Chapter Text
Shuuichi wanted to die. Or scream until he lost his voice. Or gouge his eyes out. One of the three. He didn’t care by this point. He just wanted to release the frustration that was simmering inside him so fucking badly…
He couldn't help but snuggle a little deeper into Kaito's embrace, the feeling of eyes watching him making him feel insecure.
Those disgusting eyes that belonged to someone who clearly didn't know who the fuck they were looking at.
Kaito held him closer, and Shuuichi knew that Kaito felt it as well. And that, just like him, Kaito was barely able to tolerate it.
But they had to pretend to be the oblivious couple that couldn't tell when some idiot couldn't understand that they were in a relationship.
To put it lightly, it was infuriating.
It had all started a month ago when he'd been paired up with the guy for a project. At the time, Shuuichi didn't even have an opinion on him; as far as he was concerned, most of the people he attended school with were little more than background noise that didn’t need any acknowledgment. This particular person’s most distinguishing features were hair that was strikingly similar to the color of carrots, matching eyes, the timidity that made him seem a little standoffish and a pinkish red aura.
As far as Shuuichi had been concerned back then, all he had needed to do was play the standard “good student” persona for the duration of the project and cut ties smoothly afterward. Nothing elaborate. Simply a sterile set of actions that couldn't be mistaken for anything else.
However, life had apparently thought otherwise.
Over the course of the two-week project, his project partner had undergone a “slight” change of personality. From timid to the point on seeming snobbish to most people, he became quietly adoring and a bit excitable. It had been with dismay that Shuuichi noted the complete shift in the person's aura, from pinkish-red to reddish-pink, with a trace of sickly burnt-orange during times when the person seemed to feel… particularly infatuated.
Shuuichi himself had a red aura. A pure red aura, not tinted with any unneeded color. It blended in with Kaito's aura so well that is was obvious that they were meant for each other. They were meant to be together, their auras proved it. This new person was…
Imperfect.
Their eyes danced with what could only be described as mad infatuation every time they sighted Shuuichi, and their actions got sloppier. Their head seemed to shoot straight up into the clouds as soon as Shuuichi came near them, and their crush was so painfully obvious that Shuuichi had actually needed to pull the person aside and tell them that not only was he in a relationship but that he had absolutely no interest in cheating on his boyfriend.
And after that, he'd told the person to fuck off. In those words. No frills, no fuss, just clinical, slightly crass precision.
Right after delivering that line, Shuuichi had left, savoring the look of sheer betrayal and heartbroken hopelessness in their eyes. It felt nice to crush someone's hopes and destroy their spirits like that.
Worms like that needed to be put in their place, and he'd have been damned if that nonsense had escalated any further. He had plenty of things to do, and trying to keep someone as delusional as that under control wasn't something that he'd wanted to take up as his next pet project.
And for the next few days, there had been peace.
The idiot had actually stayed home from school for a few days, their mind probably reeling from the revelation that their delusion was, in fact, a delusion. A figment of their imagination that had swelled up disproportionately and clouded their judgment to the point that they’d made one of the biggest mistakes which had happened in their short, pathetic life.
It served the dumbass right.
The rumors that had flowed around the school for those few days were rather nice to listen to. But the best part had been when he’d gotten to relay the entire story to Kaito in all of its gory detail, and laugh when the moron hadn’t shown up to school. They’d gone on some of the best dates they’d had during those days.
Nice days.
Calm days.
Peaceful days.
Days when all he had to focus on was Kaito.
Days when he could actually feel peace.
Days when he hadn’t felt an unwanted, uncomfortable gaze seemingly super-glued onto his back.
Days when those orange eyes weren’t even there , thoughtless of being tinged with an inexplicable gleam that he had a visceral hatred for.
Days when he hadn’t found his dates getting crashed by an unwanted obsessor who didn’t seem to have one molecule of common sense or courtesy in their useless body.
The only good thing that came from all of this was an excuse for him to sneak in his combat knife to school for self-defense. Delusional people like that could turn violent, and he wasn’t going to risk getting injured when and if the worst arrived and he had to make a direct confrontation with this person.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go completely and utterly ballistic, or if he wanted to hide away. If Kaito hadn’t been here right now, he was sure that he’d be looking for him right at this second.
He sighed, looking up at Kaito.
“How long do we have to deal with this?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. This might not have been the most appropriate place to discuss this, but since there were next to no people around this area, he figured it was safe enough.
“Until we find a way to get rid of him that doesn’t involve murder,” Kaito whispered back.
“Why can’t we just kill him?” A redundant question, seeing that not only had he pondered this a lot lately but that he’d outright asked Kaito this question multiple times by now.
“Because we’d be the prime suspects of this guy’s murder.” The answer. He was so lucky Kaito loved him… any other person would have told him to shut up by now, he was sure of it. But he was so, so lucky that Kaito loved him back.
Even so… “I didn’t bring my combat knife for nothing, dammit.” Rash habits die hard.
“And I didn’t come prepared to knock him out for nothing. But we need to use violence as a last resort.” He wasn’t the only one whose temper was slowly decreasing, either. But both of them knew that they couldn’t let themselves go completely loose.
They didn’t need trouble.
“I hate the constraints of the law...” Shuuichi was glad that they were mostly alone, else that statement would have raised suspicion. It wasn't like most of the population didn’t have that exact same thought regularly, it was that most people were cowards when it came to admitting it.
“Who doesn’t?” Kaito definitely wasn’t a coward, and Shuuichi couldn’t help the sudden surge of love that came in him at the thought. He really did have the best boyfriend in the world…
“But now what do we do? He hasn’t followed me home yet, and I wouldn’t want him to figure out where you live.” Shuuichi couldn’t help but feel worried about that. “Are you sure that you’d be safe?”
“I’d be more than safe, don’t worry. I could eliminate the guy with ease. And you have to remember that I live with my grandparents. He can’t really try anything most of the time.”
“And if he’s the sort of guy who’d butcher a sweet old lady to get his prize?”
“He can fucking try it. I fucking dare his scrawny ass to think of something like that, thoughtless of doing it.”
Shuuichi couldn’t help but laugh at that. That collection of useless-looking bones going up against Kaito , of all people?
The mere thought was hysterical.
Thinking about the results it would produce when, and if, applied to real life was a bit vindictive and, unsurprisingly, fulfilling.
A fight between the two of them would result in the definition of a curb-stomp battle. From what he’d managed to find about the guy both through the limited information about him and his own personal assessments, this particular fool was a typical child of today’s well-off: sedentary, with a penchant for art. Nothing special in the athletic department.
An easy target. One that would be a breeze for someone as strong as Kaito. Heck, even though he wasn’t the most athletic person, Shuuichi was sure that he’d be able to overpower the guy with some measure of ease. The problem stemmed from the fact that he couldn’t do it without most people seeing it as unwarranted.
Idiot though the guy was, he was still able to keep some level of secrecy to his actions. Lashing out violently would paint Shuuichi as someone who was overreacting, even after the verbal beatdown he’d given the guy earlier.
He didn’t want or need any extra controversy right now, and the situation that could arise if he took direct action was something that would go completely and utterly against that. The school was still on edge after that girl had flung herself off the roof.
The body had disappeared remarkably quickly, and although it wasn’t a casual topic of conversation, people still seemed to be on edge about it. Especially after some people had started trying to draw parallels between that girl and people who had… mysteriously disappeared, transferred schools, or outright stopped coming to school.
Especially around the time when carrot-hair had disappeared. Amidst the more pleasant gossip of the fool having his hopes crushed, there had been a few whispers about “what if he’d gotten murdered” or “what’s going to happen this time.” This world wasn’t developing a proper conscience any time soon, but what it was developing was an efficient alarm bell system that told it when things might be getting out of hand.
There was only so much that the faculty could successfully explain away to the police, and there was only so much that the information channeling networks could divert attention from at a time. It would take another month or so for things to cool down, and it would be best to avoid stirring up any (more) unwanted attention.
It was like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. A delicate balance that couldn’t be upset without dire consequences.
He couldn’t afford to fuck this up.
And, amazingly and In spite of himself, he still wanted to kill the guy.
Yet another date with Kaito had been trashed, and like the last few times this had happened, they were going to have to play the game of “we’re going to take the most long-winded route possible and try and tire out this idiot so we can go to one of our homes in peace and actually spend good, quality time with each other.”
Luckily, between the both of them, they usually managed to leave the guy behind after around ten minutes.
Shuuichi really, really wanted to find a way to get rid of the guy.
Murder, unfortunately, was ruled out by default.
Gossip was… surprisingly dim with this one. His unwanted stalker wasn’t a person who was suspected of shady activity. In fact, he was almost as plain as Tsumugi when it came to his background. People knew of the obsession, but not about the stalking, or any other possibly creepy actions which could be taken out of context and twisted enough to ruin the guy.
All Shuuichi knew was that the idiot was following him around like a stray animal most of the day for no reason and that he seemed to have no qualms with following him while Kaito was there.
The bastard.
This was the cost of maintaining a low profile; it made people thought you were spineless most of the time. It was terrible.
Kaito had already told him that messing with the guy’s emotions would be a risky idea because they seemed like an unstable mess that could explode if tampered with. And not in a good way.
To put it bluntly, their normal avenues of elimination were blocked off, and they needed to find a new way to solve this particular problem or, to heck with it, the fool’s blood would be spilled. In a lethal manner.
But he couldn’t be too hasty, no. For the sake of Kaito, at least. He had to be strong. Even though it might be painful now, if they could work together and figure something out, it would be fine.
Of all the times that the cryptic gremlin that called itself Kokichi seemed to be preoccupied with something else, it was while this was happening. The problem was that he couldn’t hold him at fault for that since life seemed to make the worst possible decisions at the most inconvenient times. This entire situation was a prime example.
This particular situation just needed some sort of workaround. Preferably one that permanently evicted the problem from their general vicinity, but any sort of workaround would do. It would have to be a mix of his normal tactics, seeing how anything experimental could easily backfire, but the workaround would be made.
He was not letting this problem fester for longer than it had to, and he knew that Kaito would have the same mindset as he did.
That resolution was what kept him walking forward, and helped him ignore the unwanted presence behind him.