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Saiki Kusuo does not believe in love.
...That may not be entirely true. He sees his parents every day, giggling away like high schoolers. He sees romance developing on tv, he sees his classmate holding hands, and he knows that love exists.
But not for him. He knows he is weird. Bizarre. An anomaly of nature. He isn’t human, he is something else.
Saiki Kusuo is broken.
For who could ever love someone like him? Someone who runs from his abilities, who doesn’t use them to help. Someone who can hear every thought, see anything, and force anyone to do practically anything.
He is a monster. A pawn of God, who has shoved aside his destiny.
He knows this in his soul. He knows he will never love anyone and no one will ever love him. And that’s fine. He has accepted his fate, he is ready to live his life watching tv and eating coffee jelly, alone.
No one could love him. Not even his parents, who claim to everyday, because that is their job, or Teruhashi, who just wants him as part of her love collection.
No one could love him. No one, no one, no one-
But then, out of the darkness, appeared something.
A girl who claimed to love him. A girl who said she was his soulmate.
Aiura Mikoto.
Saiki runs away from her, from her light, from her words of destiny and fate and love.
He chooses to hide from her, to not engage.
Aiura wasn’t like him, she was different. She helped people, she smiled, and she glowed with an energy previously unfathomable to the broken boy.
He cannot be allowed to corrupt her.
...But then Yumehara fell.
My soulmate! thinks Aiura, her light growing stronger. Saiki winces. He wants to push it away, push her away, throw himself off the building.
She’s wrong, he thinks, I’m no one’s soulmate. She just...made a mistake.
He holds this belief in his heart, he knows her prediction must be false, and finds himself growing closer to the girl he once shunned. Her energy, the way she wholeheartedly flings herself into helping others, the way she cares. It’s a foreign world to him, and he lets his defences down.
Badum badum badum
Saiki feels different, odd. Something has happened, something he can’t describe, but can only feel. This feeling is unlike any he’s ever known, and he wonders if he’s dying. His chest tightens.
Badum badum badum
Aiura smiles at him in the hallways, sends him thoughts of hello! Saiki feels the strange pain in his chest grow.
Badum badum badum
He pushes it down.
Aiura calls him to the cafe, fidgeting nervously across from him in the booth. She knows that if she doesn’t say it now, her thoughts will do it first. She blinks and looks up at him.
Kusuo, she tells him, I’ve been thinking.
Saiki feels something in his stomach, the way he imagines one might feel on the way up a rollercoaster.
Aiura blinks again, and looking down at her hands on the table, tells him, I...I know I make you uncomfortable whenever I...you know...call you my soulmate or think weird things or whatever, so...I decided to stop. It might take a little, but I will.
She looks up at him and smiles, but there’s something hidden in it. She says,
I guess my prediction was wrong, huh?
This is a good thing. This is what Saiki wanted. He didn’t want Aiura’s affections, he didn’t want to be looked at by her, thought about by her, and now they could easily continue life as acquaintances.
This is what he wanted, right?
So why does his chest hurt again?
Saiki runs, or rather, teleports away to be alone. He sits at the top of a waterfall. You may call Saiki Kusuo many things, but he is not stupid. He knows he is pushing something down, he knows he is trying his hardest not to read his own thoughts, so he finally lets himself in.
And there, sitting on top of a waterfall in the middle of nowhere, he realizes the truth.
He jumps off the waterfall, feeling the wind rush by before he inevitably hits the ice cold water at the bottom.
He’s in love…
In love with Aiura.
Saiki screams underwater, and punches whatever he can land his fists on.
Why, why, WHY?
He isn’t human, he isn’t good, he doesn’t need this.
Is this another test from God?
The god that made him like this, gave him these powers he never asked for, caused him to not understand these simple, human emotions?
Saiki knows now, just as he knew in the beginning. He is a monster.
And Aiura deserves so much more than him.
Aiura still talks to Saiki, and true to her word, she catches herself and changes her thoughts when she thinks about how she likes him.
Saiki wants to scream. He wants to go back. Back to before he knew what these emotions were, back when everything was simpler.
...but not to before he met her.
Because besides these feelings, besides the chaos and agony in his mind, Aiura has given him so much.
She’s shown him how to care like she does.
As they walk down the street together, Aiura turns and smiles at him.
Well, goodbye Kusuo! She says, and turns to walk home.
And he lets her…
...until he sees her tears.
Aiura is crying.
She is crying because of him and what he’s done to her.
This is why Aiura deserves so much more-
No.
Saiki... doesn’t care anymore. He doesn’t care if this is a torturous test from a god, he doesn’t care if he could be seen as a monster.
Because Aiura makes him better. Aiura makes him whole.
And Aiura knew they were destined to be.
He loves Aiura, and she loves him.
And that’s what matters.
He grabs her wrist and spins Aiura around. She looks at him, surprised, and for the first time, he wishes people could hear his thoughts instead of the other way around.
He looks at Aiura, past her fake tan and bleached hair, and even past her muscle and bone, and looks at her. The light he saw, the energy he was so scared of.
He knows that he loves her.
So he kisses her.