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It wasn’t conversion camp, not really. And Shuichi was endlessly thankful for that. But as he stared at the Bible verses posted all around the rec hall, the unpleasant feeling in his stomach tightened into a knot. He knew that his uncle said that it was because he had to travel to America for a few months to work a case and that he didn’t want an eighteen-year-old boy alone in the house for that long, but Shuichi had a feeling that wasn’t true. Talk of this camp hadn’t begun until after he came out as bisexual, and the correlation definitely wasn’t just a coincidence. And well, the brochures promised to “guide mislead youth” back onto “God’s path of man and woman” as one of the pros of the camp. It made him roll his eyes. But he was stuck here for about two months until his college classes began in late August.
There were ten “boys cabins” and ten “girls cabins”. Each cabin held up to 12 people, and honestly, something that Shuichi feared most was the idea of all his cabinmates hating him. He was one of the last to arrive, awkwardly holding his suitcase as he walked into the cabin. Six bunk beds lined the walls, leaving room for a foot of space in the back, and about four feet in the middle space.
Suffice it to say, it was a bit crowded.
Many of the bunks already had an occupant, so Shuichi carefully placed his suitcase on one of the remaining bottom bunks and quietly started unpacking.
“Hey!” Shuichi looked up in alarm to find a boisterous boy grinning down at him. His purple hair was teased up and spiked in a way that defied gravity, and despite the sweltering weather, he wore a galaxy-themed jacket (or half wore, with only one arm in a sleeve, the other flying free). “First time here?” Shuichi nodded slowly, and the guy spread his arms welcomingly. “Awesome! Most of us are old-timers, but don’t worry! I’m sure you’ll fit in great!” Yeah, there was no way this guy was heterosexual. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Shuichi Saihara,” Shuichi answered, jumping a little when the guy patted him roughly on the back.
“I’m Kaito Momota, luminary of the stars and future astronaut!” Kaito introduced himself proudly, before turning to look at the others. “Hey, guys! Introduce yourself to Saihara! He’s a newbie!”
“Hi, Saihara!” The short, brown-haired boy in the bottom bunk across from Shuichi piped up. “I’m Makoto Naegi! Nice to meet you!” Shuichi gave a little wave before Kaito pointed to the boy lounging up on the top bunk above Makoto and demanded that he go next.
“Mondo Owada, don’t be a fuckhead and we’ll get along fine,” he shot back down, flipping off Kaito as he spoke. Kaito ignored this and continued to point, Shuichi getting a greeting with each motion.
“Rantaro Amami, great to meet you Saihara.”
“Hajime Hinata. I’m dating Nagito.”
“Nagito Komaeda, and I’m far from worthy to even be in a cabin with all of you!” (Nagito looked as if he may have continued to ramble, but Hajime shut him up by pulling him into a kiss).
“And I am Korekiyo Shinguji.” Kaito grinned, putting an arm around Shuichi.
“That’s all of us, except one. He’s not here yet, I guess.” Rantaro gave a small sigh, shaking his head.
“He’s never punctual if he can help it.” Before Shuichi could voice his confusion and ask for clarification as to who this ‘he’ was, the cabin door was flung open dramatically, and in walked a short boy with untamed purple hair.
The camp had provided all of them with shirts to wear, with their last names printed on the back, and the camp logo on the front. The shirts weren’t anything special, just boring grey cotton, and each person got three identical ones. Shuichi, along with everyone else in the cabin, was already wearing one, getting used to having to only wear the camp shirt for a while.
This was only important because one of the first things that Shuichi noticed about the newcomer was his very exposed midriff. The boy had very clearly turned one of his shirts into a crop top, and Shuichi highly doubted that it fell into the strict camp dress code.
“What’s up bitches?” He announced, looking around the cabin until his gaze fell onto Shuichi. “Ooh, a newcomer! How exciting!”
“And that’s Kokichi Ouma, the last guy in the cabin.” Kaito’s tone was wearied as he introduced Kokichi, who just shot him a brilliant grin. “He’s been coming here the longest, Amami’s got second place.”
“Yeah, I was born here actually!” Kokichi said, directing his smile towards Shuichi. “Gotta come back and visit every year, nostalgia reasons and all that.” Shuichi stared at him for a second, before Rantaro mercifully spoke up.
“He’s lying. He started getting sent when he was ten because he kept getting caught kissing other boys behind the school building.” Kokichi gave Rantaro an overexaggerated pout as he tossed his suitcase up onto the bunk above Shuichi’s.
“You’re never any fun, Taro!” He whined, before nimbly scaling up the ladder to his new space. Kaito gave Shuichi a sympathetic look.
“Half the stuff that comes out of his mouth is a lie, you’ll get used to it.”
“Is not!” Kokichi replied, leaning over the safety rail of his bunk. “I absolutely hate liars!” His mischievous grin returned to Shuichi. “We get to be bunk buddies! Isn’t that great?”
Shuichi couldn’t help but swallow back his anxiety. This was going to be an experience, to say the least.
*****
Obviously, with a cabin full of queer boys, surrounded by other cabins of queer boys, rules were going to be broken. Within his first ten minutes in Cabin 10 (the one he had been assigned to, obviously), he already noticed a large number of violations. Mondo had poorly hidden his contraband stashes of cigarettes and whiskey, Kiyo’s hair was much longer than allowed (Kaito and Mondo probably squeaked past that rule by styling it up), and Hajime and Nagito were constantly breaking all the PDA rules.
Shuichi wasn’t a stickler for the rules or anything. Hell, he had still brought eyeliner despite the “no makeup on boys” rule. But Kokichi made it clear right away that he considered himself above any and all camp rules, and would therefore act as he pleased.
That wasn’t all bad, necessarily. Things like his crop top didn’t affect Shuichi in the slightest (well, it sort of did, but he was never going to publicly admit that). The problem arose when Kokichi’s rule-breaking became coupled with his affinity for pranks and mischief. No one was safe; from rocks ‘appearing mysteriously’ in people’s day packs, to everyone returning to find their bed had been short-sheeted, it was clear that no one was safe from Kokichi’s whims.
Shuichi found that he had quickly become Kokichi’s new favorite target. He had to constantly check his food and drinks from the dining hall because if he didn’t pay close attention, they would become doused in salt to the point of being inedible. He had to borrow Mondo’s (contraband) pocketknife to cut off all the zip ties that had been attached to the zippers on his suitcase, sealing it shut. And every night before getting in his bed, Shuichi had to carefully inspect the sheets for any hidden pinecones or stones, since he’d accidentally sat down on them far too many times already. All this within the first three days.
His breaking point was the water balloon incident on the fourth day of camp. Exhausted from a long day of hiking and (forced) bible studies, once Shuichi had deemed his sheets to be free of anything pointy or uncomfortable, he had laid down, flopping his head back onto his pillow with a sigh. Which was his mistake. The pillow had been removed from his pillowcase, which had been filled with several water balloons, all of which burst upon impact. Shuichi stared up at the bunk above him in surprise, now doused in cold water and trying to figure out exactly what the hell happened. An irritating laugh, that was now very familiar to him, came from above, as Kokichi leaned over the edge of his bunk and looked down at Shuichi, shit-eating grin still in full force despite being upside down.
“Wow, Saihara! That’s taking wet dreams to a whole new level, don’t you think?” Shuichi, who was already tired, but now also wet and cold, finally broke and glared up at Kokichi, ignoring the muffled laughter coming from his other cabinmates.
He would find out later that the water balloon prank was one of Kokichi’s signature moves, and that everyone in the cabin had fallen for it at least once (Kaito begrudgingly admitting that it had happened to him three times). It wasn’t out of malice, but rather due to the fact that Kokichi tended to target newcomers for the first couple of weeks, before returning to making Kaito his main focus. Shuichi apparently also hadn’t given Kokichi a satisfactory reaction yet, being annoyed at the pranks, but remaining calm.
This was the last straw though.
Shuichi didn’t mean what he said, and he regretted it the moment after it came out of his mouth. Being tired and irate was no excuse, and although Kokichi had been poking at him for several days now, Shuichi’s response was a shove.
“Oh fuck off. At least I’m not the camp slut, Ouma.” It was a pretty low blow, and even as far as Shuichi knew, untrue. He hated gossip, but he wasn’t deaf. Stories and rumors about Kokichi flew rampant through the camp, and, well, many of them made Shuichi blush to even overhear. And yes, Kokichi did constantly break the dress code with his crop top camp shirts and too-short shorts, but that didn’t mean anything. It was an unfair insult grounded in gossip, and he felt bad the minute that the words hung in the air, silencing the other laughter and whispering in the cabin.
Kokichi’s eyes had widened almost imperceptibly for a fraction of a second, before narrowing.
“Damn, you must be fun at parties Saihara,” he replied, popping back up to his bunk and out of sight. Usually, there was a lot of whispering and giggles before everyone fell asleep, but tonight there was only a dense, awkward silence, broken only occasionally by a drip of water running down the frame of Shuichi’s bunk.
The pranks targeting him stopped after that, and Kokichi only acknowledged Shuichi when he had to, and even then, his words were cold and sarcastic. Shuichi had tried to apologize many times throughout the next day, before growing frustrated at being ignored and just giving up. Thankfully, no one else in the cabin took sides or anything of the sort, but group activities could easily turn awkward. That being said, the next three days managed to go by without issue.
Then came the weekly camp-wide Saturday game. It was how they were supposed to “celebrate the ending of a blessed week” or something like that, but really it was just a huge annoyance. And what better way to do that than ridiculous physical activity?
The camp had a walking trail about half a kilometer long that ran around the perimeter, through a stretch of woods, and back. Everyone had to team up with a cabinmate and, with one person on the other’s shoulders, make it around the trail. The cabin with the highest average score of times would win. It was really fucking stupid. But Shuichi always followed orders from authority figures, so he scanned the others to find a partner.
Hajime and Nagito had already teamed up, of course. Mondo and Makoto appeared to have too, and as Shuichi turned to ask Rantaro, Kiyo had already done so first. Kaito (lucky for him in this case) had sprained his ankle earlier in the day and had just the perfect puppy eyes ready to get him permission to sit out of the game. So that only left one other person.
He and Kokichi slowly turned to look at each other at the same time, realizing in tandem what had happened.
Well, shit.
Around the halfway point, the trees that surrounded the path seemed to dip their branches lower and lower. Shuichi registered this fact but didn’t think too much about it, since he was trying to wholeheartedly ignore the fact that his head was between Kokichi’s thighs as the shorter boy was on his shoulders. His efforts were broken by Kokichi crying out.
“Fuck!” The expletive startled Shuichi, who then stumbled over a root, sending the both of them tumbling into the grass. After checking that he hadn’t sprained his ankle or anything, Shuichi turned to check on Kokichi. He was sitting up and holding onto his elbow, which was dripping blood onto the ground thanks to the fall.
“Are you okay?” Shuichi ventured carefully.
“Stupid tree poked me in the face,” Kokichi grumbled in response. “And then some dumbass tripped and dumped me onto the ground, and I hit my fucking elbow on a rock, so now my whole arm is going to have to be amputated. Obviously.”
“I didn’t mean to trip,” Shuichi muttered, looking down in embarrassment. Doing so actually gave him an idea. Kokichi raised an eyebrow at him as he ripped a strip from the hem of his shirt and came closer, taking hold of the injured arm. Shuichi carefully wrapped the makeshift bandage around the wound, tying it to keep it in place. “There, it’ll do until we get back.” Kokichi looked at him with a curious expression, which for some unknown reason kept Shuichi blabbering. “I mean, you should obviously wash it first and a sterile bandage is much better, but–” He was cut off by that familiar, yet no longer as irritating laugh.
“Geez Saihara, shut up.” The tone wasn’t a sharp one, but rather a more warm and inviting one, which caused him to give a breathy, embarrassed laugh of his own. He got up and offered a hand to Kokichi, who took it and pulled himself up.
“Let’s get back to camp. Will you be upset if I don’t carry you the rest of the way?” Kokichi gave him an enormous pout.
“How could you even think to deny me a ride? I’m so terribly injured, I may not even make it back before I bleed out!” He leaned against Shuichi’s side. “I can barely stand, Saihara! I see the light!” Shuichi found that his eyeroll was good-natured as he signed and scooped Kokichi up into a bridal-style carry.
“Okay, okay, but my shoulders are tired, so I’m going to carry you this way instead.” A pink blush had dusted across Kokichi’s face, his eyes wide from being picked up so suddenly.
“If you insist, Saihara!” He chirped happily, quickly pushing past getting flustered, and shifting a little to get more comfortable. Shuichi shot him a smile, which was returned (though it was much more catlike and mischievous).
Well, there were five weeks of camp still left. Who knows what may conspire next?