Chapter Text
The university provided him a room on the nearby campus-owned dormitory. And he was supposed to have the room all to himself.
Kokichi Ouma was not supposed to have a roommate.
He was supposed to have a room all to himself, but at the last minute the dorms filled up, and he somehow ended up with a roommate.
He looked at the name underneath his own name—tried to read the characters as they made sense in his head. His roommate was going to be someone named Shuichi Saihara.
Great. Just what he needed in his already fucked up non-life. Someone to safeguard his secret against is rooming with him.
____
The university was aware of his circumstances—after all, it was their fault that he turned out to be the way he is. As it turned out, having an undercover experimentation facility in the middle of a university campus proved to have disastrous results—a literal experiment subject got away one night, and Kokichi just happened to have classes near the area of the facility. When he walked out the building before his class was even over, he unwittingly bumped into a crazed looking man, and the man only responded by literally biting him in the neck. It all happened so fast that he didn’t have time to process, but the pain was enough to cause him to black out.
The next thing he knew, he was in a white room, where he felt like a truck hit him, he was hungry, and everything, everything was just so… clear. He heard the humming of the machines around him, the weird buzz the lights on the ceiling made, he saw the tiniest speckle on the speckled ceiling tile so clearly as if it was magnified into his eyes—his senses sharpened far beyond what he used to remember them being like. He heard chattering from outside his room, like little whispers that could barely contain themselves.
With his head hammering, he tried to reach up to massage his temples, but instead he yanked at his arm—he looked down from where he laid and saw that he had been restrained to the hospital bed with handcuffs. He could only reach for a button that laid on his side—he assumed this was so he could call down a nurse, and so that was what he did, because what the fuck, why was he tied down to his bed?
He pressed the buzzer and some moments later, a man that definitely did not look like a doctor came in. He had dark hair, and if Kokichi wasn’t mistaken, the man had purple hair, not quite unlike himself.
“You’re not a doctor,” Kokichi said weakly, having just woken up from god knows how long.
“I’m not. I’m the school dean.” The man could have pulled a chair to the side of Kokichi’s bed, but he seemed hesitant to get closer—because it was obvious that he kept his distance from Kokichi’s bed on purpose.
“And to what do I owe you this pleasure? As you can see, I can’t quite move my arms right now—which is why I want a nurse, or a doctor. So, why is the school dean here?” Kokichi tried to remember who the man was. He seemed familiar, but he couldn’t quite place his face.
“I’m here to apologize for what happened to you. Before anything else proceeds from now on.” Is all the man said, as he shook his head.
“What? What are you apologizing for?”
“… do you remember what happened before you lost consciousness?”
“Um,” Kokichi tried to recall, but his head throbbed worse. It took him a few moments, but he managed to speak up soon after. “I ran into some guy and he just fucking bit me. He bit me—what, did he have rabies or something? Shit, did I catch it? Is that why I’m here?”
“… that man was a vampire.”
Kokichi stared at the man in front of him. “What.”
“That man was a vampire, Ouma-kun.”
“You’re joking, right—”
“I’m completely serious. That man was a vampire and he bit you and we’ve tested you for anything and we—”
“Are you telling me I’m a vampire now?”
The man simply gestured to the heart monitor to Kokichi’s side. It displayed a flat line.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean—”
“You guessed right. I’m afraid that man had turned you into a vampire.”
Kokichi couldn’t believe it. “No, no… this is some sick joke.” His head throbbed. He sat up best as he could while he was restrained, and it made his headache worse.
The man visibly stepped back.
Kokichi noticed, of course, and he scoffed. “What, are you serious? I’m literally restrained—and you’re joking, you’re joking…”
“But I’m not.” The man took out a small knife and when Kokichi saw this he steeled himself, but instead of lunging at him in his hospital bed, the man simply raised his own hand, and drew blood from his thumb.
The scent of blood hit Kokichi’s nose almost immediately and he felt like he lost himself. He lunged forward, but his restraints kept him in his bed. The way his restraints rubbed against his wrist hurt him, but he kept trying to lunge forward to no avail. “What,” he hissed, “what the fuck? Why do—why do I want to hurt you!?” was all he could say.
People in white suddenly entered the room and they pulled him back into lying down, and before he could resist any more, they stabbed a needle to the side of his neck, where he was bit, and it hurt so much that he yelped helplessly. Immediately he felt his head grow lighter, the scent of blood still in his nose, the world blurred, and he passed out, yet again. (He has to stop doing that.)
That all happened three years ago.
____
It took some finding out what the university should do with him, because this was technically their fault. He was given two options: to be allowed to die, or to continue living with certain conditions placed upon him.
Now, Kokichi hated his life, but that didn’t mean he wanted to drop dead the next moment, so he insisted on living, given conditions that would allow him to live as normally as he could. Since he ‘died’ that night three years ago, he was given a new name—Kokichi Ouma.
Three years after his ‘death’, he was allowed back into campus, under the conditions that he live in the university dorms for however long he pleased, and since they technically turned his life upside down, they had to accommodate him for however long he lived. That meant giving him living quarters and providing him with blood (sourced from animals, and ethically sourced, he insisted) to consume, as well as a scholarship fund for him to burn through his university career. Though this was the card he was dealt, it came with another condition—that they be free to study him however they wished (humane as possible). They would still provide ‘food’ for him, but his expenditures in the university came with the condition that they could study him. Thankfully the school dean was humane enough in treating him and wanted him to be treated like any other folk out there, so once he finished his studies, technically it meant that their time studying him was over too, if he so wished. And another thing—
Nobody is allowed to find out what he is, too.
____
Move-in day began, and since he was a resident of the university itself, he was the first to and already settled into the dorms. His room was all the way up the fifteenth floor, at the very end of the hallway. This was his setup because the university didn’t expect the influx of students for that year, so he wasn’t really expecting to be roomed with somebody. But fate had other plans for him and there he was, already expecting his roommate to come through the door.
Given that this was the topmost floor, the rooms here were much larger—most of the rooms had two bedrooms, a shared bathroom and a dining space that included a small kitchen, but the upper floors were meant for long-term students—so these rooms (from the thirteenth upwards) got a living-room space in addition to the perks mentioned before, complete with a sofa and television (that they had to pay cable for. Kokichi doesn’t have to, luckily).
Kokichi sat in the sofa, anxious about his incoming roommate. Other people had already filled in the dorms, so where was this guy? Shuichi Saihara or something, he thought, should have been here for a while now.
There was a sudden knock that came to his door. This is it, he thought, as he made his way to open the door for his incoming roommate.
When he opened the door, a young man in black greeted him.
“Um, Ouma Kokichi-kun, correct?” the man was wearing a cap, his eyes obstructed by it. “I-I’m Saihara Shuichi. I’ll be your roommate.”
Kokichi just stood there, inspecting him.
“Um… may I come in?”
“Huh. Yeah, sure, whatever. Come in,” Kokichi said, looking at the boxes behind the guy. He would have helped the guy with his belongings, but that wasn’t Kokichi’s problem, so he simply just stood aside and walked back to the sofa where he plopped down and turned on the television. “So we’ll be roomies, Saihara-chan.”
“Huh? Oh… yeah, that’s right,” Shuichi replied, fazed by his name ending in -chan, and still busy bringing in boxes inside their room. “I’ll be a long term student like you, so… let’s get along.”
“Yeah, a long term student,” Kokichi said, drawing out the words long term. He’ll be here for a while, alright. “Let’s get along, sure.”
Shuichi seemed to smile at that, even though Kokichi looked dismissive as he watched his gameshow. “It’s nice to meet you, Ouma-kun. Any ground rules we should be laying down? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything—”
“Ground rules,” Kokichi repeated, now amused. “You want ground rules? Because you don’t want to make me uncomfortable?”
“Um. Yes,” Shuichi replied, eyebrows knotting as he felt like he’d already displeased his new roommate. Way to go, Saihara. “I’m good with anything, so I don’t think I’ll be needing to lay anything down—um, I guess you can take food from me if you want. I’d rather it be eaten than for it to go bad, since sometimes I forget to eat anything—” Shuichi opened the fridge, and all it contained was grape soda and… some juice packs? No food?
“Well, since you’re laying down food rules—just don’t touch my shit,” Kokichi responded, turning to look his way. “Don’t fuck with my drinks, that’s all.”
“Um… okay.”
“Do you do that a lot?”
“Do what—”
“Go ‘ah, um, uh,’ a lot.”
“Um… I guess I do.” Shuichi’s hand flew up to the tip of his hat, as he nervously fidgeted with it. “Sorry.”
“You’re seriously apologizing for that?” Kokichi laughed. “Well, it is annoying, but it’s not something to apologize for.”
“Ah… I suppose.”
“… do you need help with your stuff?” Kokichi offered. If he was going to be roommates with somebody he might as well get along with them. It didn’t seem like Shuichi was a freak or anything (the abundance of black in his clothing aside) so he might as well play nice.
“Ah… yes, please. If you don’t mind."