from my surgery, it would be really useful to have an extra set of hands around the office to help fill in where needed. Tell me, Ryan. Do you have your driver’s license?”

“Y-yes, sir. I do.”

“Excellent! You’ll need that when you fill out the new hire paperwork. Can you start tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? That soon? I mean... Yeah, I could. I just didn’t expect things to move this… quickly.”

“That’s how the world works, Ryan. One minute you’re coasting along and the next, you find yourself being shoved in another direction. It is situations like this where you just have to take the bull by the horns and see where it takes you. Tell you what. Meet me here tomorrow at 6 am and I will drive you there and help you get set up. This way you’ll see how to get there and what needs to be done. I’ll drive you home at the end of the day as well but you’ll be on your own getting to and from the company starting Tuesday. This way you won’t have to be so nervous. Sound like a plan?”

Y-yeah! Sounds good to me! Thank you so much, Mr. Saigo! I promise that I’ll work hard!”

That was a lot easier than I thought! I guess the timing was perfect for this to happen. I’m sure that if Dad were still slaving away for days or weeks on end, Ryan wouldn’t have had a chance to get in. By having surgery, it created an extremely beneficial situation. That’s two changes to the world within two weeks. I feel like from here on out, it’s completely uncharted territory. Could I have finally gotten to a point where I can shape the world as I see fit without consequence?

Even still, I have my reasons for putting Ryan under my father’s watchful eyes. There’s still something I can’t shake about the fact that the world is ignoring him for some reason. What if Ryan had eventually gone to college in the original timeline and I just never knew about it? What if doing this is going to cause an even bigger ripple? Still, certain things about him just don’t add up.

With that hurdle out of the way, Ryan returned home so he could prepare for his first day of work tomorrow. Mikomi also finished packing his belongings and decided it was time to bid his family farewell and head back to college. Mikomi gave his mom and dad a hug and piled his belongings into the car. Mikomi was about to open the driver’s side door when he remembered something.

Mikomi darted back into the house and made his way to his room where he grabbed the picture frame that Ryan had given to him for Christmas. After all, he had promised Ryan that he would take that back to college with him. Now that Mikomi had everything, he hopped in his car and headed back. While Mikomi was on the road, he couldn’t help but think about how he felt when he decided to return home. The feeling of nerves and regret were overwhelming, but once he was back in his hometown, he realized that he needed to come back.