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“We’ll see you after break, Saihara-kun!” Kaede called out, flashing Shuichi the biggest smile she could muster.
“Later, Saihara!” Kaito chimed in, walking backwards out of the classroom. “Make sure you eat, even if we’re not here to force you!”
“Bye,” Maki mumbled, tone as aloof as usual.
Looking up from his desk, Shuichi waved as the three of exited the classroom. “See you later, guys,” he replied.
Now alone, Shuichi gathered his books together and tossed them into his school bag. Once all of his stuff was packed up again, he pulled out a few hundred-yen coins, counting to make sure that he had enough to buy lunch.
Confirming that it was sufficient, Shuichi walked out of the classroom, ignoring the phantom stares glued to the back of his head. Nobody knew that he was alone, and nobody was mocking him behind his back, he assured himself. Even still, he wished he could cover his face with the hat that was no longer there.
He waited in a line for the vending machine, tapping his foot absentmindedly. His gaze trailed out the window, where he stayed at the clouds that had been slowly rolling in all day. An impatient cleared throat from behind signalled that he’d zoned out for too long. Shuichi mumbled apologies under his breath, purchased some shrink-wrapped buns, and shoved them into his pocket. He stumbled away from the vending machine, doing his best to hide his face.
All three of his friends had a committee meeting this period, leaving him all alone. Rather than sit in his classroom or wallow in the cafeteria, he found himself walking towards the end of there hall. It was the spot he used to spend all of his time before he’d made friends. He stopped in front of a nondescript door that led to the roof.
He’d been so desperate to get away from everyone some months ago since he was unable to control his anxiety from stares that weren’t even there. But the bathroom was far too obvious, and he’d needed somewhere to be better hidden away. It didn’t take much investigation for him to realize where the key was hidden back then, and with any luck, it would still be in the same place.
After making sure there was nobody in sight, Shuichi turned towards the door, pointedly ignoring the Do Not Enter sign. He ran his hand along the wall until he found the fake tile, which stood out like an important object in an old Disney movie. Shuichi pulled the tile out, revealing the hidden crevice that held the key to the roof. He smiled at it as if it were a long lost friend, then shoved it into the lock.
Once he’d entered the staircase, he felt himself let out a long sigh. He loved his friends, he really did, but having this moment of free time to himself was such a relaxing respite from daily life. Perhaps there was one redeeming quality to his isolation from back then. Of course, he wouldn’t want to go back to those lonely, anxious days for anything, so he decided he was better off with his noisy buddies.
Shuichi opened the metal door at the top of the staircase, trying his best not to make much noise, just in case anyone should find him out. Even if he was a privileged Ultimate, he was sure that Hope’s Peak had rules just as strict as any other school for trespassing.
It was an overcast day, with dark gray clouds zigzagging across a lighter gray sky. Though a deluge seemed imminent, the air hadn’t yet grown humid. Despite the terrible weather, he’d noticeably relaxed, feeling the tension in his muscles loosen. He allowed the cool breeze to ruffle his hair and soothe his heart.
Only once he took another step further did he realize that someone was there already. His heart caught in his throat, and he worried that perhaps some form of school administration accompanied him. But he realized quickly that it was a student, thanks to the figure wearing the school’s uniform and the diminutive frame that couldn’t possibly belong to an adult.
The student’s hair sticking up in all of the wrong places and haphazardly streaked with purple. The small kid with distinct hair could be nobody else but his classmate, Kokichi Ouma. That kid was the annoying pest of a class clown that nobody liked. He was all bark and even more bite. He regularly shouted obscenities and pulled so many pranks that the students had started keeping score of how much shit he pulled weekly.
Though he had quite a reputation as a troublemaker, he’d never bothered Shuichi before. Shuichi recalled a few instances when Kokichi had caught his gaze during one of the teacher’s lectures, then flashed him a grin. He always gave him smiles that were nauseatingly sweet, giving him the impression of mockery rather than authenticity. Yet those smiles were nothing like the menacing grins and the smug smirks that he always wore, and something in Shuichi wanted to pretend that they were friendly.
Deep down, Shuichi knew that the class clown would never be friendly to him and only him. He was the boy who’d hidden his face until forced out of his shell by the friendliest people in the class, the kid whose talent was shared with a far superior upperclassman—he was just plain old Shuichi Saihara. And with his self-defeatist nature getting the best of him, he’d never bothered to question Kokichi and ask, hey, what’s with the smiles?
It didn’t stop him from waving to him in the hallway, much to the chagrin of his group of friends. They felt the same about Kokichi as everyone else did, which was to say, they were annoyed him at best, and hated him at worst.
Despite whatever preconceived notions Shuichi and his friends had of Kokichi, he’d never judged him too harshly. There was always reason behind action, he’d learned after enough lessons with his uncle, so he could never form a definite opinion about anyone, let alone this one kid. There was a lot that he didn’t know about Kokichi. But the one thing that Shuichi knew for sure? Sitting on the rooftop in silence was completely out of character for him. If he didn’t know any better, he would think this was a precursor to a suicide attempt.
Kokichi’s cackling laughter echoed in Shuichi’s head, the same laugh that he’d laughed when he had stolen Kaito’s backpack and threw it out the window, the same one that he gave when he had poured ink all over the teacher’s seat. The troublemaker always had problems keeping quiet throughout an entire class period, but now he was completely hushed. He looked pensive, even.
There was a hole in the roof’s chain link fence that had been there since day one, posing such an extreme safety hazard, though of course the school would never use its funds to fix it. Kokichi had worked himself through the hole, and his legs were dangling precariously off the side of the roof. He was so small that Shuichi worried a strong wind would blow and knock his tiny frame straight off the side of the building, leading him to an untimely and gruesome demise. Seriously, was he trying to die?
Why would Kokichi, notorious loudmouth and annoyance, brush with death by sitting at the edge of their five-story school building in complete isolation? There was something off about it, but he couldn’t pin down just what part of it nagged at him.
Shuichi was scared to say anything, not wanting to disturb the peace. In his ideal fantasy, he’d sit right next to Kokichi, offer him a smile, and eat his food in quiet accompaniment. But he knew if he snuck up on him, Kokichi could be so frightened out of his wits that’d he fall off the building. If he managed to survive the fright, Kokichi would be so pissed that he would put pins on the bottom of Shuichi’s indoor shoes later.
Was it too late to back out? If he just never spoke of this again, he was sure that Kokichi would never find out. Kokichi hadn’t even noticed yet. He was so absorbed in idly kicking his legs against the building and gazing at the dreary skyline.
Maybe he could store this secret moment away in his mind. Kokichi wasn’t the troublemaker that he pretended to be. There was something else to him, something deep and real that he kept hidden away from the world. Shuichi couldn’t help but want to crack him open and expose him. That was definitely the detective in him speaking, because the fear in him said he should hightail it out of here.
Shuichi fought himself on what to do, whether to stay or go, whether to approach or abscond, not even realizing that he had zoned out entirely. He didn’t notice Kokichi throwing his arms up in a stretch, nor did he notice how Kokichi caught sight of him in his peripheral vision, and he most certainly didn’t notice Kokichi stand up and start walking towards him.
The boy sauntered right in front of him, grabbed Shuichi’s collar, and jammed their faces close together, jolting him straight out of his internal conflict. Shuichi couldn’t remember if he’d ever been this close to someone before, and their noses were about to touch. Just that realization made his face grow hot.
“I-I’m sorry,” Shuichi stammered, though he had no clue what he was apologizing for. Watching him without consent, maybe? But that wasn’t a crime. Even still, the display of humanity that he’d caught sight of felt like a secret, and he couldn’t help but feel guilty that he had been watching for so long.
“Shuichi Saihara, right?” Kokichi asked, the name rolling off of his tongue smoothly, as if it were a well-rehearsed mantra he repeated every night. His violet eyes bored right into Shuichi.
“You know me?”
Everyone in school knew about Kokichi, but Shuichi mainly kept to his small group of friends. Throughout their school career, he had caught no attention (except for when grades were posted, since he frequently made top marks). Even if they were in the same class, he didn’t expect the infamous school nuisance to know who he was.
“Of course I know you,” he said, letting out a long, exasperated sigh. His voice still didn’t hold the playful venom it normally oozed with. The mischievous part of him still struggled to rear its head, and Shuichi still felt like he was privy to the pensive boy sitting at the edge of the rooftop.
“I was just leaving,” Shuichi said, placing a hand on the one that restrained him.
Kokichi looked down at his hand with a blank expression; Shuichi could feel the coldness from his skin seeping into his palm. Maybe his hand was warming Kokichi’s up, or maybe Kokichi was shocked by contact from the unassertive boy. Either way, he must have wanted his hand there, because he didn’t move it away.
“Yeah. You were, weren’t you?” Kokichi asked. “No, I already know that you were lying. You must’ve just gotten here. I doubt someone as obvious as you could’ve stayed silent for so long.”
“I…”
“It doesn’t matter if you were leaving or not, anyway,” Kokichi drawled, eyes rolling in their sockets, until he stopped and cast his gaze towards the hole in the fence. “You’ve seen too much.”
What was this, a crime scene? But the words held weight, like Kokichi was containing an ungodly firy beneath this air of apathy he’d plastered himself with. He couldn’t help but be convinced that, yes, he’d seen far too much, and he had something over Kokichi that the other boy didn’t want him to know.
“I guess we’ll have to keep this a secret between the two of us, right?”
Kokichi touched a single finger against Shuichi’s lips as if to silence him, though the pressure wasn’t nearly enough to make him go quiet. But the cold contact was jolting, like someone had pressed an ice cube against his face.
“You won’t tell a soul that you saw me here,” he said quietly. “Right, my beloved?”
His voice cracking from embarrassment, he stammered, “I won’t?”
Even as he said it, Shuichi knew that his confused response was the wrong answer, and he bit down on his lip with immediate regret. And that, too, spurred more regret, because Kokichi’s finger was still against his lips, and he probably thought that Shuichi was trying to lick his finger away. Whatever Kokichi thought, he retracted his finger, narrowing his eyes at Shuichi.
“Well, should my command be ignored, a disaster beyond your imagination will occur,” he replied in a flat, bored tone.
It was such a heavy threat coming from such a small boy, made all the more comical by the serious, deep tone he was forcing. But there was something about Kokichi that was so undeniably commanding; Shuichi couldn’t help but be convinced that this boy could single-handedly cause a catastrophe. Kokichi wasn’t just a class clown or a simple troublemaker, he was chaos contained within the unassuming guise of a little boy. Was he digging too deeply into this, or was his anxiety clouding his deductive reasoning?
Shuichi swallowed down his fear. Unfortunately, that did not stop the hammering in his chest, and it certainly didn’t dry the sweat from his clammy palms.
“I think I know how to keep you silent.”
“No, you don’t need to do anything,” Shuichi insisted, trying to put distance between the two of them. “I’m not going to tell anyone, I promise. I’d get in trouble myself, and it’s really not that big—”
Though Shuichi was the perfect person to manipulate, far too passive to be of any threat, Kokichi needed to neutralize even the smallest problem.
Kokichi pressed his lips against Shuichi’s, coaxing the words out of his mouth. His protests faded into a little hum in the back of his throat, then finally died out as he yielded to Kokichi. His kiss was commanding, warning, a heated demand that Shuichi couldn’t deny. It eased into something gentler, and Shuichi didn’t know how this chaste kiss could convey so much information about someone. There was a message conveyed in that kiss, his intuition told him that. Kokichi wasn’t shutting him up, rather, he was trying to tell him something.
But before Shuichi could translate it, Kokichi stepped back. Aware of how flushed his face was, Shuichi straightened himself up. He was as much of a liar as Kokichi, because he shoved down the realization that he’d reciprocated, and further smothered that part of him screaming that it had ended far too soon.
Kokichi’s unexpected method of silencing lit an unfamiliar spark in Shuichi’s stomach. The fleeting glimpses exchanged in their classroom now seemed like they’d been in code, and he’d never bothered to decrypt them. Was there something here, or was it just in his head, like everything always was?
“You should stay away from me,” Kokichi said, tone lighter than that he’d used for the previous threats. His tension had been steadily dropping, and yet it seemed like Kokichi was once more ill at ease.
As if to throw off Shuichi’s obvious scrutinization, Kokichi waltzed backwards, his steps unplanned and wobbly. He almost teetered into dangerous territory, going too close to the hole in the railing. Shuichi thought he might slip and fall like he’d originally intended, and the muscles in his legs readied themselves should he need to dart out and save him. But Kokichi knew exactly where he was walking, as he veered into a sharp turn at the very step that could have sent him tumbling over the edge.
He circled around Shuichi, slow like a predator, then dashed towards the metal door. There was something enticing about the way he traced his fingers over the doorknob. It stirred up even more confusing feelings in the pit of Shuichi’s stomach, and no longer could he distinguish any of his own emotions from one another.
“If you catch me doing anything else, I might have to silence you for good.”
Kokichi’s eyes narrowed, both threat and promise evident in his lavender gaze. But then he flashed Shuichi a wink before his entire mysterious facade dropped. A spring jolted in his steps all of a sudden as he bounced up and down on the heels of his feet.
“Juuust kidding!” he cackled. “Wow, you really fell for the mysterious boy on the roof thing, didn’t you?”
He had swapped out his personality, and now he was back to the bouncy, loudmouthed classmate that Shuichi was used to. Shuichi had been expecting this, though that didn’t stop how unsettling the abruptness was. Kokichi had played him like a fiddle, then cut all of his strings.
“For the Ultimate Detective, you’re really gullible,” Kokichi mocked, sneering at him.
It wasn’t a change he was glad to see, but it was almost a relief. This whole interaction felt much too heavy, and he didn’t know what to make of it until now. If it were just a prank, that made far more sense, even if it hurt.
“I’ve been up here every day hoping someone as easy to trick as you would come here, you know,” Kokichi continued, rambling as Shuichi stayed silent and tried to get his thoughts in order. “That was so funny! You should’ve seen the look on your face!”
Was it just a mask that he’d put up so he could indulge in his brooding, or was that actually another side of him that was just never on display? There was no way to know, though the question nagged at him like an itch.
“Silencing you with a kiss? Isn’t that cliche? But I thought it was really funny,” he said. “Didn’t you, Saihara-chan? Didn’t you? Huh? Huh?”
Shuichi didn’t remember giving Kokichi permission to use such a childish, overly affectionate honorific with his name. Though it was incredibly rude, and he knew that Kokichi had to be mocking him, he couldn’t help but find it terribly endearing. He wanted to hear Kokichi call his name out again, but he stifled that thought the moment it popped into his head, embarrassed to even think it.
“Actually, now that I think about it, it probably wasn’t that funny to you. ’Cus you even kissed me back!”
He spoke like they’d been fighting a battle, and Shuichi’s reciprocation was admittance of defeat.
“I bet I stole your first kiss.”
Kokichi had unfortunately hit the nail right on the head, and even if he was bluffing, the redness spreading across Shuichi’s cheeks would give him away instantly. His tone was friendly, and Shuichi couldn’t tell if he was trying to gloat or make light of what he’d done.
With an impish grin, Kokichi cooed, “But it was really bad. You don’t have a clue how to kiss!”
“Oh, but that’s a lie, isn’t it?” Shuichi ventured.
Kokichi burst into a round of laughter once again, and once he’d caught his breath, he replied, “Trying to preserve your pride by accusing me of lying, huh? Not a bad tactic, since I am a liar, after all. But that was the truth! I’d know because I’ve kissed thousands of people before. Yours had to be the absolute worst.”
“Ouma-kun…”
Once he’d settled from his fit of laughter, his demeanor shifted back to something more detached. Shuichi did not miss his momentary lapse in composition. “You really shouldn’t be going to the rooftop anyway, Saihara-chan! It’s pretty dangerous.”
“You’re one to be talking.”
“You could fall and crack open your pretty head like a watermelon. Or you could get in a whole lot of trouble! I’m sure you wouldn’t want either of those things to happen and smear your record, neither with blood nor ill repute, Mr. Honors Student.”
Knowing that was true, he faltered, failing to come up with a response. The boy in front of him took it as a sign to wrap up their conversation. His fingers curled around the doorknob, ready to make his dashing escape at any moment.
“But worst of all? You could run into me.”
With that comment—equal parts playful and ominous—hanging in the air, Kokichi let out another round of raucous laughter. Metal frame scraped against rusting hinges, and the door creaked in protest of its cruel treatment.
“This was soo fun, but I have to get back to class now. Bye-bye!”
He waved enthusiastically at Shuichi before darting back into the building. The door slammed behind him, once more groaning from the abuse.
Shuichi stared at where Kokichi had been standing. The rooftop had always been his place to be alone, but now that he was by himself, he felt incredibly lonely. He backpedaled away, tearing his gaze from the empty space, and walked out onto the roof, like he had originally intended. But his feet led him away from his normal spot.
Shuichi sat himself next to the gap in the fence where Kokichi had been sitting, though he wasn’t daring enough to hang his legs over the edge. Gripping furiously onto the chain links, Shuichi gazed down to the ground. This was the very sight Kokichi had been looking upon.
Despite the impending tumultuous weather and the dark haze it cast, the view was gorgeous. Shuichi didn’t even bother to pull out his phone and snap a picture, because he knew it wouldn’t compare to this. So he saved it in his mind, filing this snapshot right next to the one of Kokichi sitting, legs dangling over the edge, looking quiet and forlorn.
(Behind those two he shoved the picture of Kokichi growing closer to his faces, eyes wide and lips parted ever-so-slightly. He made sure to keep that one deep in the recesses of his mind, because thinking back on it too long made him feel so strange and he couldn’t place why.)
If Kokichi really wished to dissuade him, the mask, the mocking, the kiss— that wasn’t the way to go about it. Determination replaced his confusion, and more than anything, Shuichi wanted to crack this case. Because if there was something deeper beneath that joking face he wore, Shuichi vowed that he would find it.
As he pulled out his shrink-wrapped lunch from his pocket, he stared at the hole in the fence. Shuichi hoped that there would be another meeting tomorrow. If not, then the day after. Sometime, anytime would be enough, as long as he could come back here and find Kokichi hiding out in his special place.
Their special place.