Chapter Text
If there was one holiday Saiki hated in particular, it was Valentine’s Day.
Wait, scratch that — he despised the holiday.
All it entailed was broke high school students buying expensive gifts for other broke high school students! And all for what?
Your crush to reject you?
Your partner to confess that they actually never liked that chocolate and they only lied about it to you because they didn’t want to hurt your feelings?
It was just a waste of time, money and effort.
And why would Saiki, of all people, involve himself in some cheesy, love-filled holiday shenanigans all because of one, single person—
“Oh my, Satou-san! Did you buy those chocolates for your crushhhhh?”
“Please spare me, Nana-chan! And it’s certainly not for anybody! I… I just bought it for my, uh, sister!”
But Satou didn't have a sister.
Not like Saiki would know.
Nor would he care.
And, no, he wasn't bothered by the concept of Satou having a crush on someone. He wasn’t!
…
But it wouldn’t hurt to find out who Satou bought those heart-shaped chocolates for.
Y’know, for research purposes.
🌸💝🍫💝🌸🌸💝🍫💝🌸
Even years later, Saiki could still remember the exact date and time, and place where he and Satou had their first friend-esque conversation.
It had been about the weather that week — such a mundane topic, Saiki worried that he might have talked a bit too much while conversing with the other teen — as they sat on one of the aged benches surrounding the outskirts of the sports field.
After that, he had not expected Satou to talk to him again — his friend circle wasn’t exactly the most normal of people, and he desperately didn’t want Satou to be tainted by the abnormality of the idiots around him — but, to his surprise (and delight), the younger teen had.
A second time, a third, a 3456th time… but who was even counting?
Not Saiki, that was for sure.
Anyways, over their conversations — some short, some long; most light and a few psychological — he realised that he enjoyed Satou’s company a lot.
And, well, that was cause for slight concern.
Because as talented as Saiki was with controlling his emotions — and, by proxy, his powers — around the idiots he regretted calling his friends, he had an infinitely harder time keeping them at bay while with Satou in particular… for some unknown reason.
He could vividly recall the day their school had gone on a trip to the local beach. The place hadn’t been too crowded, but in normal introverted fashion, Saiki had decided to keep to himself and read a book while lounging under one of the giant umbrellas Coach Matsuzaki had brought along. He had been wearing his Germanium ring, not wanting to be bombarded by the bizarre thoughts of half-naked hormonal teenagers, and had kept a majority of his focus on the book in his hand — the minority looking over Kaido, so he didn’t (somehow) drown in 3-inch-deep water.
An hour or so had passed, and the sun had begun to lower into the blanket of the vast ocean. Saiki had left Kaido to his devices — seeing that Aren had made his presence known and was making sure the blue-haired boy didn’t accidentally kill himself in inch-deep water (but seriously, how on earth did Kaido do that? It had to be someone kind of curse because it was simply too ridiculous and—
“Hey, Saiki! Are you alright? You’ve been staring at Kaido-kun pretty weirdly for the past few minutes,” Satou’s voice — his sweet, mellifluous voice — had spoken up from behind him, distracting him from his musing and certainly not startling him, who said that?!
You see, Saiki was rarely ever… caught off guard, and whenever he was, things tended to act out abnormally.
“Hey, those fish look pretty weird,” he had heard Nendo mumble out, head tilted slightly, before a maniacal (and frankly, frightening) grin painted his face. “Imma go touch them.”
Looking back at it, he probably should have warned Nendo not to touch things they knew nothing about, seeing as the fish may have been poisonous; but the dumbass was still here with them in the present, so it had probably been fine.
Besides, Saiki hadn’t exactly found the time to correct Nendo on his behaviour while actively trying not to let off any volcanoes in the Alps while talking with Satou. The younger teen’s smile had practically blinded him, leaving a stuttering pink-haired mess to clean up in the middle of that sunny beach.
“I’m just kidding, Saiki.” Even his laugh was fucking beautiful.
In that moment, Saiki ascended into a higher plane of existence.
Heaven? What was that?
All he knew was Satou.
His smile, his laugh, his dimples, his eyes.
Oh, Saiki could stare into those honey-brown eyes for aeons and never get tired of it.
He was just so perfect, even when classified as “average” (which Saiki was beginning to think must have been a fluke, because Satou? Average? There must have been a mistake in the coding of the universe because it was simply not possible!)
At the end of the day, he had only caused a very small number of natural disasters — well, not exactly natural, seeing that he was the cause of it all — and left the beach with Satou’s phone number.
His phone number!
And it wasn’t even Christmas yet!!
From that day on, Saiki knew that him being around Satou was going to be a problem — both for his emotional health and for the rest of the world.
But did he do anything to change that?
…no, but could you blame him?
Getting to spend time with the most perfectly average being in the entire universe.
So perfect and so average, Saiki’s heart fluttered every time he saw the other boy.
And now, 2 years later, and in their final year of high school, they were now considered close friends!
He and Satou, friends! That was so much more than he could have ever dreamed of!
“I wonder who the lucky girl is! I hope she doesn’t break Satou-san’s heart or anything,” Aiura mused heartedly, breaking Saiki out of his flashback as she twirled around him and Toritsuka, arms full of styled chocolate boxes she had gotten from the head of the baking club.
It was late afternoon of the day and school was finally over. Saiki had planned on just teleporting straight home — seeing that Satou had informed him of his inability to meet up after school not like Saiki was bothered by it or anything — when Aiura and Toritsuka had practically jumped him and hauled him down the school hallway in search for the rest of their friend group.
“Oh please, with a face like his, it would be a surprise if he doesn’t get rejec—” The purple-haired teen fell face-first into a horde of passing boys, nose digging into the crotch of the eldest of the group.
“Wait, wait, wait!! I didn’t mean to—“
“You think that’s funny, you skinny punk?!”
“No, of course not!! My friend was who pushed me! See, he’s right th… Saiki?!”
Teleporting away was quite easy, and Saiki did not feel the slightest bit remorseful at leaving that blasted, perverted idiot to fend for himself. Aiura would be fine — that particular group of boys were known not to hurt the girls of the academy.
Next time, you won’t talk about Satou like that.
But as he walked away — trying to avoid the searching eyes of Nendo, the screeching calls from Kaido and the persistent tracking of Teruhashi — he couldn’t help but realise that something was bugging him.
And it was certainly about Satou, who else could it be about?
I wonder who the lucky girl is, Aiura’s words echoed in his head, and his brows furrowed.
Satou… was giving Valentine’s chocolates to someone…
Why did it make him feel this way?
It wasn’t like Satou liked him, and Saiki certainly didn’t think of his friend in that way.
…
Or…maybe… it was because he was worried about his friend being heartbroken from a rejection?
Of course! Why else would he be feeling this way!
He simply wanted to make sure his good friend was happy on Valentine’s Day — even though that accursed day only brought forth trouble and drama.
If that was the case, then Saiki would help him! Besides, he needed to know if the girl the brown-haired boy had a crush on was worthy of him.
Worthy of his smile.
Worthy of his laugh…
… worthy of his attention…
She had to be worthy.
Saiki would make sure his friend settled for nothing less.