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It always started with the doorbell.
A short, insistent ding-dong like a declaration of war, and then-
“Kusuo-kuuun~! I brought pudding! Your favourite, right? Strawberry-flavored because I remember that one time you said- well, you didn’t say it, actually, but you blinked kind of faster than usual when I asked if you liked strawberry and that felt like a yes, so I just went with that, I do know you like coffee flavoured things but not for every-“
Saiki let out a long-suffering sigh and stood to the side, allowing Akechi to barrel into his house like a cyclone. He always came over unannounced. That had been happening more often lately. Two, three times a week. Five, this time. Five times in seven days. And Saiki had let him. Every single time.
Not because he enjoyed it, of course.
Obviously not.
He allowed it due to the fact that he had (begrudgingly) learnt that Akechi was irritatingly persistent, and most of all obsessive. He might aswell just let him in to spare the trouble of being followed around elsewhere and drawing himself attention. And if his mother heard that he wasn’t letting a friend in.. well he didn’t even want to think about how she would react.
He made no move to respond, he never did. Instead, he walked along behind Akechi’s monologue, eyes half-lidded and tired in that quietly exasperated way of his, as he scanned the surface of his thoughts. Or at-least tried to.
Akechi’s brain was nothing short of a mess.
Not in the usual way. Not like Nendou’s one-track mind or Teruhashi’s vanity loop. Akechi’s thoughts layered themselves, you peeled back one stream of thought and another followed: emotion on logic on memory on analysis on sheer volume , intercut with flashes of Saiki’s expressions, his posture, the way he stood exactly three centimeters from the fridge before he opened it-
‘Don’t say, or think anything weird,’ Saiki muttered, eyes narrowing slightly.
“I wasn’t going to!” Akechi grinned, but his thoughts betrayed him instantly.
He’s so cute when he scowls. Is that weird? Probably. Should I say it anyway? No. Yes? No. Yes. No. Focus. Okay. You’ve got fifteen minutes before he forcibly teleports you again. Try to act normal. What does normal look like? Don’t think about his hands. Oh no, now you’re thinking about his hands. His hair. Does it feel as soft as it looks? Probably. Maybe. If I asked to touch it he’d 100% punt me into the sun. But maybe if I got close enough he wouldn’t stop me? Wait, stop it, stop- 3,.1,4,1,5,9,2,6,5,3,5,8,9,7,9...
Saiki raised a brow, and tried to tune out Akechi’s thoughts as much as possible. Listening to him recite the digits of pi threatened to give him a headache.
This had become a regular part of Akechi’s visits, too—Saiki sitting in complete, impassive silence while Akechi’s thoughts spiraled through an emotional whiplash. He was like a walking radio tuned to every frequency at once, blaring anxieties and affections and half-buried wants all tangled into static. He had suspected Akechi came over so often out of some deep-seated need for closure or attention or possibly just an irrational death wish. But no, it wasn’t rational at all. It wasn’t even close to the neat category of “nuisance” Saiki tried to keep him in. Under the layers of trivia, the rapid-fire speech, the detective-like observations, was something softer than he’d like to acknowledge.
Affection.
He was fond of him, disastrously.
Akechi didn’t hide things. Not really. Not like most people. The contradictions weren’t masks,they were all just there , raw and out of order, layered like sheets of colored glass. And at the center of it, inevitably, was him . Saiki. Again and again.
As Akechi perched on a sofa in the living room, the thoughts about Saiki came again, a little quieter now.
Okay, okay, just act casual. Don’t blurt anything. Don’t touch him. Absolutely do not blurt out that he smells good. Or that you like the way he looks bored. Wait, that definitely sounds worse. Just sit on the floor and say something about cats. You’re safe with cats. He likes cats. Doesn’t he? Probably, they’re calm like him. Also, I keep seeing that ginger cat lurking around his house. Why does it have the shows logo on its fur? I wish he’d let me stay a little longer this time. Just a little. I don’t even need him to talk. I just want to be near him. I wonder what his hair feels like. I’d probably combust if I touched it. Maybe if I died that way, it’d be worth it.
Saiki sighed and rubbed at his temple. This was getting absurd.
‘Lie down,’ he said flatly.
Akechi blinked and froze mid-ramble, mid-thought. “Huh?”
Saiki exhaled and sat down on the sofa beside him. The room was quiet, from the lack of his parents at home and the buzz of his own powers trying to filter through the sheer static of Akechi’s inner thoughts. Saiki had never met anyone who thought as loudly and as earnestly as him. It was exhausting, it was… oddly comforting, in that familiar kind of way.
Saiki reached over, took the hem of Akechi’s sleeve, and tugged. Not hard. Just enough. Akechi stared, stunned into a rare silence as Saiki guided him, not with words, but with a strange gentle pressure.
Akechi let himself be pulled down, cheeks flushed, eyes wide as he looked up at Saiki. He landed with his head on Saiki’s lap.
Saiki placed a hand in his hair and began to stroke tenderly. He felt the static in the boys brain quiet like a power grid shutting down. Akechi’s thoughts stuttered, tripped, collapsed . What followed was startling. Not silence, exactly, but a kind of hush, more of a trembling stillness.
Just the quiet rise and fall of Akechi’s breath.
It ghosted against Saikis stomach in slow, shaky exhales, warm through the thin fabric of his shirt. He could feel the slightest tremble in them, n echo of nerves settling, of a mind so used to racing that it didn’t know how to coast.
Akechi lay curled into him, legs tucked loosely to the side, one hand gently wrapped around Saiki’s thigh, fingers twitching every so often like he was fighting the urge to move. To fidget. To speak. His cheek was pressed flush to Saiki’s lap, and from this angle, Kusuo could see the flutter of his lashes, the slight color spreading along his ears and the bridge of his nose.
He was warm. The kind of warmth that spread gradually, like hot tea in a chilled cup, unexpected, soothing, a little too easy to get used to.
“…Why…” Akechi’s voice cracked open, breathy and small and too soft to be heard by anyone but Saiki. “…are you being nice to me?”
His breath hitched on the end like he didn’t expect an answer. Saiki didn’t give one. He simply kept stroking, slow and even, fingers threading through silky strands of light blonde hair. They slid over the crown of his head, down toward the nape of his neck, repeating with near-hypnotic rhythm. The texture was better than expected, less stiff than he thought, warm from body heat, soft where it wasn’t styled.
Saiki had never cared much for touch. Not good at it. Not interested in it. But this? This didn’t feel like an intrusion, it didn’t feel like performance. It felt quiet. Necessary. Like something being held together by the space between his fingers and the silence they peacefully shared.
Akechi shifted slightly. Not to pull away—never that—but closer, just a fraction. His body curled tighter, pressing in as if Saiki’s lap were a place he’d been aching to rest in for longer than he was willing to admit. A wordless confession, tucked into the lines of his posture.
It startled something in Kusuo’s chest. A soft pang. Too gentle to be pain. Too real to ignore.
I could stay like this forever.
I don’t want to mess it up.
Don’t say anything. Just don’t say anything.
Please let this be real.
The thoughts came sluggish now, syrup-thick and delicate, like sunlight drifting through fog. Saiki’s hand paused just a second, reflexive, like he’d heard something too fragile to move through, and then kept going, even gentler.
Akechi let out a long breath. It shuddered slightly at the end, and Saiki felt it, subtle and close, through his stomach, his thighs, his hand. His whole body attuned to the boy clinging to him like a lifeline.
His eyes were closed, lashes resting against flushed cheeks, mouth barely parted. Saiki could feel the heat radiating from his skin, the hum of thoughts dwindling to quiet pulses of emotion—gratitude, in feeling , deep and wordless and open. The kind of trust that made Saiki’s throat tighten without warning.
There was something so human in it. So tender.
Saiki’s hand drifted lower, tracing and scratching the curve of Akechi’s hairline, the shell of his ear, before sweeping back up again. Akechi’s fingers curled slightly where they rested on Kusuo’s thigh. Not tight. Just enough to stay tethered.
He sat there, the pale winter light slanting through the curtains, casting soft shadows across Akechi’s closed eyes. A dog barked faintly in the distance, but even sound felt far away here. The silence hummed beneath them, and time moved thick and slow around the edges.
Saiki, fingers still moving in gentle strokes, leaned back against the cushions with a breath that came easier than usual.
Good grief, he finally shut up.