Chapter Text
Kiibo watched with interest shimmering in his artificial blue eyes as Amami… sat in his swivel chair. Well- perhaps ‘sat’ isn’t the right word. He has his knees on the floor, stomach and chest perched over the seat so that his arms and head hung down on the other side, pink-covered book held firmly in his hands. It was a miracle his reading glasses hadn’t fallen off yet. The robot may not have known much of what comfort is, but he was almost positive that the other’s position didn’t look even the least bit comfortable.
“Rantaro, please be careful. That’s not how chairs were meant to be used,” he hummed nervously from his cross-legged position on the bed. The chair wiggled when Amami laughed his soft, carefree laugh.
“Relax, I’m not going to hurt myself with the chair.”
The statement did little to quell his worries but he chose to let it go for now. It wasn’t worth arguing over, and he hadn’t come here to fight with Amami.
The green-haired boy slowly shifted so that he was sitting in the chair correctly and spun around to face Kiibo with a smile. There was some sort of constant, lingering charm about Amami that kept Kiibo constantly flustered, and he ducked away to attempt and hide the red blossoming across his metal skin.
Amami’s dorm room was nicely decorated, with plenty of photographs of their classmates taped on the walls, a handful of those cheap dollar store valentine’s bears scattered around, and a shelf full of travel souvenirs he’d collected. The other half of the room was a lot less cluttered, mostly filled with book shelves and a laptop desk, and it took Kiibo several silent seconds to remember that his room mate was Saihara.
“Does it bother Shuichi when you have your girlfriend over?” he asked and fixed his eyes on the photos. They were all the instantly developed type, with the white strip at the bottom, but none of them had any captions written on them. The longer he looked at the wall of photos, the more unfamiliar faces he noticed. Surely they were Amami’s past girlfriends?
And yet- his question was greeted with confused laughter and a raised eyebrow. “I don’t have a girlfriend, Kiibo,” the other mused, “what gave you that impression?”
“My apologies! I simply made an assumption. I noticed you have a surplus of what looks like valentine’s day trinkets, and many of these photos contain girls I’ve never met before. It seemed likely they were remnants of old relationships.” The sheets ruffled beneath Kiibo as he moved to hang his legs off the side of the bed.
Amami shrugged and lifted himself off the chair, dog-earing his page before sitting on the bed a mere inches away. Their hands were close enough that they brushed together for a second. “I always get things from girls on Valentine’s Day, and I’m not going to waste their gifts, but I don’t return the affections.” He seemed to think a moment before adding, “you see that blue beanie baby next to my lamp?”
Kiibo nodded. His lamp looked odd, with some circular wooden base and a rope coil, and one day he’d ask about it, but not right now. The aforementioned beanie baby was a small navy blue bear flopped against the weird lamp base.
“Shuichi got that for me last year. He looked about to flee if I so much as breathed wrong, and I think he was ready to cry when I told him I didn’t like him.” That didn’t seem right. Weren’t Amami and Saihara really close? Something like that would have altered their friendship, right?
“But you two sleep in the same room! Are things not weird between you?”
“Oh, of course things were weird, at first.” Amami tucked a lock of pale green hair behind his ear, and some of the strands caught on his many piercings. “A little crush isn’t something we were going to let ruin our friendship. We talked through it eventually, and now it’s just something we laugh about when we’re making fun of our younger selves.”
“And the girls in the pictures?”
His eyes darkened for a moment and Kiibo was about ready to open his mouth and apologize when he responded. “My sisters.” Ah. Kiibo didn’t know much about them, but he did know that it was a sore topic for Amami, and so he didn’t attempt to prod any more than he already had, instead going back to their previous topic.
“What’s it like to like somebody? As- as more than friends.”
Amami considered the question, tilting his head to the side as he thought, and bringing his fingers up to his chin in a sort of stereotypical thinking pose.
“You feel really warm and cozy around them,” he locked eyes with the robot as he spoke. “Like they’re the sun and you’re a- a cold blooded lizard who n-”
“A lizard?” Kiibo hadn’t meant to interrupt but it was… an odd analogy, to say the least. “I don’t think I want to like somebody if it makes me feel like a lizard.” Amami laughed at that and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
“Yeah… there’s a reason Fukawa’s the Ultimate Writing Prodigy and not me, and that’s the reason,” he admitted. “Just bear with me, okay? Lizards are cold blooded, and they need the sun’s warmth to keep from freezing. Imagine that you’re the lizard, the sun is the person that you like, and the sun’s warmth is any affection they return to you.”
Kiibo supposed it made some sense, put like that, but it was still confusing. “When I’m around you I feel warm. Is it possible that I like you?”
A pause.
“I suppose it’s possible, but I think you’ll know right away if you like somebody. It would be less of a question, asking yourself if you like that person, and more of a sudden declaration that hey! You really like this person!” Amami talked with his hands a lot, and after accidentally hitting the side of his hand against Kiibo’s arm he cradled it to his chest. “Ow. What are you made of, cast iron?”
Kiibo shook his head. “If I was made of cast iron your bed would probably be cracking at the frame, although my metal was made to be hard to dent or damage.” For a brief second he wondered if Amami’s comment could be considered robophobic, but then he decided they were friends and Amami probably wouldn’t have said something robophobic on purpose. “Is your hand alright?”
“I’ll live,” he promised and smiled a bright, closed eye smile, that did a lot to alleviate his concern. It would have been hard to fake that genuine-looking smile. Amami stretched his arms above his head and slumped against Kiibo’s shoulder, like in those every day romance movies. Once again he found himself thinking that Amami’s position couldn’t be comfortable, but Amami was full of surprises, and probably thought this was comfortable anyway.
Unless Kiibo ever finds Amami resting on top of the fridge--he’d caught Ouma up there one night, but it was because he’d fallen asleep waiting to prank Tojo, not because he chose that spot to rest--he’ll probably just leave him to his potentially awful positions.
“Comfy?” Kiibo chuckled and Amami hummed a little noise in response.
“Alright, Kiiboy-”
“Kiibo.”
“-we talked about human emotion stuff, now let me ask you something. What’s it like not having to sleep? Do you ever keep Shinguji awake because you don’t have to rest at night?”
Ah. Shinguji was his roommate, but he wasn’t the most pleasant one ever. He made Kiibo turn away and not face him for the entire hour it took every morning to get his uniform straight, mask on, and boots laced.
“He’s often asleep by the time I get back to our room, since he wakes up so early, and I like to spend time with the lot of you before heading back,” Kiibo explained. He wrapped his arm awkwardly around Amami’s shoulder and his smile just widened at the small action. “Occasionally he keeps me from charging, though, pummeling me with questions. He’s really observant, I have noticed.”
Amami nodded against him and closed his eyes. “You’re pummeling me with questions, and you tend to be really observant,” he noted out loud.
Kiibo almost shoved him off immediately out of shock that he was being compared to Shinguji, who was by far their creepiest classmate in his opinion. “Why would you even say that?!” It’s not as though he hated the long-haired boy but…. There was other people he would’ve preferred being compared to, such as any of the other fourteen remaining students. None of their other classmates were quite as unsettling and odd to be around.
“I didn’t mean it as a bad thing, y’know. But I’ll stop if you want.”
“Please and thank you,” he whined.
The silence that settled then was only slightly uncomfortable, and it made Kiibo hyper aware of just how close to him Amami was. He could feel his chest rise and fall, and those two loose strands of hair on the top of his head would brush against Kiibo’s cheek at every small movement Amami made. He remembered that once Saihara had told him that being close to people made him afraid to breathe sometimes. If Kiibo was able to breathe, he’d probably be holding his breath right now, like how Saihara had explained that night. Speaking of Saihara…
“It’s approaching the night hours. Is it normal for Shuichi to not be in the room at this time?”
“I think Kaito and Harakuwa kidnapped him before you came over for ‘muscle training’ or whatever lame excuse they used,” Amami answered easily, and finally he leaned away from Kiibo with a lazy yawn and an eye-roll. “You know how Kaito can be. It’s hard to say no to him when he has his sights set on something.”
Boy was that true. Kiibo almost felt bad for Harakuwa- she was meant to be dating the space obsessed boy, and he seemed to always drag Saihara along on their dates and adventures. Then again, if she so much as thought to tell him to stop bringing Saihara, Kiibo was sure that Momota would knock it off instantly. He was either absolutely whipped or just plain terrified of her. Perhaps both.
“Should we go rescue him?”
Amami was quick to scrunch up his face in a fond sort of confusion. “Rescue him? From his own friends?”
“Kaito is rather intense, and quite frankly… Shuichi is the absolute opposite.” Kiibo gestured over to Saihara’s neatly made bed. “Just by comparing the calm and tidy appearance of Shuichi’s room to Kaito’s own mess of toy model rockets and dirty clothes, you can tell that Shuichi may be apt to getting overwhelmed by his companion’s intensity.”
“I can tell you’ve been spending time with him lately, huh?”
“Why would you assume that?”
“You used the appearance of their rooms to compare their personalities and how they interact. I feel like that’s something I’ve seen detectives do on those cheesy cop shows.”
They really hadn’t been spending a ton of time together, but it was nice to hear that he may have been learning from the dark-haired boy. His main goal and purpose is to learn and develop. “Thank you, Rantaro!” He got another confused face but it quickly dissolved into his smooth laughter. Amami always seemed so happy and carefree, and so Kiibo smiled right back at him- it was a rather contagious feeling, the robot found.
“You’re welcome?” It was more of a question than anything but it warranted no answer.
Kiibo pushed himself up from the bed then and it creaked at the loss of his weight. Beds generally weren’t made with the idea of supporting the heavier weight of a metal being in mind, although Kiibo believed they really should be. Even if he could not sleep, it was rather robophobic for bed-makers to not consider that robots may be using the beds they make, and they really should change their techniques for robots everywhere.
“What- you were serious about getting Shuichi? Come on, he’s not in any danger!”
“It is currently eight in the afternoon. He is in danger of losing out of time he should be using sleeping, and Ouma had reminded me earlier that we have a Japanese Literature test in the morning,” Kiibo pointed out matter-of-factly, although he had to admit Ouma wasn’t exactly the best person to trust but… whatever. He didn’t have a reason to lie about a test anyway, did he?
“Let them have their fun.” Amami drawled out the sentence just long enough to give it the slightest hint of begging. “Harakuwa and Shuichi both take their schooling seriously, they wouldn’t let Kaito’s exercise sessions get in the way of their rest right before a test.” He hummed as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, which was covered in a tacky pink sequin case, sliding open the lock. “If it will make you feel any better I’ll text him and make sure he’s almost done, yeah?”
Kiibo supposed that it was better than nothing, but… He sat back down on the bed with a little frown. “Text Harakuwa as well. Shuichi tends to keep his phone on silent unless he is off campus.”
“Got it.” Amami really hadn’t needed to add a thumbs up to his words like he had. “How about this: ‘when are you guys going to finish, a certain robodork is missing you’ with three kissy faces at the end?”
“I-!” Kiibo flushed a pink color, grabbing for Amami’s phone, which he had already started tapping away on. “You are not actually writing that.” And then a quieter, more nervous, “are you?”
“I’m just teasing you~” Amami’s hand started to reach out towards Kiibo before it quickly retracted back to his phone. Due to his hobby as a tutor and basically acting as an older brother to most of their classmates, he had developed a habit of ruffling his friends’ hair, and it showed. Kiibo hummed out a bit of gentle laughter as he watched the muscular reflex. His ‘hair’ wasn’t exactly ruffleable- was that even a word? Kiibo didn’t think it was, but he didn’t also think there was a better word to use in it’s place.
“What are you actually texting them, then?”
Amami just shoved the phone two inches from his face, which was definitely too close to actually see. Kiibo blinked as he took the device from his friend, holding it at a normal distance and letting his gaze follow the words. ‘almost 9 r u almost done yet shu Gotta sleep :sleepy_face:’. The grammar and text talk may have been atrocious, but the message was significantly better than its beta, Kiibo supposed.
“Thank you, that is much better. I did not appreciate being called a ‘robodork’. I thought you were better than such Ouma-like insults.”
Amami took his phone back, presumably to type the same thing to Harakuwa, and then pocketed it after hitting send one more time. “Should you be getting back to your own room?”
“I have enough battery left for approximately half a day. It will not hurt if I stay here until Shuichi comes back-” that was making too many assumptions. Maybe Amami was trying to get him to get back to his own room. “That is, if it’s okay with you!”
“Yeah it’s chill with me Kiibs.” Chill. It seemed like such an Amami word, and yet hearing him say it still seemed odd, somehow.
Kiibo frowned. “What does a cooler temperature have to do with this conversation?”
More of Amami’s laughter, but it quickly faded out as he looked at Kiibo, as if making sure he had meant it as a joke and that he wasn’t laughing at one of Kiibo’s many mistakes. Homonyms confused the robot a lot, especially when the homonym doubled as a non-official slang term, which led to a lot of teasing in their friend group- most often by Ouma.
“It doesn’t matter,” Amami reassured him, shoving his arm affectionately. He winced slightly and held his hand to his chest for the second time since they started speaking. “Remind me to stop doing that. I’m not going to learn otherwise until I break my hand.”
“Please do not do that, Rantaro. I do not like to see my friends hurt, and it would make me feel even worse, knowing that it was my fault your hand got broken.”
“You need to lighten up a little, learn to take things a bit less seriously.” Amami’s phone vibrated in his pocket while he was talking, and he fluidly pulled it out, swiping it open. Kiibo thought that it was a bad idea to leave your phone without a proper lock or any real security when people like Ouma existed and lived right down the hallway. There had been several occurrences when he had stolen people’s phones as part of a prank, whether to text people from their number, or to change all of their contacts to the same exact name. Unlocked phones were, as Kiibo had heard his classmates say before, ‘free real estate’ for the mischievous boy.
“Harakuwa says they’ll be done in ten minutes or so,” the other said without glancing up from the brightly lit screen. It had gotten dark enough that even with Amami’s strange lamp on, his phone screen was the brightest thing in the room, and it resulted in dark shadows dancing behind them both whenever they moved. It seemed Amami had noticed this too, and he took a moment to get up and flick the room’s main light switch on. The room flooded instantly with yellow-tinged light that made the human flinch at first.
When he got back on the bed, Amami half laid down, half sat against Kiibo, so that his head was using Kiibo’s upper arm as a pillow. A pillow made of metal probably defeated the entire purpose of having a pillow in the first place. Wait- were pillows made for comfort, or to keep your head up off the bed?
“I think it’s for both. I dunno.”
Oh! Kiibo hadn’t meant to say that out loud. He reached across with his free arm to ruffle Amami’s hair, as the other had tried to do to him earlier, and got an appreciative noise. “I see. Thank you for that answer, Rantaro.”
“Imagine if we had to take a Robotics class.” Well. That had nothing to do with what they were just talking about.
“Excuse me?”
“Just imagine it. Would you be as uncomfortable during that as we are during health and science classes learning about our… body parts?” Kiibo must have made a confused face, because Amami’s expression turned just plain amused. “We’d all cheat off of you and Iruma. I bet Ouma would kidnap that pink-haired kid from the other class-”
“Kazuichi Souda.”
“If you say so. Ouma would kidnap him and force him to do his homework.”
Kiibo paused, and imagined it for a second, before deciding Amami was wrong. “Ouma is more likely to kidnap me and try to gut me alive than to kidnap Souda. He doesn’t even need an excuse to do that again.”
“Again?” Amami was moving a lot, and so Kiibo chose to watch what he was doing-- taking off the bracelets and rings he decorated his hands and arms with daily. “Actually! Don’t answer that. I’m not at all surprised that he’s tried to do that before.”
“It made me… extremely uncomfortable, almost as much so as when Miu helps to install new devices and programs onto me.” The robot cringed at the thought of her borderline inappropriate behavior and shook his head to attempt and rid himself of those thoughts. “I don’t want to talk about either occurrences.”
Amami laughed awkwardly and tilted his head so he could gaze up at Kiibo. “Yeah, it doesn’t sound that pleasant. Tell me if either of them go too far, yeah?”
Kiibo didn’t like how serious that last sentence sounded. “It’s nothing like that, Rantaro, don’t worry. I’m over exaggerating, really!” He held his hands up—well, his free hand, anyway—as if that would help him prove his point.
He was thankful that Amami believed him and didn’t try to drag on the topic. It really wasn’t a big deal and he didn’t want Amami thinking it was!
They’d fallen into a light, comfortable conversation about something by the time the room’s door creaked open, the movement causing Kiibo to jump a bit. He was met with familiar blue hair and a small, apologetic smile peeking out from behind the door.
“Sorry! I didn’t interrupt you two, did I?” Saihara said softly, stepping into the room and closing the door slowly behind him so that it barely even clicked shut. His gray-blue eyes shifted from Kiibo down to Amami, who had by then settled down to have his head in the robot’s lap. Ah. Kiibo was almost glad that Saihara looked a tad uncomfortable at the sight, because he had decided over an hour ago that Amami was getting a bit too comfortable for his tastes.
“We’re just talking, don’t worry,” Amami waved a hand dismissively. “Have fun with Kaito and Harakuwa?”
Saihara heaved a heavy sigh as he made his way over to his own bed, taking off his shoes and setting them neatly under his desk. “Kirumi tells me I’m too skinny, and then Kaito goes and has me lose 10 pounds a week with him.”
Amami chuckled, opening his eyes now.
“Do be careful not to overexert yourself, Shuichi,” Kiibo spoke up. “While it’s good to get exercise, I do not think Kaito knows when to stop most of the time, and you’re not nearly as in good of a shape as he is. I don’t want you passing out because he forced you to participate!”
The detective-in-training raised a brow at his wording and looked hurt for a few seconds, but it would’ve taken somebody stupid—like Momota, Kiibo found himself thinking almost bitterly—to try and deny that he wasn’t out of shape. “Gee, thanks, Kiibo,” he murmured sullenly, and Kiibo had half a mind to look apologetic about it.
“I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m sorry.”
An awkward half-smile. “It’s fine. you’re right anyway.”
Amami pushed himself away from Kiibo and up from his bed in order to yawn. His hands went above his head, shirt riding up to reveal less than an inch of skin. “Alllright, you got to witness Shu coming back, are you staying a while longer, Kiibo?” He started the sentence a bit too early so that his first word was distorted by the yawn.
“Oh, yeah, uh, no-” the robot stammered. “I should be heading back to my room to charge for the night.” He also got up from the bed, although a lot less fluidly than his friend had.
He could’ve sworn he saw a hint of disappointment flash in Saihara’s gaze, but then he was turning away to check the clock. It was just past nine thirty.
“I’ll see you both in the morning! Make sure you get enough rest, and don’t stress too much about the test tomorrow morning,” Kiibo opened the room door to leave, receiving a lazy “seeya” and a wave goodbye from Amami.
“Goodnight, Kiibo,” Saihara hummed.
The last thing that Kiibo heard before closing the door behind him was a panicked “what test tomorrow?” from Saihara and an unconcerned chuckle from Amami.
So Ouma had lied about the test after all.