"Try the knot again," Rin instructs calmly, "Secure it so that the cloth doesn't loosen and the Baby doesn't fall out."

Sato, in his human form, struggles to remember how to wrap the Ultraman plushie, which is acting as a substitute for Baby. Hovering over their heads, Mina tuts disapprovingly and comments that he's not paying attention. "I am paying attention!" Sato exclaims, hunched over the table. "You pull the blanket over this end, and then you do this and this and then tie it like this and—" The Ultraman plushie falls head first on the floor.

They all stare at it in heavy silence. In her containment unit, Baby Kaiju frowns deeply and takes a step back. She squeaks unhappily. Sato sighs and raises an arm to wave her off. "Don't worry, Baby," he reassures her, "I'll be a pro at this by the time I carry you."

Rin teaches him how to hold the Baby over his shoulder, swing her and shush her to sleep. "You pat here," she moves Sato's hand over Ultraman's butt, "And you're supposed to bounce the baby—no, that's too rough, Sato."

"You know you can call me Ken, right?" He asks, trying to deflect and take a break, "I'm guessing we're both the same age. Unless you're way under twenty-seven or you have a strict skincare routine that makes you look younger. Just to be clear, no need to call me nii-san or add any suffix to my name. I don't like that kind of stuff."

Rin flatly asks, "You mean basic respect?"

"Seriously," he raises his arms, showing how well he's tied the plushie to his torso, "I'll go as far as Kenji if the familiarity makes you uncomfortable. But anything other than that, and I'll start calling you Rinrin."

She clicks her tongue, displeased. The sound gets drowned out by Baby jumping and clapping her paws at Sato's success. The humans jolt, trying to keep stable when the ground shakes. "We—need—discuss—food—Baby, I can't talk if you keep that up!" Rin raises her voice without any hint of annoyance or anger. In return, Baby stops, nestling against the wall of the containment unit. She presses her cheek against the glass, waiting eagerly.

Rin catches her breath and glances back at Sato. "You said something about her diet consisting of fish?"

"What?" He runs his fingers through his hair, fixing his bangs, "Oh, yeah. That's all she eats. Tons and tons of fish. I tried to get her into other stuff so that I didn't have to go fishing every single day, but obviously, I had no luck."

She shifts to sit on the stairs by the containment unit, facing Baby. "What type do you feed her?" Rin asks once Sato takes a seat beside her, the Ultraman plushie still strapped to his chest. "Or do you just catch whatever you find?"

Sato pretends to think and raises his shoulders with a broad, nervous smile, "Maybe...the latter?"

"I'm not here to blame you for anything," Rin reassures him, "Only to help you and Mina figure out how to care for her. Mina, can you make a list of fish species available in the bay?" Within seconds, the AI projects the list complete with the estimated population and respective photos. Rin mutters thanks and points at the collage of images. "So," she questions Sato like she's talking to a child, "Which one of those fish did you feed her? Can you tell from the pictures?"

He rolls his eyes heavily and chides her, "What am I, five? You don't have to talk to me like that. I'm pretty sure I can recognise pictures." Sato peers closer at the pictures. They wait. He grumbles, making Mina scroll through all of them. He zooms in on the same four photos and goes through the list twice before he grows quiet.

With a sigh, Rin asks, "Mina, can you remember—"

"No need to judge me, okay?" Sato exclaims, cutting her off in aggravation, "I have so much going on; you have no idea. So, sue me if I can't remember what fish I fed her. Ha!" He spins away, head thrown back, "Seeing who I'm talking to, you just might."

It's like there are two toddlers in the room. Rin rests her hands in her lap and says, "Nobody is judging you, Sato. I don't expect you to have razor-sharp memory. It's okay if you don't remember. You're already stressed about your career and your baby—"

"Not my baby!"

"—It can be difficult for a single parent to handle everything without support."

Sato throws his hands up in exasperation, "I didn't give birth to her! Stop making it sound like that."

At his outburst, Baby's eyes fill with tears, and her beak turns into an expressive pout. She throws her head back and begins to wail, flailing her arms and stomping her feet. They all scramble to calm her down. The containment walls are lowered, and Sato waves his hands wildly.

"I was just kidding, girl. Come on! Ya know how dad likes to joke around, right?" All Sato can do is pat one of Baby's claws in reassurance. But it works, and her sobs turn into soft sniffles. Something in his eyes softens and Rin recognises sincerity in them. Maybe, she thinks, he's not as arrogant as he shows himself to be.

Quietly, Rin says, "I'm only here to show you the ropes, Sato, and I apologise for contradicting your interviews, but you're not perfect. Parenting is a first-time job for everyone that takes practice. I'm not out to get you."

"I'm Ultraman," Sato brags with a lopsided grin, "You can't get me."

"She can," Mina says at the same time Rin goes, "I can." Rin raises a hand for a high five, and the AI obliges. "I can get you. I work for the KDF, and I can snitch any time that one, you're our Enemy Number One."

Baby Kaiju and Sato both wear matching frowns and tilt their head the same way. "That's a little extreme," Sato comments.

"And two," Rin shuffles up to the containment unit, gesturing at Mina to lower the walls, "you have a giant baby kaiju in your basement. I'll win medals for espionage for the good of the country, and you'll...I don't know, be executed?"

He scowls, "Wonderful."

Rin holds up her hands, urging Baby to do the same. "But we're not going to do that, are we?" She presses her palms against the centre of Baby Kaiju's, slightly overwhelmed by the vast size difference. "No, we're not." It takes all ten of her fingers to tickle Baby's palms. She screws her eyes shut and giggles, trilling delightfully with her shoulders raised. Rin's mouth curves into a soft smile when the kaiju shifts to lie on her stomach, trying to nuzzle against her. "Because Baby's so adorable that she has my heart."

Rin leans closer to press a sound kiss to Baby's plump cheek. The kaiju opens her beak and chirps mirthfully. Unexpectedly, she begins to glow a brighter pink colour. Palm over mouth, Rin laughs.

Sato lets out a low, surprised whistle, "I did not think that was possible."

"What, me smiling?" Rin cannot help herself from running a fond hand over Baby's pink scales. "You'd be surprised by what I can do after my software update."

"Yeah, yeah," he rolls his eyes. "You and Mina should match your software versions."

Mina distracts the Baby with some children's songs sung by a group of disturbing-looking animatronics while Sato goes fishing in his Ultraman form. Rin keeps her distance, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the massive tub of fish. She lectures Sato about the risks of overfeeding and underfeeding an infant, and they make Mina run calculations on Baby's optimum eating capacity, given that she was growing every day.

When it's time to burp her and put her to sleep, Rin rushes to find her bag. "Wait, hold on," she calls to Sato and quickly rummages through her things, "Okay, go on. Give it a go.

Sato holds Baby Kaiju against his shoulder, patting her rhythmically, and narrows his flashlight eyes at Rin. "Why—why do you have a gas mask on?

She tightens the strap around the back of her head and looks up at him. "Because you're too lazy to take her outside—" Two loud noises interrupt her. Ultraman practically turns green from the stench. "—and because of that. A creature of her size will have a considerable effect on the air quality of a closed room."

"Ugh." The groan is full of self-loathing. "Gross! I don't get why I need to do this," Sato complains, but he doesn't stop shushing Baby. Her head grows heavy, and she snuggles into his neck, slowly falling asleep.

Rin quietly snips open the parachute she brought. "Because otherwise, she might get colicky. She'll be in pain and cry continuously. In many cases, colic in babies causes postpartum in mothers. Extreme situations can also lead parents to cause harm to infants."

"Again," Sato chuckles nervously, "I didn't give birth to her, and I'd never do anything to hurt her." After contemplating for a while, he adds, "Can you try modulating your tone because I really can't tell if I'm talking to a person or an automated info kiosk wearing a gas mask."

"Maybe I'll get that feature in my next update."

At his full height as Ultraman, Sato can't stand up straight without slamming into the ceiling. He sits cross-legged and bends his head lower. "Okay. I know how I sound, but I never explicitly called you a robot. Although," there's a change in his pitch, "credit for where credit's due. You're a bit funny."

"I'm actually hilarious sometimes." The statement sounds flat even to her own ears. "We're just not on that wavelength yet."

Mina works on ventilating the room, and Sato carefully lays Baby Kaiju to sleep in her containment unit (They really need to come up with a better phrase that doesn't make the infant sound like a prisoner). Rin holds up the ends of the wide parachute, passing it for him to carefully drape it over Baby. For a moment, Sato observes her with what Rin discovers to be awe in his flashlight eyes. He stills, hovering over them all like a titan when the baby yawns in her sleep and curls up tighter under her blanket.

Using this as her chance, Rin begins to tiptoe towards the elevator.

"Hey, wait—" Sato reverts to human size in the middle of his protests, "wait. Where are you going?"

"Home, Sato." She sighs when he follows her up to the ground floor. She points at her analogue watch, cutting off his comment about how old-fashioned she is. "It's nearly midnight. You should get some sleep, too. I heard you have a match tomorrow."

He curses under his breath and flushes from embarrassment at the unimpressed look Rin shoots him. The moon is high over the waters outside. She could spare some time to find a quiet spot by the beach. Courteously, Sato walks her to the door to see her out. He begins to bring up niceties before she waves him off.

Rin heads to her shiny new car, grimacing at the brightness that overcomes Sato's exhausted face. "You won't be able to lure me into being her babysitter. I have a full-time job that I'm quite dedicated to." She opens the car door, pauses, and peers back at him. "Oh, and for the record, I'm two months older than you."

"You looked me up," he grins smugly.

"Had to." Her flat tone doesn't even put a dent in his childish glee. "I wanted to know how bothersome being involved with you is."

"So you do plan on getting involved with me."

He flashes her another confident smile. His camera face, she recognises. She imagines a sparkle in his teeth again. Sato's smile trembles when she's undeterred by his (according to Rin) mediocre attempt at a flirtation. She climbs into her car, rolls her window down, and asks instead.

"How do I change the voice setting for the GPS?"

Overjoyed, Sato nods, "Mm. Not telling." And slams the front door on her face.

Sato's games are awful, and the Giants lose the next two matches. His movement is sluggish compared to all the other games Rin has seen online. All his swings are misses. Rin's colleagues take frequent coffee breaks to talk about how the Giants' have worsened after Sato's arrival.

Against her will, Rin finds herself offhandedly contributing to the conversation. "Maybe he's going through stuff," she frowns at her coffee mug before adding four more spoons of sugar, making her senior flinch, "He must be adjusting."

They're all surprised that she has a say and only add more caustic comments to their discussion when she's back at her desk.

Rin stays back at HQ one night, working on all the backlogs Watanabe dumped on her, when she gets a frantic call from Sato. "I know it's late," he yells into the phone to beat the screeching in the background, "and I know you're busy with your super-secret-public-resource-exploiting project, but if you don't come over now, I think I'll die."

Rin barely makes out anything he's said. "What?"

"She just—she won't stop crying! I've tried feeding her and burping her, and giving her extra playtime. Even the stupid song shows aren't working!"

Vaguely, amidst the din, Mina has decided to try her hand at calming the kaiju. "Would you like to see Auntie Rinrin instead? Does Baby miss her Auntie? You want a shadow puppet show before bedtime?"

Auntie Rinrin. That's all the reason she needs to say no. Being called Auntie Frigid or Auntie Bitter is more than enough for her to scoff and block Sato. But Rin just...can't. "I need thirty minutes," she says, grabbing her change of clothes from the drawers.

"Thirty!?" Sato sounds close to tears, "The KDF bachelor accommodation is fifteen min—"

She hangs up, drives as fast (and safe) as she can, and makes it to the mansion in eighteen minutes. Sato's barely holding himself together when he opens the door. "I didn't apply for accommodation because my family's listed as dependents, and they'd have to move in with me," Rin says, walking past him. She doesn't bat an eye at the magnitude of wailing coming from downstairs or the periodic thumping that rattles the whole building. "Did you check for internal issues? Did she hurt herself?"

Sato's hot on her heels as they head downstairs. "What's wrong with your family moving in with you? Actually, don't answer that. Yes, she's fine healthwise and no, she didn't hurt herself."

The foot stomping and crankiness stop the second Baby's adorable, round eyes land on Rin. She raises her arms, pushing them against the glass walls of the containment unit. "Hey there." Rin hurries up to the little kaiju, who paddles her feet impatiently. "Hi. I heard someone was sad that they were missing me." The walls come down, and Baby doesn't waste a second before lying on her side. Rin sighs, running a hand up her pink arm and nuzzles against her cheek. "You might just be the only one in the world."

"Maybe reel in the trauma," Sato comments, one eyebrow raised.

Rin caresses Baby's jaw affectionately, drumming her fingers as a way to tickle her and incite giggling. "You're right," she says apologetically, "She does have higher levels of intelligence. My words can upset her. I'm sorry."

For a long stretch of silence, Sato stares at Rin in bewilderment as she plays with Baby. He exchanges a look with Mina and blurts, "God, lighten up. I meant it as a joke. You know, you really need to work on your intonation. I mean, I'm learning how to understand you, but still. I'd really like to know whether that's self-depricating humour or something serious. The amount of offhanded comments you've made about your family, while none of my business, is concerning."

His little speech doesn't deter Rin from her little hand puppet show. "I'll send you the latest manual when my software's due for an update," she says without taking her eyes off of Baby.

"Hardy-har-har," Sato replies unemotively, "Your robot jokes have gotten old."

"Like I said. Update."

In the next one hour, everyone except Mina starts to yawn. Sato stretches and peels off muscle relaxant patches from his back. Rin gives Baby five more minutes of Kaiju Step before declaring bed time. She puts her jacket back on and prepares to call it a day.

"Thanks for coming over like this," Sato says with sincerity, "She's grown attached to you, so maybe Mina will be calling you again, repeatedly, in the future, I guess."

"I...well," Rin can't refuse. While the jury's still out on Sato, Baby Kaiju and Mina have cemented their places in her heart. "I suppose I'd like to see Baby again as well."

Overjoyed by her answer, Sato swats her back goodnaturedly. "That's the spirit. You hear that, girl?" He waves Baby over, "Auntie Rinrin's psyched for your playdates!"

She scurries over to them, her tiny giant feet thumping loudly. She stomps excitedly and chitters, trying to join in. Then, in an attempt to get her thoughts across, Baby Kaiju mimics her daddy and swats Rin on the same spot as Sato had.

Only, Rin goes flying across the floor. There's a crack. A shaky gasp from her and a panicked yell from Sato. Rin clutches her arm, screws her eyes shut at the searing white pain that engulfs her, and writhes with her jaw clenched. Chaos erupts again when Baby lets out a shrill, terrified shriek. Sato races to Rin, sliding down on his knees and exploding into a jumble of sentences that she can't make any sense of.

"Sato," Rin wheezes, "I think I'm seeing stars."

"That could be me." His attempt at lightening the situation is abysmal at best.

"No. I mean literal stars. Flashes of light."

"Okay." He begins to hyperventilate, "Oh, god. What do I... Baby, you stay there. Mina, hold her back. On a scale of ten, Rin, how bad is the pain?"

Rin's brain is a bust. The pain is too much for her to think straight. "I want to close my eyes and cry," she manages as he helps her sit up slowly without touching her arms.

"Jesus," his eyes are wide and too close for comfort, but even that's not enough to distract Rin. "Practically a fifteen, then. Mina, analysis?"

The AI scans her with a beam of green light. She repeats it to check again. Then, with considerable worry, she reports, "Rin seems to have dislocated her shoulder. Ken, should I call for an ambulance?"

"No." Rin groans as she rises to her feet with no support, "No ambulance. Sato, drive me to the military hospital."

"That's far." He protests, glancing back at Baby, who seems to cry harder with each passing moment, "The nearest ED should be—"

"Just take me to the—"

"But—"

"I have located the nearest trauma centre." Mina projects several maps around them, momentarily distracting Baby with the visuals before the kaiju shrinks into herself again. "Rin, try not to move your—"

"Baby, you need to shush—"

"I have brought up an ice pack and paracetamol. A sling. A heating pad—"

Frustrated, irritated, and in a hellish world of pain, Rin snaps at the top of her voice, "Quiet. Quiet!"

Sato shuts up. Baby puffs up her cheeks, pressing her beak together, with her ear-fins drooping. Mina retracts the ice pack, medicine, sling, and heating pad. They wait in startled silence.

With a deep breath that hurts her ribs, Rin turns to the kaiju. "Baby, it's not your fault at all, okay?" She assures her soothingly, "You were just trying to play. But we need to practise being gentle with things much smaller than you, yes?" Baby's beak trembles, but she nods.

"Good. Now, come here." Biting back a sob, Rin presses a kiss to the kaiju's cheek when she crouches down. "Will you be a good girl and wait with Mina until your dad comes back? He'll return very soon, so don't be scared." Her fins flap uncertainly, but she nods. "Mina, keep her calm and you." Rin turns to Sato

"Yes," he stands stiffly. All the fatigue has evaporated from his face at the sight of her disfigured limb.

She waves at Baby and Mina before staggering over to the