Chapter Text
There was a special thing that existed in the world.
Among the other possible universes that Shuichi Saihara had the opportunity of being placed in (if different universes existed in the first place, which was a whole idea to explore itself. Angie claimed that the universe that Atua resided in was the true universe, while others, such as Miu, called bullshit, claiming that deities had nothing to do with the scientific probability of other universes. Regardless…), he had grown up in a world where your romantic life was set out straight for you.
It was an odd phenomenon that had only developed in the past half a century or so, and scientists were still trying to find out what force was causing these things. Attempting to decipher a thing that seemed only ethereal and beyond knowledge’s explanation (Miu once again called bullshit). This thing was referred to as the Soulmate’s Connection. The Soulmate’s Connection seemed to arise from nowhere, however, the first reported case was beyond everyone’s imaginations: two blind individuals, who were born so from the moment they were brought to life, miraculously regained their vision once they had met one another.
And once that story arose, many more miraculous tales of finding another person, or sometimes person s , came to light. They came in a various amount of forms, that with the rapid appearance of this strange occurrence, scientists were always on their toes to update and find new ways people were finding these strange relationship mishaps. The unexplainable phenomenon only increased in variety -- babies were soon born with odd formations, like clocks embedded on their wrists, or the ability to only see black and white. Until meeting a person, or several other persons, regardless of their gender, weight, height, race… and there were only a few cases to which many were unsatisfied with their “destined partner.” There were some cases of people being born without any of these strange mutations, never to meet a destined partner, but according to research, these people seemed fine with the fact. Romance, to them, seemed undesirable.
Studies on this skyrocketed, and all throughout his childhood, Saihara had grown up surrounded by this “amazing” miracle. He had not understood what made it so amazing when he was small, but this was made up in his maturity. The world was reported to be “more peaceful” and “happier” compared to a half a century ago. Despite the 50 years of excitement, many still hyped up others about this thing, this new, amazing thing that almost everyone had. It was like cellphones: it was a huge, huge thing when it first emerged, and now, it’s a thing everyone expected of you.
If he was being his most honest, Saihara cared… less about his Soulmate’s Connection compared to everyone else in his classes growing up. In fact, he didn’t fit in at all -- always stuffing his nose into storybooks and articles, while other children played and fantasized about their soulmate. Of course, women tended to ogle more about the future fantasy, but men were equally excited to meet theirs. Saihara was not one of those men.
His general indifference towards the Soulmate’s Connection didn’t spark anything negative. His parents weren’t too concerned (after all, he was doing quite well in his academics), and that seemed to be the general thing that they pushed on him (but not too harshly) in his upbringing. Without his mind set on his Soulmate’s Connection, Saihara began to become interested in less happy subjects: like crime (which was, of course, still prevalent, but at a lower rate now). A detective. Once he had learned what that was, his heart soared, and he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up.
There was once a time where he had solved a case that even the head detectives in the authority branch couldn’t get a handle of, which caused him to receive much praise for his work. This was during his last year of junior high, and before he could even take any high school entrance exams, he was awarded with a special letter of requested admission to one of Japan’s most praised high school: Hope’s Peak Academy. It was not a difficult yes.
Every student that attended the special academy received a title of recognition for their “talent” -- Saihara’s was the “Ultimate Detective”, despite only solving one major case (he had solved smaller cases, including a large amount of missing pet cases). As much as he found himself unbefitting of a title such as “Ultimate Detective”, he couldn’t deny that there was a little, tiny, measel of pride in his heart. Did he feel like he deserved the title? No. But was he unhappy with it? Also a no.
That only meant he had to work hard and live up to it.
When high school began, it was around this time where he began to become more social, even by just a little bit. Compared to his days as a child, he had matured to understand that relationships with people, especially ones you would see on a daily bases, were important -- good relationships were more important. He made an effort, albeit an estranged and awkward one (as, really, trying to speak with someone around his age on a non-business, casual way was a little bit foreign to him), but he had managed to make his first friend on the first week of school: Kaede Akamatsu.
“So, Saihara-san,” Kaede began one afternoon, while the two began to get comfortable during the lunch hour. Saihara had already learned how to relax in front of other students, and not hide behind the barrier that was either his hat or a book. So far so good. “What’s your Soulmate’s Connection?”
The question led Saihara to blink a couple of times, processing what Kaede had asked him. His Soulmate’s Connection… it was something he didn’t think about often. Kaede waited patiently, knowing of Saihara’s tendency to think for a little before answering, “Ah… well, to be honest, they couldn’t diagnose it.”
“Oh, really?” Kaede’s face filled with understanding. A lot of the times doctors could decipher what your Soulmate’s Connection was (ie. you will see color when you meet your soulmate), but sometimes (it was not rare, but uncommon, like an allergy,) it seemed impossible to tell without any physical or mental clues. Which was only to be expected: with the boom of this new phenomenon, physicians were rushing to memorize how to identify each Connection. Some were more common, and others seemed to only be unique to two people...
What a strange thing, it was, really.
“Yeah,” Saihara sighed, not exactly out of remorse for the situation, but more after the exhaustion of it all. “Well… it’s not like it really matters. Studies show that most of the time, people meet their soulmate after high school.”
Kaede nodded, “Yeah, that’s true. Still, you don’t seem excited about it. Aren’t you curious?”
“Well… sort of,” Saihara shrugged indifferently. “I never paid too much attention to it. My parents aren’t particularly pushy about it, and I took interest in other things when I was younger, so I sort of blocked out all the talk about our Soulmate’s Connection.”
“Haha. I guess it does get sort of excessive after hearing it all your life,” Kaede agreed, humming along. “Yet… I’d still wonder if I was in your situation. Unlike everyone else, you won’t know who it’ll be until it hits you in the face.”
Perhaps Kaede’s words were a bit too literal.
The third week of school in, when he had entered the classroom at a much earlier time than one would arrive at classes (most other students hung out in more “casual” spots), he was met face-first with a force that sent his head aback by several inches. An involuntary, “Ow!” was shouted, and Saihara had stepped back to see what had hit him. It was a book bag.
“Whoooops. Sorry about that,” An unfamiliar voice chimed, and Saihara looked up from the book bag in which could have potentially destroyed his nose if sent at a force that Gonta (one of his classmates, who had proven his strength in Physical Education) could throw at. A small boy, maybe half a foot or so shorter than Saihara, waltzed up to the book bag, pulling it up and back into his hands.
A pain struck into Saihara’s wrist that felt like needles, but lasted only for a split second. Saihara begun to pull his long sleeve down to see what had happened, but the boy had captured his attention away, “Hey, I said I was sorry! ...O-Oh, are you that mad? W-Well, fine! You look mean anyways! You big, ugly, meanie! W-WAAAAAAAAAHHH!”
Taken aback by the boy’s sudden crying, Saihara stopped his action and closed the door behind him so that no one outside could have witnessed him push a smaller boy to tears. He waved his hands and shook his head, “H-Hey, wait! I’m sorry, I was just distracted. Please don’t cry.”
The shorter boy’s crying quelled, and after a few seconds, he seemed to bounce back from his fit almost immediately, “Oh, well, fine. I’m bored of that excuse anyways. I already used it twice today.”
Saihara blinked, confused. Excuse? Twice? “U-Um… what?”
“Nishishi… I was lying . Silly,” His face was coated with no remorse for his actions whatsoever. Saihara wondered who on Earth he managed to encounter, and why so early in the morning, too. “I’m Kokichi Ouma, by the way. I’m the headmaster’s son.”
“H-Headmaster’s--!?” Suddenly, Saihara was much more terrified of the power of this boy than before. If he hadn’t stopped crying, he would have probably told his father, and who knows what sort of stories would float around about the boy from Class 79 who got kicked from the school program entirely because he made the headmaster’s son cry.
Just as his face twisted with more nerves, Ouma giggled in that unique laugh of his, “Nishishi~ you’re so easy to fool! That was a lie. I’m just a student in this class.”
Two lies already…? It was only 7 in the morning, but Saihara’s head was already spinning, “A-Ah… alright. You aren’t… lying again, are you?”
“Not this time! Or maybe I am…?”
“T-That really doesn’t help,” Saihara sighed, fixing his posture. “Anyways… what are you doing here so early? And I’ve never seen you in this class before. Are you new?”
“It’s ‘cause I wake up early. I don’t know anybody here, so I thought about waiting here until I got bored. I was flinging the bookbag around to see how much I could destroy my stuff!”
“D-Destroy your stuff?” Saihara piped. “You shouldn’t do that…”
“Hey, you aren’t the boss of me!” Ouma shouted. “What’s your name? You never told me, y’know.”
“Oh… it’s Shuichi Saihara.”
It was strange. Ever since their first encounter, Saihara knew that Ouma was fishy business -- from his excessive lying, to his generally malicious nature. He didn’t hesitate to begin picking on Kiibo, the Ultimate Robot (Saihara was still fascinated by this, but not as much as Miu was), pestering him with questions about whether or not he had genitals, or harassing Yumeno, who he kept calling ugly. Some more innocent characters, like Gonta, seemed to enjoy Ouma’s personality if only to be more gentlemanly -- but most disliked him from the beginning.
It wasn’t exactly a dislike thing for Saihara. Sure, Ouma got annoying sometimes, as he sometimes acted like a literal child in front of everyone, but there was no hate or dislike. More of… curiosity, and the desire to figure him out. The more Ouma showed himself off to his classmates, by either telling them of his top secret criminal organization (Saihara himself tried to look for it, and try as he might, even he came up with nothing) or generally making a fuss, the more Saihara wondered if this was the person that Ouma really was.
After all, everything about his personality seemed to be… fake . The sides he showed to everyone, including Saihara himself, seemed to be built on lie on lie, so much so that Ouma had purposefully blurred the lines between honesty and fib in his own person. Saihara didn’t understand why he chose to do this: why he’d purposefully make it difficult for others to reach his true self.
It wasn’t an obsession thing or anything, just something he tended to think about when he knew the topic of lesson already. Ouma sat the next row over, three seats in front of him, so Saihara always had a clear view of the back of his head. That’s when the wondering starts. And, plus, it’s not like he hadn’t made contact with Ouma at all: in fact, when he wasn’t harassing anybody, Ouma seemed to be naturally drawn to Saihara.
Although they weren’t friends that hung out every single day (Saihara’s best friend was still Kaede, although, she had recently started to stray off into her own group: two girls from different classes, a pop star and a musician. This didn’t mean she totally left Saihara abandoned, and instead gave Saihara the proper amount of solitude while still feeling included), it wasn’t too much of an uncommon sight to see the two together. Saihara couldn’t muster up the courage to shoo Ouma away, and by the time he had enough courage, he had already deciphered how Ouma would react to such a command.
So there wasn’t any point in shaking him off.
It wasn’t also as if their relationship was entirely harasser and harassed, like many of Ouma’s relationships with his classmates. Ouma still pulled pranks on Saihara, still pestered him and still bothered him his lies, but it was noticeably to a less degree than with Kiibo or Yumeno. Maybe it was because he was his first “friend”, or maybe it was because of another reason. He asked Ouma, one afternoon.
“It’s because my beloved Saihara-chan is different,” Ouma cooed, and Saihara couldn’t help but fidget over the nickname. Over the course of them getting to know one another and hanging out, Ouma had picked up the cutesy nickname, which set others ablaze when heard. Saihara had to always explain it was just a nickname and they were not each other’s soulmates. “You’re not as boring as everyone else. And that’s not a lie.”
Saihara didn’t push it further than that, but it was certainly interested knowledge. What exactly made him different compared to everyone else? The way he acted? Was it his patience with Ouma? Or his understanding, perhaps? He agreed with the hypothesis that Ouma was simply amused by his personality: he wasn’t one to lead to angry remarks like Miu or Yumeno, nor was he overly innocent about it like Gonta was. Kiibo was another individual that Saihara could compare himself to… but he was very well a robot, and his reactions was just as calculating as Ouma’s lies.
Still… was that really what made him special? His personality? He attempted to find some sort of greater motive for Ouma’s odd clinginess towards him, but all of his leads led to an inevitable dead end, especially backed by all of Ouma’s lying. He was simply too difficult to decipher, but part of his desire to live up to the Ultimate Detective was the figure out even the most difficult cases. Kokichi Ouma was his most difficult yet.
“Why do you wear that emo hat all the time, Saihara-chan?” Ouma questioned as the two sat beside each other in the classroom. It was late February, and the weather outside was still significantly cold.
“I just like it,” Saihara simply put. “It’s like asking why you wear that scarf all the time, even when it’s hot. Plus, a hat works with both heat and cold…”
Ouma stuck out his tongue as a response, but quickly made a move for his head right after, snatching the headwear from it’s place, “Whoops! Now it’s not on your emo head!”
“H-Hey, give that back!” Saihara cried, the newfound chill on his skull sending a shiver to his body. Surprisingly, Ouma didn’t run -- instead, he stayed put where he was, standing in front of the desk that Saihara was sitting in before standing up, assuming Ouma would run off with his precious headwear.
It was then he realized Ouma had never really observed his face and hair. Sure, he took it off during PE, but everyone was so busied with their performance (and the pain) that it was difficult to notice somebody else during the duration. Ouma’s face crept into a smile, “Saihara-chan! You look a lot less emo now!”
“Thanks…? Please give my hat back,” Saihara pleaded, and Ouma’s mischievous grin filled his visage as he then sprinted to the window, hastily pulled it open, and threw Saihara’s hat out. Saihara was only seconds too late. “M-MY HAT!”
“Goodbye, Hat of Death!” Ouma laughed, as he watched Saihara mumble despair under his breath and sigh, as he began to make his way to the exit of the classroom. “Saihara-chan! Where are you going?”
“To get my hat back!” Saihara responded, head feeling exposed for all to see. He continued onwards, but Ouma quickly reeled him back in with the swift grab of his hand.
“No. That hat’s ugly. Leave it! I-”
Before Ouma could finish his sentence, a strong, electrical shock that seemingly originated from his fingers rung throughout Saihara’s body, which caused him to jerk away from Ouma’s touch. Ouma must have felt it too, as he recoiled in the unexpected pain.
“Yowchie! What was that?” Ouma questioned. “Saihara-chan… did you perhaps… prank me ? Nishishi~ wow, I didn’t even realize you had a buzzer on your hand!”
Saihara blinked, “Ouma, I don’t have a buzzer on me.”
“You don’t…?” Ouma repeated, genuinely confused. There was a silence that settled between them -- an odd, awkward, yet genuine silence. It was in that moment that Saihara really got a good look at Ouma’s eyes: round, and purple, and really, it was a child’s eyes. Saihara coughed, then, realizing if this gone any longer, it would turn awkward.
“It was… probably just the static. C’mon… let’s just go get my hat.” Still entranced by what had happened, Ouma silently nodded, obviously thinking.
The both of them knew there was nothing in their proximity that could have possibly caused them both such a large shock.