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The ears are the first thing Saihara notices about Ouma.
Not the normal human ones presumably hidden under his hair, no; these ears are painted white and stand up straight on top of his head, with curled tips and a strip of pink down the middle. If he were dressed in a sleek white suit, he would be the perfect depiction of a bunny rabbit.
But he’s not in a suit, unless a swimsuit counts, and the ears are clearly a headband, but Saihara’s invitation didn’t say anything about a costume party. Just a regular party of the pool variety. Then again, Saihara might have missed the memo; he was a last minute invite, afterall.
Since no one else seems to be dressed in costume either, Saihara stashes his shirt in a corner, drapes his towel across his neck, then wanders around until he spots the host. Kiibo offers to make introductions to the people Saihara doesn’t know—which is nearly everyone; Saihara is new and only met a handful of them in class, including Kiibo—but Saihara says he’ll make the rounds on his own. That doesn’t stop him from asking about the rabbit boy, however.
“Oh, that’s Ouma Kokichi,” Kiibo says. “He’s… somewhat of a troublemaker.”
Saihara finds that somewhat hard to believe, what with Ouma laying out on a lawn chair with bold, white-rimmed sunglasses and a complementary black and white checkered scarf. It’s too far away for Saihara to hear the conversation, but whatever Ouma is saying, it’s making the blonde girl next to him blush furiously and a guy in a black hat shake his head. The girl seems about to retort, but Ouma laughs and waves his hand around, then gives his attention to someone else.
It goes on like this, people moving and speaking, all partaking in their very own silent film from Saihara’s vantage point, but it’s the rabbit-eared star in sunglasses who steals the show. Saihara is transfixed.
It’s rude to stare.
He can’t look away.
At least introduce yourself first.
The walls have ears, they say, or in this case, mind-reading abilities, because for reasons unknown, Ouma’s gaze turns and sweeps across the party, narrowing in on Saihara with startling precision. Then in one fluid motion, he rips the glasses from his face and tosses them carelessly onto the chair while swifty uncrossing his legs and rising to his feet. Saihara watches until he realizes just what is happening, and snatches a cup of punch from a nearby table, throwing it back to give himself cover, but he misses his mouth and it runs down his chest where it starts to dry under the heat of the sun, becoming sticky to the touch. He uses the edge of his towel to wipe it off and look down, down, down at the ground because throughout Saihara’s madness, a pair of bunny ears slowly weave their way through the crowd.
Finally, they come to a halt, and Ouma’s shadow stretches out before him. Saihara stares at the ground. Ouma wiggles his toes. Painted purple, Saihara notes. He lifts his gaze, ready to apologize for being incredibly awkward, but Ouma stops him before he can begin.
“Welcome, stranger, to our inelegant party for poor college students!” Ouma opens his arms wide for a brief theatrical moment before continuing on as if this was all the most natural thing in the world. “It was Kiibo’s turn to host, so he rented out the venue and asked us to chip in, but it’s not my fault I left the cash in a pocket when I washed my clothes. Kiibo didn’t believe me when I gave him the crumpled piece of paper. But, between you and me?” Ouma cups a hand to the side of his mouth, and Saihara is completely entranced, “it was totally a lie.”
Ouma waits for Saihara to contribute to the conversation. Saihara, well, he’d like to say something, but his brain and mouth just aren’t communicating.
“Parched?” Ouma eventually asks, nodding to Saihara’s empty glass. “I can get you another drink if you want to… you know. Say something.”
“It’s… I didn’t actually, uhm, drink it,” Saihara says, off to a great start. “It kind of…” he gestures weakly to his chest. Ouma’s eyes follow and widen just a bit.
“Maybe later then. I’m Ouma Kokichi.” He extends a hand.
“Saihara Shuichi.”
“Sticky.”
Saihara’s too embarrassed to be embarrassed anymore, so he plows right on ahead and keeps it up. He stares at Ouma’s ears again.
“What, something on my head?” Ouma reaches up and seems genuinely surprised to find something there. “Oh. Right.” He tilts his head to the side. “You like?”
‘They look incredible’ might be a bit too strong, even though it would be his first complete sentence of their conversation. “They look out of place,” Saihara says diplomatically.
“They're leftover from some other party. And then in truth or dare earlier, I got dared to tell the truth for the rest of the day. Or else…” Ouma points to his head with a shrug.
“You’d rather wear that than tell the truth?”
“…Would you like to find out?”
“Yes,” Saihara says, without hesitation and without fully understanding the question, but Ouma grins and leads Saihara by his non-sticky soda hand towards a table. Ouma adjusts his scarf to keep the sun off his neck and shoulders; the rest, he leaves an open sight. He pushes a deck of cards towards Saihara, and laces his fingers together under his chin, expectantly.
Saihara senses a test. He gambles. “Poker?”
“I feel like you already know me so well, Saihara! I love a game of deceit.” Ouma narrows his eyes. “And the stakes?”
“I’m hesitant to say we play for money since you tend to wash yours… ”
“Only sometimes, only sometimes!” Ouma perks up and taps the bunny ears. “Loser wears these for the next round. Fair deal?”
A strange deal, but they agree, nonetheless.
Saihara had always thought his interest in criminology and psychology gave him a good read on people. He thought he had a knack for it. Not so, it seems. He loses the first hand, completely deceived by Ouma’s double bluff, yet for the chatterbox Ouma seems to be, he doesn’t have any choice words when Saihara dons the bunny ears. The little smiles and winks and gestures that Saihara receives instead are their own form of teasing.
At least ten rounds pass this way, and after drawing for the next, Saihara knows he’ll be wearing the ears for the rest of the night. Any luck he might have had abandoned him long ago. He sets the cards face down, and leans back to run a hand over his face and through his hair, barely suppressing a groan.
“...all in,” Ouma whispers.
“All in?” Saihara frowns and inspects his cards again. Things honestly can’t get much worse. “Okay. Let’s do it.” He lays them face up, and notices that Ouma never picked up his hand. The round ends with Saihara’s first victory.
“That was a terrible play,” Saihara says as he untangles the bunny ears from his hair.
Ouma waves it off. “You win some, you lose some.”
“But you’ve won every game so far.”
“Maybe… my luck has finally turned?”
“You could have picked a better strategy if you checked your cards first.”
“I must have felt bad for you, then!”
“No, I don’t think so. I think you—” were distracted. By him. By Saihara. From when he stretched and touched his hair and his face.
Saihara mutely passes over the headband. Ouma settles it into place and flips a few strands of hair around his finger without another word. When he stops, they fall in front of his eyes. He leaves them there, watching and waiting. Saihara brushes a strand to the side for him, and it coils effortlessly around one of the bunny ears. Saihara casually coils another strand around the other ear under the guise of helping.
“Ribbons would be good.”
“Hm? What was that, Saihara?” Although from the way his lips curl, Saihara knows Ouma heard perfectly well what his traitorous mouth mumbled.
“N-No. Um, nothing.”
Ouma hums at that, and despite his previous winning streak, ‘bad luck’ befalls him again and again. They continue to play, and Ouma loses every round for the rest of the night, keeping the bunny ears indefinitely in his possession.
Saihara is just as speechless when he sees Ouma sporting a pair of black cat ears at the Halloween party as he was when they met at the pool party. It’s been two months since then, and even though Saihara was too nervous to ask for Ouma’s number at the time, he’s been dropping hints to Kiibo during class about how much fun he had at the pool party, and isn’t it great to make new friends, and basically, when is the next party going to be.
He’s usually not this assertive, but he can’t help but hope that given the nature of Halloween parties, Ouma will be dressed for the occasion. Saihara opted for a simple, perhaps obvious costume: Sherlock Holmes. He found a fashionable beige trench coat with a popped collar and matching bowler hat, and a glass pipe to modernize the look.
Because of Saihara’s insistence, Kiibo nominated him to help with the Halloween party setup. Iruma, the host, is one of the ones Ouma was talking to at the pool party, and because of that, Saihara thinks it’s perfectly reasonable to ask her more about Ouma. She squints at him for a while, and then with a sudden realization of something she won’t share, she laughs until she wipes her eyes and tasks Saihara with setting up the decorations, snacks, and drinks.
Well, he only has two hands, so the guests are already starting to trickle in by the time he finishes with the drinks. There’s a light tap on his shoulder and Saihara steels himself then turns around.
It’s Ouma, shorter than Saihara remembers, but that’s probably because he lost the extra inches from the bunny ears. Instead, he’s got on a loose fitting, short-sleeve black shirt flowing neatly down his sides, with dark purple paw prints circling the waist, and orange claw marks dragged across the shoulders and presumably down the back. Add to that the gorgeous cat ears with fine fur that match the color of Ouma’s hair. Dangling from one ear is a pair of perfectly coiled orange ribbons, and sitting at the base of the other, a tiny orange bow.
“Meoow,” Ouma whines, and Saihara absolutely melts and tries to say something complimentary but ends up making animal noises of his own. Ouma pats him on the back. “Easy there, tiger. Although, I guess that’s what you could call me, hm?” He eyes the table, and Saihara passes him a soda and takes another for himself. “Happy Halloween, Mr. Detective.”
“Cheers… tiger,” and this time, Saihara rubs circles on Ouma’s back after he gasped into his drink.
Saihara is learning.
They call it a draw for the time being, and meander around the party admiring and ranking the costumes. There’s a full-bodied mummy—to which Ouma says he’s not surprised—someone dressed in a spacesuit, and a pink, musical pirate accompanied by a guy with a black netted shirt and green metallic pants, presumably a merman. There’s another matching group too, a trio of girls dressed as Charlie’s Angels, but the little redhead looks like she’s about to fall asleep.
Ouma declares the bug catcher pokemon trainer the best one so far. That is, until he tugs on Saihara’s sleeve. “You’re up! I can’t make a winning declaration until I see you strike a pose.”
“I’m not even sure what a detective pose is supposed to be, though. Sleuths aren’t usually known for their style.”
“Well then, break the mold, make something up! Hey, you saw my pose! And what a lovely reaction I got out of you. Thought you might have been a cat yourself the way you practically purred… Come on, come on Saihara, let’s see!”
Time to break the mold, he supposes. Saihara fishes the glass pipe from his pocket and sticks it in his mouth. Then he tips the hat forward with one hand, throws back the trench coat with a flourish, and shoves the other hand into his pants pocket. He’s sure it looks absurd. There’s no way it doesn’t. He waits for Ouma’s comment, but Ouma doesn’t say a word, at first, although his eyes certainly do; they shine with pure mischief.
“Very, very, smooth. And that’s not a lie.” Ouma snatches the pipe and twirls it between his fingers. “Wanna take a ride around the city? You stopping crime with your devilish looks, and I wreaking havoc in your wake?”
Saihara masters his nerves and strokes one of Ouma’s cat ears. “I-I wouldn’t want to get these dirty, though.”
“I thought you might like.” Ouma slips the pipe back into Saihara’s pocket and takes a step closer. “They’re custom made, you know. I designed the pattern on the shirt too,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. The claws marks shift with the motion. “I thought about where… touches would occur the most.” He looks down at the paw prints hugging his hips, and Saihara lightly runs his fingertips across. They have a slightly different texture than the rest of the shirt.
The music comes on then, and Ouma presses Saihara’s hand firmly against his side and holds out his other in invitation, and Saihara is glad he’s not covered in sticky soda this time.
The dance is fast and upbeat. Too fast for verbal discussion, but conversation can be had in other ways, like Ouma dipping his fingers under Saihara’s collar, and Saihara tracing every detail of the pattern around Ouma’s waist. The songs change, and change again, each one bringing their bodies a little closer, but never close enough. At some point, Saihara discards his hat because Ouma’s exploration takes him higher and higher, across the back of his neck into Saihara’s hair, and the touch is so electric it has Saihara gasping helplessly into Ouma’s shoulder. Ouma chuckles and lifts himself to Saihara’s ear, suggesting they find a quiet place to talk.
Talk, he says, but Saihara can read that look. It’s surely a reflection of his own.
Without time to second guess himself, Saihara drags Ouma into the kitchen. With the room empty and therefore no one paying them immediate attention, he scrambles up to the top of the refrigerator. An unusual place for privacy, sure, but he’d already noticed others sneaking off to closets or supposedly vacant rooms, so he had to get creative. Thankfully the kitchen ceiling is high enough for the both of them to straighten their backs when sitting cross-legged, and, thankfully, rather than ask questions, Ouma had scrambled up alongside him.
“Wow, nice view, Saihara! I never would have thought about this. No one’s looking up here. We practically have the party all to ourselves.”
Ouma waits for Saihara to ask.
Saihara obliges. “What… did you want to talk about?” but Ouma rolls his eyes. He shifts closer. Stretches his legs over Saihara’s lap, and grins when Saihara’s arm shoots out to steady him from falling off.
Am I dreaming? Saihara thinks as Ouma leans further into his side, and tells him to close his eyes and hold out his hand.
“This is a secret part of my costume. Something else I thought you might like.”
It’s a black cat tail, fastened to the back of Ouma’s belt. Exactly the same fabric as the ears, which Ouma had already said were custom made. The same as the shirt, that draws attention to particular places on his body, and the ribbons, that Saihara had once said would look good on him. The entire ensemble is made to please, yes, but it’s tailored to Saihara’s tastes.
Saihara follows the tail around to the back of Ouma’s belt, and gently tugs on the ribbons to beckon him closer.
“Ouma… It’s purrfect,” he breathes, and Ouma shivers under his tone and his touch, and Saihara spends the rest of the night exploring the skin underneath the paw prints and conforming to the claws marks printed on the shirt—the places Ouma had wanted to be touched—while Ouma makes marks of his own along Saihara’s neck.
Saihara arrives at Ouma’s apartment fifteen minutes early to help with the Christmas party. Despite the fact that he did the same for the Halloween party, this he doesn’t mind in the least. And as for the Halloween party clean-up, he and Ouma didn’t stick around for that. Towards the end of the night, Iruma’s roommate came around and had some choice words for everyone in attendance. ‘Unsanitary’ was the word thrown in their direction as Saihara and Ouma were making out on top of the fridge. The two of them hightailed it out of there after that, Ouma cackling with glee and Saihara running on cloud nine.
I dont have a roommate, Ouma had texted Saihara after they finally exchanged numbers and parted ways for the night.
It’s a little too late to tell me now, isn’t it? I’m already home.
just sayin! christmas party isnt too far away. youll help me out… riiight?
And thus, November passed in a whirl of studying and text messages until Saihara is being buzzed up into Ouma’s building and informed: its the one with the bow. As it turns out, that’s not an understatement, nor is it entirely accurate. Indeed the door does have a bow, but there are several, red and glittery, and the door itself is wrapped in gold and silver polka-dot paper.
Saihara bustles inside and shuts the door with his foot. A moment passes when Ouma doesn’t immediately greet him or offer to take the grocery bags from his arms, and Saihara worries he’s accidently entered a different apartment with a bow, but then Ouma impatiently clear his throat. When Saihara peers over the top of the bags, he sees Ouma hold his arms out to the side, and step around in a slow circle. Like the very first time they locked eyes at the pool party and nearly every moment since then, Saihara drinks in the sight.
Ouma’s wearing tight black jeans tucked into silver platform sneakers. He’s got on another loose and flowing shirt, this time light brown with a cinched waist that accentuates his hips. Up and up, golden plush horns and little brown ears adorn Ouma’s head. He’s forgone the red nose but is undeniably a reindeer, and Saihara is about two seconds away from dropping the snacks he’s holding and devouring the one standing in front of him.
“Come again?”
“I brought the snacks,” Saihara says, and the bags fortunately make it into the kitchen.
“Isn’t that a lot for… no, nevermind.” Ouma puts his hands on his hips. “You know the drill. Let’s see your style. I bet you’re the ugly sweater type, eh?”
“To my knowledge, this wasn’t a costume party.” Ouma pouts. “But…” Saihara removes his coat to reveal indeed, a bulky—but not ugly—knit sweater, coincidentally with a reindeer stitched into it.
Ouma’s eyes light up. “For me?”
“I know you like to dress up for these parties, Ouma.”
“Aww, deer Saihara. You’re so cute. But also, so, sooo naive. Come on. You probably think we should be getting ready or something, right?”
Ouma gets to work, and Saihara tries to do the same, but Ouma keeps doing the model walk around the apartment. Bending at the waist to place objects on the table to accentuate the smooth curve of his back and draw attention to the little white tail resting just above his belt. Stretching up high in his platform heels to pull down bottles from a shelf and revealing his midriff in the process.
“Personally, I prefer the grape blend,” Ouma says, completely and utterly nonchalantly. “But no one is special enough for my top quality stuff. You, however, may have whatever you like.”
Now, Saihara’s still fairly new to this and to Ouma, but he’s picked up a thing or two.
“Whatever I like?” he asks, “I don’t want to spoil myself before the party begins.”
“Then don’t spoil it.”
And then Saihara is hoisting Ouma up on the counter, Ouma is crossing his ankles behind Saihara’s back, and they’re tasting and feeling more of each other than they ever could in the cramped space above a refrigerator. Here, Ouma can straddle Saihara’s waist and pull him in closer by the belt loops. Here, Saihara can run his thumbs and mouth along Ouma’s jaw in a way that’s been occupying his dreams for the past two months. Ouma moans and arches his back, and the unadulterated joy of eliciting such a spontaneous and delicious animalistic response has Saihara doing the same. His sweater is tugged up and Ouma almost loses his headband but who cares about that? Ouma is sucking on his lips again, touching everywhere, and it’s impossible not to want to completely give in.
It’s impossible not to want. But that’s easier said than done.
A tiny voice in the back of Saihara’s mind makes him ineloquently mumble words of caution about getting off on the countertop before someone walks in on them.
“It starts at seven, right?” Saihara slurs. He takes out his phone to check the time in an effort to compose himself. “I would have thought Kiibo at least would come early.”
“Ah, let’s not involve others in the business of our comings.” Ouma lowers Saihara’s phone. He’s breathing hard and looking at Saihara with wide eyes and puffy wet lips, and it’s obvious he’s working hard to keep himself under control. They both are.
You did that to him.
Saihara hardly registers that the phone is no longer in his hands.
“As for coming early,” Ouma continues, voice low, “I don’t mind. That just means you’re real excited. We can go nice and slow, again and again. As many times as you’d like until you’re satisfied, Saihara.”
Ouma’s words fill his head, and Saihara wants nothing more than to have Ouma fill his arms and mouth once again, but the part of his brain in charge of rational thought is stuck on the last time when Iruma’s roommate interrupted them. He doesn’t want a repeat of that.
Saihara licks his lips.
The party is four hours long. Ouma is hosting and you’re helping. You can’t go sneaking off together to his room. It’s not good etiquette.
Since when have you cared about good etiquette? He counters. The time you drooled over a stranger at a pool party? The time you made out with him on top of someone else’s refrigerator?
Fair point.
But still, decorum wins out. “We should, um, finish getting things ready first.” It’s probably the most senseless thing he’s said in a long time, with Ouma in front of him looking like he does, but Ouma cheerfully taps Saihara’s sweater.
“Whatever you like, Saihara deer!”
Saihara may be senseless, but Ouma is wonderful. Once the guests arrive and start to settle in, Saihara gives himself full permission to disregard decorum.
He takes a few steadying breaths then fills up water glasses while Ouma throws himself forward onto the couch, kicking his feet in the air. With every kick, his muscles flex and the jeans ride up just a bit around his ankles. He absentmindedly twists his hair around the tiny brown reindeer ears, softly humming a Christmas tune. Saihara pours water onto the countertop.
Once again attuned to Saihara’s staring—it’s not the first time; or perhaps it was the water splashing that caught his attention—Ouma looks over his shoulder and winks. Saihara almost faints.
He checks his phone instead.
Four hours.
“Saihara… I have to ask. What could possibly be on your phone that’s more interesting than what you already have in front of you?”
“Just the time. It’s a few minutes past, and from what I’ve seen, our friends like to be on time to optimize the partying.”
“Yeah. Again, I’m right here. So why aren’t you doing the same?”
“I… don’t want to be interrupted.”
“By who?” Ouma asks.
“By everyone.” Saihara answers.
“What do you mean, everyone?”
“What do you mean, ‘what you do mean, everyone?’ Everyone, our friends? And they should already be here for the party tonight.”
Ouma stares, and stares a little more, until he sighs and pushes himself off the couch. Back in the kitchen, he raps his knuckles against a calendar. Saihara comes closer as Ouma impatiently taps his toes.
At first, Saihara doesn’t know what the point of this is. Yes, it’s December. Yes, there’s the party, with the date circled and decorated with little stars. Saihara can feel Ouma staring at him harder, so Saihara looks at the calendar harder, too.
No way…
He checks his phone. Ouma’s arms snake around his waist from behind.
He looks back to the calendar. The circled date is one day after the date on the phone. The party is tomorrow.
“The party is tomorrow?”
“Well, I wouldn’t dress up like this for just anyone, Saihara! You’re the one who got the date wrong,” Ouma explains, even though Saihara knows with one hundred percent certainty that that’s a lie.
While Saihara’s standing there squinting at the calendar as if it was wrong, Ouma tsks and spins him around. “Sooo… we’ve suddenly got all this free time together!” He stands on his tip toes and uses Saihara as leverage to bring their faces close. “What should we do with it?”
Ouma’s smile is sly, and it stops Saihara from speaking. Ouma’s eyes are wicked, and they stop Saihara from breathing—nearly—but Saihara retains enough of his sanity to lean forward with a smirk of his own. He tosses etiquette and self-consciousness to the ground in the same way he treats his sweater, and then fully indulges in the night that Ouma arranged for the two of them.