Chapter Text
Kokichi was frozen still for so long that Shuichi began to wonder if it was possible for a ghost to glitch out and crash like a computer in the early 2000s. After possibly the most tense silence of Shuichi's entire life, Kokichi slowly reached out for the phone and held it gently, tenderly like it contained something invaluable, which Shuichi supposed it did.
"He looks like his dad," Kokichi says, voice frighteningly neutral. He looks up at Shuichi. "He looks just like him, really.."
Shuichi felt an uncomfortably large lump form in his throat. "So, it's him?" He stares straight at Kokichi, scanning his body frantically for any sign of disappearance, any sign that these are the last moments they would spend together before Kokichi passed on for good.
There are no such signs. Kokichi's form flickered around the edges in the same way that it always had, no more and no less. If anything, he looked more present than ever.
Kokichi abruptly lifted his head, "I want to- no- I need to talk to him. I need to see him."
"Well, that's gonna take some figuring out," Maki's voice comes from the phone, making both of them jump. Shuichi had forgotten that he was on the phone.
Shuichi nodded, eyes wide and mouth hanging open like a fish.
Kokichi tried to give him the phone back, but Shuichi simply shook his head. "Where did you say he was?" Kokichi asked, eyes returning to the picture.
"Korea," He mumbles.
Kokichi nibbled at his lower lip, brows furrowed. "I see.."
"We'll reach out to him," Kaito spoke up, "once we figure out a non-creepy way to say 'hi, we're some strangers from Japan and we met your dead cousin who is a ghost and wants to talk to you'. But that's gonna be difficult."
"Understandable," Kokichi responded. His voice is still disconcertingly level.
After yet another silence, Kaito tells them that he'll leave them to it and hangs up.
Kokichi wasn't moving or showing any emotion at all, and Shuichi was worried. He had no idea what Kokichi was feeling and could hardly comprehend how long he must have been waiting for this moment.
"How are you feeling?" He gently asked.
Kokichi blinked hard a few times. "I have no idea. It's a lot to take in." He shook his head, "He's really okay?"
"He is, prince. He's okay."
"He's okay..."
"Yeah,"
After an hour, during which Kokichi cried for ten minutes and then promptly pretended it never happened, they sat together on the sofa with a plate of cake and the television on, although neither of them were paying much attention to it. Shuichi was wearing Kokichi's old hoodie and it was kind of damp because he took it out of the dryer before it was fully dry but he didn't mind and Kokichi, who had his head resting on his shoulder, didn't appear to mind it either.
"You know," the detective starts slowly, "I thought for a second you were going to leave me, there."
Kokichi hums. "I did, too. But I'm still here. I think I need to see him properly for it to be real to me, you know?"
Shuichi understood what he meant. "I'm glad that you're still here. I mean, I'm not glad because I know why but I like having you around."
"I am sure you're much better off with someone as dashingly amazing as I am present..But, uhm, I like you having me around, too.."
Shuichi wasn't sure if it was from the high emotions of the past hour or the fact that the reality that Kokichi was going to vanish and could at any minute hit him harder than before, but he felt his eyes prickle with the threat of tears. He rubbed them in what he hoped was a discreet way. "I'm going to miss you when you go," he says, figuring that he might as well get it out in the open. “I know that you have to move on and it’s for the best, but I’ll miss you.”
Kokichi rubbed his face into Shuichi's damp shoulder. “I’d say I’ll miss you too, but I don’t think that I’ll be capable of missing someone when I don’t exist anymore.”
Shuichi really didn't like the way that Kokichi phrased that. He knew that it was the truth- when Kokichi passes on, he will essentially cease to exist- but the thought of it hurts him on a physical level. He felt a hollow ache in his chest.
As if he could read his mind, Kokichi sat upright and made a solid effort to change the mood. “I’m not gone yet, though, am I? You’re still stuck with me for now.” He laughed, but it lacked the usual joy. It sounds as empty as Shuichi felt.
“More like you’re stuck with me,” Shuichi grumbles. Kokichi told him a while ago that he was unable to leave the house because his soul was too attached to it, unlike Rantaro who could go wherever he wanted.
“Hey.” Kokichi pokes him in the face and the spot that he touches tingles. “If I didn’t want to hang out with you, then I wouldn’t. I may have been lonely before you came around but I still wouldn’t have disturbed my peaceful existence to talk to someone I didn’t like. I am far too above that, Detective.”
Shuichi didn't know what to say to that so he stuffed his mouth with cake and grunted unattractively. “I guess,” he says after swallowing.
He knows that Kokichi likes him, but he still thinks that he would rather have had a different person move in, someone who has their life together and doesn’t poop at someone else’s house out of fear of being watched by the resident ghost. Or resident ghosts, now that Rantaro was around, who would probably be much more likely to watch people than Kokichi.
“I’m serious. I know that you made a conscious effort to seek me out, but I could have easily ignored it and stopped tidying up and left you to believe that you were making it all up. I didn’t have to reply to your note, but I did because,” he poked him again, this time on the arm, “I thought it was funny and endearing.”
Oh? This was new information. Though the two have talked quite a lot over the time they’ve known each other, especially recently, they hadn’t spent much time addressing the events of the first week when they met.
Shuichi blinks at him, confused. “But you said ‘What the fuck’.” He would know, because he kept every written note that Kokichi made and he looks at them more often than he would like to admit.
“Because it was weird. Besides, what was I going to say? ‘Yes, I will have sex with you sexy motorcycle of a stranger who just moved into my house’?”
“Well, you could have..!”
"I'm sure your ego would've liked that, big boy!" Kokichi laughed again, but it sounded genuine this time. The mood had successfully been lifted, and though there was still the weight of the knowledge of the inevitable, it didn’t feel as unbearable anymore.
At some point over the course of becoming more comfortable with his ghost, Shuichi regained the ability to say flirtatious things as long as he frames them as a joke, so he dramatically bats his eyelids, “The offer is still on the table, you know.”
Kokichi winks. “I’ll think about it.” He then dissolves into a fit of laughter at the sight of Shuichi's shocked face.
“I need to stop saying stuff like that,” Shuichi said, shaking his head and putting more cake in his mouth.
“Nah, I don’t mind. I actually think it's kinda dumb, in a good way, or not~!”
“I know you don’t but it’s awkward because you know that I like you and-”
“Shuichi. I really don’t mind, if you know what I mean.”
Shuichi, did in fact, not know what he meant, so he simply blinked at the ghost stupidly. “Huh?”
Kokichi sighed and poked him a third time, and if it were any other person Shuichi would be getting aggravated but he enjoys any form of physical contact with Kokichi far too much to ever be annoyed. “For a detective..You’re so dense, sometimes.”
“That’s true, I am very dense,” He said solemnly. “But why?”
It looked like Kokichi was taking great care to put his words together. “Do you remember when we first ate together?”
“Yes.”
“You called it a date. You asked me on a date. And I said yes.”
There were cogs turning in the Detective's rather small brain, but they were moving very slowly. “Yeah, but it was because you missed eating.”
“And I did miss eating,” He asked slowly like he was talking to a child. “But don’t you think that if that was really the only reason then I would have said something to make sure I wasn’t leading you on? After all this time?”
Shuichi furrowed his eyebrows. “It would have been nice if you did, but it’s okay.”
“But I didn’t, riiiiightttt~?”
The cogs in the Detective's brain were turning a tad bit faster. “Wait-”
It occurred to him now that their faces were closer than before. Kokichi was watching him, that fond look glinting in his eyes that Shuichi loved so much because he’d never seen it directed at anyone else but him. He tried to count the different shades of purple in those eyes, which were still slightly puffy from crying, but there were too many and he was more than a little distracted by his racing heart.
“Wait,” Shuichi said again because he'd forgotten every other word he seemed to know.
Kokichi blinked slowly like a lovely cat. “You'd think you would be better at detecting, since ya'know, you're a DETECTive! But, I'm waiting, nonetheless.”
“Okay, you can stop waiting.” He resisted the urge to slap himself in the face because his entire face felt numb. “So, you…” he pointed at Kokichi and then at himself, “Me?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Well, unless your answer changed, mine is still yes.”
“Cool. Cool, that’s… cool. Great. Awesome. Cool.” He cleared his throat. “I am pleased to hear that.”
It’s not like he hadn't ever thought about Kokichi possibly liking him back. In fact, he had thought about it a lot. But it was always hypothetical, always a fantasy scenario that could never possibly be reality. He had never taken the time to seriously consider it, and now he wishes that he had because he was feeling very underprepared for this situation.
Thankfully, Kokichi wasn't showing any sign of impatience. If anything, the fond look in his eyes grew brighter.
Shuichi thought he was going to evaporate, if not from that gaze then from the unbelievable amount of stress that he was currently under.
The silence was suffocating and Kokichi's face seemed to be moving closer and Shuichi took one last breath before closing his eyes and closing the gap between them. Their lips brush together gently, delicately, before they break apart again.
“Okay,” He said.
Then he leaned forward again, crawling on top of Kokichi's lap and wrapping his still-damp arms around his shoulders as they kissed again. Kokichi's lips were just as soft and plush as they looked, if not even more so, which Shuichi did not think was possible. Every place their bare skin touched felt tingly like TV static, and the sensation was unbearably addictive.
Shuichi shivered, feeling goosebumps prickle across his skin. All he could focus on was how sweet and warm Kokichi's mouth was and the hint of smoke that surrounded him. He never thought he’d ever crave the smell of smoke so badly. He wanted to breathe Kokichi in, he wanted to drink him up, his hands itching to feel every plane and curve of Kokichi's body.
His hands began to roam, hesitantly at first, but when Kokichi smiled against his lips and whispered that he could go ahead, he grew in confidence. Shuichi traced his long nimble fingers over every inch of Kokichi that he could touch, desperately needing it now that he had been given permission. Kokichi's form was soft and hard at the same time, with tender skin covering softly toned muscle and an excellent bone structure. Shuichi wants to worship him, wants to kiss him all over, and do nothing else for the rest of his life.
Feeling brave, his hands slid under Kokichi's sweater and caressed the smooth skin of his chest and stomach. The breathy moan that he responded with set the Detective's blood on fire as he eagerly put more passion into the kiss, their mouths opening and tongues sliding against each other.
They parted momentarily again to catch their breaths and, holy fuck, Shuichi didn’t think that Kokichi could get any hotter but here he was with flushed cheeks, heavy-lidded eyes, and spit-slick swollen lips.
“Mm, you taste like cake,” Kokichi murmured, voice rough.
“So do you,” Shuichi responded in a voice that didn't sound nearly as sexy.
“Do you wanna keep-”
“Fuck, yes.”
A heavenly giggle escaped Kokichi's throat as he laid down and pulled Shuichi on top of him.