It was the next morning and Kohei was in Group 4's bathroom trying out a new look. He looked in the mirror for a while, considered and thought, "Who cares?"
Slowly he shaved off all of his beard and came outside of the bathroom. Yabo and Hina were putting on their clothes for the day. Hina didn't say anything looking at Kohei's new look. Yabo on the other hand started laughing hysterically. "Come on, Kohei! What were you thinking? That doesn't suit you at all, you look weird as hell."
Kohei shrugged it off. "Whatever Yabo, lets get to the 21st floo- Wait, where's the kid?" Yabo replied, "I don't fucking know, does it matter? He'll show up eventually." After saying that, he walked off. Hina did too. "Whatever.", Kohei said and walked off as well.
Meanwhile on the 10th floor, Takeru sat on specialized recliner chair looking extremely nervous for the experiment. "So... Um... Is this gonna hurt?"
"Yeah.", The masked figure next to Takeru replied. This person was wearing the suit all the other SOMA members wore but had a weird mask covering their face. They proceeded to cut out a small piece of Takeru's skin. "Ouch!", Takeru said. They then put it in a container and left it there.
"How long will this take...?", Takeru asked.
"A couple hours."
While the Group 4 members were having their breakfast on the 21st floor, one of them received a call from The Chairman. Hina picked it up and asked, "What is it, Chairman-sama?"
"Ichino Takeru will not be going on patrol with you today, Group 4."
"Huh!? Why does that bum get to take a day off!?", Yabo shouted.
"He just needs to be experimented on, he'll be back with you tomorrow."
"We got it, sir.", Hina replied. Then, she hung up the phone. They went back to eating. While they were doing so, Yabo couldn't stop looking at Kohei's beardless face. "Geez... This really doesn't do it for you, Kohei. You look kinda hideous, I'm not gonna lie."
"Great, I can relate to you now.", Kohei replied. Yabo started laughing. "Ain't Kohei so funny, Hina?", Yabo said as he looked over at Hina. Hina said nothing. Yabo looked disappointed. "Come on, Hina... Why do you gotta be like this, huh? Learn to have some fun, will ya?" She stood up and walked away to the elevator.
"Geez..."
"Just stop trying to get through to her, Yabo. Are you too stupid to see you won't achieve anything?"
Yabo chuckled. "It isn't doing me any harm to keep on trying, is it? She's hot and I just can't give up on trying to get a piece of that."
"You're a piece of work, you know that?"
"Of course I do, Kohei... Of course I fucking do." Then, they both got up as well. All three of them got to the elevator and while they were heading down, Hina started to look worried. Kohei and Yabo immediately noticed as seeing an actual expression on her face was unbelievably rare.
"Woah... What is it, Hina?", Yabo asked.
"Nothing.", She replied in a monotone voice. They both looked confused and moved on.
After reaching their patrol area with their car, they began walking around like usual without much talking. During their walk, a small boy stopped in front of Kohei and started staring for some reason.
Kohei didn't know what to say. "Umm-"
"You'd look much better with a beard, old man.", The little boy said and walked off slurping his ice cream.
"Huh...?", Kohei said sounding exasperated. "Does it really look that fucking bad?"
After a couple of hours, Group 4 was walking around Itabashi. Nothing had happened yet and they were all bored. Yabo looked over at Hina and began to wonder. "Oi Hina, what was that worried look earlier about?" She stayed quiet.
"Geez... I'm getting tired of you never talking. Just answer me-"
"Shut up, Yabo.", Kohei said. "Huh!? What did you say to me!?", Yabo replied. Kohei ignored him and faced towards Hina who was walking in front of him.
"Were you worried about the kid?"
Hina suddenly stopped.
"So it really was that."
Yabo was shocked. "What the fuck!? Why do you care about that little shit? I've been with you for way longe-"
"The kid will be fine, Asano-san. He's an alternate-user like us, he can continuously regenerate. There's nothing to worry about.", Kohei said.
Hina looked back at him. "Why the hell would someone like you care? Why would you care if that kid's okay or not? Someone like you that gave up on caring about anything, why do you care about some kid all of a sudden? Last night when you were giving him that crap advice, what was all that about!?"
Kohei's blank expression remained unchanged. "Maybe that kid's changing me. Seeing him caring about others and the little things in life, maybe its giving me some hope or something. I thought nothing mattered anymore and that it was all gone ever since I awakened but I can see it in that kid, the hope to one day return to his normal life and live it out like any other person. Is it the same for you? If he died, our beacon of hope and our reminder of what its like to live life would be gone. Is that what you're worried about?"
"I..."
Yabo started to laugh out loud. "Geez... What the hell are you two talking about, huh!? You lot miss your regular lives? How the fuck is that even possible!? The life we used to live is too fucking complex. Over here, it's simple. Instead of dealing with money, relationships, family issues and whatever the fuck, all we have to do is wake up, go kill a monster thing and fall back asleep. Its fucking awesome and everything I ever wished for.
Out there in the real world, the problems are rooted into society and seemingly impossible to deal with. Over here? The problems are just the weird possessed people we have to kill, they're simple and right in front of us. All we have to do to solve them is to stab them. How the fuck are you not happy with this, huh!?"
Hina and Kohei were stunned. "You're truly something else, Yabo... you're probably the person that somehow prefers this..."
"Well then... I guess I'm the only one with a fucking brain, you stupid bums."
brrring! brrring!
Hina looked at her phone. "Its a call from The Chairman. An alternate has appeared."