Work Text:
Kokichi saw it while on his way home. He was idly tossing his keys up and down, up and down...
And then he stopped.
The church near his house was welcoming in quite the influx of guests. On a day that wasn't Sunday, no less. And when he spotted the woman in the bright white dress coming out of a car, he realized quickly what this was. He grinned wickedly and surged forward, rushing towards his apartment with far more excitement than he'd thought he might have today.
He flung himself through the lobby doors, and, ignoring the elevator nearby, ran towards the staircase instead, taking them two at a time. He had to get back while guests were still coming in! He didn't need people thinking he was out of place!
"Ah, hello Kokich-"
"Can't talk, wedding crashing!"
For any other person, the words would have seemed strange or ridiculous. He was lucky in that Kiibo wasn't just any other person - nor was he a person at all, given his robotic nature. Kiibo merely chuckled in amusement and closed his book. "I see," he said lightly as Kokichi slammed his way into the bedroom, searching for suitable formalwear. "Make sure and have fun, then."
Kokichi would have offered to bring Kiibo with him, but he'd done that once before. Turned out people didn't bring robots to weddings. He stood out too much for the attempt to be successful, so unfortunately Kiibo just stayed behind now.
With this in mind, Kokichi made sure to tuck a small camera on the lapel of his jacket. He'd had Miu invent it last time she'd visited - even if Kiibo couldn't join him properly, he rather wanted him to be able to see what was happening.
Kokichi came out of the bedroom to see Kiibo waiting for him at the door, looking amused with how excited he was. "How do I look?" Kokichi asked, spinning around.
"I am sure they will not suspect a thing, Kokichi," Kiibo assured him. He motioned Kokichi closer. When he obeyed, Kiibo pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. "Let me know how late you will be back. I will make you dinner if you get kicked out and can't eat there."
Kokichi stuck his tongue out at Kiibo. "Please. This isn't my first time, Kiiboy. I'll be fiiiine."
"Yes, I am sure you will be," Kiibo said, still amused. "Go on, then. Do not let me keep you."
"Love ya!" Kokichi said cheerfully as he made his way out the door.
Of course JB had wanted him here! Everett was the one who'd uninvited him! He was such a jerk!
Oh, well. Shiloh adjusted the package under his arm. He was pretty sure that he and Everett were the only ones who'd known about him being uninvited, so if he just acted natural, no one would know!
He entered the building, keeping his head down in case Everett was anywhere nearby. When he got in, he saw an unfamiliar person, scanning over the presents with a careful, scrutinizing gaze.
"Um...?" Shiloh inched forward. "Hello?"
The guy jumped and looked at Shiloh in panic. "Oh! Hi...?" The guy crossed his arms and tilted his chin up threateningly. "Who're you?"
"I'm Shiloh Fields," Shiloh said, but didn't offer any other information. "Who are you?"
The guy stared at him for a moment before he sighed under his breath.
"I'm Om- No, wait, ugh. I'm Kokichi Oma." The guy muttered something under his breath, something about a 'habit'. Then Kokichi narrowed his eyes. "Well, Shiloh, I've never seen you before. You must be a wedding crasher!"
Shiloh panicked. How did he know?!
"How did you know?" Shiloh whispered, not able to keep up the charade when he'd been so quickly found out.
Kokichi blinked. "I didn't," he said bluntly.
"...Huh?"
"I didn't know," Kokichi repeated. "'Cause..." Kokichi glanced around suspiciously, then leaned in, as if sharing a secret, "I'm crashing too!"
Shiloh's eyes widened, and then he grinned excitedly. Now that Kokichi was obviously no longer a threat, he put his present down on the table with the others' as if nothing was wrong. "Then we're partners in crime," he said with an overly-sugary tone.
Kokichi laughed, an over-the-top evil-sounding laugh. "Guess so! Hey, is 'Shiloh' your real name?"
"Is 'Kokichi' yours?"
Kokichi simply winked in response. Shiloh gave him a grin. "So... What were you doing over here?"
"I'm gonna pretend one of these presents is mine," Kokichi said. "I didn't think ahead like you and bring one. Heck, I didn't know this wedding was happening until less than an hour ago."
"Oh, well here!" Shiloh grabbed a pen from on the table and took the tag from on his own present. "Here, just write your name under mine. It'd be mean to take full credit for someone else's gift."
"Ooh! You're so nice, Shiloh!" Kokichi said cheerfully. He accepted the pen and scribbled his name under Shiloh's on the tag.
"Aha, thanks. I do try," Shiloh said, adjusting his hat shyly. He chose not to ask - yet - about why Kokichi had come to a wedding on such short notice. "So, do you know the bride or groom?" he asked instead.
"Nope," Kokichi said, looking around idly. "I just kinda make it a habit to crash random weddings whenever I can. It's fun!"
"Ah..." Shiloh didn't know how to respond to that for a moment. "...Okay?"
"Mm. C'mon, we should go figure out where we're gonna sit during that boring speech thing."
"The ceremony-?"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever!" Kokichi grabbed Shiloh's arm and dragged him off, a wild grin on his face.
Kokichi hadn't expected to find someone so willing to go along with him, so willing to help him out on this particular venture. He's not complaining, not by a longshot - if he can't have Kiibo with him, a new friend is probably the third best he could do (the second-best would have to be if he could convince one of his old friends to make the trip from Japan to join him, but that's not exactly doable given the length of the flight that would be required).
Hm. He said "friend", but is that an accurate term, if he really thought about it?
"Hey, do you know the bride or groom?" he whispered, shifting in the seat Shiloh had procured him.
"Yeah, I do. We're friends from high school," Shiloh whispered back. "Well... 'Friend' is a strong word. We were in the same after-school group."
Kokichi hummed at the words, turning them over in his mind thoughtfully. "How come you didn't get invited then?" he asks smugly.
"I did. But the groom uninvited me."
Kokichi snorted at the blunt response. "Why, didja used to hit on his bride?"
The lack of response Shiloh gave him spoke volumes. It took all of Kokichi's effort to not burst into laughter at the realization that he'd hit the nail on the head.
He must not have done a good job of hiding his amusement, because Shiloh shifted in his seat, a strange sort of something - hostility, sort of, but somehow not quite that at the same time - radiating off of him in waves.
Kokichi kept his mouth shut for the rest of the ceremony.
The reception arrives soon after the ceremony, but Shiloh can barely focus on that, trying to focus on keeping Kokichi quiet. For someone who apparently did this often, he didn't seem too concerned about getting caught.
"C-come on," Shiloh said, grabbing a still-snickering Kokichi's arm and trying to lead him towards the open buffet. "What was so funny about that anyway?"
"You kidding?!" Kokichi cackled even more, and Shiloh frantically shushed him. "How did that guy not mind the bride outright hitting on literally every single one of the groomsmen?! And how did she not mind him hitting on all of the bridesmaids... And the groomsmen?!"
Shiloh sighed and said, "They're used to that behavior from each other. From what I remember, they used to have a saying about being allowed to look, not touch."
Kokichi abruptly stopped his laughter and nodded his understanding. It was a little unnerving, how easily Kokichi could flip from one emotion to another. Shiloh swallowed back the thought and asked, out of a bit of curiosity, "How did you find this wedding?"
"I live in an apartment building a little ways over," Kokichi said, waving in some direction, presumably where his apartment building was. "I was coming home from a meeting with my group-"
"Your group?"
"...I've said too much."
Shiloh blinked. Kokichi grinned mysteriously, and continued, "My boyfriend's used to this by now. He used to think it was strange but now he just kinda lets me do it and just tells me to let him know if he needs to make me dinner. So when I came running through like "I'M GONNA BE LATE FOR A WEDDING" he just wished me luck."
"Oh, you have a boyfriend? Is he nice?" Shiloh asked, while privately wondering what insane person would date anyone who crashes weddings for a hobby.
"He's the nicest! We met in high school," Kokichi said, eyes lighting up in a way Shiloh hadn't seen throughout this entire excursion. "You ever heard of Hope's Peak Academy?"
"Oh, that famous school in Japan? You went there?" He'd heard tales of the place, and some students at SSB had even gotten scouted by it, but he'd never heard more than legends and rumors.
Kokichi grinned at his wonder and gestured dramatically, "Feast your eyes on Kokichi Oma, the Former Ultimate Supreme Leader!"
Shiloh blinked.
Was this guy insane?
Kokichi snickered and moved past Shiloh, uncaring for his blank, disbelieving reaction. "C'mon, Shya, I wanna eat! Don't make me leave you behind!"
"O-oh! Okay, coming!"
Kokichi stabbed violently into the chicken, mostly for the discomfort of Shiloh next to him. Because they were crashing, they'd snuck their plates off to an isolated corner of the area, hoping to not be discovered by those who were actually supposed to be there.
Luckily most people were focused on their own conversations at their own, actual tables.
Kokichi glanced over to Shiloh. "Hey, I'm gonna talk about my boyfriend some more," he said bluntly, because Shiloh hadn't tried to talk to him anymore after he'd revealed that he'd once gone to Hope's Peak.
Also, going to these weddings always makes him sentimental.
"O-oh! Okay!"
"Right, so, he was an Ultimate too! Y'know what he was an Ultimate of?"
Shiloh opened his mouth, but Kokichi didn't let him speak.
"He's the Ultimate Robot!" Kokichi grinned, his heart thumping a little faster as he thought about how proud Kiibo always was when his "talent" came up. All these years and he still adored Kiibo.
"You're dating a robot?" Shiloh asked, blinking in a way that said he thought Kokichi had been full of shit this entire time.
Kokichi laughed a little at the sight. "Yep! Want proof? I got tooooons of pictures of him."
"...No, not really."
Kokichi shrugged and took another bite of his chicken, then took a quick drink of wine as well. "Your loss. But I don't really want you seeing his cute face, anyway, cause you might try and steal him from me."
"...Kokichi, no offense, but are you drunk?"
Kokichi stuck his tongue out childishly. "None of your goddamned business."
"I have no interest in your robot boyfriend."
"He'd call you robophobic if he heard that," Kokichi said. "'How insulting! I am Kokichi's BOYFRIEND, not just his robot boyfriend! Kindly restate your comment!'"
"Ah... Hah."
This was a terrible idea in general.
But really, what was Shiloh supposed to do? Let the guy walk home drunk?
He watched helplessly as Kokichi tried to drunkenly pick a fight with a vending machine, fully considering that for a hot minute.
"My boyfriend is much better than yo- WHOA!" Shiloh yanked Kokichi along, wrist clutched tightly as if the guy was a child who was prone to running away, and he was an over-tired mother.
(Suddenly, he felt like he should apologize to Lynn. Just in general.)
"This is your apartment building, right?"
"Oooh! This is where Kiibo lives!" Kokichi gasped dramatically and started tugging on Shiloh's arm. "Let's go inside! He'll be sooo surprised!"
"Please tell me Kiibo is your boyfriend."
"He's the BEST boyfriend!"
"Good enough."
Shiloh allowed Kokichi to drunkenly lead them to the elevator, hoping he wasn't drunk enough to not know his own floor or apartment number.
"Hm, hm... Here we aaare!" Kokichi knocked once on the door before falling back against Shiloh with a bright giggle. Shiloh sighed deeply and knocked properly for him.
"Ah, just a moment!" a voice called from inside.
There was the click of a lock, and then the door opened to reveal a...
...
Robot.
"Kokichi!" the robot gasped. Kokichi giggled and launched himself at the robot, smothering his face in kisses.
"...Oh my god, he wasn't kidding," Shiloh said. "You really are a robot. He's really dating a robot."
Kokichi gasped dramatically and pointed at Shiloh. "Robophobia!"
The robot sighed affectionately. "Yes, that's right, Kokichi. Why don't you go lie down now?"
"Mkay."
The robot rubbed the back of his neck as he watched Kokichi scramble drunkenly into the apartment. "I apologize. I hope he was no trouble at the, um, wedding."
"Oh, no more trouble than I was," Shiloh said cheerfully, moving on from the "robot" thing quickly. For now, at least.
"No more than you... Oh." The robot chuckled and stepped to the side. "Would you like to come inside for a minute?"
Not really. This was still too weird.
"Ah, I would, but I have to get home. Sorry."
The robot nodded his understanding. "Of course. Please be careful on your way home."
"Y-yeah. Bye."
The next morning, Kokichi ate breakfast through his painful hangover, and grumbled out, "I wanna get married."
"I know you do," Kiibo said as he read his book, a fond smile on his lips.
"Like, for real. Legally. To you."
"I know."
Kokichi groaned and shoved his plate away. "Stupid robophobic laws," he grumbled, earning him an affectionate chuckle from Kiibo. "You've got, like, an AI and everything. How come I'm not allowed to marry you?" If he were less hungover, he'd be throwing a fit about it.
"You know we could still have the ceremony and reception. It would not be binding, but we could do it all the same."
Kokichi scrunched up his nose. He didn't like the idea of it not being binding. He wanted to be bound to Kiibo. But if that was all they could do...
"...Yeah, alright. Let's do that."
"I'll call our friends and let them know."
"We should do it today."
"They cannot feasibly get here within twenty-four hours, Kokichi."
"...Tomorrow?"
"...I will see what I can do."