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It felt like years since Kokichi had last gotten a wink of sleep. His eyes hurt, he couldn’t stop yawning; he had to get this assignment done, however. None of his classmates knew that he actually did his work, and this was the one project he forgot about over everything else he had on his hand at the time.
It was currently 4:32 in the morning, and he had been working on this bullshit assignment on —out of all things this world has to offer— The History of European Architecture (like, who even studies that shit for a living) for the whole of Saturday and Sunday, taking little breaks in between his diligent work; it felt like death itself had taken hold of him, but he had to trek on in order to keep his anxiety of crashing onto himself, disabling him from doing practically anything for the next week.
Hours and hours passed, and finally, he completed it. However, there was no way he was ready for Monday. Even with the little (no) preparation for the following day,-
he could never predict what the next day would serve him.
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To his surprise, Shuichi, the insomniac he most definitely was, had gotten a good amount of sleep during the weekend; though he had to take quite a bit of time to catch up on some cases he had neglected to work on, he actually managed to get more hours in than he usually did, as busy as he usually made himself.
As he got to class that morning, he noticed that something seemed… off. Everything just looked too… peaceful , if he could describe the room anytime as such.
Kaito and Maki were casually chatting with each other, probably about how their weekends were and what they had to do today, while Kaede, Rantaro, and, shockingly to him, Angie were looking at Kaede’s phone, the three of them looking hypnotized by whatever was on the screen; he didn’t want to find out what, if he were being honest. Tenko and Himiko (mostly Tenko) were talking (*flirting) with one another; from what he heard of their conversation, they had spent the weekend together, and Kokichi— oh . It seemed that he was… asleep? Welp, at least he had figured out what was wrong about the classroom today.
Kokichi, for one, was most certainly not the type to sleep at school. He had never seen the boy without having his energy level at a 10 and his level of calm at less than a 5. He was pretty much always bothering someone , and even if he wasn’t directly speaking to someone, even his presence was usually irritating in some way. No one could truly explain it, and Shuichi didn’t think anyone who was paying a lick of attention to the currently peaceful, less than disrupting boy could explain his current tiredness to a T.
After a few more minutes of staring lovingly checking with his eyes to see if Oma was okay, the detective looked forward, just as their teacher had entered the room to start class for the day. Even as roll call began and their teacher started going through names, marking off who was here and who wasn’t —even if everyone was visibly there— the purple-haired boy still didn’t wake up.
“Kokichi Oma… is Oma-kun here today?” the teacher called across the room.
“Oh, get up, ‘ya twink!” Miu shouted at the still asleep boy at the desk in front of her. It didn’t seem like the unusualness of the current situation had struck her as it did Shuichi.
“H-huh? What’s going on?” Everyone got quiet, even if they were quiet before, it felt like a pin dropped as the especially tired boy looked around, confusion crossing his face as he tried to figure out the situation he was in.
“C’mon, shota! Just say you’re here already so we can move along already!” Miu again shouted at the boy, wincing at her volume, the teacher reprimanding her for her vulgarity.
“H-hey, don’t call me that, Miu.”
Another pin was dropped. The current situation now struck everyone, even the teacher becoming quiet hearing the usually loud and proud purplenette suddenly becoming all shy from a simple nickname he received on the daily. He even called Miu by her name, when does he ever do that?
Everyone was still silent out of shock as the teacher marked Kokichi as present and moved on to the lesson, finally seeing that (clearly) everyone was there.
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The day continued as usual, at least as usual as it can be at Hope’s Peak.
Everyone had seemed to calm down, moving on from the strange occurrence of the morning. Shuichi, however, was concerned, as he had begun peeking at the now fairly quiet boy throughout the day. Kokichi had been acting completely out of character that day so far, being extremely shy and extraordinarily nice for someone like him. He even wished Maki a good morning as she sat next to him in the class following the one he first left everyone shell-shocked, completely oblivious to the world around him.
His lethargy was even on par with Himiko’s, who was actually well-rested for once and was willing to chat with some of her friends for an extended amount of time. The poor boy was clearly having a bad time; the darkened eye bags and the consistent yawning gave him away entirely.
Shuichi finally decided enough was enough, and he went to speak to the boy in question. “U-uhm… hey Oma-kun, how are you doing?” Damn, that was way too casual. Thankfully, the sleep deprived boy didn’t notice anything off. “Oh, hey Shuichi, I’m okay,” he shyly responded, a yawn freeing itself from his throat after. “Are you sure, Kokichi? You seem… tired.”
“Tired” was an understatement for how he looked, but the boy denied it with a small whine “I’m fine, Shuichi, please don’t worry.” Now, he had every reason to worry about how the boy was acting. “You need sleep, Oma-kun. Have you heard yourself? Do you know what you’re even saying,” Shuichi refuted, worry laced in his voice.
“I’m okaaay, Shu!” He sounded a little more like himself, but it was still clear was in desperate need of rest. Shuichi, who had given up on arguing, gained a boost of confidence and picked the smaller boy up and started carrying him to the Nurse’s Office, silently thanking Kaito and Maki for their training with him.
The now semi-distressed boy started “attacking” the detective carrying him, of course failing in his endeavor when his already low energy ran out, and he fell asleep in Shuichi’s arms.
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As Kokichi woke up in the Nurse’s Office, he felt that something was… off. He still needed to catch up on a lot more sleep to get back to his former glory, however, so the feeling was dismissed; still dazed from his restlessness, it took him a little while longer to remember what exactly happened again, piecing most of it together as the “emo” detective he oh so loved entered the room.
“Hey, Kokichi. Are you feeling a bit better?” “A-a little, what time is it?” The boy still felt a bit shy, which Shuichi now associated with his sleep deprivation. “It’s almost 4, I believe. School’s about to end, I can walk you up to your dorm, if you’d like me to.”
Kokichi, still a little oblivious to his surroundings, or in this case, Shuichi, decided to respond by hugging the taller boy and refusing to let go, as the poor detective gave up on his free will and carried the supreme leader back up to his dorm.
Only later would Kokichi, and Shuichi by default, learn that he had forgotten to turn in his project that he spent oh so long working on, leaving it behind in his haze.