Chapter Text
Teruhashi Kokomi considered herself to be a realistic person. Sure, if someone were to read her mind, they might believe she’s completely delusional, but her perception of herself is pretty spot-on. She gets what she wants when she wants it. That’s just the rules of this world.
Yet, there was just one thing she was a little delusional about—well, one person. Teruhashi wasn’t stupid, though; she’d come to terms with Saiki’s indifference and mild tolerance towards her, rather than continuing to pursue the idea that he was just a bumbling doofus. Still, Teruhashi liked coming up with scenarios in which Saiki finally returned her affections—comforting her or holding her hand or tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. A girl could dream.
However, she’d never fully conceptualized these dreams until one completely ordinary day.
“So I asked Aren to draw some art for my online novel, detailing my whole life from before birth till now, as a high schooler concealing his power. I’m on chapter 305 already, you know. It’s pretty dark stuff, so don’t read it unless you’re sure!” Kaido was saying, gesturing wildly. Saiki sat at his desk, listening with disinterest.
Nendo laughed loudly. “Online novel? I bet nobody reads your writing!”
“H-hey! That’s not true! I’ll have you know my novel has over 10 kudos!” Kaido sputtered, his cheeks reddening.
Kuboyasu grimaced. “I can confirm that, but are you sure that’s something to be proud of, Shun…?”
“What are you talking about?!” Kaido laughed awkwardly. “It’s a respectable amount! Ten different people! Imagine ten people chasing you!”
Nendo froze. “Oh damn… Kaido, I guess you’re pretty awesome…”
“Yeah, I know—”
“But imagine a hundred people chasing you…” Nendo continued, rubbing his chin crack.
Teruhashi could indeed imagine that, as that just happened to her yesterday.
“Hey guys!” Hairo walked up to Saiki’s desk, grinning. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Nothing, just Kaido’s fanfiction.” Teruhashi heard Saiki say, his voice containing the usual slight reverberance in her head.
“It’s not fanfiction! It’s an original piece of work that I’ve published online for everyone to see!” Kaido protested.
“Ah! I see!” Hairo’s grin faltered, beads of sweat visibly trickling down his face, despite the cool air conditioning in the classroom.
“Gah! Hairo, are you okay?!” Kaido exclaimed, clearly shocked.
“Yep!” Hairo assured quickly. “Fanfiction, huh! I’ve heard of that! Wow, sure is a coincidence you guys know too!”
Teruhashi couldn’t help but raise her eyebrow. Hairo seemed unnecessarily flustered at the mention of fanfiction.
“Fanfiction? Like, fan mail?” Nendo wondered. “Hey, Teruhashi! Have you read fanfiction?”
Teruhashi stilled. What…? Nendo thought she, Teruhashi Kokomi, the most beautiful perfect pretty girl alive, would dabble in fanfiction? That was ridiculous!
Well… she had read fanfiction, actually, so Nendo wasn’t wrong. In fact, she’s received fanfiction written about her from numerous people.
“No, I’ve never heard of fanfiction!” Teruhashi replied with a smile.
“Well, that’s to be expected,” Kuboyasu commented. “I hadn’t heard of fanfiction until Shun introduced me.”
That’s because you spent your entire life basically living out one of Kaido’s fanfictions, so no duh.
“It’s tough out here educating everyone on true culture!” Kaido laughed proudly. “Hey, Teruhashi, I can totally introduce you to some great fanfiction! I’d probably be great at writing you in one too!”
Teruhashi doubted that, but she just nodded. “That’s very considerate of you, Kaido!”
“O-oh wow, thank you!” Kaido gaped, flustered.
“Hey chibi, don’t go stealing the spotlight!” Nendo accused. “I could totally write fanfiction too!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Teruhashi saw Saiki shake his head in exasperation. Saiki… Teruhashi flushed.
“I’ll have you know fanfiction is a sacred art, practiced only by the most elite!” Kaido argued, jabbing a finger towards Nendo’s face.
“If you can do it, it’s probably not hard,” Nendo mocked childishly.
“Nuh uh!”
Teruhashi tuned the boys’ argument out, her attention refocusing on Saiki, who looked as bored as ever.
“Hey Kokomi!” Teruhashi turned her head and spotted Yumehara skipping towards her, a smile on her face. “Wow, it’s pretty chaotic today, huh? What are they talking about?”
“Fanfiction,” Teruhashi replied, tugging on a strand of her hair. “Have you heard of it, Chiyo?”
“Oh, m-me?!” Yumehara forced out a laugh. “No! Of course not! I mean, why would you think that?”
Teruhashi refused to let any judgment show on her face, but Yumehara was very obviously a closeted fanfiction writer. “Ah, my mistake then,” Teruhashi said placatingly.
“Well, anyway,” Yumehara quickly continued, “even if I had written fanfiction, it wouldn’t be about real people, y’know! So don’t think that, okay?”
“But—”
“Agh! Fine, you’ve pushed me too far! I’ll tell you everything!” Yumehara cried, waving her hand in a vaguely angry manner.
So she obviously wants to talk about her fanfiction.
“I’ve written several, uh, short novels! About—” Yumehara blushed. “Blueberry. There’s a coffee shop au, vampire and werewolf au, danganronpa au, celebrity au, chat fic, canon divergence, canon compliant—”
Teruhashi wondered exactly what Yumehara considered to be “canon.”
“—superpowers au, time travel, meet cute—”
“I think I get it, Chiyo,” Teruhashi interrupted with a small sigh.
Privately, Teruhashi wondered whether her friend had written an omegaverse fanfiction too. If so, she wasn’t sure Yumehara would portray her and Kaido’s second genders correctly. Despite how much Yumehara wanted to think Kaido was a dominant overlord who would protect her like she was Y/N, Teruhashi thoroughly believed that Kaido was not an alpha.
“You know, writing fanfiction is actually a great way to relieve stress!” Yumehara announced. “Maybe you should try it sometime, Kokomi… you know, about strawberry?”
Frankly, the fruit names Yumehara came up with for Kaido and Saiki were a little on the nose, but Teruhashi hadn’t been able to make her stop using them, so at this point she just went along with it.
Teruhashi’s face warmed. “Well, don’t you think it’s a little strange—”
Yumehara’s eyes sharpened into an almost comical glare. “Hm? What did you say? I almost thought you said my fanfiction was strange, but that can’t be it, right?”
Teruhashi pressed her lips together, both to avoid speaking and to avoid smirking in amusement.
“That’s what I thought!” Yumehara concluded joyously. “But you should really try to write some fanfiction yourself, Kokomi!”
Teruhashi’s perfect brows knit together in a perfect way. She thought about all the happy little delusions she indulged in before sleeping. I suppose… if I just wrote some for myself, nobody would mind, right?
Wrong.
Saiki tried extremely hard not to sigh and allow the annoyance to show on his face. He very much minded whether Teruhashi wrote fanfiction or not, because it would most certainly further her delusions of love. Besides, Saiki was 99% sure that Teruhashi would not portray him correctly. He thought about all of the mental images his friends have had of him thus far, and groaned in his head.
“Ah–maybe you’re right…” Teruhashi replied to Yumehara, her cheeks rosy.
Saiki wanted to bury himself in the ground. It was already enough that Kaido was forcing him to read his 500k word original fanfiction of his delusions (Saiki had contributed to three out of ten of the kudos out of pity, from various devices and accounts). He didn’t need yet another fanfiction that involved some sort of portrayal of him.
“So, Saiki, what did you think about what Saito did in my newest chapter?” Kaido mustered a menacing laugh, though it only deepened Saiki’s exasperation. Saito was Kaido’s interpretation of Saiki in his fanfiction–a rather wimpy sidekick who was not nearly as powerful as Kaido himself.
Saiki shrugged. It was barely readable, but still one of Kaido’s better chapters.
Hairo smiled broadly. “Kaido, I’ve never read your fanfiction–”
“Original online novel!” Kaido interuppted with a cry.
“Yeah, sure. But I’ve never read it! Would you be open to letting me see sometime?” Hairo asked goodnaturely.
No, don’t do that, Hairo. Save yourself.
“Hah, everyone’s flocking to my masterful writing,” Kaido boasted. “Sure, why not!”
I’ll tell you why not; it’s frankly a disgrace to the Japanese language.
“By the way,” Kuboyasu hummed thoughtfully. “You seem pretty invested in this, Hairo. I’ve never seen you so passionate about anything involving literature before.”
Hairo grew even more sweaty than before. “Well, when my friends are this interested in something, I figured I ought to see it for myself!”
Saiki wanted to slap everyone in this classroom, for it seemed nobody was hearing what he was (that’s because it’s impossible for them to hear each other’s thoughts, but nevermind that).
Hairo’s cheeks were redder than his hair, and he kept blatantly looking towards Nendo’s direction. “I can’t let my friends know that I write fanfiction too. Dang it, I’m so passionate about it, but I can’t reveal this secret in front of them, no matter how badly I want to talk about it! Nendo, can you feel my passion? I wrote a baseball star universe in which you and I are rivals. Yes, you heard right, my rival. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that we may be the true Heated Rivalry–”
Stop it, why do you even watch that show? Saiki sighed. It seemed that everyone was somehow writing fanfiction of their own, in some way or another.
“Hehe, I guess I know what I’m going to be doing when I get home now…” Saiki heard Teruhashi’s inner voice say. “Oh man, now I’m getting nervous. Why am I even doing this?!”
That’s a good question, Teruhashi. Why are you doing this?
“No, I have to find out for myself if it’s really that appealing like Chiyo kept saying! I won’t publish it, though, obviously! Well, but my writing skills are just as perfect as the rest of me. It’d be a shame to let such talent go to waste. Oh, but what if someone finds out that I’m the one writing this fanfiction? And about Saiki too… No, that might be too dangerous… Ugh, but what if Saiki found it by chance and read it? He might figure it out and even give me an “oh wow!” and perhaps do three backflips in a row!”
Don’t start assigning me a different personality already. Isn’t that what Kaido did once?
Saiki rubbed his temples, feeling a headache take over. Perhaps he should just brainwash the entire world into forgetting that fanfiction was a thing. Or maybe he should pass a law in which fanfiction was completely and utterly illegal. And yes, that would probably cause some catastrophic damage to certain groups of people, but if it prevented Teruhashi from writing fanfiction about him…
Teruhashi smiled to herself from far away, still thinking about what she should write when she got home. She’d originally planned to memorize the hobbies of all of the first-years from class 1-5, but it seemed she was clearing her schedule to let herself participate in a hobby for once. Happiness colored her thoughts. Her smile wasn’t half bad, the corners of her mouth threatening to break into a mischievous smirk and her eyes crinkling in amusement. It wasn’t the obsessive kind of smile that Teruhashi used to sport on her face when she thought about Saiki.
Saiki resisted sighing for the nth time, but the corners of his own mouth tugged up slightly too. What a truly formidable smile that is, Teruhashi.
He supposed he could let it go, not just for Teruhashi’s indulgences (which she rarely let herself have), but also for the rest of his friends, who all seemed to be deeply entwined with the world of fanfiction. Saiki still didn’t really like it, but he was kind of interested in exactly what Teruhashi was going to create.