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“Y’know, Saihara-chan,” Kokichi began, in a tone that immediately gave the detective suspicion. He spun himself in circles in Shuichi’s desk chair, a finger on his cheek. “I’ve been thinking it over, lately, and I’ve finally made up my mind.”
Shuichi put a pause on the buttoning of his jacket in front of the wall mirror. “Made up your mind?” he asked. “In what way?”
Kokichi pushed his foot against the floor to steer himself, although he ended up wheeling the chair across the dorm in haphazard zigzags. Shuichi regarded him with amusement—up until he was being yanked downward without warning, yelping involuntarily and feeling his head hit the back of his chair.
Kokichi, now standing behind him, whirled him around, stopping once he was facing the mirror again. A dramatic, dejected-sounding sigh, then Kokichi’s expression changing from one of apparent disappointment to something completely and utterly deadpan.
“You’re really lame,” he said. Shuichi felt himself splutter.
“I—excuse me?” Shuichi turned his head, looking up at him incredulously. “When… did you come to that conclusion?”
“I just told you I’d finally made up my mind, like, a minute ago! Geez, for the Ultimate Detective, I thought you’d have better listening skills.” Kokichi giggled nevertheless. “Oh my God, that look on your face was priceless.”
Shuichi shifted his gaze back to the mirror while rubbing at his eyes. It was far too early for this. “Then, um, I guess I should be asking how instead of when.”
“There you go!” Kokichi said cheerfully. “How I came to that conclusion—the answer’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s clear you’re lacking in a department or two—”
“Ouma-kun.”
“—the most important one, without a doubt, being your personality.” Kokichi looked at him innocently. “What did you think I was going to say?”
Shuichi let out a sigh of his own. “Nothing. Go on.”
Kokichi draped his arms around Shuichi’s neck. “You’re so sad all the time, Saihara-chan,” he said, tilting his head to the side with a forlorn frown. “It’s been rubbing off on everyone else. I think it might even be starting to rub off on me.”
Shuichi shifted uncomfortably in his chair. This was, undeniably, just another one of Kokichi’s tricks—and if not that, some kind of plea for attention that Shuichi had already given into solely by humoring the other boy’s antics.
But… well, he had a feeling he knew exactly where this conversation was headed. He was well aware how many times he’d been slapped on the back by Kaito while being chided for his lack of self-confidence, or the sharp glare Maki shot at him as a sign to stop apologizing so profusely, or Kaede’s kind but firm tone she took on when dispelling any insecurities she knew he still had about his Ultimate talent. They did it because they cared about him; it just grew wearying over time. He didn’t think hearing the same thing in cheeky quips from his roommate would improve his self-esteem by any means.
Kokichi seemed to sense all of this, because of course he did. He smiled slyly. “You’ve noticed it, too, haven’t you?”
“Okay, look,” Shuichi said. “I think I already know where you’re going with this, and it’s an appreciated sentiment, but—”
His chair was swiveled around again, not helping at all with his growing headache. Wide eyes peered right into his own once he gathered his bearings. He leaned back, startled.
“This is coming from a place of love, Shumai,” Kokichi said, placing his hands on his shoulders in sincerity. “We are besties, after all.”
“I… suppose that’s one way to put it.”
“And now, I feel like it’s my job to make sure you fit the part. A supreme leader can’t be all buddy-buddy with some pathetic-looking detective about to have forty existential crises at once.”
The corners of Shuichi’s mouth twitched. He compelled himself to smile. “Y–you really don’t have to do that for me, Ouma-kun.”
“But that’s what makes me so nice!” Kokichi replied brightly. “And, besides, I don’t really care about what you think anyway.”
Shuichi stared at him, feeling affronted—yet, admittedly, a little curious. Never take anything Kokichi said at face value, he had quickly learned; there was never not at least some truth hidden among his seemingly self-contradictory spiels. It always seemed to draw Shuichi back in, trying to figure out that truth, trying to figure out Kokichi.
And, secretly, maybe part of him sometimes enjoyed Kokichi’s attention. Even if it got him into situations like these.
“…Alright, then,” he said, albeit with a bit of hesitation. “So what is it that I—uh, you need me to do?”
Kokichi beamed. “Oh, I thought you’d never ask!”
Shuichi was pulled to his feet, hauled away from the mirror and his now deserted desk chair and was instead brought over to the couch in the middle of the dorm. Kokichi flopped onto the cushions and patted at the spot beside him. Shuichi sat down with the intent to give him some space, but his roommate motioned insistently for him to come closer. He hastily obliged.
Kokichi studied him for a second. He suddenly reached out his hands and grabbed onto either sides of Shuichi’s face, much to the detective’s bewilderment.
“Ooh, this could actually be tougher than I imagined,” Kokichi said, furrowing his brow as he squished Shuichi’s cheeks. “We might have to work from the ground up for this one.”
“Ah.” It came out slightly muffled. Shuichi tentatively moved his hands away from his face, and Kokichi merely let out a laugh.
“That’s a lie! I know you love me, but even I wouldn’t make you do that in a million years—I mean, how cruel would I have to be, right?”
Deliberately turning a blind eye to the “I know you love me” comment, Shuichi surveyed his expression. “That pretty much sounded exactly like what you were doing,” he pointed out.
Kokichi gasped, clutching his chest. “I would never!” he exclaimed, and Shuichi chuckled lightly at his exaggerated scandal. “Just imagine you being in that position, asking me something ridiculous, like—asking me to never lie ever again. You wouldn’t.”
“I wouldn’t,” Shuichi agreed. That sounded, frankly, impossible.
“Good,” Kokichi said, resting his hands behind his head. “Because that’d be completely stripping away the most important thing about myself, the defining trait that makes me me. Talk about arrogant, huh?”
The words took a moment to properly sink in, and when they did, Shuichi gave him a glance. “I wouldn’t say that’s the most important thing about you, Ouma-kun,” he offered.
“Hm?” Kokichi blinked at him. “What are you getting at?”
“Well, it’s true that it’s a prominent facet in your behavior,” Shuichi said, smoothing over the creases in his trousers. “It would be arrogant, asking you to stop lying altogether rather than trying to understand you through your lies. It’s stripping away a vital part of yourself, like you said. But, even so—”
He stopped himself, wanting to choose his words carefully under the sudden, surprising intensity of Kokichi’s gaze. Shuichi’s fingers itched to pull down the brim of an illusory hat.
“You’re a very perceptive person,” he managed. “I mean, you make sense of things quickly—you know how to read people, how to predict their words or actions, how to get in their heads.”
The lack of any interruptions or quick cut-ins was unexpected. He took it as an indication to continue.
“And… I know you mean well, even when it seems like you’re just trying to stir up trouble or cause chaos. Maybe your intentions don’t always feel outwardly good, but I think they come from a place that genuinely is.”
You just have a… ah, complex approach towards how you express it, Shuichi thought of adding on, but decided against it.
He was almost afraid to see whatever look Kokichi had on his face once he was finished—but he was simply grinning from ear to ear, his elbows propped up on his knees.
“Wooow, Saihara-chan! Now that’s a ton of assumptions from someone who claims to not be my friend,” he chirped, swinging his legs back and forth. “I didn’t know you thought about me that much. Gosh…”
His sentence dwindled, and he pulled at his checkered scarf. “I’m feeling kinda flustered!”
Shuichi flushed. “T–they’re just observations. And, for the record, I never said I wasn’t your friend.”
“But it’s clicking now, right?” Kokichi asked him, bouncing to his feet. “I didn’t come up with a plan like this on a whim, you know.”
“Plan?” Shuichi inquired, though he had suspected that much. “To make me ‘fit the part’? Or was that just a front, something to try and throw me off?”
“You caught me!” Kokichi said gleefully. “It was just a big ol’ scheme devised by moi. A scheme to get you”—he leaned down, poking Shuichi’s nose—“to say everything you’ve been needing to hear.”
Shuichi tried to wrap his head around it. Somehow, Kokichi outright telling him what he had been plotting was more baffling than trying to figure it out on his own.
“So…” Shuichi trailed off, eyes flicking to meet Kokichi’s. “Just what are you… saying, exactly?”
“There’s a lot more to you than you think. Y’know, what with that detective’s intuition and keen mind of yours,” Kokichi said, twirling a strand of his hair around his finger. He grinned again, unabashed and blinding. “Being emo isn’t the only thing you’ve got going for you, believe it or not!”
Shuichi wryly raised an eyebrow. “You think so?”
“I know so,” Kokichi said, taking his dorm key out of his pocket with a flourish. “But that could be a lie.”
Shuichi chuckled, getting up from the couch and not making the effort to object as Kokichi dragged him out of their dorm.
“There’s a lot more to you than you think.” He let the words play back in his mind, feeling oddly at ease the more he did—which should’ve been potentially worrying, seeing as that was usually the opposite effect Kokichi tended to have on him.
Maybe it was because he was hearing it from someone like Kokichi, someone who, despite his nerve and blithe attitude, was careful to never tip anybody off about what he was up to or thinking. He could be doing that now, for all Shuichi knew. Toying with him and getting a kick out of his exasperated reactions; it wouldn’t be anything new.
Shuichi glanced at him. Kokichi babbled away about the latest heist he supposedly led whilst making grand gestures with his hands, appearing even more vibrant within the light of the morning sun. He brightened upon noticing Shuichi watching him. Shuichi felt a smile tugging at his lips.
He might’ve been overanalyzing, or imagining things, or letting all the time he’d been spending with Kaito finally rub off on him—but he believed Kokichi was being earnest. In a roundabout, tongue-in-cheek manner, yet still earnest all the same. He just wished he could pinpoint a specific reason why rather than going off of a feeling.
Kokichi came to a halt when they got to the dining hall, a hand on one of the door handles as he turned to Shuichi. “You meant it, didn’t you?”
It didn’t take being a detective for Shuichi to realize what he was referring to. He wasn’t particularly posing a question, seeing as they both knew the answer. Shuichi chose to say it anyways.
“Of course I did.” Shuichi held his gaze, looking at him intently. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Kokichi scrutinized him for a moment. He cracked a smile, promptly linking their arms before pulling the door open. The hint of fondness that Shuichi spotted there filled him with a quiet kind of contentment.
Perhaps that feeling could suffice for now, after all.