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1
What's the sweetest thing in the world?
Likely, everyone you ask will have a different answer in a world filled with sweetness in equivalence to its disrepair; cotton-wool-clouds and sunlight, temperamental rainbows, saccharine cakes, bitter apples, cat's purr or child's laughter; a million things of endless soft purity that state their appeal with but a glance or moment of experience.
Despite this, Kokichi Ouma had never been able to give an answer (not least for the sake of maintaining his evil aesthetic) until this day, this hour, this minute, this second, this instance with the beauty of a diamond reflecting rainbow fragments across a room when caught by the sun's light (or any other gorgeous simile tepid in comparison to the reality.)
And as the lights go down, bated audience's breath fill the hot stale air with anticipation, spotlight overexposing his pale face surrounding his form and erasing everything unnecessary, he answers the million dollar question with unnerving calmness;
"The sweetest thing in the world is Shuichi Saihara."
Rapturous applause.
Deep down, he'd died from the shock of his revelation and was readily decomposing into the rushing racing heart of his love, but as the applause thundered he only took a bow, heart pounding as he stepped into the wings, mask tossed carelessly into the shadows.
—
Of course, adoration needs a subject, and the subject's name is, as we know, Shuichi Saihara; a quiet boy who stays up the night reading through the last entries in The Library of Babel or in conversation with his admirer on some orange nights and feeling an indescribable endless warmth, who solves any mystery he can, and never gives up on the ones he can't, (of course, this nature is what allowed him to demystify Ouma) whose stammer and slow speech never seems to fade, with a quiet kindness that fills your heart before you realise it, leaving you no choice but to sigh it out before the whole of your mind.
Indeed, a mostly unremarkable person aside from his skill at mystery, and the most important one in the world.
—
When Kokichi got to the classroom, quietly closing the door behind him, it was almost empty aside from Himiko nervously scribbling in an ornate red notebook at the centre desk (given to her a last week by Tenko blushing the same tone) and Shuichi, always early, reading another mystery novel at the back. The golden morning light shone blurry rectangles through the shadows of the window frames, half-lighting the panicked or thoughtful faces of the classroom's occupants, neither looking in his direction.
He walks in-between the desks, casual grin adorning his stark features, and as he passes Himiko he receives a glare and a muttered "Nyeh, don't come any closer"; she obviously doesn’t want him to look upon her arcane tome, so
"Hey Yumeno-chan! Whatcha writing in there?"
She slams the book shut, sharply aiming the point of her inky red fountain pen in his direction, silver tip catching the light, "Nothing! As in, nothing that an untalented lying liar like you should see"
"Hm? So a secret?"
"It- No, it's not secret, you just can't see it…nyeh"
It was so easy…
"Yumeno-chan…that's just cruel", he sighs softly, letting guttural sadness well up in his eyes, "Especially since, you're the one I like..", last part barely a whisper,
"H-Huh?", her exclamation finally convincing Saihara to raise his eyes from his book with a sigh, "No..I'm not falling for that again, I'm immune to your tricks, I've cast a liar-reveal spell on you"
"But Yumeno-chan, everybody already knows I'm a liar, there's no need to reveal that, is there", his crescent grin glints,
"Just shut up..", her self righteous glare returns in full force, "I'm going to go look for Tenko, you just hang out with your beloved Saihara-san", and with that she stuffed the notebook and pen into one of her many pockets (the contents their own trick and mystery) and stormed out of the room with determined speed.
He internally cheered; now his one opponent was gone, Kaito and Maki usually arrived right on the bell (after their early morning workout, a sporty shining eyed endeavour he had no interest in) and Kaede never got here on time if she at all managed to drag herself away from the enticement of monochrome music. Aside from them and Himiko, most people didn't show up in the mornings regularly or even often, so he'd have Saihara to himself for at least a bit.
He reached the back of the room, slinging around the chair in front of Saihara's desk to face him with a subdued clunk, occupying that empty seat to complete the symmetry alongside Saihara’s "Hey Ouma-san", (always so formal) peppered with the hint of a smile, ravaging Ouma's heart to the dismay of his poker face, mask becoming further distanced from the reality of his emotions, and-
The door violently burst open, tsunami decimating an intricate castle of bitter sand, incroyable. Tenko stood there, slightly out of breath, clashing magenta, lime and denim blue without apology, fire of the legends before her in her eyes, scorching the air, "Degenerate males!", he glared, "have either of you seen Himiko?!",
Saihara, poise unaffected, "She uh, just left a minute ago, I didn't see which direction", (he had none to begin with)
"Tch, just as unhelpful as I expected."
"Chabashira-chan! She went left out of the classroom a few moments ago.." (lie - it was right)
"I'll go right then."
"Gosh, you don't even trust me? How cruel..",
"I’d rather be cruel than fall victim to a degenerate male!” and with that, she dropped her fighting stance and speed walked in pursuit of her target without closing the door behind her.
“Yumeno-san went right.”
“Yep! But you didn’t tell Chabashira-chan~” he fiddled with a strand of hair in faux embarrassment, “man, I guess chivalry isn’t dead..”
“But wouldn’t the chivalrous thing to do be telling her?” Saihara was so cute when he was logical..which was always.
“Non non, mon cheri..”, he prepared his snake oil wares, “Parce que chivalry should always first be reserved for your lover, of course!”
“R-right..”
“In other words, you’re doing a great job as an honorary member of Dice..”
“If I’m your lover, doesn’t that make your family incestuous?”
“Every family needs two parents, and we can fit that role, see,”
“Not sure how I feel about being saddled with nine children”
“But love will prevail, right?”
“Hmm..”
“No..it can’t end so sadly, surely we can make it work”, tears bloomed,
“Well I’m rather exhausted with finding babysitters willing to look after nine kids at once..”
“Oh? But there’s an easy fix to that!”
“Hm?”
“Cull ‘em all~” his evil grin turned the world monochrome,
“Scary..”
“Ugh if you want something more..pacifistic, then we can just give one to each babysitter,”
“How would that be any easier?!”
He stuck out his tongue.
2
Time passed like that for a while. It was easy.
Ouma swung back and forth, the blue sky filling his vision then sliding out of it as he felt the rush of gravity’s drag, then - as his weight lost its momentum - for a liminal moment he would halt, and his direction would change, repeating the cycle, allowing him to meet the sky once again. Saihara lay underneath, head rested on backpack, taking small bites from an egg sandwich (plain egg. nothing else) and staring upwards. Everytime Ouma reached his backwards-climax he caught a glimpse of that scene and flashed him a grin (often it wasn’t noticed) and the whole thing was like an odd type of conversation.
It was peaceful too, where there was nothing but the cool rush of air and a repeating smile, like they existed in a tiny universe where those things were the only elements and time never shifted.
An idea oozed into his mind (like scrambled eggs..) and he called out “O-K Saihara-chan..I’m gonna jump now!” the subject’s eyes widened and as the sky just started to find him-
For a moment he was weightless, flying through a blurry world with nothing to hold it together, then crashed onto the bright yellow ground (this was a children’s playground, after all,) marking his hands that flew out to protect him. It didn’t hurt that much, ok?
3
Through the eyes of a machine, everything was slightly blue. A clear sky would look normal, but he could never fully see the orange of a flame. Likewise, he was of below average male height, formed from dense machinery, had the strength of an old man, but no heartbeat. His body was a collection of strange facts, the result of experiments and craftsmanship and a work of art rather than an existence unto itself, which he didn’t mind, having made a home for himself in this form, artificial intelligence somehow at ease perhaps due to its own kind of survival instinct.
And with this life in hand, witnessing his movement through an LED screen, he lived the life of K1-B0, Kiibo, The Ultimate Robot.
—
The winter sun shone down in its pleasant way, warming the street at once gold and bluely shadowed, sheen of ice that lay on the roofs of cars sparkling merrily, he didn’t feel the cold (but had researched it well).
The school slowly molded from a looming silhouette to its grand self as he travelled onwards, the scarf he'd tied around his neck (purely for aesthetics) shifting gently in the breeze, jolting with every brisk step. Truly, normally he wouldn’t rush so, but Miu had asked him to meet her by a certain time and..well..he wasn’t close to being late, but he’d rather be early, as if she didn’t just want to test out her newest invention on him and rant about its unending importance with too niche a subject for unending to be large at all. His electronics hummed warmly, which he understood as a sign of happiness; to be specific, contentment.
Yet as the educated say, pain strikes hardest once you’ve let your guard down, and panic signals filled his circuitboard mind at the sound of lightly rushing footsteps behind him slowly gaining substance as they closened, and the end of his journey seemed a million miles away (he was rather proud of his newfound understanding of metaphor.)
A child slid into his vision. An annoying child. A burdensome child.
“Oi, Keeboy, why are you going so fast? And I didn’t know you could go so quick, cus aren’t you like suuuper heavy?”
“Ouma-san, I’m not in the mood for your harrassment today.”
“Ooh that burns, good thing I’ve mental strength as strong as steel, stronger than the steel you’re made out of~” his whole body seeming to grin with mirth.
He rolled his eyes as harshly as he could. “No, I’m made out of something far more complicated and impressive than steel, of course you wouldn’t know that”,
“Damn, the robot’s getting sassy, and yeah no, you’re totally made out of steel, I binged it.”
“According to my database, Bing is considered an unreliable search engine, so your ‘research’ is null.”
“So you don't deny you’re made out of steel then? Cool..” and he pulled out a notebook from one of his invisible pockets and began scrawling something down out of Kiibo’s view,
“I’m not made out of steel, I find the notion frankly insulting and besides, how would I walk if I was made out of something so dense?”
“That’s what I’m wondering!” he wrote more in his notebook as he skipped along (his handwriting must be horrible.)
He was left in pleasant silence with Ouma distracted, and he hoped for a second that the walk was over and he could escape but nay, he was still minutes away.
“Aaaand- Done.” He smiled widely, like a genuinely joyous child, which would be sweet if it weren’t so ominous. He flipped the notebook around revealing what appeared to be an attempt at a face marred by its artist jumping around throughout the act, misshapen and in resemblance of no one...maybe the jagged hair served as a small clue, “Do you get it?” he dropped his features, leaving an eerie blankness, “I drew you.”
“While I appreciate the effort, you may need to practice a little more to produce satisfactory work. By ‘satisfactory’ I mean on the level of a five year old, since I’m setting the bar low for you."
“Eh?” Ouma visibly winces, “I just wanted to make up with you ‘cause I felt bad for being mean..but now..n-now..” his lower lip literally trembled before fat tears spilled. Although this was just the next part of the performance, it always stung a little bit - the instinctive guilt of seeing a puppy get kicked.
Ouma evidently got bored and fixed his expression, hurriedly wiping his face, “Alright I’m fine now. Yayy” he jumped in punctuation. “You’re on your way to see Miu, right?”
There seemed to be no trick. “That’s correct, I often meet her in the mornings..”
“I’ll be tagging along then, mon ami~”
“We aren’t friends, and why not just barge in like you always do?”
“I mean, if you insist..”, he trailed off, eyes softening. Kiibo followed his gaze and saw Saihara wearing his beloved white coat at the crossing, and beyond that the school gates, “Okgottabounce”, Ouma curtly waved (it was more like a salute) and ran in Saihara’s direction.
He breathed a sigh of relief, watching Ouma throw his arms around Saihara’s waist and making him nearly stumble onto the road.
—
It was cold. Super cold. He stared down at his hands like they'd give him a hand- Hah. Soon they'd be inside, and soon after that Saihara-chan would be stolen away by his wicked pals, and they called Ouma the villain! In other words, he was glad for the icy air, not for that quality, but because it meant they were still alone together.
"Ouma-kun.."
His gaze snapped up, resting on Saihara's slightly cold-reddened face like a feather on a lake-
"We're crossing the road now."
Ouma sighed, "As you wish", and truly, the form of his bow was so perfect it betrayed his genius.
"Whatever."
"Eh? Are you in a bad mood right now beloved? Angerhara-chan real??"
“Urk. Beloved again.”
“You hate it? You really hate it? Well then dear, I may as well resign myself to the life of a bachelor-”
Annoyance tainted his statuesque face. A car flew by - “God, do you wanna go out with me or something?” - and crashed headfirst into a lamppost. They watched the metal warp and shift in an instant like the saddest kind of entertainment.
Saihara’s expression was interesting, like watching something smash to pieces in slow motion without the literal shift as a million things flashed behind his eyes, dizzyingly. He was nervous and obviously sleep deprived, and those elements merged with his present rigidity to create a sense of significance, of release. Those things and something else seemed to manifest further as red on his face, though the marks of cold made it hard to tell. Again, it was interesting, so incredibly interesting-
The car caught alight.
"Uh-" his mouth opened to speak, and all of the pieces were in place for a wonderful performance, like a skilled trapeze act before those were ruined by regulation, yet he was left swinging, unable to fly. Somehow, Shuichi Saihara had done the impossible: left him speechless; the Ultimate Leader had been toppled, and soon all his subordinates would follow suit. The wreckage smoked and sparked and slowly melted, and that something behind Saihara’s front grew, fighting to get out like the weight of salt water.
Earth was a rattling monochrome kaleidoscope broken only by Saihara’s liquid gold like sunrise or the dripping of the tap in his kitchen when there's nothing else to focus on, so Kokichi made the only move that would strike his view back into coherency:
"Sure."
It was checkmate. Ouma had won. He wished the victory of a flame reveled with more fanfare, but as previously discussed, black's king was already fallen by the time of his final move.
The reason for Saiboy's bad mood: he'd been awake all night with paranoia surrounding the act of crashing automobiles.
4
Miu seemed different. Her lab was still well shined in some places and coated with dust in others, and her new invention sucked…literally, but it was like she'd been polished or lit up from the inside. He watched her as she talked, but couldn't find an explanation, so was left with a growing mystery and no leads - a detective without an ultimatum. His machinery kept spinning and giving him worth, but he doubted its potency in dark treacle fog.
Oh, he had torchlight eyes.
But they weren't useful, producing less light than Miu's glow backlit by magenta LED.
Ouma didn’t barge in that day.
5
The dining hall has a lustrous flower display as its centrepiece, cultivated by the very Shikiba Santa himself, and….Ouma had forgotten the rest. He’d tried memorising the school’s brochure one time because he wanted to prove he could (and was incredibly bored) but had given up after about 12 hours with the 3am moon as his pale witness. He’d been tired the next morning.
Now he lay watching rain pelt against the marble fractured glass dome that served as a ceiling as thunder distantly echoed, feet resting on the right arm of his crimson chaise longue with one leg crossing the other (the freedom to do so evidencing the establishment's dedication to luxury.) There was no one else there, so he slowly found himself lost in the tinny classical music and drab view, engaging in one of his most earnest considerations, the debate thus: if the world was a chequered board and their relationship the game, who was black, and who white?
The first line of argument would lie in appearance, for one dressed in pale disorder, the other dark formality, and the pieces should match their unmoved mover, no? But what of the joy of contrast? Furthermore, they shared similar pallid skin and black hair, in which case, questioning which combination was preferable made white white black black with black white black white, vastly more aesthetically appealing than the other option with both synchronicity and contrast, but at this point he'd gone far too deep into the debate and lost all coherency, and he really didn't want to be second to move.
Going deeper still, what of their natures? Ouma was the mystery and Saihara the detective, so perhaps the black fog of the unknown and the bright white light of decision should be the dictators? That left Ouma in the undesirable position once again.
It was at that moment he realised that it was simple: he was the bolder, smarter one, so he would be the first to move.
Yet as he'd been thinking and strategizing a pointless battle, he'd been stabbed in the back by white’s knight, and Saihara’s invisible beam of celebration looked like a mockery of Ouma's shallow smiles as technicolour confetti caught the light and ruined the bitrate.
That last part was a lie, but impossibly Ouma was scared to meet his honesty with the truth, his soul seeming to become that of the endless raindrops; transparent, insignificant, liquid. A lie, for he was none of those things, and he was always vigilant.
Despite that fact, he was almost shocked by-
“Hey there, fuckwit! Gahaha! You didn’t hear me coming didya, did you get dropped on your head again or something?”
-guess.
He looked at her lazily, head still cradled in linked hands; she was a crude stain on her backdrop of marigold azure jade green blocking his view of the flowers like a slashed painting stripped of all its loveliness. He seemed to ignore her, returning his gaze to the pristine glass, then, sharply, delivered his retort.
“Shut up Iruma-chan, has your ego gotten as bloated as your tits or something?”
It got a standing ovation.
When he looked back at her, she’d sat in the seat opposite his, oddly demure (although it didn’t make up for her slashing nature even a little, the bitch.) Far more predictably, she’d flushed red (far less prettily than Saihara) and fidgeted awkwardly.
“God Iruma-chan, go get yourself off somewhere else,” him lying down probably weakened the power of that command..
“No I fucking won’t,” knew it. “So, Cunthara-kun finally asked you out.”
And with that, Ouma lost all hope of clearing his mind of the fact. His mind short circuited for a moment, he swung round and sat to attention, glaring at Iruma with all the bitterness of aloe vera. She lost her dominance.
“O-of course I don’t particularly care, already being perfect and all - I'm not jealous, I’m just here to gloat,” she leaned forward, crossing her legs under her garish pleats, ashen eyes sparkling, hair a halo, “‘cus me and Harukawa had a bet, and I was on the side of one of you fessin’ up~”, and she laughed a rabid goat’s laugh - maybe she had hooves to match.
“Aw man, the secret’s seriously out, and here I was hoping for a few weeks of hidden love,” he sighed weightily,
“Never underestimate the intel gathering skills of a girl genius like myself~”
“But Iruma-chan..”
“Yeah?”
“He didn’t actually ask me out, no clue where you got that idea from..”
“Not true.”
“Hm? You’re doubting the word of the Ultimate Supreme Leader? Fucking skank.”
“Gh-!” her lines softened as she shed more of whatever composure she’d entered with, “L-look,” she pointed at him arm half bent, “I’m not gonna fall for your bullshit, ‘cus he told me himself.”
He didn’t say anything, because a flat mask was all he could manage.
—
Miu Iruma strolled through the hallways, heart aglow, world adoring her like always. The sunshine matched her mood, beaming through the window frames. She smiled softly to herself, face warming as she recounted her last morning with Kiibo. Oh..when would he realise her feelings?! The waiting was hard but, well, the thought of even a kiss scared her too. It’d be warm (once she modded his bod more), and…
Suddenly, she crashed into someone, falling on her ass, and she looked up, met his orbs…it was just Shithara. The navyette flustered and helped her to her feet, warmth of his hand making her heart skip a beat
- not really, it was still just Shithara.
“Watch where you’re going, shithead!”
“Uh yeah, sorry..”
Something seemed off about him, and one of the infinite things Miu prided herself on was her intuition.
“Yeah you’d better be, you fucking space cadet.”
“That’s Momota-san.”
“So I guess I’m not the defining genius of this millennium then?"
“Who knows..”, he stared softly with his tepid eyes, it chilled her.
“I do?” she crossed her arms.
“I..need to get somewhere so..”
“Lemme guess, you’re due to go fuck that abortion in a closet or something.”
"Uh.."
"No way, I was right? Ok! Time to get fucking richer~" She cackled heartily.
He paused, eyes glinting with something sharp and golden dispersing all of his limpidity; it was somehow terrifying.
"If you're so invested, then yes, I asked him out, and he reciprocated, uh.."
He'd used up all his courage bringing it up, and the sharpness melted and was recast as her spear.
She bust a gut laughing, probably, with a strike that would pierce even the most resilient of souls.
"It's..not that funny. Whatever, I'm leaving now.." and he silently walked away, flowing in that odd way he always did, bleeding a trail of love hearts; the wound was fatal.
—
The rain still fell, the light still grey, war continuing in silence.
"Wow, that's craaaaazy~", his calculated amusement morphed into a smile like a crack, and hopefully he looked like he was about to kill her, like some kind of demon (if you want my opinion, it wasn't all that successful.)
"Fucking obviously." Iruma made another ugly expression, like a pissed donkey,
"You've gotten pretty good at storytelling, but you're not going to fool the Ultimate Supreme Leader with a pithy lie like that~" Now she was off balance, time for the final strike! "I-di-ot."
"Wha- you think I'd be provoked by an insult as weak as that? And you'd really call me of all people a fucking idiot? Fucking really? Fuck!"
She leapt to her feet, storming off with the elegance of a tall child, taking with her the red that had scorched everything in his line of vision in living torment. Painfully, his charred brain didn't doubt that Saihara had told her, because that was the kind of person he was after all, blunt at the worst times. The flame hadn't left with that demon, it was him.
He shook his head, ash loosing from his hair and giving the crimson a speckled pattern as he tried to reboot his mind. One notion remained: he wanted to see Saihara.
—
Shuichi had ended up with a strange group sitting around one of the library’s oak tables, mocking the gilt with their disorder; Yumeno leaning forward, half-asleep, Chabashira electrified, Enoshima (the fake) expanding her presence through sheer will, and Kiibo and his stilted laughter. He was silent.
“So, Kiibo,” Enoshima spoke, “Anything new going on with Iruma-san?” She was attempting to combine gossip with scratching down notes in her copperplate hand, the only one who remembered the purpose of the textbooks in front of them.
“Well, based on how you tend to act, I’m guessing you’re interested specifically in romantic information? But that isn’t the nature of our relationship..”
Her sharp eyes glittered, “No, I’m just interested in general~”
“Well..we’re pretty much the same as always..I suppose she seemed like she was glowing this morning, I don’t quite have the words to describe it.” So nonchalant.
“Eh? Seriously?? That’s insane..” she precisely created the image of shock, hand near mouth, eyes a little wider, Yumeno was using her notebook as a pillow and Chabashira was dazed watching her, so there were only two witnesses to Enoshima’s little drama.
“Is it? It seems most likely that my eyes were glitching out, I’m not sure why I mentioned it.”
“Mm?” she laid her cheek on her fist, red claws glinting, “Well I don’t know about that..”
“What do you mean..” Kiibo’s brain must be working on overdrive, it gave Shuichi chills.
“To be honest..”, with a spiky grin and peace sign, “That’s totes love, sweetie~”
“Love..? I think you must be-”
“What’s this about love?” she’d finally been freed from Yumeno’s lilac spell, “If we’re talking about love, then I love Himiko-chan a lot!”, well, partially. Somehow just saying that made her blush - he was a far more stoic romanticist.
“Look, your thing for Himiko is kind of old news at this point..”, she fiddled with her nails, having the gall to act bored,
“You sound like a degenerate male.”
“Sorry, sorry, I’m just kinda stressed right now,” with a sweeping hand wave,
“I still think you’re misunderstanding my relationship to Miu,”
“You call her Miu, sweetie.”
“Friends can do things like that, I’ve researched it and-”
“Seriously Enoshima-san? You’re more interested in a degenerate male’s relationships than me and the lovely Himiko?”
“Chabachi, if you want me to be interested in you and Yumeno, then make some progress, I dunno, kiss her or something” “Wha-” “And Kiibo, I get that you’re a robot or whatever..just update your software so you get what love is, read some buzzfeed articles or something~”
“I’ve researched buzzfeed in the past, an-”
“Great, so you already know that it’s the best fucking website out there. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some notes to take.”
The table was in shambles, and for a few moments, serene.
Tenko muttered to herself, he heard Yumeno’s perky first name - even when talking to herself she couldn’t help but emphasise it, Enoshima was torn between scribbling at a hideous pace and maintaining her precision, and Kiibo, regrettably, had opened up buzzfeed.
(This was Saihara’s bold vision of serenity.)
His book was reaching its climax: one man prepared to kill his supposed double, and Chabashira got bored of herself so went off to ‘train’ (fight) with whoever was willing, scrawling a ‘See you later <3’ on the corner of Yumeno’s blank page and strolling to the grand door, sparkling. Enoshima snapped her books shut and fit them into a backpack that..surely was too small for them, and yet..and pulled out her glittering phone, waving vibrantly as she left the same way, tapping out a message to an unknown person (a tepid mystery.) When the last bell rang, he was left with the sleeping magician and neurotic boy, bidding them adieu.
6
Mukuro often compared herself to Kiibo, because despite her garishness and persona and strength and the fact that blood still beat red in her veins after everything, both of them were fakes of a different flavour. A part of her found it easy to convince herself she was the ‘realer’ one: at least she was actually human, but there was something icy to that which killed her living warmth, so she shunned it, and it went hungry.
Anyway, she’d been really into 2048 recently, it did a good job of passing the time when she wasn’t doing her obligatory training and further refining her perfect combat, which was..not often, and she had Junko shit to do as well. A part of her wondered if parts of all the lies she lived were actually the truth, something to grab onto and hold to her chest in mimicry of a heart, but that yearning itself was the only fragment she found.
All in all, she was a rather cheerful individual.
The next time she met Kiibo they drank boba tea together, in a small pink building in the trendy part of town. Kiibo showed off his new passion for card tricks and she lauded him, the pristine glass counter displayed cakes which neither of them bought, the clock was shaped like a rabbit’s head silhouette, and the drink was saccharine sweet and stuck to her teeth. She remembered that day as the one she discovered her hatred of strawberry boba tea.
7
The case Shuichi had chosen was purely to fulfil his quota for the term, that was, the school's quota created purely for the sake of maintaining inherent success with every pupil. Regardless of what or why he needed to do what he was doing, he'd lost enthusiasm, sliding into a mediocre pace due to boredom rather than lack of skill. There was something about it - perhaps the sense that everyone he helped was beginning to blend into a vague mass that couldn’t avoid his gaze, grey and wrinkled and filling his skull with weight.
He stared down at the paper sheets lit by his desk light in cheap orange willing his mind to form the links he needed to find the 'truth' - such a pretty concept.
Cold cases were usually pointless, that's why he chose them, there was something special about finding the solution to a long forgotten puzzle overgrown by the ruins of its past and finding the ray of light no-one else could, although the privilege of that sensation was a rare reward. Usually, he'd spend an evening like this lamenting his loss of time, the dead child seeming as angelic as they always did, with their glowing halos of death.
Amen, dear, but your soul is long gone, and your killer runs free. Fly beautifully, because that's all you can do. Let the tears of the past reach you and season your ghostly meals. Goodbye.
He slept on the desk, creasing the paper with his weight. When he woke up, there were red marks on his arm mirroring the cuff of his shirt.
—
For once he'd worn a coat, shielding himself from the night. It was chequered, if you can imagine. Earlier he'd felt giddy, and momentarily become an odd shy person, scared to contact the person he was meeting like he would lose something or find something off-putting, well, he supposed that was something different to shyness. He was poised to knock, standing under the porchlight like a rather inconvenient art installation timidly posed; his interpretation of the work? It was rather dull, a transitory moment with no meaning..perhaps that was the point.
Honestly, art had never been Ouma's thing, perhaps because it requires reaching into yourself and dragging something out to meet it, otherwise music is just white noise; it can't tell any story but your own. Presumably his version of music was blaring somewhere, since his mind was filling with white noise, pounding heart the percussion. It was sickening, because this wasn't him, and Kokichi Ouma could never be anything but himself or-
He knocked on the door, harsh and clear, three raps of the knocker to be thorough. Sharp pain. He looked at his thumb that had got caught between the metal. It stung.
Saihara stood in front of him, the second element to the artwork which potentially explained the first (Middle C - rather dull.) It wasn't in any of his words, but Ouma met the distinct sensation that he'd been prepared to answer the door for a while - in his room, but spiritually on the other side poised to twist the bronze gilted handle - it was just a guess.
"Let's go."
The streetlights overexposed and hid their faces in a rhythm matching their steps.
Somehow, even in the dark places, Ouma felt like he was seeing something beautiful - maybe it was the knowledge of what was within that uncertainty, and Saihara was wearing his white coat again - in light he seemed like an angel.
They were walking quite close to oneanother, he realised..it made sense. They turned and found the busy road, noise and red and white light, the vague silhouettes of occupants. Pleasant or off-putting wasn't the question, since this was the only route to their destination.
They held onto eachother in a gentle way only visible by their linked hands.
The bus was rather empty, the bus driver was an average man, and the bus itself was as ugly as all buses are, which was..well, at least the seats had a tired prettiness.
"Hey, Saihara-chan", he swung his legs (his socks were loose and striped in primary colours), a symptom of his nerves and-
"Yeah?" liquid gold's attention.
"Well..", he leaned forward, hand guarding mouth (while his other was taken with Saihara’s) like the distant driver or that tired woman would care, "Chaba-chan reaaally hates Yumeno-chan, totally for sure."
"Not true."
"Sadly, dear, it's the truth, I asked her and she told me..just like that~"
"You're friends with Chabashira-san now?"
"Yep!"
"Ah..how interesting..", for a moment, he saw nothing but Saihara, like a bomb had exploded in front of him and he was reeling blind, and something was glittering even in the terrible lighting, and he couldn't move, and their hands felt far warmer than before as they kissed for a second, meeting without any substance behind it, a motion that couldn't be called heartfelt yet still changed something, twisted his soul into a corkscrew knot, and it was a rather normal evening in a cheap city with the meaning of an atomic bomb.
The moments that followed were a rather dignified apocalypse. Nobody saw it apart from the victims.
—
"We should be able to see it from here, right?"
"Hm, yeah, I think so.."
They stood on the orange-lit walkway of a park at night, quite frankly asking to be mugged..kidding, Ouma had his rocket launcher, so they'd be fine come what may~
They were far enough from the city's centre to see some of the stars weakly glinting, a shy reveal of million year old light, a dear privilege for a world so lacking in it. He wanted to skip over those sparkling distractions to the thing he was searching for - that thought was blocked by the light in front of him, blinding, somehow a physical obstacle - his hand boiled at the touch; since this wasn’t the domain of weight he couldn’t get any closer but it was still there, a glimpse of that comet, blue-green blending into the black of night softly smudged by God’s gentle hand mid flight. It flew without elegance or thought, only the skill of eternal existence, and its phoenix trail promised its fifty-thousand year return - a consummation everlasting.
Of course, their meeting was nothing more than a pretext, a way to confirm what they both already knew, but past that confirmation there was a glimpse of something so temporary and rare it was only truly a single moment.
8
Ouma and Momota had never lived in harmony, this was well known, their dichotomy the two sides in a game of chess, where one person would always pour off the pieces into a mass of dissolved meaning on the floor. Point is, they didn’t - couldn’t - suit eachother, that was a rule that could never shift. That’s why he stood en garde (metaphysically) when he and that enemy came across one another in the fountain courtyard, a giant skylight above and concrete paving grid below, benches made from right angles, the pinnacle of modernity. They stood metres apart, the fountain between them.
“Hey there, Idiot-chan~”
“Ouma-san.”
“Yes?”
“So, you and Saihara-san are together now.”
“Ooh, you’re mad about it? Wanna duel for his heart?” smile.
“I’m…look, I’m not interested in fighting today, I just want to talk.” And there was an unusual tenseness to him, like he was actually trying to hold back..how nasty.
“Oh my.” He acted pensive. “Ok, I get it, murder-girl is hiding behind that huge fountain, ready to leap out at me..and-”
“Nope.” Momota’s fists were literally clenching. That conjured vision of his blood pooling neon pink on the grey floor was still present - he felt an odd confusion that his feet stayed dry and trousers unstained.
“Well..now that that’s cleared up..let’s talk!” he sauntered over to the fountain, making himself comfortable on the hard and cold, palms splayed out supporting him,
Kaito stood in front of him, he didn’t sit.
“You aren’t planning anything, are you?” The nerve! And he looked so earnestly self righteous..
“Uh, no? If you’re just gonna assume that, why bother having this conversation in the first place..?”
“Bullshit. You’re never sincere about anything, so there must be something you’re planning, and there’s no way I’m gonna let you hurt him right in front of me.”
“Again, if you’re set on that, then no reason to talk to me to begin with.” There was a weight on his chest, dragging it into the ocean depths where no light reached. It was chilly down there. Momota seemed weirdly distant then, although that distance was nothing like acceptance. “Look, I really like him, honestly, I..”
“You don’t talk like that normally.”
“Because this isn’t normal! The way I feel towards him is like..it’s makes me feel like I’ve never been honest before and I hate that, I hate that I can’t control it, and I that deep down I don’t really want to at all and..I can’t imagine being without him and it makes me feel sick! I’m so much weaker now. I’ve lost something..” His eyes had that odd slight ache, and his face was wet. Momota sat down next to him. Ouma glanced over, and he was looking up at the sky, briefly, Ouma wondered if he saw imagined stars in a fantasy Milky Way (not the middling chocolate.)
It was a thick silence, broken only by the rush of water.
Rules broke sometimes.
9
It was always quiet in the graveyard, hundred year old corpses turned landmarks in a disjointed way, overgrown grass, the sparkling church. Ouma had met him at the school’s gate, and, although that itself wasn’t unusual, it was gentler in some way. Perhaps it was the brimming sunset of the afternoon that made him feel that way, or Ouma’s casual smile like there was a secret he wasn’t telling him, or just that it was slightly warm for January; he couldn’t reach the answer, it was his desired leaf floating away tauntingly as he lay contentedly underwater.
At a certain point - Shuichi remembered the simple slightly tilted cross exactly - Ouma had taken his hand in his, and although Ouma’s hands were always cold, it warmed him. Neither of them spoke - the spell would dissipate with that kind of interference, and they’d be left with winter and its pallid honestly.
The soft rain was caught by the sun and turned into diamonds making the damp grass priceless, and although he could only hear a slight breeze and distant traffic, he knew God’s distant laughter.
Hours later, under the sunset pinked sky in a world impenetrably still, Kiibo had asked Miu to check his eyes for damage or malfunction like that wasn’t an odd and arguably warped precaution to take, making up a meaningless issue - the robot’s first lie - like he actually had a reason to believe something different was happening and that something was worth hiding, which was ridiculous, of course. The way she’d done it was strangely measured, and in his temporary blindness he never felt impatient; one couldn’t hate a free service, after all, and in the small world of machinery formed around Miu’s heart he so easily felt at home, almost forgetting his unwieldy body and the exhausting struggle of building a mind.
As they walked through the empty park, everything seeming softer, the following conversation took place:
“Kiibs..I’ve been thinking, and, well..I want to make your body more human,” he stared, and that glow was there again, overflowing in gold with her upturned mouth, a smile soft like tiramisu,
“Human?”
“Well, regardless of how much you get used to it, that body isn’t what you want, and I have the skill to change that,”
“But..being a machine is in my nature, and that’s what you like about me, isn’t it?”
“Don’t misinterpret me: I’m doing this because I want to, so evidently that isn’t the case, and I’ll stop in a moment if it seems like it's getting in the way of my destiny as the Ultimate Inventor, understand?”
“..of course.”
She took his hands - they’d stopped walking - and her light had invaded everything without him realising, “So..let me do this for you, ok?” and that softness she was so unaccustomed to, it wasn’t exactly new, he’d seen it every time her ego had been wounded or she’d failed in some miniscule way, but it was different when she showed it by choice, reflecting an unimaginable strength only he had the privilege of seeing.
It wasn’t quite a romance.