Chapter Text
CHAPTER ONE
Rantaro knew that society's view on stalking was… rather negative, to say the least. Most normal people would be horrified at the mere thought of stalkers, thoughtless of wanting one for themselves, or even wanting to stalk others.
Keyword: “ normal. ”
That word simply didn't apply to him, and it definitely didn't apply to his boyfriend. Most people would be shocked if they happened to discover what they liked doing in their spare time. Not like they cared, really.
If anyone had seen them kiss each other goodbye as their dinner date was concluded, they would have assumed that it was just a little parting ritual between two lovestruck teenagers. They would think that it was nothing special and that there were no strings attached.
They couldn't know that it was, in fact, a promise.
A promise that their regular extra events would still occur later. “Later” being used as blatantly obvious code for “right after the date ended.”
You see, he and Kokichi were… what could only be described as eternally obsessed with each other. At almost all times, they had to be aware of what the other was doing, how they were feeling, what they planned to do later, which way they were planning to do it, and so on and so forth.
Stalking was an easy way to achieve this. In fact, they'd originally met each other through it.
And now that they were in a relationship, they hadn't changed a thing about it.
In order to make sure no outsiders would think that anything illicit or... dangerous was going on, they'd established a system for it.
If they had dates on Mondays, Wednesdays or Fridays, Rantaro would stalk Kokichi home. If they had dates on Tuesdays, Thursdays or Saturdays, Kokichi would stalk Rantaro home. The thrill was in maintaining the delicate balance between making sure each other were safe and making sure bystanders didn't catch on to what they were doing.
He loved that delicate balance so, so much…
His heart always skipped a beat every time he was able to see that Kokichi had made it home safely, and it always melted when he took his phone to send a deluge of text messages to his boyfriend about how cute he was and how happy and thankful he was that they were dating. Walking home would feel like floating on a cushion of air as he and Kokichi exchanged lovestruck text messages about each other and planned their next date.
It was one of the highlights of his life, really.
And that was the explanation for why he was following his boyfriend as subtly as possible, making sure that Kokichi would get home as safely as possible. However, that wasn't the only thing that he was ensuring tonight. The satchel he was carrying seemed red-hot with the importance of the items within it.
Over the past six weeks… he'd noticed something while stalking Kokichi. To be specific, he had noticed something odd in the surroundings. To narrow it down further, he had noticed a specific person, over and over again.
A person who, despite practically not even existing before six weeks ago, seemed to always be going in the direction he and Kokichi were going.
And even worse, they seemed to have an odd preoccupation with paying attention to Kokichi in particular.
Someone else had the gall to try and stalk Kokichi. Someone else had the guts to try and stalk his boyfriend.
As soon as Rantaro had put two and two together, he had been absolutely livid .
Nobody got to stalk his boyfriend but him .
No one else cared for Kokichi as much, no one else had even earned the privilege to be able to do that, and if they had managed to delude themselves into thinking that they were worthy, he was willing to use any and all sorts of force to drive it through their thick skulls.
People like that didn't deserve to live, but as much as he wanted to murder the idiot, he couldn't.
He fucking couldn't .
He couldn't kill the guy, and just thinking about it infuriated him like nothing else.
There was the one problem that this… that the thing was either a really well-built teenager or a grown-ass adult from the look of it. Rantaro knew that he was strong for his age, but from what he was able to see, this man didn't look like a pushover. Not only that, but starting a fight to determine it could easily go against him, on top of it being a stupid decision in general.
And yet another problem came because he had no idea where the person lived, or who he was. Every single time he'd seen the guy, the guy had been wearing something that obscured features that were vital in identifying him.
Different bulky jackets, large hats, sunglasses, medical masks… the worst part was that they were either from generic brands or from stores that were spaced a long distance from each other. The few items he'd barely been able to identify just didn't give him enough inflation on the guy. And the way he seemed to escape everyone else's notice either meant that his strange behavior and clothing tastes were commonplace and not a cause for concern in this particular area, or that their observation skills were so poor that he just slipped under the radar.
Whichever one it was, it left Rantaro with too little information to let him kill the man safely.
(It also made yet another unrelated problem. So much for going on dates in areas their schoolmates either didn’t go much to those areas or simply didn’t know about; if places like this also had idiots who would overstep their boundaries, Rantaro felt tempted to rip his hair out.)
(Why did people have to make things so difficult? He just wanted to take his boyfriend out on nice dates, was that forbidden? Looks like their next few dates would be spent at Kokichi’s place, curled up in from t of the television. For the life of him, he didn’t know why his sisters had gotten it into their heads to start having non-stop sleepovers with their friends all the time out of nowhere, but since they decided to take over the damn house for it, he couldn’t bring Kokichi over.)
(Well, at least he’d be able to be with Kokichi at all. Things had cooled down at school for a good while now, and he wanted to enjoy this respite as best as he could before some fool decided to break the peace yet again.)
However, the one thing he could do was scare the guy off.
After stalking Kokichi, the man would make his way through a confusing path which Rantaro didn't bother pursuing after twenty minutes. The route was long, convoluted, and the small part of it that he'd managed to commit to memory was hard to recall when needed.
However, he'd still managed to formulate a plan. A three-step, short and simple plan.
- Make sure that Kokichi got home safely and ensure that the guy hadn't gotten any ideas into his head.
- Follow the guy until they were around halfway through the normal route.
- Strike.
And he couldn't
wait
to put everything he'd planned into action.