Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A crumb of chocolate cookie broke off without much ceremony, bounced onto the keyboard, and disappeared under a key—right as a pale finger came down on it.

“You’re all a bunch of idiots,” the guy drawled, pushing the half-eaten cookie away and typing “for Miu’s dildo fund” above the donation line. “Of course Detective-chan isn’t here today. He got banned.”

Kokichi snorted, hit Enter, and dragged the overlay up, right under the window showing his grinning face. Shuichi wasn’t actually banned, but the flood of panicked “WHAT THE FUCK??” in chat was absolutely worth it. Sure, they calmed down soon enough—but that smug grin stayed glued to his face.

“Alright, alright, femboy enjoyers, chill out,” he said, sing-songing the words. Oma conveniently skipped the fact that he probably fit that label better than anyone else.

He shot the camera a playful wink. “He’s got a date tonight, hihi~”

Chat exploded instantly. The first message to catch his eye was from his mod, Irumu: “lol can’t see him next to you with a candle up your a—”
Her name sat proudly above the donation bar like she owned the damn stream. Figures. Luck was never really his thing.

The chat went feral, spamming “LMAOOOO TRUE” until the feed froze for a second. Kokichi sighed, regretting ever raising such a toxic-ass fanbase. At least the ones who’d migrated over from Shuichi’s channel were calmer—they just dropped a simple “fr.”

His finger twitched, clicking somewhere between the chat window and an ad for a food-delivery app. Oma inhaled sharply and started flipping through tabs, closing one labeled “PurpleHead TheDetective fanfics” before it was too late to hide it from stream view.

“Alright, kiddos, today’s a chill stream,” he rattled off, switching on some royalty-free lo-fi beats. “No Minecraft with Detective-chan this time, so I’ll just read donos and chat for a bit. Then maybe we’ll check out your fanworks—and I swear to god, if I see any furries, I’m logging off.”

Miu’s “He’s just jerking off, don’t worry” in chat hit like a slap—enough to flip the switch in Kokichi’s brain from “holy shit end stream” to a sharp laugh.

“No, my dear Miu, you can go fuck yourself,” Oma managed to say before a shrill notification of Shuichi’s voice interrupted him.

“Well, well, Angelus, right? Thanks for the two hundred!” he read aloud, grinning. “ ‘If the SquitSquad were animals, what would they be?’ ”
Kokichi made a sound halfway between a laugh and a cough. “Now that’s a hell of a question, Angelus. Let’s see... uh…”

He fought the desperate urge to call Saihara a kitten.

“I’d be a filthy little fox, obviously. Mmm—Iruma’s not officially in the squad, but she’s our shared mod, and we, uh, kinda pass her around…” his eyes narrowed mischievously at the ‘you little shit’ popping up in chat. “So—rabbit. She fucks around with everyone. Piano would be a hamster, she eats funny. As for Detective-chan…”

He pulled an exaggerated thinking face, hiding the fact that he was actually thinking hard—but the only thing that came to mind was kitten. A fucking kitten.

“Whatever. I can’t think of anything better than ‘a cat with yellow eyes.’ Chat, don’t laugh!”

Of course, that was all it took.

It started with Irumu pinning a message that said: “lmao holy shit you’re such a gay loser,” followed by Angelus’s “I should’ve seen that coming,” and ended in a flood of “LMAOOOOO what a clown.”

If Kokichi hadn’t been the butt of the joke, he’d probably laugh too—but instead he just forced a pout and rolled his eyes.

“No more talk streams with you assholes,” he muttered.

It was funny, though.

When Shuichi saw the clip later, he’d probably DM him something like “oh my god, darling, what are you doing,” instead of blocking him.

That was funnier.

That was safer.

Chapter Text

“Wow, no anthropomorphic animals this time,” Ouma sighed, closing the tab with fanart of himself in a rather indecent pose.
“And I’m actually surprised there are fewer fics about me and Detective-chan. Keep it up! Time for donations, my bitches. I’m turning on the feature that lets you waste your money on me.”

A message popped up in chat — “don’t you think purplehead’s just a whore” — from his second mod, Naggetso, and before the streamer could say back “Komaeda, I have nothing in common with you or Miu,” he noticed a notification from the “important” tab in his messenger.

Oh. Shuichi.

“Did you seriously call my meeting with my manager a date?”

Ouma giggled. Good thing Saihara hadn’t written that in public chat — otherwise his followers would’ve stewed in their own theories, and now he have to work his ass off next stream to justify himself.

But it also meant Shuichi wasn’t watching right now, and that realization poked somewhere under his ribs. Of course his friend and coworker couldn’t be at every one of his streams — that’d be ridiculous. He had other people he needed, or wanted, to spend time on.

“Alright, joker, look at your chat. They’re losing it, wondering why their ADHD streamer hasn’t done anything hyper for thirty whole seconds.”

It felt like Ouma was a balloon being refilled after all the air had been squeezed out. He’d actually forgotten that, besides Shuichi, there were other people watching who wanted his attention. And apparently, he’d missed a donation.

Saihara had finished his meeting — and joined the stream.

That thought somehow flowed from his head down to his legs, making him curl up from the ticklish rush it sent through his body.

“Ah, right, I spaced out!” the streamer blurted, opening the donation log.
“Stagefever? You guys have seriously weird nicknames. Thanks for the hundred! Okay, ‘what are your relationships like with the rest of your squad?’ You’re feeling philosophical today, huh?” Ouma flicked a strand of hair back, inhaled sharply — and the image of Shuichi popped into his head again. He cleared his throat.
“It’s simple. Everyone loves me! How could they not?”

Yeah. How could they not.

His smile twitched, but he forced it to stay. His face felt like cloth, and his lips — like stitched-on threads that barely moved. He preferred to think he was just tired.

The chat, predictably, erupted with angry “answer properly, bitch!” — including from his mods. He knew that was coming, but coming up with a real answer felt impossible.

Fine, he’d improvise. Like always.

Ouma took a sip of grape soda — the sticky sweetness helped glue his manic grin back in place.

“Alright, let’s start with Piano — I mean, Akamatsu,” he sighed. “I think we’re good friends. I mean, come on, she puts up with my shit! That’s adorable. Oh, and I totally forgot to mention Kaito in my last answer to Angelus’s donation — haha, he’d definitely be a capybara. Mmm, less patient than Kaede, but still nice to me. As for the mods, Miu’s just a whore, she can’t dislike me ‘cause she wants love from everyone—”
A quick “you’re fucked, shorty” from Irumi got drowned out by “dw Iruma we love u” from chat.
“Nagito… we’re kinda similar in some ways—”
A “not in height” from Komaeda flashed by, which Ouma ignored.
“I think we’re friends too.”

He pretended to forget Shuichi even existed. Maybe, if Saihara was still watching, that’d sting a little…

No. Shuichi wouldn’t care about that.

But if he did...

Ouma would want to provoke him. It’d be fun to get a reaction out of Shuichi. It’d be fun—

If only he mattered to him at all.

“What about me? :( ”

God, Ouma wanted to hang himself. He imagined Shuichi’s pouty face, furrowed brows, soft lips pulled tight, trembling eyes — because his friend forgot about him, ignored him, and now Saihara’s upset, his eyes huge and glossy, like that dumb emoji Nagito always uses, the one with shiny tears and—

His finger slipped again. He accidentally closed the lo-fi tab.

“Oops, I cut off your musical oxygen supply,” Ouma snorted, snapping back to reality and catching a “bro why are you red lol” in chat before reopening the tab.
His cheeks were burning, and that stupid grin had stretched across half his face. Great. He was embarrassed — over the thought that his coworker might actually care. Wonderful.
He ignored the comments about his usually corpse-pale face turning pink — no point feeding the fire. What could he even say?

“And yeah, I totally forgot my dear Detective-chan! Of course, our relationship is pure harmony and love. Who’d doubt that?”

A little heart from Saihara in chat sped up his brain — which, on a normal day, already ran like he’d downed thirty energy drinks. Ouma noticed his breathing getting faster from the overload. Each thought was an electric spark striking straight into his metaphorical heart, hundreds, thousands of them, and he stopped processing the outside world altogether.

He was too busy with his internal chaos — which was, somehow, amusing and irritating at once.

The first thing he noticed was “dude’s overheating, fucking adhd gremlin” from Iruma.

Yeah, that’s exactly how it felt — like he was made of exposed wires sending crooked impulses every few seconds.

“hey, we won’t be mad if you need a break and end the stream”

Ouma smiled. His fanbase wasn’t that toxic. They defended Miu when his jokes went too far, and they were patient with his neurodivergence and weird behavior in general.
Or maybe that was just Saihara’s viewers rubbing off on them...

He realized he was spacing out again. Yeah, it was time to call it a day. An hour was his limit today.

“You’re so sweet,” Ouma chuckled, pushing himself to open his mouth even though he’d rather just sit there grinning dumbly. “I need some rest. Bye-bye, assholes!”

A click — and the streaming platform’s home page replaced the chat.

Ouma sighed and closed his eyes. The tension drained out, and he managed to stumble to his unmade bed, face-planting into the cold pillow. A couple of hot tears soaked into the poor fabric.

Too many emotions. Too much masking. For one damn day.