The noon sun was bright and unforgiving.
Kafka Hibino sat on the designated park bench, feeling more exposed than he had during any part of the Defense Force exam. He had snuck off the base during the lunch break, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. Every shadow looked like a DF observer. Every passing car seemed to be watching him.
He was a nervous wreck. What did a god want to talk to him about? Was this a test? An interrogation? An execution?
A shadow fell over him. Kafka flinched, looking up to see Saitama standing there, silhouetted against the sun. He wasn't in his hero suit, just the same cheap hoodie and jeans as before. In his hand, he held two cans of coffee from a nearby vending machine.
"Hey," Saitama said, his voice as flat as ever.
He tossed a can to Kafka, who fumbled and nearly dropped it. Saitama sat down on the other end of the bench, leaving a comfortable, non-threatening distance between them. He popped the top of his can and took a long sip.
For a full minute, they just sat there in silence. The only sounds were the distant city traffic and the cheerful shouts of children playing in a nearby sandbox. It was surreal.
"So," Saitama said finally, staring out at the playground. "You. You turn into a big, grey, bumpy monster."
It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact, delivered with the same emotional weight as commenting on the weather.
Kafka's blood ran cold. His throat felt like it was full of cotton. He just nodded, unable to speak.
"Figured," Saitama said. "When I flattened you that first day, you smelled more of coffee and... I don't know, quiet desperation... than evil monster. You smell the same now."
Kafka stared at him. "You... you can smell desperation?"
"Kinda," Saitama replied with a shrug. "It's a thing. Most real monsters, they have this... stink. Like rotten eggs and ambition. You just smell like a guy who's tired all the time."
The description was so painfully, profoundly accurate that Kafka didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"I... it was an accident," Kafka finally managed to whisper, finding his voice. "I didn't ask for this. A small Kaiju... it flew into my mouth. And now..." He gestured vaguely at himself, at his own miserable, complicated existence.
Saitama took another sip of coffee. He didn't seem surprised. He didn't seem disgusted. He didn't seem interested in the origin story at all.
"Does it hurt?" Saitama asked.
The question caught Kafka completely off guard. He had expected "Why?" or "How?" or "Are you a threat?" But not this. Not a simple, human question about his well-being.
"Sometimes," Kafka admitted, his voice cracking slightly. "The first few times... it felt like my bones were breaking and reforming all at once. It gets easier. But I can't really control it. It just... comes out. When I'm scared. Or when someone's in trouble."
"Huh," Saitama grunted, seeming to process this. "So you're like a hero."
"I'm a monster!" Kafka hissed, looking around nervously. "The Defense Force—my job, now—they kill monsters. If they find out, I'm dead."
"Yeah, that seems like a problem," Saitama agreed, without any real sense of urgency. He watched a little girl successfully make it across the monkey bars and felt a tiny, uncharacteristic flicker of satisfaction on her behalf.
"So," Kafka asked, his voice trembling with the weight of the most important question of his life. "What... what are you going to do?"
Saitama finally turned to look at him, his dark, placid eyes meeting Kafka's. "Do? About what?"
"About me! Are you... going to turn me in? Kill me?"
Saitama just blinked, as if the concept was completely alien to him. "Why would I do that?"
"Because I'm a monster!"
"You saved those army guys at your school thing, right?" Saitama countered. "And you saved those people when that building was falling down. And you haven't tried to eat anyone. You're a pretty bad monster, if you ask me."
He took a final swig of his coffee and crushed the can in his hand, the sound making Kafka jump.
"Look," Saitama said, his voice losing its bored edge for a moment and becoming something closer to sincere. "Being a hero... or whatever it is we're doing... is a pain. People yell at you. Stuff gets broken. You miss sales. And nobody ever really says thank you. And now you've got this whole 'secret monster' thing on top of it all."
He stood up. "Sounds like you've got enough problems without me adding to them. Just... try not to step on my groceries again."
And that was it. No threats. No demands. Just a simple, almost compassionate, acknowledgement of their shared, weird existence. An alliance wasn't formed. A pact wasn't made. But a quiet, unspoken understanding had been reached.
Saitama looked down at Kafka, the tired janitor-turned-cadet who was juggling a world of secrets. "Being a hero is all about one thing, you know."
"What's that?" Kafka asked, looking up at him, desperate for any piece of wisdom from this impossible man.
"Making it home in time for dinner," Saitama said, and then turned to leave.
In the Project Bald Cape bunker, the team of analysts sat in stunned, holy silence.
They had heard every word.
"Subject Alpha... displays a complete lack of interest in the origin of Hibino's powers," Kenji Tanaka whispered, staring at the audio waveforms on his screen. "He's not concerned with the 'how' or 'why.' His judgment is based entirely on a simple, moral binary: 'Are you trying to hurt people?' and 'Are you being annoying?'"
An analyst furiously typed up a report. [PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE UPDATE: Alpha's worldview appears to be one of profound, almost childlike, simplicity. He categorizes entities not by their nature (human, kaiju, god) but by their actions. He shows a primitive, yet powerful, form of empathy, connecting with Hibino not over their shared power, but over their shared mundane struggles. This... this is our 'in'.]
"And Hibino," Kenji continued, his mind racing. "He confessed. He gave Alpha the biggest state secret of this generation on a silver platter. He's not Alpha's enemy or accomplice. He's a confidant. The only person on the planet, it seems, who Alpha can have a normal conversation with."
He looked at the tactical map of the city. He looked at the profiles of the two men.
One was a secret god who was bored by his own power. The other was a secret monster who was terrified of his. And they had found common ground, not in a grand alliance, but in complaining about their hard lives while sitting on a park bench.
"Gentlemen," Kenji said, a slow, brilliant, terrifying idea forming in his mind. "We've been approaching this all wrong. We've been treating Alpha as a threat to be contained. But what if he isn't a weapon to be pointed, but a shield to be... guided?"
He focused on Kafka's profile. Cadet Kafka Hibino. Their walking, talking monster. And, apparently, the only friend of a god.
"Get me Vice-Captain Hoshina on the line," Kenji commanded. "And tell Captain Shinomiya that our asset 'Kaiju No. 8' just became the single most important person in the Japan Defense Force."
The conversation on the park bench was over. But its ripples had just set in motion the true, central plot of the entire saga. The accidental, reluctant, and profoundly weird friendship between a janitor and a god was now at the heart of the world's security. And neither of them had a clue.