Dragon Ball Human

The old man in plain clothes was just like the first time they met—standing far away from others, practicing his punches slowly and methodically.

Yamiru slowed his pace, wiping the sweat from his face with his sleeve and trying to catch his breath.

As he got closer to the old man, the old man, with his back to Yamiru, stopped his training, turned around, and was slightly surprised when he saw Yamiru's head wrapped in bandages. He asked, "Why didn't you eat the things I gave you?"

'It was indeed a Senzu bean!' Yamiru's heart affirmed this.

Although, based on the circumstances at the time, he was 99% sure that the bean that had fallen from the sky came from Korin Tower, he hadn't actually eaten it to confirm. So there remained a 1% chance that it was some wild grain blown in by the wind from elsewhere.

Yamiru steadied his thoughts and smiled, saying, "The good stuff you gave me, I didn't want to waste it just because of a small injury. It would be a shame."

The old man didn't respond directly.

"You know that I recognize the bean, don't you?" Yamiru's eyes flickered, avoiding mentioning the Senzu bean. He asked, his breath slightly hurried, "How?"

The old man's tone remained even, as he calmly replied, "Didn't you already guess? I can read your mind."

Yamiru pursed his lips and asked, "Can you... really read my mind? Can you read what I'm thinking in the moment, or can you see my memories?"

What he was most concerned about, of course, was the secret of his time travel.

The old man looked at him deeply, paused for two or three seconds, and then said, "I can read what you're about to think."

As he spoke, the old man grabbed Yamiru's shoulder, effortlessly lifting him over his head and flipping him. Yamiru spun through the air and landed safely, but the sensation of weightlessness was barely noticeable.

"Do you remember what these two coins were like when I gave them to you?"

The old man's thin, withered fingers flipped the two coins, and they were the same two coins that Yamiru always carried with him. Yamiru patted his pockets, and sure enough, the coins were gone, having been taken by the old man.

When the old man asked this question, Yamiru didn't respond immediately. Instead, he pondered the intent behind the old man's question in his mind.

'He said he could read... my thoughts to come. And now he took the coins from me and is asking what they were like when he gave them to me.'

Pre-cognitive mind reading, the coins... Yamiru's mind sparked, and he suddenly recalled the situation from that day.

---

That day, after the old man had left, Yamiru sat on the park bench, contemplating the old man's identity, and absentmindedly tossing the coins.

He thought to himself,

If the coin lands heads, he would quietly live as a no one, continuing his day-to-day work in South City.

But if it lands tails, then damn it, he would set sail and seek out the Turtle Hermit!

However, as the coin flew up and landed, Yamiru slapped it into his hand on the park bench, but instead of confirming the coin's heads or tails, he made an excuse to himself that it was time to go to work. He pocketed the coin and hurried off to work... Stop! In the memory, Yamiru reached out to halt the scene.

He continued to recall, making the scene rewind, and saw himself hurriedly leaving the park. He retraced his steps, took the coin from his pocket, and placed it on the back of his hand. The coin flew up into the air again.

"Hmm... I indeed didn't check whether the coin was heads or tails. Even though I'm recalling it more clearly now, I can't invent a memory that wasn't there..." Yamiru observed himself tossing the coin on the park bench from an outside perspective. No matter how hard he tried to recall, the coin would become a blurry mess when it landed, and it was impossible to distinguish heads from tails. This was because Yamiru had never looked down at the coin in the first place, so there was no memory in his mind of whether it was heads or tails.

"So... when the old man gave me the coin, when they were stuck together without separating..."

Yamiru concentrated hard, and the memory images around him quickly rewound. The boy sitting on the bench went back, wandering around the park in search of the mysterious old man. The boy retraced his steps, returning to the outdoor fitness area, to the scene where he had first encountered the old man. Yamiru followed, desperately trying to recall the details of that moment, and the images before his eyes became clearer.

Yamiru saw the boy approach the old man, hesitate for a moment, and then slightly look up behind the old man, asking, "Excuse me?"

The old man seemed to not hear, still slowly practicing his punches.

"Hello," the boy behind him tiptoed and called out loudly, "Old man!"

Only then did the old man hear, pausing his punches and looking around, confused, "Huh? Where are you?"

'This was it!' Yamiru thought to himself. The version of me back then, the boy right now, was thinking just before speaking, "If the old man opens his eyes and says, 'Huh? Where are you?', hinting at his slightly shorter height, should I cosplay Edward and humorously respond with 'Who are you calling a shorty?' to lighten the mood and leave a better impression on him?" ...Is this what he meant by being able to "read what I'm about to think"?

The old man looked down and saw the boy nervously approaching, "Oh, here you are. What's up, little one?"

Yamiru watched as his past self in the memory hesitated, lips moving, struggling to find the right words, before finally blurting out, "…Grandpa, are you thirsty?"

This brainless kid! Yamiru felt a bit embarrassed as he recalled the moment.

The old man was also surprised, pausing for a moment before pulling out two coins from his pocket. He flicked them with his fingers, and they landed in Yamiru's palm with a soft thud.

Stop! Yamiru halted the memory and walked around the frozen image of himself, muttering to himself, "The two coins were stuck together back then… they couldn't be separated."

As he recalled the details, the scene around him began to move. The coins that the old man flicked from his hand flew back, following their original trajectory, and as time seemed to slow down, the two tightly connected coins spun in the air. Yamiru's face was right behind the rotating coins, and with a flash of his golden eyes, the two connected coins froze in mid-air.

"If this old man really 'pre-cognitively' read my thoughts when I tossed the coin..."

Yamiru grabbed the frozen coins in mid-air. The two connected coins, unable to be separated, had one side showing tails, and the other side... also tails.

So that's it. It really was like that.

---

Yamiru's mind cycled through the realization several times, but in reality, only about ten seconds had passed.

The old man was still fiddling with the two coins he had taken from Yamiru. Glancing at Yamiru, who was deep in thought, the old man said, "Looks like you've figured it out. But when I gave you the coins, I intended to help you make up your mind."

"Too bad I didn't notice," Yamiru said, raising his head with a sigh.

"In this world, every sip and every peck, every cause and every effect, is both determined by heaven and by man. You didn't see the mystery in the coins. It's actually a good thing I didn't help you make up your mind," the old man smiled slightly, "Otherwise, how would your eyes ever shine?"