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"I can't believe we're doing this," he's giggling, and Saihara could get drunk off the sound. It's the only time Saihara sees him so unashamedly himself, when it's just them and there's no bullies, no shitty home life, no responsibilities to stand in their way.
They sit on top of the roof of their school, and it's taking a bunch of alcohol to wash away the years of abuse and harm inflicted on both of them. Ouma chugs down some of their supply and is madly giggling, thinking everything's so funny. "Our teacher would kick our asses if he found us here," he laughs.
Saihara tilts his own drink back and swallows. "Yeah, well, what's he gonna do, expel us?"
"Mmmm, good point. I say we graffiti the place. I found some cool art online I wanted to replicate."
"Oh?" Their fingers brush against each other. Saihara averts his gaze and retracts his hand, muttering an apology he doesn't actually mean.
"Yep! Oh, god, I don't wanna leave. My dad's gonna get his panties in a twist about me being out late again."
"Stay over again." He blurts it out because he finds it hard to breathe when Ouma isn't around. Even now he's suffocating. "My parents are out."
"Mm. I should. We never finished Child's Play. Again. Man, how many times have we replayed that movie?"
"You pass out every time," he snorts softly. He can never quite look at Ouma when Ouma is looking at him, and eye contact is twice as difficult. He never feels like he deserves it. "If it bores you, just tell me."
"But you love that horror shit, and you always watch whatever I want." Ouma shrugs. He scratches off more of his black nail polish when Saihara spent so much time fixing them. "I get tired of being selfish, y'know."
"That's a lie, isn't it?"
"Take your pick." Ouma tilts his head back and inhales deeply. "Can't believe it. You really got me into this, didn't you?"
"Couldn't lose you," Saihara says with more wistfulness in his tone than he should've allowed. "You're the only one who gets me."
"Yeah, but what's the point, we won't remember each other ever again."
His brows knit together. "Well, I don't care," he scowls. "Even when you don't, I…"
Ouma snickers, lacing his fingers behind the back of his head. "The way you sound, it's like you're in love with me."
"What if I was?" He finally looks at him.
"I'd say you're an idiot," he laughs. "No one should ever fall for someone like me."
"I beg to differ," he scoffs. "Kokichi, you're… I—you know, you're…" He can't figure the words out, and he grips his hair tightly. "Ugh, god! I'm… I…"
Ouma snickers to himself again. "You can't even get the words out. Dumbass."
"Stop making fun of me. This is difficult!"
"And stupid! We're literally a week away from getting our minds erased. I'll never remember this. We could be enemies or you end up killing me."
"But we could end up lovers," he counters.
"Yeah, and see how well lovers work out in literally every season?" He raises a brow. "Only one that got away was the first season and it was all a bunch of ship-teasing."
"Yeah, but—but what if I just…" He hits the side of his head with a fist repeatedly. His parents berated him for doing it because it was so childish, but he doesn't care. Ouma seizes both hands, tightening his fingers around his wrists.
"Hey. Don't do that." He always sounds gentle when he says not to do that, able to relate but not being patronizing about it. "You're just trolling me, aren't you? You don't actually have a crush on me, do you?"
Saihara's Adam's apple bobs as he swallows twice. "I…" He hesitates meaningfully. "Kokichi, I want to kiss you."
Ouma's grip tightens. "What?"
"I really want to kiss you so badly," he amends, face twisting as he fights back the sting in his eyes. "And, fuck, I'm drunk, I'm emotional, everything is changing forever, but nothing about how much I like you is ever going to change. That's the only thing I know right now." Pause. "That and Mike's lemonade is really disgusting."
"Oh, shut up, you just have really hoity-toity tastes, Mr. Richy-Rich." Ouma drops both hands down to his lap. He doesn't look at him or say anything for three seconds. "Why now?" he asks.
"Why not now? None of it matters anyways." Saihara glances over at him, before he stares ahead. Over the edge of the building, he sees cars passing down the street. "None of it… matters after this. But I at least don't wanna die without getting to tell you how I feel."
"And what if I didn't feel the same way? The point of telling someone you like them is for them to say it back."
"Not really?" He raises a brow. He didn't really think that far ahead, having already firmly believed there's no way someone like Ouma would ever go for someone like him.
"Then what is the point?" Ouma flops on his back, not remotely noticing the way the back of his head smacks against the ground. "If I liked someone, I'd tell him because I want him to like me back."
"I do, but… I'm not gonna force it. And it's not like we can be boyfriends together anyway. We have a week left." He omits the fact he would've found a way to make that entire week worthwhile, make up for the years he should've told him.
Ouma tugs on Saihara's sleeve and keeps his hand there. "What do you wanna do right now?" he asks him, peering up at him through his eyelashes.
Saihara doesn't have the strength to look at him again. "I don't know," he lies.
"Tell me the truth."
"I don't know," he says, his nose scrunching up. "I… I want so much, and I know there's literally no point, but, like… What if we didn't go?" He'd been having second thoughts for weeks, wondering if there was some other alternative. Hundreds of thousands of high schoolers from all over the world, and he got picked. It had to be a cruel joke.
"Seriously? After all that time I told you this was a bad idea, after you convinced me to audition with you so we wouldn't end up separated, now you're saying this is a bad idea?" Ouma tugs roughly on Saihara's sleeve, his face scrunched up.
"Yeah, but—but what if we… What if we just…" Hot tears fill his eyes without permission as he holds his forehead. Crickets chirp in the distance.
"What if we what?" His brow raises.
"What if I told you before we auditioned?"
"I probably would've said yes," Ouma hums. He rolls over on his stomach, propping himself up by his elbows. "We would've dated, had sex, done all the things we thought were right because of all the cheesy visual novels we pretend to hate. You would've eventually gotten sick of me."
"I wouldn't," Saihara argues. He could never get sick of Ouma and everything he had to offer.
"One of us would never be enough at some point. I hate myself and you love Danganronpa. There's no way a relationship would work. We would eventually stop talking, become friendless all over again, probably one of us would commit suicide, followed by the other 'cause, y'know. Sucks to not be around you and all." He can't tell if that's a compliment. Sometimes Ouma gets so dry it's hard to tell if he's being genuine.
"Gee, thanks. You basically just said you'd off yourself over dating me." Why did he think this was a good idea?
"I'm right, ain't I? You know I am."
The hot tears return to cloud his vision. He decides he can't take anything anymore. "I think I should go home," he says, his throat closing up. He rises, the effort alone to leave him there taking more out of him than he can give.
"Stay." Ouma takes hold of his jacket and tugs down.
"I can't. I—you can be so heartless sometimes, it's kind of amazing how I'm willing to stand it sometimes." Drunk Ouma lacks a filter, but they have to be rooted in some kind of truth. "I love you. And I know you don't love me, but I've literally been in love with you since, what, eighth grade? Junior high? God, I don't know, but I just know that when you first walked into that classroom, I thought that you had to be the most beautiful person I've ever seen in my entire life, and—" He's rambling. He does that often to justify his feelings, like it isn't enough to lay those feelings out where they're exposed to reality, but he has to explain them to feel like they make sense.
He's so busy talking too much that he doesn't even notice Ouma pulling him down. It isn't until Ouma frames his face with his soft hands that Saihara trails off, suddenly forgetting what he's saying. "What are you doing?" he asks, his voice coming out as if he'd run a marathon.
"I don't know," Ouma admits, full honesty. His thumbs trace along Saihara's cheekbones, as if smoothing out parts of his face. "You talk too much."
If someone else had said it, Saihara would've shut up immediately and reminded himself to never speak to that person again. But because Ouma says it, it matters a lot more.
"Sorry." He isn't sorry. Ouma's warm breath fans across his face.
"Sure you are."
The kiss is brief.
Saihara doesn't quite know what he expected. Butterflies? Explosive fireworks hammering in his chest? It was like that and over, soft lips touching his. The touch is meaningful, but there's not enough intense emotion over it like he thought there'd be. He isn't sure if it's because media overplayed it or because he knows for a fact Ouma isn't attracted to him.
And yet Saihara is breathless again as he says, "Don't stop," and Ouma sure as hell doesn't.
He expected to be the first one to initiate the kiss, and it was supposed to be on a romantic date, one that he fully paid for so Ouma didn't have to lift a finger. He had it all planned out, and it wasn't supposed to be on top of the roof of their school drunk on whatever he could find in his dad's alcohol stash. Their breaths taste of wine, but Ouma is so soft that he doesn't care about anything.
Saihara isn't sure what to do with his hands, so he keeps them balled up at his sides. He's sitting now so Ouma doesn't have to crane his neck, and his hands can't stick to one place for very long. Even though Saihara knows the truth, he wants so badly to pretend that this is real, because it feels so real. Ouma is always the one to pull away first, his breath against Saihara's eager and greedy mouth, his gorgeous eyes open and wide each time before they slowly close once they meet in the middle, magnetized, hidden away by the darkness of the night. Reality can't touch them here.
"Kokichi," he manages out, his mind turned to mush from the abundance of kisses he just received. They're in each other's arms, and it feels right, but it'll never be enough for him. "I love you."
Ouma doesn't respond. He releases Saihara from his tight grip and reaches over to grab an unopened bottle, snapping it open and chugging it down.
"I never should've joined the game."