Chapter Text
Kokomi woke up on Monday morning. Wait, no, it wasn’t Monday morning, it was Sunday morning. Again. And she wasn’t at home, she was in a hotel room in Oshimai.
Huh, I guess it’s normal that you repeat days once in a while.
She got up and walked to the window and watched the sun rise over the mountains. Nobody else had gotten up yet. At least she wasn’t the only one who had to repeat the day.
They were in a penthouse room on the fifteenth floor of the hotel Saiko had gotten them in. They were in a room that spanned about one third of the top floor. Saiki, Kuboyasu, Nendo, Kaido, Hairo, and Saiko were across the hall, and their room took up the rest of the floor. It was nice that everybody got their own bed on this trip, unlike the trip to Okinawa. Each of the rooms had windows on the East side and the West, so they could also watch the sun set, as they had the night before. Um, two nights ago.
Chiyo stirred, got up, and came to sit by her. She rubbed her eyes, and then gasped. “Interesting. I remember being home last night, and then I woke up here.” She pinched herself on the cheek to see if she was dreaming, and then grabbed Kokomi’s face, forcing her lips into the classic fish face. Then she smacked Kokomi in the face.
“Ow!” Should I smack her back?
“Sorry, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t dreaming,” Chiyo said.
“Here, maybe this will help.” She decided that smacking her back was in her best interest as it would expedite the process.
“Ow. Thanks.”
Mera, who had been watching from the couch, came over to join them. “Isn’t this great? The hotel food is free, and it’s sooooo good, and now we get one more day.”
Kokomi had deeper thoughts. “What are we supposed to do all day? We pretty much already did everything we were going to do already. And if today’s like yesterday, Saiki will be acting weird all day anyway.”
Mera didn’t hesitate. “Well, maybe we can try to figure out Saiki’s secret.”
Kokomi thought about the day before. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out that the Saiki they were with in the morning was acting unusual. Even Nendo seemed to notice, so that was saying something. Then they had seen a second Saiki on top of Mount Owari, and this one seemed to act more like the real Saiki. They had learned something crucial: that he had a secret, a big one, and that he wasn’t ready to share it. Several other Saikis also made an appearance, and that clearly had something to do with the secret, but her brain could only manage two Saikis this early in the morning.
They had been trying hard to press him to divulge the secret, until Nendo convinced them that a real friend would wait until he was ready.
Did Kokomi really mean what she had told him? “It’s not going to change how we feel about you.” That had fed what Nendo finally said: “If it’s not going to change how we feel, then there’s no need to tell us before you’re ready.”
She sighed. Was she being a good friend to him? Probably not, with her always trying to push him to act a certain way. What would a real friend do?
She stared out the window thoughtfully for a minute, but no answer came. What she did know was that they were pretty sure that they would be spending the day with the Saiki imposter again.
So, who were they with all morning yesterday? Would they have to do it again? Spending a day with not-the-real-Saiki wasn’t on the top of her priority list. It was time to find out.
She got dressed in the same clothes she had worn the day before. She had only packed a pair of pajamas and one other outfit. It was clean. Huh. Interesting.
‘Interesting’ seemed to come up a lot today.
“Come on,” she said to the others.
The three of them left the room, and walked to the elevator that was at the end of the hall. There was an “out of order” sign on the door. Of course it is. They ran down the stairs to the dining hall. Kokomi had thought that she was in the best shape of the three, but Mera got there first, and made a beeline for the breakfast spread. She only knocked over two people this time.
They saw Saiki sitting alone in the middle of the room. Kokomi grabbed a glass of orange juice and sat down across from him. She would get more to eat later.
“Hey, Saiki!” she said, being cautious yet optimistic. If this were the real Saiki, she didn’t want to ruin it, but she didn’t want to be taken for a ride again either.
“Good grief, you startled me; what a pain,” he said.
She winced. He was saying words that the normal Saiki would say, but not quite in the same way. Immediately, she was 90 percent sure it was not Saiki, but that wasn’t enough.
She settled on a line of questioning to prove whether he was Saiki or not. “What was the favorite thing you’ve done on the trip so far?”
She watched closely, trying to keep her face neutral, but noticing subtle changes in his facial expressions. She saw as he took a quick breath, raised his eyebrows, and inclined his head slightly. “Um, so many things were cool, yeah, good grief, good grief, …” he stalled, but after a second he put on a face of determination. “But the helicopter ride was pretty cool.”
Kokomi needed a little more to go on. She came up with a few more questions. Before she got to the next one, Chiyo sat down next to her, with several bowls of food.
“It was. It was interesting seeing Saiki up there, don’t you think?” Kokomi swirled her juice in her glass.
Saiki’s eyes popped out and his jaw dropped. Fascinating. I’ve never seen Saiki express this much emotion. She looked at Chiyo and winked.
“Ummmmmmmm, for sure.” He rubbed his chin and his gaze darted around. “But good grief! Chiyo telling Kaido she liked him. That took guts! I could never do that.”
Kokomi looked over at Chiyo, whose face turned beet red, and whose eyes had gone to the food line. Kokomi followed her gaze and saw Kaido there. She thought back to what had happened up there on the mountain, and on the train ride home, and couldn’t recall Kaido doing anything different now that he had that information. In fact, it seemed like he was avoiding her - he sat on a different side of the helicopter, and chose a different room on the train.
It looked like he was about to do the same right now; he glanced around for a place to sit, saw them, flinched, and started heading for a table across the room. Time to intervene. She waved at him. “Kaido! Come sit by us!” He can’t say ‘no’ now!
Kaido paused, turned one shade of red brighter, but came down and sat next to Saiki, so that he was two seats away and across the table from Chiyo. Kokomi pretended not to be in the middle of the him-and-Chiyo thing, and said, “We were just talking with Saiki about yesterday.”
“Right, about the secret he’s not ready to tell.”
Too fast, Kaido! Saiki bolted up and would have made a run for it, but ran right into Nendo, sending his food flying. “Whoa, partner, where are you running so fast?” Nendo said, and didn’t seem to mind being covered with bits of fish and clumps of rice.
“What a pain, what a pain, what a pain…”
“Settle down, buddy! It’s okay! Just have a seat. We’ll get this cleaned up.” So there Saiki was, sitting down again, facing them. Nendo started scooping stuff off the floor. It didn’t look like it would stain the carpet.
Kokomi wanted to continue her line of questioning, but apparently Chiyo wanted revenge. “Well, who do you like then, Saiki?”
Saiki, still flushed from the last question and running into Nendo, started stammering. “Um, well, what a pain, you know, I could never come straight out and tell them, like you…”
Chiyo clenched her teeth. “The real Saiki…”
Kokomi gently touched Chiyo’s elbow, and held up a finger on her other hand. Almost there… If this is really Saiki, this next bit won’t matter at all... She reached back and made a show of brushing her hand through her sleek, perfect hair. Saiki was staring closely. And he won’t take the bait when I ask him this… “So Saiki, you know my birthday is coming up, and I was wondering if you were going to get me something nice like you did last year.” There, that was the perfect line of questioning, something that virtually nobody but the real Saiki would properly be able to answer.
His face reddened again. He stared at her like she was radiating sunlight. It took a second for him to respond, like he’d forgotten he was having a conversation. “Oh, good grief, is it? Like next week? I’m sure I could think of something, if I save up enough…”
Kokomi scowled. That was even worse than she expected--her birthday wasn’t for four months, she wouldn’t need something expensive, and Saiki hadn’t even gotten her anything for her birthday, not directly anyway. She knew Saiki knew all that, but this person did not. She stood up slowly, but she was so flustered she couldn’t say anything. Looking at “Saiki”, she pointed a finger at Chiyo, and flicked her wrist toward Saiki.
Chiyo didn’t need to be told twice. She went around the table, and lifted “Saiki” by his collar with both hands, and said, “You’re not Saiki. Who are you?”
Nendo, who had just finished cleaning up the floor, lifted his head with a betrayed look on his face. “Partner?”
Saiki’s eyes narrowed as he glanced around at all the people beyond their little group then gave a brief shake of his head. “Not here.”
They all went back up to the larger of their rooms. Kokomi noticed that, like the girls’ room, windows covered the east and west walls. A large TV covered much of the south wall, and an arc-shaped couch that was probably ten meters long sat in front of it, several meters away from the wall. The beds were on the north wall.
While they were waiting for Kaido to finish climbing the stairs, Chiyo positioned an ottoman against the wall under the TV, glared at Saiki, and flicked her finger toward the ottoman. ‘Saiki’ obeyed, sitting and crossing his legs. Kuboyasu, Hairo and Saiko had gathered one one end of the couch, despite not witnessing the breakfast exchange.
Kaido finally came in, panting, and as Nendo shut the door behind them, the rest of them took their places on the other end of the couch. “Ok, where’s my partner,” Nendo said, sitting down in the middle of the couch, next to Chiyo.
Faux Saiki looked out the window and pointed. “He’s on the mountain.”
“What’s he doing?” Chiyo asked.
He looked at them uncomfortably, sweat starting to form on his forehead. “I can’t tell you that.”
“And who are you ?” Kokomi asked. Oh, Saiki, you better have a good reason for this. I can’t believe I’ve been putting the moves on whoever this is.
He sighed. He tried to tousle his hair and rub his hands over his face, as if he could scrub away the appearance of Saiki. When it became apparent it wouldn’t work, he just said, “It’s me - Toritsuka.”
Kokomi heard everyone else gasp as her own breath vanished.
Kokomi and the others had spent an hour or so trying to get Toritsuka to tell them something about Saiki’s secret, or at least what he was doing on the mountain. All they could get out of him was that Aiura was helping, and when they were done, Saiki would send them home quietly and then rejoin the others.
So Saiki ditched us to be on the mountain with Aiura. She felt a sudden pang of jealousy. If you wanted to be with her so badly, couldn’t you have done it any other time?
She shook her head. That line of reasoning didn’t make any sense. They had seen him yesterday collapsed (and in her arms); they were trying to accomplish something. But what?
Kaido turned over a hand and said, “He’s still not ready to share his secret. We have to wait until he is.”
Everybody nodded, and Kokomi wondered if they all felt the way she did: willing to be supportive, but itching with frustration.
Chiyo broke the silence again. “Okay, Toritsuka, you need to make him feel like everything’s normal when he makes contact. Can you do that?”
He gave her an unenthusiastic thumbs-up.
Chiyo continued. Everybody looked back to her. “All right. Based on what happened yesterday, he’ll be up on the mountain, um, with Miko in about half an hour. Then he might join us for real.”
Hairo got up, started pacing, and said, “But we can’t make him think we’re on to him. Even mentioning anything out of the ordinary about today at all.”
Kokomi sighed. Great. I can’t ask him about anything that’s happened today. Or yesterday. Or talk about what he’s really doing while Toritsuka’s here with us. However, she along with the others nodded in agreement.
“Maybe we can catch him in the act! We’d just have to get there a little earlier,” Kuboyasu said.
“No can do,” Saiko said, from the other end of the couch. Kokomi had almost forgotten he was there. “My people just told me that the helicopter won’t start.”
Kokomi watched as several of them pursed their lips or looked down in frustration, but she raised an eyebrow at that bit of information. That was the first thing so far playing out different from yesterday’s events. Fascinating, though that doesn’t really make any sense. Why would everything else be the same, except the one thing we could have used to…Wait, did Saiki make that happen ? So we wouldn’t catch him this time? Her mouth dropped. If so, what would that mean ?
The others didn’t seem to take the news the same way she did. The group mood seemed to shift, like no one really felt like going out. They really had done everything they had planned already, so Kokomi suggested they pass the time hanging out in the hotel and the others agreed.
She watched as Chiyo went out to the balcony and stood alone, looking out over the city--the perfect opportunity to pull off her intervention. She looked over at Kaido, and saw him leaning against the wall, watching TV with his hands in his pockets. She wanted to find some subtle excuse to try to convince him to go out onto the balcony, but nothing came to mind, so she just grabbed him by the elbow (“Hey!”), dragged him over to the balcony, slid open the door, shoved him out, and shut the door again.
Subtle. Kokomi rubbed her hands a few times, a flush of delighted pride making her smile.
Chiyo looked back, and nodded her approval, but after a few seconds also angled her head between Kokomi and the inside of the room a few times, clearly indicating that she didn’t want to be watched right now. Kokomi took the hint and, with her usual grace, retreated back to the couch. A few minutes later, she heard a small squeal from outside, and she stole a glance in time to see Chiyo throw her arms around Kaido’s neck.
A few minutes later, they came inside, smiling.
Suddenly, the earth shook. “Take cover!” Saiko yelled. Kokomi, instinctively responding to years of school training on standard earthquake procedure, looked around for suitable cover, nodded to herself with determination, and executed a perfect roll under a table next to the wall. She watched as the others found places in door frames, or huddle under the big, sturdy desk behind the couch. Everybody except Kaido, who ran around waving his arms in a panic until he fell over.
Kokomi felt her adrenaline surging. The shaking lasted a solid minute. When it was done, they all left their shelters slowly. “What was that?” Chiyo said.
“Earthquake,” Saiko said, matter-of-fact, picking a stray thread off his jacket as if completely unconcerned. He walked over to the desk, and nudged the shards of a broken vase with his foot.
Kuboyasu checked his phone and pushed a few buttons. “Just a four pointer. It was centered at Mount Owari.”
“Why didn’t we feel it yesterday?” Kokomi asked.
They sat there thinking for a few seconds. “Cuz we were in the helicopter.” Nendo said.
“But Saiki’s up there!” Chiyo said in a sudden panic. “Wait-- why is he up there?”
Kokomi looked down and rubbed her chin. She started pacing. “Wasn’t he trying to avoid going on this trip this weekend, and trying to avoid Oshimai? He’s up there on the mountain, probably stopped us from heading up there, and trying to make something happen...”
They all nodded thoughtfully, and then Nendo said something useful again. “Well, it must either be a coincidence, or he knew about it.”
Kokomi considered the idea. “Well, he has Miko up there. Maybe she saw it in her crystal ball.”
“But what would they do about it?” Mera asked.
They all looked around at each other, and made a variety of frowny faces, but ultimately came up with nothing.
Mikoto had gotten up that morning, realizing that repeating a day was normal, and just decided that it was best to play along. She had had a rough day yesterday--it was exhausting helping Kuku coordinate the volcano situation, and she still didn’t get to kiss him.
She didn’t want to have to go through that again, but what else was she going to do?
She still couldn’t believe that Saiki had only gotten one room, and that she had to share it with Toritsuka of all people.
She tried to do everything exactly the same, from choosing the same breakfast to saying the same things to each of the clones, up to the point where everything changed.
Kusuo lay on the finally-still ground, the eruption averted, completely and thoroughly worn out. Miko ran over and knelt beside him. “Are you dead?”
“No.”
“Can I kiss you?”
“No.”
“A hug, then?” She didn’t wait for a response, and grabbed him anyway.
This is where we got interrupted yesterday. Where everybody else figured out something was going on.
She sobbed for a moment, just like the day before. It felt a little fake this time. She waited for him to do something, for any response at all, but got tired of holding him with him just sitting there, so she stood up and said. “Now what?”
Kusuo looked at his watch. “Well, the train leaves for home in an hour, so I guess I better get back to the hotel.”
Reita was watching TV in the hotel penthouse room with the others when he finally heard from Kusuo. All things considered, this was a much nicer setup than the room Saiki got for him. The TV covered most of the wall, with a sectional couch that could fit all of them on it...
“We’re done. How did it go?”
All good, boss! In fact, beside the whole ‘they found him out’ thing, today had been much more carefree than yesterday.
“They didn’t suspect anything?”
Well, they started to, but I just ‘what a pain’ed my way through it. He tried to keep the fact that he was lying through his teeth out of his thoughts, trying to make Saiki think that the situation was normal.
“Hmmm. Okay, go to the bathroom or something, and I’ll get you home.”
Reita had to wait for Kuboyasu to get out of the bathroom. He stared at his watch and tapped his foot, impatience growing by the moment. Finally, Kuboyasu opened the door, and grunted at him with a frown as Reita went in.
Okay, ready. Within a second, Saiki and Aiura were all together in the bathroom.
Aiura whistled. “Wow, this bathroom is almost as big as my house.”
Saiki shushed her and changed Reita’s appearance back to normal. Reita gave Aiura a grin and raised his eyebrows a few times, and she slugged him. Then they were gone.
Kusuo left the bathroom. He spotted Teruhashi sitting in the middle of the couch, watching TV. There were about five meters of empty couch between her and Saiko, who lounged on the other end. For some inexplicable reason, Kusuo wanted him to disappear. Chiyo and Kaido were playing a card game on the floor close to the balcony door, and Nendo, Hairo, Mera, and Kuboyasu surrounded them, watching them play.
He was genuinely surprised to find all of them just sitting there. On the other hand, he had broken their helicopter. Surely they would have found something else to do, though.
“Yes!” Kaido exclaimed. Chiyo threw her cards down and she, Mera, and Kuboyasu moaned. Hairo and Nendo cheered with Kaido.
He came up behind the couch, and thought to all of them, “Isn’t it about time to head to the train station?”
Teruhashi started, but turned around and smiled. Shouldn’t you be flirting with Toritsuka, I mean me? “Oh, it’s you.” She looked at the time on her phone. “Yeah, I guess we better.”
“Who else would it be?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I just feel like I haven’t seen you much this morning.”
He was about to ask what she meant, but, obviously since Toritsuka had been there all morning as Kusuo, raising the question would immediately raise suspicion. Unless he were asking Nendo, or maybe Kaido, who were definitely not as clever as the rest of them.
They finished packing, and walked to the train station. Fortunately, it was only a few blocks away.
After they boarded, Kusuo went into an empty compartment. It wasn’t long before Teruhashi, Kaido, and Yumehara joined him. He rolled his eyes. He hadn’t really expected to get to be alone, but he had been hoping anyway.
He stared out the window. He had done it. He had saved the world, and this time he had done it without getting caught. He smiled in satisfaction and let out a deep sigh. Unfortunately, Yumehara wouldn’t have made her brave confession of love to Kaido, which would explain why they’re both in the same compartment, and not avoiding each other. Maybe he would try to make it up to them somehow. He looked over. Yumehara was looking wistfully at Kaido. Kaido was playing a dumb game on his phone. Teruhashi had been watching him, surprise, surprise, but she turned and looked out the window after a few seconds of eye contact.
Their minds were surprisingly on mundane topics.
What would it be like to finally get to go out with Kaido?
Just one more hit! Nooooooo!
Saiki’s not frowning as much as before. I wonder what happened.
It wasn’t a surprise that Teruhashi would be studying him, but it caught him by surprise to realize that she was right. He did feel a little happier. Why shouldn’t he? He had finally escaped the time loop, after going through second year three times (repeating it twice), finally feeling like he could move on along with the world. And he had gotten away with it, with these crazies not having to confront him about his secret.
He no longer felt trapped, he realized with a rush of relief. He could think about the future in a way that felt like it would matter.
So he smiled, returned his gaze to the landscape passing by, and after a few minutes, fell into a deep sleep.
Kokomi got home and unpacked. She had been careful to not do anything that might make Saiki feel like they were on to him, and tried to act exactly like she had the day before.
Of course, the day before, they weren’t lounging in the hotel. They were confronting him after the helicopter ride, but she did notice it was truly him after he said something about it being time to pack up.
She knew he couldn’t ask her what they had done all day, and she couldn’t tell him what they were doing. If either asked a question like that, it would give away that they knew more than the other thought they did. They couldn’t even bring up that Saiko’s helicopter had been damaged.
He sure seemed pleased with himself on the ride home. But it’s nice to see him smile.
Kusuo got home from saving the world--well, Japan at the very least, but why not play it up? He deserved it.
As soon as he had the chance, he practically collapsed onto his chair and uncharacteristically plopped his feet onto his desk. He pulled out his brother's new hairpin from his desk drawer and spun it between his fingers. This was it. He could finally get rid of his powers, of his burden , once and for all.
Kusuke came in to talk, not bothering to ask permission. "You're sure you want to go through with this?" he asked, sitting down on the bed.
"Yeah," Kusuo said, resolute. He did have some reservations, but this would be a net win, not having to deal with stupid people's thoughts, not seeing through everything all the time, and not blowing up ships his friends were on. It would be better in the long run, and there was no denying it.
Crap, he thought, as he realized he had referred to them as his 'friends' again.
His parents barged in, their inner freaking-out preceding them.
“You’re not going to have powers anymore?”
“How am I supposed to get to work?”
“Out. I get to figure this out on my own.” He ushered them out of the room and shut the door.
Kusuo held the device up to his head. His brother made his way over to Kusuo's desk and leaned casually against it, as if he wasn't about to change his life forever. "Sooo," he started nonchalantly, "you're going to erase your powers and then just go to school tomorrow?"
He was right; they had planned this dumb trip on the last two days before school started again. Kusuo briefly tried to imagine going to school less than ten hours after changing the course of his life forever, and shuddered.
It wouldn’t hurt to use his powers one last time, to make it normal for PK Academy faculty and students to think that school would start one week later. He needed time to adjust to life without powers. Also, he could use a break after saving the world. Twice, really, since he had rewound the world and done it again so his friends wouldn't catch him in the act. It would probably take a few days to fully recover.
Then, before he could change his mind, he inserted the poop-shaped hairpin into his hair. Before he could even let go, he felt the blood drain out of his face, and his vision went white.
As his brother silently helped him to his feet, Kusuo looked at the clock and realized he’d only been passed out for a few minutes. He felt lightheaded and a wave of nausea washed through him. But it was quiet! So wonderfully quiet! He had almost forgotten what it was like to hear his own thoughts, and to actually be alone. The dizziness worsened, so he sent Kusuke away then dropped onto his bed, surrendering to a much needed rest.