Chapter Text
“Kiibo-kun?”
Akamatsu’s voice registered with him. Kiibo sheepishly closed his notebook as he looked up to lock eyes with the Ultimate Pianist.
“I was wondering if I could ask a favour of you as the class representative.”
The gentle smile on her face was no match for the wide grin that appeared on Kiibo’s face at being asked that question. It wasn’t every day that Akamatsu came to ask a favour of him!
“Of course!” Kiibo beamed. “Ask me anything. I will be happy to help as long as your request falls within my capabilities.”
Akamatsu put her hands together, signalling with her body language that was she was about to ask Kiibo something she couldn’t just ask anyone. “You might have noticed that Ouma-kun is absent today. Tsumiki-san told me that he is terribly ill, this time for real… it seems. I wanted to ask you to visit him today to see how he is doing and to share your notes with him.”
Of course, Kiibo had noticed Ouma’s absence. He hadn’t known this peace since arriving at Hope’s Peak Academy. In just a few months’ time, he had been dubbed Ouma’s favourite punching bag. A metaphorical punching bag, that is. The one time Ouma had punched him to surprise him, the Ultimate Supreme Leader had exposed Kiibo to some rather foul language.
“I suppose… I could…..” Kiibo mumbled, his gaze settling on Ouma’s empty desk at the front of the classroom. Ouma had been moved there recently so that the teachers could keep a better eye on him. It wasn’t an improvement. If anything he was more of a headache in the front than in the back. “Why ask me?”
Akamatsu’s smile wavered slightly as she thought of the best way to put her thoughts into words.
“You’re the only one who could be around him and not get sick also. I would greatly appreciate it if you could go, but if you’re not feeling like it I will go instead.”
Ah… Of course. Kiibo would be lying if he said that explanation didn’t hurt a little. Akamatsu was right. Whatever virus Ouma had come down with would have no effect on Kiibo. Asking him to do this favour was the obvious choice, but it would have been nice if Akamatsu had needed him for something else than his inhumanity.
“Alright. I shall pay him a visit after class.”
“Thank you so much, Kiibo-kun.”
Akamatsu offered him one last smile before she turned around and rejoined the girls. All of them were having lunch together, discussing things Kiibo had no knowledge off as they traded cutely cut bento box food items with each other. Even Harukawa, who had kept her distance in the beginning, was quietly sitting with the other girls during lunch. Kiibo detected a hint of a smile on her face as Akamatsu came to sit next to her again.
The boys were more evenly spread through the classroom during lunch break. Momota had moved his desk together with Saihara’s and was loudly talking about his future plans as Saihara nodded and chewed thoughtfully. Gokuhara and Hoshi were also sitting together, but their conversation wasn’t intelligible over the other conversations in the classroom. If Kiibo had to guess what their conversation was about, however, he would say they were probably talking about the tiny ladybug sitting happily on the tip of Gokuhara’s massive pinkie.
Shinguji was sitting alone. This was mostly to blame on the fact that Amami was abroad at the moment. Not that the Ultimate Anthropologist seemed to mind having no conversation partner. Just like Kiibo he was observing the others, although Shinguji clearly was avoiding looking at him. Shinguji’s disinterest in Kiibo had been apparent to him from day one.
With nobody paying Kiibo any mind (not even Iruma as she was in the middle of “voring” her lunch as she would say, whatever that meant), Kiibo was left alone with the scribbles in his notebook. He glanced once more at Ouma’s empty desk before he opened his notebook on the last page. Resting his head on the palm of his hand he looked over his drawings. The Ultimate Artist talent rightfully belonged to Yonaga and not to him. Still, if you were to squint and use just a little bit of imagination, you would be able to tell that Kiibo had been drawing different designs for himself.
This wasn’t to say he wasn’t fond of his current design. This was the body his creator, Professor Idabashi, had given him after all! Even so, Kiibo hoped he would have a say in what his next body should look like when he would come to outgrow his current body mentally. His mind wandered and lunch break was over before he knew it.
After class Kiibo headed to Ouma’s room in the dorms as promised. He shook his head before reluctantly knocking on Ouma’s door. To his surprise, the door wasn’t locked and his knocking made it swing open slightly.
“Ouma-kun? Akamatsu asked me to share my notes with you. Can I come in?”
No reply came. Kiibo placed a hand on the door and opened it further carefully.
Only one word came to his mind as he saw Ouma’s room for the first time. HOARDER. No matter where Kiibo looked, Ouma’s room was filled with junk. Papers were scattered all over the floor, towers of boxes were lined along the walls and there was stuff everywhere.
At a first glance all the items in Ouma’s room seemed to be random, but as Kiibo moved further into the room and had a good look around he started connecting dots. All the different items could be associated with his classmates.
Various ‘Wish you were here!’ postcards and exotic souvenirs you wouldn’t be able to find in any ordinary tourist shop for Amami. Music sheets and what Kiibo could only assume to be a piano tuning set for Akamatsu. Leftover fabric and cosplay sketches for Shirogane and just so many more things which must have belonged to his classmates previously. He even noticed Saihara’s hat which had been lost for months. Kiibo shook his head as he picked up the hat from the floor. He didn’t know whether to be impressed or disturbed that Ouma had managed to collect all of these things.
It was only when Kiibo had walked even further inside that he noticed the whiteboard in Ouma’s room. The text ‘New members?’ was written on it with a black whiteboard marker. Familiar faces were staring back at him right underneath the text. The whiteboard was filled with pictures of his classmates, all with bullet point notes and scribbles to accompany them. A few bullet points said something positive such as ‘kind’ and ‘fun’, but most of the notes where harsh. Examples would be nicknames such as ‘depression prison man’ and ‘cum dumpster’. It took Kiibo a moment to notice, but there was no picture of himself present on the whiteboard.
Kiibo’s attention was moved away from the whiteboard when he heard some movement behind him. He turned around and noticed the Ouma shaped form under the covers of the bed. Reminding himself of why he was here in the first place he approached Ouma. After seeing the state of this room he also had some questions for him he would like to have answered.
However, Kiibo had failed to notice the carefully laid out trap in the mess. After to have taken three more steps forward his right foot got stuck on something. When he looked down he noticed an invisible hanging wire stretched tightly around his foot.
Three simultaneous clicking sounds above him made him look up. Three hair blowers hung from the ceiling, each of them having a paint roller frame stuck to it with duct tape. Instead of a foam roll, all of these paint rollers had a roll of toilet paper slid on. Kiibo had only a fraction of a second to look at the trap he had set off because the now turned on hair blowers started blowing what felt like a never-ending supply of toilet paper at him.
Kiibo held up his hands defencelessly and yelped as he was assaulted. He thought of retreating, but his fear of activation more traps had him frozen to the spot. Only once he was thoroughly buried under a pile of toilet paper the hair blowers were turned off and a horse like laugh registered with him instead.
“Nee-heehee. Robots can’t even see through the most obvious traps, huh? I expected better from you at least, Kiiboy.”
Ouma’s sharp laugh returned but was quickly replaced by a bad cough. Kiibo moved all the toilet paper out of the way as best as he could and saw a slightly hunched over Supreme Leader in the middle of a coughing fit. The dark circles under Ouma’s eyes also did a lot to reinforce the idea that he was very sick. Ouma sniffled once his coughing fit was finally over and then turned his attention to his uninvited visitor.
“Did you come here to laugh at me?”
“Huh?” Kiibo momentarily stopped untangling himself from the toilet paper pile at the sudden accusation. “N-No! I wouldn’t do that… although you are pretty mean to me.”
Kiibo had expected Ouma to bring on the fake tears and call him a bully, but all he received was a half-hearted shrug. This seemed like the perfect time to tell Ouma what he was here for. Kiibo would have told him at that moment if there hadn’t been more pressing things on his mind. Kiibo managed to step out of the toilet paper pile and disapprovingly pointed at their surroundings.
“Why did you steal all this stuff?!”
“Whhhaaaatttt? Why are you accusing me? I didn’t steal anything.”
Kiibo held up Saihara’s hat, his expression unchanging. Ouma put his hands behind his head nonchalantly and smiled.
“It’s ugly. I did us all a favour.”
Taking Ouma’s comment to heart, Kiibo looked at the hat in his hand before tossing it aside into the toilet paper pile.
It was then that he managed to take a better look at what Ouma was wearing. Instead of his usual unusual outfit, he was wearing a grey fleece shirt with a slightly opened shark mouth in the middle of his chest and a horizontally striped white and grey fleece pants. The shirt was a bit too big for him, which even Kiibo could admit made for an endearing sight.
“You’re in your pyjamas,” Kiibo commented, causing Ouma to roll his eyes.
“Well, duh. I was sleeping until you barged in here. Didn’t they teach you any manners?”
“My creator raised me, but anything he didn’t teach me is self-taught as I’m a hyper-advanced artificial intelligence.”
“Figures. So what the hell did you want?”
Kiibo flinched at the curse word thrown into that sentence before opening his black, fake leather shoulder bag and taking his notebook out. Neither of them was going to like this, Kiibo thought. Akamatsu would need a lot more than just her smile to talk him into this next time.
With his notebook pressed to his chest, Kiibo watched his feet closely as he made his way over to Ouma. The few centimetres Kiibo had on Ouma became more apparent now that they were standing close to each other like this. Ouma’s face was unreadable as Kiibo offered him his notebook.
“Akamatsu-san wanted me to share my notes with you. We should go over the subject matters which were explained today together.”
Ouma was quick to take Kiibo’s notebook from him and even quicker to flip through all the pages. Ouma’s eyes went over Kiibo’s notes so hastily that Kiibo wondered if he was actually reading any of them at all. The Ultimate Supreme Leader soon arrived at perfectly blank pages, but that didn’t stop him from flipping further through the notebook. It was only once Ouma arrived at the last page and stared at it for a few moments too long that Kiibo remembered there was something in that notebook he didn’t want anyone to see.
“D-Don’t look at that!” Kiibo blurted out, already reaching for his notebook to take it back. His drawings! How could he have forgotten about his sketches for a new design?!
Ouma must have foreseen Kiibo’s sudden outburst because he closed the notebook and effortlessly danced out of Kiibo’s way. He used the notebook to hide the lower half of his face and a smug smile along with it. “Heeeh? I thought you were supposed to share your notes with me? You break my heart Kiiboy, really. Although I suppose you won’t understand such things as a heartless metal man.”
Kiibo wasn’t able to formulate any kind of reply Ouma wouldn’t make fun of in this flustered state. Saving himself some extra embarrassment, Kiibo didn’t speak as he tried to take his notebook back again. However, even while being severely sick Ouma was still too fast for him. Their strange cat and mouse chase went on for a few moments before Kiibo accepted his defeat.
“Given the circumstance… I will allow you to copy my notes, but I will need that notebook back.”
There were stars in Ouma’s eyes as he jumped off his bed and landed in front of Kiibo. The Ultimate Supreme Leader stood on his toes and brought their faces way closer to each other than Kiibo was comfortable with.
“It will be in mint condition when I return it to you tomorrow. I promise.”
Kiibo had learnt quickly that any promises Ouma made should be taken with a grain of salt. As such he figured he would probably get his notebook back, but its condition would be a surprise. “Fine.”
Despite just having promised that Kiibo’s notebook would be alright, Ouma tossed it at his cluttered desk. Kiibo frowned and opened his mouth to say something when a high-pitched sneeze suddenly escaped Ouma. His whole body shuddered as the sneezes kept coming. Kiibo watched him with concern and mild curiosity.
Ouma stared at Kiibo with tired eyes once he finally managed to stop sneezing. He sniffled and wiped his nose on the end of his sleeve before weakly gesturing at the door. “You can go now.”
“But what about–”
“Just go,” Ouma interrupted him, sounding irritated.
There were many more questions Kiibo had wanted to ask (especially about the contents of Ouma’s room), but now that Ouma was telling him to leave he had no more reason to stay. He simply nodded before turning on his heel and heading for the door. He could hear Ouma shuffle about behind him, but Kiibo didn’t look back.
“Get well soon…?” Kiibo said in a hushed voice. A groan came from under the covers of Ouma’s bed before Kiibo closed the door behind him.
The next day Kiibo found his notebook on his desk in mint condition. Or, well, it was in mint condition in one sense of the word.
“Wh-What the hell?!” Iruma loudly proclaimed, pinching her nose with one hand and picking up Kiibo’s notebook by a corner of its cover with the other. “The fuck did you do to this?!”
“Ah, Iruma-san!”
Kiibo immediately rose from his chair and he snatched his notebook from her hands. An overwhelming mint odour came from the notebook, which arguably was the worst if you could detect smell via your hands and you were currently holding it. Kiibo dropped the notebook on his desk again and waved his hands to get the smell off them.
“Please don’t touch it. I lent it to Ouma-kun yesterday and I don’t know what has happened to it since then.”
A look of disgust crossed Iruma’s face before shifting to a look of disinterest. “Pipsqueak huh? Keh! He thought he could spray this with a mint refresher and have it last? Miss me with that weak shit. I would have built–”
“Ouma-kun isn’t here at the moment, but please don’t give him any ideas,” Kiibo begged, afraid that the Ultimate Supreme Leader was somehow listening in on this conversation. Now that he thought about it, how had his notebook mysterious made it to his desk in the first place if Ouma was still sick in bed? “Did anyone see Ouma-kun?”
“Gonta asked to bring notebook, but he not make notebook smell bad. Gonta promise!”
It wouldn’t be the first time Ouma made Gokuhara go on errands. Kiibo had often wondered if he should warn Gokuhara about Ouma’s intentions, but if he was honest with himself he didn’t even know what those intentions were. At least Gokuhara seemed to enjoy himself while helping Ouma out.
“I believe you, Gokuhara-kun,” Kiibo said apologetically.
A familiar tune played to signal the start of their first class, abruptly ending their conversation. Everyone went to their seats and their teacher began calling out names to write down today’s attendance.
The mint smell quickly wore off, as Iruma had predicted, which made handling his notebook a lot easier. Fearing what he would find inside, Kiibo carefully flipped through the whole thing. He had expected to find vulgar comments or, even worse, his notes scribbled out, but other than the assault on his sense of smell he found nothing strange. That was until he arrived at the second to last page.
Kiibo “blinked” as he stared at the page. On it, there was a pencil sketch… of him. The drawing wasn’t exactly accurate, but the additional notes Ouma had written down on the design helped to sketch the image in Kiibo’s mind.
Essentially the design was similar to Kiibo’s current one with a few upgrades and gadgets added. The things which stood out the most to him were the jetpack on his back and the laser gun for his right arm. There were also lasers coming out of his eyes which seemed like a bit of an over-kill, but the comment ‘pew pew pew!’ next to them made Kiibo think that he shouldn’t take that feature too seriously.
Underneath the big sketch were a few more random scribbles and the text: ‘you will never be a real boy so try being a robot instead’. Kiibo wasn’t quite sure why, but reading that… hurt. A real boy or a robot… Couldn’t he be both? He was a robot and he was incurably proud of that, but at the same time, he was a person.
“Are you still with us, Kiibo?” his teacher addressed him directly.
Flustered, Kiibo closed his notebook and started paying attention. “Y-Yes! My apologies.”
The teacher gave him a single nod of approval before turning back to the board and continuing her explanation. He carefully opened his notebook again on the second to last page. There was one last comment he hadn’t noticed before he got interrupted. Upon reading it his gears started turning.
‘this one doesn’t need a dick’.